There was actually a pair of eyes hidden in the crack between the stones!
Maybe it was because they'd just been practicing the Cruciatus Curse and everyone's mind was full of horrible associations, but the student who saw those eyes suddenly sucked in a sharp breath. His throat felt as if an invisible hand had clamped down on it; every sound got stuck in his chest.
...
Draco's attention was drawn by the noise over by Noat, and he didn't realize he'd already been discovered.
He stared at the group torturing the rat with the Cruciatus Curse, jaw tight, fingers unconsciously clenching around his Magic Wand.
The Magic Wand kept trembling in his hand.
To be honest, he had run through scenes in his head countless times where he used the Cruciatus Curse on Crabbe, Goyle, Blaise, the Weasleys, Potter and the rest, imagining them kneeling at his feet, crying and begging for mercy.
But when he actually saw a living thing twisting and convulsing on the ground, heard that utterly agonized, broken screaming, Draco's throat worked in a reflexive swallow. His face went even paler than usual, with a faint, sickly bluish tinge.
Cold sweat slid down from his forehead and hit the filthy pipe with a little "plip."
...
The eyes in the crack blinked, and there even seemed to be dark red blood threads caught in the wrinkles of the eyelids.
Terror surged through his whole body like an exploding bucket of ice water; the student whose legs had gone weak let out a raw, throat‑ripping scream—
"Aah—there's a pair of eyes, there's a pair of eyes there!"
The cry smashed around the cramped space. The few people closest all jumped in fright, and more of them turned to look in the direction he was pointing.
Draco reacted a beat too slow. By the time he scrambled frantically backward, quite a few people had already caught sight of that hidden pair of eyes.
Unlike the student who scared so easily earlier, the rest didn't think of any horror imagery. They reacted at once—
"Someone's spying on us! Grab him!"
"Boom—!"
As Draco scrambled away, he heard the wire mesh at the mouth of the pipe behind him get blasted open. Someone climbed up, stuck his head in and yelled, "He's right there, I see him!"
He jabbed his Magic Wand inside and shouted, "Petrifi—cough, cough, cough!"
A pearly‑white figure suddenly swept across the middle of the pipe. Moaning Myrtle held in a breath and then blew out years' worth of dust that had built up in the pipe, sending it flying. The choking cloud had the boy hacking nonstop; the Spell he'd been about to cast died halfway through.
He was blocking the entrance, and no one else could get a shot in, which gave Draco enough time to crawl past that bend so that any straight‑shot Spell wouldn't be able to hit him.
Moaning Myrtle floated beside Draco, her half‑transparent body turning sideways in a spin. She giggled, "How about that? If it weren't for me, they'd have caught you!"
"Don't talk, just hurry…"
Draco didn't finish. He snapped his head around and saw a dense black smoke rolling toward him!
"Damn it! These bastards really don't plan on letting me go!"
He swore hoarsely, a flash of panic in his cold gray eyes, and scrambled forward on hands and knees as fast as he could, but the smoke still rushed up behind him.
He broke into a fit of racking coughs:
"Cough, cough… these… cough, cough… lunatics…"
"Don't be scared!"
Moaning Myrtle swam along beside him, most of her body overlapping the stone wall. She said anxiously, "Follow me! I know there's an exit here!"
...
"Viper" was Perth Rosen, a seventh‑year Slytherin. He turned, his pair of chilling eyes sweeping over everyone in the room.
Behind him at the pipe entrance, several Robes that had been ripped down in a hurry and some students' schoolbags were burning in the flames. Another Slytherin was casting a Spell, directing thick smoke to billow down the direction the voyeur had escaped.
"We were seen."
Rosen said slowly, "That guy saw us practicing Unforgivable Curses in here. If he reports this to Dumbledore, everyone here is getting expelled, and we might even end up in Azkaban!"
People spoke in panic: "Then what do we do?"
Someone clung to a bit of wishful thinking: "I‑I actually didn't take my hood off just now…"
The student with his face exposed immediately gave a cold snort. "If someone here gets caught, you really think he'll help keep your identity secret?"
Everyone fell silent for a moment.
They all knew what the people around them were like; talking about loyalty, brotherhood, or promises was just wishful thinking.
Besides, even if someone wanted to keep a secret, there'd be no way. There were just too many methods to make a person spill the truth.
"Catch him!" Perth Rosen said darkly. "As long as we grab that guy before he tattles, our secret won't get out!"
Vid jabbed Antoine with his elbow, and Antoine called out loudly, "And after we catch him? How do we make sure he doesn't talk?"
Pansy said viciously, "There might only be one way…"
She didn't finish. She glanced at the others and added, "But if a student dies at school, it could cause even worse problems."
Someone argued, "Didn't things just get quietly covered up when Moaning Myrtle died here back then?"
"We don't need to kill him," Rosen said. "I can hit him with Obliviate."
The Forgetfulness Spell was also a dangerous Spell. A Wizard who couldn't control it properly might wipe out too many memories at once, even causing damage to the brain.
But making someone forget what they shouldn't remember was still kinder than killing them outright.
So with that, even the students who'd been wavering made up their minds. Someone shouted, "I can do a Tracking Spell, follow me!"
The others immediately rushed out of the Chamber of Secret after him.
Once they were outside, Vid tugged on Antoine's sleeve and said quickly in a low voice, "Find a way to throw some obstacles in their path, slow them down a bit."
Antoine blinked. "You're going to save that peeping guy? Is he your friend?"
"Not exactly a friend," Vid said. "That's Draco Malfoy."
Vid hadn't originally cared what Malfoy's situation was like in Slytherin, or whether he'd get chewed up by these newly‑surfaced vipers.
But his father Lucius Malfoy had just been upstairs in Dumbledore's office not long ago, and might even end up as an ally of the Order of Phoenix. At a time like this, they really couldn't let his precious son have an "incident" at school.
Watching Vid choose another route and hurry off, Antoine blinked, and the Magic Wand hidden in his Robe gave a subtle flick.
The student running in front suddenly "accidentally" tripped. The ones behind couldn't stop in time and all went tumbling together in a heap, yelping and groaning, completely blocking the corridor.
...
"Defodio!"
The light bursting from the tip of the Magic Wand split open the rusted iron grate, and Draco practically rolled as he tumbled out of the pipe.
He collapsed on the icy floor, back hunched as he coughed over and over. His pale blond hair was plastered to his face with cold sweat and soot, making him look utterly bedraggled.
Right then, a hand suddenly shot out from behind and clamped around his neck from the back!