Chapter 13 - Chamber of Secrets

        Swiftly, Ron, Harry and I all ran back to collect our trunks and pets before racing to the castle. A bit bruised, we managed to drag ourselves up the steps of the school, stopping to leave our things with the mountain of trunks and caged pets already brought up from the train.

"See you, Hedwig," I waved to the snowy owl as I followed after my brother and Ron to get to the Hufflepuff common room. As we went up the steps, Harry spoke,

"So a house elf shows up in our bedroom, we can't get through the barrier to Platform 9 and 3/4, we almost get killed by a tree... Clearly, someone doesn't want us here this year."

Before I could respond, we stopped at the sight of Mr Filch standing at the top of the landing with Mrs Norris in his arms.

"Well, take a good look, lass and lads..." Mr Filch sneered. "This night might well be the last you spend in this castle."

Worriedly, I shared a glance with Harry and Ron. "Oh, dear, we are in trouble."

Mr Filch had taken us down to the potions classroom, where Professor Snape was waiting for us as he sat behind his desk. With a hard glare, Snape held up The Evening Prophet with "Flying Ford Anglia Mystifies Muggles" as the headline. I read it as dread filled me when Professor Snape spoke as he slammed the paper on the desk,

"You were seen! By no less than seven Muggles. Do you have any idea how serious this is? You have risked the exposure of our world. Not to mention the damage you inflicted on a Whomping Willow that has been on these grounds since before you were born."

"Honestly, Professor Snape," Ron said, "I think it did more damage to us."

"Silence!"

I tensed when Snape stood from his desk and walked to stand in front of us, "I assure you... that were you in Slytherin, and your fate rested with me, the three of you would be on the train home tonight. As it is--"

"They are not," I heard Dumbledore's voice and turned my head to see the man himself standing in the doorway.

"Professor Dumbledore," Harry noted before noticing the woman beside him, "Professor McGonagall..."

"Professor Sprout," I added, seeing my Head of House come up beside Professor McGonagall.

Snape then straightened up as he spoke to the headmaster,

"Headmaster, these boys and girl have flouted the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry. As such..."

"I'm well aware of our bylaws, Severus," Professor Dumbledore interrupted. "Having written more than a few myself. However, as Head of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff House, it is for Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout to determine the appropriate action."

"We'll go and get our stuff, then," Ron gloomily told Professor McGonagall, who simply frowned at us,

"What are you talking about, Mr Weasley?"

"You're going to expel us, aren't you?"

Professor Sprout gave us a small smile,

"Not today, Mr Weasley."

I looked at Ron and Harry with a quick smile of relief before Professor McGonagall said sternly,

"But we must impress upon all of you the seriousness of what you have done. We will be writing to both of your families tonight."

"And you will each receive a detention."

The three of us gave the professors solemn nods as Snape sent us a look of pure venom, but I was honestly too relieved to care.

"Splendid," Dumbledore smiled, "Now, I suggest we return to the feast. There's a delicious-looking custard tart I want to sample."

As I started to follow everyone out of the potions classroom, I spotted an envelope on the floor. Not wanting anyone to have lost something potentially important, I picked it up and read the back, seeing that it was addressed to Mr Filch. With a soft voice, I gained the man's attention,

"Mr Filch. You dropped this..."

Mr Filch turned to me, eyeing the envelope in my hand as his face back one of embarrassment before he snatched the letter from me and stuffed it into his pocket.

When I had finally changed into my uniform and made it to the Great Hall, I immediately spotted Eric had saved me a seat beside him at the Hufflepuff table. As I walked down the aisle between the long tables, I noticed Hermione looking a bit glum and sent her a small wave with a smile, hoping that she didn't think we didn't want to be friends with her anymore after what Mr Malfoy had said. Eric beamed at me when I sat down,

"Ella! I was worried about you. Are Harry and Ron alright, too?"

"Yes, though we all have detention."

"What happened?"

"It's a ridiculous story that Harry, Ron and I will tell you and Hermione later, but it's been a long day, and I am starving."

The rest of the evening was calm as we finished dinner and went to our dormitories to prepare for classes the next day.

During breakfast, Ron, Harry and I told Hermione and Eric everything that had happened, from not being able to get through the barrier to crashing into the Whomping Willow. Eric was glad we were alright and had made it to school, while Hermione was glad we hadn't gotten anything more than detention. Our first class this term was Herbology, and everyone was chatting in the greenhouse, waiting for Professor Sprout. Harry and Ron stood on the other side of the garden table from me, Eric and Hermione. Unfortunately for me, Malfoy had decided to stumble beside me with Crabbe and Goyle in tow.

"Well, well, it's Baby Potter. Heard that you, Potter and Weasley got yourselves into a mess yesterday. Did you enjoy getting whacked around by the Willow?"

"Shove off, Malfoy."

"Did I hit a nerve, Baby Potter?" Malfoy smirked, but I simply rolled my eyes and ignored him as I saw Professor Sprout walk in,

"Morning, everyone!"

Some of the chattings had yet to stop, so Professor Sprout tried again with a smile, "Good morning, everyone!"

"Good morning, Professor Sprout," the class replied.

"Welcome to Greenhouse Three, Second Years. Now gather round, everyone. Today, we're going to re-pot Mandrakes. Now, who here can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?" Professor Sprout asked as she grabbed one of the pots sitting behind her. Immediately Hermione raised her hand. "Yes, Miss Granger."

"Mandrake," Hermione started.

"Or Mandragora," Eric whispered with an encouraging smile.

"Or mandragora is used to return those who have been petrified to their original state."

"Good! Anything else? Mr Underwood?" Professor Sprout asked, and happily, Eric beamed as he answered,

"It's also quite dangerous. The Mandrake's cry is fatal to anyone who hears it."

"Excellent. Ten points to Gryffindor and Hufflepuff."

I proudly smiled at my two friends while Professor Sprout started giving instructions, "As our Mandrakes are only seedlings, their cries won't kill yet. But they could knock you out for several hours. Which is why I have provided each of you with a pair of earmuffs for auditory protection. So could you please put them on right away? Quickly."

We all did what we were told and pulled on the fluffy grey earmuffs. "Flaps tight down and watch me closely." As she explained, Sprout showed us exactly what to do as we watched intently. "You grasp your Mandrake firmly... You pull it sharply up out of the pot..."

All of a sudden, as Professor Sprout pulled the stuffy plant out of the soil, rather than roots, a small baby creature came out as it released a high-pitched squeal. Immediately I pushed the earmuffs tighter onto my ears, hoping to relieve myself of the irritating noise as I continued to watch the professor. "Got it? And... now you dunk it down into the other pot and pour a little sprinkling of soil to keep him warm."

The squealing lowered in volume and calmed a bit but didn't stop, causing Neville to suddenly fall to the floor. As my eyes widened with concern, Professor Sprout sighed, "Hm. Longbottom's been neglecting his earmuffs."

"No, ma'am," Seamus explained, "He's just fainted."

"Yes, well, just leave him there. Right, on we go. Plenty of pots to go around!"

Assuming Neville would be alright, I brought a pot closer to me and did as I had seen the professor do as she guided the class, "Grasp your Mandrake and pull it up!"

The squealing was louder than ever with so many Mandrakes, and I cringed at the sound. Eric looked very pleased with the activity, and I was glad at least one of us was enjoying ourselves. On my left, I noticed Malfoy had a smile on his face as he teased the Mandrake with his finger until the plant creature bit the tip of it. Malfoy's smile dropped as he tried to pull his finger away, and I couldn't help but let a small smile cross my lips. Once he had gotten his finger free, Malfoy harshly dunked the Mandrake into its pot before he glared at me, having caught my small smile.

During lunch between classes, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Eric and I were all sitting at the Gryffindor table. Hermione had her nose in one of Lockhart's books as Ron ran gobs of Spellotape over his broken wand. When he stopped, my red-headed friend shook his head grimly,

"Say it. I'm doomed."

"You're doomed," Harry and Eric nodded together when, all of a sudden, there was a camera flash that blinded me. As I blinked to try and see properly again, I saw a small boy standing before me and Harry with a camera.

"Hi, Ella and Harry. I'm Colin Creevey. I'm in Gryffindor, too," the boy excitedly spoke, looking as though he was about to jump out of his skin with joy. Harry gave a sheepish smile,

"Hello, Colin."

"Nice to meet-" I tried to add but stopped when Colin took another picture with a flash.

"Say, Harry and Ella. Do you think your friend could take a photo of me and you standing together? You know, to prove I've met you? It's for my dad," Colin explained as I adjusted my eyes again. "He's a milkman, you know, a Muggle, like all our family's been until me. No one knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till we got my letter from Hogwarts. Everyone just thought I was mental."

"Imagine that," Ron mumbled. Before I could answer the small boy, I heard an owl screech before Dean asked,

"Ron, is that your owl?"

Turning my head, I watched as Errol came flying toward us until he plopped beak-first into the bowl of crisps on the table before quickly helping himself up.

"Bloody bird's a menace," Ron complained as he took his letter from the clumsy owl before he frowned, dread filling his face, "Oh... no."

I furrowed my brows in confusion when Seamus piped up,

"Heads up, everyone. Weasley's gotten himself a Howler."

Everyone laughed, but I had no idea what a Howler was and decided to wait and see as Neville urged,

"Go on, Ron. I ignored one from my Gran once... It was horrible."

Ron looked pale as his hands shakily started to break the seal of the envelope. When he opened it, my eyes went wide with shock at the thundering sound of Mrs Weasley's booming voice filled with anger,

"RONALD WEASLEY!"

Quickly, the letter took the shape of a face as it yelled at Ron, "HOW DARE YOU STEAL THAT CAR! I AM ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED! YOUR FATHER'S NOW FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK, AND IT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT! IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE, WE'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT HOME!" Mrs Weasley's voice then suddenly softened when the letter turned to where Ginny was sitting down at the table, "Oh, and Ginny, dear. Congratulations on making Gryffindor. Your father and I are so proud."

Ginny looked up shyly with an embarrassed smile before returning to her book. When it was finished, the letter turned back to Ron, blew a raspberry at him and ripped itself to pieces. The room was silent, all of us completely in shock and having no idea what to say. I then gave Ron a sympathetic smile,

"Look at it this way. How much worse can things get?"

After lunch, we were all in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, where our new Professor Lockhart was standing up on the small balcony off of his office.

"Let me introduce you to your new Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher..." Lockhart started before giving us a bright smile, "Me."

I exchanged an unimpressed look with Eric as Lockhart began his descent down the stairs, telling us about himself, "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League and five times winner... of Witch Weekly's Most- Charming-Smile Award. But I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!"

Lockhart was clearly waiting for some laughter but only got silence as the boys and I looked at each other with confusion. Quickly fixing his disappointed expression, Lockhart grew serious, "I see you've all bought a complete set of my books. Well done. I thought we'd start today with a little quiz."

As Lockhart went to grab the sheets of paper, I turned to exchange a look with Harry and Ron, who looked just as unimpressed. "Nothing to worry about. Just to check how well you've read them, how much you've taken in..." Lockhart began to circulate papers around the room. When I got mine, I examined the questions and furrowed my brows before Ron whispered to me, Harry, and Eric,

"Look at these questions. They're all about him."

Harry nodded, going ahead and reading one of the ridiculous ones,

"'What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour?'"

"'What is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?'" Eric added, and I read aloud another stupid question,

"'When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be?'"

The four of us shook our heads before Lockhart announced,

"You have thirty minutes. Start... now!"

As quills began to dart across pages, I tried my best to answer these ridiculous questions. Once we had all finished and Lockhart collected the papers, the man rifled through them with a disappointed look, "Tut, tut. Hardly any of you remembered my favourite colour is lilac. But Miss Hermione Granger knew that my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair care potions. Good girl."

Hermione beamed brightly,

"Thanks."

I was happy that she was happy, at least before Lockhart's expression suddenly darkened as he came forward toward the covered, rattling cage,

"Now... be warned! It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your own worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here... I must ask you not to scream." With a showman's flair, Lockhart turned slowly to the cage, and for a second, the professor let the tension build before he whipped off the cover, "It might PROVOKE THEM!"

Inside the cage were several electric blue creatures, maybe eight inches tall, with pointed faces and wings. The creatures rattled the bars and pulled bizarre faces at the students as Seamus chuckled,

"Cornish pixies?"

"Freshly caught Cornish pixies."

Seamus snorted with laughter at Professor Lockhart's words, but Lockhart warned, "Laugh if you will, Mr Finnegan, but pixies can be devilishly tricky little blighters. Let's see what you make of them now!"

Suddenly, Lockhart flung open the cage, and instantly, the pixies shot out, flying around the room and causing complete chaos. We all screamed in fear as the pixies flew around us, spraying students with ink bottles, breaking beakers and shredding books. "Come on now, round them up, round them up! They're only pixies."

I watched from my position on the floor as two pixies grabbed Neville by the ears, lifting him into the air and hanging his cloak on one of the spikes on the light. Everyone else started racing out of the classroom as Neville pleaded,

"Please, get me down!"

Hermione, Ron, Eric, Harry and I had no idea what to do as we crouched on the floor with books in our hands, trying to swat at the pixies. Two of the blue creatures decided to pull at Hermione and my hair as my brilliant friend shouted,

"Get off us!"

"Stop! Hold still!" Harry ordered. Doing as my brother said, Hermione and I stopped moving, allowing Harry and Eric to whack the pixies away with the books in their hands. Finally, I noticed Lockhart brandishing his wand as he said a spell,

"Peskipiski Pesternomi!"

But the spell had absolutely no effect, allowing one of the pixies to seize Lockhart's wand and use it to knock down the dragon skeleton that had been hung from the ceiling. Without another thought, Lockhart screeched and turned to run up the steps to hide in his office. Once he got to the balcony, he stopped and looked down at Hermione, Ron, me, Harry, and Eric as he sheepishly smiled, "I'll ask you five to just nip the rest of them back into their cage."

The man slammed his door as I stared after him in disbelief. As we continued to swat at the irritating pixies, Ron yelled,

"What do we do now?"

Rather than answering, Hermione quickly pulled out her wand and stood to point it up before reciting,

"Immobilus!"

Just like that, the pixies froze in midair as they floated around the room. With the room calm, the four of us stood up with Hermione and looked up at poor Neville, who pouted,

"Why is it always me?"

I gave the boy an apologetic look before moving to get help for him. Once Neville had been helped down, the five of us left the classroom with him to go to our next class. As we were walking through the corridors, Eric scoffed about Lockhart's actions.

"Can you believe him?"

"I'm sure Professor Lockhart just wanted to give us some hands-on experience," Hermione argued, but I looked at her questioningly,

"Hands-on?"

"Hermione, he didn't have a clue what he was doing," Harry added, but the girl shook her head,

"Rubbish. Read his books. You'll see all the amazing things he's done."

"He says he's done," Ron corrected, clearly not a fan of the man.

The end of today's classes came sooner than expected, meaning Ron, Hermione, Eric and I were all studying in the courtyard while Harry had Quidditch practice. I glanced up at the sound of voices, I spotted the red and gold-clad Gryffindor team about to cross the courtyard to the Quidditch pitch when I noticed the Slytherin team going the same way. As the two team captains, Oliver Wood and Marcus Flint, met, Flint handed Oliver a note.

"Uh-oh," Eric said, as Ron added,

"I smell trouble."

The four of us quickly got up and walked over to the two teams as Oliver started to read the note,

"'I, Professor Severus Snape, do hereby give the Slytherin team permission to practice today, owing to the need to train their new Seeker.'" Looking up, Oliver asked, irritated, "You've got a new Seeker? Who?"

As an answer, the Slytherin players at the front of the group moved out of the way only to reveal Draco Malfoy.

"Malfoy?" I asked in disbelief, causing the blond boy to smirk at me proudly,

"That's right. And that's not all that's new this year..."

The whole Slytherin team showed off their new, fancy-looking broomsticks as Eric, the Gryffindors, and I looked stunned.

"Those are Nimbus Two Thousand Ones," Ron gapped. "How did you get those?"

Flint smirked,

"A generous gift from Draco's father."

"You see, Weasley, unlike some, my father can afford to buy the best," Draco sneered, and I glared before Hermione retorted,

"At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in. They got in on pure talent."

"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood."

Everyone reacted as though Malfoy had said something horrific- everyone except me and Harry as we both looked puzzled. Instantly, Ron whipped out his wand as he glared,

"You'll pay for that one, Malfoy! Eat slugs!" Ron pointed his wand toward Malfoy as he said the spell, but instead of hitting the spoilt blond, it seemed to backfire and sent Ron flying back onto the grass.

"Ron!" Hermione yelled as we all ran over to him, not including the Slytherins, who merely laughed. When I reached him, I asked,

"You ok, Ron?"

Ron sat up a bit before turning on his stomach, not responding.

"Say something!" Eric urged, and Ron started to open his mouth, looking as though he was about to answer. But instead of words coming out, a slug slid out.

"Ew! Yuck!" everyone yelled as we all backed up a bit. I felt horrible for Ron when Colin decided to take a picture,

"Wow! Can you turn him around, Harry?!"

"No, Colin! Get out of the way!" Harry answered as he and Eric helped Ron stand before turning to me and Hermione, "Let's take him to Hagrid."

Ron belched another slug before I agreed with my brother,

"He'll know what to do."

As quickly as possible, Harry, Eric, Hermione and I all rushed to get Ron to Hagrid's, shoving past the Slytherins on our way.