When the Chamber opened, the school was throwing a party.
Students were tearing all over the main castle in bizarre costumes and strange makeup, shouting, "Halloween! Halloween!"
Wizards really were a bit mysterious by nature—Halloween was practically made for them to play at ghosts and monsters.
Floating jack-o'-lanterns, skeletons that walked by themselves, bleeding doorknobs… those were all perfectly ordinary decorations. The kitchens had prepared special monster cupcakes—Thestrals, trolls, fire-breathing dragons—all in cute little chibi versions. Not scary at all. If anything, they were adorable. Dumbledore had even hired a skeleton dance troupe; when they danced, their bones clacked and rattled. A little creepy. Also kind of hilarious.
When the basilisk attack happened, the Great Hall was still a sea of laughter.
Two hours later, the castle was empty.
The Heads of House arrived in a rush and saw Dumbledore standing by the castle's main doors, not yet having started the search.
"Dumbledore!" Snape's tone was harsh. "A student is still inside. We should find him immediately."
Compared to Snape's anxiety and tightly bottled rage, Dumbledore looked calm. "You mean Harry?"
"Yes. That very boy." Snape's tongue might as well have been dipped in poison. "If there were even a shred of reason and self-control in that withered little head of his, he wouldn't still be in there. But he really is that stupid—beyond saving. Thanks to someone's indulgence, Mr. Potter now fancies himself some remarkable wizard who can deal with a basilisk alone. I should be grateful to the wizarding world: better that a fool ends his pathetic life young than spend decades causing trouble for everyone."
"Severus, calm down."
"I don't understand why we're still standing here, leisurely enjoying the breeze, instead of going in at once to rescue… to drag out Mr. Potter." The air between Snape and the headmaster was practically sparking. The other three Heads of House stayed silent. It was the first time any of them had seen Snape this furious.
"Severus," Dumbledore said softly. "It's over."
"What?" Snape's cheeks twitched. "What's over?"
"The crisis. It's been resolved. Thanks to our brave and fearless Harry—he dealt with the basilisk."
All the anger on Snape's face vanished at once, as if it had never been there.
The castle doors slowly opened. Harry Potter stepped out with a battered, scarred wolfhound at his side. A ragged Sorting Hat sat on his head, and in his hands he carried a sword. His robes were spattered with foul-smelling blood. He looked like he'd been through a fight—and won decisively.
The moment he came outside, he saw the headmaster and all four Heads of House staring at him. Especially Snape. In the dim glow of the moon, that look was unbelievably complicated.
Harry lifted a hand in a shy little wave. "G-Good evening?"
...
People said Hogwarts was the safest place in the world, but Harry had understood for a long time that it was actually the most dangerous. The place was like a historical powder keg—only Dumbledore was sitting on the lid, keeping it from blowing.
When the news came that the Chamber had opened, Harry was in the bathroom. He'd had too much iced pumpkin juice. And speaking of pumpkins—this year, Hagrid's pumpkins had been hit with an Engorgement Charm. Each one was as big as a carriage. If you hollowed one out, you could sit Cinderella inside, add a fairy godmother to conjure up a gown, and she'd be ready for the ball. Big pumpkins meant lots of pumpkin juice. Perfectly reasonable. Which meant it was perfectly reasonable for him, young as he was, to drink a few cups too many.
While he was in there, he vaguely heard an evil voice whispering inside the walls:
"Kill… tear you apart… come here… let me eat you..."
He flushed, and the voice vanished.
When Harry came out, Afu was already waiting for him.
That rotten dog was always appearing out of nowhere. It did seem a lot more obedient than before, though. Dumbledore didn't keep it on a tight leash anymore, and Harry knew Afu had become his problem now.
"What is it?"
Afu had a tattered old hat in its mouth, muffled curses coming from it. The dog turned and started walking, leading Harry forward. After a moment it looked back at him, as if asking: why aren't you following?
Ever since the end of last term, when Afu had launched a surprise attack on him, Harry had been wary of the dog. He stayed right where he was. Afu, seeing that, didn't wait any longer—it bolted off and vanished into the shadows at the end of the corridor like a streak of white lightning.
Harry returned to the Great Hall and went back to enjoying the feast. Hermione was enthusiastically lecturing everyone around her about the historical origins of Halloween. Ron had his head down and was stuffing himself. Neville was cutting into a screaming ghost-face pie—its chubby skull-like face let out a very convincing shriek.
"Harry, try this," Ron said, pushing a platter of roast beef toward him. "The sauce is amazing tonight."
"Hogwarts has a problem," Harry said quietly.
Before he'd even finished, a frantic construction worker came sprinting in from the Great Hall doors. "Someone's dead! There are dead people underground!"
Twelve corpses were carried into the Great Hall. This wasn't a Halloween gag. They were real bodies.
The students screamed.
Ms. Moonshadow stepped forward to examine them. Calmly, she said, "It's only their souls that have been petrified." Then she performed a kind of magic no one had ever seen before—silver radiance spilled over the bodies, and one by one, they revived.
At the same time, Harry's vision suddenly fractured into a hallucination. He saw a stone wall burst open. He saw an enormous monster sliding out from behind it. Workers crowded in a tunnel holding lamps—and then the flames snuffed out in an instant. In the darkness, only two honey-yellow eyes remained, like giant headlights, shining with wicked light. Anyone who saw them collapsed without a sound, dying faster than straw knocked over by a gust of wind.
"Harry! What's wrong?" Ron and Hermione crowded around him, lightly patting his cheeks. "We have to go—Dumbledore says we're spending the night at the new campus."
Harry clutched his head. "I saw it. There's a snake underground. Afu's in danger."
"Forget that bad dog," his friends said. None of them understood Harry's stubborn fixation on Afu.
"Doesn't matter. It's still my dog." Harry wiped the cold sweat off his face. "I'll be right back. Cover for me."
He flowed out with the crowd, then slipped away around a corner and disappeared.
The fight against the basilisk was simpler than Harry had expected—startling, but ultimately without much risk.
He navigated Hogwarts' maze-like sewer system when his phone buzzed with a message from Hermione.
[Harry, what you're dealing with is a basilisk.]
Hermione had attached a file describing this high-risk magical creature.
The basilisk, also called the King of Serpents, was originally bred by an Ancient Greek Dark wizard named Herpo the Foul, who incubated a chicken egg beneath a toad, and a basilisk was born. A basilisk's eyes could kill any person or animal that met its gaze, while indirect eye contact caused petrification. Its skin was covered in scales that could deflect spells. Its fatal weakness was a rooster's crow.
[Got it. Anything else?]
Harry heard that evil voice again, echoing from every direction through the pipes, the sound waves crashing like a tide.
"Kill… come here… let me eat you..."
After a moment, Hermione sent another text:
[It's said Herpo the Foul was one of the earliest Parselmouths. Basilisks can't be tamed, but they can still be controlled through Parseltongue.]
Parseltongue? Harry thought. I can do that.
Right then, he heard two sharp, furious barks from a pipe opening to the right. Afu seemed to be fighting something. Harry tore a strip of cloth from his sleeve, tied it over his eyes, and stepped into the pipe. He immediately slipped and fell hard—slick, sloping downward—and ended up sliding the whole way until he reached the basilisk.
The air went very still.
Blindfolded, he couldn't see a thing, but he felt something brush against his boots.
Harry asked in a low voice, "Afu?"
A damp, rancid stench drifted toward him from the front.
"Meat… meat is here… let me eat you!"
Harry spoke calmly, hissing in Parseltongue, "Stop."
The basilisk froze.
So it works, Harry thought. Parseltongue really works.
Just as he believed the crisis was over, Afu let out a low, warning bark. Then Harry heard a young man's voice:
"Kill him!"
Harry guessed that was Slytherin's Heir—the real mastermind behind the attacks.
The basilisk stirred again.
Harry shouted, "Stop!"
The basilisk went still.
The stranger snarled in humiliation, "Kill him! You only obey my commands!"
Harry said flatly, "Stay right there. Don't move."
"Kill him!"
"Stay right there."
The basilisk twitched in place, utterly confused now, emitting an angry, rumbling hiss.
Harry's palm touched a soft dog nose. Afu nudged the Sorting Hat into his hands. The Sorting Hat muttered at him, "Put your hand inside."
Harry thrust his hand into the hat and grabbed something hard and icy-cold. He yanked it out—and a clean, bright sword-note rang through the air.
A sword? Harry thought. I don't know swordplay. And I'm blindfolded.
The Sorting Hat sounded delighted. "All right, lad—now listen to me. The basilisk is one foot in front of you. Raise the sword. Good, that's the height. And now—while you have the chance—thrust!"
Harry felt a storm of furious noise and foul wind in front of him. He lunged forward with the blade and felt it sink into something soft. A gush of icy blood sprayed over him.
The basilisk gave a pained, rumbling bellow. Harry swung wildly a few more times—some strikes scraped across scales and sliced open shallow cuts, but the final thrust found its mark again.
"Brilliant! You can open your eyes now," the Sorting Hat crowed.
Harry ripped off the blindfold. The basilisk's eyes had been stabbed out. The young man who'd been commanding it had already fled—his footsteps echoed along the pipes. Afu was covered in wounds, but they looked like they'd come from fighting someone, not from the basilisk itself.
"Afu, listen. I need your help." Harry calmly pulled out his wand and aimed it at the wolfhound, casting Transfiguration.
Afu changed from a dog into a rooster.
It crowed.
At the sound of the rooster's call, the basilisk thrashed twice in frantic weakness, then went limp—like its soul had been yanked out—and fell still.
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