As Above, So Below - D. Malfoy & M. Riddle

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

In every fiction book that I have read, whenever the characters are running for their lives, they never get winded or caught. They may trip once or twice over a tree root, but they get back up just in time to miss being killed.

Oh, how I wish we were in a book right now.

"It isn't real!" Enzo shouts, grabbing my hand and pulling me around the corner. "Right?"

I flash him a worried look, shrugging as my heart pounds out of my chest, the snake gaining on us.

It's not a regular snake. It looks like a Basilisk, but more like a spirit of one. It's slithering quickly through the tunnel, its body nearly filling up the width of it, as its eyes glow red.

I have never seen a Basilisk before, only heard of it when Harry saved Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets in second-year. I heard that it was big, but I certainly didn't expect this.

There's no logical way that it is real within this tunnel, especially since it appeared so suddenly once we escaped the Inferi. A snake this size would have certainly showed itself earlier on, or given us a sign that it was showing up. It all happened so quickly that I'm starting to believe that it's a ghost or someone charmed it to be here to scare off any intruders.

I see this as a good sign that there is something hidden at the end of this tunnel worth finding. That it's all worth it.

It's quite easy to see through it if I focus hard enough, but it has been hard to do so after running through the tunnel for ten minutes so far.

I am not a track star; never have been. I have always greatly preferred flying on my broom. Whenever I worked out, I walked or lifted weights; intense cardio has never been my friend.

Even after doing track for a few years at Hogwarts, I always found a way to do the bare minimum. I still ran - which is coming in handy at the moment - but never like Dean or Seamus that took it very seriously.

Enzo and I duck into a crack in the wall just as the Basilisk rounds the corner. It's scaly skin slithers by us in the hallway and I press my hand to my mouth, Enzo doing the same to himself. This isn't the first hole in the wall that we have seen on our run, but we haven't had an opportunity to hide since it was so close.

I observe the snake as it races by and I can see the wall through it.

"It's a spirit." I whisper softly and Enzo nods, just before everything goes silent. I can hear the snake in the far distance, but it's nowhere near us anymore.

"I wish the others were with us." Enzo whispers back. "Draco knows parseltongue."

"He does?" I ask curiously.

Last I heard, he was making fun of Harry for knowing how to speak that language. I would have never thought that he would have learned it himself, as he despised doing anything that Harry did.

"I wish they were too." I nod. "I still don't know why we were separated. They were so close to us."

We sit in silence for a few minutes and something clicks in my mind.

Ominis mentioned this; that it was too dangerous to go forward as five people. He mentioned being separated once we arrived in Feldcroft, but he didn't specify that it would be when we were above ground. Maybe that door that we entered was on the border of Feldcroft, so we were cut off from the others.

I explain it to Enzo, who nods in agreement as he listens.

"He said the other three would need to watch out for the two who were chosen to go forward. Chosen." Enzo begins with a huff. "I don't know how they could possibly be looking out for us, but at least there's a big chance that they're alive."