CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A gleaming silver sword had appeared inside the hat, its handle
glittering with rubies the size of eggs.
“KILL THE BOY! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND
YOU! SNIFF — SMELL HIM!”
Harry was on his feet, ready. The basilisk’s head was falling, its
body coiling around, hitting pillars as it twisted to face him. He
could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide,
wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his
sword, thin, glittering, venomous —
It lunged blindly — Harry dodged and it hit the Chamber wall. It
lunged again, and its forked tongue lashed Harry’s side. He raised
the sword in both his hands —
The basilisk lunged again, and this time its aim was true — Harry
threw his whole weight behind the sword and drove it to the hilt into
the roof of the serpent’s mouth —
But as warm blood drenched Harry’s arms, he felt a searing pain
just above his elbow. One long, poisonous fang was sinking deeper
and deeper into his arm and it splintered as the basilisk keeled over
sideways and fell, twitching, to the floor.
Harry slid down the wall. He gripped the fang that was spreading
poison through his body and wrenched it out of his arm. But he
knew it was too late. White-hot pain was spreading slowly and
steadily from the wound. Even as he dropped the fang and watched
his own blood soaking his robes, his vision went foggy. The Cham-
ber was dissolving in a whirl of dull color.
A patch of scarlet swam past, and Harry heard a soft clatter of
claws beside him.
“Fawkes,” said Harry thickly. “You were fantastic, Fawkes. . . .”
320