Chapter 2

My sprint considerably slower than it had been before, I reached the third floor and stopped. I took a few deep breaths and glanced at my energy bar. It was more than half gone now, and, much to my surprise, I was starting to feel the effects. It was getting harder to catch my breath, and my muscles ached when I moved. Cole had said that things would get harder as the energy ran out, but I thought he was just being paranoid again.

"Ron? Ron!" A male's voice reached me from my right. Trying to gain at least a little energy back, I walked in that direction. As I approached the end of the hall, I saw two figures leaning over another. One was a girl, with busy brown hair; the other, a boy with scruffy black hair and glasses. They were leaning over another boy with bright red hair. Having read the Harry Potter books, I immediately recognized Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, leaning over Ron Weasley. Ron's eyes were closed and his face was pale. Beyond them stood a tall wooden door, through which loud growling and barking could be heard.

"Who're you?" Harry asked as I got closer, standing up and pointing his wand at me. Hermione stood up next to him, fingering her own wand.

"Wait, wait," I replied, holding up my hands and almost dropping my wand. "I know you don't know me," I continued, hoping they would at least let me try to explain. "I've come to help. My name's Jess."

"You're not British," Hermione stated, looking confused. "Where did you come from?'

"Yeah, I don't go here. I'm from America." I eyed Ron uneasily. "Is he.?" He hadn't gotten hurt like this in the book, not until the end, but then I hadn't been in the book either. My presence may have changed everything.

"No, he's just knocked out," Harry replied, and a little of my tension faded.

"One of us should get him to the medical wing," Hermione said. Harry looked nervous.

"Hermione, we know that this is going to happen tonight," he said.

"Wait, Hermione can get Ron to the nurse, and Harry and I will go get the Stone." I immediately regretted mentioning the Sorcerer's Stone. In Harry and Hermione's minds, they were the only people, other than the Professors at the school, who knew that the Sorcerer's Stone even existed. For me to know that it was here at the school, and that they were going after it. let's just say they looked pretty confused.

"How do you know about all this?" Harry asked, tightening the grip on his wand.

"I.uh." I honestly didn't know what to tell them.

"Say you're a friend of Professor Dumbledore's." Cole's voice was soothing in my ear. I felt instantly calmer now that he was back by my side, and I immediately trusted his advice.

"Well, I wasn't supposed to tell you," I began. "But I'm a friend of Professor Dumbledore." They looked at me quizzically. "Yeah, you see, Dumbledore and I have been talking by phone."

"By owl!" Cole yelled in my ear, making me flinch. "They communicate by owl, remember?"

"By owl!" I amended. I chuckled nervously as the doubt on their faces deepened. "Guess I've been spending too much time around the.uh."

"Muggles," Cole supplied.

"Muggles," I continued. "So, when Dumbledore wrote to me about all the trouble that's been going on, and that the Stone may be in danger, and the great Harry Potter may be in danger, and that."

"All right, we understand," Harry interrupted, and I fell silent. He thought for a second, then continued. "If you really are a friend of Dumbledore's and you know everything that's going on with the Stone, then answer this: What's the name of the alchemist who created the Sorcerer's Stone?"

I tried to think, but the name escaped me. I coughed into my hand, sneaking a quiet "Cole!" into it.

"I'm looking, Jess," he said, and I could hear pages flipping in the background. Meanwhile, Harry and Hermione were staring at me, both wands still pointed towards my chest.

"Yes, well, Dumbledore's told me about him a few times," I said, stalling for time and desperately hoping that Cole found the name soon. Harry and Hermione were still first years, but both of them knew at least a few spells that I didn't want to get hit with. "For some reason I just can't remember his name."

C'mon, Cole I thought. Harry's wand hand was getting pretty jumpy.

"Flamel!" Cole yelled. "Nicolas Flamel!"

"Oh, that's right," I said, trying to keep the relief out of my voice. "His name's Nicolas Flamel."

They both seemed to relax, and their wand hands dropped to their sides. "Well," Hermione started. "If she's a friend of Dumbledore's we've got to trust her. We'll need all the help we can get."

"Right," Harry said. "Hermione, take Ron down to the medical wing and send an owl to Dumbledore. Use Hedwig, she'd probably be the fastest. Jess and I will go protect the Stone."

They hugged, and Hermione got a good grip on her wand. "Wingardium Leviosa!" she called, and with a swish and flick of her wrist Ron was lifted into the air. She moved her wand toward the stairs, and Ron floated that way. "Be careful!" she called over her shoulder as she levitated Ron down the stairs. Harry watched until they were out of sight, then turned to me.

"Okay, through this first door is a three headed dog named Fluffy. There's a trapdoor about halfway into the room, and the only way to get to it is to put him to sleep with this." He held out a small wooden flute. "We go to the door, but then made a mistake and stopped playing, and Fluffy woke up again. He got Ron with one of his paws and knocked him out of the room." His face took on a worried expression. "I hope he's okay," he finished.

I lay my hand on Harry's shoulder and looked into his bright green eyes. "He'll be okay, I know it. And the sooner we get the Stone, the sooner we can get to him. Now, what can we expect after Fluffy?"

I was more asking Cole than I was Harry, but Harry didn't know that. "I don't know," he answered. "We only found out about Fluffy."

"Devil's Snare," came Cole's voice. "Vine like things. In the book, Hermione shot flames out of her wand and it let them all go."

"What was the spell?" I whispered, as Harry and I started towards the door. The growling coming from behind the door got louder as we approached. I absently looked down at energy bar; it was a little over half full. At least that was good.

"No spell," Cole said. "It says 'she muttered something and sent a jet of the same bluebell flames she had used on Snape at the plant.'"

"So what did she use on Snape?" I asked. More pages flipped.

"Still doesn't say. 'She whispered a few, well-chosen words.'"

"So how do we beat it?" I asked more urgently, starting to get worried.

"Don't get caught in it," he said. "Or.wait, wasn't there a spell they used in the fourth book to get flames?"

"Yeah, find it if you can," I replied, a little hope starting to creep back in. "I'll try not to get us caught." Pages started flipping, and I grabbed Harry's arm. "After you jump past the trap door, you're gonna hit something soft. Roll off it right away, and get as far away as you can. It's a Devil's Snare."

Harry looked surprised again. "How do you know what's to come?" he asked.

"You've just gotta trust me. I know it's hard, but I know what I'm doing." He looked worried, but continued down the hall until we reached the door. He pulled it open and immediately began playing the flute. As I stepped into the room behind him, I was overcome with hot breath blowing against my whole body. A gargantuan, three-headed dog loomed over us, all three sets of teeth glistening with saliva. I took a step back, but Cole stopped me from going any further.

"Jess, look at its eyes," he said. Dragging my eyes away from the teeth, I glanced up at the eyes of one of the heads. They were drooping sleepily and, looking to the others, I saw they were doing the same. When all the heads finally settled onto the floor, Harry pointed to the trap door, still blowing furiously into the flute. I tiptoed to the door and pulled hard on the handle. The door came up towards me. I looked up at Harry, who was walking towards me, his eyes still on Fluffy.

"Remember, when you hit the Snare, get off right away," I whispered, and he nodded. "Cole, have you found the spell yet?"

"Still looking; it's a pretty big book." I took a second to note that he was whispering too, though no one but me could hear him. "I'll find it soon."

Taking comfort in his words, I drew a deep breath and jumped into the darkness under the door. Above me, I heard the flute stop playing, a few sharp barks, and then I landed on something soft. I immediately rolled away, continuing to roll until I fell off of the softness and landed hard, on my shoulder, on a cold cement floor. Pain shot down my arm and, glancing down at my health bar, I saw that a little of it had disappeared. I pushed myself to my feet, but before I had time to do anything else, a scream came from across the room.

"Jess!" I whirled around to see Harry lying on the ground, a long vine twisted around his foot. He was being pulled toward the Devil's Snare, his wand lying a few feet to his right.

"Cole!" I yelled, starting in a sprint towards Harry. "I need that spell, now!"

"I haven't.wait! Here we go! Uh." I reached Harry as another vine wrapped around his leg.

"Cole, now!"

"There it is!" he cried. "Incendio! Say Incendio!"

I flicked my wand towards the vines and yelled "Incendio!" Blue flames shot out the end of my wand and hit the main body of the Snare. It squealed in protest and pulled all its vines in towards it, releasing Harry. He stumbled over to his wand and picked it up, then came over to me.

"Thank you," he said, still trying to catch his breath. "Where'd you learn that spell? And who's Cole?"

"Do you always interrogate the people who save your life?" I asked, but he continued to look inquisitive, and I knew he definitely wouldn't trust me if I didn't give him an answer. I sighed and mumbled "Did you have to make him so smart?"

"Hey, I didn't make him anything," Cole answered defensively. "Remember, this is coming from your head."

"Then can't I make it go away?" I asked, knowing that Harry was staring at me with growing suspicion. "You know, just stop thinking that he's smart and he'll stop being smart?"

"Sorry, Jess, it doesn't work like that. The game doesn't read just your thoughts; it reads what's already in your head. Even if you don't think he's smart, inside you know that he is. The game can still see that."

"Okay, look," I said to Harry. "Cole is a friend of mine. When I said I was coming here to help with the Stone, he and I cast a spell so that we could talk in our minds. That way he could help me if we got into a jam. Incendio was his spell." Harry still looked skeptical, and I noticed that his wand was pointed in my general direction. "Hey, Cole and I just saved your life. I could leave now and let you try to get to the Stone yourself."

He seemed to relax, but only a little. "Alright," he said. "But when all this is over, I want a full explanation."

"That's fine. Now I suggest we get out of here. I'm not sure how long the spell will work."

"Okay." We started off down the dimly lit corridor, me in the lead. I speculated that Harry had done that on purpose so he could watch me more closely.

"Cole," I muttered. "I lost some health in the fall. How do I get it back?"

"Umm. I don't know for sure. You might be able to find food or something to restore it. How's your energy?"

I glanced down. "Almost gone, but we're walking now, so it should build up again. What challenge is next?"

"Give me a sec." While he looked, I took note of our surroundings. The corridor sloped slightly downwards. The only sounds were that of dripping water and the scraping of our shoes on the stone floor. As we progressed, a slight beating and clinking could be heard coming from up ahead.

"Do you hear something?" I asked, not really directing it toward either of the boys.

"Yeah, I wonder what's next," Harry said thoughtfully.

"Winged keys," Cole said. "There'll be broomsticks in the next room waiting for you. One of the keys will have crumpled wings because it's been caught already. Go for that one."

He finished as we reached the end of the corridor. We stepped through a giant archway into a dimly lit room. Glancing, up, we saw thousands of tinkling lights, and there was no mistaking the distinct beating wings.

"Wow," said Harry in awe. "That's a lot of birds."

"They aren't birds, they're keys," I corrected. Looking around, I spotted a tall wooden door with three broomsticks floating in front. We jogged over, and Harry pulled on the door.

"Locked," he said. He glanced at the broomsticks, then up at the keys. "How're we supposed to find the right one? There must be thousands."

"Look for one with a bent wing or crumpled feathers," I replied, beginning my search from the ground. Tucking his wand into his belt, Harry grabbed a broomstick and headed into the air, flying through the keys in search of a bent wing.

"Well, go help him," Cole said.

"Are you nuts?" I asked. "I've never flown on a broomstick. I'll get myself killed before we even get to the Stone."

"You are there to have an adventure, remember?" he replied. "Besides, it can't be too much different from riding a bike."

As much as I didn't want to admit it, he was right. I was being no help on the ground, and if Harry had to find it by himself, we might be in this room forever. I dropped my wand into one of the pouches, then took a deep breath and straddled one of the brooms. I pulled up on the front and instantly shot into the air, crying out as my stomach got left on the ground. I stopped climbing as I slid into the cloud of keys and, once I could catch my breath again, started looking for the key. For a few minutes I just floated there, moving only my eyes and trying not to look down. Finally, out of the corner of my eye.

"Harry! By your left foot!" Before I could blink Harry had taken off in a sharp dive for the key. He caught up and grabbed it, but it wouldn't stop pulling. He tried desperately to hold on to the broom and the key at the same time, but the beating wings were too strong. He was pulled from the broom. He dangled there for a few heart-stopping seconds as the wings of the key kept him suspended. But gravity was too strong. The small wings stopped beating, and Harry began a long plummet to the ground, the key still clutched in his hand.