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The beast had no hearing due to the Basilisk being a snake, but with its tongue the creature could detect any movements at incredible distances. That was not a surprise, but Alexandra would have preferred the King of Serpents had not all the strengths and none of the weaknesses of his smaller and non-magical cousins.
Oh, and its tail had barbed thorns which had been reported to shred steel and stone like it was paper.
In short, the Basilisk was perhaps not the ultimate killing machine of the Wizarding World...but if it was not then Alexandra had really no intention to see what was more redoubtable. According to Nigel, the Nundu was on the same level, but the feline species had not been created by mad wizards. It also could not kill you with a glance, and had never been sighted once in the vicinity of the United Kingdom.
Though with our chance in this school I wouldn't bet against one for next year. What's next? Dragons? Vampires? Werewolves?
"The eyes...it's the eyes that are the problem." Remarked absently Alexandra.
"And the fangs? The poison? Or the thorns?" The voice of her Gryffindor friend was dry enough to sunder Middle Earth twice over.
"Those can be avoided if you stay at long distance of this monster." Alexandra grimaced internally as she affirmed that sentence. 'Stay at long distance'. Hell. The safe distance for a Basilisk was a continent away, not a mile or two. She had spent a lot of sleepless nights since the disastrous Quidditch match thinking a Basilisk was nearby. "No it's the eyes that are the problem. One look and it's over. I suppose it would be too much to ask for a famous legendary Auror in the active roster of the British Isles to be blind?"
"Well, there's this crazy paranoid Auror named 'Mad Eye' Moody. I think."
"I heard of him when I searched the Daily Prophet archives. Is he that good?"
Of course the nickname Mad Eye was not a good sign...
"Rumour is half of the Azkaban inmates are here because of him." Murmured the auburn-haired boy.
I wonder if it means he is that good or the other Aurors were so pathetic...
"Never mind." Said the black-haired girl after searching during ten minutes a few papers of the Daily Prophet published in the early 1980s. "If our favourite biased newspaper can be trusted, the man has never been blind, he just lost one eye. Moreover, Auror Moody replaced his missing eye with a magical one. This Auror would likely be petrified like the other victims, and he has likely never trained to fight without his eyes."
"So back to the beginning? Most of the enchanted objects created by famous enchanters are useless against a Basilisk gaze."
"But there is one we could be able to use. The Eye of Horus, jewel of the Pharaohs of old."
"Alex, we have no chance to convince the Egyptian government to give it us. It's one of their most famous treasures!"
And one of the most powerful, thought the black-haired Ravenclaw. The Eye was a formidable piece of magic, giving its owner incredible defensive powers. And the only drawback was that it had to recharge at the light of the sun. Having it for their fight against the Basilisk would make the battle a walk-over...and the chances of obtaining it were close to zero.
"You're right. You're right. But it is the only one that can be used with no major inconveniences. The other two are Dark Artefacts, specifically created to be wielded by Dark Wizards. The Bloody Draconite and the Galdrabok."
The two names were already repugnant. The description of their powers discovered in an old book of the artefacts section was worse. The Bloody Draconite was a creation of Romanian wizards, which in theory had been able to protect its wielder from any magical and non-magical attack. Forged by a concoction of alchemical origin and the beating heart of a dragon, the creation had done exactly what it had been created for. There had been a minor catch, however. The Bloody Draconite wanted human blood in exchange for the protection demanded. And the more, the merrier. If the attacks parried were growing in power, then the cursed artefact wanted more blood. Whether the wielder gave his own or took it from other bodies did not matter. It 'just' had to be human blood. Rivers of blood. Some pretended it was able to stop the Killing Curse, at the price of depopulating entire towns.
The Galdrabok was an Icelandic forgotten book, whose legend told it contained spell able to anything the reader wished. It did not look so bad...until the fact it was composed of human wizard's skins and written in witches' blood. Reading it caused a permanent loss of sanity.
All two methods had been used with success against a Basilisk in the past, in the Bloody Draconite's case the dark alchemic invention had been deliberately created to combat said threat. Each time the Dark Wizard that had dared take used it had been killed by his own government moments after his victory over the King of Snakes. Never mind that said politicians had done nothing to stop the XXXXX creature.
"And these Dark Wizards are not the grey-dark wizards the Ministry is so concerned about. You have to darken your very soul to use these kinds of heirlooms."
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