Stay - Theodore Nott

A Trade?

"Exams?" cried Kirra Potter with a pout on her face. "We're still getting exams?"

"The whole point of keeping the school open at this time is for you to receive your education," she said sternly. "The exams will therefore take place as usual, and I trust you are all studying hard."

Studying hard! It had never occurred to Kirra that there would be exams with the castle in this state. 

"Told you," Rowle said from next to her, she turned her head and pouted up at him. There was a great deal of mutinous muttering around the room, which made Professor McGonagall scowl even more darkly.

"Professor Dumbledore's instructions were to keep the school running as normally as possible," she said. "And that, I need hardly point out, means finding out how much you have learned this year." Kirra looked down at the pair of white rabbits she was supposed to be turning into slippers. What had she learned so far this year? She couldn't seem to think of anything that would be useful in an exam.

"Kill me now" the girl muttered under her breath and dramatically whacked her head on the table. Rowle pat the girl on the back sarcastically, "don't worry, I'm sure you won't fail by much" he said playfully which resulted in the girl lifting her head off the desk and turning to glare at the boy.

"Shove off you asshole" she grumbled and the Slytherins around her grinned.

*

Three days before their first exam, Professor McGonagall made another announcement at breakfast."I have good news," she said, and the Great Hall, instead of falling silent, erupted."Dumbledore's coming back!" several people yelled joyfully and Kirra grinned widely.

"You've caught the Heir of Slytherin!" squealed a girl at the Ravenclaw table.

"Quidditch matches are back on!" roared Blythe excitedly.

When the hubbub had subsided, Professor McGonagall said, "Professor Sprout has informed me that the Mandrakes are ready for cutting at last. Tonight, we will be able to revive those people who have been Petrified. I need hardly remind you all that one of them may well be able to tell us who, or what attacked them. I am hopeful that this dreadful year will end with our catching the culprit."There was an explosion of cheering.

*

Harry, Ron and Kirra sat in the hospital wing around Hermione's bed and suddenly, a small piece of paper scrunched up in Hermione's hand catches the girl's attention, "hey look" Kirra muttered quickly and pointed to the paper

"Try and get it out," Ron whispered, shifting his chair so that he blocked Harry and Kirra from Madam Pomfrey's view. It was no easy task. Hermione's hand was clamped so tightly around the paper that Kirra was sure she was going to tear it. While Ron and Harry kept watching she tugged and twisted, and at last, after several tense minutes, the paper came free.

It was a page torn from a very old library book.

Kirra smoothed it out eagerly and Ron and Harry leaned close to read it, too.

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.