Through the trapdoor and into the fire
Chapter 25: Through the trapdoor and into the fire
“LET ME GO!!” George screams struggling against Harry, who has his very angry very scared friend in a tight grip. “They got FRED! We have to do SOMETHING!”
“Weasley!” Blaise says sharply, his tone firm. “We know. We will do something, but first you have to calm down.”
“We need to find Luna and Hermione before we go after him. We said we would do things like this together remember? Or has your fear addled your memory?” Harry says in a raised voice, still holding George tightly arms wrapped around his middle in a bear hug of sorts, to prevent him from sprinting out the dorm after his brother in blind foolish rage.
“But he TOOK him! You said Selena says he’s been compulsed, just like Dumbledore did to you with the mirror!” George protests. “Freddie’s gone.” The last bit comes out in more of a pained whine then a shout his voice cracking and breaking with emotion.
“He is.” Harry nods his head in agreement, shoving the guilt down deep into the back of his mind. There is only one logical reason for why Fred has been taken in the middle of the night. They all knew that dumbledore wanted Harry down the trapdoor for some insane reason, and Harry had no plans on willingly going down into whatever horrors dumbledore has set up. Clearly the headmaster realized that and has seen fit to use one Harry’s best friends as bait, leaving harry no other option other than to go down the trapdoor and into inevitable doom. With Harry’s luck he’s ninety percent sure this will be the night professor Quirrell finds a way down there too. “Fred is gone. He was compulsed. He is alone.”
“I don’t think that’s going to help calm him down, Potter.” Blaise hisses, glaring at Harry in a way that suggest he would like him to drop down dead.
“But...” He begins, glaring back at Blaise over Georges shoulder. “We will rescue him. We’re going to be outmatched whatever we do if Quirrell and Voldemort have gone down the trap door tonight, but the more of us the better, so were going to get Luna and Hermione. Then we are going to go down there as cautiously as possible with our wands out at all times, find Fred and get the fuck out of there as soon as we do. Then we are going to go immediately to professor snape and try to prove that Quirrell is possessed by Voldemort and hopefully, Snape will believe us and then he can get Quirrell killed or thrown in Azkaban. We don’t have time to convince Snape now because we can risk Fred being alone down there any more than we already have, if Snape doesn’t believe us, he might prevent us from going to save Fred at all.”
George has stopped struggling and Blaise looks a combination of wary and determined rather than angry.
“Do both of you agree?” He asks.
Blaise nods And George mutters, “Yes.”
“Can I let you go now George? Or are you going to sprint off alone.”
“I won’t, I'll stay with you guys, I promise.” He says firmly, Harry believes him so he releases the other slightly taller boy and steps back to put his shoes on and grab his wand.
George scrambles to put his shoes on so does Blaise, the energy in the room is tense with anticipation and fear. There magic is stronger than usual ready to protect and fight.
They hurry out of the dorm sticking close together, without the invisibility cloak because for it to be useful they would have to walk slowly and they simply do not have the time, Selena is wrapped around his neck hissing worriedly, Freya Solace and Lila are back at the dorm safe but Selena refused to stay behind.
They file out of the common room as quickly as possible before coming to an abrupt stop as they almost crash into Hermione and Luna. “Luna? Hermione?” George says in surprise careful to keep his voice hushed.
“We were coming to find you, Fred's been taken.” Blaise, whispers urgently.
“What?” Hermione says, eyes wide. “Oh god. Oh No, oh no. Luna said we should come here, she said something bad had happened or was about to happen.”
“We were on the way to come and get you.” Harry says, looking between his friends trying not to let his voice show how insanely scared he is. “I was going to call you on the locket.”
“Oh, I hoped I was wrong.” Luna puts her head in her hands leaning back against the wall. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She murmurs sounding distraught.
Harry moves over to hug her. “It's not your fault, Luna. It’s not your fault. Its Dumbledore and Quirrell and Voldemort. We’ll save Fred.” He says firmly.
She nods into his shoulder and he pulls away and takes her hand instead. “We need to hurry up.” George says gruffly. “Freds alone down there.”
“Please tell me someone has a plan.” Hermione says desperately. “And tell me everything you know so far.”
George nods. “We have a plan, well... a rough idea.”
“We’ll explain on the way.” Blaise adds.
They begin their journey to the third-floor corridor, explaining in hushed voices to Luna and Hermione. Once they know everything, they all speed up running as fast as they can.
They stumble to a stop outside the door taking a moment to catch their breaths.
“How are we going to get past the Cerberus?” Harry asks.
“Music, remember? I’ve got a tin whistle in my pocket I can play it until we’ve gone down through the trap door.” George says, and starts to push open the door. “Ready, everyone?”
“Not at all.” Harry mutters. He hears similar remarks from the others but no one stops George from opening the door.
The Cerberus is as Harry remembers, huge slobbery and utterly terrifying. It leaps up from the floor and begins growling and lumbering towards them as the door slams shut behind the group of twelve-and-eleven-year-olds.
“I should kill it with my venom.” Selena hisses angrily at the Cerberus.
“I don’t think that would work, Selena. It's too big for your venom to be effective.” He hisses back without taking his eyes of the approaching three headed dog.
“Nothing can survive my venom.” She says affronted.
“Yeah, okay. But just leave it to us okay.” He tells her firmly.
George is quick to bring out the tin whistle from his pocket and begins playing an upbeat melody that does not at all fit the current mood or situation. The dog stops in place, swaying slightly side to side blinking down at them with its three pairs of eyes before bodily collapsing to the floor and beginning to snore. George keeps playing.
They make their way towards the trapdoor that will most likely be their collective doom. Harry and Hermione grab the large circular handle and pull it open its ridiculously heavy, but they manage. No one dares to speak in case it wakes the Cerberus. They all kind of just stare at each other, standing around the trapdoor none of them a quite believing that they are actually about to do this. Blunder into danger like bloody Gryffindors.
Luna is the first to go down she lets go of Harry’s hand and without warning or hesitation drops into the hole in the floor.
Harry’s heart almost jumps out of his chest as she falls. Blaise goes next lowering himself down and disappearing into the darkness without a sound.
Then Hermione, she looks between Harry and George and smiles shakily before carefully dropping down after them.
Harry goes next, saluting George and plummeting into the dark trying not to shout out.
As he falls, he can hear the music stop, and the trapdoor slam before hearing the sound of a muffled yelp as George tumbles in after them.
Harry lands on a soft surface, he hears an “oof!” and then a groan “Get off me.” Blaise’s voice.
He fell ten metres directly onto Blaise. “Sorry. I didn’t have much choice when I landed.” Harry grumbles, rolling of his friend and onto what seems to be vines and leaves. He remembers the twins saying there was a plant down here.
Blaise scoffs. “Not on me would have been nice.”
“Is everyone okay?” Hermione’s voice calls out. He can’t really see anyone else only hear their voices, it’s very dark.
“Yeah.” He calls back.
“Fine.” George mutters sounding out of breath.
“Oh yes, quite alright.” Luna says in her usual airy way.
“I’ve been better.” Blaise’s voice mutters grumpily.
“One sec I’ll give us some light.” He pulls on his magic then waves a hand, two balls of light float into the air, illuminating grey stone walls, a pile of vines that Harry now notices are wriggling slightly, his friends, and absolutely no doors or obvious ways out. “Ah.”
“Oh no.” Hermione gasps clapping a hand to her mouth. “Harry, are you seeing what I’m seeing.” She says staring at the vines.
Harry takes a moment to look at the plants more closely. “Oh no.” He echoes Hermione’s earlier sentiment.
“Devils snare.” She groans shaking her head. “Rowena’s ravens this is bad.”
“Excuse me, did you just say devils snare. The plant that strangles anything it comes into contact with.” Blaise says in an eerily somewhat terrifyingly calm voice.
“Yes. That would be the one.” Harry nods, letting out a hysterical bubble of laughter.
“Why hasn’t it tried to strangle us yet?” George asks warily, looking at the twitching vines.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s injured after having Fred and maybe Quirrell pass through here? Maybe it’s… tired?” Hermione suggests hopefully.
“Or maybe it’s because we haven’t tried to escape yet.” Harry says rubbing his hand down his face, heart racing in his chest.
“I think it’s actually not very tired.” Luna declares suddenly, Harry looks over at her. “It’s trying to kill me.” She says and does not sound as worried about it as she should. The vines have crept over her legs and chest and are slowly moving towards her throat.
“Luna! Oh god what the hell do we do?!” Harry shouts and tries to scramble over to her but the vines shoot up and begin to bind him in place as well. He hears other yelps and shouts of horror from the others as the plant comes alive, and actively begins trying to kill them.
“Star! Star! I don’t like this, help me speaker!” Comes his familiar’s panicked hiss, but he can’t do much about it considering he’s being slowly strangled by the vines.
“I know, I know.” He wheezes.
“Devils snare. Devils snare. Devils snare. What kills it?!” Hermione shouts, hands fisted in her hair, looking seconds away from pulling handfuls out in her panic.
“Err...” He racks his brain trying to find anything he’s read in potions books about the stupid plant. “It thrives in the dark but fears the...” He’s is cut off by the vines squeezing tighter.
“-Sun!” Hermione exclaims. “Yes! Close your eyes everyone.” She orders.
Harry does what she says and hears her cast. “Lumos Solem!” Even with his eye closed he can see the blinding flash of light that fills the space.
The vines rapidly recoil and he feels himself fall through the air before landing painfully on solid ground. He scrambles to his feet, rubbing at his throat, and takes in the surroundings. A small chamber room, dimly lit with candles on the wall, one door on the wall leading away from the plant. “Selena, are you okay?” He pulls the snake from his shoulders.
“Yes. I am alive. I do not like the plant.”
He lets out a shaky exhale of relief. He needs to find a way to get Selena to stay behind, he can’t get through whatever comes next if he’s worried about her the whole time and she’s still only small, and it would be terrifyingly easy for her to get squashed or hurt. “Hey Selena do you think you can stay here? Guard the exit and bite any enemies or predators you see? Until we come back.”
She stays quiet for a moment, seeming to be deep in thought. “But I would not be with my speaker? How will I protect you?”
He strokes her head and sets her down on the floor. “You will still protect me, just... from afar. We need someone to guard the exit and you have powerful venom you can defend it.”
She rises up on her tail, looking at him. “I will do it.” She declares proudly. “I will protect the escape route.”
He feels his fear lessen slightly. “Thank you, my serpent. Stick to the shadows hide and wait to strike, be sure it is an enemy before you use your venom.”
She inclines her scaly head, regally. “Be safe, speaker. Come back to me or I will bite you.” She slithers of into a dark corner, leaving him smiling fondly.
The others are getting to their feet too. “How the hell are we going to get out of here when we find Fred?” George groans rubbing his back gingerly.
“I thought we were going to die.” Luna states as she takes a piece of vine out from her hair.
Harry stares critically at the plant which is rapidly weaving itself together once more.
“Harry, can you levitate people?” Hermione asks.
“Yes, he can.” Blaise replies before Harry can, rolling his eyes slightly. “I have been a victim of it.”
Harry snorts shaking his head. “Yes, I can no problem. What are you thinking?”
“Me and you stay down here, I use Lumos Solem whilst you levitate the others up one by one and then they can throw us a rope or something.” She says looking up, her hands on her hips face set in determination.
“Good idea. That should work.” Harry nods.
“Escape route check.” George says. “That’s not going to be very practical if we are being chased though.”
“We can barricade the door.” Luna suggests.
“Or hide somewhere and set Quirrell on fire, or Dumbledore if we happen to encounter him.” Blaise adds thoughtfully.
“We have options.” Harry says with a smirk. “I could always blast magic out of my hands and hope it does something.” He says with a shrug. “Although I don’t know what that would do to me, I’d probably get severely magically depleted.”
“Sounds brilliant.” Blaise deadpans.
“Let's avoid that if we can.” Hermione adds.
“Come on, we should go now.” Luna says walking to the door, and pushing it open, it creaks eerily.
“Into the unknown we go.” George mutters with false cheer, and follows her through.
Harry follows right after him, they walk down a dark cold corridor for a while, making sure to stick close together and keep their wands out, before it opens up into a square room with a high ceiling, a flock of birds are flitting around overhead, and there’s a pile of brooms in the middle of the room. A large wooden door is directly opposite to where they are standing, Harry assumes that's the way forward.
“How long do you think we have before the birds try to kill us?” George asks lightly.
Hermione braves a step out from the mouth of the corridor they had gathered in, stepping into the square room. “I think it will be the moment we try to open that door.” She says decisively, nodding at the other side of the room.
“I feel like they’ll try and peck our eyes out.” Harry says with a sigh. “I really like my eyes.”
“Those are not birds.” Luna hums staring up at the flitting figures. “They are keys.”
Harry looks at the birds more closely and realises Luna is right. They are in fact a flock of varied winged keys. “Huh, that's... weird.”
“You know what this means.” Blaise smirks. “Someone has to fly up into the most likely murderous flock of keys, to find one that fits the door.”
“Harry.” Hermione says looking like she wishes she didn’t have the words to speak. “I’m afraid that's got to be you.”
“I hate to put you up as a sacrifice Harry but Hermione has a point, you're the best flier out of all of us. When we had our first flying lesson Madam Hooch was saying that you have the most natural skill she’s seen in years. Remember how shocked she was when you told her you’d never been on a broom before?” George says regretfully. “But if you don’t want to I can. I'm not too bad a flier either.”
Harry sighs knowing they’re both right, he is the most logical and practical choice for this task. So, he steels himself and says, “Human sacrifice Harry potter at your service.” He bows formally, and smirks. “Multiple sources say I'm quite good at the job.”
Blaise snorts with laughter, while Hermione frowns. “Don’t die potter.” Blaise says crossing his arms.
“I don’t think he will.” Luna says. “I have a feeling.”
Emboldened by Luna’s feeling that he probably won’t die he moves over to the brooms. “All of you stand near the door and get ready to open that door as soon as I throw you the key.” He picks one of the scraggly old brooms up, getting ready to mount it.
“I reckon it will be an old brass key.” George says from where he’s examining the key hole, then he tugs at the handle in an attempt to open it, then points his wand at the lock and mutters Alohomora, but the door stays stubbornly shut. “Definitely locked.”
“After we get out of here, we should study more advanced spells, maybe even figure out how to dismantle wards, it's going to be a useful skill if the headmaster will be forcing us into these situations frequently.” Hermione says pacing near the door glancing at Harry every few seconds.
“How are we supposed to learn how to dismantle wards? Most grown Wixen can’t even do that, we are not even teenagers yet.” Blaise says raising a dark eyebrow.
“We’re the best in our year.” Hermione says firmly. “We’d figure it out.”
“My brothers a curse breaker. I bet I could get him to give me some tips.” George shrugs.
“My mother was quite smart you know, I'm sure I could find something in one of her spell books.” Luna adds before reaching out to squeeze Harry’s hand and then to wait with the others near the door.
“That's a good idea. We can look into it.” He grips the broom handle tighter and then throws his leg over the broom and shoots up towards the ceiling, deciding its best to get it over with, no more stalling.
The second he’s in the air the keys go mad, they dive towards him, with very clear murderous intent. He is forced to turn so he doesn’t get impaled by a hundred projectiles. He looks back at the flock over his shoulder scanning it for a key that looks like it will fit the lock. He catches sight of one that’s flying slower than the rest, one of its wings broken, Quirrell must have been here first or maybe Fred managed to catch it under the compulsion.
He does a dive of sorts, plummeting down to the ground with the keys on his tail, he can’t hear anything over the woosh of air and the flap of wings, he shoots up just before he would have smacked into the ground, the keys are not so lucky, they hit the ground with a clatter, most of them now impaled int the stone floor, the ones that manged to avoid the floor continue to chase him, maybe twenty or so.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy. He changes direction again and swoops in to close his fist around the key they need. Making sure to break its wings, before lobbing it as hard as he can at his friends.
However, the remaining keys are still chasing him, so he flies around the room in wild patterns trying to escape them and at the same time keep them distracted from his friends opening the door. “Harry COME ON! Its OPEN!” George shouts, and Harry does not need to be told twice. He shoots towards the open door, hearing it slam shut behind him as he does.
He flops off the broom and down to the floor. “Flipping hell.” He groans.
“Are you okay, Harry?” Hermione asks worriedly.
“Did any of them get you?” Blaise says sounding just as worried.
“No, it's fine. I’m fine. Just need to catch my breath.” He says panting slightly and closing his eyes, the adrenaline ebbing away.
He feels a hand take his, he opens his eyes, Luna is sitting Next to him. “Well done, Harry. That was quite magnificent.” She blinks down at him and squeezes his hand tighter. “Now come on, Fred is running out of time.”
That gets Harry to stand up. Fred oh Jesus, he hopes they won’t be too late. “I wonder what horror awaits us in the next room.” He says blandly.
“I don’t know, wands at the ready everyone.” Hermione says frowning down the short corridor at the next door.
He prepares himself ready to fight, if need be, as they collectively make their way towards the door. Blaise falls into step right next to him. “You sure you're, okay?” He asks quietly.
Harry nods and bumps his shoulder against Blaise’s. “Yeah. Don't worry, I'll be more okay when we get out of here though.”
“Yeah.” Blaise agrees, before going quiet again.
The next room is strange, it does not look like it's going to kill them. A huge chess board is in the middle, spanning from wall to wall, upon it lay an entire set of cracked and broken chess pieces.
“Bloody hell, Quirrell's done a number on these.” George says walking to the edge of the board. “I wonder if he had to play his way across.”
“Looks like he didn’t bother to try.” Hermione muses, surveying the board. “I think he just decided to smash all the pieces instead.”
“Do we think it's safe to cross?” Harry asks no one in particular.
“Considering the last rooms, I would say no.” Blaise replies drily.
“Well, we’ll just have to try and see.” Luna says simply in her musical voice, before stepping onto the board before anyone can stop her. They all seem to hold their breath, waiting for something horrible to happen... but nothing does. The room stays silent and still, the chess pieces don’t reform. “I think it's safe.” She says decisively, smiling back at them.
“Thank Merlin for that!” George exclaims, looking equal parts relived and exasperated.
“What if it hadn’t been safe?! What if had tried to kill you.” Hermione says scowling at Luna.
“It's not my day today.” She says calmly, still smiling. “Lady death will not come for me yet.”
Harry feels a chill run down his spine at the words ‘Lady death’ he does not understand why. “We should keep moving.” He moves onto the board and grabs Luna’s hand. “Come on.”
And before they know it, they have left the chess room behind and ready as they’ll ever be to step into the next room. The door creaks as he pushes it open, immediately they are hit with a disgusting smell of rotten food and just generally the smell of something that died and was left to decompose in this room for a thousand years. “Ughh, what is that smell?”
“I am going to be sick.” Blaise says and he does indeed look moments away from throwing up.
“If I had to guess I'd say it’s the trolls.” George points at the strange mountains in the middle of the room, looking panicked. “Are they dead?”
“What-” Hermione begins, but is swiftly cut off by a loud roar, as one of the trolls (Very much not dead) rises in the middle of the room, blocking the door ahead of them.
“Oh no.” He hears Luna whisper next to him. “Thats not good.”
“Out. Everyone out!” Hermione shouts turning back to the door they came through. But to all of their absolute horror, she finds the door has shut and locked of its own accord. Sealing them in with one potentially dead troll and one very much alive troll, at least ten metres tall. Hermione tries alohomora, but the door stays stubbornly shut.
They share a look of ‘we are so dead’ before pointlessly attempting to evade their own demise.
“Let's try and aim for the eyes. I read that's a trolls weakest spot!” George tells them in a rush, wide eyes fixed on the approaching troll.
“Does anyone have anything sharp? Or some sort of spell that shoot arrows or, or fire?!” Blaise says backing up against the closed door, face shrouded with fear.
“No? Why would any of us know that?!” Hermione exclaims gesturing wildly.
“I can do flames on a small scale, but I don't think it would be very effective.” He doesn’t actually see a way out of this one, oh merlin they’re going to die being beaten to death by trolls. Harry always thought Vernon would be the one to do that. Oh Christ. He does not want to die like this. He doesn’t want his friends to die like this either. At least he won’t have to die alone, that's... something. Comforting?
“Spear!” Luna exclaims. “Look, in the others trolls face!”
Harry does look, and sees she’s right, a long spear is impaled through the other troll's eye, it's a gruesome sight but Harry could not be happier to see it. “Yes! Ahhg… dam it, how in the name of Salazar Slytherin are we supposed to get it and stab a fully grown troll without any of us getting squashed?”
“Distractions! Harry use your floating light orbs, near its eyes. Err…” Hermione’s gaze darts around the group. “Me you and Blaise can distract it; Luna and George go get the spear and figure out how to stab it.”
“Why us? I don’t want to be bait!” Blaise says his voice oddly squeaky.
“We don’t really have time to fight about it, Blaise! In case you haven’t noticed the Merlin cursed troll that’s about to step on us!” George gestures to the troll whose foot is quite literally about to squash them.
“Everybody SCATTER!” Harry yells, ducking to the side, pulling Blaise with him as he’s the only one within easy grabbing distance. Thankfully the other manage to dodge out of the way in time. “Come on!” He says over his shoulder running in the opposite direction to where George and Luna are headed, deciding to keep a hold of Blaise’s wrist, he can see Hermione sprinting after them out of the corner of his eye.
He comes to an abrupt halt far away from the dead troll, realising abruptly that the troll has begun to go after Luna and George. “Oh shit! HEY TROLL! Over HERE, nice TASTY TRIO!” He yells at the top of his lungs; Blaise punches his shoulder.
“And now what?!” He hisses glaring at Harry. “The troll is going to kill us.” Blaise lets out a hysterical laugh. “Merlin this is not how I thought I was going to die!”
“We are not going to die.” Hermione says firmly, and with such confidence that Harry almost believes her. “Harry lights!” She says, shaking him slightly by the shoulder.
Harry realises he’s still holding Blaise’s wrist, so he reluctantly let's go and raises his hands, reaching for his magic. It barely takes a second, his magic raring for a fight, eager to help and defend. About a dozen orbs of light float towards the oncoming troll, dancing around its eyes, causing it to stop in place and try to bat the lights away.
“It’s actually working!” Hermione exclaims in disbelief.
The troll begins to stumble around trying to get the lights away. Which is less than helpful due to the fact that a blindly stumbling troll is somehow worse than a focused lumbering troll. “AHHh!” He dives to one side taking Blaise and Hermione with him, the trio slam into the stone floor. Very narrowly missing being stomped on.
“Jesus Christ! I did not sign up for this! This is a school for children! It’s supposed to be safe! If I ever get my hands on Dumbledore, he’ll be sorry!” Hermione practically growls, recovering quickly from being knocked to the ground and leaping to her feet. Her hair has slipped out of its scarf and looks frazzled and wild dust and dirt is smeared across her cheeks and purple pyjamas, and he can see cuts and scrapes all over her. Him and Blaise are in very much the same state. Her eyes are completely alight with rage and Harry is glad; rage is good for fighting, it drowns the fear, gives a person drive.
Blaise on the other hand is looking like he’s lost hope for survival and has decided to lay down and die. And Harry will not have it. He glances at the troll, its stopped stumbling and is recovering its bearings, Harry accidentally let the lights go, but they still have a few seconds before it becomes problematic again. “Blaise get up!” He shouts with more force than he meant to. “We’re not dying. And even if we are we’re not going down without a fight! Get up!”
The other boy looks at Harry completely shocked, which is unsurprising really, Harry never raises his voice at them, never. And he has definitely never showed any of them anger. He does his best to be nothing like Vernon, but he sees no other way to get Blaise moving.
He reaches down and drags Blaise up. “Stop moping.” Then he lowers his voice so Hermione doesn’t overhear. “You have survived your mother and she’s worse than an angry troll.”
Blaise stays frozen for a moment. And then (thankfully) his posture stiffens and he gets a renewed look of anger in his eyes, glaring at the troll with venom. “Patetica scusa per un MOSTRO, vieni a prenderci! MIA MADRE È PIÙ SPAVENTOSA DI TE!” He yells at the troll who has begun to go after Luna and George who have managed to retrieve the spear, but are too busy escaping the troll to actually try and use it. Harry has no idea what Blaise said but it sounded very angry and it has definitely succeeded in getting the trolls attention.
“Game plan?!” Hermione asks, both her and Blaise now look angry enough to just try and tackle the troll head on.
Anger is a tool when harnessed correctly. Anger is a liability when it becomes rash and reckless.
“Dodge, evade.” Harry says firmly. “Hold its attention but do not anger it more than we need to. It only made it worse when I used my Lumos. Yes?”
“Fine.” Blaise says flatly.
“Okay.” Hermione agrees. “So, we split up?”
“We tag team it. Like those relay races in school. When it gets too close to one of us. Then a person at a safer distance gets louder to draw the attention away and keep them safe, and so on.”
“What’s a relay race.” Blaise asks with a frown.
“A muggle thing I’ll explain later. Are you both in?” He asks looking between them.
There responses are drowned out by another angry roar, but he sees them both nod. So, he takes that to be a yes. “Okay then GO!”
He tells them running past the troll waving his arms and shouting nonsense, deciding to volunteer as the first potential sacrifice. It works, the troll turns attention to him and gets way to close for comfort. But then he sees a splash of water spray onto the troll's head, causing it to spin round and go for whichever one of his friends used Aguamenti on it. Harry takes the brief moment of safety to pull the locket from around his neck opening it quickly.
Luna’s face appears. “You’ve got to hurry up.” He hisses, not wanting to draw the troll's attention yet. “We can’t keep this up for much longer.”
“We know. Just 30 more seconds, hold on.” She says quickly. He nods and shuts the locket returning to the task at hand.
So, for the next thirty seconds (definitely more than thirty seconds) Harry, Blaise, and Hermione play a deadly game of troll tag.
Suddenly he hears a shout of “Luna now!” and Luna and George dart out from wherever they were hiding each holding one end of a rope. They sprint towards the trolls' feet, and run around its legs until its feet are loosely tied together. Thankfully the troll was to stunned by the arrival of new people to do much about it, the great beast tries to take a step but only succeeds in toppling over. The second it hits the ground Luna grabs hold of the spear and runs towards it head, only just managing to dodge the trolls' flailing arms. She reaches its eye, raises her hands and brings the spear down with a truly astonishing amount of strength.
The troll goes limp. The troll is dead. Luna impaled a spear through its eye and into its slimy brain.
She slides down from its head. Stumbling to solid ground.
They recover quickly from shock and rush over to her. “Luna? Are you okay?” He says sliding to a stop next to her.
“I’m okay.” She smiles.
“Luna that was…” Hermione trails off, in awe.
“Amazing!” George says with a grin.
“That’s an understatement.” Blaise says in disbelief. “Oh, Merlin I thought we were all going to die!” Before dissolving into shaky laughter.
“I told you we wouldn’t.” Hermione nudges Blaise’s shoulder affectionately.
“You guys were so brave.” George says sincerely. “Sorry we left you alone for so long. We had to tie pieces of the dead troll's loin cloth together to make that rope. It took ages.”
“That’s was a very good idea, George.” Luna tells him, as Harry helps her to her feet.
George grins. “Thanks Luna.”
“You know, Luna, you’re a lot stronger than you look.” Hermione remarks impressed.
“I climb trees.” She says with a nonchalant shrug.
“As fun as this is. We should go and find out what awaits us in the next room. I hope to Merlin it’s Fred happy and alive and ready to get the hell out of this place.” Blaise says with a groan.
The smile falls from George’s face. “Yeah… guys?”
“Yeah George?” Harry replies.
“What if Freddie’s not okay. What if Quirrell and you-know-who got to him?” He asks his voice small, suddenly looking on the edge of tears.
“We’re not thinking about that.” Harry says firmly. “We’re finding Fred and getting out of here.” He squeezes George's shoulder. “Now come on let’s go find our friend.” He gestures towards the next door.
They all begin to head towards the exit but Luna walks over to the troll and pats its hand. “Sorry troll, I didn’t want to kill you. But you were trying to kill us, so sadly I don’t think I was in the wrong. I hope you have nice time in the shadowed lands.”
Harry waits for her to be done and then links arms with her. “Thanks for saving us.” He says as they wander through the door.
“You're my friends. Of course I saved you.” She replies simply.
~~~
“Potions, riddles, and fire.” Blaise looks at the table with seven potions bottles upon it, the purple fire that has blocked the door they came through and the black fire blocking the door onwards, with something akin to relief. “Could be worse.”
“It could be worse. But we also have no way out of this room.” Harry says shaking his head and walking over to the table, inspecting the varied bottles of potions.
Hermione is reading the riddle, that they found rolled up next to the bottles. Eyes darting over the parchment, brows drawn together. “Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind, two of us will help you, whichever 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 hidden in line. Choose, unless you wish to stay here for evermore, 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 wines left side; Second, different are those who stand on either end, but if you would move onwards, 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.” To his surprise Hermione smiles. “Logic. It’s just a logic. This easy I can do it.”
“How? My brain hurts just from listening to that riddle.” George complains.
“I like riddles. We have riddles on the Ravenclaw door instead of a password. Luna’s brilliant at Riddles too.” She says nodding to the blonde.
“Of course, Ravenclaws have riddles to get in to their common room.” Blaise mutters rolling his eyes, but it looks more fond than annoyed.
“So, we won’t be trapped here forever.” Harry says prodding at one of the potions.
“Definitely not.” Luna says airily and going to look over Hermione’s shoulder at the riddle.
“Just give us a minute and we’ll figure it out.” Hermione says confidently, before returning full focus to the parchment.
“This must be Snape’s.” Harry muses. “I reckon the key one was Flitwick- “
“The devils snare was probably sprout.” George adds. “And the chess set McGonagall?”
“Yeah, I reckon so.” Harry agrees.
“The Cerberus? … The gamekeeper or the care of magical creature's professor?” Blaise muses.
“The gamekeeper, I think.” George says frowning slightly. “And the trolls?”
“Quirrell. Remember the Halloween feast troll? We suspected that was Quirrell he must have some sort of easy access to trolls and a way to get them in the castle.” Harry shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Just our luck.”
“I still can’t believe we survive that.” Blaise mutters.
“Yeah…” George trails off into silence.
“Got it!” Hermione says triumphantly. “The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire, onwards-”
Harry feels cold realisation drip down his spine, there is only one swallow of potion in the bottle. He picks it up and hold it tight in his fist.
“- and the rounded one at the end of the line will get us back through the way we came.” She says pointing to the bottle.
Blaise is staring at Harry. “There’s only enough potion for one of us to go forward.”
The room is silent.
“It should be me, it’s my brother.” George says extending a hand towards Harry reaching for the bottle. But Harry shakes his head.
“Dumbledore set this up for me… or at least we think so. Fred is only down here because he’s friends with me.” He says carefully, backing away from them. He promised they would do dangerous things together but if it comes down to him sending one of his friends onwards, alone? Or him going through by himself. He will choose himself every time. “I reckon there’s about four doses in that bottle. You four go back, get Snape. If he doesn’t believe us about Quirrell or anything that’s fine… just say I was stupid, and came down here alone and you’re worried I’m in trouble.”
“No Harry. Don’t… just don’t. We can find another way.” Blaise says glaring at Harry, reaching out towards him like he’s planning to pull Harry back.
He uncorks the bottle and gets ready to swallow it back. “Use the brooms from the key room to get back out, make sure you get Selena from under the devils snare.”
Luna smiles sadly. “I don’t want you to go alone. But I think… I think it’s your path. I can’t stop you.”
Harry nods, lips pressed tightly together to stop himself from trembling.
“Just think about it Harry. Wait a minute and think.” Hermione urges. Looking at him with anxious eyes. “Don’t be a Gryffindor.”
“I’m the most magically powerful. I’m the only one who has ever survived Voldemort, if Quirrell really is down here I have the best chance. And I don’t have a family or anything outside of Hogwarts to miss me if I don’t survive.” He smiles. “I’m not being a Gryffindor; I’m the most logical choice. And I’m not letting any of you go through there alone.”
“We’re your family.” Blaise whispers.
Oh. That hurts and heals all at once. Family, it’s always been an unthinkable concept for Harry. But it only furthers his resolve, this is what families do for each other right? They put themselves in danger, that’s what they were doing together for Fred and now that’s what Harry will do for them. Real families die for each other. Harry tips his head back and swallows the potion with a shudder.
“Yeah.” Harry says paying no attention to the few tears that fall. “Well… I protect my family.”
“Harry.” George’s shakes his head. “Don’t.”
“I’m sorry.” Harry takes a final step back towards the black fire. “I’ll find Fred.” And with that he let himself pass through the flames and into the next room.