The days at Hogwarts

The basilisk was stabbed in the head by the sword and was doomed. Crabbe and the thin snake possessed by Voldemort should not be Ron's opponent. After all, he still had Fawkes' help.

Harry's heart slowly settled down, and his vision was already blurry. Harry opened his mouth, and felt his throat was a little hoarse, but he still said with all his strength: "Tell Justin--"

Before he could finish his last words, Fawkes landed beside the two of them and put his head on Harry's wound. Pearl-like tears flowed down his smooth feathers and fell on Harry's wound, creating a crystal glow.

"Get away, you broken bird. Get off him, you hear me, get away!" Crabbe's exasperated voice came from afar, fading in the empty secret room, like a supporting clown in a stage play.

Voldemort watched this scene from afar. He certainly knew that the Phoenix's tears had a healing effect, but he did not take any action and had no intention of stepping forward to stop it.

The appearance of the Phoenix Fawkes, the appearance of the Sorting Hat, the appearance of the Sword of Gryffindor...all signs indicate that Dumbledore is watching here.

He had long anticipated that in his current state, it would be impossible for him to kill Harry Potter in Hogwarts Castle under the control of Dumbledore.

However, his purpose was never to kill Harry Potter. Even the creation of a living Horcrux was just a passing thought... Voldemort's letter uttered with joy, he shrank his body, and crawled towards the slowly dying basilisk.

At the foot of the Slytherin statue, a thin snake was not even as big as a scale of the basilisk. It huddled in front of the basilisk like a maggot: "Open up, hiss~ accept me. You are about to die, and I will continue Slytherin's cause."

The basilisk's struggle gradually weakened, and it could not see anything. But in the darkness, it still found the direction of the Slytherin stone sculpture, twisted its neck hard, and wanted to take another look over there.

But it was too weak, and all its strength was lost through the wound on its jaw. For a body over twenty feet tall, it could not complete this movement even if it mobilized all its strength.

The basilisk accepted its fate and let its head fall to the ground. It used up all the remaining strength in its body and opened its mouth slightly: "If you want... just take them all."

Voldemort excitedly drilled into the basilisk's mouth. During the process, an eerie mist floated from the thin snake's body and rushed towards the basilisk's head. In an imperceptible dimension, the ghost infecting the basilisk's soul.

All the planning is for this moment.

As the basilisk of Slytherin, the most valuable thing about it is not its eyes with extraordinary magic power, nor its indestructible fangs, but the research data about Slytherin thousands of years ago that is retained in the soul of the basilisk.

After reading the information left in the diary, Voldemort was eager to get more information about sages, immortality, ancient wizards, and ancient magic. And this information was hidden in the soul of the basilisk.

The basilisk lived with Slytherin day and night, witnessing all his research and all his magic theories. However, with the basilisk's intelligence, it could not understand that knowledge at all, and could only mechanically remember the experimental scenes and sounds from thousands of years ago. After thousands of years of baptism, those memories settled in the depths of the soul and became deep memories.

To the basilisk, it was the master's boring and repetitive work and the master's meaningless words, but to others, it was the most precious treasure left by Slytherin to his heir.

The basilisk is different from other magical creatures. No one can read the soul of a basilisk by looking into its eyes. With its intelligence, it is also unable to answer any magic-related questions.

When Voldemort was thinking about how to extract the basilisk's memory, he considered making the basilisk into a Horcrux. Through the Horcrux, he could establish a soul connection with the basilisk, and perhaps he could access the basilisk's memory through that connection.

But there was no precedent for a living Horcrux, and Voldemort could not be 100% successful. Under Dumbledore's watch, he did not have so many opportunities to try. In the end, he gave up the idea and made a plan to actively merge into the soul of the basilisk and take over its deep memories.

However, in his weak ghost state, he could only occupy the soul of the basilisk when it was dying. From then on, the basilisk was doomed to die.

In the last moment of its life, the basilisk's huge, bloody eye sockets turned, and its huge yellow eyes like light bulbs could not see anything, but it still struggled to look towards the Slytherin statue.

Salazar Slytherin, its master...

It vaguely remembered that the master did not look like a stone sculpture at first. Born into a pure-blooded aristocratic family, he was also a dignified, polite and handsome gentleman.

But later, it started to fiddle with those strange things, and even did something to its own body, and slowly turned into this old and frail monkey face.

Although he only fed it white mice, spiders, and other small snacks that were never enough to fill it up, and even didn't want to take the time to bring it some large food from the nearby forest, and strictly prohibited it from foraging for food on its own, after a while, the basilisk felt that those mice and spiders were also quite delicious.

Slytherin restricted it from leaving the Chamber of Secrets, and especially from appearing in front of the students of the castle... There were many other restrictions, but the basilisk could not understand them, and it could not remember its master's instructions.

But the master did not order him to obey the orders of his heir. Just listening to the familiar Parseltongue tone, the basilisk's brain was not enough, and he involuntarily followed the orders of the Parseltongue tone.

Master, he won't blame me...

In the endless and thick darkness, the blind basilisk seemed to see the lonely figure again. It couldn't help but feel a little aggrieved: "Why did you come just now? I've been sleeping for a long time..."

The huge snake body completely stopped breathing and never moved again.

Behind the stone pillar, only Loren, guided by some intuition, looked in the direction of the basilisk from a distance, and his eyes widened instantly, as if he was struck by lightning.

The two snakes faced each other, one snake opened its mouth to swallow the other. From Loren's perspective, behind the two snakes was a tall stone pillar that suddenly looked like a walking stick.

The scene was like the end of a tunnel, and the pattern on the stone wall was like the pattern on the first seven pages of a mysterious book.

The prophecy spanning countless years was playing out before his eyes. The pictures in the Book of Abraham came into reality, and Loren's heart was shaken violently.

Why, why did Slytherin and Abraham prophesy the same picture?

Did Slytherin foresee leaving the basilisk in the castle's secret chamber? Did Slytherin plan all this?

He felt a little uneasy.

No one noticed Loren's abnormality. The other professors' attention was on Harry and Fox.

Harry felt a warm sensation rising from the wound, and the warmth spread throughout his body, driving away the pain. When he regained his hearing, Ron's crying and Crabbe's shouting made his head hurt.

Slowly, Harry opened his eyes and saw Ron, who was crying with snot and tears. Long, sticky snot was hanging down, almost dripping on his face. It was hard to look at it directly, and Harry tilted his head calmly.

Ron didn't miss the fleeting look: "Hey, you were disgusted with me just now, right? You definitely were disgusted with me!"

Harry touched Fawkes's head. The stubble on it was still a little prickly. He turned over and stood up silently: "No, you saw it wrong."

"Who am I crying so hard for? Is it for myself..." Ron muttered, with an unconcealable smile on his lips.

Crabbe looked at them with hatred, and roared with his vocal cords torn: "Why are you not dead, why are you not dead, why are you not dead yet!"

Harry and Ron smiled at each other, picked up their wands and moved forward.

Crabbe's curse stopped and he became a little panicked. He looked around for help: "Dark Lord! Dark Lord..."

Before he finished his words, a black soul emerged from the basilisk's body. It had no substance and went straight out of the secret room like a ghost and disappeared.

Loren was very familiar with this scene. He had seen it once last year when he fought Quirrell. He was a little dumbfounded: "Voldemort, is he running away now?"

A prophecy that spanned the ages, as witnessed by the Book of Abraham, Slytherin was involved, and he thought that Voldemort was doing something to the basilisk, and it might even mutate and riot on the spot.

And just ran away like that?

The basilisk was killed, Voldemort fled, and only a group of young wizards were left on the scene. Professor McGonagall could no longer bear it, she strode out of the stone pillar:

"Potter! Weasley!"

……

Chapter 213 Dumbledore's Troubles

School doctor's office.

There were curtains hanging vertically around the bed, covering the patient from the rest of the school clinic, as if they didn't want anyone to see the patient.

On the hospital bed, a wide quilt covered the entire bed, and a large bulge in the middle indicated that there was another patient on the bed.

A fluffy cat ear sticks out from under the quilt, shaking from time to time, indicating that the owner of the cat ear is concentrating on eavesdropping on the sounds next door.

This is a compartment specially set up by Madam Pomfrey to take care of Hermione's shame. She is more or less grateful for her and Loren's rescue. Others don't know that she has become like this now.

Loren was also hiding in this small compartment. Looking at the cat ears shaking non-stop, he couldn't help but reach out and pinch them.

"Hmm!" Hermione, who was hiding under the quilt, groaned, her whole body stiffened, and her ears became red and hot.

Hermione blushed and gritted her teeth, estimating the position of the person outside, and threw a neat cat-like straight punch right into the bad guy's chest, making him cough twice.

Loren covered his chest and chuckled softly, "I touched it accidentally, it wasn't intentional."

A muffled voice came from under the quilt: "Don't talk, don't disturb me from listening to the news."

Outside the compartment, Justin and Colin lay quietly on the board. Even though they had experienced the big incident of being hijacked, they did not change their expression or blink their eyes. They were very steady. Lockhart lay beside them and had not yet woken up.

Snape was not in the school infirmary. He was in the underground chamber cutting up the basilisk's body and processing the collected materials. Dumbledore went to deal with Crabbe's affairs.

Professor Sprout pulled Professor Flitwick into a corner and asked in a muttered voice about the situation at the scene.

"Voldemort spit out a breath... knocked Lockhart away... the basilisk... the sword..." Professor Flitwick spoke excitedly.

"Oh! Really... So... Slytherin..." Professor Sprout was also very excited when she heard it, her face was filled with the joy of eating melon.

Sprout felt a little regretful. If she had known that what was happening next would be so exciting and not dangerous at all, she would have just hidden behind the stone pillar and watched the show. She would have followed no matter what.

Harry and Ron were placed in two adjacent beds, and Madam Pomfrey played with their hands and feet and applied medicine to bruises and bruises.

Professor McGonagall's hair was a little messy, and she looked excited and angry. She followed Madam Pomfrey's movements with her eyes: "Poppy, are you really okay?"

They had already learned about Madam Pomfrey's attack, and Professor McGonagall was worried that Pomfrey's own injuries could not be treated. Anyway, it was a holiday, so it was okay for everyone to go to St. Gorman's for recuperation.

"I just got hit by a Stunning Spell by accident. Mr. Morgan removed the spell perfectly and I'm fine now."

Speaking of this, Madam Pomfrey became angry. Even during the Wizarding War, as a healer, she was not attacked. But in peacetime, she was attacked.

Despicable Voldemort, and that abominable Crabbe.

Madam Pomfrey shook Harry's arm, feeling the veins of the bones and muscles. "How do you feel? Any discomfort?"

Harry relaxed his arm, felt it carefully, and whispered, "A little stiff, nothing else."

"It's normal. After all, the injury penetrated your arm and it needs some time to recover. Thanks to Fawkes, it cleared the snake venom from your body in time." Madam Pomfrey nodded.

Just then Dumbledore came in from the door. He was wearing a robe, a purple cloak that dragged on the ground, and a pair of high-heeled boots with buckles. He looked like he had just returned from a long journey.

"Well, I heard some good news as soon as I came in. It seems that Nirvana has not affected Fox's magic."

With his deep blue eyes hidden behind his half-moon glasses, Dumbledore deliberately avoided Professor McGonagall's gaze. As long as he pretended to know nothing, Minerva might not scold him.

"Principal Dumbledore!" Harry and Ron exclaimed in surprise.

Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout, who had been huddled in a corner gossiping, stood up and gathered in front of the ward.

"When visiting a patient, you always have to bring something." Dumbledore put the snack basket on the small table at the end of the bed, picked up a small stool and sat down. "Also, I have good news."

"What good news?" Ron asked impatiently.

"Vincent Crabbe has handed it over to an Auror friend of mine in the Ministry of Magic. The evidence is sufficient, and he assured me that Hagrid will be able to return to the castle for Christmas soon." Dumbledore said with a smile.

"Great!" Harry cheered.

Dumbledore looked at them with a gentle gaze: "I want to know, how did you discover the Chamber of Secrets and Voldemort's traces?"

"That's what we all want to know," said Professor McGonagall fearfully.

Harry and Ron looked at each other, hesitated for a moment, and then began to tell them the whole story.

Very early on, with the help of his friends, Harry confirmed through Parseltongue that the monster in the Chamber of Secrets was a basilisk.

This morning, they received an inexplicable message and rushed to Hagrid's hut. They followed Hagrid's instructions and entered the Forbidden Forest to find Aragog. After questioning, they learned that the basilisk was lurking in the water pipe.

At this point, Harry realized belatedly, "Pipe! Bathroom! Sink! Myrtle was killed in the bathroom. We should have known that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was in her bathroom!"

"Very good," Professor McGonagall urged him on. "So you discovered the Basilisk, and its lurking methods - and I might add that you broke over a hundred school rules along the way - but then, how did you find Voldemort and Crabbe, and follow him into the Chamber of Secrets?"

In the small compartment surrounded by curtains, Hermione, the cat hiding under the quilt, heard all this and her ears drooped in despair. She was also an accomplice, or even the main culprit.

Although Professor McGonagall did not scold her in front of her, Hermione automatically brought it into the experience and it was still an immersive one.

But when she noticed someone tickling her ears again, the frustration of being criticized instantly disappeared, and she gritted her teeth and threw out another cat punch.

"Hey, I can't hit you!" Loren's smiling voice came from outside the quilt.

Hermione clenched her fists tighter.

Harry went on to talk about how they had started brewing the Polyjuice Potion a month ago, and how they had sneaked into the Slytherin common room in an attempt to get information about Malfoy, but accidentally followed Crabbe and discovered Colin and Justin being held hostage by him.

Ron added aggrievedly, "I didn't know the password to the headmaster's office. I ran to all the professors' offices, but only Lockhart was there. I had no choice but to take him after Harry."

Several professors were quite emotional. Who would have thought that by holding a meeting during the holiday, they almost missed a huge event.

After Hagrid was taken away by the Ministry of Magic, Dumbledore convened a meeting of the four deans to summarize the teaching reform and financial issues of the previous semester. By the way, let everyone be mentally prepared that the board of directors might start to fight back.

Harry patted the quilt indignantly, and felt a little pain in the injured bones, so he stopped this self-harming behavior: "Why can someone like Lockhart become a professor!"

Facing Voldemort was very stressful. The moment Lockhart stood out with his wand in one hand, he thought his savior had come.

As a result, when he came, he was killed in one move. What kind of teammate is this? What kind of professor is this?

Ron muttered, "Although he was a bit of a fool before, he wrote so many great things in his books...my mother admired him so much...I thought he had some ability."

"Well, dear children, books can be faked." Dumbledore glanced meaningfully at Loren, who was accompanying Hermione in the curtained compartment, and then turned to the sleeping Lockhart and said,

"Compared to an ugly old American wizard who freed a village from the harm of werewolves, or an old witch with a hairy chin who expelled the howling banshee... people are more willing to believe that it was a young wizard with a handsome face who won the "Witch Weekly" Most Charming Smile Award five times who did these things."

Although he had some guesses, Sprout was still shocked to hear Dumbledore say it himself. "So, he just took everything that others did and put it on his own account?"

"More than that, Pomona. He tracked down those heroes, asked them about the details of the events, carefully understood how they did those things, and finally cast a forgetfulness spell on them, completely stealing these heroic deeds and great adventures to himself." Dumbledore said.

Harry and Ron looked at Lockhart in disbelief. Ron asked, "But...Principal Dumbledore, how do you know these things? And since you know his true face, why do you let him become a professor at Hogwarts?"

Facing everyone's questioning gazes, Dumbledore replied: "I happen to know two wizards whose memories he stole. As you know, when you get older, you will always have friends everywhere."

"I think in a school environment, his lies will be easily exposed by the true hearts of children. People can learn a lot from a bad teacher about what not to do and what not to be."

Madam Pomfrey followed the crowd and glanced at the unconscious Lockhart. She added calmly, "The Oblivion Charm he cast was very successful. Voldemort's magic mixed with the Oblivion Charm and messed up his brain. I can't treat such an injury. He needs to be transferred to St. Mungo's for treatment."

You reap what you sow… Although no one said it out loud, their eyes revealed the same thought. Only Dumbledore focused on Loren behind the curtain, with a complex and unreadable expression in his eyes.