I've posted a pixel-art illustration of this temple's entrance to garden-eel-draws, and...that's all the news I can think of. Content warning this chapter for more catacomb aesthetics and a mention of human sacrifice. You know, normal stuff.

Ron mentally kicked himself as he heard the statue's weapon swing behind him again. 'Damn it, why didn't I think this through?' he silently despaired.

"Are you alright, Ron?" he heard Hermione call out.

"Yeah, I'm fine!" he shouted back. His voice echoed off the close walls of the crawlspace he'd unwittingly trapped himself in.

A little while ago, Harry, Hermione, Blue, and Ron had walked into a curiously empty room that had appeared to be occupied only by a few Keese, some roaming Floormasters, and five brick-sized silver gems that hovered over the floor here and there. They had quickly realized the room wasn't as harmless as it looked when Hermione had taken a step away from the door and then hopped back with three bleeding puncture wounds on her shin. Blue had then taken a guess that there was an invisible version of the same Reaper statue they'd seen in the entryway spinning in the middle of the room. Luckily for them, its weapon gave the same warning "whoosh" as it sliced through the air that the more visible statue's had, so they had some sense of when to jump over it.

Hermione and the Harrys had elected to collect the silver jewels (and gain a few puncture wounds from running into invisible spikes as they did), but Ron had gotten sidetracked. He had noticed an oddly loose metal plate set into one of the brick walls and decided to pull at it, revealing a crawlspace just big enough for him to get through on his hands and knees. Since the Reaper's blade had been coming in for another swing, he'd had to get in fast. Without a second thought, he'd hurriedly scurried into the dark hole.

Now he was trapped by his lack of foresight. The only way for him to exit from the same hole he'd entered was to crawl backwards, which wasn't half as fast as going forwards, while also timing it so that he didn't lose a buttock to the statue's giant scythe. There was a faint square of bluish light three meters in front of him, which indicated that he hadn't gotten himself stuck in a dead end, but he wasn't sure he wanted to risk crawling into a completely unfamiliar room without his friends at his back. A wand wasn't much use here, and he didn't have a sword in his back pocket.

After a minute of deliberation, Ron decided it was better to take the chance to crawl out and then turn around than it was to back out blindly and risk an amputation. He liked having both buttocks, thank you.

"There's a room in front of me!" he shouted to the rest of his group. "I'm going to see what's in it!"

"That's a terrible idea! Have you seen this place?" one of the Harrys replied. "Just get back here!"

"In a minute!" Ron moved forward, ignoring his friends' cries of protest. He was only going three meters! It wasn't like he was taking off on his own.

Ron's hands met an unstable, knobby surface as he reached the end of the pipe. When the floor shifted under his weight, the various objects composing it clicking and rattling, he looked down and whimpered in fear.

This room's floor was just a loose pile of bones.

"Don't think about it. Don't think about it," he chanted under his breath as he crawled out and stood up. He was about to crawl back in when, suddenly, a light appeared behind him.

Ron spun around with his wand held in a white-knuckled grip. In the middle of the room hovered a pale, silvery figure that greatly resembled a ghost one might see at Hogwarts. The only differences were the spirit's pointed ears, the wavering balls of pale green fire that floated around it, and the wispy tail that replaced its legs.

The spirit looked up, revealing the face of a young man with square, rugged features and a scar on one cheek. "So young, to be in a place such as this," he said in an echoing voice. "Hast thou come to claim its treasures?"

"Er, no?" Ron said. Treasure was a bonus, not the main mission. "We're here to break a curse."

"Thou hast not come to pillage this place of the wronged dead?"

What? Ron had to take a moment to run the ghost's outdated speech through his head. "No," he said firmly. "If we find something that can help, that's nice, but we need to kill the big monster living here and break the eye-things that it's guarding. Do you know where this temple's compass is?"

The spirit bowed to him, his will-o-wisps dipping with the motion. "Thou hast spoken truly and virtuously. I deem thee worthy of my treasures, child," he declared, and then he faded away. Gentle, blue-white light continued to illuminate the room after his disappearance.

Feeling like he'd dodged an Unforgivable, Ron shivered and hugged himself. "This place is bonkers," he muttered as he scanned the room. The ghost had mentioned treasures and had seemed to be some sort of guardian (that he was infinitely glad he hadn't set off), so he assumed the objects in question were nearby.

There they were. Two treasure chests, side by side. Ron walked toward them with difficulty, his feet sliding on the unevenly stacked bones beneath him. Some of the bones, he noticed, had been violently shattered and bore the marks of giant teeth.

He then vowed not to notice anything else until after he got out of that room.

Ron fumbled with the latch of the treasure chest on the left and then pulled the lid up. There was just enough light for him to make out the yellowed edge of a page of parchment.

"Must be a lesson," he murmured as he reached for it. His group had already found the temple's map, so the parchment couldn't be anything else. Ron bit his lower lip as he considered touching it. Was it a good idea? He could only hope no one else in the temple got killed by something while they were having knowledge shoved into their brains.

Tentatively reaching out, Ron touched the piece of parchment.

In the middle of fleeing a Poe, Millicent came to a sudden halt. The Poe cackled at its unexpected fortune and flowed into her body while she stood helplessly frozen. It then shot out with a wail and careened through the ceiling.

The other Poes considered the living child-statues that had taken up residence in their territory, and then followed their cohort's example.

"These platforms are making me ill," Draco moaned. "It doesn't help that they're floating over the worst water I've ever smelled. Why would anyone think these were a good idea?"

"It's better than a bunch of not-moving platforms that you'd have to jump across, isn't it?" Red said as he prepared to make the next crossing. "I'd rather two of these than—" He froze mid-jump and landed in a heap on the next bit of oddly fleshy ground. Had Draco not been staring sightlessly at the ceiling, he would have laughed.

With knowledge of light magic—since when had that been a thing?—now burned into his skull, Ron shook himself. "Lesson, definitely a lesson," he announced to the empty room.

Seeing that the first treasure chest was now empty, he opened the second one. A shiny surface glinting in the light caught his attention. Something made of metal?

Ron reached in and pulled out the broad, mostly flat object within. It was a weighty thing, made of metal, wood, and leather. He laid it on the floor to examine it, then cried out in surprise.

It was the Hylian Shield! He'd seen loads of the Heroes before Harry hauling the thing around when Hermione had let him take a peek at the beastie-book. Wow, he hadn't imagined it would be so big. The vaguely spade-shaped blue shield was almost half his height!

He flipped the shield over and hooked his left arm through its straps. Its weight made it hard to hold up for long, but he figured he'd build up the muscle for it over time. Now, how to carry it around for now without killing his shoulder…

'On your back,' a voice whispered in his mind. It was there and gone so fast that Ron had to wonder whether he'd thought it up.

"On my back," he repeated, and a long leather loop unfolded from the inner side of the shield. He hooked it over his shoulder like the strap of a cross-body bag. "Brilliant," he said with a grin as the strap shrank to fit him. The shield now nestled stably against his back.

When he reemerged in the room with the rotating Reaper statue, he found his friends milling around the door opposite him. Blue twirled a tarnished key around one finger.

"Ron! He's back!" Hermione exclaimed once she noticed him making his way over to them. "Did you get hurt?"

"Not yet," he replied. Right after he said this, his robes caught on something he couldn't see and caused him to fall on his hands and knees. He pressed himself flat on the floor with a breathless squeal when the Reaper's blade swept back around. It passed over him, though not without scraping loudly against the Hylian Shield.

Ron pushed himself to his feet and resumed running across the room. "Harry, do you think your sword could kill that statue?"

"I wish!" Harry and Blue called back.

"I don't think we even made a chip in it," Harry said with a glare in the invisible statue's general direction.

"You have a shield now?" Hermione commented with a baffled tilt of her head when Ron joined his teammates in hugging the wall near the door. "Was it with the scroll?"

"The scroll was right next to it," Ron confirmed. "I went into this room with a bunch of bones everywhere. A spirit showed up, asked me if I was a thief, and then let me have his stuff when I said I wasn't interested in treasure." He shrugged. "As for the scroll I found, I dunno what light magic is. It must be a Hylian thing."

Hermione raised her wand and scrutinized it. She then waved it in a lassoing motion over her head and slashed it down. A jet of ghostly white fire flew from its tip and splattered against something in the middle of the room. Drops of dissipating flame rolled across the surface of the Reaper statue, now a translucent white object sitting frozen in front of them.

Blue gave Ron a clap on the back. "Excellent work, making that ghost friend," he said with a grin. "He just made this temple a whole lot easier!"

They backtracked to a safer room two doors over, where they had found the temple's map, and then sat down to consult their guide.

"Okay, so I think we're here." Harry poked a room near the middle of the map, which had around the same dimensions as the one they were currently in. "We can go through that locked door over there, now, so we should do that next."

"Do you know if anyone's found the key with an eye on it?" Ron inquired. "Does it tell you that?"

"There was a little red eye symbol on the last map we got, and since Malfoy had the key at the time, it probably means that someone got it. I don't see the eye right now, though."

"I just realized something," Hermione remarked. "I only noticed it was bothering me once I saw how much ground we've covered. Can either of you tell how long we've been in here?"

Ron's brow furrowed as he tried to approximate the passage of time. He wasn't hungry and he didn't have to use the bathroom, so he guessed it couldn't have been more than a couple of hours.

"I packed snacks, but I haven't had the slightest urge to eat," Hermione said. "I'm not thirsty, I haven't had the urge to use the facilities, and even though I'm tired, I don't think I could sleep."

Blue opened his mouth.

"And no, it isn't just because we're surrounded by dead things. This same phenomenon happened in the first cave we explored, too."

Blue closed his mouth.

"Are you saying that this temple's magic is keeping us from getting hungry and all that?" Harry asked. "How does that kind of thing work?"

Ron grimaced. His father, being someone who dealt with nasty curses on a regular basis, had taught him and his brothers a basic understanding of the kind of magic no one admitted to practicing. "There are Dark rituals that do that, kind of, but you have to suck the life out of someone to have the kind of power to…" He trailed off, his surroundings now registering in his mind. His eyes drifted up toward the ceiling of interwoven bones above him. "Nope, no more thinking." He shook his head emphatically. "Hermione, you're too smart for this place. You too, Blue. Harry, we're taking charge."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Are you calling me stupid?"

"Believe me, stupid is better." Ron gave him a push in the direction of the door they had yet to unlock. "Let's go find the boss key before the nerds start making everything scarier again."

Blaise twirled his wand above his head and then fired a blast of white fire at the Poe chasing after him. The ghost jerked back and dropped its lantern. As smoky orange flames spilled across the ground, the stunned and temporarily solid Poe fell on its arse.

Three more light spells finished the ghost off, and Blaise sighed in relief. He was so glad they could kill these creatures now. It was nerve-wracking when all you could do was stun the thing and either run or wait until Potter got to it.

"Watch out!"

Blaise reflexively ducked at Millicent's shout, but he didn't manage to evade what had snuck up behind him.

The floor and ceiling switched places, the walls spinning around him like revolving mirrors. He dimly felt his feet take several steps; he couldn't begin to guess what direction they had moved him in. Up was left and down was up and right was down…

When the room snapped back into place, he heard raucous laughter.

The Weasleys were giggling and Yellow was biting down hard on his lower lip to stifle a smile, but Millicent was the one clutching her belly and cackling.

"I wish…I had a Pensieve…so I could watch that again!" she wheezed. "That's the silliest walk I've ever seen!"

Blaise clenched his teeth against the temptation to cast a Jelly-Legs Jinx on his friend. She hadn't laughed half this hard when Yellow had gotten possessed!

"I'm glad to see you're entertained," he drawled to save his pride. Poes had made it almost to the top of his "most hated enemies" list, below ReDeads and above Yellow Wizzrobes. After necromancy, nothing was worse than being forced to look like a complete idiot.

"Over here, thirdies!" one of the Weasleys called.

"The dungeon's having us accessorize!" his brother added.

They walked into the corral of gray blocks the Poes had been circling and approached the small pedestals within. Atop each sat a pair of gaudy glasses with purple lenses and bright magenta frames decorated with gold spikes.

"Ick." Blaise picked one set up and sneered at it in disgust. "What are these for? Breaking mirrors?"

"I like them," Yellow chirruped. He shoved his deeply unflattering glasses in his pocket and then donned the monstrously ugly ones he'd just found. His face lit up in an expression of delight. "Wow, I can see!" he exclaimed. "Everything's so sharp and nice! Even the skulls!"

Well, with that glowing review, how could he refuse? Blaise made a face and then slid the glasses on. Oh, yay, now the light in here wasn't so eerie and red anymore. He supposed that was a benefit.

His gaze slid across a scarlet, square shape in the middle of the room and then swung back to it. "Er, I don't recall the other treasure chests being quite so large," he remarked. "Is this one special?"

"Treasure!" Yellow and the Weasleys bounded over to the huge treasure chest and started poking around it. Yellow was the one to undo the latch and push the lid up, while one of the twins reached in.

"A key?" the Weasley said in confusion. "A big ole box for something like this?" He turned the object this way and that. It was about a third of a meter long—larger than the other keys they'd found—made of reddish metal and topped with a demonic-looking eye.

"That's the big key. It goes to a door with the same eye on it," Yellow explained. "I think we passed by a door like that earlier, but I don't remember where."

The twins snapped their fingers. "The door across from the entrance!" they exclaimed.

"That 'horrifying bottomless chasm' in front of it must have some invisible bridge going across," Blaise mused. He tweaked the enchanted glasses on his nose. "How lovely."

"If we had a map to go with that useless compass we found, we'd be able to get back," Millicent said with frustration. "We'll have to wander for ages to get all the way to the entrance from here!"

The door at the back of the room opened and closed, causing them all to glance over at it. Two Potters, a Weasley, and Granger walked in. The Potter with a stripe of green in his hair was staring at a rectangle of parchment as he entered the room. "This is a dead-end room, so it's either a trap or it has what we're looking for," the map-bearing Potter mumbled.

Granger tapped something on the map and then swung her finger toward Blaise's group. "It's been found, Harry," she told him.

He jerked his head up. "What?" His green eyes landed on Blaise and a funny look crossed his face.

The blue-eyed Potter spoke up for him. "What on earth are those things you're wearing?"

"This wretched temple's idea of sunglasses," Blaise quipped. "Care to join us in the Ugly Eyewear Club? You've got a foot in the door already."

The Potters rolled their eyes. "That was almost as clever as one of my cousin's jokes," the green one said dryly. They came over to claim their glasses, then emulated Yellow's expression of wide-eyed wonder.

"Whoa," Green breathed.

"This is what glasses are supposed to do?" Blue squawked.

Blaise smiled amusedly at their reactions before turning his attention to Weasley and the muggleborn. "Were you the ones who found that spell scroll?" he asked. "It's dead useful, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Weasley grunted. His brow was furrowed and his nose slightly scrunched. He looked rather constipated to Blaise.

Granger elbowed him. "Ronald, honestly! Slytherins don't bite!"

"No, but Snakes do."

"Oh, Ron…" The girl took him by the arm and pulled him away. "You're really going to have to get over this silly hatred of anyone in green and gray," she admonished as they walked by Blaise.

How was it that the muggleborn was less bothered by the House of purebloods than the pureblooded wizard beside her? Then again, none of the Weasleys really made sense. He'd been traveling with two of them for…well, for however long he'd been surrounded by dead things, and he still couldn't begin to understand them.

Something shiny on the younger Weasley's back drew his eye. Blaise was intrigued to see a familiar shield hanging there. It had kept popping up throughout the Hylian Bestiary, carried by several Heroes across the centuries. This shield in particular must have belonged to the Hero of Time or someone of similar adult stature, because it dwarfed the redhead it was strapped to.

"Where'd you get that, Ronnie?" one of the twins asked.

"And where can we get one?" inquired the other. "Do they come in a smaller size?"

"A ghost gave it to me," their younger sibling said proudly. "I passed his test, I guess. You'll have to get your own ghost friend if you want one."

"Are you sure you can even use it, Weasley?" Millicent took a pose that emphasized her more solid figure. "I doubt you could see around it, even assuming you could hold the thing up."

The redhead scowled. "Mind your own—ow, Hermione!"

"He'll manage, I'm sure," Granger said smoothly. "Let's get our glasses, Ronald." She steered him toward the cluster of pedestals.

Blaise watched them go, a thoughtful smirk on his lips as he sidled up to Millicent. "We need one of her for Draco," he said in an undertone.

She smiled wryly. "Draco and Pansy."

Maybe I should start tallying newly-acquired inventory, since I don't tend to have the kids psychically divine whatever something is named in my game guide.

Item get: Hylian Shield, Sunburst Spell, Lenses of Truth (temporary copy)

If Ron had given a selfish answer or lied, the ghost would have turned into a beast and ripped him apart; his bones would have been added to the floor and his flesh and soul would have been consumed by the temple. Lucky for him he's a good kid and a bluntly honest sort, huh? Him not recognizing the "light magic" he found, officially named "Sunburst Spell" in my game guide, is me lightly elbowing a fanfiction trope that was popular aaall that way back around when the Order of the Phoenix came out, when I first got into reading the HP section on FFN. Also, I found out while doing some Googling for this chapter that Link would wear his shield on a shoulder strap rather than some kind of harness, which was what I'd assumed. Perhaps that was obvious to everyone who isn't me, but hey, I learned!

The human sacrifice thing is going to be real in this fanfiction, but not too deeply dwelled upon. It just explains how these kids are going to be able to do hours of dungeon-crawling without the need to keep snacking and resting. At least, that's how it'll be for the temples set in Scotland.