The Basilisk is Dead

"Potter! What in the—"

Professor McGonagall's stern interrogation had barely left her mouth when Harry, leaning against the stone statue, swayed. The moment he recognized the arrivals and confirmed safety, the focus rapidly drained from his eyes.

His nerves, stretched to the breaking point, suddenly slackened. Combined with exhaustion and immense emotional upheaval—

He couldn't even utter a single word. His head lolled to the side, and he fell into complete unconsciousness. The Gryffindor's sword in his hand clattered to the floor with a loud bang.

"Harry!" Hermione shrieked, lunging toward him.

Professor Snape stepped forward immediately, swiftly checking Harry's basic vital signs.

"He's alive. Just unconscious from exhaustion. There may be some external injuries as well."

Professor McGonagall let out a breath of relief, but her expression remained severe. "Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, take Mr. Potter to the School Hospital immediately. Find Madam Pomfrey. Hurry!"

Ron and Hermione scrambled to hoist Harry up between them. Dragging their feet, they hurriedly disappeared into the tunnel entrance.

The Chamber fell silent once more, leaving only two adult wizards, a stone statue, a phoenix, and a dead giant beast.

Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape stepped into the Chamber one after the other, the tips of their wands glowing with cold light.

The sight before them made both hold their breath simultaneously—

Salazar Slytherin's enormous stone face loomed eerily under the dim green light, and before the statue lay the mountain-like corpse of the Basilisk.

"The Chamber... the legend is real."

Professor McGonagall's pupils flickered. She couldn't believe that one of the four founders had actually committed such a deed—

Even though Slytherin's reputation had always been poor, she had sincerely respected that great wizard from the bottom of her heart.

"He actually left something like this inside the castle."

"Madman." Snape's assessment was far more cutting.

McGonagall didn't respond. Her gaze fell on another object not far away—the longsword lying on the ground, its silver light flowing.

She frowned, about to say something, but Snape had already strode over.

"Basilisk venom," he murmured, as if he had discovered a treasure.

He quickly pulled a thick-walled crystal vial and a silver knife from an inner pocket of his black robes, crouched beside the serpent's head, and precisely cut into the venom gland.

No venom with its dangerous, glistening sheen flowed out as expected.

Only a few drops of murky liquid seeped from the incision. Then, the entire gland seemed to instantly lose all activity, becoming shriveled and dull.

At the same time, the silver sword lying on the ground seemed to have its flowing light brighten for an imperceptible moment.

Snape's movements froze.

He stared at the empty vial, then slowly turned his head to look at the sword. His lips pressed into a tight line—

Basilisk venom was a top-tier potion ingredient. Even a tiny amount could brew potions comparable to powerful curses. Yet it had vanished right before his eyes.

"Severus Snape!"

Professor McGonagall's fury flared up instantly. Here they were, with a colleague petrified and danger lurking, and he was still only thinking about his potion ingredients?

"Is this the time for you to be collecting rare materials?!"

She was so angry that she dropped the honorific—a tone usually reserved for students who daydreamed in class or repeatedly refused to learn their lesson.

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Snape quickly put away his tools and stood up, his movements far more brisk than before.

"The venom gland is destroyed."

He attempted a stiff change of subject, his gaze darting away from McGonagall's face and sweeping across the chaotic ground around them.

"Though there's something off about this scene."

Only then did Professor McGonagall force herself to shift her attention away from the founder's mad act and begin to examine her surroundings.

Deep cut marks on the walls, large patches of scorched and crystallized ground, the lingering, violent remnants of Magic Power in the air that had yet to dissipate...

Every trace pointed to a fierce but overwhelmingly one-sided battle.

"It was Lin Du," Professor McGonagall said quietly. She walked over to the Basilisk's corpse and looked at the two eye sockets that had been burned into hollow craters.

"He destroyed the Basilisk's eyes... but why was he still petrified himself?"

Snape didn't answer immediately.

He drew his wand and muttered softly, "Footprints, reveal."

Silver dust sprayed from the tip of his wand. Where the dust fell, clear, glowing tracks emerged on the ground—

The massive serpent's struggling marks were tightly confined within a relatively narrow area, while all around were dense, glowing points of light from human footsteps. Those points moved swiftly, always keeping the serpent's tracks pinned at the center.

"Total suppression," Snape said, putting away his wand. "Lin Du had the situation completely under control. Destroying the Basilisk's eyes should have been child's play for him."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over Lin Du's petrified form—posed directly facing the serpent, completely exposed—and recalling how Harry, covered in blood and grime, had refused to let go of the statue. He felt he had already guessed the truth.

It was nothing more than Lin Du discovering the Chamber of Secrets and deciding to defeat the Basilisk alone, only for that foolish Potter boy to recklessly join in, resulting in Lin Du being petrified while protecting him.

The same old story.

The Potter family always excelled at dragging others into trouble.

But then he frowned again.

If the goal was merely to deal with the Basilisk, Lin Du could have destroyed its eyes from a distance from the very start. Why engage in close combat, only to end up petrified?

"That doesn't add up," Professor McGonagall said, having arrived at the same question. She shook her head. "With Lin Du's ability, he could have completely resolved the fight from a safe distance. Unless..."

Her gaze fell on the tattered Sorting Hat lying at the foot of the stone statue. She paused. "The Sorting Hat? What is it doing here?"

Snape saw the hat too.

His gaze then shifted upward, landing on the large golden-red bird perched quietly atop Lin Du's stone head.

Fawkes felt his stare and tilted its head slightly, its jewel-like eyes meeting his gaze calmly.

In an instant, fragments pieced together in Snape's mind—the Basilisk, the Chamber of Secrets, Harry's involvement, the Sword of Gryffindor, the Sorting Hat, the phoenix, and that old fox Dumbledore's usual modus operandi...

He lowered his eyelids, concealing the mockery that flashed in his eyes.

So that's how it was.

"If there's something you can't figure out, go back and ask Potter," Snape said, turning around. His black robes swept an arc across the filthy ground. "He was there firsthand."

Professor McGonagall glanced at Lin Du's stone statue, then at the Basilisk's corpse and the mysterious hat. Finally, she nodded.

Indeed, all the questions could probably only be answered by the boy currently lying in the School Hospital.