The Art of Secrets

Chapter Ten: Slytherin Vs. Gryffindor

It was in the common room one evening that Harry finally cornered Erica. Draco was in the shower, Pansy was spending time with Millicent up in the dormitories and Blaise was finishing some work with Hermione in the library so it was just them, meaning she had no escape.

"I didn't do it," she spoke without looking up, knowing the kind of look he was giving her without needing too, instead staring blankly at the book in front of her, not really seeing the words.

"I never asked if you did," he sighed, sitting down beside her with their backs against the sofa, throwing his head back to rest against the cushion. "You know, the monster is a snake."

"How did you figure it out?" She did smile a little bit then, setting her book aside. "Was it the fact that only you and I could hear the voice that gave it away, or the snake on every Slytherin banner?"

"You know what?" he shook his head. "This is why I didn't want to have this conversation with you."

"Because of my debonair wit and charm?" She teased, and then they were both smiling, despite the seriousness of the situation. "Or because I'm so intrinsically annoying that you can't cope with it anymore?"

"The last one," he shrugged his shoulders, "But you wouldn't be you if you weren't so annoying. What snake can petrify people anyway?"

"A basilisk," she replied softly, as though Nagendra could hear her, even though she was sleeping far beneath the castle. "The king of serpents. They're one of few magical species of snake that can survive that long, and their stare kills when looked at directly, petrifying when all is seen is a reflection. The corridor was flooded that night."

"So Mrs Norris saw it reflected in the water," he breathed, turning to face her properly and pulling her book away when she made to open it again. "We need to tell the others about it."

"Okay," she nodded, figuring that was what was going to come next.

"Where did you go that night? Draco waited up for you, and I waited up for him but he never came to bed. He seemed a little off all the next day as well, so what happened?" He asked the precise things she had been hoping he wouldn't, and she didn't know what to do now.

She couldn't tell the truth. Harry would never understand, especially when it could be seen that she was protecting Nagendra, which she... was? She didn't know what she was doing anymore, or why. All she knew was that in order to protect everyone, she had to prove she was worthy of being Slytherin's heir and find out who was controlling Nagendra, and that was getting increasingly difficult.

"I went for a walk," she eventually settled on, turning around and sitting cross-legged so that they were knee to knee and she was facing him, watching the way his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "When you hear voices in walls and figure out that a basilisk is stalking people and you find a petrified cat and writing in blood on the walls, you'd want to go for a walk too."

He waited for a moment, seeming to search for something in her face, before shaking his head and grinning slightly. "Well, when you put it like that, it sounds terrible."

"Because it is terrible, we're just desensitised to the trauma," she laughed with him, and this time he let her return to her book, and they sat together in comfortable silence as he pulled his bag towards him and started on his Potions homework.

~

An appropriate time to tell the others about the basilisk in the Chamber didn't come until a few days later after a particularly trying day in the Potions classroom, Severus being in an increasingly irritable mood due to a certain Defence Professor who had taken to offering up his advice to a multitude of Professors around the castle, much to their annoyance.