Lionhearts | hp. ✓

Year 2 | The Polyjuice Potion

HERMIONE AND LILY were seated on the tiled floor of the abandoned girl's bathroom and much to their luck, Moaning Myrtle was nowhere in sight. The ghost could've ratted them out to a professor or sat with them as she wallowed in her own self-pity and they definitely didn't want that to happen. Fred and George had managed to help Lily acquire all of the ingredients needed to make the Polyjuice potion that would allow Harry and Ron to impersonate Crabbe and Goyle; however that was as far as she would let them get involved. Lily added the last of the ingredients into Hermione's cauldron and as the brunette stirred.

"Lily, are you alright?" Hermione queried, starting up a conversation in the otherwise quiet bathroom, the only other noise being the constant drip, drip, dropping of the leaky sink, "Ever since the...incident during Lockhart's dueling club, you've been different."

Lily sighed, knowing she couldn't keep the thought to herself anylonger, "I think he's back, 'Mione."

"Who?" she asked, but Lily could tell Hermione knew the answer before she even said his name.

"You-know-who." Lily answered with a slightly teasing smile before correcting herself, "Voldemort." she spat out his name like it was poison as she stared down at the cauldron, "I don't think the Heir of Slytherin is Malfoy. I think it's Voldemort."

"Then why are you going through with this?"

"Because, Ron told me that most Slytherins grow to be dark wizards, like Voldemort. If that's true, then Voldemort must have followers of his own. Maybe they're responsible for this."

"Have you told Harry?" Hermione asked.

Lily shook her head no before explaining, "I hinted at it, but I think he's trying to be optimistic about all of this."

"Maybe you should be, too." Hermione shrugged, "I mean, what you're saying makes sense. It's better to be prepared for that. But keep it on the low until there is more evidence."

Lily nodded; even if she thought this Heir of Slytherin was Voldemort, the Weasleys had told her and Harry plenty of times before that the Malfoy family was once in league with Voldemort. A few moments later, Harry and Ron entered the bathroom side by side making the girls look up at them.

"Did you get it?" Lily asked, seeing the uneasy looks on Harry and Ron's faces as they heldup their hands showing that in each was a tuft of hair.

Hermione gestured to a pair of Slytherin robes saying, "I snuck those out of the laundry." The boys' eyes settled on the cauldron with the bubbling mixture; the potion resembled mud and as the quartet glanced at it distastefully, she knew it would taste just as bad, if not worse.