Chapter 9. What's a basilisk?
The next morning I decided to have breakfast with Severus. I sat down and received several nods of acknowledgement from the Slytherin's near me. At this I simply had to smirk, they were learning.
"Good morning Severus." I said looking at him. He looked towards me, looking at me like he wanted to ask a thousand questions.
"Morning" he said quietly, I nodded and turned and put some food on my plate. I felt him still looking at me. He seemed to be having an internal war with himself over if he should or shouldn't ask me something.
"What is it Severus?" I said, this way he had to ask, or get over it.
"How did she do it? I edit my potions to be like that but she did the exact same thing, and I haven't told anyone else about it." I sighed. This was going to be hard to explain. Or I could give them a little push.
"You will have to ask Nico yourself, I know she experiments a lot with different potions, you should see what she has done with polyjuice potion, you guys would probably get along really well." I smirked, hopefully that would interest him enough to make him talk to her. He seemed surprised at my statement on this.
"She can make polyjuice potion?" he asked, I started laughing, loudly at this statement.
"Sev, the first time I ever made polyjuice potion was in my second year, in a girls lavatory no less. I was successful as well. Well my best friends were, I accidentally put cat hair in mine, such a rooky mistake, anyway as you can see it isn't that hard." He looked shocked at this, not sure whether to believe me or think I was lying.
"You can ask the others, they know about it as well. Anyway I wanted to ask what was going on between the two of you last night? You seemed like you were flirting with her?" I asked smirking as I saw a blush creep up his neck.
"I-I d-don't know what you're talking about." He stuttered out, dropping his eyes towards his food and away from me.
"Oh, the part where you two had finished your potions and you took her hand-" he interrupted me before I could continue any further.
"Fine, so maybe I was, it isn't that big of a deal." Again this made me laugh; he looked over at me in confusion.
"It takes a lot to embarrass or make Nico blush. You accomplished that without even talking to her. I reckon you should talk to her, we have potions together today, do it then." He seemed to be thinking the idea over and then shook his head and smiled. I NEVER knew that this man was capable of so many facial emotions!
"Maybe, we will see." That was a yes. He didn't know that Luna would probably talk to him anyway to discuss ideas and how he thought of adaptations and other potion master level stuff.
LALALALALALA
The first class for the day was potions, Slughorn had decided to put us into pairs, he caught on fast who would work well together, Luna and Snape were the first pair he called out. Both blushed bright red, it was adorable. Wait, hold up, did I just think of Snape as adorable? Eek, I might be able to stand the man but that title just does not suit him. I had gotten paired with some random Ravenclaw that I soon found out to be the Patil twins' future mother. She seemed interesting and nice, but she did NOT stop talking, now I know where they had inherited they're… talent from.
That class passed relatively fast and then we had double advanced defense against the dark arts with the Gryffindor's. This meant I would have the class with Ginny; I would get to tell her all about the Luna and Severus development. The lesson was split up into theoretical, and then we would have lunch.
After lunch the lesson continued with practical. Ginny ended up being my partner. We were practicing how to stupefy your opponent, at lunch Ginny and I had decided to duel really slow, verbally and with wands to make Malfoy think that I was all talk as far as being the best at defense.
I ate dinner at the Slytherin table, all throughout dinner Malfoy was sending me smirks and 'there is NO way you're going to win' looks. When Dumbledore stood to address the students the hall fell silent a lot faster than usual, all in anticipation of who would win.
"Now tonight is the last night of competitions, can I have all the competitors up the front please?" once we were all up there Dumbledore continued speaking.
"Over these last few nights the students have displayed excellent knowledge in their subject of choice, these students are something great for you to aspire to be. So please a round of applause for our competitors." After the clapping finished he continued. "If tonight's two competitors could remain up here, the rest of you may be seated." At this Ginny came over to me and said just loud enough for Malfoy to hear.
"Now, Phei, no matter how much you want to or how much he deserves it, no unforgivable's, wouldn't want to have to break you out of Azkaban now would we?" I nodded seriously at her and then turned to face Malfoy, he looked shocked to say the least.
Dumbledore had transfigured the staff table into a dueling floor.
"Rules are simple, no unforgivable's or dark magic is to be used. There will be three rounds you are to bow before each round. Begin."
I transfigured my clothes into that of workout clothes; Malfoy simply took off his outer robe. We walked towards each other, bowed and stepped back to near the edge of the platform.
"Expelliarmus" Malfoy yelled. I simply waved my hand non-verbally casting a shield. At this he looked shocked, he had underestimated me in class today; our plan had worked.
I sent him several different non-verbal hexes; he dodged two and protected himself from another one but still managed to get hit by a few causing him to end up flat on his back. Needless to say, I won the first round.
The second round, we bowed and took position, this time he sent several hexes my way none of which managed to hit me, that was until he sent one that I would classify as dark magic, if he wanted to fight dirty I would. Then I decided to send him one that I had invented, I wouldn't call it dark magic, more along the lines of grey, it was a combination of petrificus totalus one where you could feel everything, but mixed with a stinging hex and a type of sectumsempra. The difference was that the spell didn't actually cut you but did psychological damage, it made you feel the cuts as if you were bleeding to death, you felt the pain of it. It usually wore off in an hour or so.
"ENOUGH" Dumbledore yelled and walked over unfreezing Malfoy, possibly the worst thing he could have done in this situation. Malfoy started screaming in pain. He looked at me in shock.
"He threw the dark curse first, I just protected myself." Dumbledore didn't seem exactly pleased with my answer. He silenced Malfoy before coming over to me.
"Be that as it may, I wish to enquire where a young girl such as yourself could find such a curse." I looked over to Ginny slightly guiltily; she simply nodded as if saying to tell the truth.
"I made it sir, it will where off in the next forty-five minutes, I didn't cast it very strong." Everyone's jaw (with the exception of Luna and Ginny) seemed to drop at this comment.
"He isn't actually in pain, its all psychological, besides the stinging hex but he should be able to survive that I'm sure." Dumbledore seemed to contemplate this for a moment.
"What treatment does require?" he questioned almost disbelieving me.
"Just a calming potion sir, he will not be in anyway harmed from this physically and his mind will not be altered in anyway, but his pride definitely will be." After saying that I got a few cheers from the Gryffindor table.
"Okay, well, the transfers win, Mister Malfoy did send a dark curse first. Everyone is to go to bed. Miss Granger, I do not wish to see that spell used again on school grounds. Understood?" I simply nodded
"Alright, to bed, and Miss Granger, congratulations on your win." This seemed very half-hearted, but I smiled and thanked him anyway. His blue eyes got a little bit of their twinkle back again.
"Phei!" I turned to see Luna and Ginny walking towards me, I grinned sheepishly at them, Ginny was first to speak.
"Although that wasn't an unforgivable, I must say it was pretty close, you could have blown this whole thing and got yourself kicked out, then where would we be, that's right, defeating a basilisk on our own…" her rant was interrupted by a boy standing behind her.
"What's a basilisk?" that boy being,
Regulus Black.
