Richie decided to hurry everyone along. He pointed his wand at the owl and silently cast an Immobilus Charm. The bird tried to take flight, but the blue beam struck it nonetheless.
"Come on, lads, grab the owl and let's get out of here. We can sort it out later."
"Yeah, yeah, let's move," Ron agreed hastily.
"What do you mean, yeah, yeah?" Harry fixed Ron with a pointed look. "It's your owl, so you carry it."
"It's not my owl, it's Malfoy's!"
Finding no support, Ron let out a heavy sigh and headed towards the bird. He stuffed the owl into his bag and returned to the others.
Richie climbed into his robotic suit of armour. Following his example, Harry squeezed into his own spacesuit. Ron hurried to claim the last one. As they headed towards the wall of black flames, the boys paused for a moment beside the body of the DADA professor.
Harry turned to Ron and said in a voice dripping with hysterical sarcasm:
"We're never getting out of detention now, are we?! We might even end up in Azkaban..."
"Who could've known we'd have to kill a professor?" Weasley swallowed convulsively, looking away from the corpse. "And anyway, we're heroes—we destroyed the greatest evil in the wizarding world—You-Know-Who..." he added uncertainly.
"Ron, don't exaggerate," Richard grimaced. "First of all, it was self-defence, and Quirrell killed himself. Secondly, a mad professor hardly qualifies as the greatest evil. I doubt that was Tom Riddle. More likely, Professor Quirrell had a Siamese twin attached to the back of his head who went insane and believed himself to be Riddle. Quirrell probably lost his mind along with him. Siamese twins like that are extremely rare and usually die in infancy, but Quirrell was a wizard—he might have survived."
"I'd go mad too if someone kept wrapping me in a turban all the time," Potter remarked.
"You think?" Weasley drawled. "What about the screaming ghost and Harry's scar? You-Know-Who gave Harry that scar. His scar hurt whenever You-Know-Who was nearby, and it stopped hurting when the ghost left. Seems to me there's a connection."
"Come to think of it..." Richie fell into thought. "Magic can do anything. If that's true, then Riddle didn't completely die in eighty-one—he became a ghost. Then somehow he possessed Quirrell's body. And he needed the Philosopher's Stone to regain a physical form. Which means the trap was set by Dumbledore specifically for him."
"Or maybe it wasn't a trap." Harry's face looked grim behind the transparent visor of his suit.
"Then what was it?" Weasley asked.
"Maybe Headmaster Dumbledore," Harry continued, "wanted to bring Voldemort back."
At the mention of Riddle's infamous name, Ron shuddered.
"Dumbledore isn't a saint, but why would he resurrect a rival?" he asked.
"No idea." Potter shrugged. "It's just that there were all these defences, but think about it—we got through them. Three first-years. Granted, we're the best-equipped and probably the most capable first-years around, but we're still first-years. It's almost as if someone told Quirrell, 'Oi, mate, I've got a Philosopher's Stone hidden in my basement. It needs guarding, and you'll be helping the other professors with that. Since you'll need to know what protections are being used, your obstacle will be the second-to-last one.'"
"But then why not let Quirrell make the final trap?" Weasley asked, raising a perfectly logical point.
"To avoid arousing the thief's suspicions," Potter replied. "To lower his guard. So he'd think he was stealing the Stone himself instead of being handed it on a silver platter."
During the conversation, the boys passed through both walls of magical fire and crossed the chamber with the unconscious troll. To reach the next room, they had to take to the air. Fortunately, all the suits were equipped with levitation functions.
The three boys flew over the giant chess pieces and slipped into the room of flying keys through the hole left in the wall.
"Still, I don't understand why the Headmaster would want to bring back You-Know-Who," Ron continued.
"Maybe he wanted even more fame," Harry suggested. "If he could bring him back, he could kill him again. Everyone would respect and admire him more than ever. Besides, does a lunatic need a reason?"
"No, Dumbledore's definitely eccentric, but he's not insane," Weasley said.
"Ron, he's completely barking mad!" Harry declared confidently. "I read the report of a Muggle forensic psychiatrist my uncle consulted. It said in black and white that Dumbledore is insane."
"Oh!" Ron exclaimed in surprise. "Right..."
"Keep it down, lads," Richard said. "Switch to internal comms. Just wish the external vocoders to switch off. We're coming up on the plant tentacles."
"I really don't fancy going anywhere near those things, even in a suit," Ron said, coming to an abrupt halt.
"We're not idiots—we're not walking through them," Richie replied. "We're flying again. Quietly this time."
The boys somehow managed to squeeze themselves through the hatch. To their immense relief, the Cerberus was still asleep.
Harry reached the door and climbed out of his spacesuit. Ron did the same beside him. Richie was the last. All the suits were then shrunk and put away.
"Activate stealth mode," Richard whispered.
"What?" Weasley stared at Grosvenor in confusion.
"We're turning invisible," Richie explained.
"Oh! Why didn't you just say so?"
The boys put on their thermal-vision goggles and vanished from sight.
They had barely crept halfway down the corridor when Professor McGonagall unexpectedly appeared at the far end.
Harry, Ron, and Richie immediately pressed themselves against the wall and held their breath. The professor hurried past them. Stopping at the door, she grabbed the handle and was astonished to discover that it was unlocked.
Peering inside, McGonagall stared at the sleeping Cerberus in shock.
"Oh! Surely...?" she exclaimed loudly.
The professor immediately slammed the door shut. A wand appeared in her hand. In the next instant, she cast a cascade of spells upon the door, after which the boys witnessed something they had never seen before—Professor McGonagall running.
(End of Chapter)
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