Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.
All they could hear apart from their footsteps was the gentle drip of water trickling down the walls. They knew they must have dropped miles below the school. The only good thing about the plant was it had prevented them from breaking bones, or worse, upon landing.
The passageway they followed sloped downward and Harry was reminded of Gringotts. With an unpleasant jolt of the heart, he remembered the dragons said to be guarding vaults in the wizards' bank. If they met a dragon, a fully-grown dragon... Norbert had been bad enough...
"What's that sound?" Phoebe whispered. Harry listened. A soft rustling and clinking seemed to be coming from up ahead.
"Do you think it's a ghost? I don't know how to kill a ghost." Thomas admitted.
"I don't know... Sounds like wings to me." Harry whispered back.
"I see a light up ahead." Serena told them, pointing with her hand.
"No, Serena, don't go towards the light!" Thomas cried, overly dramatic.
"Oh, stop it." Serena hissed at him.
"What? It's good life advice." He responded innocently. Harry smiled slightly; at least nothing would get too serious with Thomas around.
They reached the end of the passageway and saw before them a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was full of small, jewel-bright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy wooden door.
"Do you think they'll attack us if we try to get to the other door?" Serena questioned.
"Well, I doubt they're just decoration. We've seen the resident house plant." Phoebe shot back.
"Have any ideas for this one, animal whisperer?" Thomas added.
"I've never seen birds like that. They might be hummingbirds but they don't look quite-."
"I'll run for it." Harry interrupted, feeling as though they were wasting a lot of precious time.
"What? No!" But Harry had already covered his face with his arms and started to sprint across the room. He expected to feel sharp beaks and claws tearing at him any second, but nothing happened. He reached the door untouched. He pulled the handle, but it was locked.
The other three followed him. They all took turns tugging and heaving at the door. It wouldn't budge, not even when Phoebe tried to pick the lock.
"Step back." Thomas ordered and something in his tone made everyone obey. "I know karate."
"Wait, no you don't-."
"I am supreme lord of the bathroom!" Harry really wished he'd stop saying that. Thomas stood on one leg, drawing his other up to prepare to kick out, his arms out like a baby bird trying to take flight. Everyone nervously stayed out of the way. "HI-YAH!" He kicked the door. It didn't move, Thomas sure did.
He hit the floor on his back and starting rocking himself back and forth, holding his kicking foot.
"Son of biscuit!" He cursed. Serena patted his head semi-comfortingly but Phoebe and Harry just shook their heads. How could Thomas be so book-smart and yet such a dork at the same time? It was a mystery that would have to wait until later to solve.
Out of ideas, they turned and watched the birds soaring overhead, glittering... Glittering? Harry gasped aloud.
"They're not birds! They're keys! Winged keys. Look carefully. So that must mean..." He looked around the chamber while the others squinted up at the flock of keys. "Yes, look! Broomsticks! We've got to catch the key to the door!"
"But there are hundreds of them up there!" Phoebe pointed out.
Thomas examined the door as he hopped around on his now injured foot.
"We're looking for an old-fashioned one. Probably silver, like the handle." He reported confidently.
They each seized a broomstick and kicked off into the air, soaring into the midst of the cloud of keys. They grabbed and snatched, but the bewitched keys darted and dived so quickly it was almost impossible to catch one.
Not for nothing, though, was Harry the youngest Seeker in a century. He had a knack for spotting things other people didn't. After a minute's weaving about through the whirl of rainbow feathers, he noticed a large silver key that had a bent wing, as if it had already been caught and stuffed roughly into the keyhole
"That one!" He called to the others. "That big one with bright blue wings; the feathers are all crumpled on one side. We've got to close in on it! Phoebe, you come at it from above. Thomas, stay below and stop it from going down. Serena, chase it towards me; I'll try and catch it. Right, NOW!"
Phoebe dived, Thomas rocketed upward and Serena shot at it from one side. The key shot towards Harry, dodged him and sped toward the wall. Harry shot after it, leaned forward and, with a nasty, crunching noise, pinned it against the stone with one hand. His friends' cheers echoed around the large chamber.
They landed quickly and Harry ran to the door, the key struggling in his hand. He rammed it into the lock and turned. It worked. The moment the lock had clicked open, the key took flight again, looking very battered now that it had been caught twice.
"Ready?" Harry asked the other three, his hand on the door handle. They nodded. He pulled the door open.
The next chamber was so dark they couldn't see anything at all. But as they stepped into it, light suddenly flooded the room to reveal an astonishing sight: they were standing on the edge of a huge chessboard. They were behind the black chessmen, which were all taller than they were and carved from what looked like black stone. Facing them, way across the chamber, were the white pieces. They had no faces.
"That's not creepy at all." Serena let a bit of uncharacteristic sarcasm seep into her voice, holding onto Harry's arm.
"Now what do we do?" Harry whispered.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Some excitement was creeping into Phoebe's voice as she hurried forward to examine the black stone piece closer. "We've got to play our way across the room." Behind the white pieces they could see another door.
"How?" Harry asked and Phoebe turned to look at her friends, a smirk on her face that made them all frown.
"We're going to have to be chessmen."
"I don't like this!" Serena said at once.
"I don't like the way you play." Thomas accused Phoebe. She merely rolled her grey eyes, which seemed to shine brighter at the prospect of a real life chess match.
"Well, too bad. I'm the best player. Ergo: I'm in charge." She skipped, actually skipped, up to the edge of the board and stood above them like a ruling overlord stood above peasants. "Tommy, my boy, you are going to take the place of that bishop on the left side. Harry, you're the bishop on the other side. Serena, take the place of that rook next to Harry's bishop."
The chessmen seemed to have been listening, because at these words the bishops and a castle turned their backs on the white pieces and walked off the board, leaving three empty squares that Harry, Thomas and Serena took.
"What about you?" Serena asked over her shoulder, shifting uncomfortably on her square. Phoebe smirked again, eyes twinkling with glee.
"Oh, honey, I'm always the queen."
White always moved first; across the board, a pawn moved two spaces forward. Phoebe calmly started to direct the black pieces. They moved silently wherever she sent them.
Harry's knees were trembling. What if they lost?
Phoebe let their pawns get destroyed first. Canon fodder, she called them. It was terrifying to watch. The pieces would get smashed to a million pieces and swept off the board like dust. Phoebe obviously took note of that, because she kept her friends far away from danger, using the other pieces to actually play. She herself, however, darted around the board like a maniac. She would stepped into the same square as the pieces she took and they'd tumble off the board and shatter on the floor there. She took as many pieces as they lost and the game was uncomfortably close.
The scariest part was when Phoebe made it her personal mission to take out the other side's queen. She had to let one of their knights get destroyed in order to achieve it, but she made it out alright and had taken out the other side's main defense.
Harry was having a hard time following Phoebe's strategy, or even figuring out if she had one. Thomas kept quiet, but he was pacing as much as he could on his own square. Serena refused to to lower her hands from her eyes to see what was happening.
"I have to get taken!" Phoebe called suddenly, after debating her options for a long, silent moment.
"No!" Harry and Thomas both shouted at her. Serena peeked through her fingers with a horrified expression.
"I have to take out the king's last defense. He'll move forward one space to take me. Then Harry can checkmate him." Phoebe explained.
"There has to be other way. Some other piece." Thomas started.
"No one has moves like the queen." Phoebe tried to sound smug, but her smile faltered.
"Phoebe-!" Serena shrieked but their friend was already starting to walk diagonally across the board, towards the rook in front of the king itself.
"You three can take on any other challenge. It's fine. Just don't stick around afterwards. You need to keep moving." She called shakily over her shoulder. She reached the square with the rook. The rook obediently moved off the board and the king started forward, raising his stone sword.
Serena started screaming incoherently at Phoebe. Thomas was insulting the king's mother very creatively. Harry couldn't look away; it was like a car crash. It was sure to be awful, but he just couldn't look away.
As the king swung with his sword, Phoebe hit the ground in a loose fetal to avoid it. She avoided the first downward stroke, but then the king swung it again like a golf club. It caught her right in the rib-cage and she went flying towards the edge of the board. Harry watched her, frozen with fear, time seeming to stop. She hit the edge of the board with a sickening thud and limply rolled off onto the cluttered floor.
Serena started to step forward, but Harry managed to choke out a 'no!'. They were still playing, after all. Shaking, Harry moved three spaces to the left. The white king took off his crown and threw it at Harry's feet.
They had won. The chessmen parted and bowed, leaving the door ahead clear.
"We have to go." Harry called to the others as they sprinted across the huge board. Phoebe had told them not to stick around. They needed to get the stone before Snape, after all.
"Go on." Serena told them, sniffing. "I want to stay with her." They all looked at Phoebe. She looked as though she'd been knocked out or... No, Harry told himself. She was just knocked out. She was lying among the debris from the other chess pieces, cuts decorating her face and arms from landing in a pile of broken stone.
"She said-." Harry started.
"I don't care. Go on. Thomas'll be more use than me anyway. I'm fresh out of roasts." Serena tried to laugh, but it came out more like a dry sob. She ran over to Phoebe, hopping nimbly off the board and kneeling next to her friend.
The boys took one last look at the girls and hurried into the next room. Harry's mind was racing. They'd already passed Hagrid's test. The Devil's Snare had to have been Professor Sprout's. Flitwick would've put the charms on the keys. McGonagall could've transfigured the chessmen. That just left Quirrel's spell and Snape's.
As the boys walked into the next room, a disgusting smell filled their nostrils, making both of them pull their robes up over their noses. Eyes watering, they saw, flat on the floor in front of them, a troll even larger than the one they had tackled, out cold with a bloody lump on its head.
"I'm glad we didn't have to fight that one." Harry whispered as they stepped carefully over one of its massive legs. "Come on, I can't breathe."
He pulled open the next door, both of them hardly daring to look at what came next. But there was nothing very frightening in the room, just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line.
"Snape's." Harry guessed. "What do we have to do?"
They stepped over the threshold, and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn't ordinary fire either; it was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward. They were trapped.
Thomas seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. Harry looked over his shoulder to read it:
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.
"Good ole Snape's getting poetic. How... weird." Thomas frowned but then collected his train of thoughts again. "But this is good. It's just logic. There are puzzles like this in kids activity books." He chuckled.
"You can figure it out?" Harry asked hopefully. Thomas waved away his concern.
"Of course. It's as easy as karate." That didn't make Harry feel better.
Thomas read the paper a couple times and started singing the riddle to himself. He walked up and down the line of bottles, still singing the riddle to the tune of Mary Had A Little Lamb. At last, Thomas turned back to Harry.
"Solved it. The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire and toward the fancy rock." Harry looked at the tiny bottle.
"There's only enough there for one of us. That's hardly one swallow." They looked at each other for a moment. "Which one will get you back through the purple flames?"
Thomas pointed at a rounded bottle at the right end of the line. It was slightly fuller, but obviously no one had intended so many people to be passing through the tasks in one night.
"You drink that. No, listen, get back and get the girls. Grab brooms from the flying- key room, they'll get you out of the trapdoor and past Fluffy. Go straight to the owlery and send Hedwig to Dumbledore, we need him. I might be able to hold Snape off for a while, but I'm no match for him, really."
"But, mate, you'll get creamed. Dumbledore better had a spatula handy when he comes-."
"Thomas." Harry groaned. His friend stopped and ran a hand through his sandy brown hair.
"Alright, alright." He relented. "I'll be the hero saving the girls, you be the hero getting the Stone."
"You drink first." Harry instructed. "You are sure which is which, aren't you?"
"Ninety percent, give or take." Thomas took a swig from the bottle and then shuddered violently.
"Is it poison?" Harry asked worriedly.
"Nah. It's just like ice water. They could've dumped some lemonade powder in it..."
"Quick, go, before it wears off."
"Be careful. I don't want to explain to Serena why I wasn't backing you up and you got killed-."
"Quickly!"
"-cause she'll beat me to death with that sketchbook of hers-."
"Thomas-."
"-and she never shows anyone what's in that book. Do you find that odd-."
"GO!" Finally, Thomas rolled his eyes and ran back through the purple fire.