THE WRITING ON THE WALL
“They could’ve had the key to the Chamber of Secrets for cen-
turies!” said Ron. “Handing it down, father to son. . . .”
“Well,” said Hermione cautiously, “I suppose it’s possible. . . .”
“But how do we prove it?” said Harry darkly.
“There might be a way,” said Hermione slowly, dropping her
voice still further with a quick glance across the room at Percy. “Of
course, it would be difficult. And dangerous, very dangerous. We’d
be breaking about fifty school rules, I expect —”
“If, in a month or so, you feel like explaining, you will let us
know, won’t you?” said Ron irritably.
“All right,” said Hermione coldly. “What we’d need to do is to
get inside the Slytherin common room and ask Malfoy a few ques-
tions without him realizing it’s us.”
“But that’s impossible,” Harry said as Ron laughed.
“No, it’s not,” said Hermione. “All we’d need would be some
Polyjuice Potion.”
“What’s that?” said Ron and Harry together.
“Snape mentioned it in class a few weeks ago —”
“D’you think we’ve got nothing better to do in Potions than lis-
ten to Snape?” muttered Ron.
“It transforms you into somebody else. Think about it! We could
change into three of the Slytherins. No one would know it was us.
Malfoy would probably tell us anything. He’s probably boasting
about it in the Slytherin common room right now, if only we could
hear him.”
“This Polyjuice stuff sounds a bit dodgy to me,” said Ron,
frowning. “What if we were stuck looking like three of the
Slytherins forever?”
“It wears off after a while,” said Hermione, waving her hand
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