Peeves floated over to a seemingly ordinary stone wall and tapped out a peculiar rhythm on the surface with his fingernails. The stones slowly shifted, revealing a narrow spiral staircase leading straight down into the underground.
"This is the back door left by the Guardian," Peeves said, displaying a rare moment of seriousness. "But the final door can only be opened by the Black bloodline. Hurry along, little Black—that Quirrell fellow has already gone inside."
The three of them filed in. The staircase was dark and damp, the air thick with the musty smell of age and an indescribable, suffocating pressure. Julien took the lead, the tip of his wand glowing with a faint silver light to illuminate the path ahead.
They didn't notice the small figure tiptoeing along just a short distance behind them.
Susan Bones.
A first-year Hufflepuff. She was clutching a small, glowing toy toad—a gift her Uncle Cassian had given her the last time they met.
Her uncle had told her that if she saw anything "interesting," she should use this toad to record it, and she could trade the recordings for even more toys.
She just wanted to see where Liriya was going so late at night. The incident in the Forbidden Forest had worried her deeply, and Uncle Cassian had also told her to "keep an eye on her classmates' safety."
This didn't count as breaking school rules, right? She was just... caring for her classmates.
What she didn't know was that another student who cared for his classmates, Neville, had already been taken out by a Full Body-Bind Curse and left lying flat on the floor back in Gryffindor Tower.
The path was far from easy. It was treacherous and uneven, and many of the passages were completely blocked off, likely because no one had walked this way in centuries.
Fortunately, there were three of them to constantly clear away the rubble and dirt. If he had been alone, he'd have died of exhaustion, Julien thought to himself.
This was especially true of the massive tree roots that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. If it weren't for Liriya's natural magic forcing them to retract, Julien had no idea how long it would have taken him to get through alone.
At the end of the spiral passage was a curtain of blue light. An invisible force prevented Liriya and Rosier from stepping through, yet it offered absolutely no resistance to Julien.
"Be careful, then," both girls looked at Julien with evident concern, though neither tried to stop him.
"Don't worry, I'm just going to peek inside," Julien smiled, carefully turning and stepping through the barrier.
It was an underground chamber. As for the size... it was roughly the size of a funeral home's main hall. The vaulted ceiling was high, and magical lamps hung on the surrounding walls, casting a dim, yellowish light across the room.
Right in the center of the room stood the Mirror of Erised. Because Julien had emerged directly behind the mirror, he couldn't see what was happening on the other side.
A hoarse, raspy voice suddenly echoed out. "Quirrell... use the boy."
"You! Come here!" It was Quirrell's voice, completely stripped of its usual cowardly stutter.
Julien crouched in the shadows behind the mirror, remaining perfectly still and not daring to breathe.
Footsteps echoed in the chamber. Harry Potter must have walked up to the mirror.
A moment later, Julien felt a magical fluctuation from the Mirror of Erised. Harry Potter had likely just obtained the Sorcerer's Stone.
This was Dumbledore's trap: only one who truly wanted to find the Stone—but not use it—would be able to extract it from the mirror.
"What do you see? Tell me!"
"I... I see myself winning the House Cup." As expected, Harry Potter was a terrible liar. Even Voldemort knew that what he desired most was to see his parents.
The hoarse voice spoke again. "He lies... Let me speak to him."
Holy crap, the plot was hitting its climax.
In front of the mirror, Quirrell slowly turned around and began unwrapping the purple, garlic-scented turban from his head.
A wave of putrid decay drifted over. Julien fought down the urge to vomit, not daring to peek his head out to check if Voldemort currently had a nose or not.
"Harry Potter... ter... ter..." Voldemort's raspy voice slithered from Quirrell's mouth, carrying a bone-chilling echo. "We meet again. I have waited a long time for this."
"You want the Sorcerer's Stone," Harry's voice trembled slightly, but he tried his best to stay calm. "I won't let you have it."
"You?" Voldemort laughed. "Yes... you are brave. Just like your parents. But they are gone now, aren't they?"
Voldemort's voice paused, before turning incredibly seductive. "I am the only one who can bring them back. And in return, I ask for only a trifling reward... the very thing hidden in your pocket."
Having the Stone's location completely exposed by Voldemort, Harry spun around and tried to make a run for it.
"Seize him! Quirrell!"
Harry Potter hadn't taken two steps before Quirrell lunged through the air and tackled him to the ground—it had to be said, Quirrell was actually quite formidable when he stopped pretending to be a coward. The Sorcerer's Stone tumbled out of Harry's pocket.
Smash.
The Sorcerer's Stone seemed to have shattered!
Clatter, clatter. A large chunk of the Stone rolled right up next to the Mirror of Erised.
Voldemort, looking out from the back of Quirrell's head, just happened to spot a small hand sneakily and suspiciously reaching out from behind the mirror to snatch up the fragment.
"Over there..."
Before Voldemort could even finish his sentence, Harry Potter used his "Hands of Love"—just like in the movies—to crumble Quirrell into dust.
As for why this actually happened, Julien had no idea. Dumbledore's later explanation was that love is the most powerful magic of all. But apparently, this specific brand of magic only ever manifested in Harry Potter.
Whatever. Whenever the plot needed an unexplainable deus ex machina, the answer was always "love."
"No!" Having lost his host, the parasitic Voldemort could only let out a final, furious roar before dissolving into a cloud of black smoke.
Yet, even as a mere cloud of smoke, he passed straight through Harry's body, knocking the boy out cold.
Believing the dust had finally settled, Julien casually strolled out from behind the mirror, a chunk of the Stone safely tucked into his own pocket.
However, Voldemort's wandering spirit—that cloud of black smoke—hadn't left yet. It suddenly changed direction and charged straight at Julien, moving with terrifying speed, as if fueled by pure, unadulterated hatred.
Julien's reactions were lightning-fast. His silver lime wand snapped into his hand from his sleeve.
"Exanimus!"
The tip of his wand instantly erupted with a blinding, silver-white light that seared toward the black smoke like roaring flames.
Hssss! Unable to withstand the searing heat without a physical body, the wandering spirit let out an infrasonic shriek of agony (not that normal humans could hear it anyway) before shattering into over a dozen wisps of smoke that slithered away through cracks in the walls.
Julien had originally learned that spell from the library specifically to deal with Peeves. Looking back on it now, he broke out in a cold sweat, silently counting Peeves lucky to have avoided it.
Outside the blue barrier, Rosier was stomping her foot in anxiety. "Why isn't Julien out yet? You don't think something happened to him, do you?"
Right at that moment, a disheveled and ash-covered Julien stumbled out of the light barrier. He hadn't dared hold back with that final spell, and it had completely drained his magical reserves.
Liriya rushed forward to catch him. "Are you alright?" Both girls' voices were thick with genuine concern.
"I'm fine, for now," Julien struggled to stand up straight. "Voldemort has been driven off. He'll be back, obviously. But at least for tonight..."
Before he could finish, a faint rustling sound echoed down the corridor. All three of them spun around instantly, raising their wands and demanding: "Who's there?!"
A small silhouette stepped out of the shadows, her hands raised high in the air, wearing an awkward, terrified smile. "Don't—don't shoot! It's me!"
Liriya and Rosier attacked simultaneously. Neither of them were to be trifled with, and both knew the importance of seizing the initiative.
A thick vine shot out from the ground, wrapping tightly around the intruder's ankles, while Rosier was already halfway through the incantation for "Stupefy"—
"Wait!" Julien threw his arms up to stop them. "That's Susan, right? Susan Bones from Hufflepuff."
"Oh, it's her. But why are you down here?" Liriya frowned at Susan, though she didn't loosen the vines.
"I... I was just worried about Liriya," Susan said, her voice trembling with unshed tears. "...I wanted to make sure you were okay. And Uncle Cassian told me... he told me to keep an eye out and gather intelligence..."
"Cassian Thorne?" Julien and Liriya exchanged a look. They both immediately thought of the man from the public carriage during the Christmas holidays.
Their gazes sharpened. "The Department of Mysteries?"
Susan nodded, pulling the glowing toy toad from her pocket. "Uncle said that if I see anything involving Dark Magic, I should record it with this. I can trade it... trade it for more toys."
She finished speaking and lowered her head, her voice dropping to a whisper. "...I just wanted to help..."
"Alright," Julien gestured for Liriya to release the vines, then turned back to Susan. "I hope you keep this a secret. After all... sneaking out in the middle of the night... it's against school rules."
Liriya and Rosier fixed their stares on Susan as well.
"O-okay. Yes, okay." Susan nodded frantically, her hands gripping the toy toad tightly. Her expression was a bizarre mix of terror and... some strange, newfound excitement.
"In... in the future, can... can I come with you guys?"
...
Even though Susan knew the intelligence she had gathered today could probably be traded for a mountain of toys, she also knew that some things were far more important than toys.