"Close your eyes, luv," he said, and Hermione obeyed, but at the sound of a crash her eyes flew open again. The thing that had chased her into the alley lay unmoving, and the strange boy with the glowing scar was gone. Later at Hogwarts…

Basilisk

by

Bone White Butterfly

XXX

"'Nette"

Her ankle turned beneath her, and she tumbled to the ground with a scream. Sensing her defeat, the creature slowed and came to loom over her. Its flashing eyes bore through her soul and exposed her secret fears. She threw up her arms in a final, useless try to protect herself and waited for death—only to discover that it refused to come. She looked up fearfully and saw that the monster had paused in its final lunge and was now staring at something down the alleyway.

She turned and saw a boy. He stood calmly with his hand upraised. Besides the dim light of the smoggy heavens, there was a green glow that seemed to come from his face. In the faint illumination, she could see dark glasses and dark hair, handsome if sharp-planed features, and a wry half-smile that made her think of the Mona Lisa.

The glow intensified, and she realized that it was coming from a lightning-patterned scar that stretched across his forehead.

"Close your eyes, luv," the boy said to her with that same small smile. Something about the way he said it made her obey without question, but at the sound of a crash her eyes flew open again. The creature that had chased her into the alley lay unmoving on the concrete before her.

Looking back, she froze. The strange boy with the glowing scar was gone.

XXX

'Exchange student,' they said, 'doesn't speak English.' 'Just got released from Azkhaban; crazy as an animal if you get too close.' 'Mistook a condensed sleeping potion for a milkshake as a little kid and woke up last week.' Soon rumors mixed as they were wont to and it was decided that the strange young man sitting alone in his compartment was a Transylvanian wizard raised by wolves who had been trained in his dreams to be somewhat civilized while being kept in a drugged sleep in the wizard's prison for safety reasons.

"Oh yes, perfectly logical," Hermione replied to Ron Weasley when her told her of the final verdict. He seemed to pick up on her subtle brand of sarcasm for once. His hand ran through a shock of red hair as he shrugged noncommittally. He closed the door of their compartment and took the seat opposite her after Neville Longbottom scooted aside to oblige him. She smiled at them both, lingering on Ron while ignoring the redheaded girl beside her who pretended to gag herself.

The male carrot top tossed a candy wrapper at the disgusted female. He must have gotten her somewhere good, because shortly thereafter there was a shouted "Ron!" followed by a return of fire. Ron threw up his arms, shielding himself from the sticky wad of paper that came his way.

Hermione chuckled softly, sadly, at the antics of the siblings before affixing her chin to her hand and propping her elbow up on the windowsill. The passing landscape was beautiful that morning as the sun danced in and out of the clouds, but her thoughts were on different shadows than the ones that swept across the hills of sprightly grass.

The quiet darkness of the alley outside the club had been a comfort after an hour of pounding, unfamiliar Muggle tunes. She hadn't been stupid about it. She had kept the steel, one-sided door propped open with her foot. It just had never occurred to her that if a monster snuck up and attacked her, no one inside the club would hear her screams.

She felt chills as she remembered the thing that had chased her through the maze of alleyways. Horns, a bull's head, a monstrous torso that was barely human, but what she remembered was the eyes—horrible, maddened eyes. In the middle of Muggle London, a creature of myth and Dark magic had found her with those bloodied eyes.

After, she had spent days in Research. She now knew it had been a Minotaur rather than a Taurus, like she had first thought, but that didn't exactly soothe her. Being eaten alive was hardly an improvement over…she repressed a shudder, and then sighed. All right, perhaps it was a slight improvement. Either way though, she doubted she would have left the alleyway alive if it hadn't been for the boy.

Her thoughts turned to the stranger. She just had so many questions. How had he saved her? How had he done it?

She wanted to know. Bravery and guts kept her going in a fix, but the unknown still frightened her. Knowledge made her competent; knowledge made her useful; but being in the dark made her a damsel in distress. Needless to say, she hated it.

"Hermione?"

She glanced over at Ron and realized she had been wearing her thoughts on her face. One of her nails had even worked its way into her mouth to worry against her teeth. She pulled her hands to her sides and smiled in response to Ron's concerned look. Ron Weasley. Her tormentor. Her boyfriend. Her knight in shining armor, damn him.

Four years ago during the Halloween feast, he had been joking with his friends. Just words, but they had been about her, and she had taken them hard. Next came the usual. The dash to the bathroom, the crying alone in a stall, the mountain troll trying to bash her to pieces, and Ron Weasley coming in to save the day. Who knew what had convinced him to run in. He said guilt. She suspected a hero complex. But it was the action that counted, not the thought behind it.

He saved her life, he so often reminded her.

Barely, she would reply.

It was an old argument. They had shouted it back and forth from their beds in the hospital wing for so long that it was habit. If they didn't bicker about it once a week—thrice daily just before exams—people started asking if they'd had a falling out.

Yes, it was Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley Forever, it seemed. It was common knowledge that her fling with the Byronic dream named Viktor Krum had just been to get back at Ron for being an overprotective He-Man. She glanced downward. That had been an 'out of the frying pan, into the live volcano' scenario.

"'Nette?" Ron asked again, and she glanced up. 'Nette was short for Brunette, the somewhat flat joke being she was the only Weasley without red hair. She stared at him, unsure. She just wanted to think, and here he was, trying to save her from her thoughts.

The little sister came to the rescue. "Hey Ronnykins, shouldn't you be doing that Prefect thing?" the girl asked.

Ron sighed and stood, but he stopped at the compartment door and looked back and Hermione. "Go," she prodded him.

"You could come with," he suggested, but she shook her head.

"I opted out of being a Prefect, remember? Get going. You have First Years to save and the Malfoy Dragon to slay."

XXX

When the compartment door clicked shut, Ron's sister rounded on her. "What's going on with you, 'Nette?"

She sighed and turned away. "Nothing, Ginny."

"No," Ginny disagreed with her. "You and Ron were all over each other this summer, and now you're giving him the cold shoulder. What did he do?"

"It's not him."

"Then it's you!"

Neville was very quietly edging towards the door of the compartment. Hermione couldn't blame him. Ginny had her mother's temper coupled with her father's fanaticism.

"What's going on?" the girl was demanding.

Hermione sighed. "It's nothing, just something that happened when I was back with my parents."

"Something? Or someone?"

'Nette turned her head and watched Ginny's eyes get hard. "What are you saying?" she asked.

"You met someone. I know you did! The last time you treated Ron this way, you went and started fooling around with that Durmstrang lummox!"

Something snapped. Or broke, or ripped, or tore, or just simply imploded inside of her. "Yea' Ginny," she half shouted, half sneered, "I started fooling around with a bloody Minotaur!" The younger girl's expression switched to horror, but that didn't stop old 'Nette. "Our first date was so romantic. It chased me into a back alley and tried to eat me! Sure Ginny, I dumped Ron for a Dark monster that enjoys human flesh!"

She stopped, realizing that the nearby compartments could hear her raving. "Get out," she growled softly. And Ginny got out. The girl moved so fast, she sideswiped Neville going through the door. He fell to the floor and scrambled out after her, not even taking the time to get fully upright. His bottom had just cleared the door when Hermione slammed it shut.

Then she leaned her back against it and pressed her palms into her temples, her fingers digging into her hair. The curls that took pounds of product to defrizz and coax into existence were one exasperated scream shy of being wrenched right out of her head. She hated being a damsel. Her name was Hermione, not Guenevere. She didn't need a knight in shining armor.

Just the armor.

XXX

"The Boy"

When Hermione exited the train that evening, she left an odd wake of avoidant people behind her. Either the entire train had come to know of her outburst or the look on her face was just that murderous. She pressed through the crowd of students with little trouble and stalked to the line of dark gleaming carriages. She paused only a moment to blink hard. It did her no good. She still saw an odd flicker spaced between the carriages. The eyespots stood where the horses might be rigged if the magical coaches needed them. She shook her head, reminded herself not to read by dim candlelight anymore, and garnered herself an empty carriage.

Once inside, she slumped into the seat and closed her eyes. She wanted Crookshanks. The cat had a peculiar habit of sneaking into her arms and purring when she was feeling glum, but there was no luck of that. The tabby had been gotten rid of after Ron's greasy old rat went down his gullet. She sighed and listened to the booming sound of the gamekeeper's voice.

"First Years, gather 'round—come here, lad; wouldn't want ye' to miss the sight o' Hogwarts o'er the water—First Years!"

Inside the confines of the carriage, she cracked a smile. Hagrid. The two of them had become a type of friends two years ago when he came to her, asking for help with a curriculum. Turned out he had only managed to come up with the one lesson about hippogriffs over the entire summer. The only other thing he could think of was flobber worms, and Merlin knew he couldn't make that lesson stretch an entire school year. So she had dropped Divinations—load of poppycock, anyway—and become the Magical Creatures teacher's aide.

It was an…interesting experience.

When she wasn't "helping" Hagrid to grade papers, he was introducing her and bodyguard Ron to Aragog (leaving the redhead sort of twitchy for weeks) or failing to convince her and the hippogriff Buckbeak that a little ride together over the lake wouldn't kill them. She sighed and wondered what new terrors…er, experiences the groundskeeper had cooked up for the students this year. He had two years of lesson material to rehash and teach to new and older students, but experience had taught her that he always came up with something fun after every holiday break.

Hagrid's version of fun was not for the weak-stomached.

She prayed to God, Merlin, and anyone else who would listen that Hagrid wasn't planning a lesson on Minotaurs.

"This one's full up. Try the next one over."

She opened her eyes at the sound of Ron's voice and watched the carriage door swing open to admit him. He had on that worried look where his face sort of scrunched to one side. Nose, mouth, and everything. The door clicked shut behind him, and she found herself pulled into his arms before he had quite sat down beside her. "Why didn't you tell me, 'Nette?" he demanded as she turned her head away from his chest to stare at the carriage's black, curtained window.

She sighed, "I didn't want you to worry." She didn't. She didn't want him to treat her like glass, like she was still scared, like she needed to be held and be told he'd protect her. She wanted to hold onto someone and hear him say that she was strong, that she would get over it, and that next time she would win.

Ron was stroking her curls. "It's all right, 'Nette," he murmured to her, "no more monsters. I won't let them get you."

She closed her eyes as the carriage started to roll and listened to the soothing words that she didn't want to hear.

XXX

Ron didn't remove her from his arms even when they reached the Hreat hall. She managed not to sit in his lap like she had been in the carriage, but his arm still wrapped around her waist and her head was pillowed into chest. She stared off down the length of the hall towards the enormous doors where the First Years would eventually enter.

She got the feeling that some Slytherins had been making fun of her when Ron jerked his head up sharply and told Millicent and Pansy to "stuff it." Not surprisingly, the girls didn't retort anything loud enough for him to hear. Ron was indisputably the leader of the pack for their Year. Funny, confident, upwardly mobile—everything anyone could want.

He was a Jack-of-all-Trades on the Quidditch field, though he favored Keeper, and had been known to out-keep, out-chase, and out-bludgeon Slytherin all on the same match—with the notoriously partial Slytherin Head of House on referee duty, no less. It was said he'd be team captain next year when Alicia Johnson graduated.

Considering the grand success of last year's Tri-wizard Tournament—namely the lack of deaths—the next one was planned to be held at Beauxbatons during their Seventh Year, and Ron was a shoe-in for Hogwarts Champion.

Add to that his Prefect status, his pretty brunette girlfriend, and his notoriety for punching out Draco Malfoy, and he seemed to be the perfect guy.

Why was Hermione constantly reminded of a big fish in a little pond?

XXX

It was a bit of a sight to see the young, raven-haired man rising out of the sea of nervous First Years like some steadfast pillar of rock. Unconsciously identifying him as a protector, the children gathered around him in an odd clump where each youngster fought to be the one standing directly behind his back. Apparently someone had been telling the First Years horror stories about being sorted again. The older boy took it with a wry grin and just tried to keep his balance inside the mass of writhing, wide-eyed children.

Professor McGonagall patiently explained the purpose and method of sorting to the poor little waifs before handing the stage to the infamous rhymester otherwise known as the Sorting Hat. It launched into its song with apparent zeal and a little footless tap dance on its stool to seal the deal. Unfortunately, no one seemed to be paying much attention except the First Years, and to some extent the Seconds, who were just now realizing that the Hat actually made up a new rhyme every year. The rest of the school's attention remained pretty much fixed on the new arrivals, trying to judge how many and which of them would end up in their respective Houses.

The Hat seemed oblivious to the inattention and accepted the distracted applause at the end of its song with glee.

Then McGonagall stepped forward again, adjusted her spectacles, and began reading the alphabetically arranged list. "Abercrombie, Euan," she said, and the boy nervously made his way to the hat. He was sorted into Gryffindor.

Ron gave the boy an enthusiastic, two-fingered whistle. His other arm stayed wrapped around Hermione, who still stared away from the Sorting Hat and towards the collection of First Years and their older compatriot.

McGonagall ran down the ordered list that seemed to run like a toddler's rendition of the alphabet song. "A, A, B, D, E, F, H, K, L, L, L, L, some more Ls," and so on. No one paid much attention to the names anyway.

"Harry Potter."

At least not until they reached the letter P.

XXX

McGonagall called out those famous two words with a small swell of pride, unconsciously reversing the order of names that she had used for every other child. It only seemed natural. He was Harry Potter, after all, more of a symbol than a person. Yes, he lived and breathed, but that was the miracle of it. The Dark Lord had come for Harry Potter, and fourteen years later the boy still lived.

The legend didn't appear to notice his call to run the gauntlet past the tables of students to where the Sorting Hat sat before the assembled teachers. Instead he stood nonchalantly amongst the children. He had his head cocked to the side in a rather owlish way as he appeared to be listening to his own thoughts with great interest. Finally, a young girl worked up the courage that would be her ticket into Gryffindor and tugged lightly on the sleeve of his robe. He straightened noticed the expectant hush around him for first time. Grinning lopsidedly, he murmured something that sent the First Years around him into a titter of giggles.

He finally stepped forward, allowing the students to breathe again—at least until he passed by them. He moved between the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor tables in a slow, controlled walk. It wasn't the pompous gait that obvious Slytherins used in a show of their own self-importance. He wasn't puffing out his chest. Nor was it the reluctant shuffle that future Hufflepuffs occasionally adopted as they steeled themselves for the worst. He wasn't shrinking into himself. And it was hardly the calculated pace the Ravenclaw-bound employed as they tried to drink in every drop of detail around them. He wasn't looking around at his surroundings at all. His head remained affixed atop his neck, facing his destination squarely.

It came as something of a surprise, then, when three-fourths to his destination, he abruptly stopped. His left hand moved out slightly in the direction of the Gryffindor table. "I never did catch your name," he mused as he inclined his head slightly, standing in perfect profile to girl to whom he spoke.

She had the acute discomfort of feeling hundreds of eyes jump to her, including her boyfriend's pair as he looked down to where she was still firmly attached to his chest. Her own eyes, of course, were transfixed on Harry Potter, much as they had since he first entered the Hall.

For Harry Potter was also the boy. The one who had saved her and disappeared before she could thank him and ask how. Those eyes of hers had almost popped out her head when she learned that he was none other than the Lost Savior.

Lost—and now Found.

Realizing that he was waiting for an answer, she re-hinged her dropped jaw and managed to ungracefully mumble, "Hermione, I'm…I'm Hermione Granger." Not 'Nette, she realized. And, with more clarity than she had ever felt in years of Divination, she knew that the world was about to turn on its head.

He smiled and nodded in acknowledgment. "Basilisk," he replied in a firm, kind tone, but it wasn't until he started walking again that anyone realized he had been telling her his name.

Basilisk.