"It's up to you, though I will ask you to find somewhere to store it so I can make repairs to the tower. But I believe the next item on today's list of crises is that cursed diary."

"Unless you want me to wreck it like how I beheaded the snake that sounds like your department."

Lockhart is trying to sneak around the snake and out of the common room/hallway/rubble zone.

"You. I will see you in my office in three hours. Consider yourself suspended, and if I had any hope of finding a substitute you would already be sacked."

"How is he even sort of better than nothing? He attacked a kid! Give them a textbook and set them last year's exam and at least if they learn anything they'll remember it!"

"Once I know what exactly happened I might do just that. If it were any other day . . . . Mipsy?"

A small humanoid with large ears, wearing a toga made of towel, appears from thin air, goggles at the basilisk, and asks, "Professor McGonagall is wanting Mipsy?"

"Yes. Help mister Swan find somewhere to put this corpse. Don't worry, it's quite dead."

"I don't think I can carry it. Uh. Nice to meet you, Mipsy."

"Hello master Swan! Mipsy is moving your snake for you! Where is you wanting it?"

"I think I'm too old to be a 'master', isn't there a cutoff for that somewhat lower than a hundred and seventy-two? I am not familiar with many locations, perhaps you can suggest somewhere it'll be out of the way and convenient to anyone who wants to buy and make off with pieces of it."

She isn't quite sure what to do with Cam's first sentence, but, "There is being an empty storeroom near the kitchens! Is you wanting Mipsy to bring the snake there, or show you first?"

(McGonagall has gone back to the side chamber, and is doing variously destructive things to the diary, now sitting in a metal box, with no effect.)

"If you could show me that would be convenient."

"Yes master Swan! Right this way!" Mipsy heads into the hallway at a surprising speed for how short her legs are.

"Please don't call me that, it makes me sound like an alternate universe Batman or something," he says, following along. "Mr. Swan is fine if you prefer to be formal."

"Yes mister Swan!" Down several flights of stairs, pause to wait for the next flight of stairs to arrive, down that one too, through a door with the handle on the left edge, turn one-eighty degrees and go back through the same door with the handle on the left again to exit into a different hallway, four left turns and here's a door. It opens onto an empty room with shelves all over the walls but plenty of space in the middle.

When they reach the flip-door he creates a strange looking object, which sputters and smokes and sparks a bit before falling inert. "Any idea why my computer did that?" he asks Mipsy.

The elf looks dejected. "Mipsy is not knowing what a computer is or why it is doing that. Mipsy is sorry."

"No big deal, just means I couldn't take notes on the route. I can probably remember it. Looks like a fine place for the basilisk."

"Mipsy is bringing it here now, then?"

"Sure, thanks!"

Mipsy vanishes for a minute, then the basilisk corpse appears coiled up on the floor. It piles up most of the way to the ceiling. Mipsy's head pops out of the top of the coil. "Is here being alright mister Swan?"

"Looks good, I appreciate it!"

Apparently house elves flap their ears when they're happy! Or at least this one does. "Is you needing anything else?"

"I think I can find the way back but if I'm mistaken or the staircases misbehave or the professor has wandered off I'd appreciate an escort."

"Mipsy is happy to be of service!" And she can lead the way back to the common room. The route they take up is in fact different from the route down, though possibly the former way would have worked and this way is just faster. Also, the Gryffindors have clearly been let out of their dorms, given the knots of students excitedly spreading rumors that manage to be even weirder than the truth.