Harry Potter's Coolest Aunt

Aishi is Kidnapped

„Of course," she said, and Harry, amazed, saw a tear glistening in her beady eye. „Of course, I realize this has all been hardest on the friends of those who have been... I quite understand. Yes, Potter, of course, you may visit Miss Granger and Mr Nott. I will inform Professor Vasudeva where you've gone. Tell Madam Pomfrey I have given my permission."

Harry and Ron walked away, hardly daring to believe that they'd avoided detention. As they turned the corner, they distinctly heard Professor McGonagall blow her nose.

„That," said Draco fervently, „was the best story you've ever come up with." They had no choice now but to go to the hospital wing and tell Madam Pomfrey that they had Professor McGonagall's permission to visit Hermione. Madam Pomfrey let them in, but reluctantly.

„There's just no point talking to a Petrified, persons," she said, and they had to admit she had a point when they'd taken their seats next to Hermione and Theo. It was plain that they didn't have the faintest clue that they had visitors and might just as well tell their bedside cabinet not to worry for all the good it would do.

„Wonder if they did see the attacker, though?" said Ron, looking sadly at Hermione's rigid face. „Because if he sneaked up on them all, no one'll ever know..."

But Harry wasn't looking at Hermione's face. He was more interested in her right hand. It lay clenched on top of her blankets and bending closer, he saw that a piece of paper was scrunched inside her fist. Making sure that Madam Pomfrey was nowhere near, he pointed this out to the others.

„Go and get it out," Ron whispered, shifting his chair so that he blocked Harry from Madam Pomfrey's view. It was no easy task. Hermione's hand was clamped so tightly around the paper that Harry was sure he would tear it. While Ron kept watch he tugged and twisted with Blaise and Draco's help, and at last, after several tense minutes, the paper came free.

It was a page torn from a very old library book. Harry smoothed it out eagerly and the others leaned close to read it, too.

Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly 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 hand Blaise recognized as Theo's. Pipes. It was as though somebody had just flicked a light on in harry's brain.

„Guys," he breathed. „This is it. This is the answer. The monster in the Chamber's a basilisk giant serpent! That's why I've been hearing that voice all over the place, and nobody else has heard it. It's because I understand Parseltongue..."

Harry looked up at the beds around him.„The basilisk kills people by looking at them. But no one's died because no one looked it straight in the eye. Colin saw it through his camera. The basilisk burned up all the film inside it, but Colin just got Petrified. Justin... Justin must've seen the basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick! Nick got the full blast of it, but he couldn't die again... and Hermione, Theo, and that Ravenclaw prefect were found with a mirror next to them. Hermione had just realized the monster was a basilisk. I bet you anything they warned the first person she met to look around corners with a mirror first! And that girl pulled out her mirror and-"

Ron's jaw had dropped. „And Mrs. Norris?" Draco whispered eagerly. Harry thought hard, picturing the scene on the night of Halloween. „The water..." he said slowly. „The flood from Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. I bet you Mrs. Norris only saw the reflection..."