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The rapport of strength in Slytherin House had been changed overnight. For the worse and for the worst.
More worrying, the majority of the teachers did not punish them for these insults and veiled threats. Professors Flitwick, Dhillon and Sprout did: for example at the last class of Charms over three weeks of detention had been distributed to the second-years Snakes and fifty House points lost. But they were the exception, not the rule.
Tiroflan, Porchester, Sinistra, Agarkar and Reed sometimes took points and detentions, but rarely stopped in the corridors unless the duel of words escalated to physical or magical violence. For the History section, no one had expected anything else, but the refusal of the rest of the staff to enforce discipline and generally do their job was really heart-breaking.
McGonagall was equally as useless: she punished everyone involved in these arguments, which sounded a very reasonable policy: Alexandra and Nigel had had following Tuesday lunch to console a first-year Hufflepuff girl that had just been told by a third-year Slytherin 'if your parents had a bit dignity, they would have drowned you in a well at birth'. When the girl had tried to punch her much bigger opponent in the face, McGonagall had arrived and started distributing detentions. Alexandra had only been too happy to teach the first-year two nasty hexes when the useless Head of Gryffindor had turned her back.
And the Slytherin Professors did not bother reprimanding their charges. Snape and Whitehead removed points and gave detentions...to all Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff involved. Alexandra had never shared the deep distaste the Gryffindors had for their Potions Professors, but she was evolving towards that point. Snape wasn't punishing his bigot students sprouting a racist agenda...good example for the young generations, no?
Do someone in this school is realising where it's going?
Hogwarts had become a place where everyone was ready to flee or draw the wand at any moment.
The Aurors, far from stopping this paranoia, were thriving and encouraging it. Of course, half of them were former Slytherins, so it wasn't that out of the magical norms.
"Let's take a step and say the Professors have abandoned the idea of solving the problem, and are waiting the end of the year to fill their trunks. Some may leave permanently."
Not that it would be a bad thing in some cases.
"Maybe we will have to do the same thing, Alex."
"With a Basilisk stalking us? Oh, definitely." Waking up every morning and taking the risk of meeting a King of the Snakes at every corner was a bit too risky for her. The Potter heiress smiled. "But the points I told once about foreign schools still stand. So we will try my plan first. We can always try the transfer to Beauxbatons as plan B."
"And what is your plan A?" Nigel's voice was heavy with scepticism.
"Plan A is buying the beast we spoke about yesterday. I can pay for it...though I will not say no to a refund of yours."
"Well, admitting your...audacious plan work, Alex, I will convince my father to pay you the sum due. But that leaves the Basilisk only blinded. How do you intent to kill it?"
It was a fair point. Even blinded the Basilisk would still have the venom, the thorns and the rest of its nightmarish arsenal to kill them.
"The sword that I took from the goblin arsenal of Brise-Roc should do the job. Glamdring will be our ace to slay the King of Snakes."
"Risky. You have not tested it."
Alexandra chuckled at that remark. Since there was about one Basilisk in the totality of Europe right now – one guess where it was living – testing if a weapon was able to slay a Basilisk or not was a bit complicated.
"No, but unless I'm missing something, my blade has some proprieties of Goblin Steel. If it isn't enough to shred the Basilisk scales, it is likely nothing will."
"Can we not take other weapons?"
Alexandra fixed the list of books she had read from first to last page in the hope of finding an alternative.
"Oh sure, we can try the normal swords and weapons carried by Hogwarts statues, but I doubt there will do much good. Otherwise there are only four options. There is the Sword of Gryffindor. The Sky Bow of Rowena Ravenclaw. The Jewelled Dagger of Salazar Slytherin. And the Axe of Helga Hufflepuff." Alexandra rolled her eyes and added as an after-thought. "All lost for more than a thousand years."
"Very useful." Nigel rolled his eyes in turn.
"I'm not responsible for the fact the Founders descendants weren't able to keep their affairs in order." Shrugged the green-eyed witch.
"No. And buying Goblin Steel..."
"A sword of this metal cost in the tens thousands of Galleons."
Nigel frowned. Alexandra didn't blame him. The young witch knew metals goblin-enchanted had to cost a fortune, but it had been an abstract thing. After a short series of question with Flitwick, the abstract had become clearer. Weapons forged by Gringotts were so expensive that pre-war House Potter would have had difficulties requesting their services. Right at this moment, it wasn't an option anymore.
"We are going to need allies, if only to defeat the allies of the Heir."
"Our Slytherin...allies...will not be able to stand with us. And this time I can't blame them."
In most normal circumstances, standing against your own House was not fun at all. The black-haired witch had long noticed the bullied at Privet Drive and Hogwarts had a tendency to curb the head and let the sleeping dragons where they were. A House had to appear united. Those who broke the rule regretted it sooner or later.
With Hogwarts as it was, standing against your own House in the Viper's Den was risking your life. Lyre de Male-Foi had accepted to give the two Exiled precious information under the table, and Alexandra had profusely thanked the first-year Slytherin for it. Greengrass, Davis and Zabini, on the other hand, acted like they had never engaged a non-Slytherin in all their lives.
Sometimes, the reliability of the English pure-bloods sucked. A lot. And yes, Lyre was French while Morag was Irish. The irony was not lost on her.
"We could convince the Ravenclaws and the two other Houses to demolish the Snake leaders."
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