Over the next few months, Harry saw no more signs of Dobby, but Ron was now trying to stay clear of them as much as possible or indeed most people for that matter, having been made a laughingstock of the entire school.
He had now taken to swearing at whoever so much as looked at him, making it extremely difficult for Harry to feel sorry for him.
Quidditch tryouts however began, and Susan decided to try out for her house team.
"Good luck," Harry told her as he and the rest of the girls sat down in the stands to watch her try out.
As they all watched as the Hufflepuff House Captain Cedric Diggory began to issue instructions to each of the tryouts they talked quietly amongst themselves.
"Do you think she has a chance of making it?" asked Fleur.
"I'll bet she does," Gabrielle answered, "she's a really good flier."
Su looked over at Gabrielle and asked, "why didn't you try out for your house team? You're a pretty good flier and I've heard Gryffindor is still in need of a decent seeker. Their last one stunk."
"I thought about it but it would take too much time away from dueling practice," Gabrielle admitted.
Su nodded, not being one to argue with that argument.
"Harry here could have been made a seeker too," Pansy pointed out, forcing Harry to briefly explain the story of last year back when he had been offered the seeker position to Fleur and Gabrielle.
"I think it's kind of interesting that most of us could have taken up Quidditch but chose dueling instead," Gabrielle commented.
"Dueling is far more valuable not to mention more fun," Su claimed, "besides after the stuff that happened last year and already this year I'm betting we see more action before it's all over. Hagrid even offered to take me to the acromantula nest in the Forbidden Forest with him."
"You can count me out for that, me and spiders just don't mix," Pansy replied, shuddering at even the thought.
"Just please don't try and go looking for trouble again," Harry begged Su. He knew that she liked a bit of adventure but he had hoped that she might have toned down a bit after nearly dying after going after Quirrell last year.
"I promise I won't try actually looking for trouble," Su amended, "besides Hagrid goes in there all the time and as long as I'm with him I should be safe."
Glad to see that she was now a bit more careful, he turned back to watching the tryouts as Susan now got her turn, quickly flying through the goal post and throwing the quaffle right through it.
Cheering loudly for her, they watched as Susan continued to impress until she finally soared down to rejoin the rest of the Hufflepuffs.
Finally after a few more hours, Susan gleefully came up to them all and said, "I did it! I'm on the team!"
"Congratulations," Pansy told her, causing Susan to smile even wider.
"You'll do great," Harry told her, clapping her on the back and privately hoping that she won as he had just learned that Malfoy had managed to buy his way onto the Slytherin team by buying all the team members Nimbus 2001s.
"Thanks Harry," Susan said unexpectedly giving him a quick kiss.
"I think we might be starting to spoil Harry," Su commented because of the kiss.
"Then I decided to spoil him and myself a bit," Susan countered while grinning, knowing full well that Su was merely teasing her.
"Well lets just hope that Susan's new team runs Draco and the Slytherins into the ground," Pansy claimed, not all bothered by the fact that it was technically her own house she wanted to see lose.
Pansy still had a serious vendetta against Malfoy.
DUELDUELDE
When Halloween finally came around as they sat there for the Halloween feast, Su looked over at Harry from across the table and asked, "so what type of monster do you think they'll bring into the school this year?"
"I hope none of them," Hermione commented from nearby, evidently still remembering last year's scary encounter with the troll.
Harry was just eating his first bite of pumpkin bread trying to swallow so he could answer Su's question when he heard a strange voice, but over all the noise he couldn't make out what it was saying. It sounded very creepy though.
"Can anyone else hear that?" Harry asked them.
"Yeah its the sound of Seamus eating with his mouth open, you can hear it all the way over here," Su suggested, earning a laugh from everyone else as Harry chose then to disregard it.
However 20 minutes later, Filch came striding in with Mrs. Norris cradled in his arms, not moving.
"Murder!" Filch roared now looking accusingly at all of the students, "someone murdered my cat."
Dumbledore went over to examine the cat, and proclaimed, "it has only been petrified Argus."
"What could have petrified a cat?" Susan asked in bewilderment.
"A monster of some kind," suggested Su, actually having the nerve to be gleeful about the whole thing.
As Harry looked around, he realized she wasn't the only one, Mr. Norris had always been hated and he could see why no one was particularly upset by the news.
"Whatever it is, it even has Dumbledore worried," Fleur noticed.
"It could just be the twins or someone playing a joke," Gabrielle pointed out, but even she seemed to suspect it was something more than that.
"Will everyone please remain here until we've sorted this all out?" Dumbledore ordered as he went with Filch to where the cat had been petrified.
DUELDUELDE
Mrs. Norris getting petrified was a topic of a lot of conversation over the next few weeks, but for the most part no one was particularly concerned as of course Mrs. Norris had always been hated by the students. As for just what happened to her, Dumbledore nor anyone else seemed to have any definitive answers.
It wasn't until a few weeks later however that another victim was discovered, this time a 5th year Hufflepuff named Alice Crosby. With an actual person petrified, this left everyone actually worried, wondering if it could happen to them next.
In addition, a bunch of students were the first to discover the body, with a message written in blood on the walls just over it:
The Chamber of Secrets has been opened
This was a legend Harry hadn't been told but finally Hermione asked McGonagall about it one day during class.
McGonagall looked put off about being asked what she seemed to regard as a silly question but she answered it nonetheless.
"The Chamber of Secrets is merely a legend, a place where Salazar Slytherin claimed to have had some sort of secret chamber or lab, away from the attention of the other founders. It is said to be the home of a monster," she admitted.
With Su sharing a class with him she looked at him and gave him an "I told you so" look.
Rolling his eyes at her, McGonagall insisted on getting back to the lesson leaving all of the students still eager to learn more about the chamber.
"I'll bet that there is some more information on it in the library," Hermione suggested as she ran off to go check.
"I'll bet she doesn't find anything," Su commented, "Dumbledore tends to keep all the books on stuff like that out of the library. For instance I tried looking up info on acromantulas and couldn't find anything."
"I'd imagine you could just ask Hagrid about that," Harry recommended.
"You want to come with me to go visit him?" Su asked.
The other girls quickly declined but Harry finally decided to go with her, as Hagrid had mentioned in passing about wanting to relate a story to him about his parents during their 7th year.
Traveling to Hagrid's hut, they rapped on the door as Hagrid then opened it, beaming widely as he did so.
"Come on in," Hagrid told them as they went inside and sat down together on the single huge chair that Hagrid offered them.
"We thought we'd ask you more about acromantulas," Su asked, "there wasn't anything in the library."
Harry neglected to mention that only Su really wanted to know more about them, but Hagrid answered nonetheless.
"I don't reckon there would be after the uh...," Hagrid began, sounding very nervous.
"After the what?" Su pried.
Finally Hagrid broke down as he began to relate to them about being expelled from Hogwarts about being suspected of opening the Chamber of Secrets 50 years ago.
While Hagrid admitted to having tried to raise a pet acromantula, he insisted that it wasn't even big enough or with enough venom yet to actually kill or hurt someone.
"Aragog could never have hurt that poor girl," Hagrid claimed.
While they were surprised to discover that the chamber had been opened before it was easy to believe Hagrid somehow when he said he wasn't the one to actually open it.
"I'm just worried now they might think I'm doing it again," Hagrid said tearfully.
"Its all right Hagrid, they'll find whoever is doing this," Su soothed, putting a small hand onto Hagrid's knee.
"They sure will," Harry confirmed.
"Thanks, but if there are too many more attacks I can't see them not coming after me," Hagrid told them, "Dumbledore has been defending me but his influence will only last so long."
"While I may not care much for Dumbledore," Su claimed, "I'm sure that he'll continue to help you out and find whoever is doing this."
Hagrid gave a very loud snort into his massive handkerchief and then seemed to compose himself.
"At any rate there isn't much more I can do, I think I owe you that story Harry about your parents," Hagrid told him.
Harry gratefully nodded as he wanted to know everything he could learn about his parents.
Hagrid began telling them about how he had helped James prepare for one of his dates with Lily during their 7th year where Hagrid had gotten one of the hippogriffs to carry a flying carriage over the school and grounds.
After Hagrid had finished, Harry thanked him sincerely for relating that story.
Right after Su reminded him again about telling her more about acromantulas which Hagrid was more than happy to relate.
Harry guessed that nobody had ever actually shown such an interest in them before.
After they had gotten up and left and began making their way back to the castle, Su asked:
"So when were you planning on taking me on a hippogriff ride?" Su teased.
He gulped at that, wondering if perhaps he was now obligated to before realizing that Su was only being her ordinary teasing self.
"It's all right Harry," Su admitted, "we still have plenty of years left at Hogwarts for you to wow me."
"It's been over a year since I've been betrothed to you and I still don't know how to act around you," Harry confessed.
"If it's only sometimes you must already be doing a very good job," Su replied, "I tend to have that effect on people, they aren't really sure what to do with me."
"I've noticed," he answered, "but I think it's one of the things I like about you."
"You're sweet Harry," Su said, earning him another kiss from her.
DUELDUELDE
It was only a few days later after going to see Hagrid that the students learned of a dueling club that was supposed to take place in an effort to help protect them. Since Harry and the girls were all rather into dueling, they decided to check it out only to find to their dismay that Lockhart was the one teaching it.
"Well this looks like its going to be a complete waste of time," Gabrielle muttered, earning a look of annoyance from a group of 3rd year girls just in front of her.
"Of course I'm sure that you are all incredibly glad to learn that I, Gilderoy Lockhart, perhaps the best duelist of the age is your dueling instructor," Lockhart said.
"If he's the best duelist of the age then I invented the cheese cauldron," Fleur quipped.
As Lockhart continued to instruct them, showing them grandiose wand movements that were entirely unnecessary and would probably give his opponent plenty of time to hit him, Harry couldn't help but agree with Gabrielle that this was a complete waste of time and wondering if perhaps he could convince Flitwick to replace him as the instructor.
Even as he was about to tell the others to get out of there, Lockhart singled him out.
"I hear that Mr. Potter is a duelist, not as good as me of course, but a really good one anyway," Lockhart said, "Mr. Potter why don't you come up here and give us a little demonstration?"
Feeling like he couldn't refuse after already being singled out in front of everyone, he got up there as Lockhart waited for him. Harry was about to suggest that he also bring up Gabrielle, Su, or Fleur but Lockhart seemed intent on somebody else.
"Orion Belt, if you could come up here as well," Lockhart told him.
Harry surveyed the 7th year Slytherin, who every time he saw him wore a permanent scowl on his face. This time proved to be no different, he looked like the type who could snap a man's neck without a second thought, and certainly didn't seem happy about being singled out by Lockhart.
"Orion is a trained sword fighter so I'm told, I know that you might have an aversion to muggle fighting, but I assure you that it can certainly come in handy in certain situations and used to be much more widely practiced a long time ago. If you'd like to read a time when I needed a sword to take down a Griffin, feel free to buy my book Gadding with Griffins.
While Harry had to concede that this was actually true about sometimes needing to know sword fighting, he wondered just where Lockhart was going with this.
"We will first have Mr. Potter and Mr. Belt have a good old fashioned sword fight, and then have a magical duel as well, highlighting the strengths of both of them," Lockhart announced, "we'll have you use swords that have been magically dulled so that they can't cause any real harm."
Harry was handed a sword, and as he thought about what he would do, he quickly concluded that he would be no match against Orion in a sword fight. He was far bigger, stronger, and was evidently quite skilled. He might win the magical one because of practice and experience dueling but he had no doubt that Orion would be difficult there as well having quick reflexes from sword fighting and had 5 years of magical education on him.
Still he would do his best, and as the sword fight began, Harry was instantly put on the defensive as his opponent nearly cut his head off as he brought up his own sword just in time.
Orion however tried hitting him again, while he did his best to counter them.
It was quite fortunate that the swords were unable to cause any real harm because otherwise he was pretty sure he'd be dead by now from the many times he was being hit.
It almost seemed like Lockhart was deliberately allowing him to look foolish, perhaps to try and tear down his reputation and fame, being considered as some sort of threat. He certainly wouldn't put it past the glory hound.
Still 10 minutes in, Lockhart finally ended the duel, leaving him panting and gasping while Orion hadn't even worked up a sweat.
When it came time to the magical duel, however, Harry felt much more confident, happy to give Orion a little payback for the thrashing he had just given him.
The duel had only just barely begun however as he fired his first spell at Orion when Orion fired back casting a spell at the dueling platform just in front of him, conjuring a snake right in front of him.
Instead of going directly for him, however, the snake turned towards Justin Finch-Fletchley standing just to the side of the platform.
"Look at me snake," Harry said, trying to divert its attention back to him.
The snake turned back to him, and asked to his shock in plainly discernible English, "you speak my language?"
"Evidently so," Harry told it, "would you mind not attacking that boy?"
The snake said, "I suppose I don't really need to attack him anyway. He looks too big to eat."
Before anything else could happen, one of the teachers who was standing nearby burned up the snake.
As he turned to look at everyone, he noticed that they all wore looks of shock on their faces at him, as if he had done something evil.
"I think that's enough of a demonstration from you Mr. Potter," Lockhart said, looking at him with a look of actual fear.
Grateful to get away from all of the staring, he headed out of the room, followed by the girls.
"You're a parselmouth?" Pansy asked incredulously.
"I'm a what?" Harry asked.
"You can speak to snakes?" Fleur queried.
"Well yes I suppose I can, I talked to a snake at the zoo once but that's about it," Harry admitted.
"This is bad," Susan told him, "parselmouths are supposed to be really rare, the most famous one was Salazar Slytherin, his heir is supposed to be able to speak to snakes too. Everyone is going to think you're him after these attacks on students."
"That's ridiculous," Harry claimed, "I was with you girls when those attacks happened."
"To us of course, and most people know that as well but I know that its going to cause more than a few to speculate," Su replied.
"You British people are really superstitious and paranoid," Fleur claimed, "besides if Harry was a psychopathic evil heir to Slytherin, he'd have killed half of the school by now."
"He isn't even in Slytherin," Gabrielle pointed out.
However even as she said this Harry was reminded that the sorting hat had wanted to put him in Slytherin. Was it possible that... No, there was just no way, he knew he hadn't had any blackouts and could account for his whereabouts during the times of the attacks, so he wasn't possessed or something.
"Personally I think its cool," Su said, trying to reassure him, "I'm sure there are bound to be ways that you could use it in duels."
Gabrielle immediately agreed as they tried to put a positive spin on the whole development.
"Besides," Gabrielle affirmed, "at Beauxbatons they wouldn't bat an eye if a student was a parselmouth, I suppose it just doesn't carry the same meaning as here."
"That would be nothing compared to some of the stuff you see there," Fleur admitted, "we've even got a couple of magic using centaurs going there as students. The swim instructor is an actual mermaid."
"Whoever thinks that of you are just complete idiots," Gabrielle claimed, "nevertheless I'm sure it'll all blow over eventually and everyone will realize they are just being stupid."
DUELDUELDE
A few days later however, as he was coming back from duel training, leaving Gabrielle, Fleur, and Su he headed to the library to hook up with Susan and Pansy.
There he caught Susan and Pansy talking about it before they realized that he was there.
"I finally had to just tell Eloise off," Susan admitted to Pansy, "I can't believe people are already so quick to judge, Harry has done absolutely nothing besides being a parselmouth to deserve that."
"What did Eloise say about me?" Harry demanded, making his presence known.
"Harry," Susan said, looking surprised to see him, "its nothing, don't worry it."
"I think I have a right to know what people are apparently saying about me," he defended.
Susan sighed and said, "she just doesn't really know you that's all, she just said that with you being a parselmouth that it looked rather suspicious with the chamber now open and these attacks going on."
Harry didn't even bother to comment on this, people would believe what they would believe even if it was entirely unfounded.
"What are the Slytherins saying?" Harry asked Pansy.
"To be honest most of them are wondering why you aren't in Slytherin if you can speak to snakes," Pansy admitted, "parselmouths are really rare to begin with but almost every single one has probably been in Slytherin, all the way back to Salazar Slytherin himself."
He just shook his head at this even though wondering if perhaps they might be right, once again being reminded of his sorting.
"Hey it's okay," Susan soothed, "you know that people are just being stupid right?"
"Yeah," he muttered as Susan went and gave him a hug.
"We're with you no matter what people say," Susan said loyally.
He truly was grateful for just how supportive all the girls were being. He somehow knew that they would always be that way.
DUELDUELDE
Even so over the next few weeks he continued to get a lot of odd looks and whispers whenever he walked down the hallway, although fortunately he had gotten a lot of support as well, mostly from the girls and their various friends, with them telling anyone off about it and reminding them of the fact that he couldn't have committed those attacks nor did him being a parselmouth necessarily make him evil. Eventually this seemed to work for at least the lower years as far as convincing them of this but there were a few notable exceptions.
Proving just how big of a jerk Ron was, he was constantly making stupid comments about him being the heir of Slytherin, seeming to now regard him as a snake in disguise. Su finally ended up turning him into a giant slug while none of the teachers were looking, prompting him to at least be more careful around him.
When he started doing it again whenever he knew a teacher was around to protect him, Su managed to convince Peeves, who was gradually becoming more and more friendly to them, to constantly prank him, even giving him ideas of her own. Su truly had a devious mind, especially when she got Pansy to help her out.
After coming into class constantly smelling of dungbomb, having his hair turned green, and even with a toilet seat stuck around his waist Ron finally went back to avoiding everyone as he was constantly laughed at.
In the midst of all this Susan had her first Quidditch match with Slytherin and Harry and the rest of the girls went into the stands to support her.
"I sure hope she wins," Pansy said, not even caring that she was technically rooting against her own house.
"I'd say that it'll be a hard won game," Harry replied, "the talent for each team is about the same for the most part, although the Slytherin's way better brooms should give them a huge edge. Susan has the best broom on the Hufflepuff team by far to be honest."
"Yeah but the big difference is the two seekers," Pansy pointed out, "Diggory seems to be a way better seeker than Draco. All he's got is a really fast broom."
"Malfoy wouldn't even be on the team if it weren't for him buying the whole team new brooms," Gabrielle argued.
"If Susan and the other chasers can keep the Slytherins from gaining too much of a lead and Cedric can get to the snitch before Malfoy does they have a chance of winning," Harry stated.
As the match began it became immediately apparent that the Slytherins were making full use of their much better brooms, quickly out flying the Hufflepuffs and adding on points.
They however cheered when Susan scored the first goal for her team.
Susan soon proved to be a pretty good player, not to them as they all already knew that, but to the other spectators watching, scoring 3 of Hufflepuffs 6 goals.
The Hufflepuffs managed to keep it at 110 to 60 with Slytherin leading when there suddenly was a flurry of activity as Cedric finally spotted the snitch and went after it, getting to it just before Malfoy could, winning the game for Hufflepuff with a final score of 210 to 110.
As they came out onto the field to celebrate, they quickly found Susan to congratulate her.
"Fantastic game Susan!" Gabrielle said.
"Thanks," Susan said with a huge grin on her face, "did you see Malfoy after the game? He got so mad he actually threw his broom at Madame Hooch. Since the game already ended she gave him a week's worth of detentions."
"Serves him right," Pansy claimed.
The euphoria from watching Susan's team beat the Slytherins lasted for quite awhile as Susan happily regaled them with how the match had gone, sometimes forgetting that they had seen the whole thing.
DUELDUELDE
It was only a few weeks later however that whoever was attacking the students escalated things further with another attack.
Only an hour later, Amelia showed up with much of the Auror force and some other volunteers.
"We're going to be doing some investigating and find out exactly what is going on. I managed to prevail upon Dumbledore that the ministry needed to get involved as these are criminal acts," she informed Harry and the girls as she went to go talk with them, "there have already been two victims, three if you count the cat, and we'll be making sure such incidents don't occur again. We'll find the culprit, don't worry."
"Is there any way that we can help?" Susan asked.
"I'd rather you not get yourself involved, whoever is doing this could be dangerous," Amelia told her.
As she was about to walk away, Ginny unexpectedly came forward looking very nervous, "um...Madame Bones?"
"Yes," she answered her.
"I think I know who's doing this," Ginny tentatively said.