“I see……”
Baron pondered and nodded: “I probably know.”
“So what are you going to do, find a way to eliminate the basilisk? Now that you know the characteristics of the basilisk and know that the guy is wandering in the abandoned pipeline, you can indeed have a lot of advantages. In addition, With the help of professors…”
“Not yet.”
Avada shook his head, and slowly explained under the surprised gazes: “The narrow and dark environment of the pipeline is almost the home of the basilisk. Coupled with the lethality of the basilisk itself, only a few It would be too dangerous for the professor to just deal with them. And the current situation makes it impossible to organize a large number of manpower to sweep…”
“Why? If something like this happens, the school board and the Ministry of Magic will not just sit idly by, right? Otherwise, how can they explain it to the outside world?”
Cedric asked, frowning.
“Remember how Professor Snape became Headmaster?”
Avada did not answer directly, but asked a seemingly irrelevant question, and then started asking and answering his own questions before anyone else could speak: “He skipped the Vice Principal Professor McGonagall and was unanimously voted by the school board. Directly appointed as the new principal.”
“It’s certainly unusual.”
Baron nodded: “But what does it have to do with the basilisk?”
“…Snape knows about the basilisk.”
“What?!”
“On the day Filch was attacked, I went to see Professor Snape, informed him of the situation immediately, and planned to put forward the hypothesis about the basilisk so that he could prepare early… but guess what? ?”
“The moment he heard the name ‘basilisk’, he got furious and kicked me out of the office. During this period, he deliberately exposed his sleeves and let me see his arms – there were several very sharp lines on his arms. Thin burn marks…”
Balon and Cedric turned pale.
“If I’m not mistaken,”
Avada took a deep breath and was silent for a while before telling the cruel truth: “… Those are the traces of an unbreakable oath, an oath that will result in immediate death if broken.”
“…”
“Dumbledore told me before he left.”
After a long silence, Avada continued to speak with difficulty: “He said that Professor Snape would do his best to protect the safety of the students, and he also said that he could be trusted at critical moments.”
“The critical moment…”
Hermione lowered her head sadly: “Are you saying that Snape deserves to break his oath and die for this?”
“We have to figure out what he swore.”
Harry stood up suddenly: “At least we must ensure that he cannot touch that oath… We must save him!”
“Um.”
Ron also nodded heavily with a sullen face. Even Cedric and Qiu on the side showed indignant expressions…
“Don’t worry, Harry, you should be careful when facing an oath of this level.”
Balon’s calm words came over: “Trying rashly is likely to backfire, and you may even get yourself involved… Let’s listen to what Ken has to say first. And don’t forget, Dumbledore is here.”
Under Balon’s persuasion, the group of people managed to regain their composure, and then looked at Avada who was still silent with more anxious eyes.
“You don’t have to worry about the oath. Professor Dumbledore will definitely find a way to deal with it. Since he can sit back and watch Professor Snape take the oath, he will definitely have a way to deal with it…”
He didn’t know whether he was comforting Harry and the others or comforting himself when he said, his voice finally no longer so low: “What I want to say is that we can’t directly deal with the basilisk yet. On the one hand, there is no established force that can guarantee that we will defeat the basilisk.” It is destroyed. On the other hand, the basilisk is just a weapon that turns people to stone, not the culprit. If it is rashly eliminated, it will definitely alert the snake and allow the real murderer to lurk… Catch the guy who controls the basilisk. That’s the fundamental way to solve the crisis.”
“And what we can do now is what I asked you to do today…”
He took out a pocket from his arms and opened it on the table, revealing a pile of neatly arranged small boxes: “Let more students know about the basilisk and teach them how to protect themselves. method.”
“The basilisk has an easily targeted weakness, that is, it is afraid of the crow of roosters, which is fatal to it…”
“So when school first started there were a lot of roosters in the oil painting!”
Harry was surprised and shouted out what the others were saying: “Professor Dumbledore already knew about the basilisk?”
“Um.”
Avada didn’t explain much, but took out the small boxes in his pocket one by one, and then said: “Although I don’t know why, the basilisk hasn’t directly killed anyone yet, but I’m worried that day it will soon.” Come, just like the misfortune that befell Myrtle. So I plan to distribute these things to the students while spreading the news about the basilisk…”
He opened a box, which contained a pair of glasses: “This can save one’s life under the gaze of the basilisk. It is mainly given to lower-grade students. After all, people who know a little bit about transfiguration can transform themselves into a pair of glasses.” Put on your glasses.”
As he spoke, he took out another box, opened it, and took out a small badge: “There are rooster crows stored in it, which can be activated by just pressing a button, like this…”
He took the badge in his hand and squeezed it hard, and suddenly a not loud but very clear rooster crow came from it: “Walking with this on usually helps to drive away the basilisk. Although it seems a little crazy. , but it makes perfect sense when everyone knows that basilisks are afraid of roosters.”
“I would like to ask you to persuade the people around you to wear glasses and badges, and spread the news about the basilisk as much as possible. You are from four colleges respectively. If you act together, the news should spread quickly… This is the only way we can This is what we do to protect the safety of students to the greatest extent possible.”
“I have asked my roommate Xiabi and others to do the same thing, but after all, we are not very familiar with the seniors, so Cedric, I leave it to you.”
“Um.”
Cedric nodded firmly and put several boxes containing a large pile of badges into his arms.
“We could also invite Myrtle to come over and educate the students on how terrifying the basilisk’s gaze is… I just don’t know if she would be offended.”
Qiu took a few boxes and used her brain to come up with ideas.
“I can also show off my Parseltongue and tell everyone that I can hear the voice of the Basilisk… Oh, and I can also always remind people around me to close their eyes and run away once I hear the voice!” Harry said excitedly – he found that his role seemed to be greater than he thought.
“…Thank you, everyone.”
Seeing people from different colleges in front of her exchanging ideas without any barriers and discussing how to protect Hogwarts, Avada felt inexplicably feeling better and showed a relaxed smile: “I hope our Efforts can prevent more students from being harmed.”
“As for the rest, leave it to Dumbledore.”
“Yeah!” People from the four colleges nodded in unison.
‘And me, of course. ’
This sentence remained in his heart and he did not say it out loud.
