Looking Beyond: Chapter Thirty-Four: Horrified Realizations and Poisoned Blood

The tension was still thick in the air at breakfast that day and Hope and Ron ate in silence, much like the rest of the hall. The only sounds that could be heard were the scraping of plates and utensils and the quiet thrum of whispers. The whispers weren't that loud separately, but when you put together just how many people were whispering, it came off as rather loud, but none of the presiding professors mentioned it.

"Hope."

Hope raised her head slightly to indicate that she was listening, twisting her spoon back and forth in her porridge as Ron whispered to her across from the table.

"Do you think there are going to be any more attacks?"

Hope's lips curved downwards into a frown. "Without Dumbledore around? Probably. The teachers are worried, just look at them."

"And no one else knows anything about the Chamber of Secrets," Ron grumbled under his breath, before giving Hope his full attention, because her eyes had shifted to the wood of the table, her eyebrows creased together in deep thought. "What is it?"

"Alright, we know that the attacks first started and stopped about fifty years back," Hope said, reviewing all that they had learned, "that the attacks were caused by some sort of monster that can't be seen and causes spiders to fear, and we know that the monster killed a girl fifty years ago."

"Yeah?" Ron said, not quite following.

"What if she became a ghost after her death?" Hope asked, pushing her half-eaten food aside. "Because she died here? What if she was still young when she died?"

"You have got to be kidding me?" Ron breathed. "Moaning Myrtle? No way."

"But just talking to her would be a pain," Hope muttered to herself, "we need to find which beast it was that Hermione was looking for…she was in the Magical Beasts section of the library but that doesn't really narrow it down much…"

"Why am I sensing that we're going to have another midnight adventure to the library?" Ron asked dryly.

"Do you have a better plan?" Hope retorted, but, unfortunately, he did not, and so, after everyone had gone to sleep, Hope pulled out her invisibility cloak for the second time that week and they snuck out of the common room once more. The number of patrols had increased since Dumbledore's removal and since Hermione and Penelope Clearwater's (the girl who had been petrified along with their friend, one of the prefects of Ravenclaw) attack, and dodging around a number of professors proved to be quite difficult. Ron almost tripped in front of Professor Flitwick and Hope skidded slightly on the floor in front of the stern faced Professor Vector, the Professor of Arithmancy. Luckily, the noise they made was only a small amount, so they went unnoticed for the time being.

Still, it took longer than anticipated for them to finally unlock the door into the library and make their way towards the Magical Beasts section. Hope opened the first book she could find which dealt with creatures of the water, including: Merpeople, Kelpies, Ramora, River Trolls, and Kappas. However, none of the creatures matched any of the information that they had.

"Maybe we should stick to creatures that can walk on land," Ron hissed to her, his voice echoing slightly in the silence. "It can't be something that would die without water."

Hope hummed in agreement, handing over the lit tip of her want to Ron once more as she replaced the book and grabbed another one. Serpentine Critters…

"A snake?" Ron asked in surprise, "…wait that would make a lot of sense-"

"Shite!" Hope swore, glancing out of the window. The sun was beginning to peak over the horizon, painting a sliver of orange across the sky. "We're running out of time…" She feverishly flipped through the pages, but it was no use, the professors would be coming to get each of the houses soon. "We'll just have to slip away later."

Later just happened to be after Defence Against the Dark Arts had concluded. Lockhart had been growing increasingly arrogant as the lesson had worn on, and had been so for the past few days since Hagrid's arrest and Dumbledore's dismissal. Ron found his attitude draining and Hope found the man to be entirely too irritating; she was restraining herself from throttling him but not very well. But, luckily, the man was an idiot, so Hope and Ron used that to their advantage, making sure that they were the last ones to leave the class, moving at a much slower rate and slipping away once all of the other students and professor (and mind you, Hope was using that term lightly) had their attention focused entirely forwards.

Unfortunately, this was where Hope and Ron's plan went south. Though Hope had taken to carrying her invisibility cloak around, she hadn't had enough time to pull it out when they happened upon Professor McGonagall.

"Potter! Weasley!" she snapped, her voice sounding much more strained than usual, no doubt to the enormous amount of pressure that had been placed on her as Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts. "What are you doing?"

Ron stammered, but Professor McGonagall's eyes had gone to Hope, as she was every bit the leader of the group as her father had been with his group of friends. Both Hope's and Ron's eyes were red, whether it be from crying or lack of sleep, she did not know (she had no way of knowing that the pair hadn't slept in more than a day), giving them the most affected profile she'd seen of the friends of the students who had been petrified.

"We were—"

"—going to see Hermione," Hope blurted out, saying the first thing that had come to mind, her thoughts happening to rest on the morning the day before yesterday when they had spent the night in the hospital wing with Hermione. Hermione was one of the few things on her mind these days, and it just fuelled her determination towards finding out what had rendered her to such a state.

Ron's face would give away the lie if Hope didn't talk fast, so she steeled herself, trying to make her sound as convincing as possible.

"It's just," she started, "we wanted to give her the good news, tell her the Mandrakes were ready and everything…she hates not knowing about things, so…" she waved her hands helplessly by her sides. It wasn't really a lie, now that Hope thought about it; she did have a habit of talking to people when they weren't listening (being comatose or insane), and that helped it sound more believable.

Professor McGonagall's eyes shone like brown quartz, suppressed tears glinting in her eyes, surprising Hope slightly, but then she'd always thought the tough-but-fair woman had a soft spot for the three of them, just like she did with Fred and George (because, let's face it, no one else would be so lenient with their pranks).

"Of course," she choked out. "Of course, I realize this has all been hardest on the friends of those who have been…" She had to collect herself momentarily before speaking once more. "I quite understand. Yes, Potter, of course you may visit Miss Granger. I will inform Professor Binns where you've gone. Tell Madam Pomfrey I have given my permission."

By the time they sat down beside Hermione once more, Hope was regretting using her friend as their excuse. Just looking at how stiff and rigid her body was, how glassy her eyes were…it brewed a dark anger inside of her. And then there was the fact that they wouldn't be able to make it to the library unseen, even with Hope's invisibility cloak folded under her robes. And make no mistake, Madam Pomfrey would notice their absence.

"Maybe the monster's dead," Ron said hopefully across from her, "maybe the attacks have stopped because it did?"

"No…" Hope frowned slightly, "it's much too clever, think about it; the only attacks have occurred in places that are almost always unoccupied—"

"The library's unoccupied?" Ron asked sceptically.

"During a Quidditch match?" Hope asked rhetorically. "You bet. It targeted places that had two or less students in the vicinity…" Her eyes drifted slightly. "Or maybe that was just a coincidence? Maybe the monster didn't know that those places would be next to deserted?"

"Maybe," Ron shrugged, "but I guess we'll never know will we?"

Hope sighed again. "At least the Mandrake Draught will be administered soon…tomorrow, was it?"

"Yeah." Ron yawned widely, barely making an attempt to cover it with his fist. "Hard to believe we've been awake for two straight days."

"Yeah," Hope agreed, "but then, remember when I was obsessed with that mirror? I was awake for longer."

Ron and Hope grimaced identically. That mirror was more trouble than it was worth; as expected of a creation of Salazar Slytherin himself.

Hope exhaled audibly as she squeezed her hand tightly around Hermione's clenched one, and that was when she noticed it. Something flimsy and crumpled had brushed against her hand. She bent her head close to see what it was that Hermione had been holding when she was attacked.

"What is it?" Ron whispered, noticing the curiosity on her face.

"I think Hermione found something," Hope said lowly, mindful of Madam Pomfrey in her office, "let me try for a second…"

It would have been easier had Hermione not been gripping the paper quite so tightly, but it was also good that she hadn't dropped it before now. Hope leaned in much closer, peeling the parchment as gently as she could from Hermione's stone-like hand, unfolding it just as gingerly.

"What's it say?" Ron whispered lowly watching as Hope's mouth dropped open, betraying her shock. A Basilisk! Of course! A green serpent that could be fifty feet long once mature with venomous fangs and a stare that could kill you from looking it straight in the eye. Everything fit, except for…

Hermione's tidy scrawl clearly said Pipes.

"Pipes!" Ron said faintly. "No wonder you thought it could move through walls! It was using the plumbing!"

"And what if—" Hope continued. "What if the pipes started at-"

"Moaning Myrtle's bathroom," they both said.

"Now can we go find McGonagall?" Ron questioned.

Ron's face was pale in the firelight, and Hope couldn't bring herself to go over to him and make an attempt to comfort him.

Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever…no one ever wanted to hear that about their little sister.

"What should I do?" she asked aloud, not even sure who she was directing her question to when a large hand squeezed hers. She didn't have to look up to know that it was George, but she did anyways. His eyes were red, much like Ron's were, only Ron's red was closer to bloodshot than anything else.

He shook his head, looking far too miserable to be George Weasley, but Hope could offer no words just as he could not. She wanted to say something, something that could make him and his brothers feel better, but even those would be laced with shards of glass.

She couldn't give him hope when she didn't know the truth. Ginny could still be alive, but there was no certainty.

Ron's eyes met hers and Hope read what he was thinking in a matter of seconds. Tonight.

And so, Hope and Ron waited until each and every Gryffindor had slowly filtered out of the common room, finally leaving only Ron and Hope alone.

"Do you—" Ron's voice extinguished quickly before coming back a little strained, "could she be alive?"

"Ron…"

"Just tell me!" Ron snarled.

"I don't know," Hope said quietly, calm despite how angry Ron was, "I don't know everything, Ron, and if Hermione was here, she'd say the same."

Ron's face fell slightly and he had the decency to look ashamed, but then his eyes sharpened.

"Then we should go talk to Lockhart," he said resolutely.

"Huh?" Hope said blankly, confused as to why he wanted to talk to someone who couldn't have possibly cured a werewolf of lycanthropy. "Why?"

"He's going to try and get into the Chamber, remember?" Ron asked, referring to the earlier conversation that they had overheard between the professors. "We can tell him where we think it is and tell him there's a basilisk in there."

Hope opened her mouth to disagree (anyone but Lockhart!), but Ron was already moving towards the portrait hole and she had no choice but to follow him. She had yet to see Lockhart do a spell that was remotely useful, but he was going to go down into the Chamber…she sighed, closely following her friend; this was turning into a truly terrible day.

Ron threw open the door of Lockhart's office with an echoing bang.

Lockhart seemed to be in a bit of a hurry. His walls were bare of portraits of himself, his illustrious books were being thrown haphazardly into his trunk, and his ostentatious robes were being shoved into a spare trunk.

"And where do you think you're going, Professor?" Hope said in a dark and cold voice. He was packing to leave when he said that he was going to go down and fight the basilisk…that didn't really paint a good picture.

Her voice seemed to startle him if how whirled around, his eyes wild. "Miss Potter – Mr. Weasley—"

Both Ron and Hope had their wands out and pointing at him in a matter of seconds.

"You're running away!" Ron said in startling realization, giving him an angry glower. "You coward! After all that stuff you did in your books!"

"Books can be misleading," Lockhart said in almost a squeak, quailing slightly before Ron's righteous anger.

"'Books can be misleading'?" Hope quoted with a snarl. "You wrote them, didn't you! Or have I been right about thinking you were a fraud all this time?"

She would have to go with the latter, going off of how Lockhart's face had grown pitiful. "My dear girl," he said in a condescending voice that rubbed Hope the wrong way, "do use your common sense. My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things—"

"You make me sick," Hope said with a growl. "Stealing other people's work for profit! You're worse than I thought you were."

And then Lockhart whipped out his wand and pointed it at them. Ron took a step back, surprised that a teacher was actually going to curse them, but Hope's eyes narrowed.

"Terribly sorry," Lockhart said coolly, "but I'm going to have to put a Memory Charm on you now. Can't have you—"

"Expelliarmus!" Hope snapped, her anger spilling over so that Lockhart was actually thrown backwards, slamming into the wall and causing one of the bookshelves to collapse, dumping books over his head, even as Hope hauled him to his feet, keeping her wand and Ron keeping his trained on the professor.

"Now," she seethed, "we're going into the Chamber to find Ginny, and you're coming with us."

Lockhart could only glance between each of the angry faces glaring at him before he was forced out of the office and down to the first floor.

"Myrtle?" Hope called as they entered the lavatory, her wand still pointed at Lockhart's neck. "Are you here?"

"What do you want?" came Myrtle's sullen voice, her ghostly form shimmering on top of one of the stalls for the out-of-order toilets.

"I want to know about the day you died," Hope said bluntly.

The ghost goggled at her as though no one had ever asked her such a question which seemed highly likely, given her attitude. And then she looked pleased that Hope was asking her about it.

"Ooooh, it was dreadful," she said, her voice filling with zest and a smile splitting her face, "It happened right in here. I died in this very stall." She patted the stall on which she was "sitting". "I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard someone come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been." Myrtle had to reassert herself, going a bit off-topic. "Anyways, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then—" Myrtle swelled with pride, her smile beaming. "I died."

"Did you see anything?" Hope asked. "Like some sort of creature?"

"No," Myrtle said, sounding a bit lost in thought for a moment before her attention returned, "but I did see a pair of great, big yellow eyes."

"Where?"

"Over there," Myrtle said in a vague manner, gesturing to the sink. Hope had Ron take over guarding the fraud as she investigated the sink. Far away, it looked just like the other sinks, but this one was different, she could just feel it.

"Find anything?" Ron demanded.

"Hang on," Hope called back, crouching close to inspect the taps of the sink. Someone had scratched a hasty drawing of a snake into the side. "Yep, found it. It's got a snake on it."

"So that's the opening to the Chamber of Secrets?" Ron demanded.

"Possibly," Hope said, rubbing a thumb over the carving, twisting the tap, but it didn't work. "But how do we get in?"

"Parseltongue!" Ron blurted out, making Hope turn back to look at him. "Try Parseltongue, that's got to work."

"Maybe," she said agreeably, kneeling once more. "I've never really tried talking Parseltongue when there wasn't a snake around."

"Have a go," Ron said, adding, "please."

"I'll try," she said, "no promises."

Her green eyes were level with the tap, but then her silver ring caught the light, giving it the illusion that the thin silver snake wrapped around her ring finger was moving. "Open," she hissed in that tongue that no one else could understand, a tongue that was low and guttural and sounding much like a resounding hiss.

Instantly, a low clicking sound could be heard as the sink sank lower and lower until it had disappeared completely, a metal grate sliding over the top of it. Hope stepped forward slightly, without the sink, now a large pipe could be seen, big enough even for Hagrid to slide down.

She turned, aiming her wand at Lockhart. "You're going first, Fraud."

"I don't think –Think about this!" Lockhart tried to reason with them as Ron shoved him towards the opening. "What good will it do?"

"What good—?!" Ron took an angry step forward, but Hope held him at bay.

"There's an eleven year old girl down there," she said shortly, "she could be dying, so we think it'll do a lot of good, yeah." Then they pushed him, his body clanking against the pipe as he fell.

Ron held out a hand to Hope. "Together?"

"Always," Hope said with a wry smile, gripping his fingers as she jumped with him.

The pipe was dark and dark and slick and seemed to go on forever. The only thing she could be certain of was Ron's hand tightly clasped in hers (reminding her in times like these that there was no one more loyal than her best friends), a comfort in the darkness. It felt like minutes at least before the pipe levelled out, but she couldn't be sure before she and Ron tumbled arse over tea kettle onto the wet floor.

"We must be under the lake," Ron said, attempting to brush the grime that had accumulated on his robes on the way down –in vain, mind you– and glancing around them at the same time, taking note of the damp surroundings. He swallowed nervously.

"Alright, Ron?" Hope prodded, stumbling to her feet with a small cut on one of her legs that had ripped through the thick black material that she always wore over them.

"Yeah," he said with a grimace, "let's go."

She nodded as well. "Lumos!" The light emanating from the tip of her wand spread out, encompassing a large area. "Try to avoid the bones," she added, making Lockhart squeak like a mouse and Ron recoil slightly, but neither made any other comment.

Walking through the tunnel with nothing but silence made Hope very tense because she felt as though someone was watching her, even though no one else was around.

"Hope," Ron's voice directed her in the direction of where he was pointing, "look at that!"

Hope's heart stopped beating momentarily when she saw the acidic green scales…was this the basilisk? She held a finger to her lips, silently telling Ron to be silent as she approached slowly. And then she breathed again.

"It's alright," she called close to where the head should have been, "it's just the snake skin; the basilisk isn't here."

Ron sighed in relief, but Lockhart crumpled to the ground.

"What's wrong with him?" Hope demanded, picking up a few green scales and pocketing them for later.

"Dunno, I think he fainted," Ron said, kicking him slightly. "Oi! Wake up!"

"Look out!" Hope yelled, noticing what he was planning a split second too late as Lockhart lunged at Ron, wrestling his wand from his grip.

"Sadly," Lockhart said with wild eyes, "the adventure ends here. I shall take this bit of skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl, and that you two tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body. Now, say goodbye to your memories!"

He raised Ron's damaged wand. "Obliviate!"

Hope lurched away as the wand gave a loud explosion that rocked the tunnel and had her falling to the ground and keeping her arms protectively over her head as if they were a helmet. That didn't stop a heavy rock from jarring into her back hard enough to leave a bruise.

It was only when the tunnel had stopped shaking and the debris stopped falling that Hope finally sat up.

"My name is Hope Lily Potter," she reminded herself before grinning, "ha-ha! Still got my memories intact!" And then her face fell as she looked behind her. "Oh, shite." A wall of jagged stone cut her off from Ron.

"Ron!" she yelled. "Ron, are you there?!"

For one terrifying second she thought Lockhart had succeeded in wiping his memories, but then a cough followed by a muffled voice. "I'm here," Ron called through the wall, "I'm fine, but the git isn't –the wand blasted him."

Hope winced at the pitch of the shriek and assumed Ron had expended some of his anger towards the man.

"What do we do now?" Ron complained. "It'll take too long to move the rocks, and Ginny—!" His words were cut off by his anguish.

"I'll-I'll go on ahead!" Hope said, hoping her voice sounded more confident than she thought it did. "Why don't you just shift those rocks and come when you can, alright?"

"Alright," Ron said quickly, his voice strained slightly, "see you soon."

"Right."

And then, gripping her wand, she turned away from the wall and towards danger, loping with difficulty around the massive snake-skin. The tunnel was longer than she thought at first glance and she considering moving faster, but with how uneven the ground was, she doubted that would end well for her. It wouldn't matter anymore, though, because the tunnel had finally ended.

She found herself standing before a circular door on which several carved snakes were positioned in curves, the onyx of their eyes glinting as Hope spoke that same Parseltongue word that she had uttered earlier, and a metal snake slithered out of the wall, forcing of the heads of the other snakes backwards until it disappeared into a hole in the wall at the top as the door swung open, admitting Hope.

She climbed down the short ladder before placing her feet on the ground once more.

It was a second chamber, only this one was lit with green flames held in serpentine torch brackets, illuminating the snake-like columns and the massive statue at the end of the chamber. He didn't look anything like the young albeit arrogant young man that she had met at Christmas the previous year, but this must have been when he had grown bitter and angry from all of the horrors that had occurred in his life.

And there…close to the statue was—

"Ginny!" Hope yelled, skidding across the ground as she ran to the body lying supine before the statue. "Ginny?"

She cupped the younger girl's pale cheeks, feeling how ice-cold her skin was. How long had she been lying down here? Hope elevated Ginny's head slightly, slapping her cheeks lightly. "Come on, Ginny," she whispered, "wake up!" but she didn't seem to even be aware of Hope's presence.

"She won't wake."

Hope twisted her head fast enough that it gave an audible crack as she turned to survey the person who had tried to convince her of Hagrid's guilt. Tom Riddle. His dark eyes were fastened to hers, as if her face was an interesting piece of art.

"You!" she snarled. "What did you do?!"

Riddle smiled in a way that set Hope on edge. "She's alive," he said in a voice that could have been taken as assuring, but Hope saw through it, "but only just."

Hope's eyes narrowed as she gently placed Ginny's head back on the ground and stood before him. "What are you?" she demanded. "You can't be a ghost, you don't have that blue aura that they do."

"I am a memory," he said in that quiet voice of his, "preserved in a diary for fifty years."

Hope's eyes narrowed further. She'd already asked Professor Flitwick and he'd told her that preserving a memory inside of an object that wasn't a Pensieve was impossible, so what exactly was he?

And he was holding a wand, a wand that looked strangely familiar... Her eyes widened comically as she checked her person.

"Give me my wand!" she said, her temper flaring. "I need that!"

"Oh, you won't," he said.

"Won't be—? What the ruddy hell are you talking about?!" Hope demanded.

He smiled at her, but it made her skin crawl at the lack of warmth it held. "I've waited a long time for this, Hope Potter. For the chance to see you. To meet you."

Why would he want to talk to her? Hope dropped a hand to Ginny's pulse-point at her wrist, sighing at hear the slow but steady thrum of her heart.

"Did you do this?" she asked quietly.

"You will find that young Ginny Weasley did this to herself."

Her head shot up to stare incredulously. "What do you mean she did this to herself?"

"I suppose it's because Ginny Weasley opened her heart and spilled all her secrets to an invisible stranger," Riddle said, taking in her thunderstruck expression. "Because, you see, little Ginny's been writing in my diary for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes –how her brothers tease her, how she had come to school with second-hand robes and books, and how—" his eyes had now attained a malevolent gleam that seemed more sinister in the lighting of the Chamber "—how she didn't think famous, good, great Hope Potter would ever like her."

Hope's scowl darkened as he continued to talk, his voice droning on and on, grating at her nerves and giving her the firm desire to bury her fist in his face. The longer he spoke, the angrier she got until her hands were balled up into shaking fists at her side, exercising as much control as she could to not strike him, not that it would matter, seeing as any attack she made would probably go straight through him.

"…For many months now, my new target has been you."

Hope's frown intensified.

"Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me and not you," he said in a mild voice. "She saw you with the diary, you see, and panicked. What if you found out how to work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I told you who had been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited until your dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery –particularly if one of your best friends was attacked."

Hope could feel herself filling with white-hot rage. He had targeted Hermione...how dare he!

"And Ginny told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue…" His eyes seemed eager now, happy at how angry he was making her. "So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there wasn't much life left in her…She put too much into the diary, and into me."

"You piece of scum!" she seethed. "You're talking about her like she's some kind of tool!"

"I suppose she was," he said carelessly. "She's little more than a corpse now, but I have so many questions for you."

Hope glared furiously, but he was not deterred. "How is it that you –a skinny, weak, girl with no extraordinary magical talent– managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"

"What's it matter?" Hope asked, more than slightly irritated when he slighted her for being female. "Voldemort—"

"Voldemort is my past, present, and future, Hope Potter."

Hope felt an awful sense of foreboding when, using her wand, he wrote out his full name in fiery letters that rearranged themselves into "I AM LORD VOLDEMORT."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," she muttered.

This arrogant, cruel-hearted boy was Voldemort? And then she laughed as he said "I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"

"What," he said coolly, "is so funny?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Hope said in between guffaws, "but how on earth can you claim to be the greatest wizard in the world when you're so bloody terrified of Dumbledore!" She probably would have bent at the waist in her laughter if her back didn't throb lightly with every movement. "You're scared stiff when it comes to going against him!"

A low growl left his lips at her insults and he opened his mouth to speak when the sound of music penetrated Hope's eardrums and a red-and-golden bird streaked through the air, dropping something old and ratty into her arms.

This time it was Riddle that laughed, his laugh high and cold and chilling to the bone. "So this is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat!"

And then Riddle turned away from Hope, speaking directly to the stone face of Slytherin.

"Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!" The words came out as a hiss, but Hope understood them. And her grip tightened over the hat as Slytherin's mouth dropped down and down until an obvious hole was left and Hope took a step back not feeling brave at all when she caught a glimpse of the king of serpents within the hole, but then she shut her eyes quickly, fearing petrification if she did look upon him.

As soon as she heard Riddle's next words she was racing backwards: "Kill her."

But the tile floor was too slippery with slime and water and she tripped, tumbling to the ground ungracefully and giving herself a long scrape along her jaw as she did so. And then she heard it cry in pain, so she couldn't resist turning around opening her eyes to see Fawkes the Phoenix (the bird that had given her the hat, Dumbledore's bird) using its golden talons to slice up the poisonous eyes of the basilisk.

It had blinded the serpent.

"NO!" Hope didn't have to glance back to Riddle to see the pure fury on his face, because it was laced in his voice as well. "LEAVE THE BIRD! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE GIRL IS BEHIND YOU! YOU CAN STILL SMELL HER! KILL HER!"

Hope huffed lightly in annoyance. Talk about having an obsession.

She lifted the Sorting Hat carefully, only to blink in surprise, because the hat had gained a bit of weight since her fall. She looked into it and was surprised to see the hilt of a sword shimmering within the fabric.

She drew it and without thinking at all of the repercussions, drove the blade into the belly of the serpent.

As expected, the basilisk threw back its mighty head and screamed in a tongue that was universal; pain. Hope withdrew the sword from the snake and poised to strike again when the basilisk aimed its head downwards, aiming for her. Hope had barely a second to twist the sword upwards and into the roof of its mouth.

And then the pain exploded around her and she screamed and poison like fire coursed through her veins.