(Ian Hart and Richard Bremmer as Quirinus Quirrell and Lord Voldemort)
It's wiser to find out than to suppose. -Mark Twain
The Hogwarts castle
Scotland, Great Britain
19 June 1992
Hermione and Artemis screamed but stayed on their squares. The white queen dragged Ron to one side. He looked as if he'd been knocked out. Shaking, Harry moved three spaces to the left. The white king took off his crown and threw it at Harry's feet. They had won. The chessmen parted and bowed, leaving the door ahead clear. With one last desperate look back at Ron,.. Harry, Hermione and Artemis charged through the door and up the next passageway.
"What if he's..."
"He'll be all right." Said Harry, but he sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. "What do you reckon's next?"
"We've had Sprout's, that was the Devil's Snare. Flitwick must've put the charms on the keys. McGonagall transfigured the chessmen to make them alive. That leaves Quirrell's spell and Snape's..." Artemis said thoughtfully.
They had reached another door. "All right?" Harry whispered. "Go on." Hermione ushered. Harry pushed it open.
A disgusting smell filled their nostrils, making the three of them pull their shirts up over their noses. Eyes watering, they saw, flat on the floor in front of them, a troll even larger than the one they had tackled, out cold with a bloody lump on its head.
"I'm glad we didn't have to fight that one." Harry whispered as they stepped carefully over one of its massive legs. "Come on, I can't breathe." He pulled open the next door. There was nothing frightening in this room. Just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line.
"Snape's." Said Harry. "What do we have to do?" They stepped over the threshold and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn't ordinary fire either. It was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up the doorway leading onward. They were trapped.
"Look!" Hermione seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. Artemis looked over her shoulder to read 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."
Hermione let out a great sigh and Artemis saw she was smiling. "Brilliant," said Hermione. "This isn't magic...it's logic...a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven't got an ounce of logic, they'd be stuck in here forever."
"But so will we, won't we?"
"Of course not." Said Artemis calmly. "Everything we need is here on this paper. Seven bottles: three are poison, two are wine, one will get us safely through the black fire and one will get us back through the purple."
"But how do we know which to drink?"
"Give her a minute." Artemis said as Hermione looked over the clues.
YOU ARE READING
The girl with golden hair (Harry Potter fanfic)
FanfictionWhen a boy, who's already lost everything, and a girl, who can't help but question what she has, meet, it's like destiny itself brought the two together. Artemis Lupin is a young witch with an air of charm and sarcasm. She has a way of getting on y...
