Chapter 94: The Flame Mask
The next attack came before the staff finished mapping every old pipe.
Edward was leaving Herbology with Theodore when a Hufflepuff prefect ran past them toward the entrance hall. Snape's order to keep clear arrived moments later through a prefect, and Edward obeyed it. He learned the details only after the victims had been moved.
Justin Finch-Fletchley had been petrified. Nearly Headless Nick had been struck as well.
A ghost.
That fact changed the Basilisk hypothesis more than any rumor about Harry. A living victim could have seen a creature through glass, water, or a lens. Nick had no ordinary body at all. If he had met the gaze directly and the attack left him dark and rigid rather than destroying him, then the effect on Justin could have passed through the ghost.
Hermione reached the same conclusion.
"Indirect again," she said when McGonagall allowed them to compare notes under supervision. "If Justin saw the eyes through Nick..."
"Then it explains survival without pretending a direct gaze is harmless."
Professor McGonagall held up a hand. "It may explain it."
Edward corrected himself. "May."
Harry's presence near the victims reignited the accusations. This time Draco did not begin them, though he listened to several with visible interest.
"You are thinking it," Edward said on the way back to Slytherin.
"He keeps appearing near petrified people."
"That is worth recording. So is the fact that one of the victims from the first attack was his admirer. So is the possibility that whoever is responsible wants Potter blamed."
Draco sighed. "You have made suspicion exhausting."
"Good."
The Flame Mask project changed too. Until then, several younger students had treated the dark veil as a clever new defense. Justin's attack proved how little it offered. He had been in a normal corridor during the day. There had been no time to unfold a strip, reach a wall, and activate anything.
Edward asked Snape to suspend distribution.
"There are three approved strips," Snape said. "One with you, one with Miss Granger, one in my office."
"Then no more."
"Reason?"
"People are beginning to act as if carrying one makes them prepared. It does not."
Snape returned to grading. "A rare outbreak of sense. Write the limitation into the notice."
Edward did.
The common room received the change badly.
"So your mask is useless?" a first-year asked.
This tale has been pilfered from NovelPhoenix. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"No. It has one narrow use. If you are already against a wall and need to move with your eyes obscured, it can reduce what you see for a few seconds. It has never been tested against a Basilisk. It cannot stop fangs, venom, or a curse. It takes time to unfold. If you hear danger, leaving with your group is still better than stopping to use it."
Pansy held up an ordinary scarf. "And if all you need is to block your sight while someone leads you, this does the same thing without a spell."
That answer disappointed people. Edward considered disappointment a safety feature.
The school approached Christmas under tighter restrictions. Some families removed their children early. Empty seats appeared at meals. Conversations died whenever Harry entered a room.
Edward spent most afternoons in the library, not because he believed another book would solve the Chamber but because the shared research had become one of the few places where speculation was forced onto paper and challenged.
Hermione arrived one afternoon carrying a stack of Potions references that had nothing to do with Basilisks.
"You are changing subjects?" Edward asked.
"Temporarily."
She sat too quickly and covered the top parchment.
Edward looked at the motion, then at her face. "That was subtle."
"Mind your own work."
He did, mostly.
The books included material on transformative potions, unusual ingredients, and the effects of using animal material where human material was expected. Hermione noticed him noticing.
"It is for an assignment."
"Of course."
"You sound like you do not believe me."
"I sound like Snape. It is an occupational hazard of spending too much time in his office."
Hermione's mouth twitched. She returned to her notes.
Before leaving, Edward placed a replacement Flame Mask strip on the table between them. Snape had inspected it that morning.
"Your old one was creased. This is the only replacement authorized for you."
Hermione did not take it immediately. "You just told your house not to rely on these."
"Correct."
"Then why give me one?"
"Because narrow tools are still tools when their limits are understood. Keep it folded in the outer pocket. If using it would delay escape, do not use it. If a professor tells you to discard it, discard it."
She picked up the parchment. "And it will not stop a Basilisk's gaze?"
"We have never tested that and should never try. Assume it will not."
"Useful sales pitch."
"I am trying not to sell it."
Hermione slipped it into her pocket.
Edward hesitated. "Also, whatever you are doing with those Potions books, remember what McGonagall said about testing theories on yourself."
Hermione's expression became innocent with suspicious speed. "I have no idea what you mean."
"Naturally."
He left before she could ask how much he had guessed.
Several days later, Draco complained that Crabbe and Goyle had missed part of an evening and returned acting strangely. He blamed Christmas sweets, boredom, and Gryffindor in roughly that order.
Edward listened.
"Strangely how?"
"They asked whether my father had ever told me who opened the Chamber. As if I would know and simply forget to mention it."
Edward looked toward the boys in question. By then they were eating with their usual dedication and showed no sign of remembering the conversation.
"Did they ask anything else?"
"Whether the Chamber was in our common room. Ridiculous."
Edward filed the detail away without constructing a conspiracy around it.
The next supervised drill used no magic at all. Flitwick dimmed the classroom and placed numbered cards along a wall. Students moved in pairs with one person keeping eyes down while the other called obstacles. The exercise looked ridiculous and taught more than another dramatic spell would have.
Edward missed a low stool because he tried to move too quickly. Hermione, observing with McGonagall's permission, wrote the failure into his record before he could.
"You keep assuming you will be calm enough to perform the ideal sequence," she said.
"I am beginning to notice that."
"Beginning?"
"There is no need to enjoy it."
She enjoyed it anyway.
The professors approved one further change: every Flame Mask strip would be marked with a plain warning in ink. NOT A SHIELD. USE ONLY TO MOVE AWAY. The sentence ruined the appearance of the parchment, which pleased Snape.
When Draco saw it, he asked whether the warning could at least be written smaller.
"No," Edward and Pansy said together.
At Hogwarts, appearances had become unreliable enough already.
The Flame Mask remained folded in his pocket. He was more interested in the questions Draco's story raised than in finding an excuse to use it.
The warning in ink remained deliberately ugly, impossible to confuse with a promise of safety. Edward preferred it that way.
No student mistook the limitation for a guarantee after that.
Edward copied the warning onto his own notes as well.