Harry, levitating in his spacesuit, used his steel tentacles to rip out a stone and smash it onto the giant chess pieces. Several of them were destroyed. A terrible roar filled the room.
Then everything went according to plan: cool the walls of the hole and fly through it. Harry flew in a spacesuit, and Richie and Ron in a glider.
A giant troll appeared in the spacious hall below. He raised his small head and stared at the flyers in surprise.
"Harry, fall on his head," Richard cried loudly.
Harry Potter's adventurous streak immediately kicked in. Without thinking, the boy launched himself downwards, four flexible metal arms folded together and thrust forward. The arms struck the troll's head, followed by a kick. Finally, there was a crunching sound, and the troll collapsed to the floor with a terrifying crash. It was clearly unconscious.
The boys landed at the other end of the hall near the door, which Harry carefully opened and peered inside warily.
"Guys," he said, "everything seems to be fine there. There's a table in the center, and on it are seven vials of liquid."
The boys entered the room. As soon as they reached the table, a wall of magical, bright purple fire suddenly erupted from the floor behind them. Immediately, tongues of black flame began dancing in front of the door ahead.
"Great!" Richie said with indescribable sarcasm. "We're locked in here."
"There's some kind of mystery here," Ron grabbed the unrolled scroll of parchment lying on the table.
"Ron, you better hold on to your owl and stop grabbing all that nasty stuff," Richard remarked.
"It's Malfoy's, not my owl," Weasley replied. "And why shouldn't I take the parchment?"
"What if he's cursed or poisoned?" Richard said.
"That's possible," Potter remarked. "It looks like the traps were set by the teachers. The first one was set by Professor Sprout, the second one was Flitwick's, the third one was McGonagall's. The troll was a surprise from Quirrell. And the vials... They were definitely Snape's trap. He'd be capable of poisoning the parchment."
The scroll immediately fell from Ron's hands to the floor. The boy jumped away from it as if from a snake and began nervously wiping his palm on his suit, as if that would help get rid of the poison.
Potter, in his monumental spacesuit, loomed over the parchment.
"There's a riddle here," he said. "It seems like one potion will allow you to move forward, one backwards, one bottle contains wine, and the rest contain poison."
"There!" Weasley exclaimed happily. "Let's try the liquids on the owl! I told you it would come in handy!"
Ron only managed to peel off the tape from the owl's beak, doing so with unprecedented enthusiasm. Meanwhile, Harry approached the fire in the doorway and carefully extended his hand, protected by the fabric of his spacesuit, toward the flames.
"No need to poison the bird, Ron," he said. "You can slip through in a spacesuit. Fire doesn't burn."
"Still, the spacesuit is designed to withstand temperatures of 100 degrees for a very long time," Richie noted. "So it can withstand higher temperatures for short periods."
"But we only have two spacesuits," Weasley said with slight annoyance.
"No," Rich shook his head. "Two spacesuits and one prototype of a colony robotic suit. True, a couple of its tentacles are broken, but in this case, that's irrelevant."
T/N note: The prototype seems to refer to CRAB3PB
"Oh!" Ron said happily. "That means we can all get through."
Richie retrieved both suits. While he was climbing into the robot, and Weasley was trying on the suit and trying to shove the struggling, screaming owl inside, holding it tight to his stomach, Potter boldly leaped into the fire and dashed through the doorway.
From the other side came his loud voice, amplified by the speaker:
- Everything is fine, guys, jump.
Richie and Ron successfully passed through the magical flames without even damaging their protective suits.
In the center of the spacious room stood a single object - a huge full-length mirror.
"Oh!" Potter said happily. "It's the Mirror of Erised! It shows the wizard's wishes."
"I wonder, Harry, how you could be familiar with such an artifact?" Richard asked, examining the mirror with interest.
Young Rich was obsessed with the mirror. An artifact that could manifest wishes would surely bring in incredible profits. If something like a virtual reality headset were made from it, people would be willing to pay huge sums of money.
No, actually... Releasing virtual reality headsets would require the power of thousands of wizards. But if we could create something like servers that could connect to the user remotely via Protean charms, it would be a dream come true.
"Guys, be careful with the mirror!" Richie shouted menacingly at his comrades.
Ron, who was about to approach the mirror, suddenly jumped away from it and turned to Richard.
"Is it cursed?" he asked apprehensively.
"I don't know," Richie replied. "But I need it, so don't even think about going near it. You'd easily break it in those spacesuits."
- Eh?!
Ron's face was one of utter surprise. He pursed his lips, his eyes widened, and stared at Richard in bewilderment.
Harry also looked at Rich with incomprehension.
"Why do you need the mirror, Richie?" he asked. "When Dumbledore caught me in front of it, he said it was very dangerous. You know, like, people would want to watch their dreams come true over and over again."
"Yeah! Yeah, baby!" Richard said excitedly, as if he'd just spent the night with a hot girl. "I knew right away that this thing was addictive, like a game, so don't even think about scratching this beauty! It's going to make me billions. People will bring me money so they can indulge in their dreams! No money, no honey! Ha-ha-ha!!!"
- Harry, I'm afraid of him like that...
Ron may have whispered to his friend, but since he was in a spacesuit and his voice was being transmitted through a speaker, the boy's voice was unexpectedly loud. But Richard didn't even think to be offended by this.