Mia Potter was the other Potter. Looking almost identical to her mother, she was a force to be reckoned with. But there was only one person who could reckon with her, and his name was Draco Malfoy.
In which the youngest Potter twin finds herself fa...
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"Wish you were here, Hermione. We need you. Now more than ever."
It was plain that Hermione didn't have the faintest inkling that she had visitors, and that they might just as well tell her bedside cabinet not to worry for all the good it would do.
"Wonder if she did see the attacker, though?" said Ron, looking sadly at Hermione's rigid face. "Because if he sneaked up on them all, no one'll ever know. . . ."
But Mia wasn't looking at Hermione's face. She was more interested in her right hand. It lay clenched on top of her blankets, and bending closer, she saw that a piece of paper was scrunched inside her fist.
Making sure that Madam Pomfrey was nowhere near, Mia grabbed Hermione's hand and attempted to remove the paper. It was no easy task. Hermione's hand was clamped so tightly around the paper that Mia was sure she was going to tear it. While Harry and Ron kept watch, she tugged and twisted, and at last, after several tense minutes, the paper came free.
It was a page torn from a very old library book. Mia smoothed it out eagerly and read it.
"What's it say?" Ron asked, looking at Mia. Mia furrowed her eyebrows as she read it.
"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," she said, glancing up at the boys. "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."
And beneath this, a single word had been written, in a hand Mia recognized as Hermione's.
Pipes.
It was as though somebody had just flicked a light on in her brain.
"It all makes sense!" Mia said, "guys, this is why Hermione was in the library the day she was attacked. Come on!"
The trio left the Hospital Wing and began walking through the empty corridor.
"Of the many fearsome beasts that roam our land, none is more deadly than the Basilisk, Capable of living for hundreds of years, instant death awaits any who meet this giant serpent's eye. Spiders flee before it. . . ."
Mia looked up at Ron and grinned.
"Ron, this is it. The monster in the Chamber of Secrets is a Basilisk!" she said, "that's why Harry and I can hear it speak. It's a giant snake!"
"But if it kills by looking people in the eye, why is it no one's dead?" Ron asked, thinking as the twins looked at each other. Mia saw her reflection in Harry's glasses.
