Hogwarts Reimagined

Significant content warning for misgendering, slight sexual implication, transphobia.

In the center of the room in which they stood, there was a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line. Before them the fire blocking the way forward to the Stone flickered and turned a menacing iridescent black, while the rest of the ring remained a sickening violet.

“Snape’s,” Hermione said with a grimace. She strode over to the table and seized a roll of parchment that lay behind the bottles, Neville and Hermione crowded in over her shoulder to read 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 forevermore,
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 on either end, but if you would move onwards, neither is your friend;
Thirds, 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.

Hermione let out a great sigh and Rhiannon was amazed to see that she was smiling – the very last thing Rhi herself felt like doing now.

“Brilliant – just brilliant.” said Hermione, still grinning widely. “This isn’t magic – it’s logic, a puzzle. Kind of poorly considered given these are supposed to guard the stone... it’s almost like they want to let people in, they just have to pass some kind of convoluted test first! Oh, this is wonderful.” she added, still laughing. “And his rhyming is terrible.”

At this, Rhiannon supposed she could see the amusement factor. Neville snorted too, but he shifted fearfully away from the flames.

“A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t an ounce of logic – they’d be stuck here forever. And you know Professor Snape – he’d find that very funny. Oh but it’s a terrible strategy, relies completely on intellectual superiority over the adversary.” Hermione chattered on, scrutinizing the parchment and the row of bottles in turn.

“Everything we need is on this parchment – like I said, it’s a terrible strategy for guarding something. Seven bottles: three are poison, two wine. One will get us back and one ahead, and neither the biggest nor the smallest are poison.” Hermione said. She began to pace back and forth, muttering to herself as she scrutinized the bottles before them. At last, she clapped her hands.

“Got it,” she said. “The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire – towards the Stone.”
Rhiannon inspected the bottle that Hermione pointed to, frowning. “There’s only enough for one of us,” she said. “That’s hardly a mouthful.”

The three of them looked at eachother, and then back at the row of bottles.
“A-and which will get you back through the purple flames?” Rhiannon asked. Hermione pointed to a round bottle at the right end of the line.

Rhiannon nodded, coming to a decision. “Y-you two drink that.” she said, her voice trembling. Hermione opened her mouth to protest and Neville scowled and signed furiously. “N-no, listen – go for help-” Rhiannon carried on, then she trailed off as she realised there was no real way for the two of them to get back. Hermione propped one hand on her hip and glared at Rhiannon.

“No saviour stuff. Faye’ll have taken one of the brooms and Neville can’t fly great anyway, not that I’m much good either. Parvati’s got Ron, Faye went for help. There has to be another solution – there’s never just one answer in magic, that’s not how it works – and we’re not letting you go in there on your own.” Hermione said firmly, before turning back to the puzzle. Neville shook his head and reinforced her words with his signing. Rhiannon felt a little guilty that she hadn’t considered him in her admittedly self-sacrificing plan at all, and she stood back to let Hermione think.

Hermione uncorked the small bottle and sniffed it before replacing it, then did the same with the rounded one. She scowled at the parchment, then at the flames surrounding them, a line growing between her brows.

With the expression of a woman on a mission, she strode up to the black flames ahead of them and stuck out her hand – not quite into the flames, but nearby. Her theory seemingly confirmed, she strode back to the bottles.

“So fire’s a dead easy thing to make, magically, because it’s not actually a thing – it’s a chemical reaction. However for fire to burn consistently, without consuming fuel, there’s only a certain amount of ways to do that. This all looks showy but my theory is it’s an elaborate variant on the Bluebell Flames charm. They look like separate fires but they were both purple to begin with – they’re connected or rather, they’re part of the same spell.” Hermione explained, her excitement growing as she gestured at the weirdly-coloured ring surrounding them. “The two potions thing is, a trick, see. It’s an extension of the same logic puzzle. By pushing you into looking for a specific thing they discourage people from thinking of a broader solution.” she continued, and dragged the two safe passage potions out of the row.

Rhiannon gasped, horrified, as Hermione decisively decanted the last dregs of the forward passage potion into the larger bottle of other. Hermione shook her head, in her element now. “No, see, it’s that intellectual superiority thing again – everything you need to succeed is right in front of you. And they’ll get a kick out of people not figuring it out.” she explained. With the open bottle in one hand and her wand in the other, Hermione strode back to the ring-wall of black and violet flames. Beginning with the edge of the black flames she levitated the liquid out of the bottle and carefully she laid it in a circle just inside the flame ring.

When the circle ends joined, Hermione dusted her hands off in satisfaction and paced back to the table. She placed the almost-empty bottle upon it and waited, arms outstretched, with the air of a ringmaster about to introduce their next trick.

Rhiannon, on the other hand, waited with bated breath and a sense of growing horror. But just as Hermione’s confident expression began to falter, the ring of flames flickered like a struggling television and the black tinge vanished from the onward half of the ring. Then the entire ring flickered again and with an unpleasant sucking sound, vanished.

Hermione clapped her hands delightedly and, with Rhiannon and Neville, turned to face what they guessed to be the final door. Together they raised their hands to the handle and turned it, hearts racing, as they opened the door and stepped through it as one.

The room was brightly lit with flickering candles, and the three of them gasped as they took in who stood in the centre of the room. It wasn’t Professor Snape. It wasn’t even Voldemort.

Before them, sallow skin even yellower in the lamplight, stood Professor Quirrell. Beneath his purple turban – a dull brown in the yellow light – his face was still, his lips curved in a chilling facsimile of a smile. His watery grey eyes were cold and flat, his usually nervous hands still at his sides, and limp strands of greyish-blond hair trailed across his sweating forehead, protruding from under the turban.

“Y-you!” gasped Rhiannon, her hazel eyes wide with shock. They’d known it might not be Professor Snape but compared to him – Quirrell? And she voiced as such.
“Severus?” Professor Quirrell said, and then he laughed. Not his usual quivering treble, hesitant even to be heard, but cold and sharp and mocking. “Yes, he does seem rather the type, doesn’t he? So useful to have him swooping about like an overgrown bat, terrorising the student body and the faculty alike. Next to him, who would suspect p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell?”

A cold rage welled up inside Rhiannon as Quirrell spoke. He’d put his stutter on for effect – she’d sympathised with him, offered to teach him some basic signs, and it had all been an act. “I-it was you, wh-wh-who hexed my Nimbus. D-december sixteenth. Neville said he thought the hex was being inter-ter-terfered with.” she replied, her voice thin and hollow in the too-big room.

Quirrell laughed again. “Oh yes – you catch on quick, Mister Potter. Your friends knocked me over in their haste to save you from Professor Snape at that match. Another few seconds and I’d have had you in free-fall. I’d have managed it before then, if Snape hadn’t been muttering counter-curses like some old dervish.” he gloated.

Rhiannon shivered, her blood ran like ice in her veins. She couldn’t reconcile Snape – Snape, who relentlessly mocked her and Neville in class, who had taunted her with his knowledge of her identity from the moment she set foot in that Potions dungeon – with a Snape who had tried to save her.

Quirrell was still gloating, and Rhiannon had stopped listening. She was too late to react as he suddenly changed his manner and, with a snap of his bony fingers, he conjured ropes and bound Rhiannon’s arms tightly to her sides and her ankles together. With his magical grasp on the ropes, he dragged Rhiannon foreward until they stood toe to toe.

“You’re too nosy to live, Harry Potter. Scurrying around school all the time, always in detention – for all I knew you’d seen me let that troll in and come to look at what was guarding the stone.” Quirrell hissed, spittle flecking Rhiannon’s face as he leaned in close to her.

“You let the troll in?” said Hermione from behind Rhiannon, her voice trembling, furious. Rhiannon craned her neck to look, but Quirrell raised his wand to point past her at them.

“Not a move, Potter.” Quirrell growled. Then all too quickly his menacing scowl transformed into a maliciously confident and smirk. “And certainly, Miss Granger – I have a special gift with trolls. While everyone was running around looking for it, I was here, in that reeking room that had Hagrid’s mangy mutt in it – only it wasn’t there, was it? Thank-you for that, really – I owe you a favour.” he continued his mocking monologue, spreading his arms expansively as if to hug Rhiannon – she recoiled, straining against the ropes and he laughed.

“You could have killed hundreds of students, just to get down here?” Hermione said, her voice faint with incredulous horror.”

“All for the greater good, Miss Granger, do keep up,” Quirrell replied breezily. “Now, wait quietly. I need to examine this fascinating mirror.”

It was only then that Rhiannon thought to look beyond Quirrell. With a jolt she realised what was standing behind the thin man – she barely recognised it in full light. But standing in pride of place at the back of the small room was the towering gilt-framed Mirror of Erised.

“This mirror is the key to finding the Stone,” Quirrell murmured, tapping his way around the frame. Hermione and Neville seized the opportunity to come to Rhiannon’s side, he whirled and raised his wand again, pushing them back to the door with a menacing snarl.
“Trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this... but he’s in London... I’ll be long gone before he’s back...” Quirrell muttered, his attention once again on the Mirror.

All Rhiannon could think in her panic was to keep Quirrell talking, keep his attention on her and away from the Stone. “I-it was you in the Forest that night, w-w-wasn’t it,” she said.

Quirrell snorted. “W-w-wasn’t it?” he repeated, mimicking her stammer mockingly. Rhiannon flushed angrily, but Quirrell ignored her. “Snape knew, you know – kept me from any more. He tried to frighten me – as if he could, when I have Lord Voldemort himself on my side.” he explained, pacing around the Mirror as he spoke.

“I see it, I see the Stone... I’m presenting it to my master... but where is it?” Quirrell asked. His face twitched, and he slammed his fist into one of the room’s pillars beside the mirror before recomposing himself.

Rhiannon shook her head, flinching away from Quirrell. The room smelled like blood now, as it flowed sluggishly from his clenched fist. “S-s-sssnape, he always seemed to hate me so much,” she mumbled helplessly. Quirrell laughed, his back still to her. “Oh he does. If there’s one thing the old bat is good at, it’s hate.” he replied blithely, still patting around the edges of the Mirror. “I don’t understand! Is the Stone inside the Mirror? Should I break it?” the treacherous professor asked of no one in particular.

What I want, more than anything in the world – almost – right now, is to keep the Stone from Quirrell so I can stay safe at Hogwarts, Rhiannon thought, a wild plan beginning to occur to her. She edged forward to try and peer into the mirror, but the ropes binding her ankles were too tight and she slipped and fell to the stone floor. Her head banged against the floor and her glasses crunched ominously. But Quirrell took no notice.

“What does this mirror do? How does it work? Help me, Master!” he begged, his tone growing thin and whining.

To Rhiannon’s horror, a voice answered – and the voice seemed to come from Quirrell himself. “Use the boy... use the Potter boy...”

She groaned and curled in on herself but it was no use, and Quirrell rounded in her in a flash. “Yes, of course Master – Potter, you, get here.” Quirrell ordered. With a jerk of his wand the ropes binding Rhiannon jerked her upright, before they distintegrated back into the air they had come from.

“Look into the Mirror, and tell me what you see.” Quirrell ordered, and he grabbed Rhiannon by the shoulders to drag her forwards. Black and white flashed sickeningly through Rhiannon’s vision and she fought the urge to retch as the dark wizard forced her upright, his hands on either side of her head now as he forced her to look into the mirror.

Rhiannon closed her eyes and opened them again, pushing back waves of dizziness as she struggled to come up with a plausible lie. But it was too late. She saw her reflection first, thin and trembling. But a moment later the reflection winked at her. Mirror-Rhiannon reached into her pocket and pulled out a blood-red stone, smiling at Rhiannon. Then the mirror image winked at Rhi and returned the stone to her mirror-pocket. And as her mirror image did so, Rhiannon felt something heavy drop into her real pocket and her heart sank – she’d hoped the mirror would break it, destroy it – but it was only more vulnerable now.

“Well?” snarled Quirrell impatiently. “What did you see?”

Rhiannon mustered her trembling courage. “I see myself shaking hands with Professor McGonagall,” she invented wildly. “I won the Quidditch Cup for Gryffindor.”

Quirrell cursed again, and shoved her roughly aside. “Get out of the way,” he growled. Rhiannon felt the stone shift against her leg inside her pyjama pants pocket. Could she made a break for it, she wondered wildly. But she hadn’t taken two paces before a high voice spoke, though Quirrell wasn’t moving his lips.

“He lies... he lies...”

“Potter! Get back here!” Quirrell shouted, grabbing Rhiannon by the arm and dragging her back to face the Mirror. “Tell me the truth, you foolish boy! What did you just see?”

Again, the high voice emanated from nowhere. “Let me speak to him... face to face...”

“Master, you are not strong enough!” Quirrell protested, and Rhiannon trembled at the implication.

“I have strength enough to face that...” the voice replied, a heavy weight falling on the last word as some sort of mockery.

Rhiannon felt as if she was back in the Devil’s Snare, rooted to the spot and drowning. Petrified, he watched as Quirrell reached up and began to unwrap his crooked, sweat-stained turban. What was going on?

The turban fell away. Quirrell’s head looked strangely small without it, his hair lank and balding. Then he turned slowly on the spot.

Rhiannon would have screamed, vomited, run – but she couldn’t moved. Where there should have been the back of Quirrell’s head there was a face, the most terrible face Rhiannon had ever seen. It was chalk white, paler even than Quirrell himself, with slitted red eyes and shallow pits for nostrils like a snake. The wrongness of it was unspeakable.

“Harry Potter...” it whispered, its’ thin lips curving into a foul parody of a smile. Rhiannon tried to stagger backwards but her legs wouldn’t work, long-buried memories of a chilling laugh and a flash of green surfacing in her panicked mind.

“See what I have become?” the wrong face said. “Mere shadow and foul vapour... no form other than that which I may share with others... but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds... Unicorn blood has strengthened me these past weeks and with the Elixir of Life, I will once again walk on my own... Now... why don’t you give me in that Stone in your pocket? Oh come now, don’t lie to me – I know you’re not pleased to see me.”

The thin voice was mocking, taunting, vicious – and it knew. Rhiannon stumbled backwards as sensation began to return. “Don’t be a fool,” the inhuman face snarled. “Better save your own life and join me... or you’ll meet the same end as your parents... they died, begging me for mercy. Still... why I expected better from one such as you...”

“L-L-LIAR!” Rhiannon bellowed, the word torn from her bleeding lips. And the wicked face smiled.

“How touching...” it hissed. “There is a certain value in bravery... you are right, I lied, boy. Your parents were brave... I killed your father first and he put up a courageous fight, so pointless in the end... but your mother needn’t have died – stupid girl, she was trying to protect you... Now, give me the Stone, lest she have died in vain...”

Rhiannon shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. Her glasses fell off with the motion and she rubbed at her eyes furiously, unable now to see any detail of the face save the bloodless white of its’ shape in the back of Quirrell’s head. “N-n-never!” she replied, and she turned and lunged for the door, Hermione and Neville scuttling helplessly aside.

“SEIZE HIM!” the twisted voice howled, and a hand closed like a vice on Rhiannon’s bony wrist.

She cried out and fell, pain scorching every nerve ending, and Quirrell held her at an impasse. Unable to run, she teetered on the point of balance, Quirrell’s teeth bared as he dragged her towards him.

Rhiannon felt the ice in her veins close over her heart, her blurred vision flickering and growing dark at the edges. But she was not alone. Hermione and Neville surged to her rescue and they took her by the shoulders and held her, setting their combined strength against Quirrell’s.

Suddenly, Quirrell released her and staggered back, his mouth open in a soundless howl. Rhiannon fell back into her friends’ arms, sobbing and retching bile onto the floor. She collapsed to her knees.

“Seize him, SEIZE HIM!” Lord Voldemort’s voice cried again, burning Rhiannon’s ears. Quirrell lunged for her, clawing at her face, her shoulders, her neck – something was wrong, blisters broke on his hands against Rhiannon’s sweat-slicked skin as he closed them around her throat. Rhiannon’s vision went dark and she felt herself screaming, her throat raw – but the pressure was gone. Voldemort was screaming too, furious and defeated, and Rhiannon heard a sickly whooshing sound as she fell down, down, into the waiting arms of unconsciousness.