Delphi knew that she was dreaming, for only a dream could have been so strange.
It was the Halloween feast at Hogwarts, jack-o'-lanterns leering at her in mid-air, and Dumbledore's place at the high table had been stolen by a mountain troll. Live bats fluttered above the sea of students, snatching pointed black hats from first years' heads and docking points from every house but Slytherin. Delphi wore her green-and-silver scarf tied in a noose around her neck, and an unfamiliar wand sat in the empty space between Harry and herself. Delphi's fingers twitched with the urge to take it, but she feared the price would be too high.
Instead, Delphi looked to the open doorway; a tattered black curtain fluttered in the empty space, and Delphi shivered at the sound of whispers from those still trapped on the other side.
A dog barked, beckoning, and Delphi turned to face it. It trotted past her down the aisle, black and grim, skeletal and starved. She rose from the Gryffindor table and turned to follow... but the dog was already gone. "Save yourself," she whispered, and now she walked her path alone.
She stopped before the archway, the curtain gently swaying without a hint of wind. A man stood on the other side of it, desperate to break through, but he couldn't step into the Great Hall, not after what he had done.
Delphi pulled the curtain back carefully, and she stepped through the empty archway as easily as she breathed.
Quirrell was blind as he stared at her, his skin raw and angry red. One socket sat empty, a gaping abyss ready to clamp down on her mouth and swallow her very soul. But the other truly frightened her, its eye swapped out for a bulging red stone; crimson blood and liquid gold seeped out from behind it, staining Quirrell's blistered face.
Harry had burned him alive, she remembered, with nothing more than a touch.
Quirrell's mouth fell open, but instead of words, out came Boros, slithering from within the depths of that black cavern, his tiny eyes little mirrors through which Delphi could see the cracks upon her soul.
As the snake hung grotesquely from his lips, Quirrell's hands shot forward to seize her, and something inside of her began to burn. He hung the necklace around her neck—pressed the goblet to her lips—set the crown upon her head—tried to snatch away the stone. And everywhere Quirrell touched her, Delphi's skin grew hard and lifeless, and she watched as spreading metal overcame her until finally her entire body had turned to gold.
Boros fell from Quirrell's mouth then, his scales glittering with a mother-of-pearl sheen—and it wasn't Boros after all.
The serpent's laugh was high and vicious, and Delphi felt his greed sink in all the way down to her bones.