Chapter 161: Aftermath! Part-1
{2nd Floor East Corridor, Hogwarts}
{31th Oct 1991}
{Dumbledore's POV}
...
Albus could feel his magic thrum under his control, waiting to be unleashed as he slowly walked toward his destination. The wards made it a little easier to pinpoint exactly where the beast was as he walked, and he went over the plan to deal with the Basilisk.
'I can't look at it directly. Mage sight would be useless since it would make it easier for it to form a connection.' The main difficulty when dealing with a Basilisk was the issue of sight. While the Basilisk was simply a murder machine to any normal wizard who dared confront it head-on, it had too many holes to exploit for someone of Dumbledore's caliber.
'While brute force won't work against its shells, my plan would simply revolve around the fact that the Basilisk is quite old. It's almost reached the maximum length of a Basilisk in recorded history.' No matter how magical a beast is, the rules of magic still apply to it. The house elves are born with an unparalleled aptitude for magic, but their magic can only be used when in servitude to a wizard/witch. A Giant similarly has unparalleled raw strength, but its movement speed suffers.
'If you remove the soul-crushing gaze and the most deadly venom in existence, the Basilisk is quite similar to an evolved version of a giant. The easiest way to deal with a Giant was to either overpower its magical resistance, which doesn't seem likely against a Basilisk, or attack places where it is vulnerabl-'
"Keeeeeee~"
A shrill scream/hiss reverberated through the halls as Dumbledore saw the shadow around the corner. He stopped. The time for thinking was over as he focused his gaze on the ground and instead used all his magical senses to get a feel for the basilisk. It wasn't as effective as his Mage sight, but throughout the years, Dumbledore had been exposed to enough magic that he had gained a passive sense of mana around him: if he stayed still, that is.
'Binding it won't slow it down; its lumbering form makes that option unlikely. Blinding it at that distance would be a problem as well. My mana sense isn't enough to aim accurately for those. I could try Fawkes, but I shouldn't need his help. Albus waved his wand. His magic, which had been waiting for a while now, was finally unleashed. He heard several pops as the air was displaced. As he felt his mana pool drop by a fifth, numerous boulders were conjured from thin air.