Cannon (2).

"I can do this!!" Harry said with confidence.

"Yeah! You've got this!" Ron added with excitement.

Harry climbed a broom and deftly flew through the air until he used his skills as a seeker to fly to the key and grab it out of the air.

Landing back down near the door, Ron and Loki moved closer to him and waited for Harry to do the honours by opening the door to the next room.

*click*

The door opened with a click and the trio found themselves in a new room filled with giant chess pieces arranged neatly on a giant board.

"I've got this!" Ron said as soon as he saw that the puzzle in this room was related to chess.

"But what do we have to do?" Loki asked with a frown because the second he stepped on the board and tried to cross to the other side by just walking, all the pieces on the board became alert and drew out their weapons, forcing him to stop.

"Maybe we just command the pieces like in Wizard Chess?" Harry helpfully asked.

"No! Look! We've got to climb the pieces!" Ron said helpfully pointing out the carefully crafted seats on the chess pieces where each person could sit.

"Alright." Loki nodded since he didn't have anything better to offer.

So with each other's help, the trio climbed their respective pieces and the game began after each side's king knocked the floor with their heavy stone sword.

The game began in an equal manner with pieces from both sides setting up their opening with Ron taking a more defensive approach by castling his king as fast as possible while the other side took a more aggressive approach by developing their queen first.

The game continued on to reflect that with the other side aggressively sacrificing pieces to gain a better position for its own pieces while Ron played more conservatively, taking his time so that all his pieces remained in the perfect spot for him to mount an attack.

Harry and Loki remained silent and followed Ron's orders offering not much help since they were not very great players of Wizard chess.

As the damage on both sides mounted with pieces destroying each other, sending clouds of dust into the air, Loki and Harry became worried that they were going to lose.

But at the last moment with a brave self-sacrifice, Ron clinched victory by allowing Harry to checkmate the other king.

With nothing else to do, the pieces on the other side all dropped their weapons and surrendered allowing Loki and Harry to progress to the next room after they saw Ron wasn't dead but just unconscious.

The next room seemed to have been set up by Professor Snape since it was a dark and dingy room with very low lighting that came from a perpetually burning fire that blocked the only exit from the room.

Harry and Loki reached a series of potions that were arranged on a table near the wall picking up a paper with a riddle on it.

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 for evermore,

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 onwards neither is your friend;

Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,

Neither dwarf nor giant holds 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.

Loki read the puzzle a few times and began to match the potions around ending up with a yellow potion bottle that only had enough potion in it for one person to drink.

'There's just enough for one swig.'

'Should I drink this?'

'But how do I make it seem like a reasonable choice?'

'In fact how do I know, 'Adam' isn't watching all of this play out while hiding under Psychological invisibility right in this room.'

'But since the potion was refilled after Professor Snape went into the next chamber it probably means that the potion will refill on its own once again.'

"Harry, there's just enough for one person, but I suspect that the potion will refill itself in a little while since it has already refilled itself once after Professor Snape had gone in."

'I leave it to 'Adam' to protect his protagonist in the fight! I just need a moment of distraction to steal what I've come here to steal for Hermione.'

'I don't want to get involved in the fight between the wonder boy and the evil deity.'

"Why don't you go to the next chamber and hold back Professor Snape until I'm there? Since I've been in detention with him for a long time I know how to calm him down and make him see reason."

Harry stood there wordlessly so Loki just continued.

"Can you hold on for five minutes? I'll drink the potion after it is refilled?"

"What if it doesn't refill?" Harry urgently asked.

"Then I'll go and tell a teacher!"

"But we already tried th-"

"No, if I tell them the contents of the chambers we've been through I'm sure they'll believe me! I'll tell them that you're stuck in here with Professor Snape and that your life could be in danger!"

Harry reluctantly nodded and agreed to listen to Loki.

"Thank you, Harry!" Loki said unstoppered the bottle and stuffed it into Harry's mouth, forcing him to gulp down the yellow potion with one big gulp.

Harry felt a refreshing coolness pass over him as he turned to Loki and nodded one last time before looking at the fire burning at the door to the next room.

Although he felt a little nervous he trusted Professor Snape enough that he wouldn't fumble a basic fire resistance potion so he gulped down his fear and stepped through.

The next room was a large one and what was inside the room, surprised Harry.

It was a dead troll.

'Did Professor Snape kill it?'

'Because it tried to stop him from stealing the stone?'

Harry smoothly passed through the room, while covering his nose because of the stinking troll, but he failed to notice the robed man that peered at him from the corner of the rather dark room.

Loki having grown tired of waiting for the potion to automatically refill became ecstatic when he found the bottle filled with the yellow liquid that he'd forced into Harry.

He picked up the glass bottle and gulped the entire potion in a single swig and immediately crossed through the hot fire that now seemed as cool as ice.

But as soon as Loki entered the room he froze.

"Professor John?" Loki asked nervously.

"Hello, Mr. Loki. Why are you here?" Mr. A said with a sickly smile that nearly creeped Loki out to death.

'I forgot about him.'

Almost instantly Mr. A's eyes snapped to Loki's hands but having thought that Mr. A would like to see if he was wearing the Ring of Harvest or not, he had already smoothly hid it behind his back, acting as if it was nothing special.

His other hand remained on his wand as he primed it with spirituality to attack Mr. A as soon as possible so that he could get past him and to the next room.

'This had to happen now?'

'Why did 'Adam' set this up for me?'

'Does he not want me to interfere with what's going on in the other room?'

'Or does he have something else planned?'

'How silly of me to have thought I could hijack 'His' story when I'm just a Sequence 9 Beyonder right now.'

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