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Ascension 23
🕑 Added 2023-04-20 19:39:58 +0000 UTCHarry grunted as he slammed the door shut behind him, hearing the faint sounds of cloth sliding against stone from the other side as the Devil’s Snare retracted. He breathed a sigh of relief, grabbing the burnt leaf hanging on his elbow and throwing it aside as he looked at Persephone, and promptly started laughing as he saw the disheveled state she was in.
“By Circe’s staff, I wish I had a capturer with me right now,” Walking over to her, he grabbed the leaf that had somehow managed to tangle itself in her red locks, and pulled it out, smirking at her all the while, “You would have surely made it to the front of the prophet, as a red-haired Gorgon.”
“Very funny,” she rolled her eyes, turning around to look at the chamber they were now in, her eyes flicking over every inch and spot to make sure nothing was creep-, “What are all these keys doing here?”
“And they have wings on them too,” Harry mused, kneeling down by the thousands of rusted, ancient-looking keys on the floor, translucent wings the size of his fingers attached to them. They all looked like they were decades and centuries old, with the iron practically eaten away in some places. Following the trail of the keys that somehow appeared to be older than Hogwarts, he looked at the open door on the other side of the room…and the destroyed statues scattered in the room beyond, “Wh-someone has already gone through here?!”
“It was probably Neville,” Persephone commented, walking by him with her wand raised, a clypeus already on her left forearm. She shot a revelation spell into the room with a silent whisper, and Harry watched as her shoulders relaxed slightly, making his own breath resume once more, “It's empty…but be silent and alert.”
“Yes mum,” he rolled his eyes, standing up and kicking over a couple of keys as he walked behind her, raising his wand with a shield ready on his lips. He blinked as they came out into the third chamber, his eyes flicking over at the remnants of the great marble chess pieces strewn about the floor and the giant chessboard that spanned the whole width of the room. As he looked at the shattered pieces of the rooks and knights lying amidst the kings and queens, he squinted at the vivid orange that was present behind the large head of a marble horse, “Is that…Weasley?!”
“One of them at least,” his sister snarked as they ran towards the boy, stepping and jumping over the rubble. Harry slid to a stop by the boy’s head, his eyes narrowing at the blood that was congealed right above his ear, “Looks like he got injured while playing chess…and whoever he came with, they won.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because…the door to the next chamber is open I guess?”
Persephone blinked at the sarcastic tone that echoed in the silent chamber, her emerald eyes turning down to glare at their brother even as he stared back mirthfully at her. Deciding to box him on ears later for that, she looked at the unconscious boy at their feet and sighed, “So, what do we do about him? And if Neville came down here with him, then no doubt Granger too came with them.”
“What is there to do here sister?” He asked her in return, shaking his head as he stood up, “Weasley is neither our friend, nor someone I would personally want to save even from a mosquito. Neville is already ahead of us, and it is not like he is dying or something. I am sure Professor Quirell will see to him when he comes down here, or someone else will.”
“That’s true,” she hummed, turning around after a final glance at the sleeping redhead, “Now let's see what is next, shall we? Also, I think we should be careful, since the Philosopher’s Stone is also somewhere around here, and Headmaster Dumbledore no doubt created strong defenses around it, which I definitely don’t want to test.”
“Hmm, I wonder if this too was a part of our test from Professor Quirell?”
“What?” she raised an eyebrow as they stepped over a black torso, her eyes following the length of the human-sized greatsword that was lying by it, “What do you mean?”
“I don’t see how a chess match helps us in defence,” he muttered as he kicked a spear out of their way, watching it roll over the giant board before it stopped against a broken queen, the sound echoing in the chamber and drowning his words beneath it, “Were we supposed give a test of our decision making and planning capabilities?”
“Who knows?” She responded, walking into the next room, only to gasp at the sight of the large, rotted green arm blocking her way. She brought up her sleeve to her nose, her eyes watering at the pungent, foul odor that instantly made her eyes water as she followed the pool of poisonous green blood back to the dead troll lying at the center of the cavernous room. Blood was still trickling out of the stump it had for its right shoulder, and when she took a step forwards, Persephone gasped at the sight of the greatsword that was stabbed into its head from the side, “That must have been Neville’s work.”
“This one is smaller than the one we killed on Halloween,” Harry commented as he prodded the lifeless head of the troll with his foot, his eyes staring into the bloodied, swollen-up ones of the creature. He didn’t think that the test was to kill the rock troll, the grey-skinned creature quite a lot more dangerous than its forest-dwelling cousin, and certainly hardier too. Looking ahead at the exit of the cave-like room, Harry rolled his eyes as he saw the bushy-maned Gryffindor lying motionless by the arch, “Why did they even come down here if all they wanted to do was fall unconscious? I don’t even know who started the rumor that she was being called the brightest witch of our generation, but they clearly need to get their head checked.”
“You know she has been getting Outstandings throughout the year, right?” Persephone chuckled as she walked over to the girl, tilting her head at the absence of anything that indicated a physical injury. Except for a few dust patches and a tear in her robes, Granger looked like she had just fallen asleep next to a troll…with Longbottom missing still, “Don’t know why Longbottom decided to bring them with him though, especially since this test is for getting the apprenticeship under Professor Quirrell. But we have wasted enough time as it is, let's move.”
Nodding at her words, Harry stood up and walked into the next room, staring at the table at the center of the chamber. A number of vials were placed upon the velvet that covered the top, and he picked up the parchment that was placed beside the crystal vials. “A riddle,” he muttered, his eyes flicking over the neat, cursive script that he recognized as Professor Snape’s. The words of the Potion’s Master ran through his mind as he placed the slip down and looked at the vials, working the clues and numbers to find out the one that was supposed to let him and Persephone ‘move ahead’.
“What are you looking at?” His sister asked, and Harry watched her pick up a vial from the rightmost edge of the series. He almost smacked himself on the head for not noticing the absence of some of the potion from the last vial—which obviously meant Neville had drunk from it to get past whatever the obstruction Profess-wait, “Why is there a test from Professor Snape present in a test that is being conducted by Professor Quirell?”
“He must have helped Professor Quirrell,” Persephone answered, tilting her head slightly as she looked back at the archway that led downstairs into the next chamber, “Now come on, we are getting late. Neville is already ahead of us!”
“Professor Snape doesn’t help,” Harry scoffed, feeling a small throb in his head that he ignored, “especially not someone who he has ridiculed several times. But this definitely is the handwriting of Professor Snape, and I doubt Professor Quirrell would include a potion’s riddle in our test which is for a bloody defence apprenticeship!”
”But that means that this isn’t a part of our test!” She said, staring at the vial in her hands, before she turned around to look in the direction of the previous chambers, horror growing on her face, a fog seeming to lift itself from her mind, “Which means that this is…this is th-”
“Area where the Philosopher’s Stone is,” Harry finished for her, the parchment dropping from his hand on the floor as he looked at her before the sharp sound of wood crashing against stone broke them out of their daze. He whirled around, and even before his eyes had completely taken in the sight that awaited them, Harry had a foreboding hunch of what he’d find behind him.
The doors that led out back into the chess room were shut close.
And they were trapped, with the only way out of the room being forward.
There were many things Neville had expected to find once he descended the stairs that led to the next room after Snape’s riddle. However, a large mirror standing alone in a room full of armor stands and fire braziers wasn’t it. The Mirror of Erised was as beautiful as the last time had seen it, and he remembered the time he had roamed through the corridors of Hogwarts at night, visiting it regularly underneath his cloak—the visions of seeing Voldemort and James Potter dead resurfacing to the forefront of his mind as he started to walk forwards.
A note was floating right beside it, the aged parchment rotating in its place as the firelight from the braziers illuminated it softly. He walked forwards with his Phoenix feather wand raised, his eyes flicking all over the place as he searched for a single thing that seemed off in the large chamber, while he strained his ears to detect even the slightest of noises in the completely silent surroundings. For what was probably the twentieth time, Neville cursed the Potter twins for not helping him—because as much as he was grateful to Ron and Hermione for assisting him and putting themselves at risk…he just knew that if it had been the twins…then he wouldn’t have been left standing alone now.
Shaking his head to banish the thoughts that were better left forgotten—and better not thought at all in the first place—he reached out to the parchment, his fingers stopping just shy of touching it. The charms on the parchment seemed to have sensed him in some manner, as the rotating piece of paper suddenly stopped its motion, and Neville blinked as he saw the loopy cursive written on it.
‘Professor Dumbledore,’ he realized, staring at the words penned upon it, the flowing lines almost giving him a headache as he tried to decipher the words from the unnecessary strokes of the Headmaster’s quill, ‘Good day to whoever you are, for the path was surely toug, However, this how much you go as far, because the one’s desires can be very tough.’
“What in the name of Merlin does he mean by this?” Neville muttered, turning to look at the Mirror of Erised, one of the 11 Magical Wonders of the World. Its surface once again faded away to reveal the scene that was carved into his very bones, the roar of thunder and the flash of light illuminating the dead forms of Lord Voldemort and his parent’s betrayer briefly, revealing a much older, much powerful Neville standing victorious above them. He shuddered as he broke eye contact with the enchanted mirror, looking around at the chamber uncomfortably, wondering what Snape would see once he would get her-
“Neville!”
“Persephone?” He gasped, turning around to look at the redhead as she came down the stairs, her wand by her side as her eyes flicked all over the room before they returned to him. A moment later, he saw Harry too appear behind her—which really wasn’t a surprise, considering that the twins never seemed to stray from each other even for a moment, “What are you both doing here?!”
“Professor Quirell told us to come here,” her brother answered instead, looking him in the eyes before he looked at the parchment floating behind him, “It was supposed to be some sort of test for an apprenticeship under him, but the rooms behind look lik-”
“They were instead designed by the Professors,” Neville finished with a grim tone, watching the thought of apprenticeship practically apparate away from the twins’ mind, even as he felt a terrible thought worm its way into his, “I came here today to protect the Philosopher’s Stone from Snape, who is going to steal it for Voldemort…but if Professor Quirrell sent you her-”
“Then it means Professor Quirrell planned all this, my dear students.”
All three of them forgot to breathe for a moment as the voice of the man in question echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls in the seconds that followed as they all stood motionless. At once all three of them cast the Homenum Revelio, a reddish light pulsing out in a circle from all of their wands…only for nothing to show up in the room except for them.
“My dear children, you dare use the spells I taught you against me?” The voice that he desperately wanted to change into an oily, insulting drawl for once. He wasn’t angry, Neville realized with growing despair as he saw the reflection of his horror and betrayal in Harry’s and Persephone’s faces, Suddenly, he felt his body freeze as a body bind far more powerful than anything he had ever experienced before began to act upon him, and Neville could only watch with betrayal and terror in his heart as the caster revealed himself.
“There is a long way to go before you become more than a gnome in front of me,” Professor Quirrell’s amused, patronizing tone burned through his ears like it was Fiendfyre itself, the man grinning at them all turn by turn as if he had performed the greatest joke of all time—and Neville so desperately wished it to be one…but something about the circumstances, and something about the way the Professor looked so proud of himself, he knew it to not be one. The turban-wearing wizard flicked his wrist once, and suddenly Neville found himself beside Persephone, while Harry floated over to her other side.
All of them bound and frozen, all of them powerless.
Quirrell smiled at them sharply, his eyes glinting with smugness and victory as he met each of their gazes for a moment. “Now, I think that you need some explanations, don’t you?” he began, his voice a far cry from the patient, parental tone it had been whenever they had been in his classroom. It had a cruel, proud note to it now, and even the way the Professor walked seemed ot have changed as the man walked back towards the mirror and conjured an elaborate throne. Seating himself upon it, he sighed heavily and looked at them with a small smile, “Where to begin with? I guess it all boils down to what you three wanted, and my ability to exploit that weakness thoroughly. The three of you were so lost, so alone,” Quirrell resumed in a wondrous whisper as he looked at them a beggar who had found a mountain of gold, his eyes sparkling with delight, “and so hungry for knowledge. All three of you were so full of ambitions, which albeit different, were really the same. You wanted power, knowledge, recognition…even though you probably didn’t realize it then, a wizard to look up to for all those things. Someone who you could come to see as a parental figure, someone who would recognize you not for what your parents did, but for what you can do.”
“You were talented,” he praised, genuine admiration in his voice—which had always made Neville’s heart soar with joy and pride, making him feel like he was finally becoming something other than the Boy-who-Lived. But now all it did was snake his skin crawl, and his throat hurt as he tried to ignore the hurt that the reality at this moment was causing him. Prof-Quirrell seemed to brighten up even more as he continued, spinning his wand languidly in his left hand as he looked at the POtters next, “And then you, so full of anger and venom to throw at the world, while at the same time depreciated of any kind of positive adults, you both practically threw yourself into my classes. And now after so many days, all it took was a prospect of apprenticeship to get you both running over here like a niffler after gold. A compulsion to trust me, and another to reach the end of the course was all that I needed to make sure that you would ignore the obvious truth.”
While Neville couldn’t look at the twins, he knew that their face was probably as pale and shocked as he was—especially in the face of the stark naked truth Quirrell was telling. He grit his teeth mentally, knowing that even if they had been unbound, they would have been nuisances at best for the older wizard. All he could do now, was wish that the Headmaster’s meeting at the Ministry in London was over, and he was already on his way here right now—or some Professor noticed their absence and decided to run down here.
Otherwise, he wasn’t sure they were going to be all right.
Especially with how the eyes of the madman shifted towards him the next moment.
“And now you,” he hissed, the voice taking an uncharacteristically angry tone as his eyes flashed crimson, and Neville felt chills travel up his spine at the sheer hate and disgust Quirrell had in his next words, “Neville Longbottom…the Boy-Who-Lived…come to die!”
