Harry Potter does not belong to me. It is a wonderful masterpiece of J.K. Rowling.
Enjoy!
oMoMoM
Hogwarts' magic boils around the basilisk, trying to break the connection between himself and the broken soul. She wraps around the ropes tethering him angrily, pulling desperately at them. She attempts to reach the colorless, fragmented soul, but the soul is hiding behind another wizard, using the girl's bright essence as a shield. Hogwarts loathes to harm another, most especially one so pure. But if the events continue as they are, Tom Riddle will absorb the girl's soul into himself. He mostly has. If Hogwarts must go through the girl to stop him, she will.
Meanwhile, the basilisk is mindless, doing as ordered by the light wizard. He feels no sympathy for the dying girl, no hate at the demented, broken magic caster, nor anger at the hatchling. He simply does as told.
Eventually, the boy impales him with a sword that smells like oil. It misses his brain only because Hogwarts deflects it. She would have liked to knock the damn thing out of the boy's hand, he detachedly senses, but couldn't because the sword has an incredibly high tolerance to magic of any sort. The basilisk howls in pain, finally, finally cut form his hold because of the agony of the weapon. Hogwarts does her level best to soothe him, numb the pain, but most of her attention is on Riddle, nudging Weasley softly, reassuringly, endeavoring to make way around her and attack, punish, get him away from the children!
The basilisk retreats to his chilly pool, away from the smelly blade and the wrong wrong soul, hating he cannot see, elated that he can think again and terrified because he knows he is dying. He cannot close his mouth and it hurts too much to wrap his flexible tongue around the blade protruding through his skull. The magic Hogwarts has attached to him cannot extract the blade. She cannot grip Gryffindor's sword and does not know why since she veered the weapon off its course before so why can't she now?
The basilisk becomes numb to the water and the scents in the air have become dull and bland. His hearing is dimming too and he knows he's dying.
But Hogwarts won't have it.
She completely detaches from Riddle and congeals around the giant snake, pouring all the magic she can into every pore, every opening, and coaxes his cells into mutating. The basilisk doesn't know what she is doing, all he knows is pain and he moans for Hogwarts to help. But the school is too busy to ease his suffering.
She sends him to sleep, because that is the best way to stop the torment that is going to save him.
MoMoMo
When he comes to, his body is aching, but the sensation is distant. He is warm, a different sort of warm than simply sunning (when he was free with Salazar and could feel the sunlight, that is), like the warmth is from him even though he knows he cannot make his own heat. The next thing he realizes is that every single one of his senses have diminished (barring his eyesight; he's kind of frightened to open his eyes anyway). He takes a long, experimental breath, and discovers, yes, he can hardly tell the difference from one scent to another (he ignores how off the movement feels, deciding to find out why later). He tries his tongue, which is better at distinguishing scents anyway, and is confused when it does not reach its maximum length. It feels heavy, too, and he cannot flex it as he could before. It does not bring any scents back.
He twitches, and nearly faints from panic when he feels he has limbs. Hogwarts knows he's awake now and calms him. She saved him, he learns. But his body was too damaged, the wound nicked his brain, so she decided to "screw it" and made a new body from the materials all living things share.
She wants him to be calm.
"Calm?" He hisses back, angry that the sound is no longer as sinister as it once was, and how slurred the words are. "How can I be calm? You changed my body!"
It's because he would have died.
"So? At least I'd have-!"
But something stops him. Magic, so powerful it is black, is flickering through his blinded eyes (he now notices that there is a fabric, tight and snug, covering his shredded eyes) and dancing across his skin in an almost curious manner.
He learns from Hogwarts that it is the headmaster. That he can be trusted.
He seriously doubts that.
He desperately wants to up and slither away, but he knows he would probably fall over before he left the cushion he was placed upon. Also, he cannot slither anymore, he must walk or crawl, but he can't, so he tenses, trying not to move at all because it is so unnerving having four different things to control, not to mention the trembling fingers he once envied. Now, though, he would give almost anything for his true serpentine body.
The headmaster is an old wizard who walks with the slow pace of pained joints, but his age does not show through his magic. It is merry, touching everything around the human and pulsating with his slow, steady heartbeat. The basilisk's slightly bleached magic gathers about him protectively, and snaps at the man's curious, darker aura. The wizard's magic gets the message and withdraws, but it quivers toward him and he knows it wants to wrap around him and sense if he is a threat.
Usually, his magic pools around his eyes, ready to pluck the life from any fool thing looking at them. But he can't use his eyes even though his magic is gathered there, trying to repair the damage. Not to mention the fact that his entire bloody body has changed and he has virtually no other way to protect himself.
His slightly light magic still blanketed securely and tightly around him, Hogwarts easily slips her own magic through his defenses. She vibrates with amusement, curling teasingly over his vulnerable skin. His magic ignores her, knowing it can't really do anything about it. He hisses at her. She pokes his temple.
The headmaster speaks, but the basilisk cannot understand him, so he doesn't reply. For at least a minute, the wizard quietly talks. Annoyed, the basilisk hisses, "I cannot understand you, foolish old man." Hogwarts likes the "foolish old man" and pokes his temple again, a bit harder. He lifts his lip at her.
The man pauses, and says something else, in a tone that Salazar often used when he was saying something rhetoric. Finally, he leaves.
Only to come back, five minutes later, the boy who almost killed the King of Snakes trailing fearfully behind him.
In those five minutes, the basilisk was beginning to feel quite drowsy. He had burrowed, rather comfortable, into the warm blankets and was beginning to doze off. He trusted the castle to protect him, or at least warn him if the humans spontaneously decide they do not like an ex-basilisk lounging on their bed and attempt to kill him.
At first, he believes the old man came back by himself, but he now sees that some of the old wizard's magic is covering the hatchling's tiny presence. From what he glimpses, the boy's magic is blue, like the sky (well, what he thinks he remembers of the sky; the last time he was outside of the castle, he was a hatchling himself, nearly a thousand years ago. Salazar was with him then and teaching him the ways of the outside world. Secretly, of course), like all the other hatchlings in this school. He won't be able to get a proper look at the boy's power unless the headmaster leaves, however.
There was a short conversation between the two. Shyly and a bit nervously, the hatchling hisses, "Hello. My name is Harry."
The ex-basilisk would have blinked if he could move his eyes. "A Parselmouth?" he hissed back, drowsily. "I have met none but Salazar and that boy."
"You've met Salazar Slytherin?"
"He hatched me, boy. Fathered and protected me." He let out a bitter, low laugh. "Then the others turned against him, locked me away, and ran him out of the grounds." He's thankful Hogwarts put him in deep slumber for the millennium he has been alive, waking only on the brink of starvation. Then the school would conjure a few animals, enough to placate him, then put him back to sleep. A shame he is so old but has been awake only a fangful…
Before he could get lost in the memories, he hisses, "Where am I?"
"In the infirmary. You've been here for a week. Your eyes-when-we had to bring you back, but don't know if your eyes will still…"
"Kill?" The basilisk completed the sentence for him. He does not know if the boy nods, so he asks Hogwarts, "Will they?"
The school knows he is speaking to her. No, they won't. His magic is unhappy at that, but he calms it before it strikes out.
"They won't."
"Professor, he says his eyes won't-"
Amused, he interrupts, "You're still speaking Parseltounge."
Embarrassed, he says, "Oh. Pro-" He stops and tries again. It comes out in ….whatever strange language he is speaking in. They converse, and in that time, Hogwarts considers the conversation over and is subtlety easing him to sleep. The ex-basilisk does not resist. He doesn't really notice, anyway. Soon, the boy says something to him, but he is too tired to notice. With Hogwarts humming quietly around him, he falls into something similar to the healing slumber Godric and the boy with white magic put him in.
oMoMoM
Firstly, I apologize for the borders, but FF wouldn't let me put up proper ones.
Secondly, no, the basilisk does not have a name. No need to worry, though. I have a name for him!
Thirdly, the only reason I have Hogwarts as a "she" is because I got tired of writing "it" and "he" has been used so much, it would confuse the hell out of me.
Please review! And critics are more than welcome. I need all the help I can get with this. ;)