Having the Gryffindor common room to themselves was great. Harry enjoyed playing wizard chess with Ron and listening to the noise of Fred and George’s experiments.
With Percy safely out of the way, patrolling the empty corridors, everyone else could relax a little.
Hermione was distracted from the twins’ wrongdoing by helping Ginny with her homework. “No, see, if you want to turn an earthworm into a snake, you have to ... oh!” Hermione got up. “Sorry Ginevra, I just remembered something – I have to look it up in the library – I’m almost sure ...”
“What’s gotten into you?”, Harry asked curiously.
“I think I know what Slytherin’s monster is”, she said in a rather loud whisper. “And I might have figured out how it moves through the school, even. If I’m right, it will be easily defeated. I need to look it up!” And with that, she ran to the portrait hole and out of the common room.
Harry couldn’t focus on chess after that, but as it turned out, Ron couldn’t either.
“I wonder what’s gotten into Hermione”, Ron said as they put the chess pieces away. “If I think about it, she’s been acting strange ever after she talked to Professor McGonagall.”
“She doesn’t seem upset.“ She had claimed Professor McGonagall had just informed her that Professor Snape was likely to give her bad grades for essays that were too long, as he was very busy and didn’t like having to read so much.
Which was rather useful information, if you thought about it.
“Not upset, but she just ... doesn’t behave like herself.”
Harry nodded. Going to the library was a very Hermione thing to do, but still ... he couldn’t put his finger on it, she was acting strangely. “Perhaps actually all the teachers complained about her essays and she’s just, like, trying to keep a stiff upper lip?”
“Could be, but she really didn’t seem upset. More as if she knows something’s going to happen, perhaps? I don’t know. Can’t imagine anyone but Snape complained. Flitwick loves her essays, I’ve heard him say so. Her vocabulary and phrasing is more like that of someone in fourth year, he says.” And for all his complaining about Hermione’s obsession with learning, Ron sounded quite proud of being friends with such a genius.
Harry hid a smile, but his thoughts soon returned to how strange Hermione had acted. Something in how she had talked to Ginny ...
They played Exploding Snap with Fred and George – Ginny had left the common room somewhen after Hermione, no one had really paid attention – and when Percy returned and announced that it was only half an hour to curfew and asked if they knew where Ginny was, Ron and Harry looked at each other.
“Can’t help you with Ginny”, Harry said. “Perhaps in the girls’ dorm?”
“Probably”, Ron agreed. “Hermione is in the library. Must have forgotten the time. We’ll fetch her.“
When they were halfway to the library, Harry thought of something. “What if she isn’t in the library? What if she’s in some girls’ toilet? You know, if she’s really upset ...”
“She isn’t upset”, Ron insisted. “There’s something else going on. She looked like – like something was going to happen. Oh damn!”
„What? What is it?“
„She spoke really loudly. I figure she wanted us to follow her so she could tell us about the monster. And we didn’t.“
„But she didn’t ask us to!“
“Yeah, that’s strange”, Ron agreed.
When they ran into Hermione halfway to the library, she didn’t seem pleased to meet them. “What are you doing here?”, she asked sternly, lowering the book she had been reading while walking.
“We’ve been worried about you”, Harry explained. “I thought perhaps you’re upset because Snape complained about your essays, and ...”
“That’s ... that’s nice of you, but you shouldn’t have ... Harry, the monster, it’s a basilisk. You mustn’t look it in the eyes. A look in its eyes can kill you. You shouldn’t ever look at anything you see, look at the floor. You too, We- Ronald. Eyes to the floor.”
“Come on, Hermione, it is not going to attack us right now”, Ron said, but Harry could tell from his tone that he did as Hermione had told them, too.
“No time to explain. Eyes to the floor, now!”
And then Harry heard it.
“This time you will be able to feast. It seems she has company ... I hope they are mudbloods, too. They need to die.”
“Behind me”, Hermione hissed, and her tone was so commanding Harry was behind her before he could even think about it. “Close your eyes!”
There was a noise, a noise Harry knew – a snake slithering on stone floor.
“Hermione!” With closed eyes, wand drawn, Harry stumbled towards the snake.
Everything happened very fast. Before Harry could get out any spell, there was a sharp pain in his arm.
A rooster crowed.
“It is dead”, a faint voice said.
There was a flash of red light.
“Ginny! What’d you do to Ginny?”
A whispering voice.
“Moron! Idiot! Imbecile!“
Snape. Harry would have smiled if not for the pain in his arm. Snape was here, they’d all get detention until summer, but they were safe.
Harry sank to his knees, not able to withstand the pain any longer. It felt as if his arm had been set on fire.
“Severus!” Was that Hermione’s voice? But that made no sense, not sense at all. „It is not their fault that they were worried about Miss Granger.“ Definitely not her. McGonagall, then? She was the only one who’d dare scold Snape.
“Why couldn’t the halfwit have listened to you?” Harry felt arms around his shoulders, soft fabric touched his face. “Basilisk venom - ”
Something was pressed to Harry’s lips. “Swallow.”
He did his best, even though the stone was rather too large, and finally he managed. By now, he felt rather drowsy. The basilisk’s venom must be really bad.
“Sir? How bad is it? Can you save Harry?” Ron’s voice had the eerie calm that Harry remembered from the giant chess game, before Ron had sacrificed himself.
Raindrops fell on his face. Rain ... there was something strange about that, some reason why it shouldn’t be raining, but Harry couldn’t remember why. All he could focus on was the burning pain in his arm.
That, and someone touching his hair, gently, distracting him from the pain a little bit. He must be hallucinating. His mother might have touched him like that, but no one else, no one here. No one still alive.
“Idiot boy.” Snape sounded strange. Very strange. Not angry anymore. Just …
For a moment, Harry must have passed out. The next thing he knew, the rain was getting stronger, drop after drop fell on the wound on his arm, soothing the pain.
“Why is it crying?” Ron’s voice trembled. „Is Harry …?“
„Phoenix tears“, Snape said softly. “A powerful antidote. Harry might yet survive.” Fingers touched his wound, but it felt numb now. Fabric tore. More rain fell on it. No, not rain. Phoenix tears.
Oh. Of course. It hadn’t rained. It didn’t rain indoors.
„Here.“ Someone removed his glasses. Snape? „He won’t be needing those for a while.“
When Harry finally got around to opening his eyes, everything was blurry. He was lying on a stretcher of some sort, and next to him was another stretcher with a blurry, red-headed figure that he figured must be Ginny, as another red-head was kneeling next to her. Ron?
“Where’s Hermione?”
“Miss Granger is quite safe in my rooms”, Hermione – no, Professor McGonagall said. “She was never here to begin with.”
Hermione was safe. Good.
„Wait, what?“ Ron sounded as confused as Harry felt. „Your rooms? Then you are … who are you?“
“Why, Minerva McGonagall, of course.“
“I see not everything has gone according to plan”, a gentle voice said. Dumbledore! “How is Harry?”
“Barely alive”, Snape replied sharply. “I should have known he would find a way to get himself killed.”
“Take him to the Hospital Wing, then. I will dispose of the basilisk.”
Harry was only half aware of what was going on around him. Snape talking to Madam Pomfrey. “ ... girl has been possessed, I advise caution ... bitten by a basilisk, I gave him a bezoar, hope that phoenix knows what it is doing ..”
Time passed, voices became indecipherable noises. He felt someone hold the wrist of his uninjured arm, someone smoothing his blanket ...
He must have dozed off at some point.
“Oh Harry!”
He blinked. „Hermione? Is that you?“
„Yes – you aren’t blind, are – oh, how silly I am, here.“ Something moved in front of his face, and then he had his glasses on and could see her clearly.
“What happened?”, Harry asked.
“I don’t know! Professor McGonagall asked me to give her one of my hairs so she could use Polyjuice to become me and set a trap for Slytherin’s monster, and then of course I had to wait in her rooms so there wouldn’t be two of me walking around, and the next thing I know is being told by me that you are in the Hospital Wing because you tried to help me!”
“Polyjuice?” Things started to make sense. Ron complaining that Hermione didn’t seem like herself ... “They planned a trap ... I messed everything up.”
“You didn’t! It still worked. No one blames you and Ron for being there, you couldn’t have known.“
„No one? Snape sure sounded like he blames me.“ And probably Ron, too, but he had seemed mainly angry at Harry.
“Yeah, he was totally out of his mind.” Ron sat on the other side of his bed. “Screaming insults at Harry, you know, as if Harry wanted to get bitten. When he grabbed Harry, I thought at first he was going to kill him!”
Harry couldn’t remember being grabbed. “He made me eat a stone”, he recalled. The voice telling him to swallow had been Snape’s.
“A bezoar. Of course!” Hermione exclaimed. „That’s a lot faster than brewing an antidote. You were lucky he found you so fast!“
“He didn’t find Harry”, Ron said slowly. “It was like he was there the moment you – I mean, McGonagall – told me I could open my eyes again. One moment I was there, trying to stun the monster with my eyes closed, next thing I know, Ginny’s on the floor and Snape is yelling insults.”
“Is Ginny okay?“ Ron had called her name, he remembered now.
“Not exactly okay, but ...” Ron shrugged.
Harry propped himself up on his uninjured arm and looked around. Ginny was in the bed next to his. Percy was kneeling beside the bed, quietly talking to her.
“That’s why I wasn’t with you the whole time. I kinda wanted to see what Madam Pomfrey was doing with you, but Ginny was there, too, and then Snape told me to go sit with my sister, and I figured with the two of them fussing over you, I’d not be much of a help, anyway.”
“Fussing? Snape?”
“I don’t know. He sat there, telling Madam Pomfrey what to do, complaining about you, and ... I think he was holding your hand, but I must be misremembering, why would he do that?”
“He might have been checking Harry’s pulse”, Hermione said after a while.
Right. That made sense.
„What happened to Ginny?“ She shouldn’t even have been there!
“Got hit by a stunner, and I think Snape mentioned something about her being possessed? She was totally panicked when she woke up, I’m glad Percy is here, he’s much better at calming her down.”
Dumbledore arrived shortly afterwards, a red bird perched on his shoulder.
“I owe all of you an apology”, he said gently. “First of all, Ginevra, I am very sorry I had to leave Tom’s diary in your possession and, consequently, you in his possession. All the times you cannot remember what you did, I am afraid, were his doing.”
“With all due respect, Headmaster ...” Percy got up. “What the bloody hell were you thinking?”, he yelled. “Ginny is devastated! She thinks she’s the Heir of Slytherin! How could you?”
“Taking away the diary would have meant leaving the monster to roam the castle. My plan to defeat the monster was rather flawed, I have to admit in retrospect. My apologies to the both of you”, Dumbledore said, turning to face Harry and Ron. “For asking Professor McGonagall to impersonate your friend. We could not risk Ginevra, and therefore Tom, suspecting something was out of the ordinary, as surely would have happened if it looked like the three of you had a secret. I know it must feel rather uncomfortable to learn that someone was impersonating your friend.”
“Oh, that’s alright”, Harry said. “I mean, if we had been in your place, we’d probably have done the same.” After all, Hermione had suggested turning themselves into Malfoy’s friends with Polyjuice, and the only reason they hadn’t done that was because Ron had been afraid they might not be able to turn back.
“And I also have to thank someone”, Dumbledore continued. “Helena?”
A ghost appeared from the curtains around one of the beds. The Grey Lady! What did she have to do with it all?
“Thank you. The whole endeavour would have been infinitely more dangerous without your assistance.”
The Grey Lady inclined her head. “I did no more than my duty to the school.”
“At great risk to yourself”, Dumbledore said gently. “You see, the gallant Lady here was the one to ascertain the basilisk was dead. Had our plan failed, she would have been the one to suffer for it.”
“A basilisk’s gaze can kill you”, Hermione breathed “So that’s what happened to Nearly Headless Nick! And Justin must have seen the basilisk’s eyes through him, so he only got petrified.”
“And good thing Nick happened to be there”, Ron added. “He can’t die a second time, but Justin would’ve been dead.”
“Sir Nicholas did not just happen to be there”, the Grey Lady said, miffed. “The Headmaster asked him to escort the boy. And that he cannot die again does not take away from his noble sacrifice.“
“You think he did it on purpose?”, Hermione asked. “Look at the basilisk, I mean?”
“I heard him tell the Headmaster that he would rather die than let the child come to harm”, the Grey Lady replied. “And Sir Nicholas’ hand now rests where the hilt of his sword would have been. He met his doom bravely and with open eyes.” With that, she glided away.
Dumbledore took his leave, but not before promising Ginny that he would destroy the diary and no one would read what she had written in it.
Shortly afterwards, Professor McGonagall arrived, returned the now destroyed diary to Ginny – it looked like someone had stabbed it – and talked to Madam Pomfrey quietly.
“Miss Weasley”, Madam Pomfrey said at last. “You are free to return to Gryffindor Tower as soon as you feel up to it. I agree with Professor McGonagall that the familiar surroundings will do you good.”
“What about me?”, Harry asked when Madam Pomfrey didn’t say anything to him.
“I prefer to have you closely supervised for the night. There is no literature on the effects of basilisk venom and whether or not it is sufficiently counteracted by bezoars and phoenix tears.”
Chapter 9