The Observer Effect

      Strictly speaking, Harry had a Plan. He also had a List. He ought, however, to have guessed from the start—if only from the books he had read so many times—that the plans of a plot’s villain, in which role, with some justification, Harry counted himself, would be assailed by all manner of ludicrous accidents that played into the hands of the main hero (as to the identity of the latter, he was a little at sea, but, by the looks of things, it was that stick-a-Doxy-in-his-beard Headmaster).       And it all began with Malfoy.       ‘Potter,’ he said on a rainy October evening a couple of days before Hallowe’en, ‘the Founders bear witness, I have been more patient than Helga, but you, it seems, do not consider me a friend at all.’       Just now the windows of the House common room would have been plastered with cold sheets of water pouring from the skies—were it not that those windows were entirely below the surface of the Black Lake. As it was, the greenish murk swirling beyond the panes offered no hint of the weather raging above. The fire blazed hotly—even here, in the corner furthest from the entrance, wafts of warmth carried by the castle’s eternal draughts found their way here. The lamps cast a cosy yellowish light on the usual evening idyll—Blishwick and Rowle were reading in the armchairs by the hearth; the older years were swotting; the youngsters were playing Gobstones; and the rest were at their various occupations—chatting, writing essays, and thumbing through books. Goyle, stretched out on the sofa next to Draco, was dozing; Crabbe was trying to conjure a mouse—so far without much success, but if he lacked anything, it was certainly not patience. Harry sighed.       ‘Whatever gives you that idea?’       ‘Friends, Potter, are supposed to be trusted, at least a little,’ Malfoy complained, folding his arms. His eloquent face became a mask of sorrow and disappointment, as though he beheld all the sins of the sublunary world at once, and could not credit the depths to which certain people could sink. ‘Even in our circles. I do not ask where you are always running off to—risking yourself, mind you—was it not you whom we only just saved from the blood-traitors the other day? I do not ask how it came to pass that you were brought up by the person who brought you up. I do not ask about this thing, either—though, Salazar bear me witness, I am dying to know what it really is. But, Potter, could you at least tell me something about the inheritance?’       The Weasley brood, it was true, would not leave Harry in peace. Ron had not yet been subjected to exclusive torments, and, in fact, after that ill-starred duel, Harry had scarcely touched him—Ron was a walking reminder of foolish rashness, though all had, in the end, turned out for the best. The Weasley twins, those very two who had peered into Harry’s compartment on the train, nonetheless decided their brother had been wronged. Or perhaps not him—they might avenge any Gryffindor, when you came to think of it. As a fighting pair, the red-headed third-years were opponents Harry would have preferred to avoid, but he could have coped alone. And if not—there would be ways to deal with them a little later without Malfoy’s intervention. All the more so since he had not lifted a finger himself—there were others to swing fists and wands in his stead. As for the rest…       ‘They are not my secrets to tell. When he permits, I shall speak,’ Harry said, shaming Malfoy. The matter of revealing the diary’s nature was not up for discussion, but perhaps it did make sense to ask Tom about showing himself to selected Slytherins. The fact that it had not yet come up—Draco need not know that. ‘As for the legacy… You must understand—I have no right. The Chamber of Secrets is only for Salazar’s successor by blood and by magic.’       ‘I see…’ Malfoy drew the words out, his lower lip trembling, his eyes suspiciously bright. ‘I thought we were true friends, and it turns out you are simply using me.’       And Harry knew, he knew—Mordred blast the white-haired brat—that it was play-acting. And still he fell for it. No reserves of fortitude were equal to that woebegone face. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his face with his hands.       ‘A-arggh!… Blast you, you Veela-bred wrecker! Every day I believe Nott’s great-grandfather more and more. All right, trail after me to the dormitory, quietly. But not at once. And come alone.’       Draco bloomed. He nodded, beaming, then sobered and gave a thumbs-up. Casting him a look full of disgust at his own weakness, Harry rose from the sofa and went to the dorm.       And that is how Draco came to be assigned a separate, special role in the Plan.       ‘A ferret…? Where am I supposed to get you a ferret, for pity’s sake?’ The shameless manipulator blinked, taken aback, but Harry only twitched a shoulder, indifferent.       ‘Anywhere you like. A fox would do at a pinch. Your task is to get rid of the cockerel, but killing it on its own would be far too obvious. So it is better to throttle all the hens and make it look like an accident.’ It seemed the penny was beginning to drop. Malfoy caught his breath, excited.       ‘This…?’       ‘Oh yes.’ Harry did not let him continue. The less said aloud, the better. There were, of course, no portraits in the dormitory, as in the Slytherin dungeons generally, but in this matter he preferred to be safe. ‘There is your first secret, is it not? If you want to watch, you will do as I say. Understood?’       Draco nodded slowly. The cogs in his head were already turning the right way—it was plain from the concentrated, inward look. Harry had no doubt the task would be carried out—few families in magical Britain could match the Malfoys for connections, to say nothing of more material resources. They would get a ferret. They would get a Manticore, if need be—send it by post with chocolates straight to the Great Hall. The only question was motivation.       Thus, by the Plan, after removing the only weapon against the Basilisk, Draco was to proceed with the rest to the feast and there await a summons to a prearranged place, where he would be given the chance to set eyes on the king of serpents. Harry, slipping away from the feast a little earlier than the others, was to occupy himself with the fateful List.       The List was supplied by Rowle.       ‘They say that in the Chamber of Secrets there lies a means of cleansing away the dirt that stains these walls,’ she said the previous evening, beckoning Harry into the prefects’ parlour.       They were alone—the other prefects were absent, and their schoolmates were far enough away that they were unlikely to overhear a quiet conversation. Even so, Euphemia cast a Muffliato—an objectively necessary precaution.       ‘I should call it a more universal weapon,’ Harry replied, adjusting his glasses. ‘Though I cannot deny that last time the person who suffered was one unworthy of the name “witch”.’       ‘Any thoughts as to who, precisely, among those presently at Hogwarts, are unworthy of the proud name of wizard?’ The prefect raised an eyebrow. Harry gave an understanding little smile.       ‘I think you would know better,’ he said. ‘I am only in my first year—whereas you have surely studied all their ins and outs.’       Rowle bestowed a smile on him.       ‘What a clever boy! Yes, we have put together a little list,’ she said, producing a folded sheet of parchment from her robe pocket. ‘Those marked with a star deserve particular attention. But, if need be, act according to circumstances, Heir.’       And Harry realised that, for the first time, she had spoken that title without a covert smirk. Not yet with awe, but with respect, at any rate. He took the note and skimmed it. Eight names; two of them starred. Not so very hard.       ‘Learnt them by heart? Best memorise them, then burn this,’ Rowle advised.       ‘Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs,’ Harry grumbled inwardly; that was exactly what he had intended. He read the names on the parchment twice more, then tossed it into the crackling fire.       The choice of the feast was no accident, either.       Firstly, Hallowe’en was the deadline Harry had set himself in that long-ago talk with the prefects. Although, technically, he had already proved that he had a right to the title of Slytherin’s Heir, the true confirmation of his status was hardly to consist of card tricks and a few hissed phrases no one could understand. No, something else was needed—that which had once made the House bow its head to Tom, and perhaps something greater besides; Tom, after all, had been a fifth-year and a prefect, whereas Harry was a first-year and burdened with the dubious reputation of being the Dark Lord’s killer. Harry meant to present those indisputable, final proofs without delay, but after the intriguing pause Tom had recommended. In other words, at the very last moment.       Secondly, Hallowe’en, in general, was a date of note. On this day, all of magical Britain celebrated the death of Harry’s parents—or Harry’s life—or something else again; who could tell? They rejoiced that the Dark Lord had been brought down; very well, it was time to remind them that their rejoicings were premature, if they had any foundation at all. They ought not to be feasting, but cowering in corners, awaiting the retribution poised to fall upon their heads. And never mind if it did not come at once—let them fret themselves properly, let every rustle and every flicker of shadow threaten enough to make them snatch at their wands.       Thirdly, the bustle that always accompanies any celebration played into Harry’s hands. The practicality of the point did not detract from its force.       However, the day of the Heir’s intended triumph somehow got off on the wrong foot.       To begin with, Harry overslept. He had been dreaming something pleasant again—what, he could not, for the life of him, recall—and Draco only just wrenched him out of the sweet haze, in a fashion far removed from delicacy: he whipped away the duvet and set about tickling him mercilessly. He earned himself a smart boot to the solar plexus for his pains, and Harry then had to spend a couple of minutes saving himself from being smothered with a pillow. Pike, whooping from the sidelines, and Nott, egging him on with an enthusiastic, ‘That’s it! Crush the resistance! Hail the Dark Lord!’, did nothing to improve matters.       Next, they lost the snake. Nag was, in general, a disobedient creature—or, rather, he forgot instructions, and in a way uncommonly convenient to himself. Doubtless that lay at the root of the idea of serpentine cunning—but the cunning, truth be told, was so-so, at the level of a five-year-old. This time Nag had been told not to leave the dormitory—he had a role in the Plan as well, albeit a modest one—yet, come morning, no reptile was to be found in the first-years’ dormitory. After ten minutes’ search, and already risking being late to breakfast, Harry found his pet in the bathroom, to which he had gone for a quick wash. Nag did not grasp the complaint—he had not, after all, slithered into the corridor.       Breakfast proved oversaturated with pumpkin—Harry understood the desire to foster a festive mood, but pumpkin juice and pasties were served every day as it was, and since yesterday no one on earth could have had time to miss pumpkin so badly. They had stuffed pumpkin into the porridge, the drop scones, the cakes—everywhere, to the point that even the jam for the toast had been boiled up from pumpkin. For the first time since his arrival at Hogwarts, Harry found himself displeased with the efforts of the house-elves.       A double Potions lesson put him in a somewhat better temper: as ever, on a Friday, and, as usual, alongside Gryffindor. Today, under Snape’s acid commentary, the students of the two unfriendly Houses were attempting to brew a standard antidote—an extremely useful potion, particularly effective against venomous bites, for it is not always possible and almost always inconvenient to cram a bezoar directly into a wound, especially one ragged and gushing (say, from an Acromantula’s mandibles), or pinprick-small and savagely swollen (say, from a Manticore’s sting); making the bitten man swallow the stone is to play Russian roulette, with five bullets in the cylinder into the bargain, for, other things being equal, a bezoar is absorbed by the stomach lining more slowly than the venom already in the blood takes to reach the heart.       Harry suspected Snape had tweaked the programme specially on his account—or, more precisely, on Nag’s. Possibly not, though—after all, every recipe they had covered thus far had been highly practical. The boil-cure alone was worth its weight in gold—indispensable for adolescents; only the simplest pain reliever was more useful, and in it Harry had, with cheerful astonishment, recognised a remedy for those ailments associated with the lunar cycle.       By now, the dear Head of House’s teaching method was crystal clear to Harry. No, Snape did not stoop to such banalities as demonstrating the requisite motions for slicing or mincing ingredients, and still less did he embark on an explanation of the niceties of extracting juice from some plants and seeds from others. Instead, he chose a visual aid—some Gryffindor or other, and in five cases out of six it was Granger—and then took relish in commenting on everything his victim did.       ‘If Miss Granger’s hands were attached where anatomy intended, she would hold the knife nearer the hilt, and make fuller use of her shoulder muscles. Oh, bravo, you have crushed the elytra again. Minus one point for your sloppiness.’       ‘Miss Granger, you are not shredding cabbage; spare your fingers, and our nerves—draw the blade smoothly, do not hack. And remove the head first; there is no need to torture the poor mollusc. Two penalty points from Gryffindor for sadism.’       ‘Yes, yes, most amusing. But if, unlike Miss Granger, you are not keen on natural face masks, remember that you first drain the juice through a puncture, and only then remove the peel. By the by, minus one point for the mess.’       ‘Miss Granger, pieces of root should measure three-quarters of an inch by half an inch. Do you require a ruler? Two points from Gryffindor for inattention.’       ‘And here is an excellent example of how not to grind a sloth’s brain. Do you see those translucent films? I see them too, and they should not be there. That is the brain membrane; it should have been removed first. Minus one point. Start again.’       Thus, it was enough to keep one step behind the martyr pathfinder and to keep one’s eyes and ears open. Amusingly, although the red-and-golds could perfectly well have followed their example, not one of them ever did.       Objectively speaking, Granger was not at all bad at Potions. On the contrary, she was good—to be perfectly honest, better than Harry, and, perhaps, better than Draco, almost on a par with Zabini, and steadily drawing level. The trouble was that no one here had the slightest intention of judging the curly swot on her merits. She, stubborn thing, refused to accept it and bent, but did not break—at every new lesson she strove as hard as on the very first.       Be that as it may, Harry and Draco produced a model standard antidote, and Harry received his proper ‘Outstanding’, and another point dropped into the house’s hourglass. He earned a couple more from the Head of House by answering well on orchis—very timely, those lines from Shakespeare came to mind, the very ones about the ‘dead men’s fingers’ Ophelia drowned with (she had, to be sure, a whole posy there, and not for the first time Harry wondered what on earth she had intended to brew; either there were not enough ingredients for two potions, or there were extras for three).       But after Potions came Charms—and the hard-won composure Harry had found wobbled and fell to bits, as though it had never been.       Professor Flitwick, a half-goblin—Harry sometimes caught himself wondering which of his parents had belonged to the non-human kind, but each time he drove the thought away; either option, if you looked closely, was simply revolting—was of such diminutive height that he had to use a footstool to raise himself even a little above the surface of his desk. For some reason, he thought only books could serve as the best support for his tiny feet—there was always a stack of them on the seat of his chair. Harry winced at such barbarous treatment of the printed word—unless they were the works of utterly detested opponents in some obscure scholarly quarrel, and even then it felt a touch too much. Flitwick himself, however, Harry rather liked: Snape-ishly ironic, and, at the same time, as good-natured as Sprout, this professor knew how to think, and how to make others think. Today he had promised at last to teach them the Levitation Charm, and Harry awaited the lesson with keen, impatient anticipation.       To begin with, Flitwick paired the class—and such was Harry’s luck that day that his partner proved to be the Mudblood, still quietly seething after her encounter with the Slytherin Head of House. For each pair the professor allotted a single feather—a long, stiff flight feather of a Hippogriff, white at the quill and acorn-brown at the edges. A sudden feather shortage at the school was unlikely, so the point of the odd economy lay elsewhere, but Harry could not make it out. Flitwick, meanwhile, began.       ‘We are about to study one of the simplest, yet most extraordinarily useful, charms,’ he piped in a high, thin voice, like a child’s whistle. ‘Its verbal formula is Wingardium Leviosa, and it lifts objects into the air. Who will say by what means it is achieved? Mr Nott, if you please.’       ‘Does the object lose its weight?’ Theo ventured, scratching the back of his head. ‘Become lighter than air, and float in it?’       ‘Bravo—logic has not deserted you,’ Flitwick actually mimed applause, bringing his short-fingered hands together a couple of times without a sound. ‘Indeed, precisely so. Hence my mention of usefulness—a broad range of related charms covers every spell for movement through the air, and for lightening weight. Yes, yes, much like those used on your satchels and trunks. But the stones of the ancient castle around us were also set in place thanks to a levitation spell. And your beloved brooms are enchanted in a similar way, quite right, Mr Thomas. Now, straightaway, we shall try to raise into the air a feather such as this. What feature of it will help us? Miss Brown?’       Lavender stretched her lips into her usual, babyish, mindless smile.       ‘We can see it?’ she said, rather than asked. Flitwick nodded encouragingly.       ‘Fair, but banal. How would you frame that rule differently?’       Brown made an effort, and produced: ‘No see, no sorcery.’       ‘Quite. And yet my question was not quite that. Why did I choose a feather?’       Lavender’s mental resources ran dry. She stared at the professor, blinking vacantly. Granger, who had had her hand up for ages, actually half rose from her seat with impatience. Harry glanced at her without enthusiasm. He thought he knew the answer too.       ‘Miss Granger?’ Flitwick turned to Harry’s involuntary, and unwanted, partner. She rattled off at once, ‘A feather is light, Professor. We must believe we can lift it.’       ‘Absolutely right! Two points to Gryffindor. Yes, confidence is very important. Mr Weasley, remind us of the core components of a spell.’       The red-headed Muggle-lover wriggled but answered almost without a stumble, ‘Er, the verbal formula, the gesture, and the intent, sir.’       ‘Yes, correct. And which of these might one do without? Miss Granger?’ Flitwick swung the focus back to the know-all, having seen there was no more to be had from Ron.       ‘Without the formula and the gesture, Professor,’ she reported, gleeful—well, of course, twice running she had been allowed to earn points; if that was not a Mudblood’s luck. ‘A spell without words is “non-verbal” and, without a gesture, “wandless”. But without intent one cannot cast at all!’       ‘Splendid! A further three points to your house’s hourglass, Miss Granger. And intent is what? Mr Malfoy?’       ‘A clear visualisation of the end result, sir,’ Draco drawled, bored.       ‘Exactly! Two points to Slytherin. And now, keeping all that in mind, let us begin! Attention, class, watch the movement. Like so.’ Flitwick flicked his wand, which he had drawn with a movement so slight it was barely seen—perhaps the stories about his duelling past were no lie after all.       ‘Sharp, but light. Cut, then point. Do try it, all of you!’       And they tried. And tried again. The gesture, simple at first glance, proved knottier than expected, but a couple of minutes later all had managed it. It was time for the verbal formula, and then—for the casting itself. And that was where Harry ran into trouble.       ‘Wingardium Leviosa!’—nothing. At the next desk, Seamus Finnigan, trying not to turn his back, or even his side, on Harry, poked at the feather with his wand, and Ron Weasley windmilled his arms so energetically that he looked like a windmill himself.       ‘Wingardium Leviosa!’—again, nothing. Harry grew angry—naturally he believed the feather would rise: a cupboard, a desk, a book, the prattling bore who watched him with superiority could rise with like ease—magic did not recognise the difference. The possibility of flight was absolute. What was wrong with his intent? The feather at Finnigan and Weasley’s desk, meanwhile, caught fire. The others fared little better, but Harry did not mean to fail this time, not today.       ‘Oh, Wingardium Leviosa, for Merlin’s sake!’—the silly feather crept along the desktop.       ‘You are saying it wrong.’ Granger could not help interfering and, to her misfortune, got caught under his hand in the heat of the moment. Now, that curse Harry had been able to perform long before he knew he could do magic at all.       ‘Ow!’ She clutched at her elbow. Harry bent to her ear, and hissed, irritated, ‘See? See what you have made me do? I warned you! I said I did not want to hurt you! But you have to be the cleverest of us all, Hermione, don’t you?’       ‘I,’ she whispered, trembling, ‘I shall tell the professor!’       Harry snorted.       ‘Go on, tell! Tell-tale.’ He stuck out his tongue at her. ‘No wonder you have absolutely no friends! You are not only a swot but a grass as well.’       She bit her lip, plainly on the verge of tears. Harry swung his furious gaze back to the object of his torment.       ‘Do suck Morgana’s arse, you manky thing! Just fly already!’ he demanded, himself near tears, and—miracle of miracles—the feather rose into the air, hovering a few inches above the desk.       ‘Oh, do look, everyone, Mr Potter has done it!’ Flitwick observed from his vantage point. Granger burst out.       ‘Professor! Potter did not say the correct formula!’       ‘Did he indeed?’ Flitwick exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. ‘What did he say then?’       ‘I, er, cannot repeat it,’ the little prig hedged, ‘and at the end, “Just fly already!”’       The teacher’s reaction was not at all what the informer had evidently expected.       ‘Ten points to Slytherin for a non-verbal spell,’ Flitwick applauded lightly once more. ‘Now you try, Miss Granger.’       But the swot had no intention of surrendering that easily.       ‘That was not non-verbal!’ she argued, drawing all eyes. The half-goblin sighed reproachfully and shook his head.       ‘Miss Granger,’ he piped admonishingly, ‘it is not enough to know; one must understand and be able to apply knowledge in practice. You yourself have just stated that Mr Potter did not use the correct formula. But the absence of a spell’s verbal component does not mean I must necessarily keep silent,’ and, as he spoke, he raised the feather on the desk beside him with a lazy pass of his wand. ‘I may say nothing, or I may swear, sing songs, or engage in small talk. That is “non-verbal”. Do you see?’       A murmur ran round the room. Granger set about gnawing her lower lip again.       ‘Yes, Professor.’       ‘Splendid! Do try again. Mr Potter, yield the floor to the lady.’       Harry pocketed his wand, folded his arms, and nodded. The Mudblood, her eyes bright with unshed tears as she bored holes in him with her stare, performed an exemplary wand movement, and, articulating with exaggerated care, pronounced, ‘Wingardium Leviosa!’       The feather rose to about a foot, but she lost the contest—and knew it perfectly well.       ‘Yes, and, by the way, Mr Potter—minus five points for unparliamentary language in class.’ But even that could not quite choke off his triumph. Until now, in Transfiguration and Charms, Granger had outstripped them all, hands down—and it would be one thing if she were a pure-blood witch, but a Muggle with a wand! And at last someone had put her in her place, and that someone was Harry himself, which made it all the more fitting.       The bell rang, and Granger, sniffling, swept her textbook, notes, and writing things into her bag and rushed out ahead of the rest, which was unlike her, but perfectly understandable. Doubtless she was on her way to weep over her defeat in some quiet corner. Harry, too, meant to leave the room, but the professor asked him to stay.       ‘Mr Potter.’ The serious tone sat oddly with the piping voice, but there was not a trace of a smile on Flitwick’s face this time. ‘I understand that the magical might that felled the darkest of wizards is hard to curb. I will hazard that your magical surges began very early. I am aware that most, if not all, pure-blood children are introduced to magic long before Hogwarts, and you are likely no exception. But I cannot help noting that I have the impression you experience certain difficulties with verbal formulae.’ He gathered his short, curly beard in his fist, and frowned beneath his bushy brows. ‘Mr Potter… it is not really my business, but allow me to ask plainly—who taught you to cast? I fear you have already acquired some bad habits that might hinder your progress later.’       ‘Er…’ Harry was not ready with an answer. What was he to say? The truth, even heavily pruned, would hardly do in this case. Although… ‘A distant relation, not much older than I am. I cannot say more; I am sorry.’       ‘I see. Well.’ Flitwick shook his head. ‘Do your utmost to attend to the relation between semantics and intent. You follow me? And visualisation, visualisation—practise it tirelessly! Overall, a weakness may become a strength. From second year, we usually organise an optional course in magical duelling—I think you would find it both interesting and useful to sign up in due course. Off you go now; it will be lunch soon.’       Harry nodded and made his escape with immense relief. Draco, waiting outside with his inevitable companions, met him with barbed little jibes.       ‘A new movement in spellcraft, Potter? Teach me! Tell me, the filthier the swear, the more powerful the charm? And what do you use instead of the Avada?’       ‘Oh, do shut it, Malfoy!’       Lunch, once again consisting of pumpkin and its derivatives, did little to improve Harry’s mood. There were no lessons afterwards, and he made off to the library and from there to the Room of Hidden Things. Gryffs he met on the way no longer hurried to organise a manhunt for him—the tactics of selective terror were beginning to bear fruit. But Tom was not in their secret headquarters, and he did not answer the diary’s summons either; he only wrote, briefly, ‘Busy. Later.’       With a sigh, Harry rummaged through their own version of a library, and set to work on a battered little volume, once water-damaged, in a plain binding of brown tooled leather, whose ornate, old-fashioned lettering spelt out Sorceries Most Vile. The language within matched—florid, and extremely archaic; but the research had to go on, come what may. Tom, though he did not show it, was wearied by his condition; Harry could only imagine—and with a chill in his heart—what it must be like.       Not to touch. Not to smell scents, nor to taste flavours. Not to be able to sleep—thus granting even a brief respite to a restless mind. No sunlight on skin, no raindrops, no fingers on the pages of books. To wield even one’s own wand by concentrated effort of thought—what tireless, constant, exhausting focus that must take! For Salazar’s sake, no wonder Tom sometimes snapped at Harry. The wonder was, rather, that he was not running about the castle with mad laughter, torturing every passer-by indiscriminately.       A ghastly existence.       Godelot’s treatise, by degrees, drew Harry in, though it was no more use than the last few on the same subject. The only clue regarding the restoration of the dead was a strange phrase tossed off by the author in the course of an entirely different discourse.       Harry scribbled ‘Ask Tom what a Horcrux is’ on a separate sheet of parchment—these later either became fuller abstracts or were blotted out—and glanced at an antique bronze clock with little cupids clasping the dial in ardent embrace, another find from the abyss of ownerless things. He did not much care for it stylistically, but at least it worked. Nearly six o’clock; the feast would soon begin.       Time to set the Plan in motion.       All the way down to the Great Hall, Harry felt queasy with nerves. Bats, clinging to the walls and flitting under the ceiling; pumpkins of every conceivable shape, size, and colouration (there was plainly a Doubling Charm at work: not only Hagrid but even an entire farming concern could not have grown such abundance); candles floating in the air, and plates glittering gold, as at the feast at the start of term—all this passed, if not wholly beneath Harry’s notice, then only at the edge of his consciousness. His palms were sweating; his heart thudded restlessly.       At this very moment Tom was instructing the ghosts which of them was to shadow which member of staff (and, should anything untoward occur, to hurry back with a report to Tom himself), while spotty, daft cow Myrtle circled nearby (she was to act as a runner). At this very moment the fox Draco had procured was picking the last bones in Hagrid’s hen-coop clean. At this very moment Nag was showing his far larger cousin the route through the pipes to the appointed place in the castle—a dark, tight way, not meant for humans. Everyone was at their post, everything in readiness. It was too late to turn back, and there was nowhere to turn to, in any case.       Dishes and platters materialised on the tablecloths, but Harry could scarcely make himself put anything on his own plate and could not swallow a bite. He was itching to go, and, at the same time, afraid to leave.       And at that precise moment, as he rose from the bench, prepared to slip quietly out, the double doors flew open with a crash. Professor Quirrell—and Harry had not even noticed he was missing from the staff table—came rushing in with a liveliness wholly foreign to him. A miasma of garlic and rotting meat washed over Harry as Quirrell, windmilling his arms, pelted—yes, pelted, though he seemed quite unequal to it—down the aisle between the house tables.       ‘Troll!’ he croaked, gasping, and sagged against the shoulder of a disgusted Snape. ‘Troll in the dungeons! I thought… you ought to know…’ And he slid to the floor, catching the tablecloth on the way, and sending a couple of goblets clattering. It looked as though consciousness—and perhaps life—had abandoned him, exhausted by the effort.       An awful din erupted in the Great Hall. Most of the students—and the teachers, too—sprang to their feet. Everyone began to talk at once, trying to shout each other down. Relative order was restored only when the Headmaster pointed his wand at the ceiling and fired off several purple fireworks from its tip.       ‘Prefects!’ His age-roughened voice, amplified by magic, thundered round the hall. ‘Evacuate everyone to the house dormitories at once!’       The noise and bustle did not exactly subside, but became far more meaningful and organised. Gemma, elbowing her way to her first-years, managed to line them up, of a sort, and drove them out, heartlessly shoving aside anyone in the way. Had Flitwick heard her just then, the House would have been docked five hundred points for ‘unparliamentary expressions’, but, at least, they were among the first into the Entrance Hall.       ‘Now! The moment is perfect!’ Harry thought. He darted out of the line, grabbed a dazed Draco by the hand, and dragged him away—not towards the Great Hall, nor down to the dungeons, but up the marble staircase. Malfoy, at first barely keeping his feet, suddenly began to scamper, and almost outpaced him. Reaching the second floor, they jumped onto a staircase that came conveniently to hand, and a minute later they were near the corridor with the out-of-order girls’ lavatory.       But Harry did not take Draco there—Corvinus Gaunt had not hidden the entrance to the Chamber in one of the least obvious places, where no boy, be he thrice Salazar’s descendant, could possibly find himself by chance, only for Harry to parade it now. No, that secret must remain a secret—but Malfoy would see the Basilisk, since Harry had promised it. They ran past the Muggle Studies office, turned towards the Charms classroom, and Harry flung open the door of the empty room next to it with the flat of his hand.       ‘Wait here!’ he snapped. Draco nodded and whipped out of his robe pocket… Harry could not believe his eyes for a moment—but no, they were, indeed, mirrored sunglasses. Entirely Muggle. Despite the rush, and the general nerves of the situation, Harry could not help laughing.       ‘Merlin…’ he managed. ‘What have you got there?’       ‘Oh, don’t laugh like a ruddy Thestral,’ Malfoy muttered, abashed, perching the glasses on his nose, ‘you’ve no idea how scared I am.’       ‘I can always choose not to bring him,’ Harry offered sweetly. Draco snorted, outraged, and tilted his chin.       ‘As if! Bring him! I am ready.’       And Harry tore off towards the abandoned lavatory. But as soon as he turned into that portraitless corridor, a wave of vile stench hit him—far worse than the reek Quirrell gave off. It smelt of filthy socks, and stale urine, and that foetor that rises from a predator’s maw—and, before he could even lift his frightened gaze, Harry knew what he was about to see.       It was a good twelve feet tall—taller than Hagrid, though not by much. Long, pointed ears nearly scraped the ceiling. The hunched nape and the bent proportions of its stooped body made it look like a proto-hominid, as though it had wandered straight out of a Muggle anthropology book. Gigantopithecus. Long, ape-like arms, one of which clutched a knotted club, and long-toed, flat feet heightened the resemblance. But the face was nothing like a human’s—the ugliest monkey would seem a beauty beside that mug: neither rat nor pig, with yellow tusks jutting from the corners of its mouth. Huge, carnivorous, aggressive—and magic did not affect trolls at all; their immunity was worse even than giants’. A charmer of a creature.       Harry froze, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. Very, very slowly, he shifted his weight onto one foot, ready to bolt—and the thing flared the nostrils of its grotesquely pendulous nose. It stooped. And it peered through the open door of Moaning Myrtle’s haunt.       A faint, frightened little sob sounded from within.