Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor am I attempting to make any personal gain from this story.

Harry Slithers-in: Companion Stories: Chapter 2.2: Draco and Snape

Draco POV

The year started well for Draco. His father had provided Slytherin with a team set of Nimbus 2001 brooms, the best racing broom available and, as a reward, he was now seeker for the Slytherin Quidditch team. Unfortunately he was made to look a fool in their first match and was promptly dropped; much to his annoyance.

Before that happened, however, somebody had apparently opened the legendary Chamber of Secrets, a secret room rumoured to have been built by Salazar Slytherin himself. Writing had been scrawled on the wall to this effect and, as if to emphasise the fact, a cat belonging to the school's caretaker Argus Filch had been petrified and left hanging from a torch bracket.

After Slytherin's defeat by Hufflepuff a student had been attacked causing a wave of paranoia amongst muggleborn students. Draco couldn't help finding this amusing although it seemed almost no-one else agreed with him.

The next Saturday Gryffindor defeated Ravenclaw but it was after the match that the students suffered another shock. A Gryffindor 1st year had been attacked and petrified. It seemed the camera he was holding had saved his life, although the film was totally destroyed so there was no evidence of who (or what) had attacked him.

Malfoy made his opinions clear in the Common Room when Snape came to tell them of the attack. "Sir," he began, "it seems to me that only mu-ggle-borns are being attacked. Shouldn't we all be safe from attack because of our blood status?"

Snape glared at Malfoy, something he had never done before. "Do you have any information that may be relevant to this matter?"

"No, sir," Malfoy replied.

"Then kindly keep your opinions to yourself. The staff and pupils already suspect that it is a Slytherin who is responsible. I sincerely hope this is not the case since our house is already viewed with suspicion and distrust by the other houses. Already there have been calls for all Slytherin students to be suspended until the culprit is caught. Fortunately wiser heads prevailed and no such action is planned at present."

A couple of weeks later an incident occurred in potions. Draco was working with Theodore Nott on the table next to Crabbe and Goyle. Knowing how unskilled the two boys were they were occasionally checking their work to see if anything was amiss but everything seemed to be alright until suddenly there was a loud bang. Somehow Goyle had managed to cause his potion to explode and everybody around them, Draco and Theo included, were drenched in the nearly finished potion.

"Everybody who has been affected by the potion please line up calmly and quietly so I may administer the antidote," Snape said over the noise.

Draco and Theo managed to get near the front of the queue where they received their dose of the antidote before returning to their table while it took effect.

Once everyone was back to normal Snape dipped a ladle into Goyle's destroyed cauldron and fished around until he scooped something out of it. Draco could see it was clearly the remains of an exploded firecracker. He felt a surge of anger when he realised it had been a deliberate act of sabotage.

Snape was just as angry. "When I find out who is responsible for this," he began in a deathly whisper that nonetheless everybody heard, "I shall personally see that they are expelled." The last part was spoken in a much louder voice.

Back in the Common Room there was much anger over this deliberate act of sabotage.

"We know it was a Gryffindor who threw that cracker," Draco said. "That whole class of Gryffindors should be suspended until the person responsible confesses, then that person should be expelled."

"Don't those idiots even realise how dangerous that sort of thing is?" Theo said.

"Of course they don't. All Gryffindors are stupid," Pansy replied.

"And Goyle's cauldron is liable to explode anyway, even without that kind of stupidity," Blaise put in.

"No it isn't," Goyle said.

"Yes it is Goyle," Draco replied, scathingly. "Go read a comic while we sort out what we're going to do."

"I only wish we could prove which one of them did it," Theo said.

"Whoever it was they must be really stupid," Harry added. "Crabbe and Goyle copped the worst of it but Tracey and I got badly hit too. In fact over half the class was injured because of their stupidity."

"So did we," Theo added.

"How many of those who were hit with the potion were Gryffindors? Blaise asked.

"Not many. At least it looked like most of those lining up for the antidote were Slytherins, there weren't many Gryffindors in the group," Theo replied.

"But there were some though, right?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, one or two," Theo replied. "Undoubtedly most of the victims were Slytherins and all those badly affected were Slytherins. The Gryffindors who needed antidote seemed only to have been hit by stray splashes of potion, not direct contact with it."

"We know a Gryffindor was responsible. I think we should concentrate our efforts into finding who did it and then finding a way to target that person specifically," Harry put in. "I doubt Snape would stop us taking revenge on an individual if we could prove they were responsible."

"Do you think there might be a way to trick whoever is responsible into revealing themselves?" Daphne asked.

"Probably not," Malfoy said, "but there are other things we could try. I know Snape has several strong truth potions in his office. If one of us could sneak in there and 'borrow' some we could put it in the Gryffindor's food and ask them."

'What types of potions does Snape have?" asked Harry.

"He's bound to have some Veritaserum. I think that's the strongest and most reliable potion available for use in interrogations," Draco said.

"Okay, even if we manage to get some, don't you think it likely Snape will notice if something like that goes missing?" Theo asked.

"We could replace it with something that looks the same. Hopefully it would take him a while realise a switch had been made," Draco told the others but clearly many disagreed with him.

"Snape would probably know the moment someone entered his office or storeroom," Theo said. "I wouldn't be surprised if the doors were booby-trapped to set off an alarm the moment someone entered one of them without permission."

"I daresay Theo's right there, Malfoy," Harry added.

"Even if they aren't booby-trapped I'm sure he'd notice if one of his potions vials was moved even an inch from where they normally are," Theo continued.

"We need a better plan," said Daphne. "Anyway, even if we did manage to get some of the potion and identified which one of them was responsible, whoever we tell is going to want to know how we found out who it was. How will we explain that?" Everyone realised Daphne was right.

Soon after they learnt that a duelling club was being set up. Almost everybody decided to join but they were very disappointed to discover Professor Lockhart would be running it. Inevitably the club was a disaster that ended with Harry having to speak to a snake that Lockhart had aggravated to stop it attacking a student. As of this moment the whole school knew Harry was a Parselmouth and immediately many people accused him of setting Slytherin's monster onto muggleborns.

The last day of term saw another student attacked. Pansy Parkinson was first to discover the victim and she was taken to Dumbledore's office for an interview and when she returned she said the staff were looking at closing the school.

Christmas holidays were upon them. There were only about 30 students staying for Christmas with half of them being Slytherins. It seemed most other students were afraid of staying behind. This meant that Draco started hanging out with Harry and Tracey whenever he wanted intelligent conversation.

After the Christmas feast Crabbe and Goyle stayed in the Hall eating while everybody else returned to the Common Room. After a while Draco decided to find them. He met them while they were being interrogated by Percy Weasley about being in the halls so late. Draco was more interested in why Weasley was there but let it rest.

Back in the Common Room Tracey Davis excused herself to go somewhere and soon after Crabbe and Goyle hurried off to the hospital wing saying they felt ill. Not long afterward they returned along with Tracey who said she had found them locked in a broom cupboard. Draco groaned at their stupidity.

Nothing of consequence happened until Valentine's Day. When Draco and his fellow Slytherins entered the Great Hall for breakfast they thought they had entered the wrong room. Everywhere they looked were the most garish pink hangings while at every table there were hundreds of pink, heart shaped pieces of paper.

At the teacher's table Professor Lockhart, dressed in hideous, lurid pink robes, stood up. "Happy Valentine's Day,' he said loudly. "Firstly I would like to thank the 46 people who have already sent me Valentine's Day cards. As you can see ('All too well,' Harry muttered from nearby) I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise." Lockhart spread his arms as if encompassing the room, highlighting the decorations. "And it doesn't stop there."

Lockhart clapped his hands and a dozen surly looking dwarves wearing golden wings and carrying harps marched into the room.

"My friendly, card carrying cupids. Over the day they will be roving the castle delivering personal Valentine's Day messages to lucky students." Draco groaned. He hoped Pansy didn't decide to send him one.

Somebody did decide to send Harry one, however. Draco was laughing when he noticed something that had fallen out of Harry's bag; a diary.

"Hey Potter I didn't know you kept a diary," he said loudly.

Tracey lunged at him and grabbed the diary away from him. "Oh I see," Draco said. "Davis doesn't want us to find out her dirty little secrets."

Tracey kicked him in the shin. "It's none of your business, Malfoy. And I hope this singing Valentine wasn't your idea."

"Of course it wasn't," Malfoy said angrily, rubbing his shin. "It seems Potter didn't think your card was funny, Weasley."

Harry and Tracey followed his gaze and saw Ginny Weasley looking horrified. She turned and bolted away down the corridor. Draco, meanwhile limped into the classroom before sitting down using his wand to blow cold air over the bruise.

Draco had lost his place on the Quidditch team so he was forced to watch the match against Gryffindor. Harry played well and caught the snitch, much to Draco's disappointment, although he still congratulated Harry.

Starting in 3rd year all students were required to choose a minimum of two new subjects out of a pool of five subjects that were taught to older students. Draco told Harry to be careful with what he chose.

"No Slytherin in their right mind takes Muggle Studies," Draco began as he threw the brochure for that subject into the fire. "And divination is for losers so that's not really an option either, unless you're Crabbe or Goyle."

Several older students snickered quietly as Crabbe and Goyle looked around, confused.

Ultimately, Draco chose Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures.

A conversation at Easter told Draco that Harry Potter had now taken control of Slytherin's monster, which he said was a basilisk, and that it would not attack anybody else. Although disappointed, Draco wasn't surprised.

After Dumbledore announced the mystery of the Chamber had been solved Draco tried to get Harry to tell him the whole story but Harry refused saying the matter was closed. Draco was disappointed but took comfort from the fact the basilisk was still there, even if it was sealed away.

Snape POV

Severus Snape sat in his office. He was finishing up some work for Madam Pomfrey who had asked him to restock some of her medicinal potions. It was routine work but he wanted to finish as soon as possible so he wouldn't be late for the welcoming feast. He hoped this year wouldn't produce any surprises like the previous year had. Snape had never expected Harry Potter would be in his house but it had happened and now he was stuck with the brat.

Happily for Snape this time this time there were no surprises; he got all the students he expected and no others so he settled back for another quiet year although, with Gilderoy Lockhart now teaching as well, he knew some things were bound to go badly wrong. Snape couldn't understand why Dumbledore had employed the fool instead of allowing him to teach the subject. There were other competent potion makers available who could teach students but Dumbledore just ignored them.

Around Halloween things started going wrong. As students and staff were leaving the Great Hall they discovered Mrs. Norris, Filch's cat, had been attacked and petrified. On the wall was a note stating the Chamber of Secrets had been opened.

Between then and Christmas three students and the Gryffindor ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, were petrified. Snape found himself busy protecting some of his students from threats and accusations from students of other houses while trying to find out if it was one of his students who was responsible. Things were not helped in this respect when Harry Potter revealed during a duelling club meeting that he was a Parselmouth, although this did lead to his other students no longer being threatened by their peers.

After Christmas things went quiet again with nothing significant happening until after Valentine's Day. Not long after this day Tracey Davis and Harry Potter, accompanied by Theodore Nott, came to his office claiming they had solved the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets.

When they mentioned the monster was a basilisk Snape decided to contact Professor Dumbledore. After the Headmaster had arrived they listened to the full story. Snape was surprised and impressed by his students' efforts but kept it to himself. The meeting ended with a plan to kill the basilisk.

On the first Saturday of the 3rd term Snape, along with Dumbledore and Harry, entered the Chamber and killed the basilisk.

Near the end of the year Snape finally received some good news. Professor Lockhart had been arrested and his lies exposed. With him gone Snape finally thought he would have a chance to relax and get into his regular routine, something he was very happy about.