In the Forbidden Forest, Asterion observed the cave entrance with a calm gaze. It had been a week since the attack on Hogwarts. The incident became famous worldwide, known as the Seven Powers War. After all, it wasn't every day that seven special-grade wizards faced off in battle.
The tremors of the fight were felt in almost forty countries, with gigantic lights observed in the sky within a forty-kilometer radius. Some even assumed a nuclear war was happening. Which wasn't entirely far-fetched; each strike from a special-grade wizard was almost equivalent to a nuclear bomb.
Another thing was the Death of a special-grade wizard that shook the minds of many, especially in Italy, which had its only special-grade wizard killed! The identity of the Archbishop was soon discovered. Asterion watched with satisfaction as the Italians came to retrieve the dead body of their protector. They all displayed grim and ugly expressions, almost knowing they would have to pay an exorbitant price for damages caused in Hogwarts and foreign territory.
Asterion left these matters to the vultures of the Wizengamot, to gain more benefits and power. Those people were like hyenas seeking carrion to satisfy their hunger, never missing an opportunity to take another bite at the dying corpse.
But not everything was rosy. Hogwarts had twenty-one casualties in this short and deadly battle, all of whom were students, almost all from the Sixth and Seventh years. Asterion saw Dumbledore speaking with the parents of each student, delivering the cruel news that their sons and daughters would never return to them.
Some of these parents cried, others cursed, one mother even struck Dumbledore, but the old man remained unmoved as the mother's weak fists collided with his chest.
The atmosphere at Hogwarts that week was tense; all the students seemed on edge, as if expecting an attack at any moment. Fortunately, the expected attacks never came, gradually easing the tense atmosphere, and everyone returned to classes as best they could.
With the help of magic, Hogwarts was quickly rebuilt, after long hours of spellwork and repairing walls with Reparo. The world's most famous magical castle rose from ruins even stronger. Dumbledore was the main architect of the castle; he took advantage of the castle still being in the reconstruction phase and refurbished it, giving it a more modern and beautiful look, especially by reformulating and updating Hogwarts' defenses and adding others.
The Hogwarts Core was also successfully built thanks to the notes left by Rowena Ravenclaw. Her diaries about the core's construction were essential for the reconstruction of the new core, although the main crystal of the core had changed.
This week, Asterion sent all his cursed spirits specialized in surveillance, espionage, and probing towards the Forbidden Forest. He scoured every hole in that eerie forest.
And finally, after three long days, Asterion successfully located where the Chamber of Secrets had been moved by Voldemort. He didn't rush in carelessly; it was almost certain that Voldemort had left traps to prevent him from successfully reaching the heirloom's location, though these measures were somewhat futile against a special-grade wizard.
There were few things capable of claiming the life of a special-grade wizard, especially poisons. It would take a large enough dose to kill an elephant to even begin affecting the body of a special-grade wizard. But no one would stand still as a large dose of poison entered them, so there were few special-grade wizards who had died from poison throughout history.
Still, Asterion didn't enter the cave imprudently. He wouldn't risk his life for something as trivial as assumptions and data over a thousand years. So, like any person with a bit of intelligence, instead of entering the cave and taking unnecessary risks, Asterion sent dozens of cursed spirits of grade 4 and 3 to trigger all the traps so that he could enter the cave safely.
Voldemort would be disappointed if he saw how Asterion handled things. Asterion didn't act as he expected, behaving like a reckless and arrogant teenager because of his power.
Entering the cave, Asterion observed that what he thought was a cave, were enormous pipes capable of easily accommodating five people side by side. For a thousand years ago, Hogwarts indeed had pipes worthy of making Rome jealous.
As he traveled through the maze of pipes with a Lumos spell on the tip of his wand, Asterion noticed a long shadow standing in one of the corridors.
Approaching without fear, he raised his wand and the Lumos intensified. Then, Asterion saw the origin of the shadow—it was a colossal shed skin of a snake-like animal, but proportionally large, nearly forty meters long.
It stood a little over three meters tall, enough to eat anything, including humans.
It was the shed skin of the Basilisk; the movie really didn't convey the feeling of oppression, there was no feeling of oppression and terror seeing such a large monster — but it was entirely different to see it in person.
Of course, that was for ordinary people. Asterion, who possessed even more gigantic cursed spirits, remained unchanged in expression seeing the shed skin of the Basilisk.
But he had to admit, Harry was brave to face such a monster at thirteen years old, relying solely on physical strength without using a single spell. Not that it would have worked anyway; Herpo the Foul created the Basilisk to be almost immune to magical damage. There were few spells capable of killing an adult Basilisk.
But locating the shed skin of the serpent, the Black Heir knew he was close to the Chamber of Secrets.
Walking for a few more minutes, Asterion passed through a circular door and entered what seemed like a chamber. The floor was covered in smooth ceramic, majestic pillars supported the entire chamber, matte green details adorned the walls, and a long ceramic path crossed a lake suspiciously colored in mossy green.
At the end of the path, a huge face that Asterion presumed to be Salazar Slytherin's, stared at visitors with a cold and arrogant look. Suddenly, Asterion noticed a rancid and putrid smell in the air, a hissing sound reverberated, dangerously echoing in the shadows.
The sound of something heavy dragging reached Asterion's ears; he didn't need to be a genius to know that the Basilisk was approaching. If possible, Asterion didn't want to kill the Basilisk; after all, the serpent could petrify anything, including special-grade wizards! It was a great weapon to catch his future enemies off guard.
But to conquer the serpent, one had to be a Parseltongue, that is, to speak the language of snakes. This Asterion didn't know if he had, as he tried and never succeeded in speaking it. This indicated that he didn't possess the talent for speaking with snakes, like his ancestor – Salazar Slytherin.
Asterion hoped that a moment of stress would awaken this hidden talent. Otherwise, unfortunately, the Basilisk would have to go to the snake heavens.
Then, Asterion heard the sound of heavy stones moving; he saw the mouth of Salazar's face opening, and from it emerged a long greenish serpent with backward-pointing horns. The yellow eyes seemed half-closed, almost as if the serpent had just woken up.
Anyone would be upset at being awakened, let alone a huge serpent just roused from a sleep of over fifty years and hungry. This was bad news for Asterion, who wanted a new exotic pet, like those rich people in Los Angeles.
But he wouldn't give up; having a Basilisk as a pet was something he wanted, and he would have it, even if he had to teach this ancient serpent a harsh life lesson.
Strength was always the most civilized dialogue in the world!
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Next Chapter: Chapter 81 - Heir of Salazar Slytherin (2), Chapter 82 - Heir of Salazar Slytherin (3), Chapter 83 - Salazar's Heir Slytherin (4), Chapter 84 - Sequels, Chapter 85 - Civil War (1), 86 - Civil War (2), 87 - Civil War (3), 88 - Civil War (4), 89 - Civil War (5), Chapter 90 - Civil War (6), Chapter 91 - Battlefield (1), Chapter 92 - Battlefield (2), Chapter 93 – Conflicts on the Battlefield (1), Chapter 94 – Conflicts on the Battlefield (2), Chapter 95 - The War Intensifies (1), Chapter 96 - The War Intensifies (2), Chapter 97 - The Death of Voldemort (1), Chapter 98 - The Death of Voldemort (2) And end of the first volume.
Next Chapter Second Volume: Chapter 99 – Decision (1), Chapter 100 – Decision (2), Chapter 101 – Decision (3).