CHAPTER 20

"I wish I knew what the dog on the third floor was hiding," Hermione casually mentioned during one of her study sessions with Neville and Harry.

"Why?" Harry wondered.

"It's got to be something important!" Hermione said. "And guess what Ron told me last night."

"What?"

"He forgot to hand in his defence homework and had to go back after class to hand it in, and he said he heard Professor Quirrel talking to someone like he was being threatened!" she told Harry.

"Quirrel's scared of his own shadow, Hermione," Harry reminded her.

"He's worse at m-magic than I am!" Neville chuckled, "and I b-bet he doesn't have our excuse of a h-hand-me-down wand!"

"I wasn't finished," Hermione said snippily. "He's our defense against the dark arts professor! That means that whoever's working for Voldemort would likely target him! It all makes sense!"

"You're not going after Snape again, are you?" Harry groaned. He knew that the greasy professor fed Fluffy regularly, hence the bite on the leg, and the rope Hermione had seen him with had actually been Harry's.

"She's got a p-point," Neville said. "After all, you've seen how P-Professor Snape always glares at him!"

"He glares at everyone! I bet he glares more at me than Quirrel," Harry exclaimed.

But Hermione wouldn't give it up. She dropped the subject when Harry asked for help with a charms essay, but the look on her face made it clear that the conversation wasn't closed. By the end of their study session, Harry was frustrated. He scarfed down dinner and snuck under his cloak to the forbidden corridor. Fluffy made him calmer. The thought made him giggle - Harry never would have expected to befriend a giant three-headed dog, especially after nearly getting eaten the first time they met!

He made sure to keep the cloak close at hand, in case it was a feeding day for Fluffy, but his snuggle session with the giant dog went uninterrupted. In fact, he calmed down so much that he drifted off to sleep for a little while. He cursed under his breath as he woke up, and scurried back to the common room.

Luckily, it seemed that he hadn't missed curfew, as the common room was still full of students. He decided against taking the cloak off as he snuck through to his room. He didn't feel like talking to anyone. As he was walking through, he found himself beside Malfoy and the urge to prank him was too strong to ignore. He stood far enough away that Malfoy wouldn't knock into him if he stood up quickly from his chair, then poked the king of his chessboard over.

"Who did that!" Malfoy yelled, his eyes looking right through Harry.

"I bet your king knew when he was defeated," Blaise smirked, for he had been playing Malfoy at the time. That got Malfoy off on a tirade of how he was a Malfoy and never lost. His chess pieces joined in the conversation to assure Malfoy that he had indeed been winning, and pointed out all of the mistakes Blaise had made leaving him open for attacks.

Harry suddenly remembered how Blaise had complained that Malfoy only trained the black side of the board. How good were they? Would they be enough to guarantee him a win against the giant chessboard beyond Fluffy? They did seem to know what they were talking about, and conveniently they were the right side! All he had to do was "borrow" the set from Malfoy. If he took it while Malfoy was asleep, he likely wouldn't even notice it missing! He decided to give it a go that weekend.

The rest of the week wasn't very good. Hermione was a bit of a wreck with end of term exams looming, and she was making Neville more and more nervous in turn. Besides that, Dudley seemed to be feeling better, which meant he was back to tormenting his cousin any chance he got.

Friday was a particularly difficult day. Snape was even more unpleasant than normal, and it was only the fact that Harry paired with Blaise now that Neville and Hermione worked together that saved his potion from utter failure. He decided that he would try out Malfoy's chess set that evening and then he could sleep in on Saturday.

That night, he lay in his bed, practically vibrating with anticipation. Malfoy seemed to take forever to get ready for bed that night, and it took even longer for his breathing to even out. Finally, finally, Harry was pretty sure he was asleep. He pulled his cloak on before he even got out of his bed and tiptoed over to Malfoy's trunk. His chess set wasn't even put away, but sitting on the top. Harry couldn't believe his luck! He grabbed his backpack, shoes, and the chess set and crept out of the dorm and the common room.

Out in the halls, he took a moment to put on his worn sneakers and shoved the chess set into his backpack. He applied the charms to hide his steps and mask his scent from Mrs. Norris, then made his way as quickly but carefully as he could up to Fluffy's room. He didn't run into any trouble along the way, and had soon made his way down the trapdoor and to the chess room.

Malfoy's chess pieces complained as he set them up and they realized that Malfoy wasn't there. But once he explained that they were in a game that would test their skill much more than Blaise could, they perked up.

Harry found out that he would have to choose a piece to play as, so decided to be the king. After all, it was the only indispensable piece in the game, and if he found himself in danger of being taken he probably had a lot more to worry about.

As soon as he tapped the black king and took his place the game began. One of the white pawns moved two spaces forward, so he mirrored the move on Malfoy's chess set. The black pieces gave him advice, but he found that having so many of them talking made it more difficult to follow their advice than expected! Still, he did his best.

The first time one of the pieces was taken, Harry realized just how much danger he was in. He likely wouldn't survive a hit from the opposition! So, he steeled his resolve and played on. Later in the game, it became obvious that the black pieces on Malfoy's board were very useful in helping him avoid traps that they had set up before, and he avoided many mistakes that could have cost him the game.

It was a close call, but in the end Harry managed to get the white king in checkmate. He heaved a sigh of relief and packed up the chess set. He pulled on his invisibility cloak and went to the door on the far side. The grunting and shuffling noises coming through the door made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Where had he heard sounds like that before? He re-applied all of his stealthy spells and opened the door a crack.

He was immediately hit by the smell. It was possibly the worst thing Harry had ever smelled before, and he had to use all of his mental strength to avoid gagging and coughing. He took a deep breath of the cleaner air from the chess room and took a look through the door. There was a troll! It was pacing around the far side of the room, grunting with each step.

Harry liked to think that he wasn't suicidal. His previous run-in with a troll had not inspired confidence in his ability to defeat or even outrun one. He took a step back from the door and thought furiously. Was it worth it? It was dangerous, but he had a feeling that something terrible would happen if Voldemort was able to get whatever it was Dumbledore was hiding from him. Then he had a thought. Maybe he couldn't outrun a troll on his own legs, but he was fast on a broom!

Mentally patting himself on the back, he went back to the room with the flying keys and grabbed a broom. He arranged the cloak to cover the entire broom while he was riding it and slowly inched the door open, praying that it wouldn't creak. His good luck held out, and he opened the door enough to squeeze through without the troll noticing. He slowly flew across the room, staying as far as he could from the troll. It looked around stupidly when the door at the far side creaked a bit, and sniffed suspiciously, but in the end Harry made it through without it coming for him.

The next room didn't seem to have anything too scary in it - in fact, it was just a table with a bunch of bottles lined up on it. The concerning thing was that as soon as he stepped through the doorway, purple flames sprung up behind him. He was trapped! And the doorway forward also had flames, but they were black and even more sinister.

Harry gulped as he walked forwards. Whatever this was, he had to figure it out or he was trapped here! There was a roll of paper on the table, so he forced himself to move forward and unroll it. When he read it, his heart sank. It was some kind of riddle. If he guessed wrong, he would be poisoned, or burned to death when he tried to go through the door after drinking the wrong potion.

Stifling the urge to cry, he pulled a quill and parchment out of his backpack and drew a diagram of the table. Perhaps, if he very carefully wrote each clue with the bottles it was referring to he could figure it out. He wished he had Hermione with him. She often complained about how wizards lacked logic and he bet she would have the problem solved in no time! But Hermione wasn't here. He had come down all by himself and had to figure it out or be stuck. So he carefully drew all of the bottles and began to label them.

He soon had a couple bottles that were definitely not poison, but he was getting caught up with how many clues there were to sort out. He set down his quill and did his best not to panic - that would do him no good! He grabbed the broom and flew a few quick laps around the room to clear his mind. He idly wondered whether he could get up enough speed to get through the fire without dying immediately, but when he felt how warm the flames were, he decided that he didn't like his odds.

Back at the parchment, he continued teasing out the riddle. The flying had done him good, and at last he was reasonably sure that he knew the identities of the potions in the bottle. The smallest one held the way forward - he was 90% sure. He reminded himself that the sorting hat had wanted to put him in Gryffindor and gulped down half the contents of the bottle. He left the broom and his backpack in the room with the potions and stepped forward before the icy feeling from the potion went away.

He was sure he was going to burn as he stepped through the black flames, but it seemed that he had indeed picked the correct bottle and he got through unharmed. He gasped when he saw what was in the room. The mirror of Erised! He could see his family again! But what was it doing here? Did Dumbledore mean for Voldemort to get stuck looking into the mirror for eternity? Surely that wasn't all there was!

He forced himself to take a good look around the rest of the room before he went to the mirror, but there truly didn't seem to be anything else. Curious, he stood in front of the mirror. How did this have to do with what Voldemort wanted? And how could he make sure Voldemort never got his hands on it?

Harry frowned when his family didn't immediately appear. Instead, it was just him holding a reddish stone. Was Voldemort after a stone? Obviously it would be magical, but what would it do? He wanted to have it so he could figure out what it was. Mirror Harry seemed to understand, and smirked as it stuck the stone into its pocket. Harry gasped - there was something in his pocket! He pulled it out and it was the stone from the mirror! Had he accidentally gotten what Voldemort was looking for? Mirror Harry put a finger over his lips, then smiled as his family came to join him.

He was going to be in so much trouble if anyone found out! He bet they wouldn't care that he hadn't actually wanted the stone to use it himself… they would think he really was a dark wizard working for Voldemort! Well, he couldn't just leave the stone here now that it wasn't protected by the mirror, could he? No, best to hold on to it and figure out what to do later.

He turned to go back but paused. It wouldn't hurt to stay for a little bit, would it? He had missed his family after all, and this was probably the last time he'd see them. But Dumbledore's words came back to him. He didn't want to waste away in front of the mirror! It would be rather awkward if Dumbledore came to check on the stone and found Harry staring at the mirror, so he reluctantly turned away, gulped down the second half of the potion and left the room.

He was so caught up in wondering what the stone was that he almost didn't set the room with the bottles exactly as he'd found it. He put the bottle with the potion allowing free passageway through the black flames back in line with the rest and grabbed his backpack and the broom. Wouldn't it be funny if Voldemort tried to steal the stone, but couldn't get through the flames now that Harry had drank all the potion! But he could laugh about that later. At the present time, he grabbed the potion he believed to be the one that would allow him back through the purple flames. It gave him the same icy feeling, so he took that as a good sign and flew through the flames.

It was easy to backtrack now that he'd gone through all the way once. The troll still paid him no mind, and he easily flew over the chess set that seemed to have reset itself since he had played. Perhaps he could have flown over it on the way in! Impassible protections indeed…

He studied the stone in more detail once he was back in bed with Malfoy's chess set safely back on the blonde git's trunk. It didn't look like anything remarkable, but Harry knew enough about magic to know not to judge something by how it looked.

The more he thought about it, the more anxious he got. He hadn't meant to take the stone! What if Dumbledore knew he had it? What if Voldemort knew! His breaths became quick and shaky. What could he do? He couldn't get it back into the mirror even if he tried now that it was just showing him his family again! He couldn't tell Dumbledore because he'd be expelled for going down the forbidden corridor. The best he could do was stuff the stone into an old sock, hide it in the bottom of his trunk, and continue on like nothing had happened.

The next morning Harry was a wreck. He woke up late after a night of fitful dreams and noticed that he had missed breakfast. After lunch, he nearly had a heart attack when Malfoy pulled out his chess set and it informed him that it had been stolen and used to beat a giant chess set. How had he forgot that the pieces would tell on him to their true master! Conveniently, the pieces didn't recognize human faces very well, so it couldn't say who had stolen it, aside from that it wasn't someone who had regularly used the set. Malfoy seemed more concerned that the set was malfunctioning than that someone had stolen it. After all, the story was far too fanciful to be taken seriously, and surely nobody would dare steal from a Malfoy!

"What is wrong with you?" Johanna snapped at him as he accidentally set fire to the essay she was helping him with. "You look horrid. I know exams are coming, but they shouldn't be that stressful! Go take a nap!"

"Sorry," Harry muttered. "Maybe a nap would be good." He made a show of going up to his room, but knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep. Instead, he grabbed his cloak and decided to sneak out and take a walk to clear his mind. When he got back to the common room he was surprised to see Johanna deep in conversation with an older student. The Harry of a few months ago would have left well enough alone, but the current Harry was tired and trusted his friend just a little less. He snuck up behind them and what he heard made his blood boil.

"You've got to stop snapping at him!" the older Slytherin was saying.

"He's hopeless though," Johanna whined. "It's exhausting trying to help him when he's clearly not paying any attention!"

"That doesn't matter," the other boy said. "He has to trust you! Need I remind you the consequences of failing..."

All of the fight went out of Johanna. "Of course, sir, I'll do better."

Johanna was only friends with him because the older Slytherins were bullying her into it? How dare she trick him like that! He almost ripped his cloak off and hexed her right on the spot, but that would have ended badly seeing as he seemed to be surrounded by snakes who were only pretending not to hate him. What had happened over Christmas to change their attitudes? He almost preferred how they had openly hated him before. At least then he knew who his enemies were! Malfoy's consistency was almost a relief - the blonde ponce may hate him, but at least Harry knew he wasn't faking it.

Harry numbly made his way to Fort Invisibility. He crept into the darkness of the fort and stared into the mesmerizing blue flames. His mind went blessedly blank as he focused on the flickering of the flames.

Hermione and Neville found him there. Harry had no idea how long he had been blanking out looking into the flames, but Neville's tentative voice broke him out of his stupor.

"H-Harry… Are you okay?"

Harry shook his head no. He was not even remotely close to okay. Neville sat beside him, and beckoned Hermione over to sit on his other side. It was comforting to be surrounded by people who had never hated him and never pretended to like him, and soon enough he was willing to speak. He told them all about how he had gone from being hated to being tolerated over Christmas break. Neville was a great listener and he even kept Hermione from making comments that would likely not have helped matters.

"What are you g-going to do now?" Neville asked when the whole story had been related.

"I dunno," Harry replied. "Right now I just never want to see any of them ever again. And maybe hex them to oblivion..."

Hermione gave him a disapproving look.

"I'm not actually going to!" he said.

"Still, c-can't you just imagine Malfoy getting his arse handed to him! It would be g-glorious!" Neville said dreamily.

"Language!" Hermione reprimanded, but she was fighting a smile.

"But seriously, if you're so worried about them being awful to you again, you shouldn't provoke them," Hermione continued.

"You're right," Harry sighed.

"Yeah, what better way to d-deal with the snakes than by b-beating them at their own game!" Neville added.

Talking to Neville and Hermione made him feel better, but he still fantasized about getting his new wand and bursting into the common room, spells blazing out like those cowboys in the films uncle Vernon let Dudley watch when aunt Petunia wasn't home.

After their study session, the feeling of dread returned full-force, and not just because he was going back to the common room full of people who were only pretending to like him. It felt like something was wrong; the castle had a feeling of restless anticipation to it. He wondered whether he was just paranoid, but imagined that he could see that Quirrel and Snape were getting antsy as well. Still, he tried to ignore it. There were only two weeks until final exams, and then this would surely all be over.