Professor Flitwick's challenge was to select the one correct key from a swarm of keys.
It was absurd. Even more ridiculous than those anime plots where a demon is sealed away but someone still thoughtfully leaves a key behind to open it.
Why not just seal it completely? Why go to all that trouble?
Leonard looked up at the keys filling the air and couldn't tell which one he was supposed to take.
In the original story, Quirrell had solved this by brute force. He smashed the real key out of the air, opened the door, then released the rest so the key with the damaged wing could be spotted by Harry Potter and the others, allowing them to pass the trial.
A mix of spot-the-difference and broom-flying skills. Basically an entertainment stage.
But even if Leonard could tell which key was real, he had no intention of chasing it down. Just imagining it felt stupid.
He walked up to the wooden door instead.
It was clearly reinforced with powerful magic and layered with an extremely strong Anti-Unlocking Charm. Leonard felt nothing at all. If anything, he almost wanted to laugh.
He plucked a strand of his own hair, lightly altered it with Transfiguration, and turned it into a perfectly sized piece of wire. He slid it into the lock, fiddled with it twice.
The door opened.
"Anti-Unlocking Charm, my ass. What a joke," Leonard muttered, shaking his head as he moved on.
With a bit of technique, the supposedly airtight door was opened just like that. Wizards really had no appreciation for Muggle methods.
Ahead was Professor McGonagall's trial, a giant wizard chessboard created through Transfiguration.
The entire room was a massive board of black and white squares, nearly identical to wizard chess. The exit to the next stage lay directly across from the entrance.
This whole thing felt like it existed purely to give Ron Weasley a moment to shine. Leonard genuinely couldn't understand the logic of splitting your own forces into two sides just to have them fight each other.
If it were him, he'd stack all the pieces at the entrance. Anything that dared step inside, even a fly, would be chopped into mince on the spot.
But right now, he was the challenger, not the one designing the trial.
"Wizard chess…" Leonard stepped closer.
The opposing pieces reacted instantly. Foot soldiers wielding double blades raised their weapons, baring their teeth as if alive, utterly brazen.
Leonard's expression darkened.
He lifted his right hand. From the Ancient Sprout wrapped around his wrist, a ring of black-red flames streaked with silver burst outward.
Since they weren't giving him any respect, he'd solve it with force.
The swaggering chess pieces didn't even get a chance to show off before they were swallowed whole by sudden Fiendfyre. And that was only the beginning.
The flames surged across the entire board, twisting into a ferocious three-headed fire serpent that rampaged wildly, like a monster tearing through a city.
One by one, the seemingly living chess pieces were erased completely, leaving behind not even a trace of ash.
After devouring everything, the three-headed Fiendfyre serpent turned and fixed its gaze on Leonard.
The creature was vividly lifelike. Its eyes looked almost real, empty of emotion as they stared coldly at him.
Leonard calmly raised his head and met its gaze.
Then, without warning, the fire serpent twisted its body, rolled in front of him, and wriggled closer like a puppy. It even stuck out its tongue, as if begging Leonard to pat its head.
The contrast was extreme.
Just moments ago, it had been fierce and domineering. Now it was openly acting cute. Leonard froze for a second, caught completely off guard.
Staring into the six wide eyes filled with expectation, Leonard hesitated, then cautiously reached out and touched one of the serpent's heads.
Warmth spread through his palm. It felt less like touching Fiendfyre and more like holding a heat pack.
This three-headed Fiendfyre not only possessed its own awareness, it was completely under Leonard's control.
Judging by the silver patterns running through it, this was most likely the influence of ancient magic.
It seemed that even Fiendfyre, a latecomer among spells, had bowed before the authority of ancient magic.
Leonard sighed inwardly, then beckoned. The fire serpent, now slightly larger than before, slipped back into the Ancient Sprout on his arm.
Looking at the patterns etched into the sprout, Leonard felt a spark of anticipation. He was genuinely curious how far this endlessly growing Fiendfyre could go in the future.
After clearing Professor McGonagall's wizard chess, the next trial was a logic puzzle set by Snape.
The puzzle itself was fairly complex, roughly on the level of elementary to middle school brain teasers, though the magical side of it was quite advanced.
The only real obstacle was a path surrounded by flames. If someone walked straight through without preparation, they'd probably end up crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, with the smell traveling for miles.
And right before this dangerous path, four potions had been thoughtfully placed, as if someone was worried that challengers wouldn't make it across otherwise.
Four potions in total.
One that could bypass the flames.
One poison.
One potion bottle with a Portkey effect.
And one completely useless potion.
Leonard barely glanced at them as he passed the pedestal and casually stepped into the sea of fire.
The Ancient Sprout on his arm swayed amid the heat, isolating all the scorching temperatures.
The flame-covered path looked intimidating, but in reality it was just there to scare children. Anyone above fifth year wouldn't be afraid of this, let alone Leonard, who came with built-in defenses.
A simple Shield Charm was enough to block the heat, not to mention spells specifically designed to bypass fire. Any one of them could get someone across safely.
And yet they still put out a fire-avoidance potion.
Who were they looking down on?
Thinking back, Quirrell in the original story must have felt extremely conflicted. He'd probably expected a near-death ordeal, only to find that aside from the opening three-headed dog and the troll he himself set up, none of the trials were actually dangerous.
Leonard crossed the flames without incident and arrived at the final and most difficult challenge of them all.
The Mirror of Erised.
Recently, Leonard hadn't gone out of his way to look for Harry Potter, and Harry hadn't mentioned anything about the mirror either.
But according to the sequence of events, Dumbledore should have moved the mirror here after Christmas to protect the Philosopher's Stone.
The room was excessively spacious, yet only a single enormous mirror stood at its center.
As Leonard approached, the mirror showed no immediate reaction.
After a moment, ripples spread across the surface, and a slightly more mature version of Leonard appeared within.
"The Mirror of Erised," Leonard murmured to himself as he stared at his reflection. "The mirror that shows what a person truly desires…"
All the previous trials had been little more than games for children.
The real defense against Voldemort stealing the Philosopher's Stone lay here.
To be precise, this mirror was the final and invincible line of defense against anyone who sought to take the Stone.