McGonagall’s announcement rang one final time through the castle as Ethan went through the trapdoor.
Atlas went down barely two seconds later. And Harry, Hermione, and Ron followed in that order.
As expected, they had landed almost softly on the Devil’s Snare plant, and the plant immediately tried to wind around them. The room was quite dark, and only the small light from the trap door was giving them a little light.
Harry and Ron were yelling for help as they realized that their hands and feet were bound as Ethan lifted his wand with his last free hand.
“Lumos solem.”
The Devil’s Snares immediately retracted their tentacle-like appendages, and they fell half a floor down.
To everyone's surprise, they weren’t the only ones that fell down. Around ten pods of Mandrakes became visible as Ethan cast his spell, fell down with them, and shattered on the floor.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
“AAAAHHHHHH”
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH”
Multiple deafening screams hit the five that were still recovering from the fall. Ron and Hermione fell unconscious, and Harry was winding on the ground in pain. Ethan too was winding in pain but still managed to stay standing. He was trying to do something with his wand but had to start anew multiple times as he couldn’t get the wand movements right due to the pain.
"Silencio!” yelled Atlas, and he managed to cast the spell while holding his ears with both hands and his wands barely between two fingers.
The sound disappeared, but the ringing in Atlas' head lasted, and the pain also didn’t wholly disappear.
“What the fuck was that!” yelled Atlas.
“What?” said Ethan, trying to understand him.
“I said: What the fuck was that!”
“What? I can’t understand you. I think my eardrums got damaged. Wait a moment, I have a potion for that.” said Ethan and summoned a few potions out of his suitcase.
Ethan handed Harry and him a potion and then headed to Ron and Hermione.
Atlas looked a little skeptical at the potion but decided that Ethan had no reason to poison him. With a little cracking noise in his right ear, Atlas felt the pain going away.
After checking that Hermione was still breathing, he let Ethan do the healing and concentrated on restoring the mandrake pods so that they would stop screaming.
While doing that, he noticed that the mandrakes were still quite young. So young that they would have been unable to kill them with their screams even if they got unconscious and only got found after hours.
It was a little strange, in his opinion. He didn’t see a reason for Dumbledore to increase the difficulty of the trials if Dumbledore wanted Harry to succeed, but at the same time, he was sure that Voldemort wouldn’t have let something behind that was non-lethal.
Maybe the plants were added, and Dumbledore planned for Quirrell to enter at the end of the year and had abandoned the plan that Harry should fight against Quirrell. Snape and Cedrik also wouldn’t have a reason to do something like that. In the end, he decided to ask Ethan, who also didn’t have an idea why the mandrakes were there.
“Hey Atlas, if this trial was different, do you think the others are too?” asked Ethan quietly.
Now that Ethan asked it, he realized that Ethan was right. If this trial was different, then it was most likely that the other trials were different too. He began to imagine how one could easily increase the difficulty of the next trial. The trial in which Harry would normally need to catch one flying key out of thousands of keys. The first thought he had was one he didn’t want to be true. He could already picture one key flying among thousands of knives. If the trial was changed like that, he would have to rely on Ethan to clear it, as he would have no idea how to protect Harry midair from so many knives.
“Did you forget to tell me about the mandrakes, or didn’t you know too?” asked Hermione quietly from behind.
“Ethan’s potion branded every single detail, every word of the books into my memory, and I think I won’t be able to forget them anytime soon, but I can guarantee you, there was nothing like that, and I’m unsure of what lies ahead now,” answered Atlas, a little concerned.
After everyone had recovered thanks to Ethan’s potions, they made their way along the long, dark tunnel.
“Well, at least now we know why Fluffy’s ears were bleeding. Damn, if I remember correctly, dogs have much more sensible ears than we do. If the dog didn’t want to eat us, I would almost be sorry for him. Almost,” said Ron, as if he wasn’t just unconscious two minutes ago.
As the group walked further in the tunnel, they could hear a quiet buzzing and humming that got louder and louder the further they got until they arrived at a wooden door that wasn’t even locked.
“Be careful. I will go ahead. Stay behind me if anything happens.” said Ethan and opened the door.
Everyone was tensed and had their wands out to attack or block whatever was in the room, but to everyone's surprise, the room appeared empty at first, or if one looked closely, keys were flying near the ceiling. Something that calmed Atlas and Ethan down. Even Hermione looked a little relieved, and she stared at the bird-like keys with fascination.
“Are that keys?” asked Harry.
“Yes, they are probably part of another trial. Maybe there is a door or something, and we need one of the keys to open it,” said Atlas while looking for the door.
While walking across the giant pillar in the room, they discovered a single old schoolbroom hovering half a meter above the air.
From there, they could see the door they were searching for on the other side of the room. The door was large and made of dark, polished wood with a shiny metal frame. But what made the door especially eye-catching were the twenty-four keyholes, equally distributed across the door.
“Do you think we need to find twenty-four keys that match the twenty-four keyholes, or do we just need to find the right key for the right keyhole?” asked Atlas, observing the door carefully.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know how we should find these twenty-four keys across the hundreds flying in the air,” answered Ethan, trying to think of a solution.
“I don’t know if it's really twenty-four, but so many of the keys have broken and damaged wings. Maybe they were damaged when Quirrell used them to open the door. So one of them has to be the right one.”
“Why don’t we try Alohomora? It worked on the other doors too.” asked Ron, and everyone stared at him like he was stupid.
Atlas sighed and wanted to demonstrate that it wouldn’t work, so he cast an alohomora on the door, and to their surprise, they heard a soft "click.”
Then an invisible shockwave pushed them all two to three meters away and knocked them to the ground. The door remained unchanged and closed.
“I hope that answers your question. My back hurts and I think it started to bleed again.” said Atlas as he lied flatly on the floor.
"Here, take that. I thought you were fully recovered. It should at least heal your back, but I can’t promise that it will do more than anything Madam Pomfrey gave you. If she couldn’t heal you, then it requires more than mundane healing.” said Ethan, and gave him a potion. Atlas gave him a thankful nod in return.
“Harry I think it would be best if you were to take one of my brooms to catch those keys. Ron you can help, here is another broom.” Commanded Ethan and gave the two of them two brand new Nimbus 2000.”
“Whaaat! I can really use a Nimbus 2000? Are you serious?” said Ron, quite ecstatic about the task.
"Yes, but be careful. It wouldn’t surprise me if the keys start to attack you or duplicate or something like that as soon as you touch them.” reminded Ethan.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Yes, yes, yes!” answered Ron as he eagerly grabbed to broom.
“Hermione, can you take care of Atlas while I try to open the door with these two? Maybe you should go inside the suitcase for that, just in case the keys do something stupid.” suggested Ethan.
Hermione nodded and let Atlas enter the suitcase. She pulled it next to the door, next to Ethan's suitcase, before entering too. Inside, Atlas carefully stripped off his white shirt, which had several red spots on his back. Hermione carefully applied Ethan's tincture, only interrupted by Ethan’s cursing from the outside. The tincture was cold to the touch, and Atlas could feel how the wounds quickly closed themselves. Despite that, his back still didn’t feel as it used to, which only supported Madam Pomfrey's theory that the damage transcended a mundane burn.
As soon as Ron had familiarized himself with the broom by flying ten rounds around the pillar in the middle, they started to target the keys.
As soon as Harry touched the first key, the others started to double their speed and flew chaotically around.
“That seems easier than expected. Go get the next one!” yelled Ethan as he caught the key Harry threw at him.
While Harry did as he was told, Ron was fighting against the key while randomly trying to grab anything that flew in the air to catch the right keys by accident. The chaotic keys randomly hit him, making him yell in pain and anger. Ehan thought Ron would quickly give up, as he wasn't as determined as Harry and much less successful as well, but Ron endured the onslaughter of key-stabs and eventually also managed to get a key too.
When Atlas left the suitcase, Ethan was cursing, as they only had three keys in.
“Why is it taking you so long?” asked Atlas, confused. From what he heard, Harry should have brought him a minimum of ten keys.
“They always get catapulted out of the keyholes and fly away when I insert them in the wrong order. Damn, that will take ages. No, not again. Shit.” said Ethan as the keys once again flew out of the door, while he only managed to stop two from escaping.
“Can every key be used on every keyhole?” asked Atlas, trying to find a faster way.
“Yes and no. Only the damaged keys can. The others don’t work on any locks. I also tried to bomb the door away, but as you experienced yourself, the door deflects any kind of magic. How is your back, by the way?” Explained Ethan.
“Better not completely healed. Your potions are still an absolute miracle. But let's not talk about my back. Makes me sound older than I want to be. How long do you think it will take?”
“If we are lucky, around twenty-five minutes. Harry needs around one minute per key. If we are unlucky, the whole day. I mean, I was kind of lucky to get two in a row right, but we are at our third attempt now to find the fourth keyhole.” Answered Ethan and caught another key.”
“There has to be a faster way. I mean, Quirrell obviously is already past this door.” Said Atlas.
“Unless you find a way to destroy the door or the charm that protects the door, I can’t think of another way. We are already lucky that there really are 24 keys with broken wings, and not just 10 or something like that. It would be a nightmare if we had to find the right keys out of the hundreds, even if you can use one of the others as a sample,” answered Ethan, and put the third key in.
“Did you remember which keyholes you already tested?” asked Atlas, staring at the numbers he had written on the first three keyholes.”
“Yes, I have quite a good memory; I just noted it in case something else happens.” Answered Ethan.
“Wait a moment; I have an idea. The ink is holding on the door, right? And it's just regular ink, right?” asked Atlas, a little excited.
“Yes, what do you mean?” asked Ethan, raising a brow in confusion.
“Your memory potion helped me remember everything I have ever seen, heard, or even smelled. Even the things I didn’t even really notice at that time. What I want to say is that I remember a failed potion Neville brewed in our first potion lesson. A potion that melded his whole cauldron, and Snape even commented that it can dissolve almost any metal within seconds. And this door has lots of metal. Just give me a few minutes to prepare the potion, and continue what you are doing right now.”
Ethan agreed to the idea, hoping that they could potentially save hours of work.
A few minutes later, Atlas had built a cauldron right in front of the door and was throwing the ingredients for the cure for boils potion. Ethan, in the meantime, had finally found the fourth keyhole but had failed again at the fifth.
Just before he could try again to find the fifth hole, Atlas finished his potion, which was made obvious because his cauldron was starting to leak a yellow liquid that smelled like rust.
“Go away.” Said Atlas and slammed his whole potion equipment, including the corrosive potion, against the door.
Just as he had predicted, the door didn’t repel the corrosive liquid, and it fell out of its hinges on the potion equipment. The fallen door slowly dissolved around the keyholes, forming large holes in it.
“Nice, Awesome. I thought we would be here tomorrow. Do you have another one of the healing potions, the keys hit me quite a lot.” Said Ron and pointed at the bruises visible on his arms, his face and his neck, even thought he still had a grin on his face as he hold the broom.
After going past the corroded door, they entered a large room with large marble pillars around a giant chess field. A closed door behind the white king. Ethan, Atlas, and Hermione were looking for things that might be different from what they expected, but to their surprise, it looked like they just had to play a regular round of wizard chess. Unlike in the original, they even had every piece available.
Ron walked over the field in wonder and even the others couldn’t deny the charm a chessboard with pieces twice the size of an adult had.
Atlas even touched one of the pieces on their side and could feel the cold black marble under his fingers.
“Do you think we have to play to go through that door?” asked Ron, almost hopeful that this was the case.
“Probably. But we can try a few different things first.” said Ethan, and tried to go past the white figures. As in the movies, the pawns blocked the way with their weapons. As Ethen stepped back a few steps, they retracted the weapons again.
Ethan then pointed his wand at the white team's tower. “Bombarda”
The spell got deflected and hit one of the marble pillars, blasting half of it away and filling the whole room with a cloud of dust.
Then, before anyone could react to it, the chess pieces had drawn their weapons and pointed them towards Ethan.
“Wait, Wait, that was an accident; do you hear me? It wasn’t on purpose,” babbled Ethan while walking backwards as the black and white chess pieces made their way towards him.
As soon as Ethan left the chessboard, the chess pieces stopped their advance, but unlike before, they didn't withdraw their weapons.
“I think we shouldn’t try that again. I don’t want to fight 32 three meter tall chess pieces that seem invulnerable to magic.” said Atlas, and everyone nodded. “So who is the best chess player here?”
Everyone looked at Ron, and he smiled back with pride.
“Okey, just watch me; I will make it a swift victory,” said Ron confidently. Without the risk of having to sacrifice one of his friends, he was much more relaxed than in the movies. But still, the game lasted almost one and a half hours, with stone pieces being blasted across the room. Ron finished the game within 54 moves. They had considered just running through after a few pieces were destroyed, but the reaction of the statues at the beginning showed them that they wouldn’t just stand by, and even if they managed to reach the door, the door didn’t even have a keyhole and probably couldn’t be opened by normal means. They had considered using the corrosive potion again, but not only was the door mostly out of wood, they would probably have to survive the fury of the remaining pieces until the door opened.
“That was awesome Ron. Please remind me of this game when I say chess is useless” said Harry happy about the outcome, but that happiness was quickly washed away as he saw that the chess pieces were reforming.
“We should rush to the door before the door closes again,” said Hermione, and began to sprint.
Her sprint and that of the others quickly came to an halt as a four-meter-high troll in a lether armor looked through the door and sent a salvia-rich roar in their direction before he tried to squeeze through the door.
The troll’s mere appearance was enough to send shivers down their spines.
The troll looked quite similar to the one they would have fought in the original at Halloween, with the exception that the one before them was a little taller and quite a lot more muscular, which was emphasized by the tight-fitting leather armor. The troll also had a not-to-miss piercing on his nose. On this piercing hung a snot-covered, barely recognizable silver key.
With the troll came a terrible, nauseating stench of rotting meat, sweat, and sewage.
Surprised that the troll would come to them before they even passed the door, Atlas hurried to summon a few Puffapods out of his bag. Before he could even throw them, Ethan was already blasting the troll with spells. Some even seemed to have an effect as the troll stumbled back confused and angered about the resistance.
The troll quickly charged at them with a far faster speed than any of them would have expected. Just when Atlas thought about killing the troll with Avada Kedavra, the troll stopped in his movements, crashed to the ground, and slid a few more meters across the floor due to his momentum.
“That was unexpected. But I’m glad that no one got hurt,” said Ethan, looking at the others.
“Is he dead?” asked Harry.
"No, just bound by my spell. It should take hours for him to be able to move again.” Answered Ethan.
At least that’s what he thought as the troll quickly became able to move again and grabbed Ethan from behind.
Atlas could see Ethan losing his wand as he got grabbed, and with a painfully loud crack, he could hear Ethan's left arm being broken. The troll wanted to get up, so Ethan began to punch the troll with his one free arm. One time, ten times, twenty times, within a few seconds, but the troll barely gave a painful groan as his fingers began to crack. Atlas hesitated. His first instinct was to help Ethan, but he then remembered that Ethan getting hurt or possibly killed by a troll was a desirable outcome.
“What are you waiting for? Help him!” said Hermione, and ripped the puffapods out of his hands and threw them at the troll.
The troll immediately began to sneeze and wave Ethan around while Ethan still hammered on the troll's deformed index finger, which was oozing a slimy liquid that was most likely troll blood.
The troll stumbled backwards and collided with a few of the statues from the chess game, which jolted the reformed statues awake. Atlas did the only thing that came to his mind as he saw the white bishop charging at him. He charged the Orbis charm for three seconds and cast it towards the bishop, who sank into the castle's stone-made floor till his ankles were covered. The bishop was hitting the floor with his staff to free itself as the stone had fused with his feed, while Atlas had to prepare the next spell to beat the black knight and the two pawns that were nearing him and Hermione.
To his relief, Hermione and Harry saw what he did to the bishop and immediately began to cast too, while Ron cast a few expeliarmus spells at the troll, either because he wanted the troll to loosen his grip on Ethan or because he didn't know a more potent spell.
“One hundred! You bloddy asshole!” yelled Ethan, and punched the troll's head,, causing it to explode like a watermelon that was hit by a sledgehammer.
Before Atlas could process his shock at seeing Ethan squashing the trolls head with his bare hands while theoretically out of reach, he saw Ethan practically blinking towards his wand before he too cast the Orbis charm towards the chess pieces, immobilizing them one after another.