Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [2]

⚡️ Chapter 31 ⚡️

Vega smoothed it out gently and looked down at it. Harry and Ron leaned on from her either side to read, too.

Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or deadlier than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.

And beneath this, a single word had been written, in a handwriting that Vega quickly recognised as Hermione's –

Pipes.

"A Basilisk, of course!" Vega breathed as she stared at it. "I have read about it in Fantastic Beasts all the time! It was first created by Herpo the Foul and lived for nine hundred years. No wonder Harry and I can understand... I can't believe there's a Basilisk inside the castle..."

"It says that anyone who meets eyes with it dies," Harry whispered, pointing it out on the torn paper. "No one we know has died so far, Vega, only petrified,"

At this, Vega was momentarily silenced as she furrowed her eyebrows and bit her lower lip, concentrating. Then her light eyes widened in realisation and she turned to look at them again.

"Of course!" Vega gasped. "There's a reason why no one died – no one looked the beast in the eyes directly so they only got petrified by its murderous gaze, of course,"

"What do you mean?" Ron asked. "How did they see the snake's eyes but didn't die?"

"Look at it this way," Vega said urgently. "Only Sir Nicholas saw the beast in the eye, and because he was already dead, he couldn't die – and Justin must've seen it through his body. Colin saw it through his camera... and Hermione and Penelope must've seen it around the corner in the mirror!"

Harry and Ron stared at her with their jaws dropped.

"And Mrs. Norris?" Ron whispered eagerly. "There wasn't anything like that night, was there?"

"That night..." Vega said slowly as she racked her brains. "Right! Myrtle flooded the bathroom that day, didn't she? There was water all over the corridor... and Mrs. Norris must've seen it through the water – reflection,"

"That basically explains it," Harry said, shocked. "What else can we figure out from this?"

"Well... um..." Vega mumbled as she looked back down on the paper. "Here... it says that rooster's cries are fatal to it," She looked up. "Hagrid's roosters were killed! Remember?"

"The Heir of Slytherin didn't want one anywhere near the castle once the Chamber was opened," Harry realised out loud and Vega nodded seriously.

"But how's the basilisk been getting around the place?" Ron questioned. "A giant snake... Someone would've seen..."

"Pipes," Vega replied, pointing out the word Hermione had scribbled at the end of the page. "Pipes... That's why Harry had been hearing that voice inside the walls..."

Ron suddenly looked at them both with wide eyes.

"The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets!" Ron exclaimed hoarsely. "What if it's a bathroom...? What if it's in –"

"Moaning Myrtle's bathroom," Harry said.

The three of them sat there, excitement coursing through them, hardly able to believe it.