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After discovering the corpse of an unknown man in the Chamber of Secrets, I didn't do anything hasty. If it wasn't Pettigrew as the rat in the first place, then in his place, I would have thrown someone else. Since, is it any wonder that the "brave Gryffindors" decided to bury the not-so-nice beastie? Well, or hide it? But, on second thought, even in that situation, if I were Pettigrew, I'd run the hell out of the castle, especially if he suspects Black of trying to get to his traitorous body. Anyway, looking for Pettigrew now is a rotten thing. I can only blame myself for my hasty decision and my indifferent attitude toward the rat.

However, the rat was not the only reason I went down to the Chamber of Secrets. The basilisk was the main target. To my delight, the basilisk carcass was still lying in the Chamber of Secrets' main hall. The carcass looked as if it had been killed literally five minutes ago, and only a huge puddle of coagulated and slightly cracked blood beneath the basilisk told me otherwise. I got tools and a bag with a wide neck with great joy, but as soon as I came close to the carcass, joy faded - how to cut this thing at all? My knowledge about skinning a snake is simply inappropriate here - the snake is small and soft, and the skin of this creature is dense and hard like a wall, thick, and its size. I also remembered the strange effect of the poison - Lucius's melted head. Although this could be caused by the combined effects of the sword and poison, it is better to conduct an experiment.

Examination of the corpse's mouth showed that the venom had definitely oozed from the fangs for some time. There were traces of spilled venom under the mouth and on the lower jaw. However, the floor's stone was only slightly melted, and the traces looked like acid exposure, and the jaw was intact. I cut through the flesh under the scales with a special knife, which was a couple of centimeters in size, but it did not matter. I went under the scales with the knife, punctured the skin, and cut out some meat. Transfigured a long needle, poked a piece on it, and rubbed it against its fang. The poison clearly got on the meat, and there were even traces of it, but there was no effect. I materialized a sword, poked the piece of meat with it - no effect. But experiments are needed.

The next day, Sunday, I looked into the kitchen to the house-elves and asked: "Are there any rodents in the castle?" The answer was yes, but the house-elves assured me that they instantly catch pests along with spiders. I asked them to catch me a couple and was about to leave, but they gave me four rats almost immediately. Not wasting time, but not forgetting the invisibility charms in my haste, I got to the secret room again and conducted an experiment. I rubbed a live rat against a basilisk's fang. It writhed for a long time and died. The second rat's head was twisted off by myself, though I did not want to - traumatic childhood memories of my past life: then, long ago, I nailed a rat with a brick, but not hard enough, and it was alive, but could not survive. I remember this stupid feeling from the look of a twitching broken rat - it seemed necessary to finish off, but there was nothing. Was I really that cruel back then? This time I got it right.

I poked a rat at a basilisk's fang and placed it on the floor, noticing how the corpse began to rapidly melt into a skeleton. I poked the third rat with the materialized sword of the Spirit. Well, I didn't pierce it. I scratched it. Like the first, this rat writhed for a long time before deciding to die but was unharmed. I killed the fourth rat by unscrewing its head again and poking it with my sword - the rat was melted to the bone.

I cut off a piece of meat from a basilisk and poked it with my sword - nothing. That's good. With ordinary hand tools, I can swarm around in a giant basilisk carcass, which is a little less than my height in width, until the end of next year, and given a certain inertness to the magical effects of this carcass... In general, I will cut with a sword, especially since it copes well with the skin. Although, again, the term "easy" here is used only in comparison with other slashing tools.

Based on the experiment results, I decided, just in case, not to cut out fangs with glands yet, though I certainly want to get this substance first. But first, I decided to carve the rest of the carcass.

But no matter how I tried to approach the matter, nothing worked. In the end, I simply ran my sword around the base of the head, cutting off the head. I could not remove the whole skin, as I should do with a snake, even with magic-I simply could not reproduce such a powerful effort. So I made the commander's decision to make cross cuts in rings and remove them in pieces from the longitudinal incision on the abdomen. And this should take a lot of time because a basilisk, being not only magical but also an artificially bred creature, does not spoil, rot and decompose - neither bacteria, nor worms, nor anything else likes it.