Honestly, watching a massive, hulking armored warrior half-kneel on the ground and nuzzle against a little girl's hand…
…was deeply, profoundly weird no matter how you looked at it.
Ron wrinkled his nose in distaste. "We should pry its helmet off just to be sure."
"Hold on," Hermione cut in immediately, staring at the armored figure with an odd expression on her face. "It doesn't mean us any harm."
She had no idea who — or what — was really inside, but that feeling had simply surfaced in her heart, sudden and certain.
Harry nodded in agreement. "If it wanted to hurt us, it wouldn't have saved us just now."
He reached out to touch the cold metal — and Kate sidestepped away from his hand.
Sorry, but she still wasn't used to people casually pawing at her, even if she was currently nothing more than a lump of cold iron.
"Seems like it only likes Hermione," Ron said sourly from the side.
What boy hadn't dreamed of being a medieval knight at some point?
Hermione looked rather pleased. She reached up and touched the iron visor. "Come with us, then."
Kate gave a silent nod. The tall figure rose to its feet again and led them forward down the only path ahead — a stone corridor.
Having that imposing figure at the front immediately steadied the three little lions, whose nerves had still been wound tight.
"We haven't seen Kate," Harry said as they walked. "She wouldn't still be up there waiting for us, would she?"
Hermione frowned with worry. "If she is, that's a problem."
If Kate was still up there, it meant Quirrell had already slipped past her — and who could say whether Kate, growing impatient, might wander into the room and get hurt by the three-headed dog.
The armored figure ahead seemed to understand their words. Its pace quickened.
Soon, they reached the end of the corridor and came to a brilliantly lit room beneath a soaring vaulted ceiling.
Countless tiny birds, dazzling as gems, beat their wings and darted all around the room. On the far side stood a heavy wooden door.
The armored warrior strode straight over and kicked a large hole clean through it, then turned back to the three gaping radishes and gave a thumbs-up.
Brute force: highly recommended.
"I have a feeling that was not the intended method of entry," Harry said, swallowing hard.
Hermione echoed, "I agree."
"Stop overthinking it — let's just go." Ron wasn't about to stand on ceremony. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled through the hole.
Seeing how smoothly that went, Harry and Hermione followed one after the other.
Kate was the last one through. She emerged to find the second room was an enormous chessboard — a Wizard Chess set.
"Looks like we have to win this game to get through," Ron muttered, then turned to look at her. "Hey, big guy — want to join in?"
The armored warrior planted her longsword in the ground and assumed a posture that clearly said: you lot play, I'll watch.
Ron breathed a quiet sigh of relief. One fewer player meant one fewer person he had to burn brain cells protecting.
"Harry, you take the bishop. Hermione, you take the castle. I'll be the knight!"
Under Ron's direction, casualties on the Wizard Chess board gradually began to mount.
Kate watched the game in silence. Once she'd worked out the next several moves Ron was likely to make, she turned her attention to the door leading to the next challenge.
In the original, the obstacle Quirrell left was a troll — one he'd dealt with himself before the Golden Trio even arrived. This time, the challenge had most likely been set by Katherine. Who knew what she'd come up with.
Just thinking about how unpredictable that woman was made Kate's heart give an uneasy twitch.
On a hopeful whim, she tried the Unlocking Charm on the door. With the spell boosted to Level 7, it took three solid minutes of sustained Mana output before the door finally yielded.
The moment she pushed it open — even through a layer of armor — a scorching tongue of flame came surging out to meet her.
Fiendfyre.
She slammed the door shut immediately and gave it a dissatisfied thump.
The original obstacles had each been custom-made for the trio — but Fiendfyre was no ordinary puzzle. One moment of carelessness and people could die.
Of everyone in the school, she was probably the only one who could handle Fiendfyre without incident.
So this woman had known all along that Kate would be coming along with the three of them.
A wave of irritation washed over her at being seen through so completely. Kate drew a deep breath, and the Mana within her clone began to churn and surge.
Finite Incantatem — wandless, nonverbal.
She wrenched the door open. A flood of Mana crashed toward the flames. In a single instant, the Fiendfyre shrank smaller and smaller, and then dissolved into nothing, swallowed up by the air.
Extinguishing the fire didn't fill Kate with triumph. It filled her with surprise.
What utterly feeble Fiendfyre.
Compared to the Fiendfyre eagle Katherine had conjured that day, it was like comparing a child's sparkler to a real rocket.
And her own shoddy wandless magic had been enough to put it out.
Kate was fairly certain that even if her spell had failed, these flames wouldn't have harmed a single hair on anyone's head.
Was this some kind of joke? A child's game of pretend?
Or was she underestimating herself?
As a rule, Kate — with the soul of an adult — wouldn't have been stung by this kind of slight.
But Katherine was different. She might be the only blood relative Kate had left in this entire world.
Being looked down on by your own family was a different matter entirely.
"Ron!"
She heard Hermione's sharp cry and her heart lurched. She turned and ran — and found that the chess match on this side had just ended.
Just like in the original, Ron had sacrificed himself to secure safe passage for Harry and Hermione.
Of course, since this was only a test designed by a professor, no one was going to die.
She stepped forward, crouched amid the rubble, and gently turned Ron over. A faint pulse of Mana rippled from her hand.
As expected — he was only unconscious, with perhaps a mild concussion.
That was also why she hadn't worried about letting Ron take on this obstacle. No mortal danger, so why not let him try.
"We have to keep going," Harry said, staring mournfully at the unconscious Ron. "He bought us this chance!"
Kate said nothing. She lifted Ron and propped him onto the one remaining chess piece, then turned and led the others onward.
The Fiendfyre room had already been cleared by her in advance. The next door opened to reveal a table bearing seven bottles of varying shapes.
These were all potions brewed by Snape.
The moment the three of them stepped across the threshold, an unusual curtain of purple flame rose up behind them, sealing the doorway — while black fire flickered to life across the door ahead.
They were trapped in the middle.
Kate glanced at the black flames, pulled off a small iron ornament from her armor, and tossed it in.
The fire erupted violently, incinerating the iron star in an instant.
The speed of it gave both Harry and Hermione a visible fright.
Kate, on the other hand, wasn't rattled at all. She had already anticipated exactly this result.
What she still couldn't work out, though, was how Quirrell had passed through the black flames and into the final chamber.
But that was a minor detail. Not worth dwelling on.
Meanwhile, Hermione had spotted a scroll of parchment beside the bottles. She read it aloud, reasoning through the answer as she went.
"It says here that three of the seven bottles are poison, two are wine, one will carry us safely through the black flames, and another will send us back through the purple flames."
She read the parchment again several more times, murmuring to herself — and then her face lit up.
"I've got it!"
"The smallest bottle will let us pass through the black flames to reach the Philosopher's Stone, and the round bottle on the far right will carry us back through the purple flames!"
Harry eyed the smallest bottle with a frown. "That amount can't be more than one person's worth, can it?"
There were three of them here. Someone was inevitably going to have to go back the way they'd come.
Kate glanced at him. She already knew what he was thinking. She picked up the round bottle and held it out to Hermione, gesturing for her to drink first.
"You're right — you need to go back, take Ron, and find Kate. Have her find a way to contact Dumbledore. We might be able to stall Quirrell, but we can't beat him."
Harry said, in agreement.
Hermione looked between the two of them, uncertain. "But then how do you two split that one mouthful of potion?"
At that, Harry hesitated. He felt the potion ought to go to him — and besides, he had never fully lowered his guard around the figure hidden inside that armor.
Kate simply picked up the smallest potion bottle and smashed it against the longsword in her hand, then drove the blade into the ground.
As though the boundless Mana flooding through her had vaporized the potion's entire effect at once, the whole great wall of fire ahead flickered and died — just for a moment.
Harry stared at the sight, astonished. The door to the final room was right there, within reach.
It seemed as though all three of them could pass through now.
But the armored warrior still pointed at the round bottle in Hermione's hand, indicating she should drink it and go back.
Under normal circumstances, Hermione would never have listened to a stranger and left her friends behind in a place like this.
But somehow, this time, she felt certain the armored warrior was right.
If someone had to fall back and contact Dumbledore, it couldn't be Harry — not with his old score to settle with Voldemort. And it shouldn't be the armored warrior, with their formidable power, who could protect Harry. That left only her.
"…I understand." Hermione gave a solemn nod. "You have to hold on until Dumbledore gets here!"
If it weren't for the mention of finding Kate and Dumbledore, she would absolutely have pressed forward with them.
But right now, falling back was the truly useful thing she could do for the whole team.
She tipped the round bottle back and drank a large mouthful. A shudder ran through her body — and she turned and stepped through the purple flames.
Before the potion's effect could wear off, Harry and Kate crossed through the wall of black fire together and entered the final room.
Someone was already inside — just as they had expected. Quirrell.
Behind Quirrell, a mirror stood tall against the wall. The Mirror of Erised.
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