The Basilisk Was Dead

"Potter! What exactly—"

Professor McGonagall's stern questioning had not even fully left her lips when Harry, leaning against the stone statue, swayed. Once he saw who had arrived and confirmed that they were safe, his eyes rapidly lost focus.

His nerves, stretched to their absolute limit, suddenly relaxed, compounded by exhaustion and the immense emotional upheaval—

He did not even manage to say a word before his head lolled to one side and he fell completely unconscious. Gryffindor's sword slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground.

"Harry!" Hermione screamed as she rushed over.

Professor Snape immediately stepped forward and swiftly checked Harry's basic vital signs.

"He's still alive. He's merely unconscious from exhaustion, though he may have some external injuries."

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

Ron and Hermione clumsily hauled Harry up between them and hurriedly disappeared into the tunnel entrance, dragging their feet.

Silence returned to the Chamber of Secrets. Only two adult wizards, a stone statue, a phoenix, and the corpse of a monstrous beast remained.

Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape entered the Chamber of Secrets one after the other, cold light glowing at the tips of their wands.

The sight before them made both of them hold their breath—

Salazar Slytherin's enormous stone-carved face looked particularly eerie beneath the ghostly green light, while before the statue lay the Basilisk's mountain-like corpse.

"The Chamber of Secrets... the legend was true."

Professor McGonagall's pupils flickered. She could not believe that one of the four founders had truly done something like this—

Even though Slytherin had always had a poor reputation, she had sincerely respected that great wizard from beginning to end.

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

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

Professor McGonagall did not respond. Her gaze fell upon something else nearby—the long sword that had fallen to the floor, silver light flowing across its blade.

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

"Basilisk venom," he said in a low voice, as though he had discovered treasure.

He swiftly withdrew a thick-walled crystal vial and a silver knife from the inner pocket of his black robes. Crouching beside the Basilisk's head, he precisely cut open the venom gland.

None of the dangerous, glimmering venom he had expected flowed out.

Only a few drops of cloudy liquid seeped from the incision. Then the entire gland seemed to instantly lose all vitality, shriveling and dimming.

At the same time, the light flowing over the Silver Sword lying on the ground seemed to brighten for an imperceptible instant.

Snape froze.

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

Basilisk venom was one of the finest potion ingredients. Just a tiny amount could brew a potion comparable to a powerful curse, yet it had vanished right before his eyes.

"Severus Snape!"

Professor McGonagall's fury flared. Their colleague had been petrified, danger lurked everywhere, and he was still thinking only of his potion ingredients?

"Is this the time to collect rare materials?!"

She was so angry that she did not even use his title—her tone was the one she reserved in class for distracted or persistently disobedient students.

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Snape quickly put away his tools and rose to his feet, moving far more briskly than before.

"The venom gland was damaged."

He tried to bluntly change the subject, his gaze darting away from Professor McGonagall's face and toward the wreckage scattered across the ground.

"But there's something wrong with this scene."

Professor McGonagall then forced herself to shift her attention away from the founder's madness and began examining their surroundings.

Deep gashes in the walls, large patches of scorched and crystallized ground, the lingering aftermath of violent Magic Power in the air...

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

"It was Lin Du," Professor McGonagall said softly. She walked to the Basilisk's corpse and looked at the two eye sockets burned into holes.

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

Snape did not answer immediately.

He drew his wand and murmured, "Reveal footprints."

Silver motes of light scattered from the tip of his wand. Where they fell, clear, glowing trails appeared across the floor—

The traces of the giant snake's struggle had been firmly confined to a relatively small area. Around it were dense, glowing points marking human footsteps. Those points flowed swiftly, constantly suppressing the snake-like trail at the center.

"Suppressed throughout," Snape said as he put away his wand. "Lin Du had complete control of the situation. Destroying the Basilisk's eyes should have been effortless for him."

He paused. His gaze swept over Lin Du's stone statue, which faced the Basilisk with no cover at all. Then he recalled Harry, covered in blood, refusing to let go of the statue. He felt that he had already guessed the truth.

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

Again, it was always like this.

The Potters were always good at dragging others into trouble.

But then he frowned.

If Lin Du had only wanted to deal with the Basilisk, he could have destroyed its eyes from a distance from the very beginning. Why engage it at close range and end up petrified?

"That doesn't make sense." Professor McGonagall had reached the same conclusion. She shook her head. "With Lin Du's ability, he could have ended the battle from a safe distance. Unless..."

Her gaze fell upon the battered Sorting Hat at the statue's feet. She froze for a moment. "The Sorting Hat? Why is it here?"

Snape saw the hat as well.

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

Fawkes sensed his gaze and gently tilted his head, his jewel-like eyes calmly meeting Snape's.

In an instant, countless fragments came 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 methods...

He lowered his eyes, concealing the mockery that flashed through them.

So that was it.

"Whatever we can't figure out, we'll know once we go back and ask Potter."

Snape turned away, his black robes sweeping an arc across the filthy ground. "He experienced it firsthand."

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

Indeed, only the boy currently lying in the School Hospital could likely answer all their questions.