Inside the Room of Requirement.
This version of the room was enormous, easily large enough to comfortably accommodate a thousand-year-old Basilisk.
The massive serpent was currently laid out across a heavy wooden table dozens of meters in length. Its flesh had already been expertly separated from its body, leaving behind only an impossibly long, gleaming white skeleton. Beneath the table, row upon row of large glass jars sat filled to the brim with highly corrosive, bright red blood.
Damian was incredibly busy, meticulously categorizing and storing the dismantled parts of the Basilisk's body.
The harvest was beyond bountiful. The skeleton alone was of unimaginable value. In the darker corners of Knockturn Alley, debauched wizards and dark witches were more than willing to pay an astronomical price for genuine Basilisk bone powder.
However, Damian chose to keep the skeleton completely intact for now; he hadn't quite decided how he wanted to utilize it yet.
Using the Basilisk's highly magical flesh as a primary base, one could brew an advanced potion that drastically increased a wizard's natural resistance to petrification. The flesh could also serve as a powerful catalyst for other rare concoctions. For instance, combining it with powdered dragon heart, Phoenix tail feathers, and Basilisk blood could produce an elixir that granted temporary immunity to instant-death magic.
The Basilisk's emerald skin possessed extremely high, near-absolute magic resistance. Damian planned to eventually find a discreet, master tailor to craft several custom wizarding cloaks from the hide.
He also had extremely high expectations for the Basilisk's heart. He possessed an ancient, ancestral potion recipe that called for a Basilisk heart and powdered Unicorn horn. If brewed correctly, it would create a permanent physical enhancement potion.
After finishing the painstaking process of preserving the flesh, Damian walked over to a nearby cage. He pulled out a frightened rabbit, which he had previously asked Nox to catch out in the Forbidden Forest.
He wanted to test the lingering effects of the Basilisk's severed eyes.
The great serpent's eyes were slightly larger than basketballs, and Damian had to use both hands just to pick one up.
Holding the massive, unblinking yellow eye, Damian aimed it directly at the rabbit and carefully infused his own magic into the optic nerve.
Instantly, the rabbit froze stiff, its body turning rigid as stone.
Through his magical perception, Damian sensed the eye emit a strange, invisible burst of magic, projecting outward in a forty-five-degree, fan-shaped area.
Interestingly, this strange magic only reached a distance of about two meters. Snakes naturally had poor eyesight, primarily relying on their forked tongues and heat-sensing pits for hunting.
This petrification ability was actually a passive, biological trait of a living Basilisk. Now that the creature was dead, the eye no longer had a natural magical supply, which meant Damian had to actively trigger the effect by feeding it his own magic.
As long as a target was within that two-meter fan-shaped range and made direct eye contact with the severed pupil, the petrification effect would trigger.
Damian tested a few more rabbits from the cage. He quickly discovered that if he infused a massive, concentrated surge of magic into the eye, he could trigger the Basilisk's true instant-death ability, killing the rabbits on the spot.
However, there was a major drawback. While using the petrification ability consumed very little of the eye's residual "Ocular Power," the instant-death ability completely drained it.
Now that the Basilisk was dead, the Ocular Power within the eyes was like a puddle of water without a source—every drop used was gone forever. Under normal circumstances, burning through the eye's finite power just for an instant-death cast was not worth the cost.
Because the rabbits Nox had caught were just ordinary Muggle creatures, Damian couldn't accurately test the eye's effectiveness against targets with innate magic resistance. That data would have to wait for verification in actual combat.
After the experiments concluded, Damian packed all the harvested materials and his equipment safely into his Undetectable Extension Pouch.
After thoroughly tidying up the room, Damian finally left the Room of Requirement. As he descended the marble staircases and approached the third-floor Trophy Room, he suddenly heard panicked whispering up ahead.
"He's late. Or maybe he was just too scared to show up."
It was Ronald Weasley's voice.
Damian's eyebrows shot up in amusement. He had actually run into Harry Potter and his friends again. He suddenly remembered that he had promised to teach them the magic to summon a Familiar, but he had been so busy plotting his time-travel heist lately that he had completely forgotten about it.
Definitely next time, Damian thought silently to himself.
Just then, another, much raspier voice echoed from the corridor ahead.
"They're right around here somewhere, probably hiding. Come on, my sweet, sniff them out."
It was Argus Filch.
Damian quickly recalled the timeline. Tonight was the night Harry and Ron had been tricked by Draco Malfoy into a midnight "duel" in the Trophy Room. Malfoy had never intended to show up; instead, he had tipped off Filch, hoping to get the Gryffindors expelled.
This meant that tonight, the golden trio would inevitably stumble into the Charms Class corridor and encounter the Cerberus.
Damian's interest was piqued. The Philosopher's Stone was currently being guarded by a gauntlet of magical traps designed by Dumbledore. This Cerberus—Fluffy—was the very first challenge of that gauntlet.
Damian hadn't actually seen the Cerberus yet. He decided to "happen upon" Harry and the others, which would naturally give him an excuse to observe the Cerberus.
He quickly pulled a small vial of Odor-Removing Potion from his pocket, sprinkling the neutralizing powder over himself and Nox to ensure Mrs. Norris's keen nose wouldn't catch their scent.
Cloaked by a Disillusionment Charm, he walked right past Filch in the dark corridor. Both the caretaker and his cat remained completely unaware.
A moment later, he caught up with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville.
"We have to get back to the Gryffindor common room," Ron panted, his face pale. "As fast as possible!"
"Malfoy never intended to duel you!" Hermione hissed angrily. "He must have tipped off Filch!"
"Let's go," Harry muttered. He knew Hermione was right, but his pride found it a bit embarrassing to admit he'd been completely played.
"What exactly are you all doing wandering around so late?"
Damian casually dropped his Disillusionment Charm, stepping out from the shadows a short distance away.
Harry's heart leaped into his throat the moment he heard the voice, expecting Filch. He breathed a massive sigh of relief when he saw the Slytherin boy.
"Damian..." Harry started to explain, but he was violently interrupted by a loud clattering noise from the classroom next to them.
The heavy wooden door swung open, and Peeves the Poltergeist floated out into the corridor.
The ghost let out a wicked cackle. "Ooooh! Slytherin and Gryffindor students out of bed! Wandering the corridors together at night! You're going to get caught! Ickle firsties in trouble!"
"Peeves, please keep it down!" Harry pleaded frantically. "Filch will hear you!"
"Should I tell Filch?" Peeves asked, his expression adopting a look of mock seriousness. However, his dark eyes betrayed an irrepressible, chaotic mischievousness.
Ron, completely losing his patience, snapped. "Peeves, get lost! Just get out of the way!"
The redhead foolishly took a swipe at the poltergeist, attempting to physically swat him away.
Peeves was instantly enraged. He sucked in a massive breath and bellowed at the absolute top of his lungs, "STUDENTS OUT OF BED! SLYTHERIN AND GRYFFINDOR WANDERING TOGETHER AT NIGHT! DOWN THE CHARMS CLASS CORRIDOR!"
"Run!" Damian ordered. He was the first to move, sprinting deeper into the Charms Class corridor.
Seeing him bolt, the four Gryffindors panicked and sprinted after him.
Soon, they reached the very end of the Charms Class corridor. There was nowhere left to run, save for a single, heavy wooden door.
Ron grabbed the brass handle and yanked, but it didn't budge. "It's locked! There's no way out!" His face was completely etched with despair.
They could already hear Filch's heavy, wheezing footsteps echoing down the corridor behind them.
"Oh, move over!" Hermione snapped anxiously. She snatched Harry's wand right out of his hand and pointed it at the lock. "Alohomora!"
The unlocking charm hit the brass mechanism with a sharp click. The heavy door instantly sprang open. The group scrambled inside the dark room, and Hermione slammed the door shut behind them.
Once the door was secured, Harry pressed his ear against the wood, listening intently. "He's right outside... he thinks the door is still locked. I think we're safe now."
At that exact moment, Damian calmly drew his own wand. "It is far too early to say that, Harry."
Harry turned around, confused, only to see a look of sheer, unadulterated terror frozen on Neville's face. "What's wrong?" Harry asked.
Then, Harry finally looked at the room.
A monstrous beast that took up nearly half the floor space was staring down at them ferociously.
It was a Cerberus with three distinct, massive heads. Its six eyes glared viciously in the darkness, and thick, acidic saliva dripped endlessly from the gaps between its yellow fangs, sizzling against the stone floor.
Damian gripped his wand tightly. He wanted to test the Cerberus's mettle.
"Stupefy!"
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