Same Day. Afternoon.

Friday, Sept. 13

OPERATION ROOSTER

Get a rooster from Hagrid (get him something nice for stealing one of his roosters). Keep it in a cage in one of the empty classrooms in the less frequented parts of the castle (make sure its comfortable, it gets cold and draughty in the castle at night) in the Room of Requirement. Make an “army of magical robot spiders” equipped with magical speakers and spread them around the castle. Make sure some of the spiders get into the chamber of secrets (open the chamber of secrets with a summoned snake, if that doesn’t work, try transfiguration. If that still doesn’t work... ?)

Hermione stared at the list as she and Harry sat in the library (where they’d been for the three hours since they left potions).

It wasn’t a bad plan, not really, she was quite confident in it, but even so, Hermione still had her reservations.

The entire plan rested on basilisks having a fatal weakness to a cock’s crow, and while their research so far had confirmed that this was, in fact, so, nothing they’d found had even broached the topic of whether the crow would still work if the basilisk didn’t hear it directly from the rooster’s... beak?

Whatever it was, the point remained that Hermione did not like variables, and this particular one could cost them their lives.

That one—admittedly important—bit aside however, everything else looked promising.

Doable, at the very least.

“So, how do we go about this?” Harry asked, and Hermione looked at him before glancing at her watch.

“Well, it’s five-thirty now,” she said, “if we hurry we should have enough time to do everything we need to and still make it for dinner. Or whatever’s left of it.”

They’d discussed waiting until after dinner to set up everything, but had both eventually realised that, while McGonagall may have believed their lie about why they were missing all of last night, she may very well be on the lookout for any suspicious behaviour from either of them.

Not to mention that, while the hallways would be quieter later in the night, sneaking out would be harder, seeing as the Gryffindor Tower had exactly one exit. An exit that was guarded at all times by The Fat Lady.

Harry thought about it, then shrugged. “If you say so,” he said, before frowning in thought once more and asking: “Which one of us is getting the chicken?”

They ended up playing rock, paper, scissors for it. Harry lost, even after he somehow argued Hermione into agreeing to a three out of five score.

At least, Hedwig went with him. Even if it seemed like she did it out of pity more than anything else.

*****

Interlude:: The Rooster

Jeremy didn’t mind the little farm he lived on very much. To be honest, he actually quite liked it, even though the big lug who ran the place had a habit of picking him up much too often.

He got good food, none of that boring corn that he’d heard some farmers served either, but really good stuff. Varied too, which was perfect because Jeremy had a much refined palette, that he did.

Another thing about this farm that Jeremy liked, even though he hadn’t thought he would at first, was that he wasn’t the only bloke there.

There were two others besides him; Matt and Jamie, and while this did mean that he had to share the birds, Jeremy had come to enjoy having guys around to hang with.

They were doing so right then, in fact; chilling in the late afternoon sun as they watched the birds mill around, shaking their tail feathers and pretending they couldn’t tell the boys were watching.

Jeremy considered putting on a display himself—his feathers did look quite lovely when the sun caught them just right—but then he reconsidered; if he did that chances were Matt and Jamie would feel the need to compete, and Jeremy just didn’t have the energy for that right now.

Right as he came to this decision, someone swooped down and perched before them.

It was an angel.

Well, to be specific, it was an owl, but it was without doubt the most beautiful owl Jeremy had ever seen, and from the others’ reactions, they thought so too.

Her feathers were as white as snow, her posture elegant. Her eyes were bewitching, terrifying and alluring in equal measure, like she could rip open your guts and suck down your intestines and still make you sing praises in her name as she did.

She was a being of power and grace and beauty descended from above to grace their little lives with her splendor.

Now here was a bird he would compete with a thousand, no, a million roosters to win even just a minute of her time.

The owl looked down upon them, her gaze appraising. She looked from the others, too reverent to even look up at her, to Jeremy, who simply could not look away.

She looked impressed.

“Crow,” she commanded him; a single word laced with authority.

Jeremy was confused. Crow? She wanted to hear him crow? Why would she—no, Jeremy thought, shaking away his questions and confusion; those were irrelevant. What mattered was that this angel wanted to hear him sing. And if she wanted it, then he would sing until he dropped dead if need be.

Jeremy rose to his feet. He dug deep within himself, then with a blast of air, he let out his most powerful cry.

It did not reverberate across the castle, did not roll down the hills to the village of Hogsmeade and shake the very earth he stood on. Not yet.

Not yet.

*****

Hermione was practicing the Snake Summoning Spell in the Room of Requirement when Hedwig came in through the window.

This was particularly odd because Hermione hadn’t known you could enter—or leave—the Room through anything but the door.

“Where’s Harry?” She asked the owl, and of course got no response.

Right, Hedwig was an owl; she couldn’t talk. At least, Hermione thought she couldn’t.

A few minutes later, Harry came in—through the door—shrouded in the cover of his invisibility cloak.

Before Hermione could say anything, the boy threw back the cowl of his cloak, creating the rather eerie impression of a floating, bodiless head, since the rest of him was still under the effect of the garment, and said, “Hermione, Hedwig’s starting a cult.”

The girl blinked, then looked at Hedwig who, naturally, ignored them.

Hermione looked back at Harry with an eyebrow raised. “A cult?” She asked skeptically.

I mean, sure this was Hedwig they were talking about, but, seriously, a cult?

“Yeah, a cult,” Harry said. “You should have seen it; she just swooped down and the chickens all bowed, and then this one—” at this Harry held up an oddly still rooster from within his cloak “—started crowing like a maniac for some reason. I had to petrify it just to get it to shut up.”

“You petrified the chicken?” Hermione asked.

“Of course I petrified the chicken. How else was I going to sneak a live rooster into the castle? Besides, I think you’re paying attention to the wrong thing here; Hedwig is starting a cult. We need to stop her before they summon Cthulhu or something.”

“What’s choo-loo?” Hermione asked.

“You know, the Lovecraft horror thing.”

“You mean Cthulhu?”

“The pronunciation doesn’t matter. The point is they might summon an eldritch horror.”

Hermione gave in to the urge to roll her eyes. “Stop being silly, Harry. And free the poor chicken. It looks uncomfortable.”

Thankfully, Harry complied. With a lot of muttering about how letting fanatical, religious sects run unchecked was a bad idea, but he complied, and Hermione was able to go back to her practice as Harry unpetrified and caged the surprisingly placid chicken.

“Gotten the spell yet?” Harry asked when he was done.

“No,” Hermione answered, before trying again. “Serpensortia,” she incanted, and a large, green snake of an unknown—to her—species burst out of her wand, only, this time, instead of dissipating into black smoke like it always did, the snake coiled up on the ground, like a cobra waiting to strike, and stared at her quietly.

Hermione and Harry stared at each other, then back at the snake.

“Um, slither to the wall and back,” Hermione said, and the snake promptly obeyed.

“You got the spell,” Harry said happily.

Hermione nodded. “I just hope it works.”

“Meh,” Harry shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll figure something else out if it doesn’t.”

The snake returned from its trip to the wall and resumed its previous position, presumably awaiting new orders.

Harry was only too happy to oblige.

“Form an S,” the boy commanded.

Hermione was about to tell Harry that the snake wouldn’t obey him, because only its summoner, or a parselmouth, could control a summoned snake, when she got a rather devious idea.

Nonverbally, Hermione commanded the snake to obey.

Harry loved that, so, naturally, he asked it to do another letter, and Hermione made it obey again.

Of course, unnoticed by Harry, the snake had subtly set itself within easy reach of him, and when the time was just right, it struck, lunging at the boy frightfully with its powerful fangs exposed.

Harry’s voice hit notes so high that Hermione was genuinely impressed.

As she broke down in laughter, Hermione realised that Hedwig was laughing too, or at least barking in a way that sounded like she was.

This was strange, but not too much so. What was was when she realised that the chicken was laughing too.

*****

With the Snake Summoning Spell out of the way, Hermione and Harry moved to the next step; preparing the spiders.

It hadn’t taken them long to realise that, if they wanted to ensure that the cock’s crow reached as much of the castle as possible (seeing that they didn’t really know where the snake was), then they would need to spread the ‘speakers’ around as much as they could. That was when Harry had come up with the idea of creating “an army of magical, robot spiders” to spread it around for them.

And it was as they were creating the spiders, that Hermione realized that they could make the spiders the speakers too.

While it might sound complicated, or difficult, it was actually quite straightforward and doable in practice. First, they took a sheet of paper, then used the Origami Spell to fold it into the shape of a spider.

After that they added the Telephone Spell, a wonderful piece of magic invented in 1942 by a muggleborn witch named Mathilda Pocock.

The spell only worked one-way, and needed to be cast on two different items, one the earpiece and the other the mouthpiece, but it served their needs just fine.

Hermione and Harry had only just discovered the spell that afternoon, while searching in the library for useful spells to aid their plan. It was rather embarrassing really, if the girl was being honest with herself; to think that a spell like this was easily accessible all this time, and yet she and Harry had put so much work into The Notebooks, when, with a bit more research, they could have made portable, personal telephones instead.

Oh well, it wasn’t too late, she supposed.

After the Telephone Spell came the Sonorous Charm, to add the extra oomph that the plan relied upon, and finally, animating the paper spiders with Augur’s Animation Spell (the same spell they’d used to animate the needle spider back in Prof. McGonagall’s first class). And then, after the first spider they animated immediately made a break for freedom, they decided to save that last step until the final moment.

Making the twenty spiders they’d agreed on didn’t take too long, and as soon as they were done, they left some food and water for the rooster, then set out into the castle.

Releasing the spiders at the predetermined locations was by far the most arduous part of their plan, and that was really only because of how much walking was involved. By the time they were done and made it to their final destination, it was 7:15.

Hermione just hoped the snake plan would work; this would take a lot more time if it didn’t.

Myrtle’s bathroom was... clean. Wet, but clean. Hermione had expected to find some dust, or grime, faulty lights, at the very least, but instead, everything was in perfect order. Well, everything except for the floor, which was covered in a spreading puddle of what Hermione was quite certain was toilet water.

They entered the bathroom and locked the door behind them. Then Harry went around checking every stall to make sure Myrtle herself was absent, and, thankfully, she was.

Finding the sink with the symbol of a snake etched into it didn’t take long, but even after they did, Hermione and Harry still hesitated for several seconds.

“Well,” Harry said finally, “this is it.”

Hermione nodded in agreement.

“So, are you going to cast the spell, or...?”

She turned to him. “What if it doesn’t work?” she asked, and Harry shrugged.

“Well, we won’t know until we try.”

Right. He was right. She was just looking for reasons to hesitate. It was just... being here, about to do what she was about to do...

Hermione sucked in a deep breath, raised her wand, then cast the Snake Summoning Spell.

“Serpensortia,” she incanted, and the green snake from before (was it the snake from before, or did she summon a new lookalike every time? Hermione didn’t know; the book hadn’t said) burst out her wand unto the sink.

Here goes nothing, Hermione thought, as she ordered the snake: “Open the chamber.”

The idea here was simple; snakes—even summoned ones—are parselmouths, and the chamber could only be opened by a parselmouth. So, why not a parselmouth to open it for you?

Hermione had stumbled upon the idea while they were researching basilisks in the library earlier, and Harry had agreed with her it made sense. The only reason they were both worried it wouldn’t work was because magic had rarely ever cared about what made sense and what didn’t.

As soon as Hermione gave the order, the snake turned to the faucet with the carving of a snake on it, and hissed.

Nothing happened for a few seconds, long enough that Hermione had the time to feel the first twinges of disappointment. Then there was a click, and before her very eyes, the entire row of sinks, including the mirror and the wall they were all attached to, slid aside to reveal a huge, musty, metal pipe that descended into darkness.

“Huh,” Harry intoned, stepping forward to peer down the dark depths of the pipe, “I can’t believe that actually worked.”

Hermione joined him in peering down; she could barely believe it too.

“Well,” Harry said after a few seconds, “we’d better get started on animating those spiders, before the basilisk decides to come up and say hello.”

Hermione froze as her eyes widened.

Never in her life did Hermione animate anything as fast as she did those spiders in the moments that followed.

*****

Next Morning.

Saturday, Sept. 14

Hermione sat with Harry beside the rooster early the next morning with a very important piece of paper in hand. That paper was the ‘mouthpiece’ end that was connected to the twenty paper spiders currently skittering in all parts of the castle, and would be activated the moment she tapped it with her wand.

Meanwhile, while Hermione was thinking her thoughts, Harry was busy poking the irritated rooster with his wand.

“What if the rooster doesn’t crow?” He asked. “I mean, roosters don’t always crow right? So, what if it doesn’t?”

Before Hermione could even begin to worry about this new problem that she hadn’t even thought to consider until this moment, Hedwig hooted and the rooster immediately stood at attention.

...

Okay, that was bizarre, but—“I think Hedwig has got it,” Hermione said.

“Okay, Harry,” she continued, “I’m about to turn it on, so no talking, or your voice will echo across the castle and everyone will know we did it.”

Harry started to nod, before a thoughtful look stole across his face. “You know, this would be a very good way to make public announcements,” he mused.

True, it would be. But all the same. “Hush, Harry.”

“Oh, right,” the boy said, then mimed zipping his lips shut.

Okay, this was it, Hermione thought. Wait! What if they cast the spell wrong? Or what if the enchantments on the spiders had unraveled for some reason? Or what if—

Harry poked her. “It’ll work,” he mouthed.

Right. Of course it will.

It should.

Hermione set down the sheet of paper and activated it, and as soon as she did, the rooster sucked in a lungful of air, and it crowed.

And the earth shook.

*****

The morning of September 14th was not fun for anyone in Hogwarts. Or Hogsmeade, for that matter. Because, it turns out, when you broadcast a cock’s crow through twenty full powered Sonorous Charms simultaneously, the sound tends to travel a few miles.

As bad as it was for everyone else in the castle, however, it was worse for the Slytherins and a certain greasy professor; because someone had decided to release six of the spiders down in the dungeon area, saying: “come on, Hermione, if the basilisk was going to hide anywhere in the castle it would be down here. I mean, there are already so many snakes slithering around it would feel right at home.”

Although, in Harry’s defence, she really hadn’t tried that hard to stop him.

*****

Deep in the bowels of Hogwarts, in a place lost to myth and cold and dark, a centuries-old basilisk, much too old to be stunned, much less fatally affected by a rooster’s cry, was roused from its fifty year slumber.

The monster of Slytherin slithered once more.