Year Two: The Secret of Slytherin

Part 16

Anne ignored the Fat Lady's protests as she raced with her friends into the Gryffindor common room upp the boy's dormitories.

Inside it was a disaster. The contents of Harry's trunk had been thrown everywhere. The bedclothes been pulled off his bed and drawers had been pulled out of the cabinet, the contents strewn over the mattress.

"It had to be a Gryffindor. Nobody else knows our password," Hermione pointed out. "Unless it wasn't a student."

"Whoever it was, they were looking for something," said Ron as he looked at the me

"And they found it..... Tom Riddle's diary is gone," said Harry in an undertone.

Anne glanced at him before shaking her head sadly.

Students were streaming into the Quidditch stadium for the big game: Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff.

As he left the Great Hall with Anne, Ron, and Hermione to go and collect his Quidditch gear, Harry kept worrying about the missing diary wondering who was now possessing it.

Hermione suddenly stopped in her tracks. "Harry, I just thought of something! I've got to go to the library!"

And she sprinted away, up the stairs.

Anne followed after her, curious. "Hermione, what's going on? What's so important that you have to go to the library right now?"

"I think I know what's been attacking people around the school! It also explains why Harry can hear it when nobody else can!" Hermione exclaimed excitedly.

"What are you talking about?"

Hermione grabbed Anne's arm, dragging her to the library. "I'll show you what I'm talking about! Come on!"

They made their way into the almost deserted library.

Hermione led Anne to a far section and pulled out a book titled Dark Creatures and How to Defeat Them. She skimmed through the pages until she found the page she was looking for.

"This is it!"

Anne looked at the page Hermione pointed out. Her eyes widened.

Of 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.

"I'm telling you, Anne. This is the monster that's been attacking people. It's exactly what Salazar Slytherin would have wanted his heir to use against his enemies," replied Hermione on edge.

"My god!" Anne gasped. She then thought of something else. She glanced at a picture of the Basilisk on the page. It was terrifying. "If this is what is lurking around the castle, how is it that nobody has seen it? Look at it! It's the size of a house!"

Hermione pondered for a few moments, then the answer came to her. She got out her quill and wrote a single word on the page. Pipes.

"The plumbing!" Anne gasped again.

Hermione nodded and ripped out the page. "We've got to show this to Harry and Ron!"

Anne nodded in return, taking the book from her. Clutching it to her chest, she rounded the corner back to the section where she and Hermione got it from. She all of a sudden stopped in her tracks. She seemed to feel an eerie presence.

She dropped the book and hurried back to the exit where she left Hermione.

Suddenly, she was confronted with a terrible sight. Two girls laid on their backs with their eyes wide and glassy.

One girl appeared to be a fifth-year Ravenclaw with long curly hair. The other who was holding a small mirror up had bushy hair----

"Hermione!"