Chapter 13
Race against Time
31st January 1991 11:00 p.m., Hogwarts, Scotland
Alexandra entered the room-and immediately stopped. For a moment, she was sure she'd walked in a nightmare.
Alexandra believed that when Hagrid had spoken about a dog, he'd spoken about the magical equivalent of a Rottweiler or a Pit-bull, a bloodthirsty dog which would be easy to calm with a few steaks. In hindsight, the idea had been incredibly stupid. Everyone knew the Keeper of Hogwarts Keys loved dangerous beasts, and the bigger the better.
Which was why Alexandra now faced a gigantic three-headed dog, with massive yellowish fangs and claws, the three heads drooling and jaws full of saliva.
"What the fuck is a Cerberus doing here, by Hades?" Asked Alexandra rhetorically. "I'm going to kill Hagrid when I get out of here, if it's the last thing I do."
As there was no point to differ, she threw the steaks to the growling three headed dog, which looked ready to attack her at any moment.
The problem was the steaks only fed the animal for less than half a minute, with only two heads eating, with one always keeping watch on Alexandra. Damn.
Alexandra tried to think what she had read about Cerberus in the library, but it was unsurprisingly little. Cerberus were excellent guardians of treasures, due to their immunity to any form of aggressive magic. There were also class XXXXX magical creatures, which meant if you didn't have a Ministry authorisation to own one (which cost in the thousands of Galleons by the way), the sentence was a few years in Azkaban Prison. What the hell was Dumbledore thinking, placing one in the middle of a school, separated only by a simple spell from curious children?
As she thought about the different manners to get rid of the huge dog, the monster had finished eating and was now growling threateningly in her direction. Alexandra began to retreat in direction of the door, which luckily hadn't been closed. She had thought the obstacles to the Philosopher Stone would be moderately dangerous, but that was simply insane. She wasn't ready to go toe to toe with a Cerberus and have her corpse being thrown out of Hogwarts at the sound of the school trumpets and...
One minute. If it was a Cerberus like in the Greek Mythology, then the beast like the guardian of Hades realm had the weakness of music. Orpheus had managed to make it sleep with his lyre, allowing him to save his wife. Alexandra, unfortunately, had no music instrument, magical or non-magical device. She would have to sing. Not exactly a domain the raven-haired Ravenclaw would have described as one her strength.
Sighing, realising she had nothing to lose; she began to sing a song she had learned in the Lord of the Rings:
Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
O Queen beyond the Western Seas!
O light to us that wander here
Amid the world of woven trees!
Gilthoniel! O Elbereth!
Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath!
Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee
In a far land beyond the sea.
O Stars that in the Sunless Year
With shining hand by her were sown,
In windy fields now bright and clear
We see you silver blossom blown!
O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees,
Thy starlight on the Western Seas.
Her worries had been for naught apparently. By the time she arrived to the middle of the song, the growls of the Cerberus were low and weak. By the time she finished the song a first time, the Cerberus was sound asleep.
She had to sing a second time, advancing to the trapdoor guarded by the Cerberus, and then a third, the time to open it and mount on her broom. Apparently, her decision to go and take a broom from the lockers usually reserved for Flying Lessons and Quidditch players had been judicious. There were no stairs, no light, without a broom she would have had to jump and hope for the best.
Once she stopped the song and flew down the trapdoor, the three-headed monster growled and started to merge from his musical torpor, liberated from the song influence. Too late, however: Alexandra was out of its reach, and had triumphed from the first obstacle.
Casting a powerful Lumos again on her broom, Alexandra congratulated herself once more for having come with a flying magical means of travel. The room she had just flown too was huge, or at least she supposed it was, because most of it was covered by a plant. Judging by the tendrils and the agitation it was showing at the light emitted by her wand, being a genius was not needed to conclude this was the second obstacle placed by the Professors, the Herbology one to be accurate.
Thanks to her broom, she was out of the reach of the tendrils and tentacles from the plant, but that didn't mean she was free to advance to the next room. The door leading further along away was covered by a green mass of tendrils, so Alexandra would be forced to land at one moment or another if she wanted to go further. The dangerous plant was not going to accept this without a fight.
Groaning, Alexandra thought she should have come with Hermione. The Gryffindor girl was the best in their year, and a memory far better than her own. She would have recognized the plant in twenty seconds watch in hand. Or perhaps not. If it was a plant seen in the Herbology courses after the OWLS, even Hermione wouldn't be able to help.
Slowly circling the room, Alexandra tried to remember the theory of Professor Sprout they had had in four months. It was a long-shot, but the first obstacle could be passed in theory rather simply with music. Maybe the second room answered to the same logic.
After five minutes flying over this nightmare of gardeners, she found the name in her memory. Devil's Snare. A plant invented by a mad German wizard to eat the dirt and the excrements in 1450, before the insane researcher realised his plant had developed and implanted itself in all his caves and miles of underground. The German forces had needed three months to burn this threat, and the inventor had not survived to learn from his mistake. The plant was liking dark and damp places, and could feed from practically everything. Probably why it was just under the location of the Cerberus, logically.
Oh well, thought Alexandra. Time to verify the theory.
"Ignis!" She shouted, creating a column of light blue flames on the Devil's Snare. In an instant, the aggressive plant ceased to be a threat and cringed away from the heat and the flames she sent in controlled bursts.
She took a moment to thank Hermione mentally, as it had been her Gryffindor friend who had taught her the spell. On the other hand, the episode with the Devil's Snare had been again too easy. Easy enough for an advanced first -year to have no problem to pass. Her suspicions worsened, she opened the door and continued on.
Going down the stone passageway which had been on the library maps, the only things she could hear were her footsteps and the noise of water trickling down the walls. Alexandra really hoped the next obstacle wasn't a swimming pool or something where water was included. While she knew how to swim, her experiences with this sport had always turned badly thanks to Dudley and his gang trying to drown her.
After one minute, she reached at a fast pace the end of the passageway to enter a brilliantly lit chamber, full of small, jewel-bright keys. On the opposite side of the door was the heavy wooden door. Crossing the chamber, Alexandra had no difficulty to guess who had created this obstacle: obviously, it had been her Head of House.
Still, Alexandra hadn't duelled Flitwick once per week and not noticed the fact at heart the tiny professor of Charms could be a sadist when he found something very exciting. Like sending Alexandra all over the room once she found a new tactic or spell to use against him. Leaving three brooms with the key, Alexandra concluded, was out of character for him. So was choosing a key for the door that was large, sliver and giving a blue aura.
That did not mean catching the key was easy at all. The bewitched objects were incredibly rapid, dived, turned and darted so quickly it was nearly impossible to follow. Grumbling she should have "borrowed" a faster broom in the Quidditch lockers and not an obsolete Cleansweep 5, Alexandra took a quarter of an hour to catch the key, open the door and close it fast as the other keys engaged a massive retaliatory attack. Yes, definitely Flitwick 's work. The keys had had all the sadism of the Ravenclaw Head of House.
Breathing high and loud for the exercise she had just been forced to do, Alexandra turned and watched the room where she had arrived. It was dark, but she had only done two steps that a bright light flooded the room. Letting her eyes acclimating themselves to the light after more than an hour of partial darkness, Alexandra watched the next obstacle.
The Potter Heiress had to admit it was impressive. It was a gigantic chessboard, with chessmen twice or three times her height. Alexandra was on the side of the black chessmen. The white chessmen faced her, but unlike the black they looked unfriendly, a side effect of their lack of faces.
"Chess, why did it have to be chess?" The raven-haired girl moaned.
Coming from a Ravenclaw, Alexandra supposed the commentary could be ironic, but she really didn't care. Yes, the Ravenclaw were supposed to be intelligent and wise, but she had only learnt the rules of chess at the start of the holidays. In all, Alexandra had perhaps played between thirty and forty games. Decent enough to know the rules and some basic combinations. Not an expert at all, not like Ron Weasley for example, who seemed to glorify himself each time he beat one more student.
Oh no. Weasley. Alexandra suddenly understood. The obstacles were not supposed to keep the students outside and away: they had been conceived to test students. Specifically, the first-years Gryffindor. Except Padma Patil and Zacharias Smith who were average players, no one else in first-year was playing as much than the youngest Weasley boy. The challenge of McGonagall had undoubtedly been for him.
As Longbottom was the youngest Seeker in a century, Flitwick 's trial had been created for the Boy-Who-Lived to triumph. With Seamus Finnegan passion for fire and explosion, passing Professor Sprout Devil's Snare wouldn't be too difficult. As for the Cerberus...well Alexandra had heard Longbottom and the rest of the Golden Trio discussing with Hagrid. She supposed it wouldn't be too difficult for the Boy-Who-Lived and his friends to convince the Keeper of Keys to reveal the truth.
Still that left Quirell and Snape obstacles, two teachers who had absolutely no love for Neville Longbottom and his sidekicks.
Sighing, Alexandra stopped to think about it. In the end, whether this obstacle course was for Longbottom or another person didn't matter. If she wanted to advance, she had to beat the white chessmen, one way or another. With the chessmen made of stone, Alexandra hadn't the magical firepower to blast them away. She would have to play by the rules and win the game regularly.
"Give me your place," she said to the black king. Nodding, the chessman left the board. Alexandra took his place.
"The white begins." Alexandra reminded herself in a whisper. Effectively, a white pawn moved forward two squares.
Trying to avoid thinking about what would happen if she lost, Alexandra began to send her chessmen to their positions.
The following hour proved the longest of Alexandra's life. One by one she lost her black pieces. It was not a consolation, but as many white pieces were destroyed. Seeing the fate of the pieces pulverised, which despite being stone were blasted apart, Alexandra thanked her intuition to place herself as the king. As the most important piece of the game, she was in the rear lines and could always run to the keys room if she lost.
Finally, after sacrificing her queen and her last bishop, Alexandra won the game. Somehow, she thought the massive overuse of the white queen by the enemy side had allowed her to claim victory. A narrow one, and she grimaced at how few black pieces were still in the game and not in the state of debris on the sidelines. One pawn. One tower. One knight. Somehow, Alexandra didn't think she would have been able to protect a second person on this hellish exchequer.
The white king took off his crown and threw it at Alexandra's feet. The chessmen not reduced to piles of rubble parted and bowed, leaving the door ahead clear.
"All hail the Queen..."
Opening the next door, Alexandra coughed as her senses were filled by a disgusting stench. Her eyes watering under the horrible spell, she emerged in front of a room where a mountain troll even bigger than the one she had killed at Halloween.
"At least no need to wonder if it was Peeves who made enter this one." Alexandra sighed.
"RRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!"
Apparently, being in this room for the best part of several months had not improved the troll behaviour. Unfortunately, Alexandra had no wish to be on the receiving end of his massive club. Moreover, the long hour she had passed playing chess had unnerved her to the highest degree. The troll was going to pay for the obstacles creators, as she could decently not going to their teachers' offices and berate them for their lack of ethics and originality.
"WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!" She shouted. The club of the troll levitated under its owner eyes, and the troll blinked, apparently too stupid to fully understand what its eyes were describing.
"I would say I'm sorry." Alexandra smirked. "But it would be lying."
One flick of her wand, and Alexandra precipitating the club on the troll's head with the velocity of a baseball bat, knocking the beast unconscious on the floor in a shock which made the room tremble. The troll was out of commission, hopefully for several hours.
"Your brother gave a tougher fight." Alexandra affirmed, stepping over the monstrous body of the troll."Only Snape and Dumbledore trials are left."
She pulled open the next door, and for once there was nothing frightening there, only seven bottles of different shapes and sizes.
She stepped over the threshold and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn't ordinary fire either; for one thing it was purple, and for the other the warmth which came from it was properly infernal. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onwards. Alexandra grimaced. Any challenge now, she had had the option to go back safely if she did not find the clue to solve the trial of the room. But now, she was well and truly trapped, her magical capabilities useless to extinguish such dangerous and cursed flames. And at the other extremity of the Forbidden Corridor, no less. Fantastic.
There was a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. Alexandra looked and read the message upon it:
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.
Her reaction after reading the parchment was relief. She had feared she would have to combine a bottle with another to have a potion having the capacity to pass through the flames. Instead, she faced a riddle to find the correct potion. Easy, especially as she was a Ravenclaw, and Ravenclaw always had to find the solution to riddles if they wanted to enter their common room. Especially her, who had no allies or friends inside her own House to open her the door if she did not find the solution to the question posed.
Pausing for a moment, she wondered for whom in Gryffindor this task had been designed for. Perhaps Leo Black with all his knowledge of pranks potions. Certainly not Ron Weasley, nor Seamus Finnegan, Dean Thomas or Lavender Brown. The first-years Gryffindors were not known for their deductive abilities or their Potions skills. The troll had certainly been put for Longbottom on the other hand; the Boy-Who-Lived had by far the largest arsenal of offensive spells among the first-years.
Alexandra took the smallest bottle in her hand, who according to the riddle was the one to pass the black flames. She was forced to grimace: she had hoped there would be enough to go in the next room and come back (there was no exit in that part of the castle, she had checked on the plans) but it didn't appear so. She had better hope there was magic in the bottle to replenish the potion, else she would be trapped in the next room until someone came to deliver her.
She drank the little bottle in one go and placed it in her pocket. It was like ice had replaced blood in her body. Not wasting any time, she raced in the black flames, only to find a simple room with a mirror in the centre.
Strange.
Considering she had managed to come through every challenge of the Senior Professors, it had to be Dumbledore's trial.
A quick look at the rest of room informed Alexandra there was nothing else in this place. Nothing else she could see, anyway.
Formidable.
Approaching the mirror slowly, Alexandra noticed it was very large, and given the pattern of the gold frame and the inscriptions, likely very old too. There was an inscription carved around the top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.
She didn't know why, but she felt something clearly wrong with this mirror. Why had it been placed there to begin with? It was the last room, she had triumphed over the other trials. Alexandra had expected to find the Philosopher Stone here, not some old magical artefact the Headmaster found "interesting". Unless the mirror had been a creation of Nicolas Flamel and the obstacles were to guard it all along?
Trying to find what was in the mirror, she stepped fully in front of it to see her reflection. However, it was not her who appeared, or rather not Alexandra's reflection as she was now. Alexandra was a bit older and taller, a bit less thin, and she smiled as she had like she was really happy. A really pretty woman and a handsome man were standing behind her.
The woman had brilliant red hair and her flamboyant green eyes, eyes of a colour only Alexandra had at Hogwarts and Privet Drive. Bright green – exactly the same shape, but then she noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time. The tall, thin, black-haired man standing next to her put his arm around her. He wore glasses, and his hair was very untidy.
"Mum?" She whispered. "Dad?"
They just looked at her, smiling. And slowly, Alexandra looked into the faces of the other people in the mirror who appeared one by one. A little girl. Several old men and women. Dozens of witches and wizards in eighteen or nineteen centuries robes. About half harboured distinctive black and unruly black hair. The rest had the bright green eyes of her maternal side. Her family. The family she should have had, but that the war and destiny had robbed her from. Looking once again the mirror's inscription she read it backwards and smiled.
"I show not your face but your heart's desire. But read backwards, like in a mirror. Clever."
Alexandra took a glance once again at the image of her parents in the mirror. Already, she felt compelled to touch it, to come closer to touch her family. But that was not her family wasn't it? Her family was dead and buried or in jail, and Alexandra hadn't known them. Whatever was in the mirror was only a reflection of her desires. Nothing more.
As she thought this, the reflection changed once more, depicting her with Hermione, Nigel and a few other first-years laughing and partying. By the looks of it, her friends and she were standing in the Great Hall, which looked decorated in Ravenclaw colours. A Cup of impressive size was posed next to them. Alexandra nodded negatively. Then it changed again, showing a different Alexandra surrounded by young children. And again. All images reflecting things Alexandra had wanted at one point or another of in her eleven years and a half of life. Things she had never told someone else. Desires she didn't want someone else to know.
She closed her eyes for an instant, trying to regain her self-control. When she reopened them, the image in the mirror had changed again. Unlike the previous one, Alexandra's reflection was not present there. The mirror showed what looked like the interior of a cathedral, crowded with people. Even more interesting, judging by the clothes these people were wearing, it looked like there was wizard and non-wizards being together. Alexandra had no time to wonder at this impossibility. The crowd divided in two, and a woman in a long emerald dress advanced in direction of the altar. As she bent in front of a man looking like a priest, she realized what the scene was. It was a crowning ceremony, further confirmed by the priest posing a crown of gold with emeralds and sapphires on her head.
The woman rose and saluted the crowd, which erupted in cheers and applauds. The mirror's view then dived, giving her a prime sight of the newly-crowned woman. Long black hair. Flamboyant green eyes. A face more feminine, more beautiful than the one she watched every time she looked into a mirror. The woman was her. Or rather, an older version of herself.
"Enough of this game." she whispered. "I don't want to be a ruler, too much paperwork and too many hours of work."
Her older self in the mirror looked at her with a sense of amusement, as though she had waited for this remark. The rest caught Alexandra completely flat-footed.
One instant there was an older version of herself in the mirror; the rest there was a flock of ravens and the mirror shone like magic itself had decided to imbue it. A stream of light came to touch her right hand, provoking a terrible amount of pain in her. It lasted only a few seconds, but it was terribly unpleasant.
The light of the mirror vanished and her normal reflection came back. Definitely weird and creepy.
"Show me where the Philosopher Stone is." Alexandra ordered to the mirror, out of breath of the last ordeal. She had passed too long in this room. It was already at least two hours she had left the Ravenclaw tower, and while she had until early morning to go back, Alexandra had also to go back through the obstacles that she had already passed to get here.
The normal reflection of her smiled and flickered. A moment later, the reflection smiled at her. It put its hand into its pocket and pulled out a blood-red stone. It winked and put the Stone back in its pocket – and as it did so, Alexandra felt something heavy drop into her real pocket. Somehow – incredibly – she'd got the Stone.
"That-that was the protection? Asking for the Stone?" Asked Alexandra, taking the Stone in her hands. Her reflection seemed insulted by that, and with a finger touched its head.
"Intention." The reflection nodded, as pleased she had understood the solution of the enigma.
Alexandra turned back, put back the Stone in her pocket, and began to walk away.
Somehow, the mirror had known she had no intention to use the Philosopher Stone and had given it to her as a result. How could the mirror knew that? Taking a new drink from the potion protecting from the black flames (which had fortunately replenished in the last minutes), Alexandra left the mirror room without turning back.
Arriving in the room of Snape 's challenge, she took a minute or two to read again the riddle and drink the potion protecting from violet fire before replacing the tiny bottle she had taken. Passing the room where the troll was still lying unconscious, Alexandra tried to guess what had really been planned with the magical mirror she had seen.
That the Headmaster himself had placed the mirror there was quite obvious. She was ready to bet this type of mirror wasn't found at the first corner of Diagon Alley. Dreams, desire... the mirror was able to show everything. It was dangerous, even with her limited view of the Wizarding World. Using it to protect the Philosopher Stone was a brilliant idea, except if the person searching it wasn't interested in using it. Someone like Alexandra.
Alexandra had had the time to guess in her research for Operation Grand Chelem what she would do if she had a Philosopher Stone. Eternal Life? Living eternally sounded cool in theory, but Alexandra didn't like the idea in practise. Seeing everyone die around you, one by one, until only yourself are still alive, appeared to be a very unpleasant fate. Unlimited gold? For all intent and purposes, this was exactly what she had been granted when she came at Gringotts, compared to the sums of money she had at the Dursleys. At the age of seventeen, she would be even wealthier. Taking her broom from where she had left it in the chess room, Alexandra mounted it and flew across the obstacles of Flitwick and Sprout. The chessmen were still reconstituting themselves and did not oppose her.
Alexandra had to sing again to put the Cerberus to sleep and get out of the forbidden corridor, but the reverse crossing of the forbidden corridor was cleared in less than half an hour.
No, the real reason she had wanted the Philosopher Stone was for the thrill of it and the opportunity it represented to annoy her magical guardian, a certain Headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
Locking again the door leading to the huge Cerberus, Alexandra managed to go back to the tower of the Eagles without drawing undue attention, though she was almost discovered by Peeves and the riddle to access the common room was bloody difficult at this hour.
Entering her bedroom, she put the Philosopher stone in a package and gave it to Atalanta, who had widened her owl eyes with the arrival of her mistress.
"I need you to carry the Stone to the secret stash I showed you in August." She said to her owl.
Atalanta hooted twice, pointing her beak to the window as to signify 'Have you seen the weather outside?'
"I know, I know. Three treats?"
Atalanta hooted five times.
"Fine, you win." Alexandra affirmed, inwardly sighing at the bribery that was required to deliver courier in the wizarding world.
After a short meal, the snowy white owl departed from Hogwarts, with her precious package in her claws.
Watching her leaving the castle, Alexandra smiled.
"Operation Grand Chelem is successful. I wonder how you will react to that Headmaster?"
2 January 1991, Hogwarts, Scotland
"This is an interesting development, wouldn't you say, Fawkes?"
The voice of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was showing signs of what could only be described as curiosity. On top of the infamous mirror of Erised, the red and gold phoenix serving as his companion thrilled in a delighted tone.
"I only regret not being here to watch it."
A new thrill came from the fire bird. The Headmaster emitted a series of rapid twirls with his wand, making the magical artefact in front of him glow of a pale golden.
"Truly intriguing." Told in a contemplating voice the Chief Warlock. "The thief reset all the magical protections and enchantments to their initial forms. Save Gellert and Tom, I did not believe someone on this world had the capacity to do it."
A mournful son came out the beak of the Phoenix.
"No, it was not them, Fawkes. The magical signature is different and...not human. I wonder..." The voice of Albus Dumbledore trailed away, the old wizard constantly caressing his silver beard while whispering the incantations bringing the enchantments of the Mirror to their desired state.
"I suppose I will have to demand a new appointment with the Department of Mysteries." Dumbledore thought out loud after his examinations and casting were done.
"I almost feel bad for the thief, you know." Said conversationally to his phoenix the Supreme Mugwump. "Triumphing over all these trials...and obtaining a fake Philosopher Stone. The disappointment..." The right hand of the Headmaster searched in one of the numerous pockets of his bright green-golden robe for a moment, before emerging with a blood-coloured stone of minor size and placing it in the depths of the Mirror.
"I will put the listening wards at their maximum setting tomorrow, however. It would not do to alert the band of traitors in my staff of the traps I have installed for them here. The Weasley Twins had only managed to reach Minerva's challenge, but this new attempt was successful." The Chief Warlock nodded positively to himself. "Yes. Legilimency then Obliviation."
The man who had defeated Grindelwald's reflection in the Mirror of Erised was downright malicious.
"It is for the Greater Good, naturally."
