Chapter 61
The phoenix flew down the pipe and left.
To Felix’s puzzled gaze, Dumbledore explained, ” Fawkes is too weak now, she couldn’t carry three of us, if Harry is in danger, as long as he sincerely seeks help, Fawkes will sense his location.”
At that moment, from the door came a cold voice, “Sorry, I think it’s four.” Professor Snape appeared, dressed in a dark green pyjama gown, his hair tousled and mussed, slightly out of breath.
“Severus,” Dumbledore looked at him, “you’re here too.”
“How can I possibly would not come, Potter … a Hogwarts student’s life is being endangered!” Snape’s temper isn’t exactly pleasant, “What are we waiting for, do we have a party here?”
“That’s right, Severus.” Dumbledore seemed to dawn on him as he glanced at the four people present, “Miss Granger …”
“I’m going down!” Hermione said quickly, “I’m not going to drag you down, I can, um …”
She saw the book bag in the corner, her eyes lit up, and she ran over to rummage through it and finally found a scroll.
“Headmaster, Professor, this is Harry’s scroll, it contains a partial record of the pronunciation of the Parseltongue, I thought it might be useful.”
“This is?” Dumbledore showed a surprised expression as he looked at Felix.
” As it has mentioned …” Felix said implicitly, and the headmaster remembered it.
“Very good, Granger.” Dumbledore complimented.
Hermione tried her best not to look complacent.
Dumbledore touched her shoulder with his wand, and she felt herself become light and levitated from the ground with a little effort.
Then, they each applied a levitation spell on themselves, “Ready?” Dumbledore got an affirmative answer, he waved his wand, the four became light as soap bubbles and then floated down into the dark water pipe.
Next, a long underground tunnel, Felix is not sure whether it’s a kilometre, or five kilometers, then through tunnel curves, seven turns, and sometimes spiral down they went down.
With the shimmering light of magic, Felix could see that the inner walls of the tunnel were slimy, soggy with liquid, and many tubes forked off in all directions.
Finally, all the way down, the channel became horizontal. They came to a circular clearing, the floor filled with stagnant water, and above the stagnant water were countless ghastly white rat skeletons.
At the moment, they were standing on the huge pile of skeletons.
The tunnel is as silent as the grave.
Dumbledore looked around with a serious expression, a place he had never known before, and he said softly: “Huge project … seems Slytherin spent quite a lot of time for this.”
The four walked toward the mouth of one of the largest tunnels, and from a distance, Felix saw a coiled behemoth.
“Close your eyes!” He quickly shouted.
Hermione obediently closed her eyes, and Dumbledore and Snape closed their eyes while drawing their respective wands.
Following the feeling, Felix waved a blazing red light, wrist-thick spell roughly hit the body of the behemoth with a dull to the core boom.
At the same time, there is an extremely stealthy wind – this is Snape’s magic spell.
Dumbledore also struck, he added a shallow golden shield for the four.
Wait a moment, there is no hissing and snake monster movement expected sound.
Felix opened his eyes, the behemoth has broken into several pieces, but not the slightest smell of blood.
He and Snape came forward, only to find that it was a huge pair of green snake skin, but the surface is stained with a layer of dust, looking like gray-green ash colour.
“The basilisk is at least twenty feet long — besides,” Felix said, “excellent Severing Charm, Professor Snape.”
Snape topped him off, “You’re not bad either, Felix, your ‘Stunning Spell’ is as effective as an Exploding Charm.”
Hermione and Dumbledore came closer, Hermione carefully surveyed the remains of the snake molt. A third of it had been blown to pieces – a sign of Professor Hap’s magic – and the rest had been sliced in half, the cuts smooth and flat, obviously some kind of powerful cutting magic.
The young witch picked up a piece of snake molt, hard, like a piece of metal, she could not help but smack her lips together.
Dumbledore carefully examined the basilisk faded skin, “a period of years, probably when last time the chamber opened, the snake monster left it behind.”
At that moment, a crisp phoenix sound came from far away.
“We need to pick up the pace.” Dumbledore walked ahead of the others.
They turned around one corner after another, and their feet tread on the soggy water, making a snapping sound. Hermione felt her feet sticky, her nerves trembling uncomfortably, just wanting to get it over with as soon as possible.
Finally, they came upon a solid wall with a round iron door enclosed into it. The arrangement looked somewhat like the circular door of the Gryffindor common room, but instead of portraits, seven intertwined snakes were coiled on it, their eyes inlaid with large, glittering emeralds. The snakes’ tails intersected, and their heads parted, closing the entrance completely.
“Obviously, we need the entry command or forced destruction,” Felix said.
Snape waved his wand, the invisible cutting spell, the iron switch erupted into a bright green luminescence, and when all went quiet, the round iron door is intact.
Dumbledore fingers stroked the twisted snake on the iron door, he shook his head, “I can break it, but that will take time.” He looked to Felix.
Felix takes out the scroll with understanding and tosses it high, the scroll quickly spreads out and unfolds into seven or eight meters long.
His wand tapped on it, and he whispered, “Open.” The writing on the scroll began to twist, distort, and reassemble, and soon a vortex appeared in the center of the scroll.
The four people present heard a strange, “hissing” sound from the scroll.
The next moment, the round iron door moved, from the intersection of the snake’s tail, swam out of a smaller snake, it swam around the iron door for a whole cycle, and then a “click”, the door opened.
“Professor, this is?” Hermione is a little curious, she did not know that this scroll has this function.
“It can convert my words into Parseltongue, of course, provided that it has enough Parseltongue data stored inside.”
Dumbledore said with a look of admiration, “Is this the idea you mentioned to me during the interview, combining muggle wisdom with magic?”
Snape’s and Hermione’s eyes fell upon him simultaneously.
Felix said calmly, “Just an attempt.”
“Felix,” Dumbledore said, “there aren’t many open-minded wizards like you left.”
Afterwards the group moved on and crossed the circular iron door, and before them is a long, dimly lit space. The space resembled a hammer, the handle of which was a spacious corridor in front of them, with many stone pillars carved with coiled serpents coiled on either side of the corridor.
These stone pillars were towering to support the high, dark ceiling, casting a long, treacherous shadow under the greenish glow.
And at the end of the space is an open clearing, like the square head of a hammer. At the edge of the clearing is a statue equal in height to the room itself, clinging to the dark wall behind it.
Felix almost immediately recognized it as a Slytherin statue, a similar object he had seen in a number of books.
His eyes fell on the clearing, where a fierce battle – or rather, ruthless bashing – is taking place.
A blind basilisk twisted and turned its body wildly, it stood thirty feet long, and each fling of its body set off a huge rain of stones as a small wizard dodged in desperate disarray.
It is none other than Harry Potter.