SCARLETT: THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS

Chapter 5: Bad Crowd

"Do you think if I took Fluffy to class anyone would notice?" Eliza said thoughtfully, scooping up said cat into her arms. Eden and I were ready to go, but Eliza was extremely attached to Fluffy after the Mrs Norris incident.

"First of all, yes. Second of all, he'll be fine alone for a couple of hours. We can check on him at break and lunch." I said, opening the door. Reluctantly, Eliza set down the cat on her bed, grabbing her bag.

"Fine, I'll leave her here."

Eden was in a good mood, for some reason. I wondered if it had anything to do with the sherbert I saw her eating this morning. Sugar before nine with Eden was never a good sign.

"Do you have any sherbert?" she asked me, tugging my arm.

"I think you've had enough, Eden," I sighed, "Besides, it's breakfast. There's going to be hashbrowns."

Eden, with her love of hash browns, let go of my arm and ran into the Great Hall. Shaking our heads, Eliza and I followed.

Today I had Lockhart and Snape, one after the other. I had considered faking my death and moving to Spain to live with my grandparents, but then I remembered I was broke. Instead, I decided that I was going to sleep in both classes like the elegant girl I was.

-

First of all, we had History of Magic together. Professor Binns, who taught it, was the only ghost teacher, and the most exciting thing that ever happened in his classes was his entering the room through the blackboard.

Ancient and shrivelled, many people said he hadn't noticed he was dead. He had simply got up to teach one day and left his body behind him in an armchair in front of the staff room fire; his routine had not varied in the slightest since.

I glanced over at Eden's desk to see that she had taken out a sharpie and began making a collage on the table, covering the entire thing. My take was that it wasn't half-bad. Eliza, who usually listened in class, had her head on my arm, fiddling with her ruler. I was using a knife from breakfast to carve shapes onto the wood of the table in front of me.

In this class was the most annoying twat ever, Justin Finch-Fletchley. The little shit spent all of our lessons annoying literally everybody with his stories about his mother. He also respected Lockhart, which was the worst thing a person could do in my opinion.

Today, however, Justin was helpful, as he asked the question that everyone else was thinking. He raised his hand in the air, which shocked our dead teacher.

"Mr, er-"

"Finch-Fletchley, sir. I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets."

Eliza sat up so fast I almost fell off my chair. Eden dropped her sharpie to the floor with a clatter and Hannah's head came out of her arms.

"I have already been asked this question by another student, and my answer stays the same. I deal with facts, not speculation."

Justin, who as I've stated, is incredibly annoying, kept persisting until he agreed to tell us what he knew. It might've been down to the fact that this was the first time that anyone ever had shown interest in History of Magic.

The basis was that the four founders of Hogwarts got into a fight about who should be allowed in the school, causing Slytherin's founder to build a secret chamber that held something inside it. I thought it was pretty petty to build an entire chamber over an argument, but maybe that was just me.

At lunch, Eliza poured over some Transfiguration homework that I hadn't done while I leaned over her shoulder, eating my cheese on toast. Eden, to no one's surprise, was eating pixie stix. However, today was different, as she was emptying as many of them as possible into her mouth without swallowing or choking. So far, she had been unsuccessful and there was lots of 'dust' all over the table.

I looked over to the Slytherin table, where Draco was being a prick as usual and noticed a yellow tie amongst all the green. Why the fuck was Piper over there?

"Hey, Eliza..." I said, squinting, "Is that definitely Piper over there?"

She followed my eyes and nodded. "Yup, that's her. I didn't know she had Slytherin friends. They're a lot older than she is. I recognise one of those girls from Kitty's year."

I frowned. "Do you think it's anything to do with what she was saying to Sprout at the beginning of the year?"

Eliza rolled up her parchment, securing it with a wax stamp. "What makes you say that?"

"When I first met her at Madam Malkin's, she said that her whole family had been in Slytherin and they expected her to be too. I don't think they would've been pleased with Hufflepuff, so what if they're making her switch?"

My best friend raised an eyebrow, "Can they do that?"

"The Stash Family are pretty powerful, being pureblood and all," said Eden, after a long gulp of water to get rid of all the sherbert, "Those types of families can do whatever they want really."

I set down my sandwich, suddenly no longer hungry. "Huh."

As much as I disliked Piper currently, no one deserved that behaviour from their own family. It might've been an explanation for her own behaviour towards us as well. It couldn't hurt to ask.

-

We were all getting ready for bed when I decided to pop the question. I waited for Eden to go sneak out and talk to her stoner friends and for Eliza to be in the bathroom so she'd have no excuse not to tell me.

"So, Piper..." I said casually, leaning on one the posts around her bed.

Piper sighed, turning around from where she'd been folding clothes to put in her drawers, "What do you want, Gray?"

"I never asked what your family thought of you being in Hufflepuff."

I held my breath, waiting for a reaction. A guarded expression came across her face, and she turned around again. "It's none of your business what my family thinks."

It had been worth a shot.