"Mr. Riddle?"
Hermione's voice was thick with unshed tears. She collapsed into his arms, her strength vanishing as if she had been struck by a Jelly-Legs Jinx. "You scared me to death!"
"I'm sorry, Hermione. Did you find what you were looking for?" Elijah asked.
He offered a thin, practiced smile. Beneath the pale moonlight filtering through the library windows, Malfoy's face looked ghoulish—a byproduct of Elijah's constant drain on the boy's vitality.
To Hermione, however, he was simply a sanctuary. She clung to his robes, her words tumbling out in a frantic, incoherent rush.
"I found it—it's a Basilisk! You were wrong about Hagrid, it's been the pipes all along—we have to get mirrors, we have to tell—"
"Breathe, Hermione. Tell me everything," Elijah said softly, patting her back.
He listened with clinical interest as she detailed her brilliant deduction. When she finished, he looked at her with genuine appreciation. "You really are the brightest witch of your age, Hermione."
She beamed, a spark of her usual pride returning to her eyes. But then, Elijah stepped back.
The movement was slow and deliberate, taking him out of the circle of light cast by her wand and back into the swallowing shadows.
"However," he said, his voice dropping an octave, "there is one thing you've misunderstood."
"Mr. Riddle?"
"I didn't wrong Hagrid, Hermione. It wasn't a mistake. It was a setup."
The confusion on her face curdled into a slow, agonizing realization. "But... why?"
"Because I am the Heir of Slytherin," Elijah explained calmly. "Every attack this year, every moment of terror—it was all by my hand."
Hermione's world shattered. The betrayal was a physical blow, sharper and deeper than any slur Malfoy had ever hurled.
This was the boy she had studied with, the mentor who had taught her the intricacies of Runes, the friend she had trusted with her secrets.
"But why?" she gasped, tears finally spilling over. "You're from the Muggle world too. Do you really hate us that much? Am I just a... a Mudblood to you?"
"No," Elijah said, his tone devoid of malice. "I've never cared for those labels. But for a soul to return to the world of the living, sacrifices must be made. Take this as your final lesson, Hermione: never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain."
He spoke with the terrifying gentleness of a parent tucking a child into bed. "Now, it's time to go to sleep. Don't worry—I won't kill you."
A grating, metallic sound echoed from the darkness behind her—the sound of heavy scales dragging across stone. Hermione didn't look back. In a fit of desperate, grief-stricken rage, she lunged at him.
Elijah stepped aside, letting her stumble past.
She ran. Hermione knew she couldn't outrun a monster, but she threw every spell in her arsenal over her shoulder as she darted between the bookshelves.
"Avifors! Stupefy! Impedimenta!"
Light flared in the dark library like dying stars. The spells struck the Basilisk's iridescent green hide and dissipated harmlessly against its magic-resistant scales.
Even the Freezing Charm, powerful enough to douse a fire dweller, didn't slow the beast's advance.
She was a mouse in a maze, using the narrow gaps between the shelves to delay the inevitable. Elijah watched from the center of the room, a silent conductor to the carnage. He watched her reach the main doors, her small hands clawing at the handles.
"Alohomora! Alohomora!"
The lock didn't budge.
"It's no use," Elijah said, his voice drifting through the stacks. "I've already cast the counter-charm."
Hermione spun around, her back hitting the cold wood of the door.
The Basilisk had slowed, its massive, undulating body coiling to block her every exit. She squeezed her eyes shut so tightly they ached, her breath coming in ragged, terrified hitches. The beast's foul, carrion-scented breath washed over her face.
"No more tricks?"
Elijah stood before her, twirling his wand with idle grace.
With a sharp flick, he cast a silent compulsion. Hermione felt her body betray her; unseen hands pried her fingers from the door, forced her joints to lock, and—most cruelly—began to pull her eyelids open.
"You're disappointing me, Hermione," Elijah whispered. "Think. What did I teach you about the Basilisk's gaze?"
In the final second of autonomy she had left, Hermione summoned a Bubble-Head Charm. A thin film of shimmering air encased her head just as Elijah's magic forced her eyes wide.
Through the distortion of the bubble, she saw the sunset-yellow glare of the Great Serpent.
The bubble popped with a soft hiss.
Hermione's body went rigid as stone, and she collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud. The Basilisk hissed, baring fangs as long as sabers, but Elijah stilled it with a sharp command in Parseltongue.
The cold, mocking mask fell from Elijah's face, replaced by a weary, mechanical efficiency.
He knelt beside her, adjusting her stiff limbs into a more dignified position. Then, with a casual flick of his wand, he sent a jet of red sparks into the Restricted Section.
The library alarms began to scream.
...
The transition back to the Quidditch pitch was seamless. Elijah slipped into the stands, his breathing labored to mimic a long run.
He slid onto the bench next to Ron and Ginny just as the crowd's roar reached a crescendo.
"I finally found you," he panted, glancing at the empty space beside them. "Where's Hermione?"
"The library," Ginny said, her voice small. "She said she had to check something."
"Alone?" Elijah's brow furrowed in faux concern. "You shouldn't have let her go alone. Not now."
Before Ron could argue, the game came to a screeching halt. Professor McGonagall marched onto the pitch, her purple megaphone amplifying a voice that shook with suppressed emotion.
"The match is canceled! All students are to return to their House common rooms immediately!"
The chaos that followed was a blur of shouting students and frantic teachers. Harry and Ron were pulled aside by McGonagall, their faces pale with a dawning horror that Elijah had orchestrated perfectly.
"Someone forced her eyes open," Madam Pomfrey whispered in the Hospital Wing.
She stood over Hermione's petrified form, her hands trembling as she examined the girl's vacant gaze. "She tried to keep them shut, but someone... someone wanted her to see."
McGonagall's face was a mask of grief. The news was already spreading: Hogwarts was on the verge of closure.
Later that evening, the Gryffindor common room was a hive of whispered accusations.
Lee Jordan was loudly demanding why the Slytherins remained untouched while Harry sat in a corner, staring into the fire. He couldn't shake the image of Hermione—stiff, cold, and silent. He knew he couldn't let the school close. He couldn't go back to the Dursleys.
"We have to talk to Hagrid," Harry whispered to Ron and Ginny. "If he let it out fifty years ago, he knows how to get in."
"But the curfew—" Ron began.
"It's time for the cloak," Harry said firmly.
The trek to Hagrid's hut was a gauntlet of patrolling teachers. Beneath the Invisibility Cloak, the four of them—Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Elijah (who had now 'possessed' Ginny to minimize their footprint)—moved like a single, multi-legged ghost.
Elijah felt the tension in Ginny's muscles, the frantic beating of her heart. To Harry and Ron, it was a tactical necessity. To Elijah, it was a deepening of the tether.
When they reached the hut, Hagrid greeted them with a crossbow and a face lined with terror.
He was a man coming apart at the seams, spilling boiling water and forgetting tea leaves.
"Hagrid, is it a good time?" Harry asked.
Before he could answer, a thunderous knock shook the door.
"Hide!" Elijah hissed, pulling the cloak over the three of them and shoving them behind the oversized sofa.
Hagrid opened the door to find Albus Dumbledore and a short, stout man in a pinstriped suit and a lime-green bowler hat.
"That's Cornelius Fudge," Ron breathed. "The Minister for Magic."
"Quiet," Elijah commanded, elbowing him.
Dumbledore's eyes flickered toward the sofa for a fraction of a second—an amused, knowing glint in the blue depths. Elijah held his breath, wondering if the Headmaster could see through the ancient fabric. But Dumbledore looked away, focusing on the grim business at hand.
"This is bad, Hagrid," Fudge said, his voice crisp and nervous. "Four attacks. The Ministry has to act. The Board of Governors has reached a decision."
"I didn't do it!" Hagrid cried. "Professor, you know—"
"I have complete faith in Hagrid," Dumbledore said, his voice like iron.
"But Albus, his record," Fudge stammered. "I'm under a lot of pressure. I have to take him. Precautionary measure, you understand? If it's not him, he'll be back with a full apology."
"Take me away?" Hagrid whispered, his massive frame shaking. "To where?"
"Azkaban," Fudge said, unable to meet the giant's eyes.
Elijah watched from the shadows. Dumbledore protested, but he did not stop it. The Headmaster was a man of long games and calculated losses. He was letting the piece be taken to see how the opponent would move.
It was a ruthlessness Elijah respected—and feared.