If Hermione had not still been thinking about it,
if Hermione's Polyjuice Potion had not already been brewed,
if a first-year Gryffindor student-Colin Creevey-and a cat-Mrs. Norris-had not still been lying in the Hospital Wing,
Harry might already have forgotten all about the Chamber of Secrets and the heir.
Things had been far too busy lately. Even without the mountains of homework for every subject, Oliver's punishing Quidditch training schedule alone had left Harry and Ron struggling to cope.
But Harry and Ron both knew full well that, with Hermione's serious nature, there was no getting out of this. Yet even though they had known it would happen, they still could not help feeling a little nervous when the time actually came.
It was the second weekend after Christmas.
Today was the first of Slytherin and Ravenclaw's two back-to-back Quidditch matches this term. During the previous term, neither house team's results had met their expectations.
Ravenclaw had what was considered the best lineup of Chasers in the school, yet they had lost both matches in the first half of the school year and now sat at the bottom of the standings.
Slytherin's players were fairly good themselves, and they even had a full seven Nimbus 2000 and One broomsticks, but their results were only slightly better than Ravenclaw's, leaving them in third place.
Even Hufflepuff, whom they had never taken seriously, were currently ahead of them on points. For the proud Slytherins, that was hard to tolerate.
Under these circumstances, both teams placed great importance on winning the upcoming match, especially Slytherin. If they kept losing even with their new broomsticks, they would probably be laughed out of Hogwarts.
And the person under the greatest pressure on the Slytherin Quidditch Team was undoubtedly Draco Malfoy, although, since the whole team