Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
normal talk: " "
Parseltongue: ~ ~
September 4, 1976 / Serena PoV
Three days later and I was tired of introducing myself to all the Hogwarts professors again. I'm also tired of answering questions that end in yes, this is what I look like now; no, I don't need to go to the infirmary to find a cure; yes, I am completely healthy; and no, I will not keep experimenting with magic without making completely sure that nothing could go wrong.
Now, it was midnight, and I was finally going to look for answers. I was decanting my bronze-mind to stay awake while browsing the forums, waiting until my roommates finally fell asleep, and this was the best time. I put my phone away in my inventory and started getting dressed without making any noise. I carefully left the room and headed towards the common room once I saw that the coast was clear. The good thing about being a Slytherin was that Moaning Myrtle's bathroom was just a hallway away, so I could get there quickly.
I searched for Myrtle among the bathroom stalls and sighed in relief that they were all empty. I finally approached the sink and looked for the small figure on the tap. It was easy to find, so I moved away a little.
~Open~
My hiss worked, and the sink began to move. It dipped and then disappeared. I grimaced at the noise it was making. Once the passageway was visible, I dove in without hesitation. It was like a slide and was longer than I expected. Still, I was prepared for the end and landed on my feet; I dusted myself off lightly and began to walk.
The space ahead was a cavern filled with small animal bones that only grew more abundant the closer I got to the Chamber. The basilisk skins were also there, and I couldn't help but let out a shaky sigh at how enormous it was.
I finally reached the door and hissed in Parseltongue once more, the Chamber of Secrets. My eyes darted cautiously down the hallway. The last thing I wanted was to see the basilisk out of its cage. When I saw no sign of the giant snake, I entered the chamber, I walked through the hallway flanked by snakes made of stone or marble, or whatever material. I headed towards the statue of Slytherin, too grandiloquent for my taste, but I still took my wand and began to look for other entrances besides the mouth.
I spent almost two hours searching to come to the conclusion that there was no other entrance that I could find. I even went back down the hall and checked the snake statues whispering in parseltongue to see if I could get anything, nothing, just pipes that led through the castle. I cursed out loud as I returned to the Salazar statue. It was my last option.
I made my preparations and swallowed metals before taking out a metal stake almost as big as my head, and as long as my arm, I decanted my pewter-mind, gaining enough muscle to carry the stake with ease. Instead of standing in front of the statue, I stood to the side, in a blind spot. With one hand, I held the stake over my chest, pointing in front of the statue as best I could; with the other, I placed my wand at my throat.
"Sonorus." I used the amplifying charm ~speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four~ I could hear Salazar's mouth open, and I prepared myself. I began to decant my metals, steel, and zinc, physical speed, and mental speed. The moment I saw something going wrong, I would escape as fast as I could.
I heard the basilisk hiss but ignored it. I concentrated even more when I saw the snake's head come out. That was when I swallowed duralumin and began to burn all my metals, which caused compounding in my iron mind, making me gain a lot of weight. Like tons of weight that caused me to sink into the ground slightly, and Allomantic steel, and in that instant that it was completely consumed, I pushed.
BOOOMMM!!!!! My eyes opened wide as I felt the Chamber shake. Even with my mental speed increased, I could barely see the speed at which the stake shot out from my chest, pierced the basilisk's head as if it wasn't there, killing it instantly, and continued against the wall, destroying it while creating a huge crater.
I stared in disbelief at the damage the piece of metal had done. I knew that compounding and combining metals could lead to powerful results. There was a reason I had chosen Rashek, but I had never experienced it to such a degree. I had to find a place to train my most powerful combinations. I really didn't want to hurt anyone innocent. That projectile could just as well have been a shot from a tank.
I carefully approached the corpse. I didn't know if the eyes could still kill, so with a wave of my wand, I summoned a thick cloth and covered the entire head. I began to inspect the statue. I grimaced when I saw that the snake was blocking the whole entrance. I sighed and began to work.
In no time, I had a group of Schiavos made from the snake statues carrying the basilisk away from the entrance. Once the passage was finally clear, I entered the cave, and with a Lumos, I began to explore the interior.
Empty, completely empty, there was nothing inside, just more animal bones, no books, no portraits, no hidden rooms, absolutely nothing. I wanted to growl; it was a total waste of time and credits. Parseltongue was useless for absolutely everything except talking to snakes.
I sighed as I walked out of the cave, looked at the dead basilisk, and grimaced. Another thing wasted, I couldn't take it with me; it would raise too many suspicions and questions as to where I got the corpse, so it was also useless. The only thing I could think of was to harvest the snake myself for personal use, but I didn't have the tools or the slightest idea how to do it.
With an idea in mind, I tapped my wand against the basilisk, waiting for some reaction. I sighed when, after a few seconds, nothing happened. It would have been too good if Schiavo had worked on the corpse. I reluctantly pulled out my company phone and used the search engine to find out how to skin a basilisk. Fun fact: the search engine has no content filtering of any kind. After all, we are a company of multiversal slavers of varying morality, and many were complete sociopaths. Hence, the company's internet gave brutal results at times, so after ignoring the pages about skinning people, I found a tutorial that worked for me.
Luckily, the Slytherin Basilisk was almost multiversally known, so once I found what I was looking for, it was easy to find an exact tutorial with the same corpse next to me. I grimaced as I saw the duration, immediately swallowed bendalloy, and expanded my time bubble.
Normal internet was already weird, but the company's was on another level. I don't think I could get past a tutorial by Korosensei teaching how to skin basilisks. The worst thing is that he was a good teacher! Like and subscribe, obviously. Apparently, he accepted requests for tutorials; yes, he was a dedicated teacher, but I doubted I could ask him for something personalized in the short term. He had thousands of videos for almost everything imaginable, from food to sex and ways to murder people. He was extremely versatile.
After watching the tutorial and repeating the important parts, I started working. Transmuting the necessary tools was easy, and the shape, material, and edge were easy to reproduce with alchemy, at least the "normal" tools. The problem was the materials or the magic tools to do it the easy way, so I had to abuse the pewter-minds. Even dead, the basilisk was extremely resistant to magic, so it must be done by pure physical force.
So, I had to use pewter to enhance my strength. Compounding the metal minds was enough for me to work comfortably. I didn't like my physique growing to match my strength; It felt wrong, but I had no other choice, so I did it without complaint, only stopping to check the tutorial in between.
Stupid huge snake. It took hours, like 27 hours, to cut it up completely, but finally, the job was done. The skeleton was clean and tidy on one side, the skin on the other, the meat in boxes, and the organs, blood, and venom were in jars.
The eyes, according to the tutorial, could still kill, so I had to be careful when working with them. I copied Korosensei and completely blindfolded my eyes for several turns before working blind. Luckily, it was just a matter of plucking the eyes out with a giant spoon and placing them in a black sealed jar, so it wasn't difficult.
Poison was something else. Even covered from head to toe in a transmuted protective suit, he still had gold-minds in my mouth to swallow immediately if things went wrong.
Luckily, everything went well, and now I was the owner of a completely skinned basilisk. First, I picked up the phone and left a comment thanking Korosensei, I wouldn't know where to start otherwise. Putting the phone away now, I had a bigger problem, where to store the disassembled snake? My inventory was 1x1x3; it was really bigger than one would think. More so for me, who only kept jewelry, metals, and some clothes. I hadn't used even a third of the inventory yet.
So, by rearranging everything properly into the smallest boxes possible, I was able to fit the organs, fangs, and venom in with ease. The bones and skin didn't worry me; the former was useless, and the latter would keep its magic for at least decades before starting to fail slightly. I didn't know what to do with the meat, and there was a lot of it.
For now, I put it in glass boxes made of alchemy, completely closed and vacuum sealed, that would keep the meat long enough until I find something to store it in or what I can do with it. I will probably look for tutorials on how to cook basilisk meat if it is not poisonous. That will be later. Now I am tired despite my metals.
I created a portal to the seventh floor, turned the Room of Requirement into a lovely bathtub, cleaned myself of all the blood on me, and then went back to my room, creating a portal to the bathroom. Risky, but I didn't want to walk all the way back. Once I lay on my bed, I stored my vigil and immediately fell asleep.