They Shook Hands : Year One (Original Version)

They Shook Hands : Year One

An alternate (but realistic!) universe Harry Potter fic
by Dethryl

Chapter Eighteen - Down The Trapdoor

Goyle peered down into the darkness. "If there's a bed of spikes at the bottom of this hole, I'm going to be very upset," he said. Without further ado, he hopped lightly into the square of blackness and vanished from sight. "Yar!"

"Goyle!" Harry called down. "Goyle, are you alright?"

"I've landed on a plant, I think," his voice echoed up to them. "Jump down."

Crabbe shrugged and hopped after his friend. Tim leapt in after him. The girls jumped as well. Finally only Harry and Draco were left.

"Jumping into blackness like this is something a Gryffindor would do," Draco said, his House prejudices appearing even now. "Don't ever tell anyone I did this. Yah!" He dove down into the darkness. Harry followed without a word. He landed on some sort of plant, just as Goyle had said. He made a muffled, funny-sounding thump as he landed. All around him was gloom and darkness.

"Someone make a light," Harry called out.

"Lumos!" Blaise said. Then she shrieked. "Get out of here!"

The light revealed a huge plant with vines and tendrils everywhere. Subtly, sneakily, vines had crept up in the darkness and ensnared them. Now, as they realized their predicament, they tried to free themselves, but the creepers bound them faster the harder they struggled.

"It's Devil's Snare!" Tim shouted. "It likes damp and dark! We need light and heat!" He arched back as the vines went for his throat.

"Incendio!" Goyle shouted, having managed to draw his wand. Bright orange flames leapt from the tip, lighting all over the plant. Instantly the creeper vines began to retreat, wriggling and flailing to escape. One by one, they each pulled themselves free of the loosening vines and onto stone floor.

"Good work, Goyle," Tim said. "Once again, your little fire spell saves the day."

"If you need fire, I'm your man," Goyle said, grinning.

"You're just a pyro," Millie ribbed him. "Thankfully stone doesn't burn, so our part of the castle is safe."

The only way forward was down the sloping stone passageway. Apart from their footsteps, all they could hear was the sound of their own breathing and the gentle drip of water trickling down the walls. The light at the end of the corridor beckoned to them, and Blaise extinguished her wandlight.

"What's that sound?" Pansy asked.

As they strained their ears, a fluttering, rustling, clinking sound could be heard from up ahead. It came from a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above their heads. It was filled with small birds, bright like jewels, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite wall, they could see a plain, heavy wooden door. They stood at the entrance to the room, considering.

"Chances of being attacked by birds if we step into this room?" Draco asked lightly.

"Probably fairly high," Tim mused. He drew his wand and pointed it at the far door. "I think we're too far away, but Alohomora!" A jet of white light shot from the tip of his wand, but fell short of the door. "Once of us has to go out there."

"I will," Blaise said confidently. "I can unlock that door." Without waiting for anyone to object, she darted into the light-filled room, running across the smooth stone floor to the heavy wooden door. No birds made a motion towards her. "I think it's safe to come this far."

"You open the door," Draco said easily. "We'll just watch and approve from over here."

She stuck her tongue out at him and cast the spell on the door. Though the lock flared with white light, the handle stubbornly refused to turn. "Looks like we have to figure out a different way," she said.

The others meandered into the room. Tim gazed up at the open space where all the birds fluttered around in a lazy manner. He looked deep in thought.

"There's got to be some sort of connection," he mumbled, scratching his chin. "They wouldn't be here if they didn't have a purpose."

The birds were tiny, rather hard to see. They soared overhead, glittering in the torchlight.

Millie groaned. "Oh by Merlin's robes, it's so obvious! What kind of bird is all sparkly like that? Look closely, they're not birds at all; they're keys! Winged keys!"

They peered up at the birds, straining their eyes. One by one, they each nodded at the truth of Pansy's words.

"Well if they've got wings, there's got to be a way to get up there and nab it," Jenna reasoned. She investigated the darker corners. "Ah hah! Broomsticks! We've got to fly up and catch the key to the door."

"Harry can do that easily!" Blaise said enthusiastically.

"Harry's not going to do a bloody thing," Tim said firmly. "You're not going to take any unnecessary risks, you hear me, Harry? You're too important for that. You need to stop You-Know-Who from getting the Stone."

"But I can get that key," Harry protested. He loved to fly, and catching the correct key would be simplicity itself.

"So can I," Draco said, picking up a broomstick. "Hey, a Nimbus Seventeen-hundred, not bad." He mounted and kicked off.

Draco could fly, Harry had no illusions about that. And now that he had a decent quality broomstick under him, he was able to show off some moves that simply weren't possible with the broken-down, school-owned equipment. Draco made quick changes to his course, flying his broom with speed and skill. He would have made an excellent Seeker, Harry thought.

"There's too many of them!" Draco called down to them. "We'll be forever catching and trying them all."

Pansy examined the lock. "Look for a silver key to match the lock, big and old-fashioned, like the keys for Malfoy Manor."

Harry chaffed at not being permitted to go up into the air. He felt at home there, and he knew he would never fall off. He'd managed to stay on a jinxed broom, after all. Could Draco say the same?

The keys were a great protection for the Stone. There were hundreds of them, and they all darted and dived so quickly that catching one was nearly impossible. And once you caught one and it wasn't the right key, you let it go to wander back out and mingle with the others.

"I've caught this key already!" Draco shouted angrily. Clearly they needed a new plan.

Harry grabbed the other broom. He mounted and kicked off before anyone could stop him. He was the youngest Seeker in a century. He had a knack for spotting things that others could not. He wove through the whirling cloud of glittering rainbow feathers and saw a largish silver key that had a bent wing. And what could bend the wing of a magical construct other than it having been caught and roughly inserted into a keyhole?

"There!" he said, pointing. "That big silver one with the bright blue wings. The feathers are all crumbled, and the wing is bent. It's been caught before."

"That ought to make it easier to catch then," Draco said, zooming by. "Now get to ground."

"No way," Harry responded, leaning low over his broom and taking off after Draco.

"Harry, knock it off," Draco called to him as they chased after the key. Through the ceiling beams they flew, left and right, up and down, back and front and all around. The flock of keys started zooming around after the boys, seemingly enchanted to protect the one key.

"No! I can get that key!" Harry suddenly felt the desire to stand out, to prove that he didn't need protection. Here in the air, he was in his element, and nothing could stop him.

They were neck and neck now, both reaching out for the key, which fluttered along in front of them just like a Snitch. Harry flashed back to the times they'd played pick-up games of Quidditch and remembered that Draco had been limited by the inferior broom. He reached out his hand just a little further.

Draco bumped his broom into Harry's. "Sorry!" he called. It probably had been an accident, but that only highlighted the risks that flying encompassed.

Harry didn't answer, but leaned so low that he was practically hugging his broomstick. He stretched his hand just a fraction of an inch further, and managed to hook a finger through the ring of the key.

"Got it!" he shouted happily. He slowed up, and the pursuing flock of keys immediately swarmed him. His broom sank steadily towards the floor. "Gah, geroff, stupid birds."

The instant the key was placed in the lock, the other keys flew off. Once it was turned, and the door unlocked, the key took flight again, looking very battered and abused now that it had been caught twice.

"Ready?" Harry asked, looking at the unhappy faces of his friends. "What?"

Blaise hugged him. "Harry, that was so reckless!"

"It was something a Gryffindor would do," Pansy said, her voice half-sneering.

"Oh, so now Draco acts like a Gryffindor?" Harry riposted. "Draco, what do you think about that?" He pulled open the door.

"I think that I'm not as important as you are, you git," Draco said, stepping first into the dark chamber beyond the door. "No Dark Lord tried to kill me, so I can take a few risks here and there when we're on our way to confront one of his followers."

As soon as they stepped into the dark chamber, the door slammed shut behind them and torchlight suddenly flooded the room, blinding them, but revealing an astonishing sight.

They stood on the edge of a huge chessboard, behind the black pieces, which were all taller than they, and carved from onyx. Across the way were the white pieces, spooky and ominous; creepy, for the flickering torchlight revealed that the white chessmen had no faces.

"This is brill," Tim enthused. "I could go for one of these in the backyard."

"Now what?" Millie asked.

"Unless I am wrong, and I am never wrong," Tim said, ignoring Pansy's snort of derision, "we have to play our way across the board. We've got to defeat the opposing army to reach, yes, see that door behind white pieces?"

Draco grimaced. "If only Elan were down here. He'd wipe the board clean in five minutes flat."

"Well he's not here," Jenna said. "And that leaves Tim as our resident chesspert."

Tim started. "Me?"

"Yes, you," Harry chimed in. "You taught me a lot about the game. You can do this, I know it."

"I taught you the basics, Harry. Something like this," he gestured, "is liable to be far beyond my poor skill."

"Stop being modest," Pansy told him crossly. "You can do this. Just don't think about it and play it as though it were any other game."

Tim nodded his head slowly. "Alright. I'll do it. But how? White moves first, and those pieces aren't going anywhere."

"Join us." The words shocked them, because none of the boys could have produced a voice that deep and powerful. They looked up into the shining eyes of the black king.

"You mean we have to take the place of some of your pieces?" Blaise asked. The black king nodded solemnly.

"Right," Tim said decisively, slipping into his appropriate mindset. "Crabbe and Goyle, go to the corners and replace the rooks. Next to them, Pansy and Millie will be our knights. Draco, Jenna, you two replace the bishops."

"And I get to be the queen?" Blaise inquired perkily.

"Unless Harry wants it," Draco snickered. Harry felt himself blushing.

"No, Harry will be the king. He's the most important piece, and the safest one, as it's taken last." Tim was not really looking at them. He studied the board, probably playing out possible sequences of moves in his head.

"Where will you be?" Harry asked him.

Tim looked directly at Harry, his dark brown eyes very serious. "I'll be standing here. I will be the Chessmaster."

The back row cleared of pieces, and the Slytherins took their places. There was silence for a moment, then the pawn moved to King Four.

Tim's directions were crisp, clear, and blunt. No one argued with him. Chess was not played by committee. He directed the black pieces around the board. The pawns, the only remaining onyx figures, were silent as they obeyed orders.

It was quite a shock when the first piece was taken. Their pawn thrust out with a spear and pierced the white pawn, which dropped its stone sword. Shattered stone chips flew as the piece was destroyed -- just like in real wizard chess. Tim visibly gulped.

He played defensively, as he was keen to protect his friends. He moved the pawns forward, moving significant pieces up each in turn to guard them. He captured opposing pieces with the pawns, regretting each one of his own that was taken, for each loss further exposed his friends to danger. Finally only four pawns were left.

Tim had done well, taking more a quarter of the white pieces. The chessboard was littered with the rubble and dust of the destroyed marble statues. His own pieces were arrayed for defense. He could not press for the white king without losing some of his more valuable pieces. And that meant his friends would get hurt. But if he continued to play defensively, he would soon start to lose them anyway.

A drop of sweat rolled down his face. The unseen Chessmaster was good, in fact, brilliant. Every move had a countermove, blocking Tim on everything he tried to do. It was as though the essence of many great Masters had been distilled and imbued in the magic of the board. How could he beat that?

He studied the board intently, taking his time. There was no timeclock in this match. The white pieces were scattered, excepting three protecting the king.

The king was blocked. Tim looked again. The king was still blocked -- trapped, unable to move in three directions. Had he found a weakness? Was that the key? He traced the sequence in his mind. Two moves. It was right there. He stared wild-eyed at the board, sure it was a trap. The opposing Chessmaster was too good for that. It had to be a trick!

But there was nothing presently in position to trap a piece that moved into that region. Only the last white rook could be moved into position to defend the square that Blaise could step into to checkmate the king. His eyes fell on Pansy. She was in perfect position to intercept that rook. And she would be sacrificed. Tim bit his lip. He had to do it. There was no other way to win.

"Knight to King's Knight Four," he said in a small voice. He didn't feel very good about himself right then.

"Tim!" Draco said, startled. "That'll put her right-"

"I know!" Tim burst out. "I know! But she has to do it. It blocks the rook and leaves Blaise free to check the king. It's the only way to win."

Pansy looked very scared. Her eyes were wide as she stared up at the massive, solid rook. "I can see the moves, and he's right. If I'm taken, the game is over." Her voice trembled, but she began walking.

Each step came slower and slower. Only another few steps would carry her into the square, but she did not take them. Her face was green. With a pitiful cry, she collapsed to the board, crying uncontrollably.

"I can't," she wept. "I'm scared! Please don't make me!"

Harry's heart lurched in sympathy. He had been holding his breath practically the whole game, half-sick with fear for his friends, praying that Tim wouldn't make a mistake. He hadn't, but now he had been called to make a difficult decision.

"Pansy!" Harry called to her. He half-took a step.

"No!" Tim shouted. "Don't move! You can't, or we lose even more! Pansy!" She lay on the board, shaking and sobbing. "Pansy, you have to be strong," he told her. "I know you're scared, but this is the only way. When we win, I'll stay, I'll take care of you. But you have to do this."

Each of them was aching to go to her. Nothing could be more difficult than having no one to comfort you. Nothing could be more frightening than being told that you must risk your life.

But her weeping ceased. She lifted her head and looked right at Tim. "You'll stay with me?" she said in a small, scared voice.

"I promise," he told her.

She slowly got to her feet. She stood with her back to the rook and looked at Tim. She took one step backwards into the designated square.

The rook came to life, morphing from a stone tower to a rock monster. It raised one horrible hand and slapped at her. She never saw it coming as she was flung into the air, off the board, and against one of the stone pillars at the side with a sickening sound. Harry winced.

"Quickly," Tim said in a sick voice. "Blaise, run up and stand a square away from the king."

Blaise ran. She set foot inside the square. "Checkmate!" Tim called, running to Pansy's side.

The king's greatsword, which he had been resting his hands on, point down, fell loose and crashed to the board. He reached up and removed his crown, dropping it on the board at Blaise's feet. The game was over. Those who had played rushed to where Pansy lay with a small pool of blood under her head.

"Is she alright?" Jenna asked. "Aside from being bashed into a pillar like that, of course."

"I don't think her head's cracked," Tim said, probing at the back of Pansy's skull. "Gi-normous lump here though. She won't be waking up for a long time, but she'll be happy about that. If she's lucky, she won't wake up until after she's been treated."

Harry brushed away a stray lock of Pansy's hair. "I think she's already been really lucky. She could have been killed."

"I know." Tim's voice was little more than a whisper. "But it had to be done." He set his jaw and looked up at them all. "You need to keep going. I'll stay here."

"Pansy needs Madam Pomfrey," Draco said. He turned to Crabbe. "Get back up into the castle. Go find any teacher except McGonagall and get help. The rest of us are going after the Stone."

Crabbe nodded and opened the door back into the key room. Now that the chessmen had been conquered, the door stayed open. Harry, Draco, Millie, Jenna, Blaise, and Goyle all walked towards the far door. They emerged into another stone corridor, a respite before the next challenge.

A disgusting odor wafted out at them when Harry pushed open the door at the end of this hallway. Blaise pulled her robes up over her face. "Eew," she said, retching, for flat on the floor in front of them, out cold with a great bloody lump on its head, was a mountain troll, even larger than the one Harry, Draco, and Tim had tangled with.

Harry tried not to gag. He held his nose and took shallow breaths. When they had moved on and firmly shut the door behind them in the smell-free room beyond, they all expelled long-held breaths, thankful for the fresh air. "Glad we didn't have to mess with that one," Harry commented.

"You three were foolish to go after it in the first place," Blaise told him.

"So Snape told me," Harry grinned. "And so Draco objected at the time."

The room they were presently in contained nothing very frightening at all. There was only a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line.

"This would be Professor Snape's challenge," Draco said.

When they had all moved away from the door, a purple fire burst into life in the doorway, making them jump. In that same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward. They were trapped.

"Definitely Professor Snape's," Jenna observed dryly.

"Here's a clue," Millie said, picking up a roll of parchment lying next to the bottles. She read it aloud:

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 hold 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.

As she read, Millie's face fell more and more. She was clearly overwhelmed by the puzzle, just as Harry was. This was tricky business. One wrong move and they'd be dead. But despite their dismay, Jenna was smiling.

"This is brilliant. I'd expect no less from Professor Snape," she said admiringly.

"What do you mean?" Draco asked her.

"It's not magic," she said. "Not proper magic at all. It's a logic puzzle. It involves critical thinking."

"And wizards don't exactly behave logically, is that what you're saying?" Harry asked.

She nodded. "As purebloods, we're rather immune to the fact that magic is not completely logical. In fact, more than half of it is rather illogical. And this sort of puzzle would trip up most fully-trained wizards."

"And also us," Draco pointed out.

"Not at all," Jenna scoffed. "Use your brain. All the information we need is right here on the paper. There are seven bottles. Three contain poison; two hold wine; one will let us go forward; the last will let us go back.

"So which is which?" Goyle asked.

"Well, since the poison is always on the wine's left, the first bottle has to be poison," she said.

"Huh?" Draco questioned.

"The parchment says that the bottle on either end are not our friends to move forward. And these two here," she pointed, "are the same, wine. The fourth and fifth bottles here are poison, both on the wine's left side, note, and the potion to go back is in the one on the right. That leaves the small bottle, number three, to help us go forward."

Harry picked up the bottle. "There's not much here," he noted. "Barely a swallow. Enough only for me."

He looked at his friends. Each of them had risked a lot to stand here with him, and now he was having to walk on without them. "You all might as well go back to wait with Pansy," he said, marveling at the absence of shaking in his voice. "There's plenty of the potion to go back."

Draco said nothing, merely squeezing his upper arm in unspoken support. Goyle clasped his hand in an iron grip. Blaise hugged him fiercely, and he returned it. Millie looked at him for a long second before she also hugged him. When Jenna's turn came, she squeezed his ribs briefly and tousled his hair.

"Be careful, ok?" she said. She leaned up and kissed his cheek. "For luck."

Millie took a swallow from the round bottle at the end. Immediately she shuddered, and Blaise had to catch the bottle as Millie dropped it.

"It's not poison, is it?" Draco exclaimed anxiously.

"N-No," she chattered. "Feels like ice."

She dashed through the purple flames. "It's fine!" she called back to them. One by one, the others drank and stepped through the flames. Harry watched them stoically. Then he was alone.

He took a deep breath and uncorked the bottle. "Here goes nothing," he said, and drank it all in one go.

It was indeed as though ice were flooding his body. This is what Snape had meant about "the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins." He placed the bottle back on the table and stepped forward into the flames. Though he braced himself, he could feel nothing. For a moment he saw nothing but the dark fire. Then he was on the other side, in the last chamber.

He was not alone.

to be continued...