A.N.: This new chapter should whet your appetites in preparation for Hadrian's second semester. As always, I do not own Harry Potter or the world Mrs. Rowling allows us fans to twist for our own amusement: if I did own it, I would have continued the series to include travel to other dimensions and quests of a generally epic nature. Read and review! All I want is your opinion, and people usually give those out like candy on Halloween!
Chapter 3: Blood (Purity) Splattered Everywhere
—November 20, 1991—
Hadrian Potter was quite content with Hogwarts so far: he had made a few friends, his classes were going well, and the Slytherins were surprisingly accepting of his new friendship with Hermione (once he had explained it to them the same way he had to Draco). He had discovered that magic based on either intent or mathematical formula—such as Transfiguration, Potions, and Arithmancy—came easily to him, and everything else came with only slightly more effort. The professors were all pleasant, for the most part, or at least tolerable, and the food was always of a superior quality to anything he had consumed in muggle elementary. Unfortunately, experience had taught him that when life is going marvelously, fate takes the opportunity to kick you between the legs just as your guard drops, so he stayed vigilant.
Hermione was a great friend: she was someone he could bounce ideas off, whether muggle or magical, and always had something on her mind. Draco helped keep him grounded, either with the occasional joke, or by forcing him out of the library for a game of Exploding Snap—Harry always won, despite Draco having played for years—or any number of muggle card games that Draco had discovered and insisted on learning. Sometime around the end of the second week of November, winter had arrived and the students had awoken to find the entire grounds blanketed in untouched snow. Several snowball fights had taken placed, mostly among the Gryffs, and it was rare for anyone to go outside unless they had to.
It had been just yesterday that Slytherin had thrashed Hufflepuff 310 to 20 in their second Quidditch match of the year. Draco had tried to get Harry involved in the Wizarding sport, saying that he probably would do well (his father was a legend at Hogwarts for his flying skills both on and off the pitch), but Harry had noticed the alarming number of injuries that came along with the position: he personally had a seeker build, according to Draco, and they seemed to be both the most important player to the outcome (seeing as the snitch was 150 points) and the ones most often hurt during play. What's more, he had plans to make many friends and allies from the other houses, and didn't want to jeopardize such plans by being part of anything as competitive as Quidditch.
Right now, Harry was in Charms class with the Ravenclaws; they were learning basic cleaning charms today, and would be moving on to basic locomotion spells after the winter holidays had passed. As their last class of the day finished, Harry moved away from the crowd and, after casting a quick warming charm, set out onto the grounds to meet with Hagrid. Hermione had befriended the half-giant while reading near the lake one day, and had dragged Harry along with her on a visit one day. As it turned out, the Groundskeeper was amusing to talk to and always had a story about some creature he'd taken care of in the forest. He also had many stories about Harry's parents (apparently, his dad and his dad's friends had made a habit of invading the Forbidden forest every once in a while). Harry had spent many hours just talking to the large man as he shared stories of events long since passed.
Arriving at the man's hut just off the forest edge, he entered to find Hermione already deep in conversation with Hagrid, while continuously refusing to try and eat any more of the man's cooking-his rock cakes had to be made with actual rocks, Harry thought-and asking questions about the various creatures that populated the Forbidden Forest.
"So yeh see," he was saying, "Th' centaurs tend ter keep ter th'mselves mostly, avoiding the other large predators like wolves and th' like...well, except when hunting. The herds abou' fifty strong with an even split between male an' female, an' has been abou' that same size since I arrived a' Hogwarts. They're a bunch o' ruddy star gazers, ter tell the truth; can' get a straight answer out of 'em ter save yer life. If they come ter respect yeh though, like they do me, then the forest is a lot safer no matter who yeh are."
"What do they see in the stars?" Hermione asked, her entire attention on Hagrid.
"I imagine that they see large changes in the balance of things," Hadrian said, drawing their attention. "War and corruption as of late, from the looks of things."
"Yeah," Hagrid replied. "Lately they been goin' on abou' how Mars has been gettin' brighter. Sign o' war, they've said. Then you've got a few wolf packs in the forest, each one as tall as m' waist and hair sticking up like spines. Worgs, their called; nasty things. Can bite a man in half if they feel like. Swallow kids whole, too; those things are one o' th' main reasons you lot are forbidden, 'though you only find 'em in the deeper parts o' th' forest." While he lectured on the worgs abilities, the headline for an old Daily Prophet lying on the table caught Harry's eye. He quickly cast a Copying Charm while Hagrid wasn't looking and pocketed it.
They continued talking about the various beasts for an hour or so, before Hagrid noticed how late it was getting. He shooed them off before preparing a meal, smoke rising from his chimney. Harry and Hermione walked up to the castle continuing the discussion before going off to their separate common rooms.
—Hermione POV—
Entering the Gryffindor common room, Hermione immediately noticed the many glares coming her way. As she crossed the room, Weasley came up to her and angrily demanded "Why are you hanging out with that fucking snake? We not good enough for you?"
"Nope." She continued walking up to her dorm, but was blocked by a few of the upper years. "How can you side with him?" she asked incredulously. "He has single handedly lost 895 points for Gryffindor already this year!"
"There are more important things than house points," a fifth year said. "Like house pride. Or when a Gryffindor hangs out with a Slytherin."
"I'm not hanging out with a Slytherin: I'm hanging out with Harry Potter, the only person who's been nice to me since I got here—more so than my housemates, that's for sure. Do you know how I spent Halloween? Crying in the girl's loo because of that flame-haired idiot you're defending! He has belittled, insulted me, and the worst part is, without my help, he would be failing every last one of his classes."
"He may have acted a little hastily, but that's just a Gryffindor thing; we'll talk to him about that. You just need to stop being friends with a Slytherin. It's for your own good; he's just using you for your brains—"
"He's been teaching me more than I've taught him," she interrupted.
The fifth year waved this off. "Just Dark Arts stuff. Illegal, no doubt. He's corrupting you, and we just want to help. Let us help you."
Hermione was silent for a minute, which the lions took as a sign of victory. When she finally spoke, however, this assumption was obviously dead wrong.
"I am not a pureblood, or even anything close. Everyone here knows that much." Her voice started her speech near a whisper, but steadily rose in volume. "And yet, not one single Slytherin has given me any grief ever since I began this friendship with Harry Potter. I even got to talk with a few on a semi-regular basis, and they turned out to be decent people. Every Gryffindor here prefers to charge in, even if they know they will lose, just to avoid looking like cowards. Here's a question: have any of you ever tried talking out your problems?" Silence greeted this.
"Have any of you tried a non-violent solution? Even once? Of course not, you're Gryffindors. There can be no compromise, no negotiation. Someone is either with you, or they're wrong, isn't that right? A Gryffindor is never wrong, are they? Never make a mistake, an error, a single slip-up. Not the perfect Gryffindors. Even when they get their butts handed to them on a silver platter for picking a fight, they were still justified because you just know that the other guy was about to curse you and, besides, he probably cheated to win, right?"
"Maybe we are right usually, and bravery is the most important thing. But Gryffindor is also the house of chivalry, as I recall. The house of gentlemen and ladies. A gentleman doesn't throw the first punch, no matter the circumstances. A true lady won't vilify someone without getting to know them first. I'm looking around right now, and I see a whole bunch of people who have no loyalty, no intelligence, no cunning, and no chivalry but had plenty of courage and got lumped together here in the lion's den because of it. If you really want to prove that Gryffindor is the best house of the four, show people that you can be true ladies and gentlemen; give peace a chance before firing a curse. You'd be amazed how much a kind word can accomplish that a spell can't."
With that, she began going to her dorm once more; no one stopped her this time. She paused at the top and said "Also, you talk about bravery as a virtue, but it would appear that not even one of you has had the stones to try to talk to Harry. Were you afraid of him because he was sorted into Slytherin, or were you all just sulking because he wasn't sorted into Gryffindor?" Before an answer could come, she disappeared around the curve of the staircase, leaving an awkward silence in her wake.
—Harry POV—
As Hadrian walked through the halls, he pulled out the newspaper and scanned through the article that had caught his attention.
BREAK-IN AT GRINGOTTS TURNS UP FRUITLESS!
THIEF ESCAPES TO STEAL AGAIN!
From what the article said, someone had broken into Gringotts Bank on his birthday and had tried to steal something from a vault that had been emptied the same day. Something in the back of his mind told him that this was important, but he wasn't sure why. He decided to ask Professor Snape about it later; perhaps he could explain the feeling he had.
As he was pondering, someone tapped him on the shoulder, startling him out of his reverie. He whirled around, his wand drawn, to find a pair of ginger twins grinning like Cheshire after a good hunt.
"Greetings, Hadrian Potter," said the left one grandly. "My name is Fred—"
"Wait, I thought my name was Fred," said the one on the right. His clone looked confused for a second before he turned back to Harry. "Anyway, we are Fred and George Weasley—"
"—Gred and Forge, if you prefer," added the other.
"Third year Gryffindor Beaters—"
"—top-notch pranksters—"
"—and the official top two sexiest wizards on campus." finished the one on the right.
"Is that so?" Harry asked, amused by the twin-speak.
"It is, indeed, O scarred snake," the left one answered proudly. "As we said before, we are pranksters here at Hogwarts."
"What most people don't know is that we are not the first jokers to attend—"
"—and you could say that the ones who were are the secret to our success. While they were at school—"
"—four friends, Messrs.' Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, constructed a map of the school—"
"—which showed you, not only every last corridor, classroom, and secret passage—"
"—but also the name of everyone in Hogwarts and their location."
Harry was confused. "Why are you telling me all of this?"
The right one smirked. "The map has never lied before—"
"—and about an hour ago, as we were looking for new victims, we spotted something...off about you name."
"It was flashing between two names: Hadrian James Potter—"
"—and, oddly enough, Prongslett," the other finished.
"Some," his twin continued "Might ignore such an insignificant detail, but we believe you to be the rightful heir of Prongs and, as such, the map should be yours."
"But don't you need it?" Harry asked curiously.
The left ginger waved this off. "We've memorized the secret passages already... although we might want to borrow it every once in a while." He pulled out a blank piece of parchment and poked it with his wand while saying "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." Once he'd finished, ink began to appear as if being poured onto the parchment; lines and shapes forming until the entire of Hogwarts was shown in great detail. At the top, words appeared: "Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, purveyors of aids to magical mischief-makers are proud to present the Marauders Map." "Once you're done, just say 'Mischief Managed', and the map will be wiped clean."
Taking the map, he perused it; he saw Dumbledore pacing in his office; he saw Hagrid tending to some unicorn foals; he saw that Mrs. Norris was pacing the fourth floor, with Filch following a good twenty meters behind; he saw Quirrell and—well, that was interesting. He looked up at the twins, who grins should have been too wide to fit on their faces, and asked "Why are you helping me?"
"Well, the map really is yours," the right one said, "And we don't need it much anymore, anyway, so we're giving it to you."
"Also, our brother's been kind of a git lately—"
"Kind of?" Harry asked sarcastically.
"Compared to his normal level of idiocy, yes," Twin Number One answered without missing a beat. "Also, perhaps this could be the beginning of a friendship, or at least a business deal."
Harry smirked. "Of course, you do realize the downside to giving me the map, right?"
"Downside?" the left twin asked, perplexed. "What downside?"
"Oh, well, I've already spotted the slight difference in your freckle patterns, but I still don't know which of you is which—or at least, I didn't. But I do now. See you later, Fred," he pointed to the left one, "You too, George," he said as he pointed to the other. The twins were shocked for a second before bursting out laughing. They saluted and said as one "See you later, Prongslett!" Thus ended the strangest conversation Harry had held since entering the magical world.
He opened the map once more and stared at the little dot next to his DADA Professor. He hadn't heard of Tom Riddle before; perhaps he was a less renowned student? He decided to look into it later and whispered 'Mischief Managed' before pocketing the now blank parchment. He continued his journey to the common room, where he found Draco coming out of the common room, flanked, as always, by the two magical apes.
"Hello, Harry. I figured you had come back here and wanted to talk to you about...recent events. Care to walk with me?" he asked.
Harry nodded. They began the long trek through the dungeons to the Great Hall, as Draco told Harry his latest theory: the blond had received instructions from his father to convince Harry to join the pureblood cause. Hadrian had told him that it was a matter of convincing him that magical blood mixing with magical blood is superior to mixing with non-magical blood or even first-generation blood. Malfoy had been putting forth arguments for a few days now; each one had been calmly and methodically countered.
"Okay, so we agree that power, after doing the right thing, is most important." A nod. "Good. And that magical power is very significant?" Another nod. "Alright, then: each pureblood family has a magical affinity or ability unique to their family. This makes purebloods superior to muggleborns, who couldn't possibly have such a skill."
"Alright," Harry replied. "It's fairly well-known that my mother was a Charms and Potions Mistress by the time she left Hogwarts. Hermione is almost as good as I am at Transfiguration—and even better in Charms—while Sally-Anne Perks is as good at Herbology as any pureblood Hufflepuff. How do you explain that?"
"Everyone has their specialty," Draco replied. "But I see your point; they shouldn't be as good as a specialist." He was quiet for a minute. "Well, the muggleborns still don't have the unique abilities of any pureblood family; things like…okay, the Blacks having various Transfiguration-based talents, the Ollivanders having precognitive powers, and the Fast Healing ability the Potters possess. No other family can have those powers unless they marry into the family, and even then, only their children might have it."
Harry replied "Since the pureblood families have been mixing exclusively with each other for a few millennia, every pureblood probably has some blood in them from each of the houses and can therefore show signs of just about any talent. Furthermore, the infamous Jack the Ripper is known to the Wizarding community to have been magical, but he was a muggleborn. He had a power that allowed him to convince even the most distrusting of women to come with him; a level of magical charisma only the Malfoy family has ever possessed among the English."
Draco snorted, before saying "It was proven by the Wizengamot that he was descended from a squib cast out of the Malfoy family."
Harry smiled. "So the Wizengamot has proven that there is no such thing as a muggleborn, since they're just the end result of a long line of squibs, correct?" Draco was speechless for a minute; by that time they had arrived at dinner. Harry steered him towards a seat before piling his own plate high with food.
As he began eating his meal, Draco sputtered "But that can't be right! If that was true, then there's no difference between us and them. They—", at this point, he realized his audience and quieted down. "If that's true, and all muggleborns are descended from purebloods...well, such a revelation would cause quite a stir in the Wizarding community. So long as you could convince the masses, many more bigoted laws would end up being repealed; it could potentially change every aspect of our culture." He looked deathly pale at this thought. "How come no one has ever seen that correlation before?"
"Perhaps they did and immediately rejected it because it doesn't make sense. Regardless of whether he was or wasn't descended from a Malfoy, it still shows that muggleborns can have otherwise family-specific powers. So that argument is also a load of tosh."
Malfoy thought for a second, then said "Purebloods consistently score higher on the theoretical magicks, such as History of Magic and Potions."
"That's because they grew up with magic, whereas muggleborns did not. Also, I've seen that same statistic; interesting that the Daily Prophet only compared the results for the first three years, and even then, only regarding theory. It turns out that muggleborns are consistently better at practical unless compared to a specialist, and their ability in theory grows exponentially, while the purebloods have a more constant, linear rate of growth. There are many exceptions, but the averages of muggleborns are higher than just about any pureblood family: the only ones who break even with first-generations are those families who have a number of muggle or muggleborn relatives...such as the Potters." Harry, finished with this argument, returned to his food. Hermione joined them, though Draco hardly noticed.
The blond thought for few minutes before continuing. With a defeated air, he said "I've put forth 23 different arguments over the past week arguing for the superiority of purebloods. I only have one argument left, but it should do the trick." Straightening, he began speaking, unaware that their conversation had attracted so much attention. "Muggleborns, when they enter the Wizarding world, see some of our traditions and overreact, trying to change something that has been in place for countless generations. These things are in place for good reasons—"
"Which are?" Harry interrupted casually.
Draco opened his mouth, then closed it while sporting a confused look. Finally, he said "Well...there's so many...give me an example and I'll tell you."
"House elves," Hermione responded, joining the conversation with a curious glance at her friend.
"House elves like to work; wizards just give them the opportunity to do so. It can cause the elf to become physically ill if they can't work for us. I've seen it happen, it's horrible. A lot of purebloods punish their elves for misbehaving. If they didn't punish them, they would think they could do whatever they want."
Harry pulled out his creature book and thumbed through to the section on house elves. "Actually, several centuries ago, the elves fought alongside the goblins in their latest so-called rebellion. When their side lost, the elves were forced into bondage by the wizard leaders as punishment. They and their descendants are bound magically to serve wizards; if they don't, the curse placed on them will slowly drain their magic before killing them. As for punishments, they can't disobey orders, their magic won't allow it. How about marriage contracts?"
"That's to make sure that purebloods only marry purebloods," Draco responded.
"Which I've already proved to you is not necessarily a desirable result," said Harry. "Most of the traditions of the magical world exist to support the false belief that purebloods are inherently superior to all other magic users, because they're afraid of someone else being their equal." Draco was silent again, deep in thought. Harry continued. "During the first war, it's a reported fact that, even in the all-out battles, Voldemort—" he ignored the flinches around him "—had around 100 wizards helping him. There are roughly 50 million people in the UK alone, both magical and non. Of those, only about 1 in a 4000 is magical. That means that there's somewhere around 12000 witches and wizards in the UK. Of those, about 100 followed Voldemort."
"It's been proven that even the strongest shield will fall quickly if being hammered by a high number of different opponents simultaneously' personal power is no longer a factor. If the people of the Wizarding world had stood up to Voldemort—" ignoring another series of flinches "—his so-called 'reign of terror' wouldn't have lasted a week. A bounty on his head would've ensured that people who could really fight worth anything would go after him, and he would have died much more easily." Malfoy looked shocked at this. Harry finished his meal and began discussing their Charms assignments with Hermione. After a while of this, she asked if she could borrow his creature book. He considered it for just a moment, and then handed it to her. She put it away in her book bag and continued deducing the possibilities of wider area cleaning charms.
Draco sat silent for a while, thinking on their ongoing argument and the interesting thoughts it had provoked.
—December 18—
Hadrian Potter was not in the best mood. The common room was now bright Gryffindor red all over, courtesy of the Weasley twins, and both of his best friends were leaving the castle. It was a mere week until Christmas (or several days until the winter solstice, if you were pureblood) and the castle was quickly emptying. Students wanting to see their families were heading for Hogsmeade to take the Hogwarts express back to London. Classes were suspended until the end of the break, and Hadrian could explore to his heart's content. Draco had been apologetic: his father had floo-called at the last minute and told him of a pureblood gathering that aimed to get their children used to each other before their families began selling them off.
Harry was worried, both for his friend, and himself. For the last month, he had been slowly helping Draco work his way around the idea that muggleborns were just as good as purebloods. With every argument, the blond's resolve lessened, until finally he admitted it was all a load of bull. To have to go home and pretend to socialize, knowing the adults would be discussing who should be his wife when he grew up would be a test of his patience—not to mention that the senior Malfoy would want a progress report on Harry's "turning" to the dark side. He mentally snorted, then returned to his train of thought. He had been worrying about it for a while now, but figured that Draco could handle it fairly well if it came up.
Hermione was a different issue. She wasn't talking to him as much, and seemed to be struggling with something when she did. His worries increased when she began avoiding him. He wanted to say the Gryffindors were to blame, but they had started being much friendlier towards him as of late: accepting his help in class, talking to him in the hallways, and generally being less cold. Well, except for Weasley, but then, Harry wasn't expecting him to change his ways any time soon. Hermione was just the opposite: she avoided him at halls, during meals, even during classes—working with Weasley of all people. The ginger had gloated about it for a while before his brothers taught him some humility. She seemed to be getting a bit sick, too, but he wasn't sure what could be done about that. She had quietly bid him goodbye before leaving for Hogsmeade.
Right now, he was wandering the halls aimlessly. The school seemed so empty now. After a long while, he found himself staring at the Map, looking for something to distract him. Professor Quirrell was talking with Tom Riddle again...he'd get around to meeting him soon enough. It looked like Professor McGonagall was patrolling the halls again—wait a minute, Professor Quirrell was pacing outside the forbidden corridor. Deciding that this was interesting enough, Harry put away the map and shadow-traveled to the room the DADA professor was just outside of. He came face to face with three sets of giant yellow eyes, all looking at him.
A gargantuan beast straight out of mythology, a Cerberus, stood in front of him. Twenty feet tall at the shoulder, its pitch black fur contrasted with its golden yellow eyes, making them like lamps in the dark room. The middle head was staring at him suspiciously, while the other heads seemed slightly less inclined to eat him. Harry stood very still, not sure how he would fare against such a creature. Very few people, even in the ancient stories, ever made it past the first Cerberus; Hercules just wrestled with it, while Orpheus used his epic musical talents to cause it to fall asleep. Neither option would work for Hadrian: even the Other Him wouldn't last five seconds in a melee fight with the beast, and he couldn't use music (only Orpheus was that good and, besides, Quirrell was still pacing outside the door). It was likely to be immune to the limited magic he already knew, and a great deal of magic he didn't know.
As he was thinking through his limited options, the most amazing thing happened: the beast sort of shuffled back, revealing a trapdoor from under its paw. It stared at Harry expectantly. He eased forward, unsure of its intent. When he had reached the door and it still hadn't moved again, he opened it and jumped down. Reaching the bottom, he frowned. He had been trying to shadow travel down, but something had stopped it. He decided it was probably the Cerberus, and began taking note of his surroundings.
As luck would have it, the soft thing that had broken his fall was a particularly nasty plant known as Devil's Snare. It latched into its victims and began squeezing until they were dead. Fortunately, it couldn't handle using other plants for food and would release anything not putting up a fight. He began slowly working his way through his meditation process, allowing his whole body to relax. After several minutes of this, he landed on his butt. Looking around, it appeared that the Devil's Snare had dropped him in a room connected to the chamber by a small, cramped corridor. If the mold on the walls were anything to judge, he was probably about as deep down as the common room, maybe even deeper...beneath the lake, perhaps?
He continued along the corridor, coming across a room that went at least two dozen meters in every direction, completely filled with tiny birds...no, not birds, keys! One of them probably opened the door on the other side of the chamber. He noticed a few magical brooms over in one corner, but decided to use it as a last resort; there had to be a thousand keys up there, he didn't have a chance in hell of finding the right one before curfew. He began examining the door, in awe of the rune structures around the frame and engraved in the door itself. The only way through it would be with the key—even his shadow travel would have been blocked if the Cerberus wasn't already doing so. Then the answer came to him: he aimed his wand at the wall next to the door and cast the Reductor curse at it. It turned a small section of the wall to dust, maybe half a square meter and about a full meter above the ground, just above his head.
He frowned, unsure how to proceed, until he remembered the broom. He went and got it from the corner; this turned out to be a mistake. The thousands of keys above his head began going into a frenzy before beginning to bomb him. Hurriedly, he positioned the broom and flew through the hole in the wall, the keys still chasing him. He flew over a huge chessboard with life-sized pieces (the queen tried to slice him with her sword) before jetting through the open archway behind them. His luck had not changed for the better; the room he had entered had a troll even larger than the one from Halloween inside: its head, a good four meters off the ground and completely covered in thick, unkempt, mud-colored hair, nearly scraped the ceiling. Harry swerved on the broom, just barely avoiding being turned into a pancake. Now he was starting to worry: he was still tired from using the powerful Reducto not thirty seconds before and didn't have the energy to transform yet. As the troll began to charge, he flew back into the chessboard room.
It was absolute chaos: the chess pieces had already given up the charade of decorum and were just attacking each other and the keys were attacking everything in sight. The troll came barreling in and began smashing everything it could reach: the black queen and the three white pawns it had been dueling with were shattered into pieces with its first blow. It then became preoccupied with swatting at the growing swarm of magical keys flying around its head, poking it in every place possible.
Harry, upon witnessing this scene, could hardly believe his luck. His Gryffindor instincts had told him to come see what was down here, and by sheer chance had seen him through virtually unscathed. Not one of the three—well, four—forces were attacking him at the moment. Taking a good opportunity when he saw it, he snuck out of the battlefield and ran through the troll's room to get out of malodorous cloud that filled it. Another corridor greeted him on the far side of the chamber, which he gladly entered. Traveling through the hall, he came to another archway. As soon as he crossed it, purple flames engulfed it. Black flames appeared over the door on the other side, sealing him in. In the middle of the room was a small table with several misshapen bottles on it, all filled with a light brown liquid. A piece of parchment lay on the table:
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 nettled wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,
To help you in your choice, we'll 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 on their insides;
Four, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.
Harry grinned; he loved logic puzzles. "Let's see," he thought. "The second on the left if obviously the smallest, while the middle one is clearly the largest. That gives me something, at least." After a few minutes spent glancing between the bottles and the parchment he grinned and made his selection. Draining the goblet, he walked calmly through the black fire, completely unharmed. The final room appeared to be a dueling ring of some sort. There was a magnificent chest in the middle of the room. It was almost as tall as he was and was covered in metal: iron made up the sides of the hulking thing, bound together with steel bands as wide as his arm and thicker than his fingers. It was wrapped in solid steel chains crisscrossing over the surface. At every intersection of chains, there was a wrought iron lock like something expected for a prison cell—for a particularly violent werewolf.
Harry knew that the chamber had to be affecting his magic; it was becoming difficult to do even the simplest tasks. Between that and the fact the box was made entirely out of metal would make blowing it apart difficult even for the most powerful of wizards; metals were usually quite difficult to affect without particularly powerful destructive magic. Concentrating hard, Harry scanned the room for magical auras to try and mess with the wards: it was likely that the chest was trapped and monitored and would go off even touched. If he could confuse the wards around the room, he could have a little more power to work with and could avoid any more unwelcome interruptions. He still didn't know what was down here, but with all the security he had made his way through, he wasn't going to leave empty-handed unless forced—that, and what ever made such protections necessary was surely worth all this trouble.
Analyzing the wards in the room, he was befuddled for a moment. The ward structures weren't like the ones in his book at all; they were far more complex, but still had the same basic structures. He thought on it for a few minutes before realizing the problem: he was assuming the wards were centered around the box. With this in mind, he scanned the room once more (he was quite tired by now) and saw the anomaly in the ward system: that wasn't a protection ward; that was a massive illusion ward affecting all of the senses. He followed it to its source; once there, he began blindly lashing out at the place he presumed housed the ward stone for the illusion: wherever it was hiding was the true treasure. Sure enough, a giant stone pedestal appeared out of nowhere, one of the dozens of etched runes covering its surface showing signs of damage. There, on the pedestal, was a ruby-red stone about the size of his fist. Luckily, none of the wards were monitoring the stone or the pedestal—it would have revealed the illusion to have detection wards around nothing but air—so he plucked it from its resting spot and began meticulously repairing the damaged rune.
After several minutes' meticulous concentration, he finally finished the single rune carving, restoring the glamour and removing the pedestal from his perception. He walked back into the potion room-the potion apparently still in effect—to find the black flame bottle full once more. He took a swig from the purple flame potion and began to leave, then paused. Grinning, he poured a small amount from one of the poison bottles into each of others, until all four liquids were thoroughly mixed. Satisfied, he made his way through the purple flames. He picked up the broom he had left in the troll room and continued on to the chess room.
The first thing he noticed was the stench: the troll laid dead, its eye sockets leaking blood past the keys filling them to capacity, which were twitching feebly. The floor was covered with more winged keys, most with some piece of metal missing or a wing broken. The chessboards right side was covered in dark red troll blood, where more keys lay drenched in the foul liquid. Looming over it all in an ominous manner were the chess pieces, both sides fully intact and still as stone—they probably repaired themselves after each game. As he approached, the pieces parted, allowing him to leave the room unopposed.
He flew through the hole and noticed a single tarnished silver key still fluttering away, having not chased him to its death. He noticed ruefully that the tarnished silver of the key matched that of the lock exactly. He continued on, using the broom to bypass the carnivorous plant and to make his way up the shoot leading to the Cerberus. As he exited the chute, he was met by a low rumble that turned out to be three dog heads growling in unison. Six yellow eyes stared him down, daring him to try and pass.
Then he remembered that, in Greek Mythology, Cerberus kept the living out, but the dead weren't allowed to leave. Why it was doing so in reverse for him was strange—no, it had to be the Other Him, there was no other explanation. Harry was, by this point, dead tired, hungry, and completely out of patience. His aura seemed to fill the room for a second as he hissed "MOVE." Three gigantic heads cocked to the left, as if contemplating his order. It leaned towards him with all three heads, each opening their mouth wide.
Then he found himself being licked by three tongues head to toe. Now that he was thoroughly covered in dog saliva, he was allowed to pass, only to be confronted by the Defense Professor, who shouted "Potter! What were you doing in there?"
He just stared at the man, still dripping with saliva, before saying "Learning."
The turbaned man's eyes narrowed. "And just what were you learning?"
"To never take a dare from a Slytherin, sir. That thing could have swallowed me whole. Luckily, it's a lot more playful than violent, and decided to satisfy itself with three licks of me before I came to my senses and ran," Harry said with a straight face, looking at his shoes in false shame.
"Yes, well," the man began. "You would do well to stay away from that dog, Mr. Potter. It is there for a reason and children shouldn't be playing around it." He cast a Scourgify on Harry before walking away. Hadrian turned away and, after rounding a corner, took out the map and looked at Quirrell's dot. Sure enough, that Tom Riddle was still there, travelling with him, and far too close to simply be walking with him. Another thing: Professor Quirrell had not stammered even once during their little talk; certainly suspicious. He made his way back to the common room, deep in thought regarding what to do about the Professor. Suddenly, an idea hit him like the Hogwarts Express. Analyzing it, he smiled sinisterly. For now, he decided, he would do nothing until silence was no longer advisable; then, when the moment was perfect, he would blame Quirrell.
A.N.: Alright, got some good stuff done here, and even left a few plot points for you readers to hang onto until next time. Don't worry: the story is still on track within the original idea, and will return from this little detour shortly. Please read and review. 10 points if you can tell me which cup held which potion: there are seven cups total, cup #1 is on the left and cup #7 is on the right.