Chapter 62 The Basilisk in the Girls' Lavatory
Actually, there was a significant difference between a Parselmouth and someone who simply understood the language of snakes.
A Parsel-speaker merely knew the language of snakes, like knowing a foreign language.
A Parselmouth, however, possessed an innate gift to command serpentine creatures.
You couldn't say that just because you knew a foreign language, foreigners would do anything for you—but a Parselmouth could achieve something so incredible.
This ability of 'snake control', in terms of wizarding application, was even more powerful than the 'phoenix companionship' of the Dumbledore family bloodline.
Because phoenixes were rare, and Albus Dumbledore's nephew, Credence Dumbledore, didn't get one until adulthood when Gellert Grindelwald helped him find one.
But snakes were too common, both in the Muggle world and the wizarding world.
The scope of these snakes was also very broad, from magical creatures like the Basilisk, known as the King of Serpents, to witches like Nagini, a Maledictus, who had to obey their commands.
Speaking of which, the difficulty of breeding a Basilisk wasn't actually that high, about the same as learning Animagus, a high-level transformation. Too many wizards eager to control powerful forces were willing to make such dangerous attempts, but without exception, they all failed.
Because Basilisks only obeyed the commands of Parselmouths.
In Newt Scamander's book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, it was mentioned that the wizarding world had not had a recorded sighting of a Basilisk for over four hundred years.
In the original story, Harry Potter wrote next to this sentence in his textbook, "That's just your opinion!".
Well, Harry had seen a Basilisk.
Now Lockhart had also seen one.
Newt was right. No matter how experienced the dozen or so powerful wizards in his memory were, they couldn't possibly have seen a Basilisk.
For the sake of compiling the book Where to Find Them and What They Do to You, and also to show the group of young wizards the Basilisk and inspire them to find ways to deal with it when teaching them later, Lockhart had to come and gather some firsthand material.
—By tailing Ginny Weasley.
In the middle of the night, he followed her all the way to the girls' lavatory.
Frankly, Lockhart didn't quite understand why Mr. Slytherin had set the entrance to his Chamber of Secrets in the girls' toilet. It was too perverted.
Even if someone argued that this might be a problem with later renovations of the school, the setting of the sink and faucets at the Chamber entrance were standard toilet fixtures.
Unless this was originally his own private lavatory.
In that case, there was another explanation—after Mr. Slytherin left Hogwarts, who dared to turn a founding member's private lavatory, or even a lavatory attached to what might have been an office given the size of the space, into a public girls' toilet?
Was it you, Mr. Gryffindor?
Hehe~
Lockhart found that when he entered his 'ghost state', his thoughts seemed to lose all restraint, and all sorts of bizarre ideas bubbled up like air bubbles in a boiling kettle.
He drifted into the walls of the school castle, only occasionally poking out half of his face to observe Ginny's state.
Hogwarts, approaching one of the most important wizarding holidays, 'Halloween', had once again fallen into a long rainy season. At night, the sky was as black as ink, and heavy rain relentlessly washed over the ancient castle complex.
The cold permeated every corner of the castle, dew condensed on the walls, and everywhere felt damp.
The professors and teachers on duty patrolling the castle at night would always cast some spells to dry the corridors, but it had no effect, and soon everything returned to its original state.
Ginny walked slowly down the corridor in a very strange, ghostly state, her steps uneven.
If someone who didn't know the situation encountered her, they might think she was sleepwalking.
She soon arrived at the abandoned girls' lavatory haunted by the ghost 'Moaning Myrtle', stepped through the puddles on the floor, and stood in front of a large, mottled, cracked mirror, looking blankly at her own blurred and distorted reflection inside.
After staring blankly for a while, she placed both hands on the edge of a row of stone sinks below the mirror and made a hissing, strange sound towards one of the brass faucets.
Instantly, the faucet emitted a dazzling white light and began to spin rapidly. The stone sink slowly moved, revealing a large pipe opening below.
Ginny didn't hesitate and stepped forward stiffly, jumping in.
The pipe was dark, sticky, and slimy. Although it was full of filth, it prevented the little witch from getting hurt.
She fell quickly through the pipe, twisting and turning, and finally dropped out of another pipe opening, landing on a damp ground.
The space here looked very spacious, enough for an adult to easily stand up straight.
She continued to walk forward, twisting and turning again. Along the way, a large number of small animal corpses and bones appeared, emitting a terrible stench. After walking for a while, she even saw a pile of green snake skin stacked up like a small hill.
Finally, she reached the end of the sewer, a stone wall blocking the way, with two intertwined snakes carved on it, their eyes inlaid with large, glittering emeralds.
Hiss hiss hiss~
Ginny spoke Parseltongue again, the Chamber door opened, and she staggered step by step into it.
The interior of the Chamber was extremely large, with many stone pillars carved with coiling and entwined giant snakes supporting the ceiling. Continuing forward from the pillars, one could finally see a statue as tall as the Chamber itself carved on the far wall.
It was the image of a barefoot, bald, long-bearded old wizard—one of the founders of Hogwarts, Salazar Slytherin.
With a hiss of Parseltongue, the mouth of the Slytherin statue opened, revealing a huge monster coiled inside, stretching its body.
The Basilisk!
It quickly slithered down the statue's body and crawled in front of Ginny.
It hissed and hissed, seeming somewhat irritable.
Ginny tilted her head and gently touched its cheek with her hand, comforting it, then leaned her small head against it and whispered softly.
Neither she nor the Basilisk noticed that in the eye socket of a snake-shaped relief on a nearby stone pillar, it suddenly blinked, revealing a pale white, semi-transparent eyeball.
It was Lockhart.
He was observing everything around him with great interest.
The Basilisk before him was clearly a female, because male Basilisks had a very distinctive feature—a scarlet crest on their heads, which this one lacked.
The crest was the reason it was called the King of Serpents, as if wearing a crown.
In addition, its skin condition looked very good, as if it had just shed its skin. Yes, he had already encountered the shed skin on the way.
Frankly, the Basilisk wasn't particularly powerful.
It only had three attack abilities. One was its massive body, but even so, it wasn't more threatening than trolls and giants. The previous Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Quirinus Quirrell, could easily deal with this aspect.
Another ability was its deadly gaze. In the original story, when Harry Potter came to the Chamber, Dumbledore's phoenix easily pecked out the Basilisk's eyes.
The last ability was its venomous fangs. The highly toxic venom would quickly kill, but it was also cured by the phoenix's tears.
In fact, in the original plot, the Basilisk's clumsy body couldn't harm the phoenix at all, while it itself was pecked with wound after wound by the phoenix's golden beak.
If Harry Potter hadn't been there, the phoenix would have quickly dealt with this thing.
Tsk, Gryffindors always possessed some treasures that countered Slytherin's Basilisk.
Like the wand in Harry Potter's hand, paired with Voldemort's wand.
He wondered if this could be considered a curse.
Ginny released the Basilisk to move its body in the Hogwarts castle sewers, seemingly to restore its vitality. After about an hour, she closed it back into the mouth of the Slytherin statue and left the Chamber.
This time she didn't go too far. Using the Levitation Charm, she left the pipes and staggered into an abandoned classroom near the lavatory, falling into a deep sleep.
Using people and then discarding them, young Tom didn't worry about Ginny's situation at all.
Very cold and heartless.
Lockhart muttered to himself, but didn't wake Ginny. He quietly floated out of the wall behind her, landed on the pile of messy desks and chairs behind, and gently waved his wand at her.
Strands of silver light floated out, quickly drifting towards him.
Lockhart had been observing Ginny's state recently. After teaching her a lot about how to resist dark magic, as expected, Tom Riddle began to feel uncomfortable.
Little Tom's plan was going very badly.
He had to spend a lot of energy and Ginny's rare moments of opening up to consolidate the previous influence, adjusting the behavioral and mental confusion that had been instinctively imprinted on Ginny.
Damn, Ginny has encountered a professor with real skills!
Little Tom realized this, but had no way to persuade Ginny to leave the Duelling Club where she could be with Harry Potter.
He had to use more difficult techniques to influence Ginny, to face the power that Ginny was increasingly able to resist his influence with, maintaining a state that was already somewhat precarious.
Very good!
Very, very good!
Lockhart smiled brightly as he looked at these memories. This time he had learned many interesting techniques for manipulating memories and souls, and it even began to involve bloodlines.
What was Tom researching magic in this area for?
Planning to strip away his Muggle blood?
Lockhart smiled wickedly and waved his wand at Ginny again.
It was time. This state was just right. Tom would definitely accept that Ginny had undergone some changes and would never suspect that someone was doing something behind the scenes.
After all...
He was using Tom's own methods.
More Tom than Tom, pure and authentic.
Little Tom, prepare to welcome this sudden surprise!
He was really looking forward to Tom's reaction at that time.
No!
What Lockhart was even more looking forward to was the reaction of Voldemort outside the school who was watching coldly. That would be too interesting.
Then he took a deep look at Ginny, transformed back into his ghost state, merged into the wall, and completely disappeared.
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