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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Kaelen's predatory smile was wiped from his face the moment they entered the next chamber. The stench was overwhelming, a putrid mix of unwashed body and stale magic, but the room itself was an anticlimax. A fully grown mountain troll, even larger than the one from Halloween, lay sprawled on the floor in a dead faint, a significant, ugly lump swelling on its skull. It had already been defeated.
"Quirrell's work, I presume," Daphne said, her nose wrinkling in disgust. She stepped delicately around a puddle of drool. "Crude, but effective."
"The work of a blunt instrument," Kaelen agreed, his voice tight with an annoyance he rarely showed. His anticipation of a physical challenge had been thwarted. He was an artist who had prepared his finest brushes, only to find the canvas already slopped with paint by a lesser talent. He scanned the room, his eyes missing nothing. "The trio has also passed through. The air still holds the lingering ozone of a poorly cast levitation charm."
He didn't waste another second on the unconscious beast. He swept towards the next door, his frustration channeled into a cold, sharp focus. Daphne followed, her earlier amusement replaced by a quiet intensity that matched his own.
The next chamber was small and circular. In the center of the room stood a table, and on it sat seven potions in mismatched bottles, arranged in a line. A flickering purple fire blocked the doorway they had just entered, and a black, impassable wall of flame blocked the one ahead. A scroll of parchment lay beside the bottles.
Daphne moved to pick it up, but Kaelen held up a hand. "Unnecessary."
He approached the table, his gaze analytical, his nostrils flaring slightly. He did not read the riddle. He simply observed the potions themselves. He pointed a finger at the smallest bottle, the third from the left.
"Nettle wine," he stated. "Harmless." He then pointed to a squat, round bottle containing a murky brown liquid. "Wolfsbane Potion, poorly brewed. Poisonous to humans." He continued down the line, his voice a low, clinical monotone. "Venom of the Acromantula, diluted. Slow-acting neurotoxin. Essence of Nightshade, fast-acting cardiac poison. The Potion of Despair, a mind-altering poison that induces suicidal ideation."
Daphne stared, her lips slightly parted in astonishment. He had identified them all, likely by scent and viscosity alone.
He finally gestured to the two remaining bottles. One held a clear, shimmering liquid, no bigger than an egg. The other, at the far end, contained a purple liquid that seemed to absorb the light.
"Snape's puzzle is a test of logic, not knowledge," Kaelen said, a hint of disdain in his voice. "It is designed to trap a greedy fool or an impatient brute. He assumes the participant will be one-dimensional." He picked up the tiny, clear potion. "This will protect from the black flames ahead." He then picked up the purple potion. "And this will allow safe passage back through the purple flames."
He handed the purple potion to Daphne. "Wait for me here. Do not enter the final chamber unless I fail to return within fifteen minutes. If that happens, retreat, obliviate Nott, and ensure no one ever knew we were here."
It was not a request. It was an order, a contingency plan delivered with the cold finality of a general sending a soldier into battle.
"Be careful, Kaelen," she said, her voice a low whisper.
"Caution is for the unprepared," he replied. He uncorked the tiny vial and downed the clear potion in a single swallow. It felt like ice water flooding his veins, a sudden, chilling clarity washing over him. Without another word, he turned and strode directly into the black flames.
The fire washed over him, roaring silently, but he felt nothing but a pleasant coolness. He stepped through and found himself in the final chamber.
The room was circular, lined with stone pillars that rose into a high, domed ceiling. In the absolute center of the chamber stood the Mirror of Erised. The room was a mess. There were scorch marks on the floor, a pile of what looked like ash and tattered cloth near the base of the mirror, and the faint, acrid smell of burnt flesh and dark magic.
The Philosopher's Stone was gone.
Kaelen stood perfectly still, a statue of cold fury in the heart of the ruined chamber. He had been too late. His meticulous planning, his stealth, his intellectual superiority—all of it had been rendered irrelevant by the chaotic, blundering, and inexplicably successful charge of Harry Potter. He had been outmaneuvered not by a king or a queen, but by a pawn who had stumbled across the board and accidentally toppled the king.
He took a slow, deliberate breath, his Occlumency walls slamming down, containing the surge of pure, cold rage that threatened to erupt. He did not shout. He did not curse. He began to analyze.
He walked over to the pile of ash, crouching down. He saw the faint outline of a human form, and the glint of a single, unburnt button from a professor's robes. Quirrell. The host had been destroyed. He touched the ashes. They were cold. The confrontation had happened some time ago.
His eyes then fell upon the Mirror of Erised. He remembered Dumbledore's words. Love is a power you see as a weakness. He looked at the scorch marks radiating from the spot where Potter must have stood, and at the remains of the man who had hosted Voldemort. The pieces clicked into place with horrifying, illogical clarity.
The final protection on the Stone wasn't a curse or a charm. It was a ward of sacrifice. A protection that could only be overcome by one who wanted to find the Stone, but not use it. A protection that would burn anyone with selfish or evil intent who touched the vessel it protected. The same ancient, sentimental magic that had protected Potter as a baby.
Dumbledore hadn't just built a vault. He had built a psychological and moral test, and the only person in the castle foolish and pure-hearted enough to pass it was Harry Potter.
"It wasn't a game of chess at all," Kaelen whispered to the silent room, his voice a low, venomous thing. "It was a fairy tale."
He had come seeking the ultimate weapon, a tool of pure, quantifiable power. And he had been defeated by a bedtime story. The sheer, infuriating stupidity of it was a greater insult than any physical blow.
He stood up, his face a mask of cold, hard resolve. Dumbledore was a greater fool than he had ever imagined, a man willing to gamble the fate of the world on the emotional state of a child. And Voldemort was an even greater one, a Dark Lord so blinded by his own ambition that he could not comprehend the one power his enemy wielded against him.
They were all playing the wrong game.
His eyes scanned the room one last time, and then he saw it. Tucked into the shadows at the base of a pillar, almost invisible against the dark stone, was a small, tattered piece of parchment. It was not from Quirrell's robes. It looked ancient, and it had a single, complex rune drawn on it in what looked like dried blood. It was a piece of Nott's research, dropped in his earlier, failed attempt to enter the chamber.
Kaelen picked it up. The rune was a fragment of a much larger array, a specialized curse designed to destabilize and absorb raw magical energy. It was a parasite's rune. Nott hadn't just been trying to break the wards; he had been trying to siphon the magic for himself.
A new, colder, and far more ambitious plan began to form in the icy fortress of his mind. The Stone was gone, but the knowledge of the magic that had protected it—that flawed, sentimental, and yet undeniably powerful magic—remained. Dumbledore had shown him his most powerful weapon.
And Kaelen had just realized that any weapon, no matter how illogical, could be studied, understood, and ultimately, turned against its creator. He would not make Voldemort's mistake. He would not dismiss the power of love. He would dissect it, master it, and forge it into a blade sharper than any curse. The first war for the Stone was over. The next