Disclaimer: Harry Potter processed through a filter function does not necessarily have his mother's eyes, but still belongs to JK Rowling.

Parts of this chapter are quoted from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Chapter 35

Hermione tried to put the stolen diary out of her mind so she could enjoy the Quidditch match the next day. She really thought Harry ought to report the robbery—even if the diary wasn't intrinsically valuable, someone went to an awful lot of trouble to steal it—but he didn't want to, lest the business with Hagrid and the Chamber of Secrets become common knowledge. But she tried to put it out of her mind and ate a good breakfast and speculated on the odds of Gryffindor beating Hufflepuff to anyone who asked.

After breakfast, they started up the Grand Staircase for Harry to get his Quidditch things, when, completely out of the blue, Harry shouted. "The voice! I just heard it again—didn't you?"

Hermione hadn't heard any voice, but she did remember that there was something else Harry could hear that nobody else heard. Suddenly, so many things fell into place that she smacked herself in the forehead and shouted, "Eureka!"

"What?" Harry and Ron said.

"I've found it! I think I figured it out. I have to go to the library to check." And before they could respond, she sprinted up the stairs.

It took about ten seconds for Hermione to remember her promise back at Christmas not to go anywhere in the castle alone. She didn't even break stride. Instead, she just grabbed the first prefect she saw, a curly-haired Ravenclaw girl. "You, what's your name?" she said.

"Uh, Penelope Clearwater," the girl said, blinking in confusion.

"Penelope, good, I'm Hermione. You need to come with me to the library." She grabbed Penelope by the hand and dragged her along before she could object.

"The library? What? Why?"

She looked back over her shoulder: "I think I figured out what's causing the attacks."

"What? The attacks? But there hasn't been an attack in months," Penelope said.

"I think there's gonna be another one."

"What?! How…how do you know that?"

"Because Harry heard it. I think it's a snake. I…I'm not explaining this well. Last fall, Harry was hearing this weird voice that nobody else could hear—one time was right before Mrs. Norris was attacked. At the time, I didn't think it meant anything, but he just heard it again, and I realised he must have been hearing Parseltongue!"

"Parseltongue!" Penelope exclaimed. She was sped up to keep pace with Hermione. "So the monster is a snake?"

"Yes. I was researching it last fall, and I just passed that section over because it didn't mention petrification, and I need to look at it again. I'm not certain, but I think the monster is a basilisk."

"Basilisk?" Penelope said. "I don't know that one."

"Yeah, I'm not sure either. That's why I need to look it up, but it's known in muggle mythology as a snake that kills with its eyes."

"Huh, that sounds vaguely familiar. I'm muggle-born, but I never got that deep into mythology. I was really freaking out last Christmas."

"So was I. I almost didn't come back, but I'm glad I did if I can solve this."

They finally reached the library, and Penelope, who as a sixth-year Ravenclaw was even better than Hermione at working the place, pointed down one aisle and whispered, "Magical creatures this way."

They hurried down the aisle and grabbed several books about magical reptiles and serpents before carrying them to the nearest table. Both girls started flipping through them, with Hermione muttering, "Basilisk…basilisk…basilisk…"

They barely even noticed that Rebecca Gamp from Hermione's Arithmancy class was already sitting at the table and was not very happy with having her space invaded. "What's going on?" the black-haired Ravenclaw demanded.

"Oh, hi, Rebecca," Hermione said absently. She decided there wasn't anything in the first book and moved on to the second. "It's about the Chamber of Secrets thing—long story…" she trailed off as she flipped furiously through the book.

"Well, I'll leave that to you, then," Rebecca said. She gathered up her books and walked off in a huff. Hermione and Penelope were so engrossed by now that they barely noticed.

Hermione's second book didn't appear to be in any coherent order whatsoever. "Why don't any of these books have indexes?" she hissed.

"I don't know," Penelope groaned. "It's really annoying. We'd save so much time in here if wizards would just join the twentieth century."

"We have to move fast. If Harry did hear Parseltongue, that means the monster is on the move again."

"I found it!" Penelope said. "Look at this."

Hermione read the page:

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.

"That's it!" Hermione cried loud enough that Madam Pince shushed her. Then, more quietly, "Lives for hundreds of years, so it could survive all this time in the Chamber. Spiders flee before it—do you remember how all the spiders disappeared last fall? The crowing of the rooster is fatal to it—Harry said something was killing Hagrid's chickens. It all fits!"

"Wait a minute," Penelope said. "The book says the basilisk's gaze causes instant death, so why were all of the victims just petrified?"

Hermione sighed and covered her face with her hands to clear her head. Her mind was racing to think of an explanation. "Because…because…" she mumbled. She remembered how Colin had been found. "Because Colin saw it through his camera," she exclaimed. "It only petrified him, but it completely destroyed the camera."

"Oh, that's right," Penelope said. "And Justin was found with that ghost. He must have seen it through him. The ghost looked it straight in the eye, but he couldn't die again. It's kinda weird, but—"

"Yes, and Mrs. Norris…she saw it's reflection on the floor! It's just like Medusa."

"Except it's the reflection that petrifies, and the gaze kills." Penelope finished. "But how is it getting around, though? The attacks were all in different places."

Hermione sighed, then pulled out her map of the castle. She examined its pages for a minute. There didn't seem to be anywhere to hide anything that big. "I don't know," she mused. "You'd think if it was roaming the castle, it would catch a bunch of people in the corridors. Unless…maybe if it was in the walls—of course, it's a snake. It's getting around through the plumbing! Yes, this is it. We have to tell Professor McGonagall." To be honest, she wasn't sure why she said McGonagall. Surely Dumbledore—but his office was password-protected, and they didn't have the time. Or Lockhart. For all his faults, the one thing he still had going for him was that he was a great dark creature hunter—but something still seemed off about him. Plus, McGonagall had more authority and was much more organised, so McGonagall it was. She jumped up and turned toward the door…and then quailed in fear and spun back around. "Oh my God!" she gasped.

"What is it?" Penelope said frantically.

"Penelope, do you realise what's going on? There's a giant snake that can kill with a look loose in the castle right now, and we're the bloody targets!"

Penelope gasped: "Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! What're we gonna do? The Heir's after the muggle-borns!"

"Alright, alright, don't panic," Hermione said, though she was nearly panicking herself. She knew now how Harry had felt last year, when he went completely paranoid over the Philosopher's Stone (and turned out to be right). "We need to find a way to get to McGonagall without getting killed by the basilisk."

"Wait, we know its reflection only petrifies. I've got a mirror here." Penelope fished a hand mirror out of her robes. "We can use it to look around corners."

"Okay, that'll keep us from getting killed, but if we get petrified on the way there, no one will know we figured it out. Oh, if only we could get a message to her directly…" Then Hermione smacked herself in the forehead again. "Good grief, I'm such an idiot." She checked her watch nervously: just barely in time. "Sonya?" she said.

There was a crack, and the little blond elf appeared beside the table. Hermione had never been so glad to see her. She'd nearly missed her going on her shift. "Miss Hermione Granger is needing Sonya's help?" Sonya squeaked.

"You have a house elf?" Penelope said in shock.

"No, school elf. Long story." Hermione pulled a notebook out of her robes and tore out a page. "Sonya, we think the monster is on the loose again."

"Eek!" said Sonya.

"We need you to take a message to Professor McGonagall. Penelope, can you copy this page from the book?"

"Uh, sure." She waved her wand, and in a moment, the page from her notebook looked exactly like it had been torn from the library book.

"Thanks. Now, just make a note…" Hermione circled the word Basilisk on the page, drew a line, and wrote Chamber and pipes in the margin. "I wish there was some way we could block the stare completely," she said. She circled Serpents and drew another line to where she wrote Parseltongue. "Maybe some way to filter the light—if it even works like that." Next, she connected murderous stare to the phrase mirrors petrify, and another idea struck her. "Penelope, what colour are a snake's eye?"

Penelope blinked in surprise and flipped through the books again: "Um…red, yellow, green—looks like it varies."

"No blue?"

"Er, I don't see any blue."

"Great. It's not perfect, but it's a chance. Can you transfigure two pairs of sunglasses."

"Sunglasses? Well, I guess. Do you think they'll help?"

"It's worth a try. We'll use the mirrors, too. We know they work." She finished her note by connecting rooster to Hagrid's chickens before handing it to the nervous elf. "Okay, Sonya, I need you to take this note to Professor McGonagall right now. Tell her that Slytherin's monster is a basilisk, that it's on the loose in the castle, and that Penelope Clearwater and I are going to try to come to her. Do you have that?"

"Miss Hermione Granger, Sonya will protects you from the monster," she started.

"No, Sonya, it's more important that this message gets to Professor McGonagall, and then you need to stay out of the corridors, where it's safe. We have our own way to protect ourselves. Please go, Sonya."

"Yes, miss," Sonya said reluctantly, her ears drooping. She snapped her fingers and vanished.

"Okay. Penelope, give me the sunglasses." Hermione took them in hand and drew her own wand. She tried to envision a change from a normal, naive colour change to a strict colour filter that was darkened in a specific frequency range, hoping the intent component of the magic would accomplish her goal. She waved her wand and incanted, "Colovaria Azure," twice. She wasn't quite sure the spell had worked as intended, but the sunglasses were now blue. "Here, put these on," she said.

"Blue tinted glasses?"

"Uh huh. I'm hoping the basilisk's eyes are yellow or red or something, and the blue filter will block them out so we can't see them. Come on, we have to get to McGonagall's office—and use the mirror to look around corners, just in case."

The two girls looked around the corner with the mirror and exited the library into the torch-lit corridor. They must have looked a strange sight walking down the hall in their blue glasses, but they didn't care at the moment. The one thing Hermione hadn't counted on, though, was the lighting. The blue sky from the windows partially lit the corridor, but it was intermittent, and the torches were heavily dimmed by the blue filters.

"I can't see a thing," Penelope complained as they reached a particularly dark corner.

"Hold on a sec," Hermione said. She pulled her old jam jar from her robes and, with an incantation of "Lacarnum Inflamari," filled it to the brim with bluebell flames. Holding it up like a lantern, it lit the corridor in a blue light that let them navigate with the glasses.

"That's brilliant, Hermione," Penelope said as they started off again. "How did you come up with that?"

"I've got a lot of mileage out of that charm," Hermione said with a smile. Penelope smiled back.

But those smiles were short-lived, for when they looked around the next corner, they saw a glint of an unholy light in the mirror.

Minerva McGonagall's mind was racing as she read the page the frantic elf had handed her. Miss Granger was quite right, of course, and the truth she had uncovered was terrifying. There was a basilisk on the loose in the school at that very moment. It was undoubtedly after a muggle-born student, maybe even Granger herself, but it could pop out anywhere and attack anyone through the castle's plumbing system. And the only person who could track the basilisk was…"I have to find Potter," she said. "Sonnitt, go back to Miss Granger and Miss Clearwater and tell them to meet me at the Training Grounds."

"Yes, Professor McGonagall, ma'am." The elf popped away.

Minvera quickly conjured a mirror and raced down the hall to get to the Training Grounds herself. But she'd barely made it a few steps when Sonnitt reappeared, looking even more frantic than ever.

"Professor McGonagall, ma'am!" the little elf squealed breathlessly. "Hermione Granger and Penelope Clearwater has been attacked!"

"What?!"

"They is just down the hall from the library. Sonya sees them!"

"Morgana's feathered locks," McGonagall muttered before deciding on a course of action. "Alright, Sonnitt, inform Professor Flitwick and Madam Pomfrey at once, and tell them to use mirrors to look around all corners…and then Professor Vector. She'll murder me if I don't tell her. I'll be up to the hospital wing as soon as I can."

"Yes, ma'am," Sonnitt squeaked wearily. She took a deep breath and vanished again.

Minerva rushed out to the Training Grounds, using the mirror at every corner, though she pocketed it when she left the castle. If the basilisk was outdoors, they were all doomed anyway. Grabbing a large, purple megaphone from the broom shed, she ran flat out to the Quidditch Pitch. "The match has been cancelled!" she shouted to the packed stands. She was greeted with a torrent of protest, which she ignored as she sought out Potter. "All students will remain where they are and await further instructions. You will be escorted back to your House common rooms shortly." It was a risk. A basilisk was an incredibly dangerous beast, and far more dangerous around a crowd, but she was banking on the Heir not wanting to kill so many purebloods. "Mr. Potter, come with me at once," she said sternly when she spotted the boy.

"Professor, what is it?" Ron Weasley said, detaching from the crowd.

"Stay here, Mr. Weasley. I'll send for you when it is safe. Mr. Potter, with me."

Harry Potter followed her back to the castle, running to keep up with Minerva's brisk walk. "Professor, what's happened?" he said breathlessly.

"There's been another attack, Potter. Another double attack." The boy gasped. "Now, stay close and inform me at once if you hear any unusual voices."

"Voices?" he said in surprise. "You know about those?"

"I've just learnt that Slytherin's monster is a snake, Potter. You were hearing it speak Parseltongue."

The boy froze for a couple of steps before racing to catch up. "Oh my God, I should have known," he said.

"Just keep an ear out now, Potter," she replied. In another minute, they reached the infirmary. "Nothing?" Minerva asked.

"No, ma'am. And the first time, I heard it across three floors."

"Then it's probably gone back to sleep for the moment. Come here, Filius," she called into the infirmary. "I'll send the rest of the students to the Common Rooms and Mr. Weasley up here. You wait here with Madam Pomfrey—I'm afraid this will be a bit of a shock, Potter."

As Professor McGonagall strode away with Professor Flitwick, Harry entered the infirmary. There on a bed, with Madam Pomfrey and Professor Vector standing over her, was Hermione. Harry's chest clenched like icy claws were digging into his heart when he saw that she wasn't frozen like the others. Her eyes were shut as if she were sleeping, and her arm flopped lifelessly in Madam Pomfrey's hand.

"She's…she's not petrified…" Harry choked in horror, barely able to speak. "Is she…"

"She's alive, Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey said. "They're just knocked out—both of them."

Harry nearly collapsed with relief as she motioned to the adjacent bed, where Harry saw a curly-haired prefect also lying as if asleep. Harry walked down the row and saw a smaller shape lying in the third bed. For a wild moment, he thought it was Dobby, but then he saw the snub nose and the short, scraggly blond hair. "Sonya? What's wrong with her?" he said.

"Magical exhaustion," Madam Pomfrey said. "Apparently, she apparated no fewer than seven or eight times in the space of a few minutes. Even just within the castle, that's a difficult feat."

"Mr. Potter," Professor Vector addressed him. "Hermione here has identified Slytherin's monster as a basilisk." Harry gave Vector a blank look. "It's a giant snake that can kill with a single look."

"Oh…that's bad."

"Yes, it is. Now, we've agreed that that information should not leave this room to avoid tipping off the Heir that we know. Do you understand?" Harry nodded slowly. "Good. Hermione and Miss Clearwater were found wearing these." She held out the two pairs of glasses. "Do you recognise them as some kind of muggle artifact?"

"Blue glasses? No," Harry said in confusion.

"I can only guess that they were intended to filter out the basilisk's deadly gaze," Vector said.

"I agree," said Madam Pomfrey. "Probably why they were only knocked out instead of petrified."

"So Hermione won't miss any school?" Harry said. "Bet she'll like that."

Vector chuckled wearily: "I'm sure she will."

Harry barely had time to get settled when Ron barrelled into the infirmary, flanked by Fred and George, who were still in their Quidditch robes. "Hermione!" they yelled, rushing to her bedside.

"She's alright, Messrs. Weasley, she's only unconscious," Madam Pomfrey said, shooing them away. "The both of them were still hit pretty hard, mind you. They're only responding weakly to my lesser restoratives, but they should be awake in a few hours.

"That's a relief," George said. "D'you think they got a good look at the Heir?"

"I hope so," Fred growled. "If I get my hands on whoever did this to Hermione, I'll—"

"You will let the adults handle it, Mr. Weasley," Vector interrupted sternly. "The monster is far too dangerous for students to handle. This information must not leave this room, but before she was attacked, Hermione identified it as a basilisk."

Fred's and George's eyes went wide: "Bloody hell!"

"She faced a bloody basilisk and lived?" Fred exclaimed.

"And didn't even get petrified," George added.

"That's our Hermione," said Fred, patting her on the head. "Impossible isn't in her vocabulary."

"Yes, only I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing," said Professor Vector.

But as they sat and waited, there was a commotion outside the hospital wing, and they heard Professor McGonagall's voice say, "Minister? Mr. Malfoy? What on earth are you doing here?"

As Hermione was wrenched back to consciousness, the first thing she was aware of was a pounding headache. She felt like she'd been struck with a lead pipe right behind her eyes. What happened? Where was she? The last thing she remembered was…the mirror! She'd been attacked by Slytherin's basilisk! Her heart started pounding. Had the glasses worked? Had she been petrified? How long had it been? What horrible things had happened while she was asleep? She groaned and writhed on what she deduced must be a bed in the Hospital Wing, trying to assess the situation.

"Madam Pomfrey, she moved!"

Was that Harry? She tried to open her eyes, but the light was too bright. She heard footsteps rushing over to her, and the matron's voice sounded, "Go inform Professor McGonagall, Mr. Potter. Easy does it, Miss Granger. I'm pretty sure what happened to you has literally never happened before, so you need to take it slow. How do you feel?"

"My…my head…" she winced.

"Headache…not surprising, considering," said Madam Pomfrey. "Here, see if you can drink this." She thrust a small bottle of potion into Hermione's trembling hand and guided it to her mouth. She drank it slowly. Immediately, her headache lessened. She opened her eyes and squinted into the light.

"Thanks," she said.

"Good, now is anything else hurting or not working?"

Hermione wiggled her fingers and toes painfully and winced again. Every muscle in her body was aching, but not nearly as bad as her head had been—more like a nasty bout of the flu. "Muscle aches…all over," she said. "Please, how long was I out?"

"Only a few hours, Miss Granger," Madam Pomfrey told her, but she sighed heavily as she said it before handing her two more potions. "It's not quite dinner time. How's that, now?"

Hermione drank the potions and felt her muscles loosening and the aches subsiding, although she still felt like she had badly overexerted herself. "Much, better, ma'am. Thank you. So the glasses worked, then?"

"If you mean they saved you from being petrified, then yes, although I suspect the muscle aches are from some sort of partial petrification. Fortunately, I didn't need the mandrake draught to reverse it."

Hermione pushed herself up on the bed to get a look around the Hospital Wing. Suddenly, there was a squeak from her left: "Miss Hermione Granger is being awake?" a soft, weary-sounding voice called.

"Sonya?" She saw the elf lying in a bed that was far too large for her two beds down. "Yes, I'm fine. What happened to you?"

"Sonya is needing to rest, miss. Sonya did too much apparating."

"Oh, dear, I'm sorry."

"Sonya is glad to be helping Hermione Granger, miss." She closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

At that moment, Penelope Clearwater stirred on the bed between Hermione and Sonya. Hermione was relieved to see that the glasses had worked for her, too. "Ohhh…Did someone get the number on that truck?" Penelope groaned.

Madam Pomfrey already had another batch of potions ready for her. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Miss Clearwater," she said. "Stay still a moment. You'll want these."

Penelope groaned again and drank the potions, blinking her bleary eyes as her head cleared. "Hermione?"

"Right here," she said. "The glasses worked. We were only out about six hours."

"Great…"

"Unfortunately not so great," Madam Pomfrey said. "It's been a long six hours. I'd tell you to stay in bed, Miss Granger, but Professor McGonagall demanded to be informed at once when you woke up."

"Ma'am? What happened?" Hermione said worriedly. But she got her answer soon enough when the door burst open, and a veritable crowd of people poured in: Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Vector, and Lockhart (Lockhart looked reluctant), along with Harry, Ron, Fred, George, and Percy, all of them looking solemn or even tear-stricken. Hermione didn't even have time to ask a question before everyone started talking at once.

"Hermione, you're awake!" Ron started. "Oh, Merlin, it's awful."

"Fudge—"

"—got Ginny—"

"—and Malfoy—"

"—took Hagrid—"

"—into the Chamber—"

"—and Dumbledore—"

"HEY!" Hermione shouted. Everyone stopped. She rubbed her forehead and said, "One at a time. I just woke up."

Professor McGonagall spoke up. She was pale, and her voice was trembling. She looked as frightened as she had last year when the Philosopher's Stone was threatened, if not more so. "Miss Granger," she said. "When you and Miss Clearwater were attacked, Lucius Malfoy used it as an excuse to strong-arm the Board of Governors into suspending Professor Dumbledore and removing him from the castle, on the grounds that he is no longer competent to protect the school."

"What?" Hermione cried. (And Penelope echoed her.) "And they think we'll do better without him?"

"That's what the entire staff said, Miss Granger," Professor Vector said. "To a person. But Lucius Malfoy is very…persuasive. Dumbledore was out by lunch."

"Unfortunately, that was just the beginning," McGonagall said. "At the same time Mr. Malfoy arrived, the Minister for Magic also came to the school and arrested Hagrid for the attacks."

"What? No! Hagrid would never do that."

"We know that, Miss Granger. I'm afraid that has just been proved very clearly."

Hermione's stomach clenched: "What happened ma'am?"

But it was Ron who answered: "Slytherin's Heir took Ginny!"

Hermione gasped. "Ginny?"

"Into the Chamber itself," McGonagall confirmed.

"How? Why? Are…are you sure?"

McGonagall looked to be on the verge of tears, but she kept talking: "Not one hour ago, a new message was found underneath the one from Halloween…Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever. The only student in the castle not accounted for is Ginny Weasley."

"Even we don't know where she went," Fred whispered. "And we can always track her down." Fred and George looked as pale as ghosts.

"But…but she's a pureblood," Hermione said frantically. "What would Slytherin's Heir want with her?"

"Weasley's are still bl-blood traitors," George said.

"I reckon she knew something," Fred suggested. "You saw how she was. He could've been bl-blackmailing her all year."

"Miss Granger, Miss Clearwater, I won't beat around the bush," McGonagall started again. "There may yet be a chance that Miss Weasley is alive, but…but whether she is or not, if we cannot find and stop the Heir and the basilisk quickly, Hogwarts will have to be closed indefinitely. If you saw anything…if you have any idea who the Heir is…"

Hermione's mouth dropped open. Close Hogwarts? Where would the students go? What would happen if the castle was abandoned with the basilisk inside? What if the Heir escaped back into the population at large? She shook he head, becoming aware of the tears streaming down her face: "I'm so sorry, ma'am. All we saw was the basilisk. We didn't see who was controlling it."

The crowd deflated before her eyes. That was clearly their last best hope. Harry might be able to track the basilisk with Parseltongue, but if it had gone back to sleep, he would be useless.

"Gilderoy, you seem to think you're quite on top of things here," Professor Flitwick told the Defence Professor as a last-ditch effort. "Perhaps you might have some idea where the entrance to the Chamber is. Then, you could attack the Heir directly. I'm sure with your exploits, you know a way of killing a basilisk without a rooster."

Lockhart seemed to be sweating profusely. "Well…" he stammered, "I might…but unfortunately, it would take me longer than we have to find the Chamber. I…I c-could manage it eventually, of course, but it seems to be very well hidden."

Lockhart was sounding more suspicious that ever, but Professor Flitwick's words got Hermione thinking. Her head was still a little sore, but under the gravity of the situation, her analytic mind lurched into gear again with a vengeance. "Wait!" she said breathlessly. All eyes turned to her. "I don't know who the Heir is, and I don't know where the Chamber of Secrets is, but I know someone who might."

"Who?" came from several directions at once.

"Moaning Myrtle."

"Myrtle?" Ron said. Then, his eyes lit up: "Hermione, the messages are right by her bathroom! The entrance to the Chamber could be right there."

"Holy cricket, it could." Hermione jumped out of her bed and landed almost-steadily on her feet. "We have to go talk to her."

But McGonagall held up her hand: "Just a moment, Miss Granger. We need to be careful about this. I don't want to put any more people at risk than I have to, especially students. Now, unfortunately, Mr. Potter, we will need you, if you are willing. You're the only one who can hear the basilisk, and perhaps you can even control it."

"I'll do it, ma'am," he said quickly. "Anything to save Ginny."

"Very well. Gilderoy, you'll go down to face the basilisk."

"What? M-m-me?" Lockhart said, his voice breaking.

"You are the dark creature expert here, are you not? I will accompany you myself and provide any assistance you need." From the glances the professors exchanged, it was clear that McGonagall thought she would be doing all the fighting.

"Oh…y-yes, of course," he replied, but he looked like he'd rather be anywhere but here right now.

"Professor, I think you'll need me to talk to Myrtle," Hermione said. "Unless you know somebody else who can talk to her for more than two minutes without setting her off crying."

McGonagall sighed: "As much as I'm loath to say it, you're right Miss Granger. You'll have to come, too." She turned to the Weasley boys. "You four should return to the Tower at once."

"But Ginny—!" they protested.

"You're no good to her petrified or dead," she spoke over them. "This is a job for professionals. I promise you we will make every effort to save her. Now go."

"Sh-she's right." Hermione turned toward the new voice. She hadn't even noticed that Percy, pale and silent, had spent most of the conversation holding Penelope's hand. That was a surprise. He whispered something to her and then said, "We n-need to go."

Fred, George, and Ron hung their heads and turned to go. "Bring her back," Ron told Harry and Hermione fiercely. "You've got to bring her back."

"We'll do everything we can," Hermione promised.

With the Weasleys gone, McGonagall prepared to set out, but Professor Vector stopped her. "Minerva…" she said. Her own voice was shaking, but she forced herself to stand up straight. "I think perhaps I should accompany Gilderoy and the students instead."

"Septima? You don't have to go," McGonagall replied. "I'm quite capable of handling this myself."

"I know you are, Minerva, but I was a fair duellist in my day, and more importantly, I'm a pureblood Slytherin, and all three of you professors are half-bloods. If there's any chance of reasoning with Slytherin's Heir, I'm the best choice. Plus, I promised Hermione and her parents that I would keep her safe, and I intend to keep that promise, and, with Dumbledore gone, we need you here to maintain some semblance of order."

McGonagall pressed her lips together and stared at her colleague, but the reasoning was sound. She nodded slowly: "Very well, Septima. Good luck."

"Thank you, Minerva." Vector took a deep breath. "We should go presently. Come along, Gilderoy, Mr. Potter. Hermione, if you're feeling up to it…"

"I'll manage," she said. "Let's go."

Vector led them through the corridors, keeping a firm grip on Lockhart's shoulder as they went and once again using a mirror to look around the corners. "Mr. Potter, speak up if you hear the basilisk," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Hermione, these blue glasses that saved you from being petrified. Can you replicate them?"

"I can improve them now that I know they work," she said confidently, and she started muttering to herself: "Need to choose a better frequency function. A parabola's not gonna cut it…" In theory, Colovaria Azure was a perfect parabolic blue light filter that didn't let any other colours through. In practice, it was impossible to cast the charm with perfect precision, and thus, there were always higher-order square terms lurking about that would cause leaks of other colours—leaks that could be fatal in this case. That meant she needed a fancier function to suppress the higher-order terms. Perhaps a quartic function. She tried plugging in a few numbers.

"No, no, the numbers are too big. I could never cast it precisely enough," she muttered. "Ideally, I'd want some kind of box function—but no, that's riddled with leaks in the Fourier expansion. Maybe a sine function that didn't come back up until—no, that'll never work…Of course, an ellipse!" She exclaimed. It was so simple: just use the regular parabolic form and take the square root. Its value would be imaginary outside the desired frequency range, so it would suppress the higher-order terms completely…at least in theory. Now, she just needed to be sure about the colour, and for that, she just needed Myrtle.

"Anything, Mr. Potter?" Vector asked as they reached the bathroom.

"No, I don't hear it."

"Alright, Hermione, do whatever you need to do, then."

Hermione nodded and pushed the door open, with the others following. "Myrtle?" she called. There was a low moan from the toilet. "Myrtle, please come out. We need to talk to you."

The ghostly girl glided through the stall door. "What do you want?" she said morosely.

"I need to ask you…about how you died."

Myrtle glared at Hermione. "I already told you I don't know anything." She turned and glided back into her stall.

"Myrtle, wait! We…we're going to try to avenge your death."

At those magic words, Myrtle stopped cold. Slowly, she turned around and floated close to Hermione's face. "Are you serious?" she said.

"I wouldn't lie to you, Myrtle. We figured out what the monster is, but we need your help to find it."

Myrtle drew herself up and "stood" straighter with determination. She even seemed to glow brighter. "What do you need to know?"

"When you died…it didn't 'just happen' one day, did it? You saw something—a pair of eyes, right?"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Th-that's right," she gasped. "How did you know?"

"Because the monster is a basilisk. It kills with its eyes. Where did you see them?"

Myrtle turned and pointed: "Over there, by that sink."

Harry hurried to the sink and examined it closely. He quickly found that the taps wouldn't turn.

"That tap never worked, even when I was alive," Myrtle said.

Harry ignored her and kept examining the sink. Suddenly, everyone in the room jumped (Lockhart most of all) when he made a strange hissing sound. There was a squeak as the tap began glowing white and spinning all on its own, followed by an ominous grinding sound as the entire sink dropped down into the floor, revealing a large, open pipe, easily large enough for a man to slide down, or an enormous snake to slither up.

"The Chamber of Secrets," Hermione whispered.

"We found it," Harry said. "We'll have to go down."

"Yes, Mr. Potter," Vector said. "Unfortunately, we may need you again. Hermione, the glasses?"

"Yes, ma'am. We'll need two more pairs. Myrtle, this is important. I need you to tell me exactly what colour the eyes were that you saw."

"Oh, they were yellow—definitely yellow. Big and glowing yellow."

"What kind of yellow? Golden yellow? Jasmine yellow? Saffron yellow?"

"I suppose it was more of a golden yellow, then."

"Was there any green or blue at all in them? Even a faint film or just little flecks?"

Myrtle closed her eyes in concentration. An uncomfortable frown crossed her face. It couldn't be easy for her to relive it in detail. "No, there wasn't," she decided. "More like flecks of red and orange."

"Perfect." Hermione took the four pairs of sunglasses from Professor Vector and set about crafting the spell she needed. "A blue filter matching the wavelength response of the blue cone cells in the eyes—that'll be about 400 to 480 nanometres," she muttered. Vector and Harry both watched with interest, although Myrtle and Lockhart looked confused.

When dealing with colours in the Lumos and Colour-Change Charms, as she had learnt over Christmas, the frequency of light was measured in units of the peak frequency of the spectrum of sunlight, which Hermione had looked up and found to be 340 terahertz. In those units, the frequency of visible light ranged from 1.26 to 2.20. The filters she wanted to make would allow frequencies from 1.84 to 2.20 units to pass through, so she just set the zeroes of the equation to those frequency limits, yielding a parabolic function of -(x - 1.84)(x - 2.20), or -x^2 + 4.04x - 4.048. Then, just take the square root and normalise by multiplying by…50/9, and she was good to go.

"No change to the wand movement, same as before," she continued. "Then the incantation…" She started muttering the required rhythm to think of a word to go with it: "Da da da dee da…Da da da dee da…Got it! She waved her wand at the first pair of glasses: "Colovaria Fluctuabrevis!" The glasses changed from her earlier rough, intuitive attempt to a deeper royal blue. Wow, ten syllables, she thought. That was longest spell she had ever cast, but very specific spells tended to be long. And yes, it was Dog Latin, but it was the rhythm that mattered, and no one ever bothered to decline spells. She put the glasses on to test them. The torches were considerably dimmer than with her previous attempt, which was a good sign, and Lockhart's blond hair looked nearly as dark as Harry's through them, which was an even better sign.

"I think it's working," she said, and repeated the spell three times on the other glasses and handed them out. She transfigured Harry's into clip-ons.

"Hermione, did you just invent a new colour modifier in five minutes in your head?" Professor Vector asked in disbelief as she tried on her glasses.

"Professor, is this really the time?" Hermione replied.

"Sorry," Vector said sheepishly. "But that was, brilliant Hermione."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"You know your parents are going to kill me if I let you go down there."

"I know, ma'am, but they'll kill me first, so we'll be even. You'll need me down there in case something went wrong with the charms."

"I know. Just promise you'll be careful. You, too, Mr. Potter."

"Yes, Professor," both children said.

"Well—I cannot see a thing with these on," Lockhart broke in, taking his glasses off. "I don't see how you think they're going to help."

"They'll save you from dying if the basilisk looks you in the eye," Hermione said sternly, then added, "Lacarnum Inflamari!" She put more power into that spell than she ever had before, and sprayed bluebell flames all around the bathroom, lighting it up in an eerie blue light. "Can you see now?" she demanded.

"Um…yes," Lockhart admitted.

"Excellent. You can go first, then, Gilderoy," Vector said.

But Lockhart didn't budge. "Look, when I said I knew how to kill a basilisk, I may have been exaggerating a tiny bit…"

"Oh, no you don't, Gilderoy. As the Defence Professor, it's your job to take care of threats to the school."

"Well, I'm sorry, but I'm really going to have to resign, then. Now, I don't want to hurt any of you, but—" He drew his wand.

There was a whispered word, and suddenly, Lockhart went sprawling flat on his back. Hermione and Vector looked around in confusion until they saw Harry standing by the Chamber entrance with his wand drawn and Lockhart's wand in his other hand. The blue glasses had completely hidden the red light of his muttered Expelliarmus. "Shouldn't have let Snape teach us that one, should you?" he said.

Lockhart went even paler than before as he sat up, although it was hard to tell with the glasses. "Now, see here," he whimpered. "I'm really no good to you like this."

"Oh, I don't know," Vector replied with a cold laugh Hermione had never heard from her before. "I'd say you just became the least valuable person in this room. So you can go first and make sure it's safe."

"What?!"

"Professor?" Hermione said in surprise.

"You see Gilderoy, I was a Slytherin, after all," Septima said. "You know, I always thought you were a complete duffer when you were a student, and I now that I see the truth, you still are. Now, get going."

"I really don't think—AHHHH!" Harry snuck around and gave him a shove, and he vanished down the pipe. A few moments later, there was a thud and a distant "Oww…"

"Well, he's alive," Harry said, and he jumped down after him.

"Harry!" Hermione protested. "Ugh. Boys. We'd better go after them, Professor."

Vector nodded and they quickly lowered themselves down. The pipe must have gone down hundreds of feet, disgusting and slimy and slippery. Hermione was alternately cringing and screaming all the way down, and she had to hold onto her glasses to keep from losing them. After what seemed like an eternity, it began to level out at an angle that must surely be taking them all the way under the bed of the black lake, and she flew out the end at a probably-unsafe speed and landed with a wet thud in a large stone tunnel. She barely had time to roll out of the way before Professor Vector shot out of the pipe and landed beside her.

"Lacarnum Inflamari!" she cried, spreading more blue fire around the tunnel. They looked around. Lockhart was leaning against the wall and cowering in fear. Then, up ahead, they saw something lying across the passageway—something huge and curved and…misshapen? Hermione squeaked and turned away.

"I'll take a look," Harry whispered.

"Careful!" she hissed. "Even with the glasses, you don't want to look it in the eye."

Harry was silent for a long moment as he approached it, while Hermione's heart started beating faster and faster. But finally, he said, "It's okay. It's just a skin."

Hermione turned around and saw the huge shape. "Just a skin?" she said incredulously. "That basilisk would have to be bigger than an anaconda to leave this."

Suddenly, there was a thud and a cry behind them. They spun around and saw Lockhart standing over a staggering Vector, holding her wand. "Attacking me from behind, Gilderoy? What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded in rage.

Harry and Hermione drew their wands, but Lockhart muttered something, and Hermione barely had time to see a glimmer of light before her wand was wrenched from her hand, and Harry lost both his and the traitorous teacher's. Lockhart had just used Harry's own trick against him. "Professor!" they protested.

But Lockhart was wearing a manic grin, now. He pointed his wand for the three of them to line up. "Complete duffer am I, Septima?" he said. "You want the truth? Alright, the truth is that I didn't do a damn thing I wrote in my books."

Hermione gasped. Even she had been starting to worry about his credentials, but she never would have imagined he was that much of a fraud.

"You're right. I'm pants at fighting dark creatures, but I don't let that stop me. No, I track down the people who did do the deeds, interview them until I can tell their stories in my own inimitable voice, and then wipe their memories so they can't talk about it afterwards. If there's one I pride myself on, it's my Memory Charms."

"You what!" Vector shouted. Hermione was too horrified to speak. Stealing other people's exploits and wiping their memories? That was just sick! She also felt a small twinge of guilt. Wasn't that exactly what she'd had Fred and George do to Malfoy? But that was just half an hour. These were major life events. She had to get away from this deviant. She turned and started to run…

"Incarcerous!"

Hermione tripped and fell as she was bound in tight ropes from Lockhart's wand.

"Don't think nobody's ever tried that before," he said smugly. And then, he tied up Harry and Vector for good measure. "I may be rusty, but I can't afford to be completely incompetent in this business. Now, now, Miss Granger, it's nothing personal. I do so admire a dedicated fan."

"I take back every good thing I ever said about you," Hermione spat.

"Oh dear. Well, it's just good business," Lockhart continued, revelling in his position of being the only one with a wand. "I'm much more photogenic than all the real dark creature hunters, you know. Now…what to do with you three…? I think Brush with a Basilisk sounds like a nice title, don't you? I shall take a bit of that skin up to show Minerva, tell her how I was tragically too late to save the girl, and how the three of you lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body. Aren't Memory Charms useful?"

That was enough to send Hermione into a full-fledged panic attack. Her teacher was going to wipe her memory. And he wasn't just going to take half an hour. He was going to take Merlin knew how much. Enough to make people think she'd lost her mind. Her memories of her friends? Of her parents? Of maths and magic? She couldn't live like that! She had to get away! She started to feel tingly and light-headed, and her hands started to feel hot. She glanced down and saw that the ropes binding her were burning through. In the back of her mind, she realised that she was breaking out of her bonds with accidental magic, but most of her brain was too busy freaking out over the fact that she was already too late.

Lockhart levelled his wand directly at her and cackled leeringly, "Say goodbye to your memories."

A/N: Fluctuabrevis: based on the Latin for "short wave".