Sighing, realising she had nothing to lose; she began to sing a song she had learned in the Lord of the Rings:
Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
O Queen beyond the Western Seas!
O light to us that wander here
Amid the world of woven trees!
Gilthoniel! O Elbereth!
Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath!
Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee
In a far land beyond the sea.
O Stars that in the Sunless Year
With shining hand by her were sown,
In windy fields now bright and clear
We see you silver blossom blown!
O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees,
Thy starlight on the Western Seas.
Her worries had been for naught apparently. By the time she arrived to the middle of the song, the growls of the Cerberus were low and weak. By the time she finished the song a first time, the Cerberus was sound asleep.
She had to sing a second time, advancing to the trapdoor guarded by the Cerberus, and then a third, the time to open it and mount on her broom. Apparently, her decision to go and take a broom from the lockers usually reserved for Flying Lessons and Quidditch players had been judicious. There were no stairs, no light, without a broom she would have had to jump and hope for the best.
Once she stopped the song and flew down the trapdoor, the three-headed monster growled and started to merge from his musical torpor, liberated from the song influence. Too late, however: Alexandra was out of its reach, and had triumphed from the first obstacle.
Casting a powerful Lumos again on her broom, Alexandra congratulated herself once more for having come with a flying magical means of travel. The room she had just flown too was huge, or at least she supposed it was, because most of it was covered by a plant. Judging by the tendrils and the agitation it was showing at the light emitted by her wand, being a genius was not needed to conclude this was the second obstacle placed by the Professors, the Herbology one to be accurate.
Thanks to her broom, she was out of the reach of the tendrils and tentacles from the plant, but that didn't mean she was free to advance to the next room. The door leading further along away was covered by a green mass of tendrils, so Alexandra would be forced to land at one moment or another if she wanted to go further. The dangerous plant was not going to accept this without a fight.
Groaning, Alexandra thought she should have come with Hermione. The Gryffindor girl was the best in their year, and a memory far better than her own. She would have recognized the plant in twenty seconds watch in hand. Or perhaps not. If it was a plant seen in the Herbology courses after the OWLS, even Hermione wouldn't be able to help.
Slowly circling the room, Alexandra tried to remember the theory of Professor Sprout they had had in four months. It was a long-shot, but the first obstacle could be passed in theory rather simply with music. Maybe the second room answered to the same logic.
After five minutes flying over this nightmare of gardeners, she found the name in her memory. Devil's Snare. A plant invented by a mad German wizard to eat the dirt and the excrements in 1450, before the insane researcher realised his plant had developed and implanted itself in all his caves and miles of underground. The German forces had needed three months to burn this threat, and the inventor had not survived to learn from his mistake. The plant was liking dark and damp places, and could feed from practically everything. Probably why it was just under the location of the Cerberus, logically.
Oh well, thought Alexandra. Time to verify the theory.
"Ignis!" She shouted, creating a column of light blue flames on the Devil's Snare. In an instant, the aggressive plant ceased to be a threat and cringed away from the heat and the flames she sent in controlled bursts.
She took a moment to thank Hermione mentally, as it had been her Gryffindor friend who had taught her the spell. On the other hand, the episode with the Devil's Snare had been again too easy. Easy enough for an advanced first -year to have no problem to pass. Her suspicions worsened, she opened the door and continued on.
Going down the stone passageway which had been on the library maps, the only things she could hear were her footsteps and the noise of water trickling down the walls. Alexandra really hoped the next obstacle wasn't a swimming pool or something where water was included. While she knew how to swim, her experiences with this sport had always turned badly thanks to Dudley and his gang trying to drown her.
After one minute, she reached at a fast pace the end of the passageway to enter a brilliantly lit chamber, full of small, jewel-bright keys. On the opposite side of the door was the heavy wooden door. Crossing the chamber, Alexandra had no difficulty to guess who had created this obstacle: obviously, it had been her Head of House.
Still, Alexandra hadn't duelled Flitwick once per week and not noticed the fact at heart the tiny professor of Charms could be a sadist when he found something very exciting. Like sending Alexandra all over the room once she found a new tactic or spell to use against him. Leaving three brooms with the key, Alexandra concluded, was out of character for him. So was choosing a key for the door that was large, sliver and giving a blue aura.
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