Chapter Text
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 a fourth graders, 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.
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 girl’s 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 ...