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only placed the cauldron on a fire that Hermione had started and added the first few ingredients into the tap water they were using when a voice knocked them off of focus.

"It's me!"

Saffron yelped from inside the stall and jumped up, falling onto Ron's lap who sat beside the toilet. Whilst Hermione had to hold onto cauldron, which luckily was heatproof, in order to stop it from collapsing.

They were relieved to see that Harry opened the door, lucking more or less recovered from his accident or whatever one would call what Lockhart did to him.

"Harry!" Hermione sighed in relief. "You gave us such a fright - come in. How's your arm?"

"Fine," Harry told them, entering the stall and taking notice of the scene, realising what they were starting.

"We'd've come to meet you, but we decided to get started on the Polyjuice Potion," Ron explained briskly. "We've decided this is the safest place to hide it."

"Did you hear about Colin?" Harry asked them, clearly unsure as to whether or not the story had spread through the school. In true Hogwarts fashion, it already had.

"Everybody knows," Saffron informed him. "That's why we're here, we need to find out what Draco knows as soon as we can,"

"Well there's something you don't know," Harry told them. "Dobby came to visit me in the middle of the night,"

The others looked up at him in pure shock. Dobby felt like such a distant memory to Saffron, so much so that she had forgotten the house elves name. But she wouldn't forget it again when Harry told them that it was Dobby who prevented Harry and Ron from getting through to the Hogwarts Express at the start of the year. Additionally, it turned out that Dobby had rigged the bludger to attack Harry. What was the most shocking of all was that Dobby claimed to have done this to make Harry leave the school due to Chamber of Secrets being opened. Dobby somehow knew that it was going to happen before the start of the school year.

"That's crazy, but if he says the Chamber of Secrets has been opened before, why isn't it documented anywhere?" said Saffron, not entirely sure she was going to take Dobby's word for fact, especially considering what the house elf had done to Harry. Regardless of his apparent intentions behind the acts, both times Harry had almost died.

"Leave that to me, surely there must be something in the library, somewhere," Hermione replied, but Ron's mind was elsewhere.

"It must've been Lucius Malfoy and now he's told dear old Draco how to do it. It's obvious,"

"Why tell Draco though?" Saffron questioned. "Why not Cygnus?"

"Don't make me read the mind of a lunatic," Ron sputtered. "There could be loads of reasons," He sighed. "Anyway, Dobby stopped us from getting on the train and broke your arm." He shook his head. "You know what, Harry? If he doesn't stop trying to save your life he's going to kill you."

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Everybody seemed to be taking the news of what happened to Colin in their own way. Everyone in the school felt some way about it, but the ways starkly contrasted one another. The way Saffron saw it, nobody in Slytherin house was overly bothered by it. Many of them were happy at the thought of Muggleborns leaving the school. Then, when it came to the Muggleborns themselves, they were terrified to near death.

In Herbology, Justin Finch-Fletchly had made a point of standing as far away from Harry as possible. Every meter between him and Harry seemed to ease his mind just a bit. Many of the Hufflepuffs supported him in that decision, leaving the class very divided, with the Hufflepuffs on one side and the Gryffindors on the other.

When it came to the Gryffindors, everyone in their year stood behind Harry. Not one of the eight of them thought that Harry was knowingly the Heir of Slytherin. They were all aware of the type of person he was. Saffron knew deep down that Harry would never hurt any of them, but that didn't put a halt to her and Hermione theorising over their Harry being possessed by Lord Voldemort theory.

Dean and Seamus liked to have a laugh with Harry about it in order to try and cheer him up. Lavender made a point of snapping "It's rude to stare" at anyone who stared at the group of Gryffindors in between classes, which, Parvati noted was hypocritical seeing as Lavender stared at any good looking boy within a one-mile radius.

Neville, on the other hand, had opted not to buy one of Luna Lovegood's necklaces but rather a large green onion in order to protect him from being attacked. However, Saffron noted that he had little to worry about in comparison to other people in the school as he was a pure-blood. The muggle-borns had the most to worry about, followed then by the half-bloods perhaps.

"Neville, that smells disgusting," Saffron said with her hand over her nose, when she and Neville were walking down to Herbology together one morning. The rest of the class had gone on ahead but both Saffron and Neville had slept in, leaving them to hurry on after them.

"But it protects me," Neville pointed out to her adamantly. "That's worth it, you should get one,"

"I'd rather wear one of that Lovegood girls necklaces than carry that around in my bag all day," Saffron told him earnestly. "Honestly, Neville, I don't think you have much to worry about, you're a pureblood,"

"Everyone's been telling me that," Neville said with a small sigh. "But the monster went for Filch first, and I'm basically a Squib so---"

"How are you basically a Squib?" Saffron arched her eyebrow at him. That statement made absolutely no sense. She thought there were Squibs and Wizards, very little in between.

"My Gran told me so," said Neville truthfully.

"Well, not to sound disrespectful, but I think your Gran is wrong," said Saffron carefully. "You're one of the top of the class in Herbology, maybe even better than Hermione,"

Neville genuinely started to blush at that and that was when Saffron noticed the black rings around his eyes.

"You look really tired," Saffron said to him. "Did you have a bad sleep?"

"I--" Neville dry swallowed. "I haven't been sleeping much, I keep thinking about it,"

Saffron nodded. "I understand, I keep thinking about it too. But I suppose we just have to hope that Professor Dumbledore can figure out how all of this is happening, and then everything will go back to normal,"

But Saffron wasn't entirely sure what normal was anymore, as her new normal was becoming a constant spill of assurances to Rachel and Rowan that it was going to be alright. She had arranged to meet them in the library on a Wednesday afternoon but when she arrived outside the library, she saw a very unexpected scene.

Rachel was sitting on an alcove with an arm around a trembling Ginny Weasley, who looked like she was crying into her lap. While Rowan stood nearby, awkwardly hovering above them. He looked relieved to see Saffron, looking hopeful to be relieved of the situation they were in.

"Are you okay, Ginny?" Saffron asked the girl tentatively.

Ginny looked up and was completely red in the face. Her bright brown eyes were tear-stained and her school skirt had wet patches, but Saffron wasn't entirely sure that such dampness could be caused by tears. To her, it seemed like she had splashed water on herself in the toilet.

"I'm fine," Ginny insisted, letting out tearful sighs. "I'm fine," She stood up and looked at Rachel with a forced smile. "Thank you, I'll go now,"

"No, you don't have to--" Rachel began but Ginny was already on her way down the corridor and it was evident the girl had no intention of looking back.

Saffron frowned. She knew Ginny was taking the loss of Colin very hard. The two of them sat beside each other in Charms and the way Ron said it, the girl considered him to be a friend. But she hadn't expected to see her in such a fashion, it didn't seem like something she would let herself be caught doing.

"Her older brother, the twins," Rachel said, reaching for their names.

"Fred and George," said Saffron.

Rachel nodded. "Right, they're being awful to her. They've been putting on these weird furs and are jumping out on her to scare her. Why would they do that?"

"They love a good laugh," remarked Saffron.

"But it's not funny!" exclaimed Rachel, outraged, whilst Rowan nodded his head profusely in agreement. "She's crying about it,"

"No, you're right," agreed Saffron. "I'll talk to Ron about it,"

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"She was crying, Ron, crying," Saffron hissed at Ron when they were walking up the spiral staircase in pursuit of the Astronomy tower. The pair of them brought up the rear of the pack of Gryffindors. The Gryffindors, as per usual, walked at a funeral pace to get to the class and the staircase proved to be their biggest test during every lesson. Hermione was the only one who seemed to have the energy to get up them briskly, but at this point in their school life, even she didn't care how slow the class went.

"I don't know what I can do about it," Ron told her honestly. "She won't talk to me about much, and I can't exactly tell Fred and Geroge to stop, they'll kill me,"

"Then tell Percy to tell them to stop," Saffron suggested, as they saw the first bit of natural light signalling the arrival to the classroom on top of the tower. "They already slag him enough, but he'll get them to stop if he threatens to owl your parents,"

"I'll do that," nodded Ron, amazed at how upset Ginny was. "Crying in the hallways, Merlin, who is this Ginny?"

Saffron made her way over to Olly and Padma, her Ravenclaw friends and designated seating partners in the class, to find that, yet again, they were having a disagreement over something.

"Saffron," said Padma with a grin. "I'm glad you're here, could you please tell Olly that Loony Lovegood's necklace is a scam and that he didn't need to pay her two sickles for her protection from the beast of Hogwarts,"

Olly rolled his eyes at her. "First of all, don't call her Loony. Her name's Luna and secondly, I need protection more than you do since I'm Muggle-born," He then pulled down his shirt ever so slightly so Saffron could see the necklace properly. It was made out of several asphodels strung together neatly. A sizeable amount of shamrocks were bunched together as the centrepiece. "And thirdly, I think it looks cool, don't you think?"

Saffron grinned at how Padma was mouthing "No" to her but she told Olly what he wanted to hear.

"I think it suits you,"

"See!" Olly gloated to Padma triumphantly, and it was then that Saffron wasn't entirely sure if he was being sarcastic or not. "If Saffron says it looks cool, then it looks cool,"

"If you say so, Olls," Padma said with a chuckle. She then spoke to Saffron directly. "Luna's been trying to sell anyone who'll listen, which is very few people, these necklaces, she claims they protect everyone from the monster in the Chamber of Secrets but nobody's really buying it - the story or the product. The poor things wasting her time,"

"How's she wasting her time when I bought three of them off her?" Olly questioned with what Saffron felt certain of this time was a hint of defensiveness. He seemed to be somewhat protective of this Luna girl. "That's eight sickles she's earned, I think that's pretty good considering she made them for nothing,"

"What did you buy three for?" asked Saffron conversationally.

"One for me," Olly counted them on his fingers. "One for my little brother back home, and then one for Padma," Padma rolled her eyes at him making Olly raise his eyebrows. "Who said no, as did Terry, Lisa, Anthony, Michael, Sue and Isobel, but, if you'd like to be . . . " Yet again, he counted the number of people he listed on his fingers again to be sure. "Eighth person in line to get it, by all means,"

He leaned over on his beanbag to his bag and opened the front pocket, taking out one of Luna Lovegood's homemade necklaces. Saffron wasn't entirely sure what to say at first seeing as Padma was mouthing "Say no," at her again but when she saw the necklace on Olly's hand she couldn't resist.

"Thank you, Olly,"