Madam Pomfrey was quite displeased.

"Why didn't you come to me directly?" she huffed. "Now I have to clean up his mess!"

"It was already healed," Hermione explained from the side, "but Professor Lockhart insisted..."

"Why are you still calling him Professor!" Ron snapped, equally furious. "Harry's injured arm had already been healed by Wood, but Lockhart messed up the other arm, which was perfectly fine!"

Madam Pomfrey examined Harry's arm, which now flopped around like a rubber tube and could be bent back and forth with no resistance.

The bones had vanished—erased by Lockhart's non-verbal spell.

"Making bones disappear only takes a flick of the wand," Madam Pomfrey muttered irritably, "but regrowing them..."

"Y-You can do it, right? Right?" Harry asked urgently, hope in his voice.

"Of course I can!" Madam Pomfrey pulled out a brown bottle and poured a thick, murky liquid into a cup. "But it'll take time—and it won't be pleasant!"

She handed him the cup and gestured for him to drink. "You'll stay here tonight. I'll inform your Head of House."

Ron and Hermione were promptly shooed out by Madam Pomfrey.

"Urg.. fucking hell.." Left alone on the hospital bed, Harry grimaced at the lingering taste of Skele-Gro and slowly drifted off to sleep.

...

...

Sagres looked down at his arm and upper body, covered in glowing blue markings, and nodded in satisfaction.

The engraving of the alchemical array was perfectly completed. He was now eager to find some ignorant Dark wizard to test the effects of his new spell.

But reason quickly prevailed. He glanced at the deepening twilight outside the window and decided to return to the Hogwarts Library first to look up some information.

He had no desire to repeat the mistakes of "Amon Brad"—he didn't want to be blown to pieces for recklessly absorbing someone else's magic.

...

It was late at night.

As he hurried back to the castle, he stumbled upon an unusual scene in the entrance hall: Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were carefully carrying something, moving step by step toward the Hospital Wing.

"What's this..." Sagres stepped forward, his handsome brows furrowed. "Another attack?"

"Sagres!" Professor McGonagall let out a breath of relief. "You're just in time—lend us a hand, quickly..."

Sagres waved his wand, and the figure in the hands of the Headmaster and Deputy Headmistress floated gently into the air, gliding forward alongside them.

"What exactly happened?" Sagres asked seriously as he guided the young wizard's body onto a bed in the Hospital Wing.

Madam Pomfrey, already roused from sleep, was standing beside the bed with her wand drawn, conducting a full-body diagnostic on the "statue."

"Another attack," Dumbledore confirmed. "Minerva found him in the corridor."

Sagres leaned in to inspect the first-year student.

The boy was still clutching a Muggle camera tightly in both hands, his terrified expression frozen on his young face. The lens of the camera was shattered, as if it had been struck by something heavy.

"Colin Creevey," Professor McGonagall said tightly. "He's a fervent admirer of Potter. When I found him, he was still clutching a bunch of grapes—he must have snuck off to visit Potter."

"Potter? In the hospital wing?" Sagres asked, confused.

"He broke his arm on the Quidditch pitch today. He's lying there being treated!" As she spoke, Professor McGonagall pointed to the bed beside them, which was hidden behind a curtain.

Sagres nodded thoughtfully.

"Petrified again," Madam Pomfrey reported. "Just like that cat."

"Yes," Professor McGonagall replied. "Luckily, Dumbledore happened to come downstairs for hot cocoa. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known what to do—we didn't even have our wands."

Sagres glanced at the three of them. Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, and Madam Pomfrey were all still in their nightclothes. Dumbledore's long silver hair hung loosely over his shoulders, clearly showing they had come in a hurry.

Madam Pomfrey suddenly pointed at Colin's tightly clutched camera. "Could he have… taken a picture of the attacker?"

Dumbledore had already reached out and taken the camera. When he opened the back cover, a puff of smoke mixed with the smell of burning rose into the air.

"Merlin!" Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall exclaimed.

"How could this happen!"

"Destroyed by powerful magic."

Dumbledore's expression turned grim. "It seems the Chamber of Secrets has indeed been opened. There's no doubt about it now."

"What should we do, Albus?" Professor McGonagall's voice had lost its usual composure. "Can we only wait for Pomona's Mandrakes to mature?"

"I'll do it!" Sagres stepped forward, pulling a silver-glowing potion from his robe pocket. "A powerful potion brewed from Mandrake and Phoenix tears—just two drops will restore him."

"Where did this come from?" Professor McGonagall asked in surprise. "Last time..."

"It's very precious. I wouldn't use it on a cat!" he replied, extracting two drops and feeding them into the petrified boy's mouth.

A miraculous change followed—the grayish stone hue receded like a tide, and healthy color returned to Colin's cheeks with visible speed.

Colin suddenly coughed violently, his chest heaving as if he'd just been pulled from deep water.

"Oh, wonderful, thank Merlin! Finally..." Madam Pomfrey exclaimed with relief.

"You should thank me—and my friend," Sagres said, turning to her. Madam Pomfrey immediately smiled.

"Yes, Sagres, thank you for everything! Really," she said warmly.

Much of her current healing repertoire had been refined through Sagres's improvements, and she had always held him in high regard.

Colin, slowly regaining awareness, blinked in confusion. "Where... where am I? I think I just had a nightmare..."

His gaze passed over their faces before landing on the camera in Dumbledore's hand. Then he shivered. "There was... something in the corridor. I wanted to take a picture of it, but it looked back at me, and then... then I... came here?"

At that moment, Snape and Lockhart, along with several others, rushed into the Hospital Wing.

Seeing Colin awake and talking in bed, they all looked puzzled—Dumbledore's Patronus had clearly announced an attack, yet the current scene told a different story.

Dumbledore quickly explained what had happened.

When he mentioned that Sagres had cured Colin's petrification with a special potion, Snape gave Sagres a long, meaningful look.

"So, you saw the attacker?" Lockhart asked—surprisingly saying something sensible, though his trademark smile still made everyone uncomfortable.

"I saw a really big snake... it was going the other way. I was shocked... so I thought I'd take a picture, but as soon as I pressed the shutter, it turned around..." Colin stammered. "And then, I ended up here..."

"A snake?" Snape repeated, narrowing his eyes. "How big?"

"About... as thick as a bucket. I can't remember clearly—I should've gotten a photo..."

"I'm afraid your camera is damaged," Dumbledore said gently. "But don't worry, I'll try to fix it."

Colin nodded gratefully.

At this, the smile slipped from Lockhart's face. He looked genuinely incredulous. "A snake as thick as a bucket? At Hogwarts? Inside the Castle? Child, are you making this up for attention? Or did you just imagine it?"

Several Professors exchanged glances; no one responded to Lockhart's comment. Madam Pomfrey even rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"As far as I know, no snake possesses the ability to petrify..." Snape narrowed his eyes, his tone slick. "Unless it was a Gorgon? But those don't have such... robust figures."

"Are you certain it was a snake?" Professor McGonagall turned to Colin again. "Not some snake-bodied, human-headed creature?"

"It was just a snake." Colin shuddered. "A very big, very scary... snake..."

Snape suddenly leaned in close, his black robes flaring like bat wings. "Let me get this straight—a giant snake as thick as a bucket, that didn't bite you, just stared at you from a distance and turned you to stone?"

He sneered. "I'm talking about actual petrification, not being frightened out of your wits."

"Severus, I believe Colin has no reason to lie," Dumbledore said calmly, raising a hand to stop Snape. Then he added, "Although we still don't know exactly what kind of... snake it was."

Sagres had originally planned to use Legilimens to see what Colin had witnessed and show it like a projector to others with his Memory Recall, but Myrtle's words suddenly echoed in his mind—the spiders had disappeared.

And for a serpent-like creature that is a natural predator of spiders, there was only one possibility—

"Basilisk! Confirmed.." Sagres said firmly.

Everyone was stunned by that single word.

"Basilisk?" Snape's voice wavered slightly—something rarely heard. "But legend says the Basilisk's gaze…"

"Is fatal," Sagres nodded. "But what if there's no direct eye contact?"

"You mean…"

"Colin saw it through his camera lens, and Madam Norris likely through the reflection in the water," Sagres said, his voice cutting clearly through the quiet of the Hospital Wing. "Indirect contact would weaken the fatal effect, resulting in petrification instead."

"That's just your speculation…"

"I believe," Dumbledore interrupted, his voice unusually grave, "Sagres's theory is highly probable. Because fifty years ago, the Chamber of Secrets was opened once before… and that time, a student lost their life because of it."

~~~~~~~~~

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