Mirrors and Their Practical Uses
Hermione followed Ron and Harry out of the Great Hall, only half-listening to their conversation. They were discussing Quidditch again, small wonder, since Gryffindor was to play Hufflepuff this morning. But as riveting as Quidditch was, Hermione wasn’t paying any attention. She was still dwelling on the Petrified students.
As they reached the marble staircase, Harry gave a shout, causing Ron and Hermione to jump in alarm.
‘The voice!’ said Harry wildly, looking all around him. ‘I just heard it again “ didn’t you?’
Ron shook his head blankly, but Hermione’s eyes lit up with understanding and she hit herself on the forehead.
‘Harry “ I think I’ve just understood something!’ she said, clutching his arm. ‘I’ve got to go to the library!’ She sprinted up the staircase and skipped the trick stairs subconsciously, shouldering her way past students dressed either in red or yellow. Prefects yelled at her to slow down, but she didn’t pay any attention.
Once Hermione reached the library, she slowed to a walk and headed straight for the Dangerous Creatures section. She dropped her book bag on the floor and ran her hands frantically along the spines, searching for the book she knew was there …
‘Aha!’ she exclaimed softly as she pulled the heavy tome off the shelf. Deadly Creatures: Learning to Identify and Avoid Them. She flipped immediately to the index, then to the correct page.
As she scanned the page, Hermione’s face glowed in triumph. It was a look that she didn’t know she had, but one that Harry and Ron were very familiar with “ the “I’ve just figured something out that I was practically sure of and now I know I was right” look.
Of the 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 wondrous, 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.Yes. Everything made perfect sense now. She had to get this information to someone, and fast “ Harry, McGonagall, Dumbledore, a prefect, someone. Hesitating only briefly, Hermione tore the page out of the book. Turning to put the book on the shelving cart, Hermione found herself eye-to-chin with an older girl.
‘Excuse me. Did you just rip a page out of that book?’
Stepping back, Hermione could see that the girl was a prefect. Not good, she thought. Well, good that she’s someone I can tell, but not good that she caught me damaging school property.
‘Well, yes, but “’ she began.
‘No buts!’ tsked the other girl. ‘You really should know better than that. I’m going to have to speak to Madam Pince about this. Come with me.’
‘No, wait!’ Hermione said urgently. ‘You don’t understand. I’ve just figured out what’s been happening to the Petrified students. Here, read this.’ She shoved the page at the other girl. Sceptically, she took the parchment from Hermione and scanned it briefly, her eyes widening as she read.
‘Do you honestly expect me to believe this? That there’s a giant snake in the castle, and yet nobody’s seen it?’
‘That’s my point!’ Hermione said urgently. ‘Everyone who sees it either dies or becomes Petrified. Of course nobody else knows about it! Please, you have to believe me. Doesn’t it make sense?’ She looked imploringly at the older girl, willing her to understand. The prefect’s eyes flitted from Hermione back down to parchment, but the uncertainty in her gaze melted away.
‘It does make sense,’ she admitted. ‘Have you told anyone about this?’
‘No, I was just going to when you “’
‘Yes, yes, of course. My name’s Penelope, by the way. Penelope Clearwater.’
‘I’m Hermione Granger,’ she replied. ‘We really need to tell someone, Dumbledore or McGonagall or anyone.’
Penelope nodded. ‘Dumbledore, I think. McGonagall is almost certainly already down at the Quidditch pitch.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Hermione agreed. ‘But oh no …’
‘What?’
‘Harry heard the voice again right before I ran up here. The Basilisk is loose again.’ Hermione shuddered.
‘How can it be loose?’ Penelope asked. ‘Wouldn’t someone have seen a great big snake roaming the corridors?’
Hermione tucked her lower lip between her teeth as she thought. Harry keeps hearing the voice in the walls … but that doesn’t make sense, the walls aren’t hollow … then how is it getting around? What else is in the walls? She considered her own house, remembering that when her mum had their kitchen remodelled, the walls had all sorts of wires and boards and pipes inside them.
‘Oh!’ she said, then, ‘oh, no …’ Hermione wrote a single word at the bottom of the torn-out page. Pipes.
‘Wow, that’s brilliant!’ exclaimed Penelope. ‘Now, I’m not a fraidy-cat or anything, but I’d really prefer not to be killed. This says that its stare is fatal, right?’
‘Yeah, it is. But … why weren’t any of the other students killed?’
Penelope considered this. ‘You know, I don’t think anyone else actually saw the Basilisk “ just the reflection of its stare.’
‘You’re right! There was water on the floor that night Mrs Norris was found. And Colin saw it through his camera.’
‘Yes!’ Penelope said excitedly. ‘And that other boy saw it through Nearly Headless Nick, so he was all right, but Nick couldn’t die again.’
‘So …’ Hermione said, ‘if we make sure that we never look at it, we should be fine.’
‘How are we going to manage that?’ Penelope asked doubtfully.
Hermione pondered for a moment and then her face lit up. ‘Mirrors!’ she exclaimed. ‘Like Muggles use in airports.’
‘What’s an airport?’
‘Never mind,’ Hermione said. ‘Do you have a mirror?’
‘Yeah, I do,’ said Penelope. She pulled a circular mirror out of her book bag. ‘How is this going to work, exactly?’
‘We’ll use it to look around corners and things,’ explained Hermione. ‘That way, if the Basilisk is there, we’ll at least only be Petrified, not killed.’
‘That’s a comforting thought,’ Penelope said dryly. ‘Come on “ we’ve got to tell someone before the Basilisk gets anyone else.’
Hermione picked up her book bag and slung it over her shoulder, still clutching the torn page in one hand.
When they reached the door, Penelope held out the mirror and they both peered into it anxiously.
‘All clear,’ said Hermione, relieved, and they stepped cautiously into the corridor. They repeated the process at the next corner, carefully angling the mirror so they could see the entire hallway before stepping forward.
‘You know, we’re probably just being silly,’ Penelope whispered at the next corner. ‘I don’t think we’ll actually run into this beast, do you? Those kinds of things never happen to me.’
‘That’s what I used to think,’ said Hermione. ‘And then a great big owl delivered a letter to my house, saying I was a witch. And since then, things just can’t seem to leave me alone.’
‘Good point.’
Penelope held out the mirror again. The last thing either of them remembered was a huge yellow eye glaring at them from around the corner.
A/N: Harry and Hermione's first lines of dialogue are from chapter fourteen of Chamber of Secrets, and the quote about basilisks is from chapter sixteen of the same.