Potions Class

Two days later, Colin came to Chris.

"Hiya Chris." He said and sat beside her.

"Yes, Colin?" Chris said.

"Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"No. Go ahead."

"Where were you and Ginny at the Halloween feast? I and Luna waited for you but you didn't come." Colin said.

"Yes I was at Nick's deathday party and Ginny was... Wait... Ginny wasn't at the feast?"

"Nooo..." Colin said slowly, looking like he said something he shouldn't have. "Well, I will be on my way. It's just I need your little help."

"Speak," Chris said while thinking about Ginny.

"Chris. I have a picture of that wall." He whispered.

"You What?" Chris almost shouted.

"Shhhh... No one should know. I took it secretly. I know I can trust you. Will you keep it? I don't want to keep it with me. The boys in my room will be furious if they see it." He whispered urgently.

"Fine. Give it." Chris said and Colin handed her a small moving picture.

In the picture, the fire in torch was quivering and on the wall, the words were shining...

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

For a few days, the school could talk of little else but the attack on Mrs Norris. Filch kept it fresh in everyone's minds by pacing the spot where she had been attacked, as though he thought the attacker might come back. Harry had seen him scrubbing the message on the wall with Mrs Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover, but to no effect; the words still gleamed as brightly as ever on the stone. When Filch wasn't guarding the scene of the crime, he was skulking red-eyed through the corridors, lunging out at unsuspecting students and trying to put them in detention for things like "breathing loudly" and "looking happy."

Meanwhile, Hermione and Chris had searched the library about that monster in the chamber. They agreed on the fact that if Professor Dumbledore is unable to fix Mrs Norris then the attacker was definitely not a human. They found many magical beasts who have the ability to petrify.

Other than that Colin told Chris that there were rumours that, people were suspecting Harry as the heir of Slytherin, and on the other hand, Ron and Harry were sure that the heir of Slytherin was none other than Draco Malfoy.

Hermione has her doubts on it but Chris was sure it was not him. She explained that a big-mouthed person like Malfoy will never be able to keep a secret like that. So maybe he knows something more about the chamber but he was definitely not the heir.

In the beginning, Chris was admiring Hermione's knowledge about books but soon she realized that that girl was obsessed with books. She could read books for 24 hours.

Chris's head was spinning because of reading so many books in a few days. At last, she gave up and leave it to Hermione and ask her if she found any other clue then she will join her. Hermione wasn't pleased by this but Chris gave the excuse of her long classes and piled homework. So Hermione agreed.

Luckily Chris hadn't had any nightmare recently. Ginny was now completely ignoring her. She had stopped talking to Chris. Chris also didn't want to interfere anymore. She was mostly hanging around with Luna and Colin or Hermione, Harry and Ron.

Chris and Colin walked to the potions class, one afternoon, which they had with the Slytherins. Professor Snape asks them to partner up for practice. Ginny obviously went as far as possible from Chris. Colin tried to partner up with Chris but Professor Snape stopped him and asked Chris to partner up with some Mr Fawley.

Chris went and stood next to him.

"Hi," Chris said as politely as possible.

"Hmm. Crush the ingredients. We are here for work not for small talks." He said without looking at her.

"Hmph. Fine." She started to crush the ingredients.

"You're doing it the wrong way." He said looking at her work.

"But Professor Snape showed it like this."

"No, he didn't. Look," he said as he took the crushing bowl from Chris.

During the potion making no matter how much Chris tried Jason said she was doing wrong. At last, she felt irritated.

"If you know everything then you do it. Stop ordering me like that." She snapped at him.

"Fine." Said Jason.

As he started working, Chris just watched in amazement, that Jason had done most of the work in a few minutes. After a few more steps, Jason informed Professor Snape that they are missing one ingredient and Professor Snape took him to collect that thing.

As they left Chris saw there was nothing left to do for her. So she sighed and looked around. Everyone else was working, Ginny was working with a Gryffindor boy, while Colin worked with a dangerous-looking Slytherin boy. Colin was looking very nervous.

Chris looked back at her table and saw a notebook. It was under Jason's bag. She lifted the bag and saw the recipe of the same potion they were working on.

So this is how he knows every step before me.

She thought and turned some pages. The notebook had lot's of recipes of different kind of potions and everything was hand-written. Suddenly a potion attracted her attention. It's a light truth serum and also at the end of the recipe, there was a signature of Professor Snape.

That means Professor Snape know about this.

Excitedly Chris read how to make it and what happens if someone consumes it. She wrote the recipe in her notebook and before Jason came back she placed his bag and the notebook the way it was before. At the end of the class, Snape checked everyone's potions and as Chris expected Chris and Jason's potion was better than everyone. Snape gave 5 marks to Slytherin and 3 marks to Gryffindor. Of course, he saw who did most of the work.