The Chamber Of Secrets (A Harry Potter Rewrite)

LIAR, LIAR?

Ria was enjoying her stay at the Burrow a lot. She'd got the hang of cooking with Mrs. Weasley which was steadily becoming one of her favourite activities. The Weasley's house was always a beautiful chaos of people and things. The constant atmosphere of noise and laughter was so much like the orphanage, Ria felt right at home.

Ria really liked Ginny. She was sweet and funny with a touch of sass and was quickly becoming as important to her as the kids back at the orphanage. Her likelihood to Mel was extraordinary!

Mr. Weasley was extremely fascinated with all things muggle to the irritation of Mrs. Weasley. He kept asking Harry and Ria about everything muggle from the underground to telephones.

Ria had finally managed to get the full story about Harry, which involved a house elf hijacking his letters, delivering a cryptic warning about horrible things happening at Hogwarts and destroying a pudding that ended with Harry locked up in his room with no way out. Until the Weasleys got him out. Ria found the whole deal extremely suspicious but decided not to worry about horrible things happening at Hogwarts as long as nothing was happening.

A week into their stay, their letters from Hogwarts arrived. Ria was putting breakfast on the table with Ginny when an owl arrived with all six letters.

"Letters from school," said Mr. Weasley, passing Harry and Ron identical envelopes of yellowish parchment, addressed in green ink, once they came downstairs. "Dumbledore already knows you're here, Harry - doesn't miss a trick, that man. He sent Ria's here too. You two've got them, too," she added, as Fred and George ambled in, still in their pajamas.

Ria opened her booklist first.

SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS WILL REQUIRE:

The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 by Miranda Goshawk

Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart

Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart

Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart

Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart

Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart

Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart

Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart

Fred had finished with his booklist and was leaning over Ria's shouder looking at her's.

"You've been told to get all Lockhart's books, too!" he said. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher must be a fan - bet it's a witch."

"That lot won't come cheap," said George, with a quick look at his parents. "Lockhart's books are really expensive..."

"Well, we'll manage," said Mrs. Weasley, but she looked worried. "I expect we'll be able to pick up a lot of Ginny's things secondhand."

"Oh, are you starting at Hogwarts this year?" Harry asked Ginny.

She nodded, blushing to the roots of her flaming hair, and put her elbow in the butter dish. Fortunately no one saw this except Harry and Ria, because just then Ron's elder brother Percy walked in. He was already dressed, his Hogwarts prefect badge pinned to his sweater vest.

"Morning, all," said Percy briskly. "Lovely day."

He sat down in the only remaining chair but leapt up again almost immediately, pulling from underneath him a very ragged looking owl.

"Errol!" said Ron, taking the limp owl from Percy and extracting a letter from under its wing. "Finally - he's got Hermione's answer. I wrote to her saying we were going to try and rescue you from the Dursleys."