Year Two: The Secret of Slytherin

Part 11

The next day, Anne was making her way out of the dungeons with her book bag filled with ingredients she took from her father's classroom that she and her friends would need for the Polyjuice Potion when she heard voices up ahead.

"There has been another attack." It was Professor McGonagall who was talking to Professor Flitwick. "This time it was a student."

Anne ducked behind a corner to listen.

"Who was it?" asked Flitwick.

"It was a Gryffindor. Colin Creevey," McGonagall answered grimly.

Anne hurried away and clambered up the stairs two at a time. She didn't stop until she reached the abandoned girls bathroom.

It was the gloomiest, most depressing bathroom Anne had ever seen. Under large, cracked, and spotted mirrors were cylinder rows of chipped sinks.

Harry and Ron were already there huddled over a small bubbling cauldron as Hermione was tearing bundles of knotgrass and throwing them into the cauldron.

"Dobby, the house elf who visited me at the Dursleys came to me last night," Harry was telling them.

Anne, Ron, and Hermione looked at him surprised. Harry told them everything Dobby had told him---or hadn't. They all listened with their mouths hanging open.

"Again? You're saying the Chamber of Secrets has been opened before?" Anne asked stunned as she unloaded the ingredients from her bag. She settled next to Hermione and began adding more ingredients to the cauldron and stirring.

"Of course! Don't you see? Lucius Malfoy must have opened the Chamber when he was at school here. And now he's taught Draco how to do it," said Ron matter-of-factly.

"Maybe. We'll have to wait for the Polyjuice Potion to know for sure," responded Hermione as she added leeches to the potion.

"Enlighten me. Why are we brewing this potion in broad daylight in the middle of a girl's lavatory? Don't you think we'll get caught?" Ron asked shrewdly.

"No," replied Anne. "No one ever comes in here. Besides, it's been empty for years."

"Why?"

"Moaning Myrtle," Hermione told him.

"Who's Moaning Myrtle?"

The ghost of a young girl appeared out from one of the stalls. "I am Moaning Myrtle!" She floated over them. "I wouldn't expect you to know me! Who would ever talk about ugly, miserable, moping Moaning Myrtle?" She let out a sob before diving head first into a toilet.

"She can be a little sensitive," Hermione commented.