Basalisk
“Basilisk!”
Professor Dumbledore appeared from the innermost part of his office, a strange serene frown painting his face. He opened his mouth. It was Professor McGonagall’s voice Holly heard, not his. “All students are to make their way back to the house common rooms, where their heads of houses will give them further information. As quickly as you can, please!”
Holly stared at Professor Dumbledore. He gave her a sympathetic smile. “Alas, Holly, I do believe that thought will have to wait. You are needed back in the Slytherin common room. Off you go, Holly, quickly, if you will.” He was practically shoving her out of his office.
“But sir!” She persisted, trying in vain to tell him what she had realized. It was no use at all. Eventually, it was all she could do to descend the spiraling hidden stairwell and start making her way back to her common room.
Holly caught up to her housemates a few sets of stairs below the great hall. She hurried through the crowd of Slytherins and Hufflepuffs until she found her little group. “Tracey!” She hissed, desperately, “I know what the monster is!”
Tracey barely heard her. She looked frantic. “Have you seen Ginny?” She asked, looking wildly around for their younger friend. “I was hoping she was with you - Daphne and I can’t find her anywhere!”
There was nothing they could do. There were several teachers ensuring they went directly to their house common rooms and nowhere else. Holly was beginning to fear the worst, when they entered the common room and Ginny still hadn’t joined their group, but she instantly breathed a sigh of relief because there, curled up on one of the sofa’s, was Ginny, half fast asleep under a throw blanket, clutching a black leather book.
Holly nudged Tracey and pointed at the book. “I thought she got rid of that?” She whispered, feeling as though all the blood was draining from her. The pieces were starting to fit together but she hated the picture they formed.
“So did I.” Tracey frowned.
“Attention, students,” Professor Snape’s familiar drawl drew their attention. “A parchment with all your names is being sent around. Please sign that you are present while I go over the new school rules. All students are to return to their house common rooms by six o'clock every night. No student is to leave their dormitories after that time. You shall be escorted to each lesson by a teacher. All further quidditch training and matches will be, henceforth, postponed. There shall be no further evening activities.”
Holly signed her name on the sheet when it went around, then she pulled Tracey to a secluded part of the dormitories, checked Draco was not listening in, and told her what she knew. “It’s a basilisk! Or, at least, I’m pretty sure… we can check… I think the diary has something to do with it! I just don’t know what!” She explained.
“We’ll tell Snape!” Tracey said, instantly believing Holly, and starting to pull her back to their teacher.
“No!” Holly almost screamed. “Are you crazy? He’ll never belive us without proof! Besides, I don’t trust him…”
Tracey looked puzzled, but she nodded her acceptance of this anyway. “Alright. Then we’ll tell Dumbledore in the morning. He’ll definitely be able to help!”
But they never got to talk to Dumbledore the next day because he had been suspended. Hagrid was gone too, to Azkaban, Draco kept saying. He was all too thrilled about both their departures, but as usual, Pansy was the worst. She had taken to chanting “mudblood’s, mudblood’s, down with dirty mudblood’s!” Whenever she thought the teacher’s (barring Snape who she made no effort to hide it from and who never seemed to punish her at all for it) weren't listening.
“Oh would you shut your mouth? What are you even on about anyway? Rosier was a pure blood!” Blaise Zabini snapped at her one day over breakfast. Holly was surprised to hear him object at all, but then, he was a bit like Daphne, never really buying into all that nonsense but also, scarcely willing to stand out from the crowd.
“A blood-traitor, more like!” Goyal laughed, and then shoved an entire waffle into his mouth in one bite, barely noticing the syrup dripping down his chin. Crabbe laughed too hard at that and Holly had to wipe the food that flew out of his mouth off of her face since she was stuck sitting across from him.
Millicent had a smile like a frog with teeth. “She was just as bad as granger, if you ask me!” She added, not quite managing primness as well as Pansy or Tracey could when they were going toe-to-toe. “Weren’t they your friends, Potter? Maybe you’ll get to join them soon!”
Daphne, the queen of primness herself, set her silverwhear down and stared at Millicent. “That was crass, Millicent.” She said, simply.
Millicent scoffed.
Pansy rolled her eyes. “Oh pick a side, Greengrass! You’ll have to unless you want to end up like Rosier!” She snapped. Crabbe and Goyle cakled while millicent snorted un-prettilly. “Mudblood’s Mudblood’s you’re just as bad as mudblood’s!” Pansey sang.
Holly clenched her fists. “Shut up you pigs!” She spat. “Just shut your mouths about Isolde and Hermione! And the others, for that matter! You’re all just disgusting, fat, pigs!”
“Cool it, Potter, they were just teasing,” Heather thatcham scolded from a little ways down the table. She looked utterly unbothered by either side of the argument as if all of this was nothing but a mild inconvenience to her.
Marcus Flint grinned down the table at all of them, shark-like. “I don’t know, Heather, I want to see where this goes!” He laughed, as though they were all nothing more than a television program to him.
Heather scrunched her face up. “Pass the butter,” she said, blandly. Flint passed her the butter and they went back to their own conversation, up at the head of the table.
Ginny got up from the table and hugged the creepy diary to her chest. She stood near Holly, shifting from foot to foot. Then she saw Pansy mocking her across the table and ran off. Holly frabbed Tracey and ran after Ginny. This proved to be quite the task actually, because they lost her almost as soon as they'd left the Great Hall. “you go down, I’ll go up.” Holly suggested, “I'm scared of what that book, or the monster could do to her!”
So they split up. Holly went to all the logical places first. The library, the hospital wing, classrooms, bathrooms. She spent hours, searching, only for Ginny to walk right past her with a bucket of dark red liquid and an unseeing, glassy look in her eye. She was about to call out to her, try to snap her out of it, demand what she was in that bucket, something-
Holly was pulled back behind an arched corner. “Shh!” Tracey hissed. “I found her right away, sitting and writing in the book. Then after an hour she just got up and it was like she wasn’t even there… I… think if we follow, we’ll get the answers we need…”
“Wha…” Holly eyed the bucket. “What’s in the… the..?”
“Pig’s blood.”
They followed Ginny to the place where the first victim, Mrs. Norris was found on Halloween. Ginny set the bucket down, opened it, and stuck her hand in, using her fingers to smear a new phrase under the last.
Her skeleton will lay in the chamber forever.
Then, they watched as Ginny picked up the bucket and carried it into the nearest bathroom, the creepy haunted one that everybody avoided, dumped it down the drain and then turned to the old sinks and began to speak in a voice that was not quite hers. “Open,” she hissed, and the sinks began to transform.
Holly took Tracey’s hand and ran out of the bathroom, straight into Draco. “Move!” she shouted at him, running for help.
“Draco don’t go in there! You’ll get petrified!” Tracey screamed, forcing Holly to stop.
Draco tried to scoff but he looked about as terrified as Holly felt. “The Weasley girl?” he said, faintly, holding the door open to see.
Holly went back and dragged him away. “No, not Ginny. This is all the work of that creepy diary your father put in her cauldron at the start of term!” she snapped.
“I thought… I thought it was you!” draco cried. “After Rosier, I thought if I caught you-”
Holly suddenly felt a strange sort of calm fall over her. “I know, Draco, but now that you know the truth you can either help me save her, or get out of my way!” Draco calmed himself and nodded. “Good, now we’re going to get the teachers because none of us stand a chance against a basilisk.”