Through Her Eyes

Chapter 20: Battle with a Basilisk

Rolling slightly as she came to a stop at the bottom of the tunnel, Hermione lifted her wand as several other bodies came to lie beside her on the floor, all groaning in slight irritation. Pushing to her feet and summoning a 'lumos' on the tip of her wand, the wide cavern was illuminated,

"Is everyone ok?" Hermione questioned, helping Sirius to his feet as he slowly got up beside her and brushed himself off,

"If the landing weren't so rough I'd think this would've been a lot more fun," he snarked happily, causing Hermione to roll her eyes and walk to Lily. Helping her up, James and Remus stood as well, all of them lighting their wands as they looked around and up,

"This tunnel must be at least 50 meters high," James breathed, "how big is this thing again?"

"Big enough to kill you, Prongs," 

A collective shiver went through the group as another small figure came bouncing down into the hole. The wards on the Chamber were enough to keep Quitz from apparating inside, that, and he had no idea what it actually looked like. Going to the elf and hoisting him up by the armpits, Hermione swiped a bit of blood off a cut on his forehead, "we need to be cautious from this point on. I don't know if that snake is asleep, or out roaming around,"

"Do snakes sleep?"

"Yes. The Basilisk was dormant for years before being awoken by Tom in my second year," Hermione mumbled, ignoring the stinging of her arm with the Diary and Diadem nearby as she looked at her feet. The skeletons of small and big animals alike littered the floor, causing her to wince. The pile was a bit more fresh then it had been the first time Hermione had visited, as she could still see bleeding fur on some of the carcasses,
'The Basilisk must wake to feed, and then retreats,' she thought, striding over the bones and onto the opposite floor to take a look down the main tunnel, 'I didn't notice all these smaller tunnels here before. There must be an exit somewhere or the snake would starve to death,'

"The main chamber should be down this way, try not to get separated."

There were only mumbles of agreement as Hermione lead them through the wide, cavernous space. The smell of decay was strong, and mucus lined the high stone walls as water sloshed around in troughs dug in the ground. It was truly a glorious piece of engineering, creating something large enough for the Basilisk to be comfortable, but still preventing any sort of water backup or flooding. The stones were all cut to be the same size, and Hermione was only just noticing that large carvings of snakes curled around the occasional pillar holding the tunnel up,

"H-Hermione, I-is that it?"

Whipping around at Lily's frightened tone, Hermione saw what she was pointing at. A large, whitish clear thing was laying on the ground, pushed up against another pile of animal remains. It was curled, but it easily stood over both James and Remus who were fairly tall,

"That's it's skin. When a Snake grows too much it sheds, this is what's left over,"

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Remus questioned, ghosting a hand over the side of the skin where monstrous scale bumps protruded, "so this thing is still growing?"

"I don't think it will ever stop growing," Hermione admitted, "similar to an Occamy, the Basilisk will grow and shrink to fit the space its in. The only reason it's so large is because this chamber allowed it to spread out,"

"Truly incredible,"

"Yeah, yeah we know you're in love with the snake skin, Moony. Let's just try and kill the thing that left this behind, shall we?"

Everyone agreed with Sirius's logic as they all continued through the Chamber. It was descending now, the air becoming crisp as Remus took hold of Hermione and kissed her temple,