No sound was present but the scraping and clacking of rubber on sandstone steps. Torches flickered against the featureless walls the whole descent into the dark pit. The light seemed to follow them, minutes passed and none dared to utter a word. The place seemed unnaturally large.
Abruptly Lily's foot touched flat ground and four more sconces lit with a flare, revealing a circular room with three more paths. In the middle was a statue of four people carved from a single block. They moved closer.
The first figure was a lush haired man with a close cropped beard in the middle of penning down something with quill and parchment. The second was an elegant woman playing a flute, toga slung over one arm, barely concealing her lithe frame. The third was a smiling bearded hulk of a man carving a piece of wood with a knife. The final one on the north-east was a braided curvy lady singing mouth wide to a songbird. The marble seemed almost lifelike, pink stone carved soft as skin.
Harry saw Lily's attention turn to the pedestal, fingers running over symbols. "They're ancient runes. Not quite the same as I know, but similar."
"Can you translate them?" Remus asked.
"I'll try." she answered.
She pivoted around the statue, pausing occasionally. Harry took in the room, it had a cupola as a ceiling. He looked into all three exits, but it seemed they were pitch-black, as if to say entrance was prohibited.
"This one, says moon right?" Remus said, following Lily.
"Yes. I think I have the gist of it." She went back to the start.
"It says: Further lie four friends, in life and death eternal, sun to the east for one, moon to the west for the other, north if you are none, where judgement guards our rest."
"Judgement?" Severus asked.
"Seems like the two sides have other purposes. Should we take a look?" Remus said.
Harry frowned. "Who knows what's down there. This isn't the safety of Hogwarts, wards, spells, traps. I think we have no choice but to go forward."
"I'm nervous, I don't like this." Lily said.
He gave her an understanding look. "Maybe I can go and scout ahead."
"No! You're not running in there alone, besides, four friends. If anything that'd work in our favor."
"You heard the lady." Remus said.
Harry sighed. "All right then, but if things go south, I don't want some final stand, just run."
The others ignored his little outburst of selflessness as they advanced into the darkness ahead. In contrast with the previous room a set of magical lights came on as they stepped forward. Crystalline pebbles revealed a larger circular room with a tunnel sloping upwards at the other end. From the rounded top extended a net of iron bars all the way down.
Remus entered last and with a rattling of chains, iron came to lock the entrance shut. They all turned back seeing their trap.
"Stand back," Severus said, waiting for them to clear the space, "bombarda!"
To everyone's shock, the bars seemed to absorb the magical energies, the explosive force rendered to a sizzle.
"It's resistant," Harry said, "let's not do anything–"
Who trespasses into my lair?
The rumbling voice seemed to originate from the room ahead. They all turned, looks of fear in their eyes. Massive footsteps made the whole underground quake, accompanied by creaking swipes and a whipping like an executioner's axe. They all stood in dueling stance. Harry too was frozen, but he couldn't let whatever was ahead hurt them, not after all this.
Out of the opening came two eyes reflecting gold, fangs large as a man's arm and then a monstrous flapping of wings. The beast bounded forward to the center of the room and they all twitched. Before them stood a gargantuan real life copy of the unlikely animal lining the crest of the Unity Dorms. Chimaera, in a form the world had never witnessed. There was no doubt in Harry's mind a single swipe of its claws could rip any of them in half. He remembered the bars and the stories about dragons, this was bad, really bad.
"Stay alert! Don't do anything yet!"
"Wiiise decision. An archmage would be but a snack between my teeth. Why did you come to disturb my masters?"
The voice did not come from any of the beast's heads, it seemed to communicate with some magic of its own. Clearly intelligent. The badger's head hissed as the creature paced, still a few bounds away, its snake tail perched like a scorpion's stinger. He looked around, they all seemed to be waiting for his answer.
"Th-the Sorting Hat. It told us to come here, we figured out the riddle of the portrait."
"Hat? Ah, Keldran. His motives are not my own. I ask again, why did you come here, hatchlings?"
Lily stepped forward and Harry felt his fear redouble.
"Because we need to help to defeat a great evil! But we need to become stronger to do that!"
"Strength you have to spare. What you need is..."
A flash of green expanded in his vision and his wand was too slow to react. In a fraction of a second the snake extended to their end of the room. Harry felt fangs dig deep into his arm and shoulder and the tightening of the snake's body around him. He cried out in pain.
"Knowledge."
A haunting cry reverberated in the room, Lily's.
"You give him back or I'll blast you into smithereens!" Remus said.
"Harry, say something." Lily whimpered, barely able to keep her wand up.
He groaned and felt the tightening around his wound, the serpent was sucking his blood. "I'm alive, for now. Just let them leave, please!"
"Release him! We'll tell no one, we won't bother you longer. Just leave us our lives!" Severus shouted.
The beast paced as it carried on its confusing monologue. "You've come a long way to get here. Once again he tempts me with curiosity. How desperate, how patient, how long can anyone wait? How strong is your conviction, how firmly planted are your feet, how high do you wish to fly?" Harry's mind was filled with images of all his past, waves of a hundred emotions clashing on the shores of his consciousness. "Reveal your desires, reveal your true nature, how heavy does your heart weigh on the scales?"
The only thoughts tethering him to his sanity were of her and his friends, past, present and future. And regret, of his inability to prevent their suffering. He felt his strength fade, and an image formed. Of him finally having peace time, of seeing students entering the castle of Hogwarts with a hopeful look in their eyes, of him holding Lily, time claiming their years as they stood beside each other. Then an anger, at himself for not making it happen."Who are you to stand unbroken while the world breaks apart around you?"
The bars lowered behind the group, opening the exit, and they made no move to run. All of them stood ready to unleash their spells, as small as their chances were. The snake slowly uncoiled and left Harry's body near his friends, retreating just as quickly as it had bitten. Severus wasted no time taking a bottle of dittany and applying it on the puncture marks, more like gaping holes. Slowly they started to mend.
"Poison?" Severus asked.
"Ghhh, no. Bit me. Drained blood."
Lily was over him completely in shock. She took his good hand. They all turned as the winged lion-beast spoke again.
"Remember you have a choice. To turn back and remain unbroken. For those that do not break die, and your second chances have run out."
Its wings cut shrieking through the air and it went up. The dome above elongated into a tunnel, at its end light streamed down. Quickly the nightmarish beast was a dot in the distance, and the hole closed.
Lily gathered herself and sat beside him. "How bad is it?"
"I think I'll be fine, just shock. Hurt like hell though."
"What happened?" Remus asked.
Harry tried to slow his breathing. "I think it read my memories, or something like that, when it tasted my blood."
"Well let's consider ourselves lucky. That thing could give a dragon a run for its galleons." Severus said.
Lily ran some diagnostics spells, he had indeed been lucky, just some muscle tearing, blood loss and what would probably be a nasty scar on his shoulder, but otherwise alive. He breathed out a sigh of relief, collapsing to the ground.
"What do we make of all this?" Severus asked.
Harry shrugged. "All of this is beyond me. We could've been dead already, but we aren't. We move on." But the memory of the forest was clear in his mind, and the sacrifice he was prepared to make back then plagued him. The words of the beast resonated in his head. This time he had choice, no decades long ploy leading to his pointless death.
After taking out some food and drink and bandaging his wounds, they prepared to carry on. Hopefully no more mythical creatures would maim him horribly.
Compared to what they had seen before, the burial chamber was modest. Four sarcophagi were arranged in a cross pattern. More curiously there was a statue in the middle. A wizard with bushy eyebrows and a stern patch of beard, adorned with a hat much like the one that sent them here, solemnly holding a staff adorned with a black spherical gemstone.
"There's more runes." Remus said to Lily, who went about deciphering them.
The epitaph read:
Our Warden
Our Guardian
Our Friend,
Keldran the Magnificent
"Something tells me this Keldran and the Sorting Hat is the reason why we're here." Severus said.
They all nodded in agreement.
"So what are we supposed to do?" Remus asked.
Harry's eyes were trained on the gemstone, it reminded him of… He went over to it, climbing atop the statue, his wound throbbing as he did. With an outstretched arm he grabbed it as he would the snitch in a game of quidditch. Immediately his mind flashed with images he couldn't make heads or tails of. He fell back down, gem in hand, shaking his head.
"Yeah, this is definitely it."
"Any idea what it is?" Lily said.
"Do you know about the Philosopher's Stone?"
"You think that's it?"
"I highly doubt it." he said, grinning at it. The light seemed to reflect off it as if it were a living thing. "I bet it's more important than that."
-sSsSsSsSs-
It was a lucky break that quidditch training was suspended for the next few weeks, the two holes he had acquired during their trip would raise too many questions. He'd just have to be careful no one could see him in the showers. Severus estimated it would take a few days to fully heal, given more dittany. They had all gone to the Great Hall for supper. They were all a bit on edge, since right after would be the culmination of their efforts since the start of Christmas break.
Regulus seemed a bit distracted, didn't ask much about his absence, he had figured a date with Lily would be cover enough. Nathan took the time to thank Harry for how helpful the book had been. It was nice just to have a casual chat in between fighting ravenous beasts and conversing with magical artifacts. Luci had to repeat thanks for her gift as well.
They now had telepathy, but it was hardly necessary as a glance and a nod was enough to time their exit and visit to the 7th floor. One after the other they slipped from the tables, coming to stand a the door with the gold handle. They pushed it open and found the Hat snoring.
Harry cleared his throat. The hat looked up and shook its 'head'.
"Back already? And I was having such a nice nap."
"Sorry about that." Harry said.
"I'm only jesting, of course, I can sense it. Oh I've been waiting a long time for this, what a change of scenery it will be." the hat replied in its grim tone.
Harry stepped forward, gleaming gem in hand, he hesitated. The Hat grinned at this.
"Did you meet my friend? He didn't give you too much trouble, did he?"
"I did, Keldran. And he didn't seem to think of you as a friend."
"Sharp, very sharp. I never said you had to follow my guidance, did I? It was your choice to seek me out, it is just as much your choice to walk out that door."
And with that Harry knew he had none. The Hat opened its mouthflap and he placed it inside. It seemed to chew it like a piece of candy and swallowed.
Purple black mist gathered around it, its human-like features disappearing entirely. The swirling came to rest under the rim, building up and billowing forward. Harry stepped back to his friends. The mist crackled with magical lightning, breaking apart and reforming like a ghastly storm. The entire room went dark and trembled, the sconces and chandelier chimed.
At once the whole room shifted, tinted windows replaced by barred glass, stone turned to red carpet. The Legilimency Crystal disappeared under the shifting stones, an ebony desk materialized, dozens of bookcases melded from the walls turning to a library lined by a wooden ladder. In the corner came a large black cauldron, already bubbling with brew. Phials, beakers, glass tubes and burners formed into a potions workshop in the north-east corner. The room settled into a magnificent study boasting exquisite craftsmanship. A cuckoo clock, a table draped in crimson and mounted model of the solar system encrusted in gold sprung up as finishing touches.
There were flashes, a high pitched tone like a thousand voices screaming, the storm took the outline of a person. With a loud crack it lifted, and where before was just a hat, stood a man under it, six feet tall staff in hand. Amber eyes like hot coals pierced beneath the rim, adorned by thick scraggly eyebrows, sharp features framed by a short silver beard running along his chin and cheeks. The ageless man looked about forty.
For a while he just stood there, gemless staff resting in front of him. The hat had been no foil, the same grin spread on the man's face. He shifted and his belt-sash creaked under dark purple robes.
The man looked up to them with a smug smile and quick eyes. "Pleased to meet you, hatchlings. As you might have gathered, I am Keldran the Magnificent, Guardian of Hogwarts. I am your weapon. Sharpen your minds, fill your brainy arsenal, that's what I'll do. I hope you won't refuse, if I ask to teach you?"