I've just gotten a job, so I'm going to have less time to work on this big project than before. My plan of action is to post the next chapter (the start of the first dungeon! Yay!) on Saturday and then even out into weekly Saturday updates for as long as I can maintain them. Also, I've posted a few illustrations at garden-eel-draws on Tumblr, if you like sprite art!
"That was completely mental, mate," Harry heard Ron say to Red. "Mental, but brilliant. Where'd you learn how to do that?"
Red puffed his chest out proudly. "Natural skill," he boasted. "Like Quidditch. I was just meant to fight."
Blue rolled his eyes. "We were staggering about like drunken toddlers with pointy sticks," he said. "The only reason we won is because there were four of us and its only weapon was a bow. Can you imagine what would have happened if we'd gone up against one of the spear-wielders? Or if the numbers were fair?"
The wind seemed to peter out of Red's sails. "Maybe we could get some practice in," he conceded.
Shrieks from the front of the group brought the Harrys up short. They stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the crowd, but most everyone in the class was taller than them.
Hermione, who had a few centimeters on Harry, whispered, "It's this big shadowy hand, reaching up from the ground. I've heard that they'll grab you and teleport you to the doors of the Great Hall if you get too close."
"The Great Hall is closer to the Potions classroom than the fourth floor," Blue commented. "Does it hurt to get teleported? Is there any significant time lag when traveling between locations?"
"According to the Ravenclaw I talked to, it doesn't cause much more than a bruise upon landing and the teleportation is nearly instant. It's just annoying to be snatched up on your way to one of the towers and tossed out on the first floor."
Harry knew exactly what Blue was thinking, and shared a considering look with him. Maybe they'd experiment later, when McGonagall wasn't around to pile on detentions. The Weasley twins would definitely be on board with that plan.
Professor McGonagall managed to scare off the floor-hand with a whip of fire. The monster sank into a magenta-lined puddle of inky darkness and slid down the hall. "Come quickly, before it returns!" Professor McGonagall urged. She led her troop of nervous third-years through several more corridors and staircases without further incident, but for a few bats that were easily dealt with. The class breathed a collective sigh of relief when they finally reached the Potions classroom. That relief soon turned to confusion when they noticed the Slytherin third-years clustered outside the door.
"Aren't we late?" Hermione asked. "Why are they standing around outside?"
Their answer came in the form of a series of large colored blocks that formed a barricade around the classroom's door. Snape stood in front of them, flicking his wand agitatedly. His black eyes lanced the stone cubes with more hatred than he'd ever aimed at Harry. With every movement of his wand his glare grew a little more deadly.
"They're projecting a magical barrier to prevent anyone from climbing over," he growled to Professor McGonagall. "I've been locked out for twenty minutes now."
"Here, Severus, let me assist you." Professor McGonagall joined the younger professor in sending spells. The unnaturally-hued stone soaked up every dose of magic with ease. Whether spoken or silent, no spell left a single mark. Professor McGonagall even tried the fire-whip she'd used earlier, to no avail.
Ron watched their efforts with an odd expression on his face, glanced at the cluster of multicolored Harrys, and then turned back to the colorful blockade. "Er, Harry, you notice anything about those blocks?" he asked.
"They have to be part of the same magic as the monsters, that's for sure," Harry agreed. "If I sent a blasting spell like that at one of the walls in Hogwarts, I'm pretty sure it'd leave a dent."
Blue slapped him upside the head. "He means the colors, genius. Look at the blocks again."
With a scowl in his clone's direction, Harry rubbed the back of his head and studied the stone cubes more closely. His eyes widened in realization. They were color-coded! Three grey blocks on either side of the door, with four vibrantly-hued ones sandwiched between. One green, one yellow, another red, and the fourth a deep blue.
"Ohhh." He rubbed his chin in consideration. "What do we do about them, though? We can't push them out of the way; they must weigh a quarter-ton each!" Each stone cube was half Harry's height and had the speckled look of granite. There was no way his thin frame could budge one of those blocks even a millimeter.
"It's worth a shot. What's the point of braving monsters in the halls if you don't get an education out of it?" Blue marched toward the blocks, grabbing Red and Yellow as he went.
Harry hung back, torn between assisting his other selves and crossing Snape's path. The Potions Master was angrier than Harry had ever seen him, and the boy was sure he'd get blamed for locking everyone out of the classroom. Snape was probably the least understanding man alive and an explanation of "I broke the seal on an ancient evil so it wouldn't break out on its own, and then the evil did this" was hard enough to swallow without Snape's personality getting involved.
An image of green eyes joining the jars of horrible pickled things in Snape's office made Harry shiver. He hung back, choosing to let his cooler-headed counterpart confront Snape. Blue was smart. He'd know what to do, right?
Hermione sidled up to him, biting her lower lip. "I know Professor Snape is a teacher, but I'm not sure it's a good idea for Blue to speak with him at the moment," she fretted. "Should I have stopped him?"
Ron watched the developing scene with horrified fascination. "No…No, I don't think someone like that can be stopped," he said faintly.
Calm as you please, Blue walked up to the professors and cleared his throat. Snape looked over his shoulder, and then did the slightest of double-takes at the sight of three Harry Potters. He whirled in a column of swirling robes and favored all three boys with his patented sneer. McGonagall just turned around and sighed.
"Mister Potter, have you come to offer a suggestion?" she asked wearily.
Snape's dark eyes flicked to her, his expression becoming a somewhat more respectful scowl. "Surely you aren't consulting this boy for a plan of action?"
"Feel free to ask one of your Snakes, Severus," Professor McGonagall told him. "I've sent every transfiguration and offensive spell I feel safe casting around students, and nothing has left a mark. Perhaps someone among your House might have an idea?" She directed her attention back to Blue. "Now, what did you wish to say, Mister Potter?"
"The blocks are color-coded, Professor," he declared, pointing from the sapphire block to himself. "I don't know whether it's by house or they're directly tied to those cursed by the sword, but my best guess is that each is meant to be pushed in such a way that the a path to the doorway is opened."
"A waif like you couldn't possibly move something that size," Snape scoffed. He ignored the frown of rebuke Professor McGonagall gave him.
"Hey! I'm not a—mmf!" Red's yell was muffled when Yellow frantically clapped a hand over the boy's mouth.
Blue crossed his arms and stood his ground. "Why not call up Crabbe or Goyle to push the green block, then, sir?" he suggested. "We could test to see whether the magic responds to House or Harry."
"Don't give me orders, Potter, or I'll take points," Snape said coolly. "Mister Crabbe, get over here."
The big third-year broke away from Malfoy's group and trundled over to the teacher's side. "Yes, Professor?"
"Push the green block. I imagine it shouldn't be too difficult for you."
"Okay." Crabbe trotted up to the cube of emerald granite and gave it a hard shove. It slid back precisely one block's-width after only a moment's resistance. "Wasn't as heavy as I thought," he grunted.
Snape's eyes narrowed and then focused on Blue. "Get on with it, Potter. You're late enough for class as it is."
Blue flashed him a cheery smile. "Why, of course, Professor!" Harry saw the boy's smile turn to a smirk as soon as his back was turned. "Wouldn't want to keep you waiting." He pushed the blue block inward and then directed Red to do the same with his designated cube. Yellow then pushed his block sideways, in front of the green one. Once the puzzle was completed, the stones turned grey and the entire blockade disappeared in a puff of white smoke.
Snape's lip curled in contempt. "Well, it seems you've had a proper idea for once. Don't get a swelled head," he drawled. To the Slytherins, he called, "Come along. We have work to do." He swept into the classroom.
Professor McGonagall sighed. "Oh, Severus…" She gave Blue a nod of approval. "Ten points to Gryffindor for your wit. If you keep it up, you might just make up for your foolhardiness this morning." She walked off in the direction of the Transfiguration classroom.
Double Potions with the Slytherins started off normally despite (or possibly in deliberate spite of) the unusual delay. Snape was in a bad mood, but Harry was sure that would change as soon as a Gryffindor made a mistake he could insult them for.
They were brewing a Disenchantment Solution today, a potion meant to drain the magic from an object. It could also be used to undo transfigurations and vanish conjured objects if a simple Evanesco or Finite Incantatem wouldn't do. Harry, of course, had learned none of this from Snape; instead, Blue had claimed the bench next to his and shoved a page of concise notes into his hands. "To keep you from bringing the Great Bat down on our heads," the boy had explained in an undertone.
Harry and his partner Seamus were halfway through brewing their potion, which was just a couple shades off of the correct lime green, when a shadow-bat phased through the wall. Though Harry hadn't gotten used to the sight of such creatures in Hogwarts (not at all!), he knew the bat was fairly harmless. He kept a wary eye on it while he turned the flame under his potion to a lower level and let Seamus add pinches of dried Mandrake root.
Unfortunately, not all of the students in the classroom shared his and Seamus's "live and let live" attitude. Malfoy shrieked at the sight of the bat and ducked under his work table, setting off an explosion of panic. Lavender screeched and threw her ladle at the creature, flinging greenish orange potion onto everyone sitting in front of her. Some of the gooey muck splattered onto Ron's exposed wrist, which caused him to hiss in pain and drop his chopping knife into his cauldron. A good-sized blob of it hit Pansy Parkinson between the shoulders, which sent her scrambling to pull off her smoking robes.
All of this, though, paled in the face of the disaster that was Neville's cauldron. The poor boy had been trying very hard to do the potion right, and with Hermione helping to keep him calm, he had gotten closer to getting it perfect than ever before. The potion was supposed to be a bit volatile before the Mandrake root was added, which was why it had to be slowly sprinkled in at a low heat.
The bat had decided to swoop at Neville, who'd then flung his fistful of Mandrake at it. With its wings fouled by dried plant matter, the creature lost its ability to fly and landed in Neville's lime-green potion.
Snape recognized the blue steam rising from Neville's cauldron and his cold sneer became an expression of genuine dread. "OUT!" he roared at the class, casting a wordless spell that flung the door open. As students fled, he made a complicated motion with his wand that created a box of white light around the steaming cauldron. When the last student cleared the door, he followed right on her heels and slammed the door shut behind him.
BOOM!
The door to the Potions classroom rattled violently in its frame and tremors shook the floor. Two smaller explosions shook the dungeons as other half-done potions were set off.
No one moved after the explosions. All eyes were on Snape, whose face was frozen in an uncharacteristic look of shock.
"How on Earth…? No, such a violent reaction couldn't possibly…" The professor stepped away from the door and then turned back to it. He waved his wand, muttering incantations too quietly for Harry to hear. When the door glowed noxious green, he tucked his wand back into his robes.
Snape spun around, his sallow skin tinged red with fury. "The one time you get your potion right, Longbottom, you manage to cause more damage in a single day than you have in the past two years!" he snarled at a cowering Neville. "Detention every weeknight for a month, Mister Longbottom, and fifty points from Gryffindor!" He unleashed his venomous glare on the rest of the class. Even Malfoy, who usually loved to be the center of attention, edged back from him. "As for the rest of you, stay put! I'm going to have a discussion with the Headmaster."
A Slytherin that Harry didn't know gathered up the courage to protest, "B-But Professor, the monsters might—"
"Stay. Put," Snape growled. He stormed down the corridor before anyone else could complain.
"Well, Longbottom, it seems you've set a new record for 'Worst Potioneer'. I don't think there's been an explosion like that since before Professor Snape began teaching," Malfoy taunted. "What do you plan to do next? Blow up half the castle?"
Neville seemed to be in too much shock to defend himself. His face was deathly white, and he shook like someone had dipped him in ice-water. He was too wound up to notice Hermione murmuring reassurances to him.
"You're the one who screamed and gave everyone else a fright," Ron shot at Malfoy. "Scared of a little bat, are you?"
"I was trying to frighten it away!" the blond defended. "You saw what it did to Lardbottom's cauldron! What if it had landed in mine?"
"The rest of us would have been better off!"
Harry felt an impending sense of doom that had nothing to do with the intensifying argument. He scanned the hall while Red joined Ron in firing insults and Pansy added her shrill voice to the fray. Hogwarts had experienced a change just then, and Harry didn't think it was for the better. What could it be? A grabby shadow-hand? Another pig-man archer? Wait, what was that?
The shape and size became recognizable very quickly. "Look out for marbles!" he cried.
Several people's faces screwed up in confusion, Malfoy's among them. "Marbles, Potter?" the boy asked. "Have you lost yours?"
Harry grabbed Malfoy by one scrawny arm and hauled him toward the side of the corridor. The other Gryffindors and Slytherins followed suit as soon as they saw the cause of Harry's warning. They plastered themselves against the walls with only a couple of seconds to spare.
A massive ball of polished, blue-black metal rolled by. It took up almost the entire width of the corridor with its five-meter diameter, leaving a scant amount of space on either side. Malfoy was too shaken by the sight of it to snap at Harry for his manhandling.
"Hogwarts shouldn't have anything like that!" he squeaked.
More metal spheres followed the first, most of them small enough to take up only a quarter of the hallway. The downside of this was that their arrow-straight paths spanned from wall to wall, forcing students to hop back and forth to avoid being squashed.
"We need to get back in the Potions classroom!" Red yelled over the sounds of screaming teenagers and rolling spheres.
"We can't! It's filled with poisonous gas!" Blue called back. He rolled out of one ball's path and narrowly avoided running headlong into another. "Snape ran tests to check!"
"Then we'll have to find another classroom!" Harry declared. He leapt between giant marbles, intent on a door on the right side of the hall. "Everyone, look for a spare classroom and get inside it!" he bellowed over his shoulder at the rest of his classmates.
"Not all of us are athletes, Potter!" someone, probably Malfoy, shouted behind him.
Harry dove for the wall as an enormous ball rolled by and sprinted along the edge of the corridor for his chosen classroom. He had to sidestep a pair of smaller spheres on the way there, but he managed to make it without getting knocked flat. A quick "Alohomora" unlocked the door. He pulled it open and leapt in just before a passing ball knocked the door shut.
"Made it," he wheezed. Though Quidditch built muscle and endurance, flying muscles were not running-and-jumping muscles. He'd be feeling sore all over by the end of the day.
Once he'd caught his breath, he let his eyes rove over the unused classroom. Dusty tables and chairs were stacked up in one corner. At the back of the room was a blackboard with a teacher's podium shoved up against it. Harry had expected to see those. What stood out was the large golden button that rose from the middle of the floor.
"A floor-button-thingy," he murmured as he went to investigate. What had Yellow said these were for? Harry recalled him talking about unlocking bathrooms. Did that mean the door had locked behind him?
Harry trotted over and gave the door an experimental push. It opened, and then slammed shut as a marble rolled by. So, then, the door wasn't a problem, just the marbles. Harry returned to the button and stepped on it. A slight tingle traveled up his leg, but he didn't hear any telltale clicks of unlocking. Maybe the door was in another—
Wait. It was too quiet.
The boy's brow furrowed and he eyed the door. Until then, the ominous sound of behemoth metal spheres rolling by had been fairly loud and constant. Where had the noise gone? He looked down at the button, which had turned grey under his foot, then went to the door.
Kicking the door open, he took a step back and waited for it to be forced shut again. It stayed open, so he poked his head outside and looked around. The balls were gone!
"Hey guys, did you step on the buttons, too?" he called to the other students cautiously exiting the spare classrooms.
Yellow skipped over from a classroom farther down the corridor. "Yep! I knew the floor buttons were important!" he chirped. "Daphne thought I was dumb when I explained it to her, but I was right!"
"Did we just solve a puzzle?" Ron asked as he and Red left their classroom. "Because this seems an awful lot like 'catch the flying key' and 'cross the giant chessboard'. You think Snape put us up to this?"
"Are you mad? Professor Snape would never put his students through such a thing!" Malfoy stalked up from one of the farther classrooms, his cheeks pink from exertion and his grey eyes shining with ire. He looked as much of a mess as someone so posh could get; Harry thought he might have seen a few white-blond hairs out of place. "When I find out who did this, my father is going to ruin them!"
With Crabbe and Goyle in tow, Malfoy stomped past Harry, who jumped when he felt something shift in his pocket. Reaching into it, he came across a slip of parchment. A note? Since when had Malfoy passed him notes, except to annoy him while Snape was waiting to take points?
"I don't know about all of you, but I'm going to go up to my dorm. If Snape has a problem, he can shove it," Red announced. "Anyone with me?"
And so ended, for Harry and half of the Gryffindor third-years, the shortest Potions lesson in memory.
Harry fingered the note in his right pocket. "The trophy room. Midnight. Alone, Potter. That means one of you," it had read. Given Malfoy's complete lack of acknowledgment toward his other selves that morning, he'd halfway assumed the blond hadn't noticed them. Maybe he and the other Slytherins had been too caught off guard to come up with fitting insults at the time, so they'd pretended the other Harrys didn't exist for the time being. That sounded about right.
He'd decided not to tell anyone else, even himselves, about the note. Malfoy had given it to him in secret, and he wanted to know why. The boy was almost as ostentatious as Lockhart; he wanted everyone to know how much he hated his rival, which was why most of his taunts took place in the more populated areas of Hogwarts. This was a definite change of pace.
It was for this reason that Harry was puttering around the trophy room at 11:55pm, reading all the engraved names. He wasn't particularly worried about Filch or Mrs. Norris finding him. The halls were too dangerous for the ill-tempered man and his demonic cat to run their usual rounds. On top of that, Harry had his Invisibility Cloak. It was currently crammed into his left robe pocket, since he didn't want Malfoy seeing it, but he took security in its presence.
Malfoy showed up precisely at midnight, a sour look on his face. Harry tensed, wondering for a moment whether the boy was going to call a duel. It wouldn't have been the first time.
"Relax, Potter. I'm not here to curse you," Malfoy said with a sneer.
Harry moved his hand away from the wand in his pocket. "What are we here for, then?"
"To talk." The blond leaned against a display case, putting his uninjured hand on his hip. "You saved me today." He made it sound like a condemnation.
"I'm…sorry?" Harry said uncertainly. "If you want, I can swear not to do it again. And, er, tell the other Harrys, too."
"If you think I'm stupid enough to say I'd rather die than accept a Gryffindor's help, you've less brains than I thought."
Harry choked on his intended reply. He'd expected an insult, not…whatever that had been. "But you hate me," he spluttered instead.
"You spurned my offer of friendship in front of a Weasley," the boy said. "Of course I hate you. You might as well have launched a tart at my face in the Great Hall."
"You trash-talked the first friend I'd ever made and then told me you'd help me make friends with 'the right sort'." He formed quotations with his fingers. "You acted like someone who made my life hell, growing up."
Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "You aren't comparing me with a Muggle, are you? Any half-wit can tell you didn't grow up among proper people."
Harry sighed. "Why did you want to talk to me, Malfoy?"
With a little huff at the topic-change, the blond said, "You saved my life. I owe you a life-debt, and a Malfoy does not owe life-debts. My father would disown me if he knew." He shuddered. "So what do you want? You aren't as rich as I am, so I could give you some of my allowance if you want gold."
'He thinks I care about money?' Harry thought with a mental eye-roll. While he was a Gryffindor, he wasn't as impulsive as Malfoy assumed. He knew how to stop and think.
This life-debt thing sounded important. How much he could call in, he wasn't sure. It had to be worth something, though, this owed favor.
'Blue would know what to do with this,' he mused. "I won't make a decision yet," he told Malfoy. "I think I'll sit on it for now."
Malfoy was dumbstruck. "Y-You will? But I offered you money."
"I didn't grow up with money, Malfoy. What I have is more than enough." He grinned at the look of helpless confusion that flashed across the young aristocrat's face. "You saw that blue Harry today, didn't you? He's my inner Slytherin. Even if he's walking around, I still have it." He crossed his arms. "I'm going to wait and see what happens. I don't need a favor now, but maybe I will. So yeah, I'm going to sit on it."
"Hmph." Malfoy pushed away from the display case and stood up straight. "You're smarter than your choice in friends would suggest." A small amount of respect softened his expression of disdain. "Why are there four of you, anyway? The Headmaster stopped by the day everything started going to pieces and told us 'a sword did it' in that meandering way of his. Crazy old coot."
"That's actually what happened," Harry said with a shrug. "The sword was holding in some great evil, I pulled it out before the evil could break it and escape anyway, and then the evil did all of this." He gestured vaguely toward the castle around them.
"With all its unfathomable ancient magic, it decided to turn Hogwarts into a monster-filled puzzle-box," Malfoy said flatly. "How creative."
"I mean, it might be doing stuff outside, too. For all we know, it could be raining fire over London while we're locked up in the castle."
Malfoy frowned in thought. His eyes glazed over as his mental cogs creaked into motion. A half-minute passed before he said, "You need to apologize."
"Apologize?" Harry repeated dumbly. "For what, your terrible social skills? You basically introduced yourself as a bratty arse and then said 'hullo, I'd like to turn you into a pompous prat, too'."
"If you had been raised among the right sort, you would have recognized my offer as one of friendship, albeit a somewhat tactless one. I was eleven, Potter. Hardly a master of reading the situation." He cleared his throat. "However, this is not about that. Not exactly. You see, when you rejected me, you declared your family a political enemy of my family. If you apologize, we can be allies." He smiled, a thing of cold calculation and dark satisfaction. "You and your copies have the sword that can fix this mess. I have social connections and influence within this school. We would benefit from an alliance."
"Er…" Harry was really starting to wish he'd sent Blue out here instead of himself. While he wasn't as fixated on telling the truth as Hermione, Harry considered himself an honest person. Telling a harmless lie here and there was a world apart from making midnight deals with Draco-sodding-Malfoy.
"I'll take the deal, of course," a smoother, calmer version of Harry's voice declared. Blue stepped into the trophy room and closed the door behind him.
Harry stared at him in shock. When had he gotten here? How, without his own Invisibility Cloak? Unless that had been copied along with everything else, like his trunk and school supplies.
"In exchange for you holding that venomous tongue of yours around my friends. It wouldn't do for an ally of the Potter family to sling slurs and epithets at fellow allies, would it?" Blue continued.
"It isn't my fault Potter decided to make friends with a Weasel and a Mud—"
Blue's eyes narrowed and he took a quick step toward Malfoy. If he were half a head taller, he'd have loomed over the Slytherin boy. "Finish that word, and we go from rivals to enemies," Blue snapped.
Malfoy defensively raised the hand not suspended in a sling. "Fine, Potter, have it your way. I'll call her a muggleborn instead. Will you apologize now so we can get on with this alliance? It's draining, being civil to you for so long."
"I apologize for rejecting your offer of friendship in first year," Blue said tersely as he stepped back. "Is that acceptable?"
"In this sort of pinch, I suppose," Malfoy said. "Now, do you swear on your magic to aid the Malfoy family in dealing with the curse cast upon Hogwarts?"
"So long as you swear upon your magic to aid the last remaining Potter in the same capacity and keep the pureblood prejudices to a minimum around his other allies," Blue replied. "I swear upon my magic. Do you?"
Malfoy nodded impatiently. "Yes, yes, I swear upon my magic."
Harry felt a thrum of power shoot up his arm when they shook on the deal.