Arthur stood at the edge of the abyss, his golden eyes scanning the residual mana signatures left behind by the troublesome trio.They had passed through minutes ago, leaving a trail of frantic, unoptimized magical energy.
Arthur did not jump. He stepped into the dark, adjusting his stance. Using the levitation charm with a snap, he descended with the slow, predatory grace of a falling feather, his black tunic snapping in the updraft.
He landed in a bed of writhing, oily vines. The Devil's Snare was already agitated, its tendrils snaking around his boots, seeking the heat of his blood. It was a plant that fed on panic and darkness—a botanical trap that required heat and light to defeat.
Arthur looked down at the vines coiling around his thighs.He thought of several solutions for these plants, but he didn't cast any spell. That was a blunt instrument, a flashlight used by those who didn't understand the chemistry of the organism.
He didn't take out his wand, as he wanted to test something.
He channeled a needle-thin stream of mana into his fingertips. The air around his hands began to shimmer with an orange-white light not fire, but pure intent to burn. He touched the main vine at his waist.The reaction was instantaneous. The plant didn't just pull back; it shrieked a frequency his ears could catch. He was using pure intent to burn, with his proficiency in both burning and lighting spells,which has reached the maximum beginner stage.
He used his mana sense to create a mana film on him so that the air near him would reach the exact temperature required to cause the plant to flee without damaging a single leaf.
.....
The next room was a whirlwind of silver and gold, with thousands of glittering keys darting through the air like shiny insects. Right in the middle of all this chaos, an old broom was lying on the floor, looking pretty out of place.
Meanwhile, the door on the other side of the room was already wide open, creaking gently as it swung back and forth on its hinges. It was as if someone—or something—had recently passed through it, leaving it open for whoever came next.
The keys, still flying every which way, cast a mesmerizing glow over the whole scene, making it feel like a dream—or a nightmare.
Arthur stood in the doorway, watching how the keys moved together, like a big group of insects working as one. He didn't bother looking for the broom; he was more interested in seeing how the keys were flying around.
"Dumbledore thinks in terms of skill," Arthur noted, his eyes tracking the silver streaks. "He expects a Seeker. He expects physical agility. He has forgotten that motion is merely a series of vectors."
It might be a bit difficult for some first years to pass this room without a seeker. For Arthur, the room wasn't about navigating through the air; it was more like solving a puzzle.
He activated his mana sense again; he could now see the trajectory of the keys clearly. So, instead of trying to fly, Arthur just took a walk, avoiding things with ease.He didn't walk in a straight line; instead, he moved in short, sharp bursts, dodging into the "safe zones" where the keys weren't flying. He stepped into these "safe zones" quickly and precisely, using his magic to make tiny adjustments to the keys' flight paths, so they wouldn't hit him. It was a pretty clever way to stay safe, and it seemed to be working well for him.
He made it to the other side completely unscathed, and what's more, he used less magic than he would have if he'd just gotten on his broom.
.....
The third chamber was a graveyard of marble and granite. The giant Wizard's Chess set lay in ruins. He saw the black queen's head shattered near the center and a trail of blood—Ron's blood—staining the checkered floor.
He used mana sense and looked at the board again.
Arthur walked through the debris, his golden eyes glowing as he reconstructed the game in his mind. He saw the "paths" the pieces had taken. He noticed the transfiguration enhancements used on the huge chess pieces with ancient Golem-crafting to make perfect semi-autonomous stone constructs governed by a rigid set of rules.
"Transfiguration Animation," Arthur whispered quietly, his voice barely audible. 'Professor McGonagall's expertise, but too simple to stop a thief,' he thought.
But then he noticed something that caught his attention—Dumbledore had connected a central 'Command Soul' to the board, and from there, he had spread its processing power across thirty-two different units, making it a complex system.
He analyzed the massive board again with all his focus. Arthur realized a flaw. Because the pieces were "animated" rather than "controlled," they possessed a rudimentary artificial intelligence. They were forced to follow the "Rules of Chess" because that was the only "language" the chessboard understood.
"If I don't identify as a chess piece, the board has no right to engage me," Arthur realized.
He tweaked his own mana to match and blend in with the "neutral ground" of the floor, the tiles. He didn't stroll around like he owned the place, all king-like, or shuffle along like a lowly pawn. Instead, he moved in a diagonal direction, cutting across the rows of white pieces, like he was dancing to his own beat.
The White Queen's enormous stone head slowly turned, her sword quivering with a mixture of rage and confusion. She desperately wanted to strike Arthur down, but something was holding her back—a glitch in her programming that kept screaming "Error" in her digital mind.
The problem was, Arthur didn't fit into the rules the board follows because he didn't belong to either side—he wasn't "Black" or "White." He was something entirely different, an anomaly that her code couldn't understand or process.
He strode right by the white king, who just stood there, unable to make up his mind, his sword shaking with all the energy he wasn't using. Arthur didn't even bother to glance back over his shoulder. The king was stuck, unsure of what to do, and Arthur just kept walking, leaving him behind.
'All of these are children's games,' Arthur thought. It would be four times better if he had designed the defense against the thief. But the headmaster wanted to play a game instead, because he wanted to craft a hero to catch the thief.
He moved to the next door, activating the silent barrier again.
The final room before the mirror was a narrow chamber filled with a line of seven bottles and a wall of purple fire behind them and black fire in front. A scroll lay on the table—a logic puzzle.
He saw Granger and Potter in the front.
Arthur was reading through the scroll, his eyes scanning the lines of text in a single, fluid motion.
Three of us are killers, waiting in a line...He didn't even finish the third stanza. His brain, filled with the theories and knowledge about potions, solved the riddle instantly.
He didn't need to cross-reference the clues. The spatial arrangement of the bottles and the chemical scent of the liquids told him everything.
He saw Potter convincing Granger to go back and himself gulping the little bottle and walking through the black fire to the other side.
Arthur looked at the purple fire blocking the path back. He looked at the black fire blocking the path forward.
"The security of the Wizarding World is built on a foundation of intellectual arrogance," Arthur said, his voice echoing in the small room.
"They assume the intruder is a fool. They assume the thief is a brute."
He used his mana sense to analyze the black fire. After understanding its composition, he created a similar barrier of light around himself. He stepped through the black flames. His blue eyes fixed on the final chamber.