Harry Potter: King of the Amazons
Chapter 12
-Harry-
Having read up on what the stone actually was he leapt to his feet and took off running, making his way to the forbidden third floor corridor. Reaching the door he kicked it in expecting to see a dangerous creature and when he first saw the cerberus he thought he would be right. He quickly realized though that something was wrong with the giant three headed dog as it was on the ground whimpering in pain and shaking. "Hygeia!" he called out, summoning his personal healer from the fire elves who appeared in a sound like the crackling of a flame.
"Yes my king." The bowing fire elf asked.
Eye twitching he ignored the use of his title for a moment as he said "I need to press on, take this cerberus back to the island and find out what is wrong with. Treat it well but don't let it attack anyone.".
"Yes my king." Hygeia responded and flamed out with cerberus before he could contradict her.
Shaking his head he opened the trap door and jumped down after drawing his sword. The moment he landed he felt the tentacle like vines begin wrapping around his legs which he quickly began cutting down. He continued to hack and slash before realizing that the plant was just growing back and growled, pulling out his wand and snarled "Podagrae ignis!" causing a stream of white hot fire to shoot from the tip of his wand like a blast from the maw of a dragon causing the plans to quickly burn to ashes as he dropped a few feet onto a stone floor.
Sheathing his he mentally thanked Propheta for finding the elemental spell book in his library before setting off. He quickly got to a door and, cautiously opening it, he saw a room filled with hundreds upon hundreds of keys, each with beautiful wings like those of a bird of paradise. Knowing he didn't have the time to try and catch the keys one by one to discover the correct key to the door at the other side of the room he drew his wand and chanted "Miniscule fulgura!" while pointing to the closest key which sent out a small arc of lightning that struck the key and charged the metal with electricity which fried the wings and began arcing off and hitting the other keys till every key lay on the ground without wings. Quickly he inspected the lock on the door and began looking for a large silver key which he found after about five minutes and entered the next room.
Walking in he saw chessboard arrayed out in front of him and he smirked. Walking up to the nearest chess piece on his side he asked "I have to take one of your spots and give the directions?" figuring it was sentient as all Wizard Chess sets were. When the Knight nodded he turned to the King, "I'm taking your spot." And the black king slid off the board.
"Knight to A6!" he called out firmly once he took his square, setting off the game with his signature opening move. The match was intense and one of the hardest he had even played making it a far more challenging obstacle than the previous ones had been. After moving both of his knights past the line of pawns and into a protective area he began moving his pawns forward until they formed a pyramid like shape on the field, using the Knights to stop any other piece from taking them.
Eventually he lost about half of his pawns but had taken the same amount of his opponents along with a knight, both castles, and a rook. Finally he moved two of his pawns all the way across the board, allowing them to turn into queens, before he used his trifecta of queens to block in the opposing king and end the game. As he walked across the board he snorted in amusement as he realized that he had been a king with three queens to usurp the 'white king' and how much that reflected his actual life here at Hogwarts.
In the next room he walked in and saw another mountain troll, only this one was far larger than the one he had slain at Halloween and also had armor and a steel mace instead of a simple wooden club. Yelling out in annoyance he charged at the massive beast, rolling under a swing of the mace to get to the back where he hoped the Achilles Tendons were unprotected again but there was no such luck as that area was heavily armored. Continuing to dodge he looked for any opening that he could use to slay the creature when he finally saw one. As he jumped back from a downward strike that would have crushed him had it connected he saw that the creatures helmet was protected with a simple leather strap to hold it in place. Grinning he waited for the next downward strike and when it came he jumped up onto the mace before charging forward up the beast's arm until he got to the shoulder and slashed at the strap, cutting clean through the leather and causing it to fall to the ground with a bang. Before he could strike he noticed out of the corner of his eye the mace of the mighty beast swinging at him causing him to leap off the Troll's shoulder only to laugh as the troll struck itself in the temple with its own mace, killing it instantly.
Shaking his head at the idiocy of the creature he continued on and opened the next door which quickly closed behind him before being sealed with purple flames. Walking forward to a lone table in the middle of the room he picked up a note and read:
"Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, whichever 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 hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here for evermore,
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."
Looking it over a few more times he shook his head in exasperation, "A logic puzzle," he grumbled "they used a logic puzzle to protect an extremely valuable and dangerous artifact.". Checking the bottles he reread the riddle one more time before nodding "Three poison, two nettle wines, one potion to go through black flames and one through purple.". Looking closely at the different bottles he went through them as they were lined up "Poison, Nettle Wine, Black Flames, Poison, poison, nettle wine, and purple flames.".
Shaking his head he pocketed the purple flame potion for later, added the nettle wine to a different pocket as he knew it was useful in medicines, and pocketed the poison in different area as they were useful. Opening the black flame potion he sniffed it carefully to try and pick up any hints of poison, something that Pythos had made sure he was capable of doing after Reyna and the wolfs bane water incident. Once he was sure it was safe he drank half the potion and gingerly poked a toe into the fire and, when he wasn't burned, quickly made his way through.
Opening the door he walked in to a fairly large room to see the Defense professor looking into a large ornate mirror. Drawing his sword he said "Interesting to see you here professor.".
The turbaned man quickly spun around and drew his wand, trying to bind him in ropes only for him to sidestep and the ropes wrap around a column, "Impressive reflexes boy," the professor complimented him, all traces of his usual stutter gone, "but it was foolish of you to come here.".
"Is that so?" he asked simply as he slowly began to circle the man "And why should I be scared of a man who fainted at the sight of a troll?".
"Foolish boy," the man snarled in anger "I let the troll in on Halloween.".
"That would explain how it got in," he stated, altering his course slightly so he was slowly getting closer and closer to the man and the mirror in the middle of the room "but not the why.".
"I needed a distraction," the arrogant man continued "I wanted to be able to check on the protections for the…".
"Philosophers stone." He finished making the man look in surprise before nodding.
"How did you find out?" the professor asked with seemingly honest curiosity.
"I have eyes and ears everywhere in this castle," he said with a smirk, bending the truth somewhat to throw the man off "I know all your secrets.".
"Impossible!" the man screeched "how can you know I serve Voldemort?!".
"I didn't," he said simply "thanks for telling me. Now I have absolutely no regrets about killing you.". Before the man could respond he charged forward and attempted to slash at the professor's throat only for the man to leap back and send a banishing curse his way which knocked his sword out of his hands. Wincing at his cracked ribs he pulled his wand and responded, "Not bad professor," making the word professor as mocking as possible much to the man's clear annoyance "but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. Manus Gaea!" he yelled and the stone around Quirrel bubbled before forming large stone hand that gripped the professor's arms and legs and snapped his wand.
Having his opponent restrained he calmly picked up his sword and walked over, "Any last words before you die?" he asked coldly.
Quirrel opened his mouth to respond only to gurgle and thrash before his neck spun sharply and with a sickening crack so that the back of his head faced forwards and the turban began disintegrating. "Impressive Harry Potter," a rasping voice came from within the folds of the disintegrating cloth, "most impressive.".
"Thank you Voldemort," he said simply figuring who the voice belonged to "but flattery won't save you.".
"you can't kill me Harry Potter," the voice continued speaking as the last of the turban fell away "this vessel may die in a few moments when I leave it but I will live on...".
"Then I'll just have to keep killing you, wont I?" he asked sardonically, cutting Voldemort off as he slammed his sword into the heart of Quirrel. After thrashing for a few moments the body went limp and a black shade shot out and fled from the castle.
Shaking his head he turned to the mirror and walked up to it, inspecting it. When he looked at his reflection though he jumped back in shock, instead of seeing himself holding a bloody sword he saw himself, surrounded by his wives and even the slaves while he played with his children and pythos at his home, happy and care free. The head of his reflection self, looked up and smiled before pulling a large ruby like stone out of his pocket, winking, and putting it back. When the mirror him put the stone back in his pocket he a large weight enter his own and he smirked, things just got a whole lot more interesting.