Chapter 201

It didn't take much to guess what.

Making sure that he hadn't been seen, he quickly slipped out of the archives and out of the library, before making his way to the nearby girl's bathroom where he shut himself up in one of the stalls.

The basilisk usually stayed in the pipes, since the winter wasn't really comfortable for it. The echoing nature of the pipes made sending messages to the giant serpent quite easy for him.

Making sure that no one else was in the bathroom with a quick spell, he lifted the lid of the toilet, cast Sonorus on his voice, and keeping his face at the seat's height, hissed into it, "Outside the library. The girl with bushy hair. Petrify. Don't kill."

It wouldn't be good to have an obvious mystery killing when his plan was so close to its end, he thought as he headed back out of the bathroom and into the library. He had to stick to a petrifaction for now.

All that he had left to do now was to make sure that Granger went outside in time for her petrifaction.

He made his way into the archives section; gladly noting along the way that Pince had already left for Lockhart's event; where Granger was sitting on the floor still looking through newspapers.

He swiftly planned out the entire conversation in his head, disguised his eyes with a wave of his hand before he put a curious expression on to Lisa's face and drew Granger's attention with a cough.

Startled, the bushy-haired Ravenclaw quickly turned around, her eyes widening at the sight of her housemate, "Lisa-"

Not giving the girl any chances, he asked, "You're looking for articles about the last time the chamber was opened aren't you?"

Granger's eyes widened, and then she hesitated, before finally nodding.

He walked over to her, and sunk down to his knees beside the girl, slightly impressed to see that the girl was actually looking in the right year's newspapers, "Have you found anything?"

The bushy haired girl's expression grew miserable as she shook her head, "I've been sneaking away to try and find something for the longest while now. I've gone through as many papers as I could. Nothing."

"Do your friends know about it?"

She shook her head again. "I've been telling them that I'm tired and sick so that I can come look for something in the library by myself. I don't want to pull them into this and put their lives at risk. Especially not Harry. He hasn't been doing good recently, what with Terry being gone," she said before looking at him fearfully, "You won't tell him will you?"

"I won't," he promised her, "In fact, I think I can help."

Granger looked at him curiously, "You can?"

He nodded, before pulling out a regular marble from his host's pocket. "This is a Searchible. My mum gave me a bunch of these for my birthday. If you point your wand at it and say the word you are looking for, it will find the nearest piece of paper with that word written on it."

Granger looked doubtfully at the marble, "Really? I don't think I've ever heard of anything called Searchibles."

"Watch," he simply said in reply, before pointing his wand at the marble, and saying, "Petrifactions"

As Granger watched with wide eyes, the marble cracked into two in her hands, and one of the newspapers on the floor lit up with an orange light.

"Go on," he told her, and Granger looked at his host's calm face doubtfully before cracking open the newspaper and sifting through it.

"Oh!" she exclaimed loudly, before realizing that she was in the library and quieting down. He looked over her shoulder, and looked at the article she had found.

'HOGWARTS MURDERER CAUGHT' the headline read. Simple enough article with little actual information. Nothing to fret about, he thought as he turned to look at Granger, who had gone bone white.

"Those marbles only have a single use, but I have loads more back in the dorms," he said, making his host sound as earnest as he could, "I could get the rest from the dorm right now and we could just look for as many of these articles as possible. Who knows, maybe we could find something interesting."

Granger looked at her as if she couldn't believe her fortune. She gratefully smiled at him before saying, "I'll come with you Lisa. Most people are down at the grounds for Professor Lockhart's event, and its not safe to go all the way to the tower alone. Would you please wait for me near the doors for a second. I'll put these newspapers away and we can head up together from there."

So the girl had a little Gryffindor in her, he amusedly thought before nodding and heading out of the archives section.

He walked out of the library, not bothering to wait as he stepped around the giant Basilisk sitting right outside the door that only he could see and headed down the corridor towards the stairs which would lead him to Lockhart's event.

A small thud behind him indicated to him that the Basilisk's job was done.

He grinned. He could have just cast an Imperius on the girl and made her come outside, but mudbloods were so gullible and fun to play with. A couple of small charms and a glowing charm on the paper, and the girl instantly believed everything that he said.

'Searchibles indeed,' he thought with a chuckle, 'Hilarious really.'

Gilderoy Lockhart was a wizard who was hailed by many as the greatest wizard since Albus Dumbledore, with exploits far more widespread and varied than the Headmaster's. He had felt the man's magic a couple of times through his host's senses and it had been enough to make his host light-headed, which spoke volumes of the man's raw ability.

Of course, there were people who believed that he was a fraud, and maybe he was. He was a man more incompetent a teacher than any he had ever seen before.

But he wasn't feeling up to taking any risks. If there was even a one percent chance that the man could, in any unpredictable or unexpected way, prove to be a hurdle to his plans, then it was better to take it as absolute certainty and simply remove him from the equation.

.

.

.

.

.

🙏🏽patreon.com/William777🙏🏽

🎉Subscribe to my Patreon for more advanced chapters🎉