The Mystery of the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 6: Mudbloods and Murmurs

Etta felt she had made a successful start to her school life and was really enjoying learning new magic. The only down side of life at Hogwarts was being the younger sister of the famous Harry Potter. One of the first year Gryffindors, in particular, was starting to really annoy her. Colin Creevey followed her around, asking endless questions about Harry.

Etta had taken to darting into the nearest girls toilets a lot recently to avoid him. She only got respite from his persistent enquiries when Harry was around to ask directly. Ron also had his own troubles. He did not have his own wand, but had inherited his brother Charlie's old wand.

Charlie started working with dragons and had to get a new wand as his old one was slightly singed by dragon fire and became unpredictable in how often it would work. Ron found that the wand was really not working properly at all now but knew his parents couldn't afford to buy him a new one at the moment. The wand had surpassed itself yesterday morning in Charms when it had shot out of Ron's hand, hitting tiny Professor Flitwick squarely between the eyes, creating a large throbbing green boil where it had struck him. Harry, Ron and Hermione breathed a collective sigh of relief on Friday night at dinner, having made it to the end of the first week back.

They promised themselves a trip to see Hagrid on Saturday morning to finish off the week on a high note. However, Harry was shaken awake several hours earlier than he would have liked by Oliver Wood, captain of the Gryffindor team.

"What's the matter?" Harry said groggily.

"Quidditch practice!" said Wood, "come on."

Harry squinted at the window. There was a thin mist hanging across the pink and gold sky. Now he was awake, he couldn't understand how he could have slept through the racket the birds were making. 

"Oliver," Harry croaked, "it's the crack of dawn."

"Exactly," said Wood.

He was a tall, burly sixth-year and at the moment, his eyes were gleaming with a mad enthusiasm.

"It's part of our new training programme. Come on, grab your broom and let's go," said Wood heartily, "None of the other teams have started training yet, we're going to be first off the mark this year..."

Yawning and shivering slightly, Harry climbed out of bed and tried to find his Quidditch robes.

"Good man," said Wood, "Meet you on the pitch in fifteen minutes."

When he's found his scarlet team robes and pulled on his cloak for warmth, Harry scribbled a note to Ron explaining where he'd gone and went down the spiral staircase to the common room, his Nimbus Two Thousand on his shoulder. He had just reached the portrait hole when there was a clatter behind him and Colin Creevey came dashing down the spiral staircase, his camera swinging madly around his neck and something clutched in his hand.

"I heard someone saying your name on the stairs, Harry! Look what I've got here! I've had it developed, I wanted to show you-"

Harry looked bemusedly at the photograph Colin was brandishing under his nose. It was a very unflattering picture of Harry stuffing a roast potato into his mouth.

"Will you sign it?" said Colin eagerly.

"No," said Harry flatly, glancing around to check that the room was really deserted, "Sorry, Colin, I'm in a hurry-Quidditch practise."

He climbed through the portrait hole.

"Oh wow! Wait for me! I've never watched a Quidditch game before!"

Colin scrambled through the hole after him.

"It'll be really boring," Harry said quickly, but Colin ignored him, his face shining with excitement.