Harry Potter. Hermione X Male Reader Story

Hidden Notes and Misleading Quotes

(Y/N)'s POV

The next day, after receiving the news the mandrakes were nearly done, so the people who had been petrified can be helped, we broke off from our class to head towards Myrtle's bathroom, we had just reached the door when a stern voice called out.

"What are you boys doing?" said Professor McGonagall. I couldn't speak, I racked my brain for any excuse I could use, luckily Harry is well known as someone who is good at thinking on his feet.

"We, were going to see-" started Ron, "Hermione. We haven't seen her for ages professor, y'know tell her the mandrakes were done, and not to worry."

I nodded along quickly, trying to look as sad and innocent as possible. Professor McGonagall gave us a once over, for a second I thought she would shout at us, but then her expression changed, she looked as if she was about to burst into tears.

"Of course, of course, I realise this has been the hardest on the friends of those affected" she gave us permission to see Hermione and went to turn away.

"Professor!" I called after her, I walked up to her and gave her the biggest smile I could manage, "Thank you" I said with a very quick hug, running off to the hospital wing. Harry and Ron looked at me in disbelief, "I don't like it when people cry, makes me sad" I shrugged and kept walking, they just snickered behind me.

We made our way to the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey wasn't happy to see us, but we sat down beside Hermione anyway, she left for an errand, we were there for a few minutes, chatting away when Harry noticed something in Hermione's petrified hand, as he pulled it out I kicked myself, "I had been here more than anyone, how did I not see it?"

It was a page from a book, it told of a snake like creature that could kill anyone it looked at, a Basilisk, "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 wonderous, 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."

And beneath this, a single word had been written, in a hand I recognized as Hermione's. "Pipes." "Ron, (Y/N)" Harry breathed. "This is it. This is the answer. The monster in the Chamber's a basilisk- a giant serpent! That's why I've been hearing that voice all over the place, and nobody else has heard it. It's because I understand Parseltongue..."

I looked up at the beds around me, putting it all together, thinking back to my reading. "The basilisk kills people by looking at them. But no one's died" I said, racking my brain, then it clicked "because no one looked it straight in the eye."

 I pointed around the room checking them off, "You said, Colin saw it through his camera. I remember because the basilisk burned up all the film inside it, but Colin just got Petrified. Justin... Justin must've seen the basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick, and Hermione and that Penelope were found with a mirror next to them." 

"Hermione had just realised the monster was a basilisk. So knowing her, she warned the first person she met to look around corners with a mirror first! And that girl pulled out her mirror."

That's why I couldn't find anything in the library, I was looking at petrification specifically, not a creature that could cause petrification as a side effect. Everything finally made sense "God she's so smart" Harry's jaw had dropped, Ron still looked unconvinced.