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The journey from the dungeons to the third floor was a silent, fluid movement through the castle's shadowed arteries. Daphne moved with a surprising grace, her steps as quiet as Kaelen's. She was not a follower struggling to keep up, but a partner moving in perfect, predatory sync. They were two serpents gliding through an empty nest.
They reached the forbidden corridor. The door was already ajar. A faint, ethereal music drifted out from the darkness within—a clumsily enchanted harp, Kaelen noted with disdain. It was the trio's handiwork, a blunt instrument for a simple problem.
"Potter's work," Daphne whispered, her eyes sharp. "Sentimental. He could have just used a silencing charm on the beast's ears."
"He is a Gryffindor," Kaelen replied, as if that explained every tactical flaw in existence. "Heroics are rarely efficient."
They slipped inside. The monstrous, three-headed dog lay in a deep, enchanted slumber, its massive chests rising and falling with snores that shook the very flagstones. One of its paws was twitching over the trapdoor, a clear sign that the trio had already descended. Kaelen spared the beast nothing more than a passing, analytical glance before moving to the trapdoor. It was heavy, but with their combined, silent effort, they lifted it and descended the ladder into the darkness below.
They landed on the soft, damp leaves of the Devil's Snare. The plant was already retracting, its tendrils withered and smoking from the trio's recent passage. Daphne produced her wand, a cool, silvery light illuminating the chamber.
"Incendio Frigidus," she whispered. A jet of pale blue, cold fire erupted from her wand, bathing the remaining tendrils in an icy flame that caused them to recoil without the stench of burning. It was a more elegant, controlled spell than the standard fire-making charm.
Kaelen gave a slight nod of approval. "Efficient."
They moved on, their progress swift and silent. The chamber of the flying keys was next. They found it as expected: hundreds of winged keys fluttered near the ceiling, a single, battered-looking broomstick hovered in the middle of the room, and the heavy wooden door on the far side was already unlocked, a key with a bent wing still jammed in the lock.
"The brutish approach," Daphne noted with a sniff of aristocratic disdain. "They chased the key instead of simply summoning it."
"They are playing the game Dumbledore set for them," Kaelen said, ignoring the keys and the broom entirely. He ran a hand over the ancient wood of the next door. "He expects participants to solve his puzzles. He does not expect them to circumvent the board entirely."
He placed his palm flat against the door, next to the lock. He closed his eyes, his will focusing, not on the mechanism, but on the concept of the door being unlatched. He felt the ancient magic of the castle resist, the wards pushing back against his intrusion. He pushed harder, his own cold, demanding power meeting the castle's stubborn defenses. For a moment, it was a stalemate.
Daphne watched, her wand held ready, her expression a mixture of fascination and awe. She saw a flicker of strain on Kaelen's face, the only sign of the immense effort he was exerting. Then, with a low groan of protesting wood and a final, reluctant click from a dozen hidden bolts, the door swung inward.
The chamber beyond was the giant chessboard. The pieces, carved from black and white stone, stood silent and imposing. Evidence of the trio's passage was everywhere: shattered remnants of stone pawns and a defeated white queen lay in pieces near the far side. The game had been won, and the board was resetting itself, the broken pieces slowly re-forming.
But they were not alone.
In the center of the chamber, his back to them, knelt Theodore Nott. He wasn't looking at the chessboard. He was examining the intricate runes carved around the archway of the next door, a satchel of tools and scrolls open on the floor beside him. He was so engrossed in his work that he hadn't heard them enter.
"Your calculations are flawed, Theodore," Kaelen's voice was dangerously quiet, yet it cut through the vast chamber like a whip. "You've failed to account for the secondary ward-matrix tied to the chess pieces. The moment you try to detonate your runes, the door will seal itself with a curse that will turn your bones to dust."
Nott froze, his entire body going rigid. He rose slowly and turned, his face a mask of pale shock and dawning horror. He saw Kaelen and Daphne standing there, not as friends, but as judges.
"Kaelen," Nott stammered, his usual composure shattered. "I… I was merely… securing our path forward."
"You were being a sentimental fool," Kaelen corrected him, his voice laced with ice. He began to advance slowly across the board, the stone chess pieces turning their heads to watch him pass. "You saw an opportunity for personal glory. You let ambition cloud your logic. You became an unpredictable variable, and in doing so, you became a liability."
"I was going to share the prize!" Nott insisted, taking a step back. "We are Slytherins! We are allies!"
"We were allies of convenience," Kaelen's voice dropped to a whisper. "An alliance you have just invalidated by acting alone. You could have jeopardized the entire operation."
"What are you going to do?" Nott asked, his hand inching towards his wand.
"Don't be stupid, Theodore," Daphne's voice was sharp and cold from the doorway. "You are not a duelist. He would end you before your wand cleared your robes."
Kaelen stopped a few feet from Nott, his expression devoid of any emotion. "I am not going to hurt you. Pain is an inefficient motivator. But I am going to remove you from the board. You have proven yourself to be a rogue piece, and rogue pieces must be controlled."
He raised his wand, his movement a fluid, economical arc. Nott flinched, but Kaelen didn't utter a curse of pain or violence.
"Corpus Immobilis," he whispered.
A jet of invisible magic shot from his wand and struck Nott in the chest. The boy's limbs snapped together, his body went rigid as a board, and he fell backward onto the cold stone floor with a loud crack, completely paralyzed. Only his eyes, wide with terror and helpless fury, could move.
Kaelen walked over and stood above him, looking down with the detached curiosity of a scientist observing a failed specimen.
"A simple, full-body bind," Kaelen explained, his voice a low, academic monotone. "It will wear off in an hour or two. By then, this will all be over. You can tell the professors you were ambushed by the Gryffindors. A plausible, if pathetic, explanation that will preserve what's left of your dignity."
He bent down and calmly rifled through Nott's satchel, retrieving the scrolls on ward-breaking. He tucked them into his own robes. "Thank you for the research, by the way. It will be useful."
He turned his back on the frozen, furious Nott and walked towards the next door, Daphne falling into step beside him.
"That was… merciful," she commented, her voice a mixture of surprise and admiration.
"It was efficient," Kaelen corrected her. "He is more useful to me conscious and terrified than he would be obliviated or dead. He has learned a valuable lesson about the consequences of independent action. He will be a much more reliable asset in the future."
He looked at her, his grey eyes seeming to absorb all the light in the room. "Don't ever make the same mistake."
Daphne met his gaze without flinching. "I wouldn't dream of it."
They reached the far door. As Kaelen's hand touched the cold iron of the handle, a low, guttural moan echoed from the chamber beyond, followed by the unmistakable, putrid stench of a troll.
"It seems the next puzzle is less cerebral," Daphne noted, her wand held ready.
"Good," Kaelen said, a smile touching his lips for the first time that night. "I was getting tired of thinking."