"You're a half-blood bastard, Potter. You goody-goody Gryffindors haven't got the stones to torture someone. The only reason you're not in there is because my father ordered me to keep my hands off you. Like I said, when I'm out of here, you'll be in Azkaban."
"I can't do anything to you? WHEN you get out of here? You sound so sure of that, Malfoy. Do you know where you are? Take a look behind you." Harry rolled Draco with his foot to help him see a huge, scaly wall. When Harry increased the power of his lighting charm, Draco realized he was looking at an enormous, dead basilisk that was thicker than he was tall. "I killed that two years ago. You seriously think you can do anything to me?"
Draco was horror-struck by the sight. Being dead didn't stop the mouthful of poisonous fangs from being amazingly scary. Harry continued. "You get it now, don't you? This is the Chamber of Secrets. Nobody could find it for fifty years after it first opened, and only a parselmouth can open the entrance anyways. You can't get out, and nobody will find you unless I say so. So tell me, you little inbred coward, what did you do to Hermione?"
Draco was finally cracking under the fear of being locked in the chamber. He stammered out, "Wispen b-bone powder. It-it looks s-similar to billagrut shell powder."
"Good. That wasn't so hard, was it, Malfoy? Now what's the antidote?"
"I don't know."
"WHAT IS IT?" Harry couldn't believe that Draco would be stupid enough to use a dangerous substance without knowing its antidote. But then again, Draco probably got into Slytherin for his purebloodedness, not his cunning.
"I said I don't know!" Harry could tell that Draco wasn't lying this time. Now he was stuck down here without an answer. Would Madam Pomfrey know? That was his only hope now.
"Draco, I was going to let you go when you told me how to cure Hermione. Since you don't know, it's up to Madam Pomfrey now. You're going to stay down here until she gets better. Do you have any more advice that could... speed up your own freedom?"
"You can't do this to me, Potter! You-" Harry stunned Draco when it was clear the boy had no more useful information for him and left the Chamber. He ran to the Hospital Wing as quickly as his legs would take him.
"Madam Pomfrey!" he shouted as he burst inside, only to find the woman standing right in front of him.
"No shouting in here, young man!" She berated him in a loud whisper. "I've just put most of my patients to sleep, and it's nearly curfew for you as well. Visiting hours are over."
"No... I've found out why... your potions haven't been working as well as they should have..." he panted out.
"What? What do you mean?" The matron was surprised to hear a student suggest they knew more than she did, but she wasn't arrogant enough to brush off potential insights to a difficult case.
"It was wispen bone powder, not billagrut shell. Someone slipped it into Hermione's potion." Harry realized just then that Draco could only lie so effectively if he hadn't actually done it himself. He needed to find out who the accomplice was... but right now, his concern was for Hermione.
"Professor Snape doesn't use wispen bone in any of our potions, up to NEWT level. I don't think he even keeps any in stock..." she furrowed her brow, but added hesitantly, "You're suggesting this was sabotage?"
"Do you really think the brightest witch of our age who has brewed potions perfectly for years would mess up something this simple?" Harry knew she couldn't have made a mistake- the potion they had been brewing was the Awake and alert potion, a simpler variant to the Pepper-up.
"No, I suppose not. I don't know where you got the idea, but inhaling either of the two would produce similar symptoms... although wispen bone is more painful and lasts longer. It certainly wouldn't hurt to check." Madam Pomfrey went straight to Hermione, trapping some of her breath in some sort of medical device, and she cast a few diagnostic charms. A few minutes later, she put it down. "Ah, it was a mixture of both, actually. I knew I found billagrut shell on my first diagnosis. Thank you, Mr. Potter. I can start brewing up the right potion for them immediately."
"Can I do anything to help?" Harry asked.
Madam Pomfrey sighed. This had to be treated quickly to be most effective, and she needed at least one for each of the students and a double dose for Miss Granger. A second dose for everyone would be better, to be on the safe side, as well as having a few more on hand. That added up to sixteen. She could use the extra help, but said, "From what I've heard, you haven't been attending very many of your potions classes, Mr. Potter. And the ones you have been attending, you didn't do much brewing."
"Oh, I was learning on my own, you see. The Tournament doesn't use many of the fourth-year potions, so I've been practicing a lot. I've actually completed all the fourth-year potions already, and I'm working my way through the OWL potions," Harry pleaded his case.
"I'll let you chop and peel some of the ingredients, but I'll be the one doing the brewing, Mr. Potter. You must follow my directions exactly." She gave him the simplest jobs that most second-years would be able to do, just to be safe. It certainly had been a while since there was a student who had volunteered to brew potions for her. Mr. Potter's mother was one of the last, and ever since Severus had started, she hadn't seen any student willingly approach a cauldron. "It's about time you did some work inside the hospital wing instead of just lying around all the time, isn't it?" she joked.
"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am." Harry gladly placed his loose outer robes on the chair and washed his hands. "How do we begin?"
.
.
.
🎉The novel is available in PDF, visit us in our Ko-Fi store🎉
🎉ko-fi.com/madarasama125🎉