Ron frowned at the clues before him. The introduction seemed strange, the wording of several lines bizarre. Hardly any of it fit to rhyme or rhythm of any sort.
"A hero bears power, justice, and death," Hermione muttered, considering the arrayed bottles. "Power could be represented symbolically by large bottles. There are three words and three sizes. Justice is in between power and death? Does that mean the safe bottle is medium size?
"All kept in these potions midst water and earth," she continued. "But there's no water anywhere around, and the barriers are both flame. It doesn't make sense."
"The bottles are brown and green," Ron said, considering the third line of the riddle. "Darkness and life?"
"Oh, that's good," Hermione said. "So the brown bottles 'hide the future' while the green 'conceal much hardship, but offer a way out'. That's some progress. And the next line is pretty obvious."
"Angles are safer than rounder bottles, but there's less chance of them helping us move onward. The next line seems to say the same thing, the greater the opportunity to succeed the bigger the risk."
"What about this 39?" Hermione asked, sliding the large round bottle into the empty space, as it incremented down to 38, then moving it back and the flaming number flickered back into its original 39. "Could we deduce the sequence of moves required just from that, maybe?"
"Perhaps," Ron said, frowning. "But there are a lot of possible moves. It seems like it would be hard to narrow down."
Hermione made a frustrated sound, glaring at the potions. "This is absurd. There's not enough information here."
"It's disguised, 'writ unclear'," Ron said. "There has to be a trick to it. Something's very strange about the whole thing. The wording is all over the place. 'Zealously ignored extremes could kill or render aid? Living seems certain when your receptacle is larger?'"
"I think it means the deadly potions are the medium sized ones," Hermione said. "Zealously ignored extremes, if you only drink the medium size bottles, they could help, or they could kill you, but the large ones are non-deadly."
"But not helpful to narrowing down how to move onward," Ron said. He reread the whole thing, the introduction, the larger riddle proper, then reread it again. It seemed to almost fit a cadence on occasion, but then slipped off into incoherence with no rhyme or reason.
"Beginnings to move onward," he said, "unless you choose to guess. 39 to carry on."
Beginnings. The number counting down, if they started with that first potion. Beginnings.
"A!" Ron shouted, the solution coming to him in a sudden flash of insight.
"What?"
"A, the letter." He pointed to the first bottle, then to the first sentence of the clues. "The first letter of the first word is A. There are twenty-four bottles and two blank spots. Twenty-six, exactly enough for the whole alphabet. The countdown only starts if we move the first bottle, the A. What if it's not a coincidence?"
Hermione drew another sketch of the board, but filled in letters on the diamonds instead of potions bottles.
"A. So that means we move the bottle from the A position to the. . . G position." She did so, and the counter ticked down.
Ron looked back up at the riddle. "The next letter is H."
The code ranged all across the board, a twisting path that meandered and looped back on itself, but when the flaming number read zero a single small bottle rested in the front center diamond. Ron regarded it warily.
"This wasn't a deadly one, right?" he asked.
Hermione shook her head tentatively. "I think it's only the medium ones," she said, sounding unconvinced.
The line about angles being safer than round bottles flickered through Ron's mind, but he overrode his concern. He picked up the bottle, which came free without the slightest resistance.
"Well, here goes," he said, and swallowed a gulp of the liquid. Immediately, he felt a chill of power run through him. He hastily set the bottle down and backed away, as the room began to glow around him. "I'm not sure what's happening," he began, and Hermione's worried face vanished in the glare of brilliant flame.
He squinted against the brightness and it faded somewhat. The hallway before him was regal, lit with golden sunlight, and intimately familiar. He stepped forward, awestruck, only to run into a solid smooth surface.
He took a step back, then another. It was the mirror, standing on a raised dais in the middle of an amphithetre-like circular chamber. The architecture didn't match that in the mirror; it was of the same style as the earlier rooms - with multiple thin curling patterns. The hall, still visible in the mirror, was ornamented with thicker smoother patterns, but no less elegant for it.
Black flames blocked the exit, the only exit Ron could see. This had to be the final room.
He approached the flames, squinting to see through without much success.
"Hermione?"
"Ron, where are you?"
"The next room. I think the potion is safe, it moved me here."
"Potions can't teleport people," Hermione pointed out.
Ron might have said the same, had their positions been reversed. It was certainly something that demanded further research.
"Just drink it," he said.
"That's not how potions work," she insisted, but a moment later she appeared before the mirror in a flash of flame.
"Oh," she said softly, staring into the mirror fixedly.
"I assume you don't see the hallway I drew?" Ron asked. Neither Neville nor Harry had told him what they had seen, but they hadn't recognized his drawing.
She shook her head mutely.
"Well, then, I need it back. There's something I'm meant to solve here, and I have to figure out what it is."
Hermione didn't move, just stared into the mirror with that same fixed expression. It reminded Ron uneasily of Neville's reaction. He wished he knew what they'd seen, because it seemed to be affecting them much differently than he himself.
He waited several minutes, but when she still showed no indication of moving he took her shoulders and steered her away. The moment she was facing away from the mirror, her expression stiffened.
"What is it?" she asked, stepping back and eying the mirror warily. "I don't understand."
"Me neither," Ron said, stepping before the ancient magical device and staring into its depths. "But I intend to find out."
Ron sat before the mirror, staring into it and trying to make sense of it. The mirror showed only the single scene; that golden hallway, which seemed to go on from the mirror as though he could merely step through into it. He couldn't, the mirror was quite solid and resisted any attempts to push in.
The longer he stared at it, the more desperately he wanted to understand. What was the purpose of this place? Why had he felt so sure this was a puzzle for him? All evidence seemed to the contrary.
"We're trapped down here, aren't we?" Hermione said. "We should have kept working on the riddle to find the way back out, instead of rushing in."
"No," Ron said absently. "This is what we were meant to do." He still felt absolutely certain that there was a solution. If he could just figure out what it was.
He tore his attention away from the mirror with greatest difficulty, turned to search the amphitheater. Descending steps led from the entrance, still blocked with black flames that hissed and snarled when he approached. They were long steps, circling the room in its entirety. Ron thought it would make decent seating, if necessary. The ground was flat through the center of the circle, about ten paces between the edge and the slightly raised dais that held the mirror.
For the first time, he noticed that there were markings and glyphs drawn around the dais, spreading out onto the round floor of the chamber.
He crouched down to look at them more closely. A sword, its hilt toward the door and its point aiming directly at the mirror. A lion, drawn half on the floor and half on the edge of the dais, as though it were trying to climb up onto the raised platform. A series of faces were carved around the dais, many looking frustrated, but several appearing triumphant. Ron couldn't help noticing there was a conspicuous blank space just the right size for one more portrait, about a third of the way from the sword to the left.
The patterns laid out across the floor appeared mostly ornamental in nature, flowering vines and grapes and trees, a few other objects interwoven, but all surrounding the central picture of that sword. The more Ron looked at it, the more he felt the blade was important. He knelt beside it, examined the carving closely.
The sword was sized for an adult, and Ron wasn't sure it would be any use to him, assuming the carving was to scale. It didn't seem probable that it would be otherwise. Everything about this room pointed to it being a challenge, a test, and Ron just didn't know what the test was supposed to be.
He ran his hand along the raised and depressed carving of the sword, the gem set in its hilt, the tiny words he couldn't make out printed down the blade. Pointing toward a lion, pointing toward the mirror.
Was it something he was supposed to have brought with him? Was it like a key, perhaps? There were rumors about various great magical swords. Maybe one of them unlocked the mirror.
No, he had to assume the solution was within the room itself. Otherwise, they really would be trapped here. He walked around the dais completely, examining the faces carved into its edge, peering at the back of the mirror. Then he blinked in shock. Was that a doorhandle?
He stepped onto the dais, ran his hand along the perfectly smooth backing of the mirror, then took a half step and reached for where he felt sure the doorhandle had been. His hand closed on something, invisible and hardly more tangible than air, like grabbing onto particularly thick smoke, but it held.
"Hermione, you might want to step away," Ron said. "I don't know what this will do."
She didn't answer for a long moment.
"Hermione?"
"Right," she said hurriedly, and stepped off the dais. She came to stand behind him. "What are you-"
He turned the handle and pushed the mirror open. Hermione gasped as a dark stairway appeared, inside the mirror, leading down.
Ron didn't stop to think about it, but stepped right in. He heard Hermione's hurried footsteps as she followed behind him.
The stairs twisted, going around first in one direction, then another, then straight or curving slightly. They walked down and down, and Ron felt sure they'd come at least as far again as their initial fall.
Ron's legs began to ache. The descent wasn't difficult, but even walking down became strenuous over repetition.
They came to a landing, where three ornately carved seats surrounded a burbling fountain. Hermione rushed to the fountain, and Ron realized that he was incredibly thirsty as well. They'd been going through this mysterious test for hours now.
As soon as they'd drunk their fill, Ron started off down the next set of stairs.
"Can't we rest a few minutes?" Hermione asked, sounding out of breath.
"You can," Ron said, "but I've got to go on. There isn't much time."
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.
Ron shrugged. He felt the urgency of his search growing by the minute, and remembered all too clearly the mirror vanishing last time he'd been close to understanding. "I have to solve this today, now. I can't put it off."
He started down the steps. Hermione followed.
Albus Dumbledore had been on the verge of revealing himself and offering his assistance to escape the Gauntlet, but then the Weasley boy had somehow walked into the mirror from the back. Albus could hardly believe his eyes. He'd known it was possible -difficult, but possible - to enter the mirror's reflection in certain carefully-arranged circumstances. But he'd never heard of this.
He strode up to the device the moment Hermione was out of sight and ran his hands carefully along the mirror's back, but it remained simply the same smooth, dull, metal surface he'd seen every other time. Nothing exceptional about it whatsoever, either magical or mundane.
He crossed back to the front, stared at his reflection. No longer alone, his mirror self stood with three others.
Arianna, grown into her own, standing straight and proud, an aura of power and mature accomplishment surrounding her. If he focused on her, he could almost see her husband and children standing behind her. Aberforth on her other side, unbroken and without the sadness or resignation, a man able to face what came.
Gellert, on Albus's other side, strong and confident, with merriment in his eyes and none of the madness for personal glory. The mirror version of Albus himself, free of the burdens he now carried, gave his original self a smile and wave.
The stone is safe. You needn't worry.
He should have walked away, should have turned then and tried to find his wayward students, tried to follow them. But, as so many times before, he elected to stay. Just a few minutes wouldn't hurt.
Arianna looked so beautiful as a grown woman, her wand held confidently, her power completely under her control. He could read the knowledge of a century in her wise face, could so easily imagine her taking one step forward and wrapping her arms around him. Gellert as he should have been, a steadfast friend and supporter, an ally through all the darkness they might have faced together.
Just a few minutes. Then he would find where his students had gone off to.
The stairway ended at last, in a small antechamber with three doors. One was the exit, for those who wished never to return. One was an exit for those who wanted to try again another time. And between them, the final door. The way onward to the last test.
Ron crossed to it without hesitation and pulled it open. The grand hall before him was nothing like that in the mirror. Wider and longer and higher than the great hall, thick columns of deep red stone lined the way. Tiles of alternating ivory and lighter red stone patterned the floor, polished so smooth they shone, reflecting the red-gold flames that filled the space between the pillars to illuminate the whole room.
And at the far end, peering regally down with its great eyes fixed upon the intruders, sat a true griffin. Ron knew at once that if Hagrid had stood here, big as he was, he'd be completely dwarfed by the massive beast before them. Its feathers were a bright, deep gold. They reflected the firelight into a thousand thousand shimmering sparks that danced across the floor and ceiling at its slightest movement. Its fur was paler, but no less golden or reflective. Its mane and tail were black, the contrast only serving to highlight how brilliantly the rest of it shone.
Ron stared, awestruck. The griffin laughed, a deep and somehow threatening sound.
"You come here completely unprepared? Rushing in without a thought for your safety?" It spread its golden wings, the flashing light nearly blinding Ron, and leapt into the air.
The creature swooped down toward the door. Before he could think how to react, it had reached through the door with one golden-white claw, snagged Hermione and dragged her inside.
Hermione shrieked in surprise as she was lifted into the air, the griffin flying overhead in a slow circle, then returned to its place at the far end of the chamber. It settled back, one leg underneath its prisoner, the other crossed over so she couldn't move. It had her wand arms trapped helplessly at her sides, and however much she struggled to free herself it was no use.
"So, little challenger, what will you do now?" It peered at Ron, its brilliant red-gold eyes mocking him.
"Whatever I have to," he retorted, leveling his wand at it and advancing into the chamber. "Let her go."
"No," said the griffin. "I have been very alone for a very long time. I think I could use someone to talk to. If I let her go, you'll both run off. If I keep her, at least I'll still have one of you."
"Ron, go get a professor," Hermione said, her voice far steadier than Ron would have expected. "I've read about griffins, there's nothing two first-years can do that will be any use. Just do the smart thing and go for help."
The griffin chuckled. "Fearless little thing, isn't she?" It rearranged its hindquarters, seeming to crouch menacingly. "But this isn't about her. It's about you. Prove you're worthy, and I'll grant you my authority. Otherwise, you're nothing but a waste of my time."
"Let her go," Ron commanded, taking another step. He was mentally running through his repertoire of spells, trying to find something - anything - strong enough to so much as scratch the griffin, but Hermione was right. They weren't strong enough to fight off a griffin. He ought to go running for help.
But he stood his ground. This was his fight, his challenge, his destiny. He wouldn't let something like a lack of resources stop him.
"Let her go," he commanded again. "If you want someone to stay, I will."
"Ron, no! I'll be fine, just go for help."
"I'm not leaving you here," Ron said, then glared up at the griffin. "Do we have a deal?"
The griffin chuckled. "Yourself for the girl? Why not. One noisy child is much the same as another."
It gave a flick of its foreclaws and Hermione stumbled free.
"I do hope this wasn't some dull-witted attempt at a trick," it commented. "If you try to go back on your word, I'll have to kill you."
"I'm not going to," Ron said firmly, though part of him screamed that honour had no place in a fight, he should run for it now. The griffin was big, too big to fit more than a claw through the door. If they could get even just to the stairway, they'd be well clear of it.
"Ron, don't," Hermione pleaded, tears in her eyes.
"Go," Ron said. "The door to the left is what you want, the other will block you from returning."
"How do you know that?" Hermione asked.
Ron shrugged. It seemed obvious to him.
"Yes, run little girl," the griffin taunted. "Go, leave him to me." It stood, stalking toward Ron with a playful light of malice in its bright eyes.
Hermione glanced back at the door behind them, then jumped in front of Ron and raised her own wand. "No. I won't leave him. Wingardium leviosa."
Ron caught on the moment her wand started moving, and joined his own spell to hers. In this, though, even their combined strength was useless. It wasn't simply that the beast was far too heavy to lift, the griffin's feathers seemed to reflect the spell. Much like the keys in the second room, their magic just slid off it.
"Stay if you wish," the griffin said to Hermione. "One can't have too much company, especially when it's so short-lived. But I won't be waiting long. Is this your final decision? Either one of you can go, or you both stay. I'll be sealing that door very shortly."
It prowled close, and for the first time Ron really felt just how outmatched he was. Sitting at the far end of the massive room, the creature had looked big. But now, standing right before him, it towered over them. Easily four times his height, its foreclaws glinting wickedly in the firelight.
Ron was overcome with the urge to turn and run. He felt sure that as soon as their entertainment value wore off, they'd end up as its dinner and nothing they could do would stop it.
"Hermione, run," he said, voice trembling. "There's no point in us both staying. Go."
She wavered, still aiming her wand defiantly up at the beast, but she quailed before its advance. As it stepped forward, she turned and fled.
"Don't try to come back for him," the griffin called after her as she left the room. "By the time you return, it will be far too late for you to do anything."
Hermione stopped just outside the door, turned around with her wand raised as though to return. Before she could make a move, the griffin took one leap, soared over Ron's head, and slammed the door closed with a quick flick of its claws.
A moment later it stepped back from the door, which had been smoothly sealed into the wall. There wasn't so much as a crack to show where it had once been, nor any sound from Hermione beyond.
"There are two others who might open that door from the outside," the griffin said casually, "but neither is her. She will choose the wrong exit, confused by her fear and your unclear instructions, and never be able to find this place again, even to lead one who could enter." It chuckled. "Alas, your fate lies with me alone. No interference can save you now."
"Good," Ron said defiantly, as part of him screamed that he was a fool and this was madness. "I have some questions for you."
"Oh? I suppose I have time to answer a few questions of a daring little fledgling like yourself."
"What's the point of all this?"
The griffin laughed, its voice ringing off the ceiling and echoing in the flames, which roared up as though in response.
"It is for you. You, and those like you, who have the potential of greatness. If a true heir arrives, the castle makes a way for them to reach us. In this case, a simple trapdoor in a forgotten corridor. The entrance is always the first test, a leap of faith, diving beak-first into the unknown without hesitation. Those without that daring could never even begin."
"So it is a puzzle," Ron said. "The whole thing, the mirror, the cerberus, the tests."
The griffin stopped moving, tilted its head and peered at him more sharply. "Cerberus? I don't recall a cerberus. No, I'm quite sure, this is your first trial. You haven't already met any of the others. I would have felt their challenges coming into strength, as they will have no doubt felt mine, but none of us is a cerberus."
"It was guarding the trapdoor," Ron said. "Grouchy fellow, I don't think he liked being cooped up indoors."
The griffin leaned down, staring directly into Ron's eyes. He remembered how angry the cerberus had been as he and Hermione held it back, trying to decide whether to jump into the unknown.
"No," the griffin said, turning and pacing back toward the far end of the room. "No, that is not one of us, nor one of our tests." The griffin prowled back and forth for several minutes, and Ron was sufficiently intimidated by its fierce look of concentration that he remained silent.
"I must divine the truth," the griffin said at last. "Wait here."
With a single running leap, it vanished into the flames that connected the pillars. Though Ron felt somewhat less intimidated with it gone, he wasn't nearly as relieved as he'd have thought. The hall seemed too huge now without the griffin to give it context, leaving him feeling very small and very alone.
He hurried over to the wall that had formerly contained the door and rapped on it firmly.
"Hermione, you out there?"
There was no reply. Either she was gone, or the wall was too thick to allow sound in.
Ron paced the hall. He counted the two dozen pillars, each twenty floor tiles apart. The rows were fifty tiles apart. He'd traversed half the room when the griffin returned, bursting through the flame at the opposite side of the room from where it had exited. The sudden sound and flashing light reflecting from its fur and wings made Ron jump.
"It's far worse than I feared," the griffin said. "Another is using the Gauntlet for their own ends. The Final Gate has been twisted into a repository, the webs reshaped into a trap. The trials themselves cannot be changed, but they have been strung with enchantments and wards that do not belong. The Gauntlet is meant to be freely accessed by any who wish to test themselves, not be locked away behind doors and foreign guardians."
Ron nervously backed away as the great beast continued pacing.
"Well, you are the only visitor I'm likely to have in the next several years," the griffin said, its attitude changing quite abruptly. "I will have well sufficient time to contemplate the vandalism of my trials, but your visit here is limited."
Ron cleared his throat. "So, if this place is here for me and those like me, what's the point of it?"
"To test you. First, your courage is tested by the necessity to act without knowledge, then your nerve is tested by the necessity of remaining calm to escape the plant beneath. Second, the determination to continue in the face of frustration and adversity, and the ability to keep going in the face of continued defeat. Third, your courage and chivalry are tested against real opponents, rather than mere environmental concerns."
The griffin raised its beak and glared at the shifting flame. "Someone added another room," it said. "There was no riddle to my Gauntlet, only trials of bravery, strength, and determination. The additional room feels decidedly Roc in origin, I wonder how much twisting it took to slip that one in?"
Ron suddenly remembered the difference in feel, in size, even in architecture. "The potions riddle, that wasn't supposed to be part of this test?"
"Indeed not. It is none of my doing. Yet you solved it, and without resorting to guesswork. It seems the prophecies are indeed coming to their fulfillment."
"Prophecies?" Ron asked, feeling a bit of trepidation. While prophecies generally made for exciting stories, he'd never heard of a prophecy that turned out well for anyone in reality. They tended to be cautionary tales, about either making your own destiny or not trying to fight fate, depending on the teller.
"If you look back far enough, you'll see that everything has been seen before. There are ancient writings which predicted your predecessor's fall. There are those which predict the clash of destinies to come. And there are those which mark out your path, a different one to your friends."
"What do you know about my friends?" Ron demanded hotly.
"I know that by the time you come into your full power, your friends will have faced death as many times as you, but without the safeguards that we place upon our tests. You see, even choosing the wrong potion would not have truly killed you here. Neither Roc nor I wish to slay our visitors, even should they prove unworthy."
"So all the danger is false?" Ron demanded. "I was terrified for Hermione's safety, when there was no risk at all?"
The griffin chuckled, a particularly nasty sound, and Ron wondered at how he'd temporarily slid into complacency. This creature was not friendly, however talkative it may be, and he couldn't afford to think of it as safe.
"The danger was true. Death within the test would mean your permanent expulsion from it. Few mistakes can be erased, made as if inconsequential, and the Gauntlet was never designed to be easy. It is meant to be faced and conquered, not pushed through without consideration for its challenges."
"Big deal," Ron muttered. "So we couldn't try again, why would we want to in the first place?"
The griffin laughed again. "Why did you try in the first place?"
Ron didn't have an answer. The mirror? But it was something deeper. The mirror only showed him. . . something.
"You would have come eventually. And if you'd failed, it would not have gone well for you. I know the fire that burns within you, the desire to achieve greatness. That is how you came this far, and that is how you will go on."
"Gryffindor," Ron said suddenly. "This test, this is all about proving myself a true Gryffindor."
The griffin smiled, and for the first time Ron didn't sense anything sinister or dangerous behind the expression. "Very good, young Heir. You have already passed the Gauntlet, I confess I have been merely delaying your departure for the sake of our conversation. Your final test was to surrender yourself for your friend, which you did without hesitation, and you maintained your honour even then. If you wish to depart, it is my duty to guide you."
"I'm the Heir of Gryffindor?" Ron asked, stunned. The possibility had never occurred to him. He'd been trying to solve a mystery, but this was not the answer he'd expected to find.
"Indeed." The griffin stepped back to where it had first been seated and reached into the flame with one claw. It dragged out a tapestry and unrolled it across the floor. "Choose your reward, and I shall give it to you."
Five images were woven into the tapestry. Centrally, a familiar sword. The same one carved in the Mirror room's floor. Above it, a helm with an open face and a long golden plume of what Ron strongly believed to be griffin feathers. Below the sword, a belt with a lion's head at its buckle. To the right, a monocle, and to the left, an armband. Each was clearly of ancient design, wrought with silver, ornamented with gold or rubies or both.
"What am I choosing?" Ron asked.
"One of the Gryffindor heirlooms is yours by right. I will bring it, from wherever it rests. Such is the power of the Gauntlet, and my purpose as its guardian."
"What do they do?"
"I know not. That is a secret which was never told to me. Choose."
Ron looked over the tapestry and found himself strangely drawn to the belt. "This," he said, placing his hand on its image. "I choose this."
The griffin rolled the tapestry back up and vanished into the flame once more. Again, Ron waited, but this time he felt no need to pace off the room or search for escape routes. Though dangerous, the griffin now could pose no threat to him.
A few moments later it returned, leaned forward to drop the belt into Ron's hand.
The belt was woven of pale ivory metal that reflected like the griffin's feathers, so intricately that Ron could hardly trace a strand. Patterns were woven in, subtly delineated in counter-lines and spirals; the sun, a feather, a flame, a throne, and a sword prominent among them. There were more, layered upon themselves with such finesse that he knew he could spend days staring at it and still not find every hidden meaning.
"The Belt of Gryffindor is yours, young Heir. I would ask you to remain and speak with me at length, but I'm sure you desire haste to return to your companion."
"I don't want her to worry," Ron agreed.
The griffin chuckled, and this time it did not sound even the slightest bit threatening. "I would expect no less from a true Gryffindor. Go, with strength and courage."
The archway reappeared, and Ron walked out into the small dark room at the bottom of the stairs.
He lit his wand, then stepped through the exit door. It led to a long dimly lit corridor that stretched upward in a slight spiral. Walking up it took nearly all his remaining strength, but he arrived at the top without collapsing.
One more door, and he stood unsteadily in Hogwarts proper once again. Night had fallen, the hall dark and silent.
A piercing note broke the silence, a ringing chord like a sunrise singing to catch your attention, and the headmaster appeared in a flash of curling golden fire.
"Mr. Weasley, are you hurt?"
Ron tried to say he was fine, but he staggered and nearly toppled over. Professor Dumbledore caught him and steadied him on his feet. "I think you should visit the hospital wing, straight away," he said.
"Where's Hermione?" Ron asked, waving away the headmaster's concern. "Did she make it out alright?"
Professor Dumbledore chuckled. "Yes, and she was quite distraught about your fate. She kept insisting you were beneath the castle, but couldn't remember how to find you. Just went on about a mirror."
Ron remembered what the griffin had said, about Hermione choosing the wrong door and being unable to return.
"How did you find me?" he asked.
"Fawkes found you, not I," Professor Dumbledore said. "I instructed him to locate you, but for nearly half an hour you were invisible to every device or enchantment. Even the phoenix couldn't find you, wherever you were."
Ron looked around at the perfectly ordinary Hogwarts corridor in which they stood, and found no sign of the archway or tunnel through which he'd exited the griffin's lair.
He glanced down at the belt in his hand, reassuring himself he hadn't just been hallucinating.
"Is the Quidditch match over, then?" he asked.
"The match ended many hours ago," Professor Dumbledore said. "Minerva has been most anxious about you and Miss Granger. I must say, your little adventure took us all off guard. However did you manage it?"
"Hermione was brilliant," Ron said. "I couldn't have done it without her."
"But what, exactly, is it that you did?" Professor Dumbledore asked, peering at Ron with quiet intensity. "I can guess at the first part. You snuck past Fluffy, made your way through each room of tests, and finally arrived at the Mirror. But what happened after that? As far as I could discover, the room with the Mirror is the end. There is nothing adjacent, nothing above or below."
Ron took a breath, the action reminding him of how battered and bruised he was. "I'd rather not discuss it without thinking it over, Professor. I hope you don't mind. And I have to find Hermione. She must be worried sick."
"Miss Granger is in the hospital wing, which is where you should be." He offered Ron his hand, and the moment Ron took it they were engulfed in curling, golden flame. The next moment, they stood in the hospital wing.
"Ron! You're alright! I was so worried."
Madame Pomfrey bustled in, shushing their loud reunion and shoving a potion into Ron's hand as she hustled him to a bed. In no time, he'd been dressed in soft clean bedclothes and lay drowsily in the bed opposite Hermione's, the potion spreading warm calm throughout him.
"Did you find out what the hallway was?" Hermione asked after the adults had left. Her own voice was muted, and he realized just how exhausted they both were.
Ron slowly shook his head. "No. I passed the Trial of Gryffindor, but I never did find the golden hallway."
"Maybe tomorrow," Hermione said sleepily.
They lay in silence for several minutes.
"Thanks," Ron whispered into the darkness. "You were absolutely brilliant down there."
He wasn't sure if Hermione heard. She didn't reply, and within moments he dropped off to sleep.
The injuries imposed by their trip, when combined with the strain Ron and Hermione had both placed upon themselves by such rapid, extended spellcasting without pause to rest, necessitated a week-long stay in the hospital wing.
Hermione spent nearly the entire time desperately revising for exams, and Ron reluctantly joined her in studying since he'd fallen behind in his single-minded concentration.
The mysterious golden hallway no longer haunted him. And when he did think of it, in memory or his drawings, they all seemed calm and peaceful. No longer did they carry any trace of that burning uncertainty.
The sense of urgent incompleteness that had for so many months drawn him into such tight focus was gone completely. He only thought of it rarely, and then with a sort of reminiscent fondness.
Harry and Neville visited them several times. Once, Harry mentioned in confidence that his scar had begun hurting at seemingly random times throughout the year, growing more painful and frequent as the exams came near.
Hermione was of the opinion that this must be an expression of stress, but Ron wasn't convinced.
"Curses can leave weird after-effects," he explained to Harry. "My uncle Bilius got hit with one just out of school and ever since he's had this one patch on his left arm that goes cold whenever he thinks about mushrooms."
"No way," Neville said, impressed.
Ron nodded confidently. "Curse scars are an unexplored area, as far as our understanding of magic goes. Most people say it's random and leave it at that, but I'm sure you could categorize the reactions to various spells and the people with enough examples."
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed. "You make it sound like you want to go around cursing people to find out what would happen!"
"No, of course not," Ron hastened to assure her. "I just mean if we could interview all the survivors—"
The discussion lasted long after Harry and Neville departed to return to class, and meandered from topic to topic. By the time they returned to the topic of their homework, evening was beginning to tint the sky outside with deep blue and pale orange.
They were finally declared well enough to return to classes two days before final exams. Hermione vanished to the library at every free moment, rushing off between classes and hardly taking time to hastily consume meals before whisking herself away to study more. Ron didn't feel the need to do the same, confident that his magic ability was well above first-year average. He wouldn't have a problem passing the tests.
Harry was a greater concern, as was Neville. While each had their strengths, they also had weaknesses which could drag them down. Harry's practical magic scores were regularly high, but the theory behind it seemed to either confuse or just bore him.
Neville's herbology expertise was insufficient to make up for his complete emotional collapse at the sight of Professor Snape, with the result that his potions score was flatly poor at best.
Ron spent most of his own free time trying to help Neville's confidence, but he suspected that would be a longer project than two days.
Harry seemed preoccupied, rubbing frequently at his forehead and squinting suspiciously at whoever happened to be nearby at the time.
"I think it's a warning of danger," he confided on the last evening before exams were to begin. "But I can't guess what."
"Or rain," Ron suggested. "It could be a warning of rain."
Indeed, it did rain the next day, but Harry passed the entire day without so much as a flinch, so Ron conceded that his theory may need more study.
He didn't have time to figure out Harry's scar, though, desperately drilling Neville on potions ingredients and preparation methods in the hopes that he'd be able to at least scrape an acceptable.
"It's the Philosopher's Stone!"
Ron stared at Harry, uncomprehending.
"I just realized, during that History of Magic test, that's what Hagrid brought to Hogwarts! Someone was trying to steal it from Gringotts, so they brought it here to protect it."
"What?" Ron asked, lost.
"I've been investigating for months, trying to put together the clues, but now. . . I think someone's going to try and steal it."
"Okay?"
Harry smacked his arm. "It's not okay! This could very well be someone working for Voldemort!"
Ron flinched.
"Don't say that name," he said, memories of days where his parents and older brothers went silent and mournful, too many days, too many years. He'd been too young to understand what was happening when the war ended, but the scars it left went deep.
Half his extended family were dead, and even the whisper of that name was enough to bring back the silence and pain. Even Fred and George, who acted as though nothing and no one were sacred, knew better than to joke around about he-who-must-not-be-named. He remembered them trying it once, when they were quite young. They'd never done so again.
"I refuse to be scared of his name," Harry said defiantly. "If there's anything we can do to stop him coming back, we have to."
"What makes you think it has anything to do with You-know-who?" Ron asked warily.
"I talked to a centaur," Harry said.
Ron groaned. "Centaurs are the most useless creatures to talk to. You can't take anything they say at face value, they're always talking about something that will 'surely occur after another dozen moons and two cycles of the summer stars' or some such rubbish."
"No, he was very clear. He said Mars is bright, and that there is someone who has waited long for such a chance as this. He has to mean Voldemort!"
"Stop saying that name," Ron pleaded, images flickering through his thoughts. His mother's tears as she spoke softly about people he would never get to meet. His uncles, his cousins, his grandparents. Black-and-white photographs of brief happiness captured in tiny frames between despair and fear and death.
But Harry wasn't listening.
"If you don't want to help, fine. I'll go by myself."
"Go where?"
"I'm going to find the stone first."
"Why?" Ron asked. "Professor Dumbledore knows what he's doing."
"I have to," Harry said. "Don't you understand? This is Voldemort we're talking about. If he can get this close—"
"Then you're going to stop him?" Ron demanded, slamming the potions book shut. "Harry, stop and think a minute. So what if a centaur said the moon is cold, or whatever. You won't be any harder to get past than the greatest wizard in the world!"
"I am thinking," Harry retorted. "I'm thinking that you don't want to help. Fine. Stay here and figure out how to get another perfect test score. I'm going to stop Voldemort from coming back into power!"
Harry turned and strode away, and Ron stared after him, torn. If there was even a chance he was right. . . but no. Professor Dumbledore did know what he was doing. If, for some reason, the Philosopher's Stone was in Hogwarts, then it would be protected better than anything a first year could penetrate.
He had to drill the potion instructions into Neville before the Potions final the next day. He didn't have time to go chasing off after some wild story.
Ron reached for his textbook, then stilled.
Wasn't that exactly what Harry had thought, when Ron was chasing his own riddle? That his classes were more important than someone else's mystery?
And Ron had even had Hermione to help him.
Did Harry have anyone?
Ron left the potions book where it lay and stood, his mind made up.
He does now.
He found Harry trying to open the forbidden corridor.
"Why are you trying to get in here?" Ron asked.
"The Stone. It's in the mirror."
Ron gaped at him. "Really?"
Harry nodded. "I saw it, but I didn't understand what I was seeing at first. It was really confusing at first, until I put it together with Nicholas Flamel and what the centaur told me. Professor Dumbledore tried to put some clever spell on it, but the Mirror isn't happy about it. It wants the Stone out, and it's willing to give it to anyone who asks. If Professor Dumbledore trusts that his spell will hold, he won't be worried about the thief until it's too late."
"But what will we do with it then?" Ron asked. "It's not like a pair of first-years can do better than whatever the headmaster did."
"You got through all the tests fine and you're a first-year," Harry said. "If the thief is any stronger or more capable than you in any way, they already have the advantage. At the very least, this way they'll try to get through and find nothing at the end."
Ron shook his head. "That's not a good enough solution. We need to have a plan before we just go charging in. The Philosopher's Stone Harry! This isn't just some trinket."
Then an idea occurred to him, and he grinned. "I think I know somewhere we can hide it," he said. "And I doubt You-know-who is a worthy Gryffindor, so it should be safe enough there. We'll just have to let Professor Dumbledore know where we put it."
"Where?" Harry asked.
"With the Gryffindor Guardian. The griffin that gave me this belt. It could use flames on the walls like portals, go all over the place. It may not be the perfect solution, but I bet anything that it could hide the Stone way better than you or I."
Harry nodded. "Then let's do it."
Together, they unlocked the door. The cerberus behind was ever so pleased to see Ron again and did its utmost best to bite him in half. Though Harry wasn't quite as quick as Hermione, his spells were just as strong. They levitated it away and swung the trapdoor open.
Ron stared down in surprise. The opening now led directly to the Mirror. He could see, a very short drop below them, the dais and the Mirror standing there, glinting in the faint reflected light from above.
"If it's this desperate to be rid of the thing, it's a good job you decided to come after it," he muttered to Harry. "Ready?"
Harry nodded, and they jumped down into the trapdoor.
They landed in darkness. The lights Ron and Hermione had stuck to the walls the first time around would have run down weeks ago.
"Lumos," Harry whispered, and his wand flared to light. The room was the same as Ron remembered it, but without the brightly-lit potions riddle room or the curtain of black flames everything looked unfamiliar.
He couldn't remember what he had done to open the back of the mirror, but he crossed around behind it anyway, illuminating his own wand.
"Oh!" Harry exclaimed, sounding surprised. "That was easy."
Ron peered around the Mirror, and saw Harry standing with a faceted red stone, veins of dark and silver material wound throughout it.
"We need to get in," Ron whispered to the mirror. "It's important."
"Hey, Ron," Harry called. "There's a door here."
Ron crossed around, just in time to see Harry step into the mirror's reflection and vanish. He stared into the reflective surface, which showed Harry walking down a dark staircase.
Ron tried to follow and encountered a firm, unyielding surface. Whatever he tried, the Mirror remained quite solid. He circled the Mirror again, but the back remained smooth and featureless.
"Harry, can you hear me?" he called. His friend continued going downstairs, occasionally glancing back with a frown, but not as though he'd heard. He's wondering where I am, Ron realized. He kicked the mirror, but that accomplished nothing whatsoever. It didn't even make him feel better.
He considered going back through the rooms he'd crossed the first time, but without some way to fly it seemed pointless. There was no sign that the trapdoor remained in the ceiling; it had vanished the moment they dropped through.
With nothing else to do, he paced before the Mirror and watched Harry's progress.
Harry descended for minutes upon minutes, looking more and more uneasy the farther down he got. Ron could imagine it would be frightening to take the trip alone.
He arrived at the three doors and, without hesitating, opened the central one. It opened, but not onto the vast tiled room where Ron had met the griffin. Instead, Harry entered a familiar hallway. Golden light filled the mirror, spilling in from vast arched windows. Ron felt slightly cheated, but the hall didn't matter as much to him now as it had. It had served its purpose, bringing him here the first time.
Harry proceeded down the hall, then turned a corner and came to a huge vaulted door. It opened at Harry's touch and he entered. But here the Mirror did not show his progress, only the door and nothing beyond.
Ron tried again to enter the Mirror, front or back, but neither worked. He paced nervously, watching the door and waiting. Several minutes passed, then Harry emerged. He was no longer carrying the Stone, and seemed quite a bit less worried than before. He walked back up the hallway, then stepped out of the Mirror and nearly trod on Ron's foot.
"Oh, there you are," he said. "I hid the stone. The big feathery horse said she'd take care of it for us."
Ron wouldn't ever have described the griffin as a 'feathery horse' but Harry often seemed ignorant of wizarding custom and knowledge, so he let it by without commenting.
"Mission accomplished then, right?" Ron asked.
Harry nodded. "So, how do we get out of here?"
Ron considered a moment, then clicked his fingers. "The potions. The riddle said that some of them would send us back."
The moment they stepped through into the previous room, the black and purple flames sprang up on either side, and the flaming riddle wrote itself on the wall behind the table. The potions were back in their initial configuration. Ron swiftly moved through the first thirty-nine moves, then continued more slowly as he mentally worked out the translation. As soon as he made the 40th move, the second number started counting down, and when it arrived at zero he took the bottle from the space.
"It might feel weird, but I'm pretty sure it's safe," he said, offering the bottle to Harry. Harry took a gulp of it, shivered, then passed the bottle to Ron. He took his own gulp, then set the bottle back into its space. Flame surged up around them both, clearing away a moment later to leave them standing on the trapdoor.
The cerberus lay to the side, asleep and snoring thunderously. The two boys hastily exited before it could wake.
Neville did pass his potions final, but only just. He was trembling and in tears when he added his last ingredients, but the potion didn't explode or turn to tar. Harry did slightly better, and Hermione's came out exactly right. Ron's was somewhere in between - competent enough, but not even close to perfect. Potions required too much individual care and Ron just didn't have the patience for it. Why bother slicing the roots individually when you could chop a whole handful of them at once? It shouldn't matter.
The other exams came and went, with no whisper of rumor or news that He-who-must-not-be-named was doing anything. As far as the world could tell, things went on as they had done for ten years.
Then, two days before their test results were due to come out, whispers ran around the school that Professor Qurirell had died mysteriously the night before. This shocking news was met with a surprising degree of apathy; most of the students just sighed and shrugged off the news entirely. After all, he was the Defence professor, what did anyone expect?
After breakfast, as Ron crossed through a particularly wide secret passageway on his way upstairs, Professor Dumbledore happened to be coming the other direction.
"Mind if I have a word, Mr. Weasley?" he asked quietly.
Ron shrugged. "I'm not in a hurry."
"What did you do with the Philosopher's Stone?"
Ron clicked his fingers. "Oh, I'm sorry, we never told you. I got distracted by finals. Don't worry, Professor, it's safe. We gave it to the griffin Guardian at the end of the stairway under the Mirror. The Mirror was annoyed by it, so we moved the Stone before it could give it to someone else."
Professor Dumbledore nodded. "That explains a great deal. While ordinarily I would feel obliged to tell you off for such blatant interference in that which is none of your concern, in this instance you may well have saved us all. I feel it would be remiss not to grant you some reward. I'd offer you a hundred points for your house, but as you're in all of them. . ."
"Give it to Gryffindor, Professor," Ron said. "It was Harry who insisted we move the Stone, if anyone's being rewarded it should be him."
The headmaster smiled, his clear blue eyes twinkling even in the dimness of the secret passage. "Then so it shall be," he said. "You've done well this year, Mr. Weasley, and I commend you for your friendship, honesty, and good sense."
With a little wave, Professor Dumbledore continued on his way.
Final exam results were passed out, along with pages informing students that they were not permitted to use magic while away from school. Harry looked increasingly gloomy at the prospect of a magicless summer, and Ron offered to invite him over for a visit which cheered him up considerably.
The leaving feast was a grand affair, up to Hogwarts usual standard of complete excellence, and even their second-place standing in the House Cup Championship wasn't enough to dampen the good cheer around the Gryffyindor table.
Ravenclaw took the Quidditch cup, while Slytherin retained their winning streak for overall points gained. The general opinion in Gryffindor was that their lackluster Quidditch performance in the first game of the year was solely responsible for this reprehensible state of affairs; if Gryffindor hadn't lost by nearly three hundred points, the scores would be much different.
The seeker, Katie Bell, was quite competent, but the new chasers were none the greatest at coordinating their plays. Their teamwork had improved over the course of the year, but at that first match they'd been flattened.
"Forty points down," grumbled Fred as the family gathered to depart. "If we'd managed to hold them off even four goals. . ."
"You trying out next year, Ronnikins?" George asked, clapping Ron's shoulder. "You're decent enough on a broom, you could fill that Stenley's position as chaser."
Ron grinned. "Oh, I'm trying out for the team next year, but I was thinking something different. Maybe. . . beater?"
Fred and George exchanged shocked looks.
"Our little Ron, try and oust one of us?"
"No way."
Ron laughed. "You forget, I'm not just a Gryffindor." He waved the extra sheet of paper that he'd gotten along with his exam results in their faces. "Next year, I'll be playing for Hufflepuff."
Author's Notes:
Well, there it is. Year one of this little experiment. It's quite a different feel from my usual writing, but I had a lot of fun doing this. (Though coming up with that potion puzzle was inordinately difficult, and probably pointless.}
Inheritance Trials is now inactive until I'm struck with inspiration for Year Two. I have all four planned in a general way, but to actually write them will be time-consuming and I've already got more projects than I can possibly keep up with.
Thanks for reading! I really appreciate all your support and criticism.