Please do not be mad at me if a character is too OOC right now. There are reasons, and it's sometimes in-between lines or it's going to be explained in later chapters. It's not always going to be explained right away.

Chapter 22: A Slippery Snake

The dormitory was mainly quiet, save for the sound of breathing. Harrison sat criss-crossed on his bed, his head tilted downwards as he finished reading the chapter he'd been reading for the last several hours. It was finally nearing midnight and he got up from his four-poster bed, and headed out of the dormitory, out of the common room and out of the dungeons. He casted a disillusionment charm on himself and silently casted a silence spell, to conceal his footsteps in case there was anyone who was curious, or anyone who was out at this hour.

He pulled out the map, took a note that Fred and George were on the second floor, just like he told them. He noticed that Dumbledore's name was missing which was a good thing, if he wanted to pull this off. He already knew Saeviour was going to blab his mouth off to Dumbledore, if he didn't take care of that. What better way to test Dumbledore's loyal pet than this?

He spotted the names Saeviour Potter and Hermione Granger standing right outside the seventh floor, which meant they were probably waiting for them. He rolled his eyes and pocketed the map inside his pocket, as he headed up several flights of staircases, without coming across anybody as he made his way up to the seventh floor.

He made himself visible as soon as he got onto the seventh floor. It didn't take long to find Potter or his precious little know-it-all, who acted like she was his best friend or something. He'd let the mudblood think that for now until he got what he truly wanted out of her.

He walked across the stone corridor, his long shadow plastered across the stone wall. It wasn't hard finding Saeviour and Hermione standing next to a portrait on the seventh floor, with Saeviour holding a silky and silvery cloak in his hands.

"I see you decided to show," Saeviour snided. "And here, I thought you were lying, like the slimy snake you are."

Harrison rolled his eyes at Saeviour's commentary, especially since all he wanted to do was see Saeviour's face when he realized that Harrison lied for his own benefit, and this was all a big cat and mouse game.

"You better not try something, snake," Saeviour told him.

"I'm not," Harrison lied. Internally, rolling his eyes because they fell right into his trap.

"Let's get going…. We're wasting precious time," Saeviour announced, pulling on the cloak between him and Hermione.

The top of Saeviour and Hermione's heads disappeared along with most of their face when they went underneath the cloak. It must have been the invisibility cloak that the Potter's owned

He held out the cloak outwards and Harrison ducked inside, right next to Saeviour. He could feel the boy-who-lived twitch his arms and the way his breathing changed. He could feel the boy-who-lived eyes darting towards him once in a while, as they headed down towards the third-floor, their footsteps shuffling around quietly. They stopped at the first set of stairs when they saw Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, sitting there, with her lamp like gaze upon them. They ignored her, and kept going until they stopped at the third-floor staircase, with Peeves loosening the carpet so people would trip.

"Who's there?" he said suddenly as they climbed toward him. He narrowed his wicked black

eyes. "Know you're there, even if I can't see you. Are you ghoulie or ghostie or wee student beastie?"

He rose up in the air and floated there, squinting at them.

"Should call Filch, I should, if something's a-creeping around unseen."

Saeviour was the one who spoke up first, almost sounding like the Blood Baron, in a hoarse whisper,

"Peeves," he said, "the Bloody Baron has his own reasons for being invisible."

Peeves almost fell out of the air in shock. He caught himself in time and hovered about a foot off

the stairs.

"So sorry, your bloodiness, Mr. Baron, Sir," he said greasily. "My mistake, my mistake — I

didn't see you — of course I didn't, you're invisible — forgive old Peevsie his little joke, sir."

"I have business here, Peeves," croaked Harry. "Stay away from this place tonight."

"I will, sir, I most certainly will," said Peeves, rising up in the air again. "Hope your business goes well, Baron, I'll not bother you."

And he scooted off.

A few seconds, they were on the third-floor corridor, with the door already ajar.

"Well that made our job easier," Saeviour commented quietly, "Snivellus already got here."

Saeviour pushed up the door, with the door creaking open. A low, rumbling met their ears as the Cerberus sniffed madly in their direction, even though they were invisible.

Harrison was the first to notice a harp right by its feet and silently pointed it out.

"Someone needs to play that or the Cerberus will wake up," Harrison whispered.

Hermione nodded, and they walked slowly until Hermione was able to grab the end of the harp and pull it closer, with the dog remaining upright, with growls coming from the Cerberus. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione bend down towards the ground and began playing the harp.

Soft notes filled the room as Hermione played. The Cerberus stopped what it was doing with its eyes beginning to droop and its growls ceasing to exist, as it fell to its knees and fell to the ground, fast asleep.

Saeviour removed the cloak off them, and crept towards the trapdoor underneath its paw. The Cerberus' hot, smelly breath was felt as they crept towards it, and pushed its pall back, opening the trap door, that revealed nothing but pitch-black.

Saeviour turned his attention towards Harrison, his brown eyes hidden behind his round glasses as he said with barely any emotion, "You go first."

Harrison didn't say anything and simply jumped down the trap door. Cold, damp air rushed past him as he continued to fall down until he landed on something soft. He ran his fingers and quickly deduced that it was some sort of plant. There was no way he was going to remain in place and find out what the plant exactly was, so he jumped up and headed towards the damp wall, struggling as the plant's snakelike tendrils were already starting to wrap around his ankles.

There was no way that Harrison was going to remain here and wait for Saeviour and the mudblood to jump down from where the Cerberus was possibly sleeping, so he turned his head upwards and yelled,

"It's fine, just a plant down here! I'm going to scout ahead!"

He didn't wait to hear their reactions as he headed down the stone passageway, feeling the air getting chilled more and more and he trekked down into the passageway, using his wand as a source of light. Water drops trickled down from the walls onto the floor, creating small bits of puddles that Harrison paid no mind to as the water was only creating small puddles.

He heard from the distance of Potter struggling to get out of the plant's clutches as he heard him screaming, and yelling at Hermione. He paid no mind to it as he trekked deeper and headed downwards where he heard the sound of soft rustling and clicking noise not far ahead, where he also noticed light upon ahead, with something moving inside by the way the shadows moved.

He opened the door to reveal a brightly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was full of small, jewel-bright birds that didn't quite look like birds, fluttering and tumbling around the room. On the opposite end of the chamber was a heavy wooden door that remained closed.

The more Harrison stood there, the more he quickly realized that these weren't birds, but simply keys charmed with colorful looking wings.

He walked gracefully across the room, and looked more closely at the door. He tried opening the door, but the door wouldn't budge and neither did casting the Alohomora charm on it. It simply wouldn't budge, so the only option was figuring out which of one of the keys matched the lock. It wasn't that hard as the lock was old-fashioned and silver so the key had to match it.

There was no way that he was going to get on a broomstick and be sitting in the room midair, trying to find the right key. It was like finding a needle in a haystack, and this was most likely Flitwick's idea. So he summoned the key, and grabbed it by its blue feathers. It tried wiggling out of its hand, but he held a firm grip on the key as he twisted the key into the lock, and opened the door. He let the key fly out of the lock and closed the door behind him.

The next room was practically pitch-black until he stepped into the room, where torches were lit up all around him, and he noticed that he was on a giant chess board, behind the black chessmen. They were clearer, much taller than him and carved out of black stone. Across the chamber, were the white chessmen that clearly had no faces.

He knew by the way it was set up: play to advance across the room.

He wasn't a really skilled chess player, but he knew how to play decently from all the games that Draco forced him to play during the evenings. And he knew that he must be a part of the game, so he took the spot of the bishop and commanded from there.

The white pawn moved forward two squares.

Harrison sent his pieces forward and watched the white pieces moved forward. Harrison lost several of his pieces as the white pieces smashed them to the floor, and dragged him off the board. It took a couple of tries before he got the hang of it and sent several white pieces off of the board.

He fought his way across the board and checked mate the king.

He moved across the room, and entered the next room, where a strong disgusting smell met him. He covered his nose with his black robe as he caught the sight of a troll that was guarding the room. It was clearer, much bigger than the last one he had fought, and he had no means of playing hero again. He pulled out his arm, and put a lot of his magic within the spell and said in a clear voice,

"Avada Kedavra."

Green light filled the room as it hit the troll. The troll fell down, dead. It created a small earthquake-like feeling throughout the room, from the impact it caused when the troll went to the stone floor.

From the way the puzzles were, it wasn't hard to figure out which ones were which, as the only one that was left was possibly Snape's and maybe Dumbledore. This was basically child play, not like he wasn't expecting much challenge since Fred, George and Sirius told him about this.

He smirked as he entered the next door, which held nothing but a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line. He stepped over the threshold, and a fire sprang up from behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw that instead of the yellow-and-orange flames, it was purple. At the same time, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward. Leaving him trapped until he figured out the puzzle.

He approached the paper and noticed a roll of paper lying next to the bottles and picked it up. He read its contents.

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.

Harrison studied the paper and potion bottles for several minutes. It was clearly going by logic, something that many witches and wizards lacked. He picked up the smallest bottle that was clearly enough for one person, so he tasted the chilled liquid and put the bottle down where it was at. He picked it back up and the same amount of liquid appeared in the bottle. He quickly headed through the black flames, feeling the flames around him, but not the heat.

The next room was lit and contained a large mirror with Professor Snape in his dark black robes standing beside it, looking at him. His obsidian eyes staring at him.

"Dumbledore was really putting Potter for slaughter," he commented, "I loved your puzzle especially as it is logical."

"Where's Potter?"

Harrison shrugged, "Don't know. Last time I knew he was still over the plants, but he should be only a couple minutes from entering."

He turned his attention to the mirror and asked, "Assuming the stone is inside the mirror… How do we get it out?"

"Go by the headmaster's logic, that's all I know," Professor Snape answered.

Harrison looked at the mirror closely and read the description written above. At first glance, it looked like it may have been written in a dead or a foreign language as it read, Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. He looked in the mirror and saw himself in the middle of the mirror, not much older than what he looked like now. Ella was standing next to him, her head leaning on his arm, with his left arm slung around Ella's shoulders with her parents, Rabastan, Fenrir and Barty Crouch Jr. standing behind him, smiling and beaming at him with what he accomplished. His eyes started to water as he truly wished that was truly reality, and just some faraway future. He would have stared at it longer if Professor Snape didn't interrupt,

"I show not your face but your hearts desire," Professor Snape said.

Harrison turned his attention over to what Professor Snape said, his words echoing throughout his head as he stared at the mirror. Thinking in terms of Dumbledore's logic, his thoughts were echoing around the same thing: I don't want to use the stone. I just want to hide it away with better protection than won't allow anyone to steal it.

He felt a small weight in his pocket, and pulled it out. There it was. A small, blood red stone was in his hand and now in his pocket. It was his.

"Now I'm going to leave and hope that you don't ruffle Mr. Potter up further," Professor Snape said. He turned himself invisible and right as he did that, he heard a voice from the doorway.

I feel horrible that this took over a month, but I have been busy working sadly. I'm hoping the next chapter won't take long as it's kinda going to be the same thing as the old one, so it shouldn't.