The Weasley Twin (Harry Potter Love Story)

[25] Potions Test

A disgusting smell filled our nostrils, making the three of us pull our robes up over our noses. Eyes watering, I saw, flat on the floor in front of us, a troll even larger than the one we 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 we stepped carefully over one of its massive legs. "Come on, I can't breathe."

He pulled open the next door, the three of us hardly daring to look at what came next - but there was nothing very frightening in here, just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line.

"Snape's," I concluded.

"What do we have to do?" Harry asked.

We stepped over the threshold, and immediately a fire sprang up behind us in the doorway. It wasn't ordinary fire either; it was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward.

We were trapped.

"Look!" Hermione seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. Harry and I 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 forevermore,
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 onward, 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 and I let out great sighs and smiled at each other. Harry looked at us in shock.

"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," I added. Sure, I wasn't as smart as Hermione, but I was smart enough. We could do this.

"But so will we, won't we?" Harry asked, warily.

"Of course not," said Hermione. "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?" Harry said.

"Give us a minute," I told him.

Hermione and I read the paper several times. Then we both walked up and down the line of bottles, muttering to each other and pointing at them. At last, Hermione and I high-fived.

"Got it," I said. "The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire -- toward the Stone."

Harry looked at the tiny bottle I pointed to.

"There's only enough there for two of us," he said. "That's hardly two swallows."

We looked at each other.

"Which one will get you back through the purple flames?" Harry said.

Hermione pointed at a rounded bottle at the right end of the line.