This Bag of Stones
Chapter 13- The Tasks
"Let's do this!"
"Alohomora!" Hermione chanted. The door unlocked with a soft click. Before his nerves could betray him, Harry pushed the door open hard. Too hard. It crashed against the back wall and would have slammed shut in Harry's face if he hadn't had his hand out.
"Argh! Bloody hell!"
"Well that was a good start," Neville commented. Harry shot him a glare and gestured with his left hand which had not been crushed by the door and was currently keeping a tight hold on his pouch of stones.
"Fine then, why don't you go first?"
The Gryffindor shrugged. "Sure," he said and strolled through the door like it was nothing. They gaped at him.
"Nev, mate! Wait up!" Ron yelped and ran in after him. Harry and Hermione shot incredulous looks at each other and rushed to follow their friends, forgetting totally about their carefully thought out plan to ensure that they left the door open in case something happened. Unfortunately for them, it clicked shut with great finality behind Hermione, who entered last and was also the only one who noticed it. The others were too busy gawking at a gigantic mountain of fur.
A low grumbling filled the dim room and was quickly echoed by what sounded like a whole choir of beasts. One massive head peered out of the darkness, its red eyes piercing through them threateningly. Then from right next to it, another pair of red eyes appeared. Further down the line, a third set gleamed hungrily at them.
"Merlin," Ron squeaked. He would, of course, later deny he did this.
The rumbling grew louder and the gigantic beast finally stepped forward, revealing the huge body of a dog with not one but three heads. Each head had bore extremely sharp canines and each head was hungry for a piece of them. They had practically walked right onto the beast's dinner plate.
Hermione swallowed the urge to yell for her mum and instead, focused on identifying their adversary.
"Got any ideas there, Mione?" Harry whispered desperately as he tried to keep an eye on all three heads.
She ignored the nickname and quickly said, "It's a Cerberus. In legend, they're used to guard places like the entrance to the Underworld or-"
"Main points please!" Harry's voice jumped an octave higher as the Cerberus took a step closer, its powerful muscles rippling underneath a smooth sleek body of fur.
Hermione jumped slightly and stuttered out, "Ah- um- In Hercules, he defeated Cerberus with brute strength-"
"Are you crazy?!" Neville exclaimed loudly, forgetting his current position as prey. The ears of the head closest to them flicked backwards slightly and it growled even louder. Neville moaned lowly and seemed to freeze in place.
"-wait for it," Hermione hissed, "in the Aeneid, Aeneas gave it drugged honeycakes to make it fall asleep-"
"Unless Ron is planning to upchuck his lunch, that plan isn't going anywhere!" Harry snapped as quietly as possible.
"It's coming okay?" She seemed desperate now as she ran through the various scenes in books she had read over the Christmas holiday using her stone. "Oh! Orpheus sent the Cerberus to sleep with his harp! Play music, quickly!"
"We don't have music!" This time, Harry didn't control his voice. All three heads seemed to react to it and instead of toying with them like it had been, the Cerberus prowled closer.
"Sing then!" Hermione cried. "Sing!" The head nearest to them gnashed its teeth furiously, sending spittle everywhere. The head beside it raised the corner of its mouth and displayed the full length of its fang.
"Sing... Ron! Sing your Chudley Cannons song!"
"Here?" Ron exclaimed. "I don't think it's appropr-"
"SING!" Hermione and Harry bellowed as the third head snapped forward,
"Chudley Cannons is the best," he warbled. His voice trembled so much they almost didn't understand him at first.
"They flew and fought and beat the rest," he sang slightly off-key.
"Anyone who hears us roar.." The third head had halted its snapping motion and was eyeing him curiously.
"Will only see our broomsticks soar!" Ron gained momentum.
"Keep going," Harry encouraged softly. He spotted the first head struggling to keep its eyelids open.
"Chudley Cannons is the best, they flew and fought and beat the rest," Ron sang happily now that he could see the results of his singing. "Anyone who hears us roar, will only see our broomsticks soar!"
"Harry," Hermione said quietly so that she didn't distract Ron. "There's a trapdoor. Right behind it." Harry followed where she was pointing and spotted it immediately.
"Neville? Nev mate, snap out of it!" He said, shaking his friend. Luckily enough for them, Neville did.
"We're dead we're dead we're dead," he whispered. His brown eyes grew large and stared unseeingly in the direction of the creature.
"Neville." Harry snapped his fingers in front of his face. "Look at me." For a moment, Neville's gaze wavered before snapping into focus and meeting Harry's.
"We're running," Harry stated, trying to make sure his friend understood the situation.
"What?"
"Running," he mouthed as he eyed the almost slumbering beast.
"Where? When?" Neville asked with a confused frown.
"There and now!" Harry said and darted towards the trapdoor. Hermione trailed behind him, pulling Ron along as he continued to sing.
"Hey!" Neville yelped before dashing after them.
Acting quickly, Harry dragged the trapdoor open and held it out for Neville to take a flying leap into it first. Hermione followed and then Ron, who'd been in the middle of the third line, cut off with the word "ROA-". Harry sniggered as the red head's voice echoed around the cavernous room before leaping into the darkness after them and shutting the trapdoor above his head.
"Soft," he noticed, gently pressing a palm against the spongy landing platform.
"Harry?" he heard Hermione whisper in a distressed tone.
"What's wrong?" he whispered back.
"It's a trap." Just as she said those words, he felt strong ropes crawl across his torso and wrap themselves around his arms.
"AHHHHHH!" Ron screamed hysterically. Harry could hear him desperately thrashing around somewhere to his right. The binding tightened around his chest. On his left, he vaguely heard a soft mumbling but it was drowned out by Ron's screams.
"Ron, be QUIET!" He snapped. His words seemed to calm Ron down slightly, enough to stop screaming and moving around as much. Now that it became more silent, Harry could hear Neville's muffled voice in the pitch black darkness.
"-Devil's Sna- plant – hates light!"
"What did he say?" Hermione asked in a hushed voice.
"The Devil's Snare!" Harry answered quickly, struggling to breathe. "Hates light!" The words registered in his mind as he said them and he instinctively thought of the bag of stones he'd specifically held onto for this sort of situation.
"The Devil's Snare...try not to move as much as possible!" Hermione called out. "Harry, can you get to the Dawnstone?"
"Trying," he grunted, reaching into the velvet bag. A vine whipped past him and pulled the bag away quickly but it was too late and his hand was already curled protectively around a smooth white pebble. LIGHT! He ordered and a blinding white light exploded into existence, filling his vision with painful black spots. He squeezed his eyelids shut, faintly hearing the cries as his friends were caught by surprise.
The plant winced and unravelled quicker than it first arrived, dropping them onto the cold stone floor beneath the second trap. Next to Harry dropped the bag of stones which he quickly picked up and returned the Dawnstone to after ordering it to stop shining.
"We did it!" Hermione said breathlessly, holding onto a pale but alive Neville for support.
"That must have been Professor Sprout's contribution," Neville said gravely. "That means we're up against traps that the teachers have set up."
"What was that big dog then?" Ron questioned. The other two shrugged but Harry simply looked thoughtful.
"It reminds me of Hagrid somehow... anyway, what do you think is next?"
In answer to his question, Hermione pointed at the row of broomsticks lying innocently next to them.
"Oh great," Neville sighed.
On the other side of the castle, Headmaster Dumbledore frowned at the sensation of a faint tingling at the back of his neck.
"Severus," he muttered lowly to the dark-haired Professor next to him. "I believe the third floor requires looking into."
The man he was addressing frowned and glanced nonchalantly across the table at Professor Quirrell who was sipping his tea with a hand that shook so much more tea spilled onto him rather than into his mouth. They were currently in the middle of a staff meeting that was held every Saturday afternoons and sometimes bled through till the evening past dinnertime.
"Must be some student," he dismissed, silently contemplating how likely it was to find the Weasley twins near a certain corridor.
The Headmaster merely hummed and warned, "Keep a close eye anyway." Professor Snape acquiesced with a slight tilt of his head.
The foursome passed the next two challenges with relative ease, Harry displaying his skills at flying as he chased the charmed key around the room and Ron showed off the chess skills he'd been polishing the entire year. Surprisingly enough, it had been Neville that pointed out an alternative route as opposed to the self-destructive one Ron had chosen for himself.
At their impressed glances, he blushed and admitted shyly, "I got tired of Ron constantly trumping me in chess and researched a few strategies." Hermione laughingly welcomed him as a fellow bookworm to which he vehemently denied. Their jokes however, came to a complete halt at the sight, or rather the smell, of the next task.
When they entered the room, a despicable stench greeted their nose but that was not what captivated their attention. Blocking the entrance was a huge, filthy troll almost twice as large as the troll Harry had faced down in the bathroom at Halloween.
"You know what, I take back what I said when we faced the Cerberus," Neville suddenly spoke. "Now we're really goners." The lumbering giant took a step forward and hefted its heavy club into the air.
"Scatter!" Harry yelled and dove towards the right, dragging Hermione with him. Neville and Ron managed to leap away in time as well and the club smashed into where they had been standing, scattering small chunks of the brick floor everywhere.
Before the troll could catch its breath and lift the club once more, Harry quickly fumbled around in his little bag of stones and grasped the Swapstone. My sock, my dirty grey sock, Uncle Vernon's sock, the one with great holes in them, he thought hard. In a blink, the massive club disappeared and was replaced with a limp, dirty grey sock. The troll grunted dumbly and blinked at the foreign object in its hand for almost a whole minute, earning them a precious few seconds to regroup.
"Harry," Hermione hissed, "Are you aware that right now in your dormitory, your trunk has exploded everywhere and there is a massive, unexplained club there?"
"Any better ideas then?" he hissed back. "Without killing the troll," he added when he saw her open her mouth. Mollified, she slowly closed it again.
"I've got one," Ron announced.
"What?" the three of them asked in unison.
"You lift 'im up with your Wingstone and while you're doing that, we go through the door then you can let him down. When we come back out, you do the same thing. Then no one gets hurt!"
"Why can't you use your wands?" Harry asked.
"Because the Levitation Charm requires more power according to the weight of the object. Lifting a troll that big would drain us immediately!" Hermione explained, sending an approving look towards Ron. "The Wingstone depends on concentration not weight."
Then she frowned. "It'll be dangerous."
"We've almost died more in the past ten minutes than in my entire life," Neville snorted. "I think we'll be fine."
They all turned to Harry who held up his hands and said, "I'll have to concentrate. You can't distract me."
"Hermione will lead you," Ron said determinedly and squared his shoulders before facing the troll. "I'll distract him will you get ready." With that parting shot, he zoomed towards the other side of the room, attracting the troll's attention.
"Hey you! Yeah you, you big lump! Come over here! Here!" Ron yelled, jumping up and down and waving his arms above his head. Harry once again plunged his hand into the bag and grabbed the lightest stone that he immediately recognised as the Wingstone. He tightened his grip and stared hard at the troll that was only two steps away from crushing Ron.
Lift lift lift lift, he concentrated. The troll lifted one leg. And then the other. Ron cowered in the corner, pushing his back against the wall as much as possible. LIFT Harry ordered. Just as the troll had been about to slam its clawed monstrosity of a foot on top of Ron, it encountered a strange invisible resistance in the air. Confused, it pushed harder on the barrier but before it could do more, its entire body lifted several inches off the ground.
The troll flailed its limbs around and began to grunt and wail desperately as it floated higher and higher in the air. Harry didn't notice Ron slumping to the ground in relief and wiping his forehead jokingly. Hermione's whispered words of "This way Harry" as she led him towards the door barely registered in his mind.
His focus was concentrated on levitating the troll and ensuring that its frantic grabs in the air didn't reach them. It was entirely unknown whether or not he blinked in those few scrabbling moments that it took them to pass the doorway. Neville quickly slammed the door behind Harry, breaking his concentration and allowing him to finally relax and let go of the Wingstone.
"We did it," Hermione whispered, her eyes huge with incredulous awe.
"We did it!" Neville echoed happily. Ron fistpumped and started hopping on the spot.
"Yes yes yes yes! Merlin, what a rush!" he crowed. Harry simply gave a relieved laugh and sagged against a nearby wall.
All of a sudden, a wall of purple fire burst into flame and covered the entire doorway, blocking their escape. Harry yelped and jumped away from the wall. Along the opposite side of the wall, another wall of fire and this time it was black, blocked the only other exit. The others stopped celebrating and a heavy tension fell over them. While the three boys were exchanging nervous looks, Hermione began to explore the room they were now stuck in.
"Look," she called softly, drawing their attention to a low table in the centre of the room. A row of seven vials were neatly arranged in a straight line, all of them of varying shapes and sizes. Next to it was a roll of parchment that Hermione quickly snatched up and began reading aloud to them.
"Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, which ever you would find,
One among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead,
Two among our number hold only nettle wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting bidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight."
(From J.K. Rowling's Philosopher's Stone)
Harry listened to her chanting, closing his eyes to concentrate further on the words that slipped fluidly past her lips. When she finished, he opened his eyes to see her strangely gratified expression as she stared down at the paper.
"Well, I'm lost!" Ron announced. Neville however, seemed to have spotted the same thing Harry did and gently prodded her.
"Hermione?"
"Oh!" She jerked back to look at them and beamed. "It's a puzzle! Oh, this is sheer genius, wizards are hardly logical – this'll have them stumped here forever!"
"But not you, right?" Harry guessed. She gave him an impish grin.
"This tells me everything," she said patting the paper. "There are seven bottles: three are poison, two are wine, one goes through the black fire and one for the purple." She cocked her head towards the doorways.
"Which one for the black fire?" Harry asked, throwing a glance at the doorway in question. She hummed and nibbled her bottom lip before picking up the smallest bottle of the lot.
The four of them stared blankly at the tiny bottle, even Hermione looked surprised that she had picked it up.
"That's it?" Neville asked dryly.
"That's nowhere near enough for all of us!" Ron near wailed.
"I guess we could take really small sips," Hermione mused as she eyed the vial speculatively.
"No," Harry declared decisively. "They only want one person to go through, that's fine. I'll go."
"No!" protested Ron. "It's my stone, I go!"
"No, listen," Harry insisted. "I should have stopped you from going back to see the Mirror, it's my fault-"
"If we're blaming people then it should be me!" Ron began hotly.
"We're all going together!" Hermione interrupted loudly with a firm look. "In for a penny, in for a pound. That's what we all agreed at the start!"
"In for a what?" asked Ron with a baffled look. Hermione impatiently waved their protests away and tapped a finger against the fragile glass of the bottle thoughtfully.
"Harry, pass me the Witstone," she ordered, holding a hand out. He quickly passed it to her before she turned her ire upon him. Together, the three boys stepped back and watched as Hermione turned the stone over in her hand and contemplated the small bottle and the fire blocking the doorway.
"Barmy, that one," Ron said in a bewildered but slightly fond tone.
"I'm surprised she even needed the Witstone for this," Neville commented offhandedly, not expecting Hermione to turn back and stare at him with her eyes alight with a strange fire.
"Oh, you can have that back Harry," she said, flipping her hair back and holding out the stone. Harry returned it to the bag and ignored the slight sensation as its powers began to accelerate his mental processes.
"Well what was it for then?" asked Ron.
"I was just checking if my theory would work."
"And?"
"Well, Harry," she purred smugly. "Tell me. How exactly does the Swapstone work?"
Harry drew back slightly before the influence of the Witstone began to make its presence known in his mind. The Swapstone... she couldn't be thinking... no... no way!
"No humans, Hermione," he said firmly. However as he said it, seeds of doubt began to dig in roots in his mind.
She pouted. "Who says? Is it a condition of the stone?"
His mouth went dry. "N-no. But it's just not done!" Again, his mind reminded him that he was just being squeamish and Hermione was right. She merely raised an eyebrow at his feeble protests and turned to the other two.
"The conditions of the Swapstone specify that firstly, the object has to be in Harry's possession and secondly, that that the swapping only lasts for an hour. The term 'Harry's possession' is rather ambiguous... not defined clearly," she corrected at Ron's confused face. When his expression didn't clear, Hermione changed her approach. "Alright, how would you claim an object as yours?"
Ron shrugged at her expectant look so she turned to Neville instead. He dithered for a few moments before offering, "By writing your name on it?"
"Exactly!" Hermione said excitedly. "So what do you think would happen if we write Harry's on our skin?"
"We...belong to Harry?" Neville guessed.
"That's horrible!" Ron exclaimed, wrinkling his nose. "No offense mate," he hastily added at Harry's sour expression.
"None taken."
"We don't have to agree of course," Hermione reassured. "But magic doesn't know that. And if we do enough to convince it that we belong to Harry, it really will think so!"
Harry looked unsure by her reasoning. "I- I don't know about this."
"We'll do it," Neville said. Harry glanced at him, at his solid stance and determined eyes.
"What if I go in there and don't call you?" He challenged only to catch sight of Hermione's soulful brown eyes.
"We trust you, Harry," she said simply. With those few words, she broke down his remaining barriers and his shoulders lumped, knowing that he lost the battle. Even though he was going to be out of her sight for a few precious minutes, both of them knew that he would still follow her orders.
She quickly pulled around her bookbag and dug out a quill and inkwell.
"Here," she handed the quill over to Neville after quickly scrawling "Harry's" on the back of her hand. The boy in question tried his best to stop blushing in embarrassment but failed miserably and twin splotches of red bloomed across his cheeks.
"I'll just go then," Harry said and snagged the smallest bottle from the table. Before anyone could protest, he uncapped the vial, downed the potion in a single gulp and leapt through the black flames ahead of him.
The sensation of an icy bath being dumped on him trickled down his spine. He gave a quick shudder to rid himself of the feeling before pulling out the Swapstone. Just as he turned the stone in his hand, he suddenly remembered that using the stone required an object to be swapped with it. And since there were 3 people, he required 3 objects. None of which he had.
On the other side of the wall, Hermione suddenly looked up and asked her two companions, "Did Harry check if he had 3 spare things to swap us with?" Ron shrugged while Neville frowned and gave her a negative answer.
"Oh, Harry," she sighed.
Meanwhile, Harry was busy digging his pockets desperately in search of any loose items. He pulled out a broken quill and his wand. The other pocket had his bag of stones which he of course couldn't use... it was thanks to the Witstone's influence that he arrived at the perfect solution so quickly.
He emptied the bag and carefully placed all of the stones in his pockets. Carefully placed on the floor in front of him were the 3 necessary objects: an empty drawstring bag, a broken quill and a holly and phoenix wand. He closed his eyes and thought of the 3 people in the room behind him. When he opened his eyes again, they were in front of him and the three objects were gone.
"How did it feel?" he asked.
"Like the strangest sensation ever," Neville replied as Ron rubbed the goosebumps on his arms. Hermione gave him a huge smile and threw her arms around his neck.
"I'm so glad you went through with it, Harry," she mumbled into his neck before withdrawing and stepping back a few steps.
"You knew I was going to anyway..." Harry hedged, his eyes refusing to meet hers.
"Break it up lovebirds," Ron said boredly. "The Mirror's here!" His words broke them out of their stupor and they quickly hurried over to where he was standing.
"So this is the Mirror of Erised, huh?" Hermione said as her eyes roved over every inch of the polished surface. "I show not your face but your heart's desire," she read slowly.
Ron stared hard at his reflection in the mirror. "Come on, come on. Please stone, come back to me!" he pleaded.
Neville watched him worriedly, not even slightly tempted to look in the mirror. Harry however, was distracted by a slight scuffing noise that came from behind them. He turned around – and gasped.
A/N: What is this? An update within the week? No way. It's longer than usual too! I think I deserve some praise here, dear readers. * hint hint* Just kidding.
As you can see, I've been good and updated quickly. Just don't expect it to repeat anytime soon. The next chapter might take some time because - heads-up! – it's going to be the last chapter. Probably. I'm planning it to be that way but chances are it won't.
So I hope you enjoyed that chapter, I had heaps of fun writing it! Review please! :)
Ps. I forgot to mention that the 100th reviewer will have the pleasure of always holding a special place in my heart. If that's not enough of an incentive, I don't know what is! ;)