Chapter 21: Preparations

As Chris and Hermione started to work on the truth serum, they heard a sound of the bathroom door opening. They stopped working and hid the cauldron, then ran inside a stall, holding their breaths.

"It's me." said a familiar voice.

Chris went towards the door and found Harry closing the door behind. 

"It's Harry," Chris said loudly.

Ron and Hermione came out and set the cauldron again in the middle of the bathroom. 

"Harry!" she said. "You gave us such a fright.... how's your arm?" 

"Fine." He said and turned to Chris, "You alright?" 

"Me? Oh... I'm fine. What happened to me?" Chris tried to smile. 

"I was awake last night at Hospital wing when..." Harry said. 

Chris coughed.

Today she told Ron and Hermione about the incident without any fear or shock, but last night, she was literally trembling and Harry was awake, that means he heard her. 

"Ummm... Well... Then I guess you know what happened to Colin." Chris said making her voice confident. 

"It's ok Chris. I can't even begin to imagine if anything like that had happened to my friends. He'll be fine. Don't worry." Harry said resting a hand on Chris's shoulder. 

"I know he'll be. That's why I'll not worry about him, but, I'll concentrate on finding that heir." Chris's voice was determined.

"Yes and that's why we started the potion. We'll need some ingredients from Professor Snape's private collection then it'll be ready." Hermione said. 

"Wait. We're going to break into Snape's private store?" Harry asked surprised. 

"Yeah. We found almost everything in the students' cupboard except two." Answered Hermione. "Relax Harry. It'll be fine. I have got a plan." 

"Well... I never thought I'd see the day when Hermione would be persuading us to break rules.. but if she is so confident then I don't have any problem... The sooner we get a confession out of Malfoy, the better," snarled Ron. "D'you know what I think? He was in such a foul temper after the Quidditch match, he took it out on Colin." 

"Ron we're still not sure, it's him," Chris said calmly. "But if it's him then trust me, I'll beat the hell out of him. I'll make sure the heir walks around with a broken nose, lots of broken teeth and bones." 

The calmness on Chris's voice made Ron and Harry shiver.

"Oh... There's something else," said Harry, changing the topic. "Dobby came to visit me in the middle of the night." 

Chris, Ron and Hermione looked up, amazed. 

"Who's Dobby?" Chris asked.

"Dobby is a house-elf. He came to the Durselys' at summer ..... warned me to not come to school this year..... stole all my letters over the summer... blocked the wall at the King's Cross station .... made the Bludger mad at me yesterday.... came to the Hospital wing last night... He knows many things about the Chamber... He knew it was going to open this year that's why he was trying to send me home... he also slipped that the chamber was opened before.. he wants me to go home...." 

Chris, Ron and Hermione took the information inside them in a few seconds.

"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened before?" Hermione said. 

"This settles it," said Ron in a triumphant voice. "Lucius Malfoy must've opened the Chamber when he was at school here and now he's told dear old Draco how to do it. It's obvious. See Chris, I was sure, it's him. Wish Dobby'd told you what kind of monster's in there, though. I want to know how come nobody's noticed it sneaking around the school." 

"Maybe it can make itself invisible," said Hermione, "Or maybe it can disguise itself .... pretend to be a suit of armour or something... I've read about Chameleon Ghouls ..." 

"You read too much, Hermione," said Ron.

"We know this much because Hermione reads, Ron," said Chris. "But I was thinking about something else." 

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"What?" Harry asked. "If the Chamber had been opened before and Dobby knows about it, it means these attacks also happened before. So how come no one found the culprit? And what happened at that time?" Chris said while thinking. 

"Does it matter what happened at that time?" Ron said. 

"Of course it matters Ron. It'll help us to understand everything. We should try to get information about it." Hermione answered.

_____________________________

Next morning Chris woke up hearing a scream. She got up from the bed so fast that her neck made a weird sound. 

Chris then noticed, Ginny was sweating and mumbling. Her eyes were closed. It's like she was fighting with someone or something in her dream. Chris ran towards her and tried to wake her up. After calling her name a few times... Shaking her vigorously... She woke up... She got up and started to shiver. 

Chris patted her back, assured her few times that everything was fine and only then she calmed down. Chris understood she was scared because of what happened to Colin. Lauren and Danielle, the other two girls in their room didn't say anything this time because they were also scared.

Colin's incident broke the confidence of first-years. They started to walk around in groups. Never leaving each other alone. Only two girls in first-year didn't walk with the crowd. One was Luna and the other was Chris. Chris told Luna that she was working with Harry, Hermione and Ron to catch the heir of Slytherin. She omitted two parts, the truth serum and Draco Malfoy. 

In the first week of December, Hermione stole ingredients from Snape's private store and they completed the potion. It was effectively working on Ron and Harry. Now they just needed to catch Malfoy.