Chapter 31: Working On The Riddle, and The Stones Chamber (2/2)
Quinn silently casted an Unlocking charm (Alohomora), and with a click, the door opened. Before entering the room, Quinn made himself invisible and took a deep breath before entered the room. He was immediately was greeted by low, rumbling growls.
Quinn saw the first challenge/defense, set up by Rubeus Hagrid. The obstacle was to get past Fluffy was a gigantic, monstrous male three-headed dog, a magical beast species known as Cerberus who was once cared for by Rubeus Hagrid. Fluffy was raised by Hagrid and loaned to Albus Dumbledore. To aid in guarding the Philosopher's Stone. Fluffy's greatest weakness was the inability to resist falling asleep to the sound of music.
Quinn saw the Cerberus get up and sniffed around to the person who it couldn't see. Quinn stood perfectly still before slowly conjuring a violin; It was an exact replica of Quinn's violin. Quinn didn't want to bring his beloved violin in fear that it would get damaged.
Quinn scowled at the conjured violin. It felt different in Quinn's hand; It felt like an inferior product. Quinn sighed before starting playing a tune on the violin.
Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending began flowing through the room as the Cerberus stopped looking around and looked towards the floating violin with all its three heads and six eyes.
Slowly, but surely, the Cerberus' eyes drooped, and his frequent growls ceased, and it tottered on its paws and fell to its knees, then it slumped to the ground, fast asleep.
Quinn moved through the room while playing the violin, and after walking by one of the Cerberus' paws, he found the trapdoor. With a look at the door, the ring handle pulled itself up, followed up by the trapdoor itself.
Quinn stopped playing the violin, vanished it, and immediately jumped into the darkness inside the trapdoor. The Cerberus slowly woke up, shaking off the sleepiness, and looked around but saw no one, its three heads and six eyes missing the swiftly closing trapdoor.
Quinn landed on soft ground. The cold, damp air surrounded him as he felt plants around him.
'Devil's snare,' thought Quinn. The second challenge/defense, set up by the Herbology professor, Pomona Sprout.
Devil's Snare was a magical plant in the shape of a mass of soft, springy tendrils and vines that possess some sense of touch with the instinct to constrict or strangle anything in its surrounding environment or something that happens to touch it. Devil's Snare wasn't a carnivorous plant and didn't consume its victim.
The plant used its creepers and tendrils to entrap anyone who touched it, binding their arms and legs and eventually choking them. The harder a person struggles against Devil's Snare, the faster and more tightly it binds them.
Quinn felt the Devil's Snare creep up his body, but he didn't move or even tried to use magic. He just stood there, waiting for the Devil's Snare to surround him, and it did, slowly creeping over his over body, entrapping him in its vines and tendrils.
Quinn had read about the Devil's Snare and how if you stayed relaxed, it wouldn't suffocate a person, and Quinn wanted to see if it was true. He waited for thirty seconds, and the wines didn't tighten around him and just covered him, treating him like a wall or an immovable object.
'Okay, this is enough,' thinking that he charged up his magic, and multiple balls of harsh light appeared in the room full of Devil's Snare, scaring them as the wines hurriedly retreated from Quinn's body as it tried to shield itself away from the light.
Quinn didn't use fire to not wanting to damage the wines. He didn't want to leave any evidence in case the professors came to check on the defenses.
Wasting no time, Quinn walked towards the stony passageway free of Devil's Snare. The passage was dead silent as Quinn walked down the downward slope towards the next room.
Quinn knew he was near the next obstacle as he heard the rustling and clinking sounds from ahead. He reached the end of the passageway and saw a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was full of small, jewel-bright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy wooden door.
”The winged keys,” muttered Quinn as he took in the sight of at least a hundred winged keys. The flock moved randomly and rapidly, making it hard to keep track of an individual key.
Quinn looked at the old wooden door and then back to the flock of key birds.
”An old key for an old door,” thought Quinn, but before that, he tried to summon the ring by using a Summoning charm (Accio), but alas, Flitwick had charmed them impervious to being summoned.
Quinn glanced at the brooms in the room, put there to chase the correct winged key. He scoffed and looked back at the crazy flock of winged keys. ”Yeah, right. Like I am going to use a broom to chase the correct key.”
Quinn trained his eyes on the flock, trying to spot the vintage-styled key, and the second he spotted it, Quinn never let his eyes wander off it. He raised his right hand, and the next second, a jet of yellow and red shot out of Quinn's right palm and latched on to the winged key.
He had just used the Seize-and-pull charm (Carpe Retractum). Quinn grinned, and with another thought, the cord of light started becoming shorter as it pulled the key towards Quinn, and within seconds, Quinn had the vintage fashioned key in his hand.
”Now, that is how you do it. Didn't have to move at all,” Quinn praised himself as he walked to the wooden door. While humming, Quinn inserted the key into the door and turned it to unlock the door.
The next room was Minerva McGonagall's handiwork. A game of giant chess set with cool-looking chess pieces.
Quinn stopped for a minute and observed the chessboard, admiring the work of masterful and artistic Transfiguration. Quinn looked for clues and signs for what went into creating this work. A prolonged work of Transfiguration was a difficult job.
”The chess pieces are Transmuted into their shapes. Hmm... I can't decipher the original material of the pieces, but they are Transfigured into stone.”
Quinn squatted and further examined, ”Oh man, the animation charms are brutal on this one. Hot stuff! The swords, axes, shields, and even the bodies.”
Like a student in front of a work of a master, Quinn spent some time examining the chessboard till he was satisfied. ”Good, now let's bypass,” said Quinn as he stood up and started pilling on charms on himself.
First, he made himself invisible so that the chess pieces couldn't see him. Then he casted a charm on every article of his clothing so that they didn't make a sound. Just for safety, Quinn erased his scent in case McGonagall had charmed them to sense smells.
'Let's go!' thought Quinn as he walked on to the chessboard, and step by step, he walked from the white side to the black side. Carefully, looking at the chess pieces to see if they would move and attack him, but they didn't. His heart was pounding when he reached the rows of black pieces and slowly, awfully slowly, stepped between a black pawn and the black queen.
Quinn finally exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding and ran to the next room and shut the door behind him.
”Oh well, that was stressful.” Quinn leaned against the door. He was sure that if the pieces moved a single centimeter, he would have blasted them smithereens.
At that moment, Quinn noticed the horrendous smell in the new room, and he was immediately reminded of the Troll he fought a few weeks before.
A massive mountain Troll stood in front of him; this one was at least two to three feet larger than the one Quinn had fought. The Troll hadn't noticed Quinn, and Quinn was glad that he hadn't.
In the books, Harry and Hermione didn't have to fight this Troll because Quirrellmort had already taken off it by knocking it out before the duo got to this room.
Quinn, on the other hand, wasn't that lucky and had to deal with this Troll.
”And, I have to deal with it without injuring this one,” Quinn sighed, ”Luckily, I prepared for this.” He took a large round vial out of his robes.
The vial contained a pale lilac-colored potion. The potion was the Draught of Living Death, one of the stronger Sleeping potions, and sent the drinker into a deathlike slumber, but the potion in Quinn's vial was a unique blend.
The Draught of Living Death was a clear-colored potion, but the one in Quinn's vial was a pale lilac. The reason behind this was because it was highly concentrated. It needed to be concentrated because of the Troll's size and physique.
The Troll was sitting on the floor, so Quinn gently rolled the vial towards it. The Troll noticed the vial, picked it up with his index finger and thumb, and bought it close to his face.
This was the sign Quinn was waiting for as he launched a Transmutation spell towards the glass of vial, instantly disintegrating it, and the moment the potion came into contact with air, it turned to mist and became aerosol. Another handy change Quinn made to the recipe, modifying the recipe so the potion would turn to mist when coming into contact with air.
The Troll breathed in the vapor, and within a dozen seconds, the effects showed. The Troll became drowsy and fell to its side, sleeping.
Quinn immediately began moving towards the Troll, continuously casting air freshening charms around him to keep the Troll stink away.
He pulled open the next door, and there was nothing very frightening in here, just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line.
”Snape's puzzles,” spoke Quinn as his voice echoed in the empty room.
The moment Quinn crossed the Threshold, a fire sprang up behind him 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.
Quinn was trapped.
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Quinn West - MC - Explorer of Hogwarts.
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