That—" Harriet uttered. "That—"
"Shh!" Hermione whipped her head left, then right, staring fearfully up and down the hall to make sure they were alone. But the corridor was empty even of the ghosts' silvery glow.
"I can't believe him!" Harriet said. "That was so unfair! And why did you have to tell him?"
"Oh Harriet, he knew you were lying," Hermione said, almost tearfully. "But thirty points . . . !"
"At least we've lost more before," Harriet said bitterly.
"Let's just go back to the tower." Hermione patted her pockets for the hand mirror. "Ron will want to know about the Basilisk—"
I smell blood . . .
At first Harriet thought it was the wind or the storm, beating snow at the walls and windows, hissing down the corridors. But the wind really didn't have a voice, at least not one she could understand the way she could understand a giant monster snake.
She grabbed Hermione's arm so hard that Hermione yelped.
"Harry, what—"
Harriet clapped a hand over her mouth. "Shh!" she choked.
Find the Mudbloods . . . let me kill this time . . . let me rip, let me tear . . .
Hermione's rigid face said she understood. She was clutching Lavender's mirror in a shaking hand, her fingers dug into Harriet's jumper.
"I can't tell where it is." Anguished, Harriet stared up and down the empty corridor, imagining the shadows thickening into nightmares with huge, glowing eyes that could kill—
"We've got to shut our eyes," Hermione whispered back, trembling all over. "If we don't look in its eyes—"
Where are they? I smell blood . . . blood . . .
The words threw themselves back over each other, echoing and blotting each other out, filling the hall with noise so that she couldn't figure out where the voice was coming from. It was somehow even more frightening now that Harriet knew what it was, knew what they were waiting for, because she still didn't know what they should do. How were they supposed to fight a freaking—
Her own words from last night streaked back into her head: "I hope it is a great dirty snake, because then I can tell it to bugger off to its Chamber of bloody Secrets."
She worked her throat, an idea forming . . . Form faster, form faster! she thought fiercely.
"Go away!" she tried. Hermione stared at her. "Was that in Parseltongue?"
"No, English," Hermione whispered frantically.
And then Harriet saw, rippling on the walls, a shadow like something rushing up on them from the adjoining corridor; and that time, she heard her voice come out in a menacing hiss—
"Go away!"
The shadow shrank—but it wasn't turning away from them, it was rushing around the corner, and Harriet slammed her eyes shut, Hermione whimpering against her. "Go AWAY—"
"Miss Potter—what are you doing?"
Harriet's eyes flew open, and she and Hermione stared up at Snape, who was bearing down on them with a hard, angry face.
"You're not the Basilisk," she said stupidly.
Snape's breathing was harsh, like he'd been running. "You heard it?" he asked in a voice so sharp Harriet flinched.
"Yes," Hermione said in a faint voice, clinging so close to Harriet that her heart was beating against Harriet's arm. "Harry, what—what was it saying?"
"It could smell us but it didn't know where we were," Harriet said. "It wanted to kill us—like usual."
Snape's gaunt face looked almost bloodless. The light from a torch on the wall cut shadows into his skin and glittered in his eyes.
"Come with me," he said, his voice tight and low. "And stay behind."
Harriet had been pretty steamed at him earlier, but now she followed him gladly, clutching Hermione's hand as they trailed him through the corridors like pieces of his shadow. The windows were still black, and the portraits' many, whispering voices sounded like the wind.
"Maybe the portraits have seen something?" Hermione said tremulously.
"So far," said Snape without turning, "every attack has been perpetrated in parts of the castle that are bare of portraits." There was a hint of Obviously we thought of this already in his voice, but he didn't say anything else, which Harriet supposed counted as restraint. With him.
Snape stopped in front of an extremely ugly stone gargoyle with a beak for a mouth and two lopsided, bulbous eyes. "Sherbet lemon," Snape told it in a threatening voice, barely opening his lips, like he didn't want to say it.
The gargoyle rolled its eyes toward Harriet and Hermione, but with the sound of rock scraping on rock, it clambered aside; the floor shuddered as the wall behind split in two, like a sliding door made of stone.
Snape impatiently gestured Harriet and Hermione through the gap in the wall. They edged onto a spiral staircase that twisted up and up overhead. As soon as Snape stepped onto the stair behind them, the whole staircase began to move. Like an escalator, it wound them up and around, around and up, until Harriet was dizzy.
At the top was a half-circle landing and a set of double doors carved with a woodland scene: a forest with regular deer and birds, but also centaurs and unicorns, goblins, house-elves and dwarves, two wizards and two witches, all with long, flowing hair and robes. Harriet wondered if they were supposed to be the four Founders.
Before she could figure out which might be Slytherin, Snape rapped on the door. He waited only a moment before opening it, shepherding the girls inside. Neither of them dared speak to each other, but Harriet would bet Hermione had already guessed long ago that this must be Dumbledore's office.
It was too grand to be a regular professor's. Enormous and circular, it was fitted with huge bookcases and dozens of portraits, who all appeared to be napping, and decorated in a style of exuberant mismatch. The carpets were crimson and gold; armchairs sat in midnight blue and bronze velvet; tapestries in silver and green and yellow and black hung from the walls. A fire crackled in a hearth big enough that Harriet could have stood in it, and its mantle was carved with vines and flowers. A cabinet filled with crystal bottles glittered in the light like the hundred twinkling eyes of Argus Panoptes' much kinder twin, and shelves all around the room were crammed with unfamiliar instruments that puffed, whirred, and clicked. It reminded Harriet of the Burrow more than a bit.
For the first time since she saw Mrs Norris hanging Petrified by her tail from a lamp bracket, Harriet felt . . . safe.
"Is that a phoenix?" Hermione whispered, nudging Harriet, who looked where she was trying to point without Snape seeing. On a perch behind Dumbledore's enormous desk sat a lanky bird with canary yellow- and- blinding scarlet feathers. It had the beginnings of splendid plumes on its head.
Snape was putting something in his pocket, a kind of white stone that fitted in the palm of his hand. Harriet had seen him holding it when Penelope Clearwater was attacked last night.
It felt longer ago than that.
"You two," said Snape in a tone of voice that made them jump. But he just pointed at the chairs in front of the fire. "Sit down."
"We didn't touch anything," Harriet said automatically.
"Did I say you had, Miss Potter?"
Harriet refrained from saying that nobody, least of all his students, would put it past him. She and Hermione sat near the fire, feeling a bit warmer but not all the way through. It was like the heat touched her skin but everything beneath it was ice. She kept hearing the echo of that hissing voice, the voice of a monster, of a murderer . . . How near them had it been? How close had they been to . . .
The office door opened and Professor Dumbledore came in, looking mildly surprised. At the sight of him, the phoenix trilled. When it did, something warm and golden, like warm honey, trickled into Harriet's heart.
"Miss Potter says she heard the Basilisk," Snape said by way of hello, pointing at the girls. "In the third-floor corridor's west wing, just now."
Professor Dumbledore turned to look at them. For a split second his face was alarmed, but then it sobered.
"That must have been a dreadful shock," he said, grave and serious, "especially so early in the morning. Were you on your way to breakfast?"
"We were going back to Gryffindor tower, sir," Hermione said in a small voice.
"They had been to see me," Snape said, as if the meeting hadn't been a total disaster. "And to the library before that, apparently, to fine-tune their Nancy Drew skills."
Hermione looked at him curiously; so did Professor Dumbledore. Harriet didn't see why.
"Hermione figured out it—the monster, I mean—was a Basilisk," she told Professor Dumbledore. "We went to the library to check, and then to let someone know, but Professor Snape said you already knew. We're sorry, sir."
"There is no need to apologize, my dear," Professor Dumbledore said, and Harriet had to fight the urge to make a face at Snape. "On the contrary, it demonstrates an impressive mastery of logic. I think thirty-five points to Gryffindor are in order—what do you say, Severus?"
It was really, really hard not to make a face then. Snape gave them an unfriendly scowl, as if he knew exactly what Harriet, at least, was thinking. If Hermione felt vindicated, it didn't show; she just turned bright red with pleasure and embarrassment.
"Was the Basilisk preparing for an attack, Harriet?" Professor Dumbledore asked, now grave again.
"I think it was looking for Hermione and me," she said. "I mean, it mentioned Mudbloods—"
Snape's expression darkened, but Professor Dumbledore lifted a finger and Snape just looked away. Harriet was indignant. Obviously she was just quoting.
"It was trying to smell out where we were," she went on, "but for some reason it couldn't. I mean, I guess it couldn't—it said . . . " She ransacked her memory. "Find the Mudbloods . . . let me kill this time . . . "
"Harry!" Hermione whispered urgently, her face rigid. "You're speaking . . . " But she apparently didn't even want to say the word.
"Oh." Harriet looked at Snape's and Professor Dumbledore's faces. They both looked—odd. Not scared or anything, only . . . She didn't know what. It was some complicated, grown-up emotion. She resisted a frantic impulse to say that she didn't mean to speak it, she didn't even want to know that stupid, creepy language. "Sorry," she muttered, staring at her knees.
"There is no need to be, my dear," Professor Dumbledore said. "Parseltongue is not, in itself, evil, or even Dark. It merely carries those associations, due to the wizards who have mastered it."
"Miss Potter," Snape said suddenly, "what were you saying when I found you and Miss Granger? You were hissing," he said when she stared at him.
"Oh . . . " Harriet felt her face heat. It seemed stupid, now. "Nothing . . . "
"Miss Potter, what did I tell you about telling the truth?" Snape asked in a dangerous voice, but Professor Dumbledore just looked at him and Snape glanced away.
"If you must know," Harriet said in a tone that made Hermione groan quietly, "sir, I was telling it to go away. Well, it worked on that snake at the Dueling Club," she said defensively when both professors stared at her. "I didn't know what else to do."
Professor Dumbledore blinked, but said with conviction, "The situation must have been a frightening one. You acted very bravely, the both of you." He stood from his chair; Harriet and Hermione hastily did the same. "When I received Professor Snape's summons, I quickly issued orders to the Heads of House to see that their students remained in their dormitories. For now, I must have you two obey the same injunction. You may use my fire to return to the Tower."
He crossed to the mantle and lifted down a Chinese porcelain urn. "You'll all be served meals in house. I know it's not anything like a delightful way to spend the holiday, but we must keep you all safe."
He smiled down at them, and his phoenix trilled again, dripping those honey-warm drops through Harriet's heart.
"You first, my dear," he said, removing the lid from the urn and holding it down to her. Harriet thought of Mrs Weasley doing the same at the Burrow. Thinking of the Burrow made her realize she didn't want to leave Professor Dumbledore's cozy study. It was just like the Weasleys' house, warm and safe and inviting. For some reason the Gryffindor common room wasn't like that anymore.
"Is it just like Floo?" she asked, taking a handful of ash that smelled like incense.
"Ah, so you've traveled by Floo before, then?" Professor Dumbledore said, smiling. "Yes, it's exactly so. Have you, Miss Granger? No? Observe Harriet, then."
"Gryffindor Tower," Harriet said, slinging the ash into the grate. The fire flared a brilliant green, and she shut her eyes and stepped into it, feeling neither cold nor warmth, just a gentle tickling sensation—and then a powerful suction, like she was being sucked down a drain. Her stomach roiled, her head whirled, and with a sudden rush of icy air she was tumbling painfully onto the carpet in the Gryffindor common room.
"Blimey!" said Ron's voice. "Where'd you come from, Harry?"
"My thought's the fireplace," said Fred or George as Harriet coughed and wiped at her sooty glasses. "My first clue being, she came out of the—"
"Mind the fire, Hermione's coming—"
But Harriet wasn't fast enough: Hermione came hurtling out of the flames, collided with Ron, and knocked the both of them down on Harriet herself.
"Ouch!"
"Wh," Hermione hacked. "Wh-what was that?"
"Floo," George said, hauling her up while Fred levered Ron to his feet so Harriet could breathe. "A bit of a shock the first time, eh?"
"I hope it was the last time!" Hermione's hair was even bushier than usual, sticking out like a briar patch, and there was ash all over her indignant face. "And I thought brooms were bad!"
"Sacrilege!" Fred clutched dramatically at his chest.
"It's a good thing I didn't have breakfast yet." Hermione took out her wand and started brushing the ash off her jumper, then doing the same for Harriet.
"There's food there." Ron pointed at a table piled with plates, cups, and covered platters. "McGonagall was here to tell us we've got to stay put, and to magic the table up. What happened? Where did you two go?"
"And what did you do to get everyone in school confined to their common rooms?" Fred asked.
"Not that we're complaining, mind you," George said. "A bit dull for us, but it must've been a choice piece of mischief, whatever it was."
"Didn't know you girls had it in you," said Fred.
"We almost got eaten by Slytherin's monster, that's what," Harriet said, lifting a cover off one of the trays. It contained toast. She doled some out onto her plate and then Hermione's, who served her some fried tomatoes.
"Is that a joke?" Ron asked sharply.
"No," Hermione said, uncapping the marmalade. "Last night I figured out the monster was a Basilisk—because Harriet could hear it, you see, when no one else could—"
"Parseltongue," Harriet explained, because of Ron's slack expression. "A Basilisk's a giant, man-eating snake."
Fred and George were staring at each other, apparently communicating through some kind of silent twin language.
"Wh," Ron said, his mouth hanging open.
"So Harriet and I went to the library," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "Thank you, Harriet—no, one egg is fine—"
"Of course you went to the library," Ron said faintly.
"And then you tackled a giant, thousand-year-old snake?" George said. "Just trying to put events in order, see."
"Then," Hermione said, a bit haughtily, "we went to find a teacher."
"Only we found Snape," Harriet said. "You can probably fill in the rest yourself."
"Doesn't take any effort at all, actually," said Fred. "Go on, girls."
They told them all the rest. When they had finished, all three boys were silent.
Harriet chewed on her toast and looked around the circular space. Neither Ginny nor Percy was there. As for Ginny, Harriet wasn't surprised. It would have been stranger if she had been there. Was she upstairs crying? Writing feverishly in that little black book?
An idea popped into Harriet's head. Slowly, she lowered her crust, staring at the wall.
"You know," Fred said quietly, nudging her back to the present, "if the Heir of Slytherin is a student . . ."
"That means it's got to be someone who stayed behind for Christmas," George finished.
"There's not that many of us it could be," Ron said, his expression dark and troubled, looking not unlike Snape's. "There's Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle . . . all of us, that Clearwater girl . . . "
"Almost everyone went home," Hermione said. "Afraid, because of . . . "
She trailed off into silence. Even though it was now day, the snow tufting against the windows made the light dark and dim. Shadows swam around the edges of the common room, melted across the floor, ebbed over their faces.
"Well," said George eventually. "We might all be home, soon enough."
"What d'you mean?" Ron asked.
"If they can't catch the person who did this, little brother," George said.
"It'll mean Hogwarts is shut," said Fred.
Harriet had told the Weasleys she was just going up to check on Ginny, which wasn't the whole truth. In fact, if Ginny was awake, it was going to put a crimp in Harriet's plan.
But when Harriet pushed open her dormitory door, the room was empty. Just a bunch of long shadows that used to be furniture, in the light.
She went over to Ginny/Parvati's bed anyway, but the covers had been kicked to the foot of the bed; it was obvious no one was there. She checked the other beds just to be sure, but no; she appeared to be alone.
Ears straining for the sounds of an approach, she went back to Ginny's bed and started rummaging for the little black book.
She found it stuffed in a slit in the mattress. Had Ginny cut open Parvati's bed? That seemed so unlike her . . .
Maybe Parvati had done it, to hide her own things . . . but that didn't seem like Parvati's style either. If Parvati was going to hide something, she'd do it in such an obvious way that one of the other girls would find it and have to ask her about it, and then she'd pretend not to want to tell them before spilling the whole story with more information than anyone would really want to know.
Stop thinking about Parvati, Harriet scolded herself. You're finding out what's wrong with Ginny.
She knew this wasn't really on, snooping in Ginny's private things, but she didn't know what else to do . . . and when she remembered Ginny's face yesterday—her bared teeth, the red light in her eyes—Harriet knew something was really wrong. It was worth doing something a bit immoral if it saved Ginny.
So she took a deep breath and opened the book . . .
And found nothing inside. Nothing at all.
Confused, she flipped through the pages, but there wasn't even a single mark. The pages had dates printed on them, spaces for appointments to be filled in, but no writing from a person. Maybe this wasn't what Ginny had been scribbling in . . .
But why hide an empty diary in a hole in a mattress?
Blimey, maybe it's magic, Harriet thought sarcastically. If only she knew how to read invisible writing in addition to talking to bloody snakes.
There were two other things that were weird about that diary: one was the calendar, which was for the year 1941. The second was that on the back, it had a name printed in cheap, flaking letters, some of which had flaked off so much only the marks where they had been were left. They had once read T. M. Riddle. Maybe Ginny had got the diary second-hand in Diagon Alley.
Frowning, Harriet turned the unhelpful diary over in her hands. She knew she should put it back before Ginny came in, but she couldn't quite let go of it. What if she took it to Hermione and asked how you read books that had been charmed private? Hermione probably wouldn't like it . . . but if she could—
"You're just as enterprising as I'd hoped, Harriet."
Harriet didn't jump up from the bed or drop the diary, but her heart slammed against the front of her ribs. She stared at Ginny, who had come silently into the room and moved to stand at the foot of Parvati's bed without making a sound. The firelight shone behind her, turning her long red hair to blood and bronze.
Harriet opened her mouth to apologize, to say she'd just been worried . . . but then her eyesight adjusted enough for her to see Ginny's shadowed face.
"Ginny?" Harriet said slowly.
"Harr-ee?" Ginny replied, mimicking Harriet's drawn-out voice.
Harriet looked at Ginny's peculiar smile and felt a kind of certainty settle in her stomach, like sand at the bottom of a pond.
"Or maybe not," she said quietly. "Who are you?"
Ginny laughed. It made all the hairs on Harriet's arms and the back of her neck prickle.
"Oh, very good," she said, not sounding like Ginny at all. It was Ginny's voice, it was coming out of Ginny's mouth, but it sounded like a grown-up talking; a cruel one, laughing at a joke that Harriet didn't understand but that she hated all the same. "Very, very good. I was beginning to worry you didn't have the brains. Well, you can see why I was worried, didn't you?" The not-Ginny shook her head, like she was rather disappointed.
Harriet did throw the diary on the floor, then, and jump to her feet. "Whoever the hell you are, you get out of Ginny right now or I'll—"
"You'll what?" asked the not-Ginny in a tone of voice that shot lead through Harriet's veins; but she was so angry she felt it boiling away.
"I'll make you sorry," Harriet snarled.
The not-Ginny paused, and then she laughed harder than ever, so hard she doubled over, bracing herself against the bed post.
"That's the best you've got?" she asked. "You absurd, foolish, stupid girl—but I can see you don't understand yet." She straightened up, smiling that disturbing smile again.
"Understand what?" Harriet spat. She really wished she knew more curses—but that would only have been hurting Ginny. Unless this was someone Polyjuiced to look like Ginny? And the real Ginny was . . .
But Ginny had looked like this yesterday, and then she had looked like herself. This was Ginny, not like Ron Polyjuiced into Crabbe.
Keep her talking, whoever she is, find out what's going on.
"Everything," Not-Ginny said. She laid her finger against her lips, and when she turned just right, Harriet saw the firelight glint in Ginny's brown eyes like blood on the water.
"But I can't show you in here," Not-Ginny said. "We've got to go to the Chamber of Secrets. Don't you want to see the Chamber of Secrets, Harriet Potter? I want you to see the Chamber, dear Harriet."
Harriet stared at Not-Ginny as the final puzzle piece clicked into place. "You're the heir of Slytherin."
Not-Ginny sighed. "Thick as a brick after all. Well, come along anyway, Harriet Potter. Stupid little Ginny tells me you have a Cloak of Invisibility. Normally children's trinkets wouldn't interest me, but we might as well avoid having to explain ourselves to these criminally stupid teachers, hmm?"
When she smiled, it seemed to split her face in two