Harry watched his friend's disappear, either under the disillusionment charm or his invisibility cloak, before turning to the trap door and the giant dog still dozing off thanks to the playing harp. He was honestly surprised it hadn't woken up from all the talking that had been going on around it.
Without any further contemplation, Harry set to work, casting a spell over the harp so it would continue playing after the original spell wore off. Afterword, he walked over to the trap door. It was already open, yet he could see nothing inside. It was pitch black.
A small application of magic and intent had the tip of his wand lighting up like a flashlight. He knelt down and pointed his wand into the trap door, lighting up the room below.
The first thing Harry noticed about the room below the trapdoor was that it looked alive. It took him a second to realize that he was not seeing the floor, but a large plant with writhing tentacle-like appendages.
“That looks like Devil's Snare,” Susan said as she, too, got a good look at the plant beneath them.
“It is indeed,” Harry said, “It must be Professor Sprout's part of the protections around the stone.”
“So what do we do?” asked Daphne as she knelt down next to Harry.
“Devil's Snare has one major weakness,” Harry told the blond pureblood as the light from his wand extinguished. He began building up the necessary magic to create flames strong enough to burn the giant plant covering the floor below them. “Fire.”
Pointing his wand into the hole, Harry launched a large jet of flame from its tip. Almost acting like a lumos that had way too much magic pumped into it, the inferno illuminated the room beneath them in its fiery orange light, right before it struck the plant with the rage of a firestorm.
The Devil's Snare released a shrill cry that sounded almost like the death throws of some kind of animal being hung by a pair of meat hooks while still alive. It was sharp and loud and quite possibly the most horrendous noise Harry had ever heard. He wished he could cover up his ears like Blaise, Daphne, Terry and Susan were doing, but since he needed to keep up the pressure, was not afforded such a luxury.
Eventually, the shrill cries stopped, and Harry cut the power to his incendio, then cast another lumos. A quick glance revealed that the Devil's Snare was gone, disintegrated until there was naught but ashes and dust.
Satisfied, Harry once more cut the power to his spell, then turned to his friends.
“Alright, the floor to the room beneath us is about fifteen feet down, I'd wager, so here's how we're going to do this. I'm going to levitate each one of you and send you down the trap door, then follow you down myself. After that, we'll begin making our way through whatever enchantments lie in wait for us.”
“Are you sure that's a wise idea?” asked Daphne. When Harry raised an eyebrow and waited for her to elaborate, she said, “how are you going to get down if none of us are up here to levitate you? The wingardium leviosa requires line of sight to use, and we won't be able to see you from down there.”
“Don't worry about that,” Harry told her. “I've got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
With nothing left to be said, Harry began the process of levitating each of his friends, slowly lowering them through the trapdoor. To make things easier, the first one down, Daphne, cast lumos and let him know when she reached the bottom, then continued directing him by keeping her spell up as the others were floated down as well.
With everyone else having gone through the trap door, Harry jumped down without hesitation. He fell to the floor quickly. Magic traveled through his body and to his legs. When his feet hit the floor, Harry bent his knees and dove into a roll, absorbing the worst of the impact. It still jarred him a bit, and he could feel the stress on his joints and bones from having fallen fifteen feet, but nothing had been broken.
Bringing himself back up, he looked at all of his friends and, noticing the way they had dropped their jaw in surprise, was tempted to give them a cheeky smile.
Had the situation not been so serious, he very well might have.
“Let's get going. Remember, keep your wands out and ready,” he told them, kicking starting his friends into gear as he walked across the floor and toward the hall on the other side. It was a very narrow hall, and Harry and his friends were forced to walk in a row; Susan next to Harry, while Daphne and Terry came next, and Blaise took up the rear.
At the end of the hall was a very plane wooden door, which Harry did not hesitate to open. He walked through quickly, wand at the ready.
The next room was large and cylindrical in shape. The stone floor, walls and ceiling was illuminated by the red light of torches attached to the walls and spaced at five foot intervals around the room.
While the room itself seemed very plain, there were several things that got their attention. Two things really. Two very big things.
Standing on either side of the door they had just entered, like silent sentinels, were two large marble statues. They reminded Harry of the many depictions he'd seen of medievil knights. With thick pauldron armor and grieves, a chest plate with the carvings of a phoenix on them, gauntlets and heavy-looking helmets, standing proud, their backs erect and their swords stabbed into the stone floor, hands resting on the pommel, they were the very definition of intimidating.
That they were at least three times taller than the first years didn't help much.
On the other side of the room was, what at first glance, appeared to be a door, but on second glance proved to an archway etched into the wall itself. The archway was outlined by glowing silver lines. Along the curve of the arch were a series of words, and in the center was what looked like millions of tiny dots from a distance.
The group walked into the room. Once Blaise passed the threshold, the door behind them slammed closed and locked. Everyone except Harry turned around, eyes widening as Blaise tried to open the door to no avail.
“It's locked,” he mumbled, turning to Harry with a look of mild alarm. It was probably the first time he had truly seen Blaise show genuine emotion.
Daphne walked over to her friend, wand out as she cast Alohamora on the door to no effect. Grimacing, she turned to Harry and the others.
“It won't open with magic either.”
“Then the only way to go is forward,” Harry determined, walking toward the archway. “Come on, let's not dally.”
Everyone quickly decided that following Harry's advice was the best option at the moment. As they neared the archway, Terry finally noticed what the thousands of little dots in the center represented.
“That's a star chart,” he exclaimed, getting excited about something that only he ever got excited about. Star gazing was a hobby of his. He even had a high powered muggle telescope at his house and a few books on the milky way galaxy. “Look, there's Andromeda and Cygnus. And those are the star constellations Pisces, Aries, and Perseus. It looks like every constellation is on here.”
“We probably have to do something with these constellations to get the door open then,” Susan spoke softly, a tiny frown of concentration marring her face. “I think the riddle at the top will tell us how to open the door.”
“From North to West, and South to East, Illuminate the path of Western Myth.”
Everyone read the riddle, their faces a puzzle of perplexity as they tried to determine what they were supposed to do from it.
Everyone except Harry.
“Fortunately, this ones not very hard,” Harry said, making the others look at him. “It's talking about Greek Mythology, or the constellations named after Greek heroes and gods. See here?” He began pointing out stars on the chart. “That's Andromeda, daughter of Cassiopeia and Cepheus. And that's Perseus. And those are the star constellations Puppis, Carina, and Vela, which make up the Argo. Obviously, we need to connect the stars to form the constellations. From North to West, and South to East. We need to start with the North constellations and make our way around to the West, then South, then East.”
“That makes sense.” Terry rubbed his chin in thought. “Right now the constellations we see at night are the northern ones. I wonder if this riddle would change if we were looking at a different set of constellations right now?”
“I don't really think that matters at the moment,” Daphne said dryly.
“Terry,” Harry said. “I think I'll leave the honors to you. Be quick though, there's no telling what might happen if we take too long.”
“Right.”
Terry walked up to the archway, wand out. He began to trace a path with his wand along one of the many constellations shown in the Northern Quadrant of the star chart, Cepheus, Harry recognized.
“Wands out you three,” Harry called to the others as he spun around. “We have company.”
“Company?” Blaise frowned, also turning around.
Then his eyes widened in fear.
“Oh...”
His fear was understandable as the once still statues had come to life. The two marble knights held their large claymores in a two handed grip as they stalked forward, the sound of their heavy footfalls creating harsh bangs against the stone floor.
“I said wands out!” Harry snapped when he saw none of his friends doing anything but staring at the now living statues with eyes that looked like ping pong balls.
His words snapped the three out of their stupor. Their wands came out and pointed at the walking knights, though they were shaking badly.
“Aim at the one on the left,” Harry ordered, following his own directives by swiveling his wand toward the target he had just designated. “We need to concentrate all of our fire power on one of them until it's destroyed, then focus on the other one!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his friends doing as told. He focused back on the statues and was very glad they moved so slowly.
“Ready!?”
The tip of Harry's wand glowed blue as he built up his magic.
“Fire!”
“Reducto!”
“Reducto!”
“Bombarda!”
Blaise and Susan both fired a Reducto at the left most statue while Daphne launched a Bombarda. Harry launched his own overpowered Reducto, taking care to actually aim instead of firing blindly.
The four spells sped towards their target, but only two hit. Daphne's blasting hex caught the knight in the left foot, causing the entire foot to explode in a blast of fire and marble. It teetered forward, its balance lost.
Before it could fall, Harry's overpowered Reductor Curse caught the giant statue in the head. There was a terrific explosion of magic where the spell impacted. A blinding flash of light followed by a loud explosion. The helmeted head of the giant knight almost appeared to have disintegrated. Millions of tiny marble dust fragments extended outward from where Harry's spell impacted, showering the ground in granules so fine they almost looked like sand.
The marble knight finished its fall, the sword falling out of its hand as it crashed into the loud with a thunderous 'bang!'
“Focus on the second knight!” Harry ordered before anyone could even think to gape at the spectacle. “Fire at will!”
More flashes of light followed his orders as everyone turned to the second knight, which had closed at least half of the distance between them in the time it took for the group to 'kill' the first knight. With the first knight destroyed, Blaise and Susan seemed to gain more confidence. The spells they launched at the moving marble statue statue hit, taking out chunks from the things torso and in one case blasting the right arm off at the elbow.
Daphne's Reducto hit the statues neck this time, destroying it and causing the head to get blasted off. The helmeted head smacked into the ground, cracking and sending chunks of white marble flying as it rolled several times, before stopping at the wall near the door the knight's once stood beside.
Despite taking off its head, the knight did not seem to be stopping. Harry put an end to that when his carefully aimed curse took off the right leg, sending it to the ground where it lay still.
Sighs of relief were breathed all around, as the for who had fought against the knightso let the adrenaline begin fading from their bodies.
“Good job you guys,” Harry said, feeling the need to congratulate his friends. “I was actually a little worried there for a second.”
“We really didn't do too bad, did we?” asked Daphne, a small smile lighting her face. “I mean, we actually managed to beat those things.”
“They were kind of slow though,” Blaise added, scratching the bottom of his chin. “I'm not sure how we would have fared if they could move faster.”
“I hadn't thought of that,” Daphne admitted softly, frowning a bit. She shook her head and decided not let Blaise's words get her down. “At least we managed to defeat then.”
“I... I wouldn't be too sure of that?” Susan muttered fearfully.
“What?” Blaise looked over at Susan in confusion, only to see her staring at where the statues were lying. Or where they were supposed to be lying.
“She means their getting up,” Harry grit out angrily as he aimed his wand.
“What?!”
Blaise and Daphne turned in shock as they saw what Harry and Susan saw. The statues, which had once been on the ground in pieces, were getting back up. What's more, the missing pieces were regenerating right before their very eyes, the marble that made them turning almost liquid as it reformed what had once been lost.
“Shite!” Blaise swore as Daphne readied her wand again, though it was much less steady than it had been during their first engagement.
“Terry!” Harry shouted as he began running through his occlumency lessons to keep calm. “I don't want to rush you, but you're going to want to hurry up!”
“Don't worry!” Terry reassured him, his voice shaking, either fear or the strain of his task, Harry didn't know. Probably both. “I'm almost done. Just give me a few more seconds! A minute at most!”
“I'm not sure we have a minute,” Blaise mumbled despairingly.
“Wands at the ready!” Harry shouted. “Fire when ready!”
Harry quickly sent his own blasting hex at the right knight again, which was the closest one. The bright orange light from his Bombarda met the knight's torso, blowing up in a brilliant explosion that tore at least half the barrel-like chest apart. The light from his spell was added to when the others began casting magic.
Unfortunately, only his spell hit this time.
“Keep calm!” Harry shouted as he fired again, a Reducto this time. His spell took out the sword the knight wielded, as well as its hands.
Again, his spell was the only one that hit.
Harry would have sworn loudly if he wasn't so busy. He knew this was a bad idea. His friends should have never gotten involved in something like this. Now he was the only one keeping calm, and that was just barely, while his friends were beginning to let fear overrule their ability to aim properly.
Gritting his teeth hard enough that his gums began to bleed, Harry continued casting spells. Bombardas and Reductos flew from his wand, bashing against the titans ambled toward them with slow, ponderous movements.
No longer did he have time to truly aim anymore. He simply let them fly, his body running on instinct. It was only his keen eyes and steady hand that allowed him to continuously hit the statues.
A Reducto blasted apart a kneecap, sending the left knight to the ground. One of his Bombardas blew apart a shoulder, taking the arm with it. Again and again Harry sent spells after the slowly stalking knights, and again and again they reformed, got back up, and continued moving forward at a slow, inexorable pace, as if taunting him with his inability to kill them.
The closer they got the less accurate the spells from Blaise, Daphne and Susan became. It seemed the three had lost their nerve, and a quick glance confirmed that. They were beginning to lose hope. It was written all over their faces.
Harry snarled as he tried to think of a way out of this situation, tried to think of anything that would get himself and his friends out of this alive.
Unfortunately, there was nothing. The knights were between them and the door, a door which was sealed shut and not even magic could unlock. The only way out of this was forward, and the only way forward was if Terry managed to open the archway.
Harry didn't know what to do, but knowing that failure meant the death of his friends, he refused to give up. Even if he was the only one still hitting anything, he would continue until he was dead.
“I got it!”
Sweeter words had never been heard. The marble knights were about fifteen feet from their position when Terry lined up the last constellation. When the last constellation was lit, the outlined door began to glow with a bright, blue light.
A crack appeared within the center of the archway. There was a loud creaking sound as the doors moved inward of their own volition. Terry ran in, and was soon followed by Blaise, Daphne, and Susan, who couldn't seem to get away from the knights fast enough.
Harry was the last one in, firing spells at the knights as he ran. As he reached the threshold, he made a cutting motion with his wand.
The doors let out a strained groan before, with a scraping sound followed by a loud 'bang!', shut, keeping the knights from following them.
Harry looked at his four friends to see the state they were in. Blaise and Daphne looked tired and very shaken. They were showing more emotion than they usually did, and it wasn't the good kind. But while they were shaken, it was Susan who Harry worried about. The girl looked close to hyperventilating. Her labored breathing came out in quicker and quicker pants, and her wide eyes stared at nothing. Out of all his friends, Terry was the least affected, but that was just because he hadn't faced down two unkillable statues.
“Susan?” Harry touched the redhead's shoulder. “Are you alright?”
Susan shook her head, tears pricking at her eyes.
“We almost died,” she whispered, her voice haggard from their harrowing experience.
Harry sighed.
“This is why I didn't want any of you doing this,” he admitted. “Going after the Philosopher's Stone is reckless and foolhardy. These protections were made with the purpose of defeating someone who managed to break into Gringotts and escape without the goblins being the wiser.”
No one spoke. They were beginning to realize why Harry had been so adamant on not letting them go after the stone.
“Maybe it would be better if you guys stayed here while I go on ahead,” Harry suggested.
“NO!”
Susan's shout startled everyone; even Daphne and Harry, the two with the most composure of the group, couldn't keep their eyes from widening at the redhead's shout.
“I... I'm not going to let you do this alone,” Susan said, looking frightened yet determined. “I... we've already come this far with you, so we should keep going... together.”
Harry closed his eyes and thought about how he should reply to Susan's words. There were many things he could say to her, including ordering her and the others not to follow him. He wasn't sure they would listen, even though they told him they would. What a troublesome predicament.
The thudding of footsteps approaching interrupt his thoughts. A hand touched his arm just as he opened his eyes, and he was soon staring into the no longer ice blues of Daphne Greengrass.
“You got into this mess because of us, because we decided to go after the stone despite your warnings,” Daphne said seriously. “Let us accompany you to make up for our mistake.”
Harry frowned as he looked into Daphne's eyes, searching. He wasn't quite sure what he was looking for, but he could already tell that, whatever it was, he wasn't going to find it. Harry was beginning to realize that for all his knowledge on the human psyche and his ability to read emotions, he had no real skill in actually determining what those emotions meant.
Peeling his gaze away from Daphne, he looked at the other three. Susan had stopped shaking and looked a bit better than a few seconds ago. It was a testament to her character and inner strength. She would have made a good Gryffindor, he decided.
Terry was definitely still nervous. He had not been in the fight, but Harry did not discount that he had probably seen what had happened. That he completed his task in spite of it was a credit to his ability at remaining calm while under pressure. Still, in spite of the obvious signs of someone who was scared, he did not look ready to back down.
Blaise had recovered the best among the three. He was still not his normally unflappable self. Harry could see the small twitching of the ring finger of his left hand, a sign of nerves, and the way he shifted his feet ever so slightly. But aside from those small tells, he looked perfectly calm.
“Do you all of you feel this way?” asked Harry. “You guys do understand that the enchantments we just faced are not the only form of protection surrounding the stone. Things are very likely going to get much harder from here on out.”
He received a nod from Susan and Terry; Blaise gave what looked like a confident smirk, though Harry thought he saw a hint of uncertainty.
“We've already come this far. Might as well go all the way,” the Italian boy said.
Harry closed his eyes. If they could not be dissuaded, he would not stop them. He would just have to make sure they didn't get themselves killed.
“Alright then,” he said, turning around and beginning to walk down the long corridor. “Let's go.”
The sound of footsteps echoed against the stone walls as Blaise, Daphne, Susan and Terry followed Harry into the next dangerous task, whatever that may be.
XoX
“Which way do we go?” asked Terry as he stood a foot behind Harry. After walking down the corridor, they had been forced to come to a stop as they found themselves standing in a T-junction. Two paths had presented themselves. One to the left, and one to the right. “Should we split up?”
“No,” Harry answered almost immediately as he pulled out his wand. “There's no telling what kind of traps are down here. What we do know is that these traps were made with an adult wizard in mind, and are far beyond anything a first year should be capable of getting past.”
Harry held his right hand up, palm facing the ceiling as he lay his wand in it.
“However, if we work together, we may actually stand a chance of making it out of here alive.”
“But how do we decide which way we should go?” asked Susan, turning her head to look down one corridor, then the other.
“Like this,” Harry said, channeling magic through his wand, “Point me.”
Harry's wand lifted itself into the air, levitating about an inch off his hand. It then began to quiver for several seconds, before pointing down the left passage.
“This way,” Harry told them, keeping a firm grip on his wand and moving down the left passageway. The others followed, each one bringing out there own wands.
It was a lot darker than the room had been. The torches lighting the passageway were spaced ten feet apart instead of five, creating harsher shadows along the walls and floor. After several minutes of walking ,Blaise Zabini froze when he stepped on a small tile.
The tile was pressed down with a 'click' that resounded loudly through the passage. Everyone stared at Blaise with epically-sized, ghastly eyes.
“Get down!” Harry shouted. The four reacted swiftly, almost literally throwing themselves to the ground as Harry ran into the center of their formation and spun his wand around in a complicated pattern. “Protego Totalum!”
As the incantation was spoken, a large shield sprung up around them like some kind of dome. The shield was golden in color and so thick it looked almost solid. Only the many garlands of arcane energy that skittered across its surface told them otherwise.
At the same time the shield sprang up, flames burst out from the walls and ceiling. The white hot torrents of fire smashed against the shield with a loud roar. The golden shield was quickly encompassed by a blazing inferno.
The shields held, but barely. The magic that formed it crackled loudly as it tried to fight off the powerful flames. Several times the shield wavered as a sweating Harry strained to keep it up.
The shields would not last. This much Harry knew. He needed to come up with a plan.
“When I say go, I want you guys to run down the passageway,” Harry's strained voice made itself known over the roaring conflagration and the crackling of his shield. “Got it?”
No one argued with him. Or more like, they couldn't argue.
“Alright.” Harry closed his eyes; they were useless amount of sweat stinging them anyway, and began opening the gates that contained his magic a bit wider.
With a flick of his wand, the shield flared into an incandescent brilliance that was nearly blinding. Another flick and the golden dome encompassing them began to expand, forcing the flames back until it looked like they were being pushed into the walls.
“GO!”
A small portion of the shield opened up, and Harry's friends ran out. Harry waited for a moment longer before flicking his wand. The shield collapsed, and he pushed himself into a forward shoulder roll just as the flames descended upon the spot they'd been standing on with a vengeance.
The fires barely missed Harry, who kipped back up to his fee. He did not pause or break stride as he went from roll to run, easily catching up with his friends.
They continued running, the fires that nearly burnt them to a crisp following behind them like a pack of rabid wolves. It seemed to have a mind of its own, and its mind apparently wanted to turn them into an extra crispy meal.
“There's a door up ahead!” Terry shouted as they kept running, their breathing sounding ragged and harsh in their ears.
“Keep running!” Harry ordered as he flicked his wand at the door. “Bombarda!”
The door exploded into a million fragments as Harry's spell struck it. The five burst through, making it just as a gout of flame smashed against the open entrance and nipped at their backs. Harry's quick wand work summoned another Protego, this one of the more regular variety, and managed to protect everyone from getting their backsides lit on fire.
When the flames died away, Harry turned to see his friends staring at the room they now occupied. Massive didn't begin accurately describing how large the room was. Harry judged it to be easily the size of the Great Hall if not larger. It must have been magically expanded, because there was no way something this large could have possibly existed underneath a trap door on the third floor corridor otherwise.
It was very dark inside of the room; only a few torches illuminated it, and they were not only sparse, but also seemed to stop entirely after reaching a certain point, leaving the rest of the room in darkness.
Harry held up his wand, the tip flaring into incandescence as he cast a silent Lumos. The light caused the darkness to withdraw, not only giving them all a better glimpse of the room itself, but allowing everyone to see the large chasm separating them from the other side.
Blaise whistled as he stepped near the ledge and peered down. Either it was very dark or it was incredibly deep, because he could not see the bottom.
“That's some drop.” He looked back up and gazed across the room, where he could just barely make out the door on the other end. “And it doesn't look like there's any way to cross.”
“There's always a way,” Harry said as he stepped forward, eyes surveying the room. “Whoever is after the stone obviously crossed this pit, so we must do the same.”
“But how?” asked Daphne. a small frown marring her face and her nose scrunching as she no doubt tried thinking of a way to cross.
“What about that lever?” Susan suggested, pointing over to a small lever that she managed to spot with her keen eyes.
“But that's all the way on the other side of the pit,” Terry argued. “How are we supposed to get close enough to flip it?”
“By being creative,” Harry said as he pulled out a small rock from within his robes. While his friends looked at him strangely, wandering how he planed on lowing the lever with a rock, Harry waved his wand over it.
The rock began shift. Flowing like water it expanded and moved and twisted as it began to grow and morph, changing from a simple rock into something else. Clawed talons appeared on a set of thin legs that shot out from a small body. A large pair of wings sprouted from either side, and a sharp beak formed itself around a streamlined head. When the transfiguration finished, the rock was no longer a rock, but a bird. A hawk, to be precise.
Its orders already implanted within its mind, the hawk flew over the chasm and toward the lever. All the while Harry's friends gawked at him.
“Wow,” Terry mumbled. “You really are good at Transfiguration.”
“It's my strongest magic right now,” Harry admitted with a shrug. “Though, to be honest, that wasn't a very complex Transformation. Susan could have done it easily.”
Susan flushed at the compliment.
“I don't think I could have done as good a job as you did,” she said quietly.
“Sue,” Harry admonished with a slight look of reproach, “never sell yourself short. Confidence is the key to all magic. If you don't think you can pull it off, then no matter how hard you try or how perfect your wand movements are, you won't be able to pull it off.”
The slight flush of Susan's cheeks remained, but she nodded nonetheless.
A few seconds later the hawk reached the other side and sat down on the lever.
There was a moment where nothing happened, then the lever began moving down with a slight creak of rusted gears, as if it had not been oiled in some time.
A rumbling filled the room. Harry and his friends looked around to see where the rumbling came from, and soon found the source above them. A sliver of the ceiling, which had been invisible due to how high up it was, descended. It lowered until it was level with the floor, then stopped, creating a bridge that spanned the entire chasm.
“Would you look at that,” Blaise muttered to himself while the others just stared. The only one not staring was Harry, who was already moving across the bridge.
“Come on,” he said, not waiting for the others as he walked forward. “We need to continue moving.”
The four friends looked at each other, before walking forward at a quickened pace so they could catch up with Harry.
“Is it just me, or is Harry in a hurry?” asked Terry.
Daphne rolled her eyes and responded with so much sarcasm it couldn't really be called sarcasm. “It's just you. I mean, it's not like we're following some mad wizard who's intent on getting his hands on one of the most powerful magical artifacts ever created. Really, I can't see why you could possibly think Harry might be in a hurry.”
Terry and Susan both flinched. Blaise, on the other hand, managed to sum up their thoughts rather nicely.
“Ouch.”
XoX
“Well,” Harry began slowly as he surveyed the scene before them. “At least their already dead so we don't have to deal with them.”
After getting out of the chasm, the group continued making their way past the many defenses protectung the stone. It hadn't taken much time, maybe five more minutes. It seemed they had already run the gauntlet for most of the protections, and the only ones left had been in the next room after moving through another corridor.
Trolls. Two large mountain trolls several heads taller than the one Harry killed during Halloween. They were most likely a last line of defense, as trolls were very hard to handle and weren't smart enough to perform simple tasks like guarding a door.
They were also very dead. One of them looked like its eyes had been gouged out by a piercing curse that penetrated its skull. The other was headless, its head laying 25-feet away from its body.
Both were laying underneath large puddles of crimson blood.
Harry looked over at his friends, all of whom were green in the face. Blaise and Daphne looked especially bad. Susan and Terry seemed to be coping better, likely because they already had experienced a situation even worse than this one.
Not much can beat watching a head explode in the gore department.
“This is... this is disgusting,” Daphne said, looking like she wanted to do nothing more than throw up all over the floor.
“It is,” Terry agreed, “But this is nothing compared to that troll we ran into on Halloween. Harry made its head explode.”
While Blaise and Daphne snapped their heads towards him so fast Harry feared they might get whiplash, the raven-haired youth merely sighed.
“Can we please not bring that up?” asked Harry, moving his gaze away from the troll to the large doorway that led to the next room. The doorway they couldn't get to because of the white flames blazing away between them and it. Nothing else was in the room: just the flames, the doorway, the dead trolls, and them.
“So, how are we supposed to get past that?” asked Blaise, looking at the fire as well.
“You don't,” Harry spoke up as he pointed his wand at himself. His skin began to heat up as it was covered in a thick layer of magic, a sign that the Flame Freezing Charm had taken effect. “I do.”
“You're not really planning on going alone, are you?” Daphne frowned at him.
“That is exactly what I am planning,” Harry informed her. “I am pretty sure this is the last set of defenses and that the stone is on the other side.”
“All the more reason for us to go with you,” Daphne said.
“All the more reason for you to stay here,” Harry countered. “Whoever is after the stone is obviously on the other side of this fire. And whoever they are, they're obviously talented. None of you have the skills necessary to fight a fully grown wizard.”
“And you do?” Daphne raised an eyebrow at him skeptically.
“No,” Harry told her, making his friends gaze at him like he'd just admitted the zombie apocalypse was coming. With a roll of his eyes, he said, “don't look so surprised. I'm not arrogant enough to believe I could possibly beat a fully-grown, fully-trained wizard in a fight. However, out of all of us here, I am the only one who has any experience in combat. At the very least, I am confident that I can hold him off until the teachers get here, which should only take about ten, maybe fifteen more minutes.”
For a moment there was only silence as two Slytherins, one Hufflepuff, and a Ravenclaw digested Harry's words. It would be Susan who spoke up.
“We would just be a burden to you, wouldn't we?” she asked with a sad smile. “None of us have really helped you the entire time we've been down here, have we? We've only been making it harder for you.”
Terry's face fell, and even Blaise and Daphne looked disappointed by Susan's words.
Harry sighed.
“That's not quite true,” he corrected her. “Do not forget the third set defenses we came across to get here. I would not have been able to get past those animated knights without you. Without Terry working on the door, and you, Blaise and Daphne helping me fend them off, I would not have made it far enough for the other protections to even matter.”
Susan smiled, but it soon left and a worried look crossed her face.
“Are you really going on alone?”
“Yes,” Harry said. “As cruel as it sounds, none of you will be able help me. If I am to have any hope of surviving long enough for the teachers to arrive, I will need to be able to fight without holding back. And if I am protecting you guys, I won't be able to do that.”
It was a cold, hard truth, and all of them knew it. The only ones with any formal training in dueling were Blaise and Daphne because it was tradition. Susan also had some basic defense training, but it was unlikely to be anything more than basic tactics. None of them had the skill to stand up against a fully-trained wizard, much less one as skilled as whoever could get passed all of these defenses on their own.
Harry looked at his friends, wondering if he should say something to ease their minds. However, the more he tried to think of something to say, the harder it became to think. In the end, he realized there really wasn't anything he could say. Not in a situation like this.
“Wait here until the teachers come,” he told them. “It should be safe enough.”
He made to leave, turning around so he could walk through the flames, when a hand grabbed the sleeve of his robes.
Turning, he found himself staring into the blue eyes of Daphne Greengrass.
Like always, the young girl's face was mostly expressionless. However, while her face may have been blank, her eyes told another story entirely.
Harry could not begin to guess at what the pretty blond was thinking. Her eyes held so many emotions in them it was impossible to read her with any degree of accuracy. He wondered how the eyes of someone who acted so emotionless could be so expressive.
“Daphne?”
“Be safe,” she said softly, letting go of his hand and taking a step back. Harry looked at her for a moment before nodding and turning toward the flames. He didn't say anything, knowing that he could not promise that he would be safe. Not when he would be facing off against someone whose ability in far surpassed his own talents.
As he walked through the flames and towards the entrance that would lead him to the Philosopher's Stone, Harry checked his internal clock to see how much time had passed.
Seven minutes left.