I May have helped an Evil Wizard. (rewrite)

Time to go

"We're nearly there," Harriet muttered suddenly. "Let me think let me think...Oh right, Draco listen up. I'm going to take the queen. That bishop will move towards Pansy who is safe seeing as she is on a black square and the bishop only goes on the white ones. You then checkmate the king. Got it?"

Draco nodded.

They made their moves and won the game. It wasn't a pleasant victory. They didn't have the time to celebrate, nor did they want to. The game had left a bitter taste on their tongues.

Then, they hurried through the door at the other end of the room.

"We've had Sprout's, that was the Devil's Snare; Flitwick must've put charms on the keys; McGonagall transfigured the chessmen to make them alive; that leaves Quirrell's spell, and Snape's." Harriet said.

"And Dumbledore's." Draco shuddered.

"We'll burn that bridge when we get there."

They had reached another door.

"All right?" Harriet whispered.

"Go on." Pansy said. She looked a little sick.

Harriet pushed it open.

A disgusting smell filled their nostrils. Eyes watering, they saw, flat on the floor in front of them, a troll even larger than the one they had tackled, out cold with a bloody lump on its head.

"Ewww." Pansy complained.

"I'm glad we didn't have to fight that one," Draco whispered as they stepped carefully over one of its massive legs. "Come on, I can't breathe."

He pulled open the next door, all of them hardly daring to look at what came next - but there was nothing very frightening in here, just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line. It was fairly well lit too.

"Snape's," said Harriet. "What do we have to do?"

They stepped over the threshold, and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn't ordinary fire either; it was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward. They were trapped.

"No!" Pansy cried. "I don't want to die!"

"You're not going to die." Harriet said, sounding so much calmer than she felt.

"Look!" Draco seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. Harry looked over his shoulder to read it:

Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, which ever you would find,
One among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead,
Two among our number hold only nettle wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting bidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.

Draco let out a great sigh and Harriet saw that he was smiling, the very last thing she felt like doing.

"Brilliant," said Draco. "This isn't magic - it's logic - a puzzle. With potions! A lot of the greatest wizards haven't got an ounce of logic and know even less about the subject at hand. They'd be here forever. Everything we need is here on this paper. Seven bottles: three are poison, two are wine, one will get us safely through the black fire, and one will get us back through the purple."

"But how do we know which to drink?" Pansy asked.

"And which ones are nettle wine?" He asked.

"Can we just figure this out please?" Harriet asked.

"Yeah, give me a minute."

Draco read the paper several times. Then he walked up and down the line of bottles, muttering to himself and pointing at them. At last, he clapped his hands.

"Got it," he said. "The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire - toward the Stone."

Harriet looked at the tiny bottle.

"There's only enough there for one of us," she said. "That's hardly one swallow."

They looked at each other.

"Which one will get you back through the purple flames?" she asked.

Draco pointed at a rounded bottle at the right end of the line.

"You two drink that," said Harriet.

"What? No!" Her friends protested.

"No, listen," she said,"You both have parents. I'm an orphan and I have no one who will miss me. Okay? I'll get the stone or die trying."

She paused and then tacked on one of the most sincere things that she had ever said.
"You two are some of the best and only friends I've ever had. I'm not letting you die. That's just not happening."

Then she downed the bottle and ran through the flames, ignoring the others protests.

There was already someone who had made it.

Professor Quirrell.

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Dun dun dun!

Hope everyone is doing well with everything that's going on in the world right now. Chin up!

XOXO Drachma.