Echo | Harry Potter - George Weasley

Chapter 26: Moaning Myrtle's Misery

Unable to sleep after returning to her dormitory, no thanks to the piercing black spider eyes she saw whenever she attempted to get some shuteye, Shaye stayed up most of the night thinking. She thought about Hagrid and if he really had been taken to Azkaban, she thought about the Chamber of Secrets and who was really behind all of the attacks, and when those two topics had been exhausted, she resorted to thinking about Lorelei.

Shaye had been right when she guessed that she would soon become too busy to continue the fruitless search for the truth behind her sister's disappearance. With clues about Lorelei coming up dead-end after dead-end and the Chamber only providing more and more questions that needed answering as the time passed, it became obvious which problem she needed to divert her energy toward.

As soon as the sun began to rise and the sky faded into a bright shade of orange and red, Shaye jumped out of bed—still exhausted and a little on-edge from the events that had taken place the night before—and went down to the common room where Harry and Ron had been waiting for her. Shaye could instantly tell from the bags under their eyes that the boys hadn't gotten much sleep either. 

Together, the trio went to their classes—escorted by a teacher each time— and ate as much food as they could muster before nearly falling asleep in the Great Hall. When the day was nearly over, the only thing they really had the energy and will-power to do was head in the direction of the hospital wing to visit Hermione. Along the way, Harry had stolen a bouquet of purple flowers from one of the vases in the corridor and brought them along.

The hospital wing was mostly empty, save the few beds occupied by those who had been petrified. Hermione, as expected, was still in the same position she had been in the last time Shaye and the others had visited. Her skin was just as pale and her eyes were just as wide.

Harry quickly replaced the muted and wilted flowers on Hermione's bedside table with the ones he had stolen. Then, he sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at his friend. Shaye could tell he was thinking the same thing she was; thinking about how much easier everything would be if Hermione were able to help.

"Wish you were here, Hermione," Harry said, voicing everyone's thoughts "We need you. Now more than ever."

Shaye took Hermione's left hand in her own, the pale skin even colder than it looked. Then she felt something tucked inside of the closed hand. Retrieving the item, Shaye discovered it was a piece of paper.

"Guys, look at this." Shaye was careful not to damage the paper as she un-crumpled it. 

Harry peered at the paper from over Shaye's shoulder before taking it into his own hands. The two friends shared a look of amazement. Even petrified, Hermione was able to save the day. 

"What's that?" Ron asked, unable to see the paper from where he was sitting on the other side of the bed.

"This is why Hermione was in the library the day she was attacked. Come on." Jumping up, Harry rushed out of the hospital wing with Shaye close on his heels. Ron blinked back in confusion for a few seconds, unsure what was going one, before following as well.

"'Of the many fearsome beasts that roam our land, none is more deadly than the basilisk.'" Harry read off of the book page that had been found in Hermione's hand. "'Capable of living for hundreds of years, instant death awaits any who meet this giant serpent's eye. Spiders flee before it.'"

"This is it!" Shaye exclaimed. "The monster in the Chamber of Secrets is a basilisk."

Harry nodded. "That's why I can hear it speak. It's a snake."

Ron furrowed his brows, a burning question on the tip of his tongue. "But if it kills by looking people in the eye, why is it no one's dead?"

The trio pondered that for a while before the pieces snapped together in Shaye's mind like a puzzle. "Because no one did look it in the eye." She looked up and saw her faint reflection in the window before her. "Not directly, at least."