When Draco woke again, Lucius and Narcissa had already gone.
The ward was dark and still. A thin thread of moonlight pressed through the window. Somewhere in the castle, a draught moved through the corridors, and the candle on the bedside table shivered with it.
He lay in the quiet and tried not to think about the sound of bones growing—a grinding, organic creak that he could feel from the inside out, and which he was fairly certain he was not imagining.
He was alone in the ward.
Or so he thought.
In the darkness, something rustled.
"Who's there?" His jaw ached when he spoke.
"It's me." Harry's voice. Close—the chair beside the bed.
"Harry." Draco tried to locate him in the dark. "What are you doing here?"
Harry hadn't caught the Snitch. That much Draco knew. He had been conscious long enough to understand what had happened before Madam Pomfrey had taken over. Harry must be furious—or miserable—or both.
"I wanted to see how you were," Harry said. There was something sheepish in his voice. "That Bludger seemed to be after me. You got caught in the middle of it."
Draco absorbed this. Harry had come to check on him. Not out of obligation—there was guilt in his voice, which meant he'd been worrying about it.
"It's not your fault," Draco said. "I should have moved faster." He paused, then added, because it was true: "That game wasn't played fairly. You spent half the time dodging a rogue Bludger rather than searching for the Snitch. It shouldn't have happened."
Harry didn't answer right away. In the silence, his expression changed—Draco could hear it somehow, the shift in his posture.
"Listen," Harry said suddenly, in an entirely different tone. He was on his feet. "Listen—do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"There's a voice—" Harry's footsteps moved quickly away, toward the far end of the ward. Draco heard him stop. A long silence.
"It's gone." Harry came back slowly. "I'm sorry. It just—I had to follow it."
"I didn't hear anything," Draco said. The pain in his arm made it difficult to concentrate on much else.
"No. You wouldn't have." Harry sat back down, and there was a weight in it. "Ron and Hermione didn't hear it last time either." He paused. "You probably think I'm losing my mind."
The moonlight shifted. Draco turned his head slightly—enough to make out Harry's face in the dim light. He looked exhausted, and not in the way that came from a bad Quidditch match.
"No," Draco said.
Before Harry could respond, footsteps sounded in the corridor outside—quick, purposeful. Draco recognised them.
"Hide," Draco said immediately, closing his eyes and going still.
Harry moved fast. The bedsheet rustled as he pulled it back; then there was nothing.
The door opened. Madam Pomfrey's voice, rising sharply. Professor Dumbledore's—low, measured, carrying the particular quietness of someone managing their own alarm carefully.
"Minerva found him on the stairs."
Something was moved. A trolley, perhaps.
"Could he have photographed the attacker?" Dumbledore asked.
A sharp, acrid smell reached Draco—melted plastic.
"By Merlin," Madam Pomfrey said. "It's completely destroyed."
Draco kept his eyes closed and his breathing even as the professors exchanged brief, urgent words and withdrew. Madam Pomfrey came to check on him, found nothing amiss, administered another measure of Dreamless Sleep Draught, and left, pulling the door shut behind her.
Harry emerged from under the bed.
He went first to the curtained bed at the far end. He was quiet for a moment.
"It's Colin Creevey," he said when he came back. "He's Petrified." A pause. "He was following me tonight. He asked where I was going when I left the common room. I thought I'd lost him." Another pause. "If I'd walked faster—"
"You didn't Petrify him," Draco said flatly. "Stop that line of thinking."
Harry was quiet. Then he said, with a kind of reluctant gratitude: "I keep hearing it. The voice. I heard it the night Mrs. Norris was found too—that's why we were on the third floor. I followed the sound, and then we found her." He exhaled. "Hermione told me not to tell anyone. Ron said hearing things nobody else can hear is a very bad sign."
The pieces that had been forming in Draco's mind clicked into place with a clarity that would have been satisfying if it hadn't also been alarming.
"Harry," he said carefully. "Have you ever spoken to a snake?"
Harry blinked. "Once. At the zoo, before I knew I was a wizard. A boa constrictor. I accidentally let it out—it's a long story."
"You're a Parselmouth," Draco said.
"A what?"
"You can speak to serpents. Understand their speech. It's an exceptionally rare ability—it was Salazar Slytherin's most notable gift, which is where the House symbol comes from." Draco paused, letting Harry process this. "The voice you've been hearing—the one no one else can hear—I think it's the sound of a snake moving through the castle."
Harry stared at him in the near-dark.
"Not just any snake," Draco continued. "Slytherin wouldn't have kept something ordinary in his Chamber. Something ancient, something that can live for centuries. A basilisk."
"A basilisk," Harry repeated.
"It's only a theory. But the pieces fit." Draco shifted slightly, and regretted it immediately as his arm protested. "I'd suggest you research it. And ask Hermione—she's spent enough time in the library this term that she'll know what a basilisk is capable of."
Harry was quiet for a moment. Draco could see him thinking, which was unusual enough to be worth noting.
"Professor Dumbledore said something," Harry said finally. "'The question is not who, but how.'"
"I know. I've been wondering that too." Draco stared at the ceiling. The castle was enormous. Its plumbing was centuries old, its passages largely unmapped. An ancient creature that had been sealed in a hidden chamber below the foundations could move through it in any number of ways without being seen.
"Curfew's been over for a while," Draco said. "You should go. Ron and Hermione will be worried."
Harry stood up. The Invisibility Cloak whispered around him. "Thank you, Draco." His voice was muffled slightly by the fabric. "For not thinking I'm mad."
"Stay off the third floor," Draco said, already closing his eyes.
He heard the ward door open and close.
---
Sunday morning arrived with winter sunlight that felt entirely too cheerful.
All thirty-three bones had returned to their proper positions during the night, which Draco had been conscious for in an intermittent and deeply unpleasant way. He was stiff from shoulder to wrist, but the acute pain was gone. He sat up carefully and assessed the situation.
The ward was quiet. Madam Pomfrey had drawn the curtains around Colin Creevey's bed at the far end. When she noticed Draco awake, she brought a breakfast tray, ran her wand over his arm, and pronounced him fit to leave once he had eaten and changed.
He ate about four spoonfuls of porridge before giving up.
He had dressed and was standing near the curtained bed—wondering, without much conviction, whether to look in on the boy—when the ward exploded.
Not literally. But Dobby's Apparition was not the subtle kind.
"I'm sorry, little master!" Dobby crashed to his knees on the stone floor, banging his forehead against it before Draco could get a word out. Both of his hands were wrapped in bandages up to the elbow.
"Stop—" Draco caught him by the shoulder before he could do it again. "What is this? What happened to your hands?"
"Dobby hurt himself! Dobby's rogue Bludger hurt the little master!" Dobby wailed, tears streaming freely. "Dobby didn't want to hurt you—Dobby only wanted Harry Potter to go home—"
Draco went very still.
"What," he said quietly, "did you just say?"
"Dobby only wanted Harry Potter to leave! Going home with a broken arm is still safer than staying here! The Chamber has opened again, history repeats itself, Harry Potter is in danger—" Dobby's voice rose in pitch with each sentence. "Dobby only wanted to help!"
"Dobby." Draco crouched down to the elf's level and spoke with extreme care and precision. "Are you telling me that you enchanted the Bludger?"
Dobby nodded miserably.
Draco stood up. He walked to the window. He looked out at the grounds for several seconds.
"Who told you to do this?" he said.
"No one, no one! Dobby decided himself—Dobby overheard the master at Malfoy Manor say that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened again, and that it concerned Harry Potter and the Weasleys—that they were in danger! Dobby was frightened!"
So Dobby had been eavesdropping at Malfoy Manor, put together what he heard, and decided the most effective intervention was a rogue Bludger aimed at the person he was trying to protect.
Draco pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Dobby," he said, with more patience than he felt. "Harry Potter is my friend. I am not going to let anything happen to him. He is capable of protecting himself. And you," he continued, "have just taken a significant amount of skin off my arm, and I would like you to not do anything like this again. That is an order. You are not to use magic to harm or coerce Harry Potter, or anyone else connected to him, without my explicit instruction. You are not to come to Hogwarts uninvited. Is that understood?"
Dobby nodded, weeping openly. "Little master is willing to risk himself for Harry Potter! Dobby is unworthy—"
"Dobby." Draco held up a hand. "Go and rest. You've burned yourself badly enough."
Dobby vanished with a crack, still crying.
Draco let out a long breath and turned around.
The ward door was slightly ajar.
He crossed to it in three steps and pulled it open.
The corridor beyond was empty—except for the very end of it, where a figure was just turning the corner.
A single glimpse. Brown hair, shoulder-length, unmistakable.
Hermione.
She had heard everything.