Kate turned around and lifted her gaze to the statue. Slytherin's enormous stone face was moving—its pitch-black mouth slowly opening, wider and wider, until at last it formed a gaping black hole.
Something was stirring within the statue, sending out a rustling, slithering sound as it climbed upward.
She instinctively touched the sunglasses hidden in her pocket, forcing herself not to look toward Dumbledore and the old butler stationed behind the stone pillar.
Their position couldn't be exposed yet.
Soon enough, a colossal creature came crashing down onto the stone floor, letting out the hiss unique to serpents.
Kate immediately shut her eyes and turned away, cursing him furiously: "You fool, do you want to kill me?! If I die, you'll never get the real method to immortality!"
The shadow of the diary, which had been so cocky over successfully summoning the Basilisk, abruptly cut its laughter short, and grudgingly let out another hiss.
After a moment, it said: "I've made it turn away. You can open your eyes now."
This was the moment to test one's nerve. An old monster that had lived for several hundred years might fear death, but it absolutely could not be outdone in sheer momentum by a tattered diary!
Kate gritted her teeth and steeled herself to open her eyes. Sure enough, it hadn't lied—the Basilisk had indeed obediently turned around.
"So this is the monster that's been hidden beneath Hogwarts all this time."
She couldn't help but step forward, studying the enormous creature before her in close detail.
Even with its back turned, she could see the Basilisk's whole body was a deep emerald green, glowing with the gaudy brilliance peculiar to venomous serpents, its body as thick as the trunk of a tree.
"Very good," she said, shifting her position as she went, signaling to the two men behind the stone pillar not to act rashly. "May I touch it?"
The diary said nothing.
She explained further: "Don't misunderstand—it's just that I haven't seen an old monster even older than myself in a long while, so I'm a little excited, that's all."
Wearing the skin of a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old yet speaking in a tone as mature as an old person's, the dissonance was rather striking.
But the diary only swayed once before agreeing to her request.
Kate licked her lips a little nervously, stepped forward, and gently stroked its damp scales, asking with feigned casualness: "By the way, is it male or female?"
"Its sex?" the diary shot back with a strange retort. "Why ask that all of a sudden?"
"Because... both generations of Dark Lords were male, and I was wondering what sex their loyal servants might be."
The diary fell silent for a moment, probably finding her reasoning utterly speechless, but it still answered: "A male Basilisk has bright red plumage on its head; a female does not."
Kate raised her eyes and took a look. There was indeed a plume—so it seemed this one was male, which meant it had to die.
She let out a regretful sigh: "Looks like I'm the only female among the old monsters still alive in this world. What a pity."
As she spoke, she turned and said: "Next, you can let it head out and kill a few students at random. I'm guessing it's been traveling back and forth through the school's pipes, hasn't it?"
"Hmph, aren't you clever." The diary chuckled darkly and let out a hiss, and the Basilisk, which had managed to quiet down, began to move again.
Kate deliberately did not look back, but instead kept walking forward, her gaze fixed unwaveringly on the position of the stone pillar where Dumbledore stood.
"Is it right behind me now?" she asked pointedly.
The diary secretly sneered at her cowardly clinging to life, but couldn't help answering: "That's right. Don't worry—without my permission, it won't kill you."
"Good, then."
Kate gave a faint smile, put on her sunglasses at once, then quietly drew her wand from her chest, and with lightning speed she spun around in an instant: "Confringo!"
Powerful sparks struck the Basilisk's eyes at once, the exploding sparks dazzling in the midst of this dark night.
The Basilisk gave a mournful cry, black blood splashing from its eyes onto the floor, its tail thrashing wildly—nearly sweeping Kate off her feet as well.
"Katherine, what are you doing?!" Mingled into the howling was the shriek of the diary, "Serpent King! Kill her for me!"
Having barely dodged the attack of the tail, Kate looked in her panic toward the Basilisk's head—
Those two huge, lightbulb-like yellow eyes had already been wounded by her blasting curse, and would likely be unable to open for some time.
Though not yet fully blind, the Basilisk now clearly could no longer make out its target, and could only listen to the diary's impotent raging, blindly twisting its body about in search of Kate's position.
"Grandpa! Professor!" she shouted at the top of her voice, using Protego to block a sweep of the Basilisk's tail while releasing a conspicuous blue flame to mark her current position.
The two old men behind the stone pillar finally revealed themselves, and Dumbledore in fact charged straight up to the Basilisk and unleashed all manner of magic.
"Miss, you withdraw from here first." The old butler, by contrast, came to her side as the first priority, temporarily dragging her out of the range of the Basilisk's attacks.
Kate furrowed her brow, watching Dumbledore cast spell after spell in an attempt to subdue the Basilisk, yet failing to land a blow because of the creature's own formidable Magic Resistance.
"No, I can help!" She raised her wand, and the blue flames spewing from its tip stretched out endlessly like nimble vines, coiling around the Basilisk's body bit by bit.
Its Magic Resistance might be high, but serpents all hated fire.
The Basilisk, gnawed away little by little by the blue flames, gave a frenzied cry and struggled all the more violently—but the more it struggled, the tighter the flames bound it.
Kate beckoned with her hand, and countless golden threads stretched out from the crevices of the Chamber of Secrets, binding it fast together with the flames.
And Dumbledore struck while the iron was hot, using a forbidden curse alongside her to temporarily seal its movement.
With three forces all exerting themselves at once, even the Basilisk could not break free for the moment.
The old butler looked at her with some astonishment: "Your flames..."
"Never mind all that for now." Kate cut him off, advancing step by step despite his attempts to stop her, the wand in her hand never ceasing to pour out flames.
Beside them, the diary was still raging impotently: "Dumbledore?! Katherine, you liar, you've been deceiving me from the very start!"
"Oh, shut up!" Kate kicked the diary straight off into a damp corner. "Who's got time to listen to your nonsense right now?!"
A tool has to know its place as a tool!
The Basilisk before her, apart from its skull, had been thoroughly wrapped by the blue flames into a single burning earthworm.
It was only that its powerful Magic Resistance meant it could at most be bound—wanting to actually burn and wound it with this kind of fire was basically next to impossible.
Kate could see the bloody, dripping eye sockets on its skull, and could also see the row of sharp venomous fangs set into its gaping mouth.
These were fangs that could destroy even a Horcrux—better keep one's distance.
She instinctively backed up a few steps, retreating directly to Dumbledore's side: "Professor, how should we kill it?"
In this magical world, there weren't many spells that could truly kill this kind of thick-skinned, heavily-fleshed giant monster—even the Killing Curse fired at it would probably only make it lose a bit of blood.
Kate figured Old Man Dumbledore might choose to grind down its health with a masterful Transfiguration spell, or else simply blaze a path through it with a god of fire.
However, Dumbledore pondered for a moment, then, with a grave expression, kept it restrained with his spell while turning to look at the old butler behind him: "Rand, it seems it's time for you to act."
Kate was taken aback, instinctively turning her head, and the moment she saw the old butler's slightly hunched frame, she knitted her brows: "Grandpa Rand?"
How had she never known the old butler possessed this kind of powerful spell, strong enough to kill a Basilisk?
The old butler looked up calmly at the Basilisk, bound and unable to move. "Give me ten minutes."
"All right." Dumbledore nodded, put away his wand, took hold of Kate, and turned to leave together.
"Wai—wait a moment!" Kate, somewhat anxious, broke free of him. "Professor, how can you leave Grandpa Rand here alone to deal with the Basilisk?"
Before Dumbledore could even open his mouth to explain, the old butler spoke up of his own accord: "Just trust me this once, Miss. You only need to wait outside for ten minutes."
After meeting his gaze for a moment with a complicated expression, Kate finally turned her head aside, trotted over to the corner to pick up the diary, and only then turned and said: "Fine, just ten minutes—not a second more."
She glanced at the diary in her hand, furrowing her brow with a touch of disgust, and carried it out of the Chamber of Secrets alone.
Dumbledore glanced at the old butler, a few traces of helplessness showing on his face, and followed her out as well.
As the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets slowly closed, Kate lit her wand and laid the diary open on the ground: "Tom, do you have anything else you want to say?"
It would be a miracle if the diary showed its face in front of Dumbledore.
She gritted her teeth and turned to look at Dumbledore: "Professor, the secret of the Chamber of Secrets has been found, and the Basilisk is about to be destroyed. This mysterious person's Horcrux I'll leave to you."
"Oh?" Dumbledore asked with great interest. "I thought you'd want to do it yourself."
Kate shook her head: "I really do want to destroy it, but since that Dark Lord could create one Horcrux, there could be two, or three, or even more. If you have a way to track down the others based on this one Horcrux, then perhaps he can truly be destroyed."
She didn't say how she knew the diary was a Horcrux, and Dumbledore didn't ask.
He merely took the diary, brushed off the dust on its surface, and chuckled softly under his breath: "I'm very pleased, Kate—you're even more remarkable than I imagined."
In today's contest of wits and strength to hunt down the Basilisk, the Mana, the wisdom, the temperament, and the courage that Kate had displayed all far exceeded his expectations.
He was glad he hadn't misjudged this little girl while she was still an uncut gem, and was also happy to be able to take part in her growth.
"No, Professor, I'm not as good as you imagine." Kate shook her head, her gaze cast worriedly toward the great door at the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets.
There was no telling how the old butler was faring inside.
She might still seem calm enough now, but she could guarantee that if anything happened to the old butler in there, she would absolutely set the entire Chamber of Secrets ablaze and burn it clean—along with that diary.
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow slightly and looked toward the Chamber of Secrets together with her: "In any case, I reserve my judgment."
Neither of them spoke again, but instead waited patiently for these ten minutes to pass.
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