As soon as Freddie touched the doorknob to turn it, a man in yellow robes appeared beside her. His sudden appearance startled her and she jumped slightly. She was still on edge after her tangle with the Devil's Snare.
"Sorry," the man said with a thick french accent. "I am here to take your wand. You will get it back at the end of this challenge."
Freddie hesitated and looked down at the wand in her hand. She was reluctant to give it up, especially after she'd just been caught without it when she'd most needed it. But she had to do it in order to proceed.
"Alright," she said finally, handing her wand over to the man.
"Merci," he said with a slight bow. He opened the door and waved her through. "Good luck."
She turned to thank him but the door had already shut. She jumped back as flames the door was consumed by a wall of purple flames. She turned around to see something similar on the other side of the room, a wall of black flames that stretched from floor to ceiling.
The room she was in was small, about the size of Snape's Brewing Lab at Hogwarts. In the middle of the room sat a table and on the table were 7 bottles, each a different color and size. Intrigued, Freddie approached the table and found a roll of parchment sitting before the middle bottle. She unrolled it curiously and read what was written on it.
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 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 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
A riddle? Freddie thought with a quiet groan. Seriously? She had never been good at this sort of puzzle. Now she knew why the Ministry wizard had taken her wand – it would have been too easy to use a spell to reveal the ingredients of the potions inside the bottles, or even to try a Flame-Freezing Charm on the wall of fire.
She read the riddle silently three times, then read it out loud once in the hope that hearing the words might help her understand it better. It clearly said the bottle on either end wouldn't help her move forward so she pushed those slightly out of line. The biggest bottle and the smallest weren't poison, so it could be one of them. And the 'second left' and 'second right' were twins, could that be the nettle wine? She puzzled over it for several minutes, but she didn't feel confident and all the wordplay was making her head hurt. She needed a different approach.
She pulled the book titled Identifying Brews out of her bag, suddenly glad that Snape had chosen that particular book. She flipped through it looking for something to help her. Most of the information was about using spells to identify potions and how to identify the symptoms of different poisons. Not as helpful as she might have hoped.
She remembered learning about a potion when she was a second year, one that would let the drinker move through flames unharmed, although she didn't know for sure if it worked on magical flames. The Ice Potion. That has to be what's going to help me move forward. It has to be in one of these bottles, but which one? She looked through all of her books, trying to find a recipe, something that might help her identify the potion, but the Ice Potion wasn't listed in any of her five books.
She tried to remember that lesson from second year, to remember what the completed potion had looked like, but her memory was fuzzy. It had been five years ago, after all. She remembered slicing white and red mushrooms – Bursting Mushrooms that she'd had to put a Freezing Charm on so they wouldn't explode when she cut them. She remembered because she'd had a hard time doing the charm and Daniel had to help her when Snape wasn't looking so they wouldn't get in trouble. She couldn't remember any of the other ingredients but suddenly she remembered Snape's words from the beginning of the lesson "The Ice Potion, also known as the Fire Protection Potion-" She dropped the book she was holding and snatched up Zygmunt Budge's Book of Potions. She opened the book to the section of potions starting with 'F' and there it was. Fire Protection Potion. She felt like an idiot for not remembering the name sooner, especially when it seemed such an obvious name.
She read the entire entry in Budge's book carefully, including the notes that appeared in the writer's handwriting. When consumed, the Fire-Protection Potion induces the sensation of ice and frigidity in the drinker and provides protection from most magical flames. That was it then, it definitely had to be what she was looking for.
"But how can I identify it?" she murmured aloud. And then, in response to her question, more of Budge's handwriting appeared in the empty space on the page below the recipe. The Fire Protection Potion can be identified by its cobalt blue color and the scent of Wartcap and Bursting Mushrooms. If you hold your hand a few inches above a cauldron of this brew it will feel cold.
Freddie was shocked. She hadn't known that she could ask Budge questions like that! She had scribbled questions in the book before with a quill and the ink had disappeared into the page before Budge had answered. She hadn't known she could ask them out loud, too!
She quickly uncorked five of the bottles on the table. She didn't bother opening the two on the end, since she knew from the riddle that they weren't going to help her move forward. The second, third, and fifth bottles all contained a blue liquid. She sniffed the bottles cautiously. Two of them smelled like mushrooms and the third was definitely nettle wine. She pushed the nettle wine bottle away and sniffed the two blue potions again, trying to see if she could detect any difference. Neither of the bottles felt cold to touch so she was counting on her nose. And then she caught it, in the larger of the two bottles she held, the faint scent of hellebore beyond the earthy mushroom smell. She held the bottle up to the light and shook it slightly. Sure enough she saw the fine particles of powdered moonstone swirling in the blue liquid.
"Potion No. 86," she said allowed. She was certain of it. It was the poison she had started brewing with Snape, just for fun, on the last day of school. She had never seen the final product because that had been the night he first kissed her and she'd been so distracted she let the potion burn. Still she was positive this was the same poison. She put that bottle down, leaving her with the smallest of all the bottles in her hand. She glanced at the riddle on the parchment again, found the line that said 'Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides'. So even if she was wrong, it wouldn't kill her. And her instinct told her that she wasn't wrong. Snape had told her to trust her instincts.
Without further ado she lifted the bottle of Fire-Protection Potion to her lips. When the liquid touched her tongue it felt like she'd popped an ice cube into her mouth and she knew that she'd been right. The cold feeling coursed through her body until she felt about like she had the first day of their journey to France, when she'd been all but frozen to her broomstick. She gathered her books and approached the wall of black fire confidently. She stuck her hand in first – she could see the black flames licking her skin but she couldn't feel them – then she stepped through them. For a moment all she saw was black, flickering flame, and then she was on the other side and the man in yellow robes was waiting for her in front of a door.
"Congratulations," he said, holding her wand out to her. "You solved the riddle."
"Thanks," she said, glad to be reunited with her wand. But she hadn't solved the riddle, not in the least. She'd found her own way through and it occurred to her now that the judges might hold that against her. She didn't do what she was supposed to do.
"You can rejoin the other competitors in the courtyard," the man said, not understanding her reluctance.
"Right. Yes. Thanks," Freddie said again, then she opened the door and stepped out into the courtyard.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Final challenge complete! Now who will win? Will the judges be disappointed Freddie didn't solve the riddle the proper way? And yes I borrowed Snape's riddle from The Philosopher's Stone book lol. In my storyline perhaps Snape actually borrowed the riddle from Freddie and used it to help Dumbledore guard the Stone? ;)
~RedPandaPrincess