Summary of the previous chapter:

The three friends brainstorm once more about what could possibly have petrified the students, and suddenly realize that they should search for a beast with a deadly gaze instead. Realizing that the monster must be a basilisk, they inform Professor Snape, who (after a brief discussion about self-expanding pipes and public loos) calls the headmaster. He is thrilled about their discovery and immediately contacts his old friend Newt Scamander to ask for help from an expert.

Meeting the Expert

The next day started with a flurry of activity. Teachers, at the order of Dumbledore, went through the entire castle, sealing all the short-cuts and hidden corridors they thought were the most likely way the for basilisk to get from inside the walls to the castle proper. They sealed a few cracks and mouse holes too, just in case Pliny the Elder had it right and they were dealing with a small snake with a deadly stare.

Of course, their actions hadn't gone unnoticed by the students, who weren't given any details, just that staff had figured out what had caused the petrifications and that most likely, it was still inside the castle's walls. The problem, they were assured, was being dealt with.

"I have good news," Albus told Severus and the other three Heads of House (who had been given full disclosure) a week later. "My friend Newt put me in contact with one of his many grandchildren who happens to be a Magizoologist specializing in XXXX and XXXXX- classified species and is willing to come here at short notice. As soon as the Hogwarts Express has left, we can, with such expert help, tackle our snake problem. Mr. Potter, of course will have to stay."

"What? Severus looked at the headmaster with a questioning frown. "Why?" Not that he liked sending the boy home to the Dursleys, but he liked having him in a castle with a deadly basilisk even less.

"Because he's the only one who can talk to the basilisk, obviously."

"You want to chat with it?" Severus wondered if Albus had lost his mind. "I thought the idea was to find it and kill it!"

"We'll see, Severus. Let's not rush our fences. Oh, and given that Miss Granger and Mr. Longbottom were instrumental in solving the riddle, they deserve to be involved as well. I'll arrange for our expert to arrive on April 3rd."

*'*'*'*'*'*'*

Severus had no idea why Albus thought it wise to force the most socially inept of his staff on their visitor. The excuses he had given were just that: excuses. There were plenty of people available who loved meeting and entertaining strangers – Severus wasn't one of them. Still, here he was, on his way to the Hog's Head, which the headmaster, for another unfathomable reason, had judged a good meeting place. It was the shadiest pub in Hogsmeade, run by Aberforth, the headmaster's estranged brother. Severus entered the disreputable abode well ahead of the appointed time so as not to keep their guest waiting and possibly risking his health. He might not know that mugs were wiped, not washed. It was all rather unsanitary, so Severus only ordered an ale to have an excuse for occupying a table, but didn't actually drink from it.

A man in his fifties entered the pub shortly after him. He was dressed in sturdy and serviceable clothes and boots perfect for mucking out stables. He looked a bit like Hagrid, just on a smaller scale. He looked very much like Severus expected a Magizoologist that dealt with dangerous and deadly beasts to look like, but the man turned to the bar without even looking around and ordered a double shot of Firewhiskey.

Probably not Mr. Sangray, then. He should have asked Albus what their guest looked like. The next person arrived by Floo. It was a rather young man with flamboyant clothes. Not expensive or frilly, but outstanding even for wizards, who knew how to dress in a manner that stood out among Muggles. His clothes were exotic like one would imagine them on a person who travelled the world and was familiar with most far-away cultures. He looked around searchingly, and his face lit up when he looked in Severus' direction. But then he passed by his table and sat down with another young man who had been sitting there with a mug of beer since before Severus had arrived.

When the door opened again and a man in his mid-thirties came in, Severus was sure that it was him. He was built like a dragon handler: tall, muscular and dressed all in leather. He had so many hooks, lugs and buckles on his clothing that it almost looked like he was wearing a harness. With his sturdy build, big hands and fierce eyes, he looked like he could probably wrestle a basilisk bare-handed. He was confidence-inspiring, but unfortunately, he had just come to settle a score with a man who was trying to hide in a corner when he entered.

They soon got into a brawl, which, given the dragon-handler's physique shouldn't have lasted long, but three others got involved, loudly defending the man who had been trying to hide, and soon, fists and mugs and even chairs were flying.

Alarmed, Severus got up and drew his wand, but Aberforth stepped out from behind the bar and tried to separate the squabblers by hand. This moment, the Floo flashed green again and a women stepped out of the flames, right into the middle of it all. She was immediately shoved backwards when one of the men bumped into her forcefully, making her stumble and fall. Severus quickly conjured a shield around her before she could get beneath their feet, and rushed to her aid.

"Quick, there's a back exit to the left," he said, pulling her to her feet and ushering her to the door before things got even more heated. The woman was too taken by surprise to even question him and allowed Severus to lead her outside. In the back alley behind the pub, Severus breathed a sigh of relief. The Hog's Head had definitely been a bad meeting place. He could only hope Scamander's grandson would arrive late.

"Forgive me for rushing in like that. I hope you're not injured?"

The woman, a petite, pretty blonde with her long hair done in elaborate braids, shook her head. "No, just a little confused. I had not expected to land in the middle of a bar brawl." Lifting her head, she smiled at him, and Severus found himself looking into a pair of the bluest eyes he had ever seen on a person. "Thank you for coming to my rescue." She offered him a hand. "I'm Sky Sangray. Pleased to meet you."

The first thing he thought was that Sky was a most fitting name for her. The second, which he voiced aloud, was: "Sangray? You are the basilisk expert?" He shook her hand, flabbergasted.

"Were you expecting someone else?" the woman enquired.

"Yes. No. I mean – the headmaster said Scamander's grandchild was named Skyler. I suppose the name set me on the wrong track."

"It's Skylar, actually, but please call me Sky. And you are?"

"Excuse me – Severus. Severus Snape. I'm Hogwarts' Potions Master and Head of Slytherin."

"Pleased to meet you, Severus. I should have inquired as to who I should look for, too, but I was too excited to ask the relevant questions." She smiled again. "Well, it all worked out fine despite the misunderstanding. And you were not at all wrong to expect a man – Magizoology is still a field very much dominated by wizards."

"As are many professions, sadly, but mostly because witches rarely express an interest in pursuing a career. I don't know why so many promising witches decide to marry young instead of learning a profession."

"Do you think that having a career and being married are mutually exclusive?" Sky asked curiously.

"No, not at all. I didn't express myself well. I just lamented that many witches get married right out of Hogwarts and end up staying at home altogether. It's especially common among the purebloods."

"You're right about that. I'm a pureblood myself, although my family has never bought into the ideology. It's more a question of who you get a chance to meet, and as witch or wizard, one normally does come not into contact with Muggles very often. Especially not in my profession." She gave him another smile, and Severus felt his lips twitch in return.

Suddenly, he realized that they were still standing in the alley behind the pub, discussing God knows what, when they should be heading to Hogwarts. Not that he minded – Sky seemed to be an articulate and intelligent witch – but they might as well chat while they were walking.

"Didn't you bring any luggage?"

"I did." She reached into her dark blue travelling coat and presented him with a miniature trunk in her palm. "It won't be a bother, though." Severus was impressed. Shrinking a trunk down to something of such small size while keeping all the content intact demanded considerable skill in charms. Most wizards didn't even manage the size of a large shoe box.

"Shrinking charms are a bit of a specialty of mine," she said in way of explanation. "And so practical if you travel a lot."

"A student of mine would have greatly appreciated your talent last year when he had to walk to Hogwarts from here. Unfortunately, he was a first year and decided to levitate a full-size trunk wandlessly up to the castle instead."

"Oh dear! That's very impressive! What happened?"

And so, on their way back to the castle, Severus entertained Hogwarts' guest with stories about students' follies and acts of dunderheaded bravery. Sky was greatly amused, sometimes shocked, and reciprocated with recounts of incidents of foolishness she had witnessed in her line of work. Sooner than expected, they reached the gates.

Before they stepped into the entrance hall, the Magizoologist pulled a pair of mirrored sunglasses as worn by Muggles from inside her robe. About to put them on, she noticed the puzzled gaze of her companion and paused.

"Are you telling me that you guys are not wearing any kind of protection inside the castle, knowing that a basilisk is roaming around in it?"

"You think these will help against a basilisk's stare?"

"Well, wearing any kind of glasses protects me from being outright killed by it, though most likely, I'll still end up petrified. I'm actually hoping that reflective glasses like these might even offer full protection, but I've not had the opportunity to test them yet."

"The one girl who died when the monster was unleashed in 1943 was a spectacle wearer," Severus felt obligated to inform her. Something was definitely wrong with her theory.

"Really?" Sky frowned. "Are you sure she was she wearing the glasses at the time of her death? The gaze of a basilisk has to meet its victim's eyes with no obstacle causing refraction in order to be fatal."

"Hm. I admit I do not know. So you think all in the castle who are wearing glasses are safe?" Surely, it couldn't be so easy?

"Only from death, mind you, not from petrification. You said there were petrified students. I figured they were all spectacle wearers."

"No. But none of them met the gaze of the Basilisk directly." Severus described the circumstances of each petrification.

"You have been exceedingly lucky," Sky remarked. "But it's not something you should count out for the future. Muggle sunglasses are easy to come by, unlike the pair of special glasses I have in my trunk that will offer full protection. I only have one pair and they'll turn everything milky. So if these should work as well as my safety googles, we'll have one less problem on our hands." Sky put them on and Severus found that he regretted not seeing her eyes anymore, even if the glasses made her appearance rather unique.

The students who had sat down for dinner were very surprised to see their usually sour-faced and anti-social teacher escorting a pretty, smiling blonde with spectacularly braided hair and a pair of cool Muggle sunglasses into the Great Hall. It would surely have been fodder for gossip for days, if the Hogwarts Express wasn't going to take them home for an extended Easter holiday tomorrow morning.

Still, the fact that she sat by his side at the staff table and that she was animatedly conversing with him drew quite a few heads. Some students later swore that they had even seen their most feared teacher smile, but that surely must have been a hallucination. Rumours were flying. Did the Potions Master have a girlfriend? The theory was debated at all four tables, and most rapidly rejected by the Gryffindors. It was absurd, Ron Weasley pointed out. Who in their right mind would date the greasy git?

Professor Dumbledore finally set an end to the speculations, which he had happily allowed to run wild, by making an announcement.

"Please, everybody, welcome our guest, Madame Skylar Sangray, a Magizoologist who has come to help us with our little monster problem. As you know we have a good idea by know what we are dealing with, thanks to three inquisitive and smart students and their inter-house cooperation. While you are all safely away and hopefully enjoying your holidays, we will be taking care of the problem. I am positive that classes and all leisure activities can resume as usual when you arrive back at Hogwarts."

*'*'*'*'*'*'*

After dinner, the four Heads of House, the Magizoologist and three students assembled under the curious glances of countless portraits in the headmaster's office.

Sky looked around in amazement. If that was the standard working environment in an office job, she might not be so opposed to it. The tower room with its many book shelves was stunning! The headmaster led them all to a seating area hidden a few steps below and behind his impressive desk, where two couches and several comfy chairs were waiting for them. The fading light of dusk painted the sitting room in soft light, to which candles added a warm sheen.

Professor Dumbledore introduced her to the three students that had been pivotal to identifying the creature that had wreaked such havoc in the school. What concerned her most was the fact that the basilisk was obviously being commanded by someone. It seemed impossible that it had remained completely invisible in a school with a couple of hundred inhabitants otherwise. If it was being commanded, there had to be another Parselmouth around – another really astonishing circumstance in Britain.

"So you are Harry, the snake whisperer," she greeted the boy who was one of the few – if not the only – known speaker of Parsel on the Isles. "Very pleased to meet you! I have never had the chance to talk to a basilisk before and am looking very forward to it!"

"So you've come across them before?"

"Yes, in Borneo, where there's still some illegal breeding going on."

"Why would anyone breed as highly dangerous a creature as that?" asked his friend, Hermione, a girl with an incredible amount of unruly curls.

"For their body parts, unfortunately. Skin, fangs, blood, venom, eyes – those are, as your Professor can surely confirm, costly ingredients. But the cultivation is brutal. Due to the danger the basilisks pose, they are kept in closed boxes with feeding chutes and never see the sunlight. They usually don't live long under these conditions. I'm really interested in finding a better, more humane way to breed and raise basilisks."

"How do you breed them?" asked the young girl. "In the book I found in the library it says that basilisks are hatched from chicken eggs placed beneath a toad. But I've also found the opposite information: that they come out of a serpent's egg hatched by a cockerel. Both are weird, as neither toads nor cockerels are known for hatching."

"You're right," Sky said, smiling at her. "There's a lot of hogwash to be found in books, but it's being published on purpose. As I said, breeding basilisks is illegal and highly dangerous, so it's better not to tell people how it's done. Let them try getting a toad to sit on a chicken egg for any length of time. If they manage that feat somehow, they still end up with a chicken."

"It's just a tale?" Hermione's mouth fell open in shock. She obviously thought that books shouldn't sell wrong information and lead people astray. Her granddad would disagree. Sometimes, misinformation or omission of facts was necessary to protect creatures that would doubtlessly be hunted to extinction if their habitats and magical abilities became known. Some never even got mentioned in Newt Scamander's famous book of Fantastic Beasts and where to find them.

"The myth probably came about as creatures like the basilisk, the cockatrice, the Occamy and the Snallygaster are so elusive that they have often been confused by wizards and Muggles who come across them," Sky explained. "The cockatrice is indeed a hybrid from serpents and chickens - don't ask me how someone managed to cross them. Basilisks exist in male and female form, though, which is to say: they breed. But they don't nest. The females lay their eggs on the plain ground and move on. It needs very favourable conditions - perfect sun exposure and days of even temperatures – for the eggs to hatch. It rarely happens in the wild, and even then, scavengers will often eat the eggs before anything comes from it. That's why there are very few wild basilisks. But wizards have been successfully putting those eggs in chickens' nests and having them hatched by unsuspecting hens."

"Is it true then that a rooster's cry can kill a basilisk?"

"A rooster might discover the false egg and raise alarm. Basilisks, while still unhatched, are very sensitive to any loud and piercing noise nearby, and a rooster's cry might indeed kill them. But adult basilisks will certainly not fall dead on hearing a rooster's cry."

"See, Severus," the headmaster interjected and threw a satisfied glance at the Potions Master. "It's good we didn't trust the books and try to solve our problem by setting roosters loose in the castle."

"My mistake. I falsely applied the Potions Guild's standard for publications - which is to only release information that has been peer-viewed and found to be correct – to the field of Magizoology."

"Really?" Sky looked at him with a challenge in her eyes. "I suppose then that you approve of Pentus Lamoyant's treatise on the anti-acidic properties of Chizpurfle fangs when used in combination with dragon blood?"

She saw him blink in surprise. He probably hadn't expected her to be familiar with the Potioneer's Journal, which – though a respected magazine – sometimes published articles which could be described as 'controversial' – if one was benevolent.

Severus opened his mouth to reply to her comment, but the headmaster lifted his hand in a halting gesture. "Please," he said, his eyes twinkling. "You two can discuss Mr. Lamoy and his fangs to your heart's content after this meeting, but let's concentrate on our basilisk problem first, alright?"

"How can we kill it if we can't even look at it?" asked the round-faced, timid looking boy who had quietly followed their conversation up to now. "They're quick and venomous too, and sunglasses won't help with that."

"Do we have to kill it?" Harry, clearly not liking the idea, frowned. "If the legend has it right, the basilisk has been around since Slytherin's time – it's a living legacy and a sentient creature."

"Oh, I very much hope that we'll find another way of dealing with it!" Sky replied, very much agreeing with him. "It'd be a shame to kill it, especially since we have you to communicate with it. Given how costly basilisks' fangs, venom and hide are, wouldn't it be awesome if you had unlimited access to it? Basilisks shed their skin every year, and fangs constantly regrow."

"Yes, that sounds very well indeed, but how does one capture a basilisk?" Severus inquired. "And how can Harry communicate with it without being petrified on sight?"

"Without anyone directing the basilisk and commanding it to kill, I don't think it's likely to attack. Basilisks only lower their brille when hunting, and humans aren't prey. And he can wear my special googles to make sure he's safe."

"What's this brille?" asked the woman who had been introduced as Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher. She was the only one of the Hogwart's staff who didn't seem to submit to the apparent dress code. In fact, she looked as if she had just come out of one of the green houses.

"It's a thin layer of skin over their eyes, as snakes don't really have eyelids. It's more like a transparent scale, really. The peculiarity of the basilisk, who in many ways more resembles a lizard than a snake, is that it can lower them when hunting, which makes its stare deadly."

"So you're saying that a basilisk's 'normal' gaze is not harmful at all?"

"Exactly. Unless, of course, there are other factors at play, like this mysterious heir directing it. But just to be on the safe side, Harry can wear these … Hang on!"

Sky took out her miniature trunk and enlarged it, which had Hermione's eyes almost pop out with amazement. Opening the trunk, Sky put her hand inside and summoned what she was looking for with an "Accio Occulus Serpentes'. The glasses that promptly flew into her hand looked like metal-framed diving googles, only that the glasses weren't made of glass at all.

"This is basilisk skin, soaked in a potion, stretched, charmed and conserved. It imitates the brille of a basilisk. Of course, using brille right away would have been simpler, but you hardly ever find a big enough basilisk for that."

"How big do you think this basilisk is?" asked the Charms Professor, who was wearing a frock coat and a bow tie. Every hair on his head and moustache was perfectly in place.

"Well, basilisks grow slowly, but pretty much their entire life – so if it's truly been in the castle since Salazar Slytherin's time, it would be gigantic. They start out as little more than worms, and their gaze isn't strong enough to kill a human yet. By the time they have reached the size of a medium snake – about a meter in length – that changes."

"The basilisk can't possibly be that big," interjected Professor McGonagall, a stern looking witch with a severe bun and glasses. Of all the teachers, only Severus had offered Sky the use of his first name. Or rather – he hadn't objected to her addressing him by his first name after she had asked him to call her Sky. He was by far the youngest of the professors and probably a bit more relaxed. Not that his black frock coat with its many buttons spoke of a relaxed attitude, but Sky figured that he dressed in that manner to be taken more seriously by his somewhat stiff senior colleagues. "Even if it can warp wizarding space and travel through walls: It was lying in wait for Professor Lockhart in a corner of his office. If we believe that the heir was there as well, it can't be much bigger than a human."

"Ah, see that's were it gets interesting," said Sky. "Have you ever heard of Choranaptyxis?" All of them shook their heads, except for Severus.

"It's a characteristic some magical creatures have of being able to grow or shrink in order to fit available space," he offered. "Occamies and Mokes are known to be choranaptyxic."

Sky smiled. The Potions Master obviously knew what he was working with. He probably had to in order to come up with new and experimental potions. "Exactly. Occamies are serpentine in nature and Mokes are basically lizards. Basilisks are related to both, and thus possess the ability as well. The bigger the box that a basilisk is kept in, the bigger it grows. But the same is true the other way round: Even a huge basilisk can fit into a somewhat confined space if it needs to. Now I doubt that a grown basilisk with the circumference of a huge tree could shrink down to the size of a garden snake, at least not from one moment to the other, but they adapt to space available."

"I can't imagine how it survived for so long," Harry wondered. "What did it feed on?"

"Probably on mice and rats and anything small that found its way into the castle. I assume it has a nest in a much smaller space where it spends most of the time. That would make it shrink to a smaller form in which it needs less food. Otherwise, I don't see how it could have survived."

"It was hungry." Harry confirmed. "That's what it said whenever I heard it speak: 'hungry for so long'."

"Then I suggest we start by luring it to a place it can't possibly escape from with plenty of food. We need a room that's not too big and far away from where it could harm anyone."

"We could use the rooms behind the trapdoor!" suggested Neville excitedly. "The jump landed us right on the second floor, which is were Justin, Myrtle and Mrs. Norris were attacked. So we definitely know that it's been roaming around in the walls there somewhere. The room where the potions were set up in was of a decent size, but not too big."

"That is an excellent idea, Mr. Longbottom!" the headmaster applauded, making Neville blush.

"Might I suggest putting in the winding staircase instead of the Devil's Snare right from the start this time?" Severus added. "It was nice that it appeared when we came back from the mirror chamber, but I much prefer not having to jump into a Devil's Snare to get to there."

"I think that could be arranged." The headmaster smiled merrily.

"How do we get the basilisk into the room? Just knock a hole in the wall?" asked the strikingly small Professor Flitwick, who surely must have some Goblin blood in his veins.

Sky looked to Professor Dumbledore. "I don't see any other way to get it out, as we don't know where the entrance to the mysterious chamber is."

"What do we do with it once it's there?" inquired Harry.

"Close the wall behind it, feed it and keep it happy. And then you should try to talk with it. Depending on how that goes, we decide how to proceed from there. The most important thing is to keep it away from this mysterious heir, so that it can't be weaponized anymore."

A/N: I did a lot of research on basilisks, who exist outside the Potterverse in Muggle mythology as well. Pliny the Elder was a real person. The so called 'King of Snakes' seems to be closely related to dragons – in fact, the English word dragon comes from the Greek word drakōn, which was used originally for any large serpent. In most cultures, the original dragons are derived from snakes. Some are more bird-like, some more lizard-like, but most are 'serpents' or serpentine.

Basilisks and Cockatrices (a mixture of a chicken and a snake) are used more or less as synonyms in mythology – in the Potterverse, they are two different creatures. Some sources claim that a rooster's cry can kill a basilisk, other say it's a mongoose or weasel that is its only deadly enemy. Depending on the source it either is bred from a rooster egg hatched by a toad or a snake egg hatched by a rooster. But given that there are male and female basilisk, it's logical to assume that they breed.

There are indeed hints that basilisks are shape-shifters, and Choranaptyxis is a real thing in the Potterverse.