Eccentric Wizard Chapter 16: Final attempt (Patreon)

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Probably my second longest HP chapter.

Took a long time to publish due to rewriting chapter 1 and correcting the chapter numbers. Chapter 2 and everything after that will also be rewritten. Also, made the MC in chapter 1 behave more maturely and less like a sailor who swears 24/7. Even made his backstory a tiny bit different.

Also, Chapter 15 (Previously 16) has had some minor edits as well.

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-Main Hall-


There was an uproar amongst the students, many panicking at the appearance of a troll inside school grounds. It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore's wand to bring silence.

"Prefects," he rumbled, "lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!"

On the Gryffindor side, their prefect Percy already started to call everyone. He reacted first, showing that he was in his element while the others were a bit slower.

"Follow me! Stick together, first years! No need to fear the troll if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me, now. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me, I'm a prefect!" The Slytherin's prefect started to act as well, calling for everyone to line up.

"How could a troll get in?" Hermione asked as they climbed the stairs.

"Don't ask me, they're supposed to be really stupid," said Theodore. "It could be the Weasley twins setting up another elaborate prank and just having scared Quirrell. That man gets scared of his own shadow for goodness sake."

A fine observation, even if I was ignorant about the real reason behind the troll's appearance — that argument wouldn't have held true. The Weasley twins were pranksters true, but they would never go so far for just a joke. I eyed the Professor's table, finding Snape having long since disappeared along with Quirrell. I squinted, coming up with a possible idea that could help me with my current situation and possibly any future obstacles.

We passed through different groups of people hurrying in different directions. As they jostled their way through a crowd of confused Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, I followed along calmly before I grabbed Draco's arm and pulled him behind a dark corner without anyone spotting us. Though that didn't happen with everyone in a panic and no one caring to observe us in particular. Hermione was pulled into the girls' group, with Daphne making sure to drag her along.

"What are you doing!?" Draco asked, shaken up by the current state as well.

I made a shushing gesture, wanting him to stay quiet for a few seconds. A few seconds later after the coast was clear, I waved him to follow me across the corridor as we headed toward the entrance of the dungeon.

"Dobby, bring us two coats right this instant." I ordered, extending my hands sideways where a couple of seconds later two large black cloaks appeared. "Here, wear it." I threw one at Draco while also wearing mine.

"W-What… Can you at least tell me what you are planning to do?"

"Take advantage of the situation, the troll is dumb which lets me easily manipulate it and lead it around where I desire." Snapping my fingers, Dobby brought someone else who I needed for this task — Whiteley in his cage. Setting the owl loose, he flew around the room before I hid him inside my cloak. "Though they are dumb, trolls are phenomenally powerful, blessed with immense strength due to their size. There is a reason why they are classified as XXXX beasts. Able to harm wizards like, even kill them if not careful."

Draco shook, I saw him staring at me with shock as he was beginning to gain an idea of what I was aiming for.

"Brother… what are you planning on doing?" There was wariness in his voice, possibly dread and confusion mixed in as well.

I stared at him as I continued to walk, contemplating my following words with extreme caution. I trusted Draco with a lot of things, more than anyone else in this world, but dealing with what I was about to do next wasn't exactly easy. The boy was only eleven, not even a teenager…

'This is for his own good, he'll need to mature sooner than later.'

Taking a deep breath, I spoke three following words that nearly made him fall to the floor.

"Beat Professor Quirrell at his own game and ruin his plan. Possibly injure him badly if we're lucky."

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"What!?" He cried out loud, unable to believe what I just said. "Are you joking? Tell me you are!"

I didn't smile nor make a joke, breaking my attention from him and speaking to my owl.

"There is a troll in the castle. I want you to lead us to it." Whiteley flew from my shoulders, circling around the room before flying in a specific direction. "Dobby, before you run away, I need you to give me Snape's location and if he reached the forbidden area."

A sound of a spark entered my ears, showing that the elf had indeed heard my orders and went to check. We passed through a few flights of stairs, having a scene of complete chaos in the walls as the paintings rushed all around to find a safe refuge from danger.

"W-Wait!" Draco tried to keep up, having his hood up to hide his face. "Why are you doing this? What has Quirrell done to get such a reaction from you?"

I could understand his reaction, this was the first time I was actively trying to harm someone and he wasn't used to the idea of hurting someone for real yet. Though I still considered my chances of wounding the man very low, it wouldn't hurt to try and possibly learn his prowess.

"Draco, do you believe me?" I asked, my voice serious with the slightest hint of amusement.

"O-Of course I trust you, we're brothers!" He said confidently, making me smile as I cherished our bond as siblings as well. Trust was the foundation of many aspects of any sort of relationship, and if he didn't trust then I must have failed somewhere.

"Quirrell is not who he says he is, the naïve and cowardly man you see during class is just an act to fool all of you. He's not scared of his shadow, he's not afraid of vampires and most of the things he showed are all lies." I saw his eyes widen, finding it hard to believe what I was saying. "It's the truth, Quirrell is nothing more than a thief here to steal something valuable and extremely powerful from the school."

I wasn't going to mention anything about Voldemort behind his head. Eventually, he would learn about it, but not now.

"A-A thief?" He said, looking at me nodding my head. "But… that shouldn't be possible. How could the school, Dumbledore himself, allow such a person to become our teacher?"

An understandable question, but I would have been disappointed if he had immediately accepted my words without questions. Trust was a good thing, but too much of it was a disadvantage as well.

"A few nights ago, I saw him wandering the halls all by himself. He was acting weirdly, watching every corner for any people and stealthily making his way through the corridors and until the dungeon. Of course, I was curious about his intentions and followed him to see what was going on, and saw him break into a room in the restricted part of the castle and enter a certain room. It wasn't until Snape came around that he rushed out and hid somewhere dark. After further digging for information from the house elves and a few paintings, I learned that the room holds a precious artifact owned by a famous wizard."

"Does father know about this? We can tell him to handle things instead of putting us at ri—"

"—We won't be at any risk." I cut the boy in his speech. "No one will know we were here, not to mention that the man is heading straight for the room as we speak. We won't have enough time to inform our father in time for him to react. Even if we did tell him, there is no proof and Quirrell will have his eyes on us."

"Why should we even care?" He asked. "This matter does not matter to us and our house."

"No, it does affect our house. Having a thief just wander into school and steal such an artifact under our noses will set a bad image of not only Dumbledore but everyone as well. I'm sure you wouldn't want such a fate on us."

Not to mention how dangerous it would be for Voldemort to get his hands on the stone. Some parts of Harry's life have already changed, there was no guarantee that he would succeed in stopping the man. I couldn't take the risk and it was better than just hoping for the best.

He pondered on my words before reluctantly agreeing.

"Fine… I'll help. Though I still don't know why you brought me here."

A grin came to my face, Draco was quite talented with flying on a broomstick and could even play in a quidditch match with ease. The incident with the key always escaping my grasp always annoyed me to no end, I was always so close yet never succeeded in catching it. It was obvious that, unlike the movies, I couldn't do it alone. I trusted Hermione, but I was still hesitant to bring her along.

"The item Quirrell is trying to steal, he won't stop until he gets his hand on it." Now we were deeper into the castle where every single portrait was empty, all of them having escaped. "The school's forbidden area isn't really the ideal place nor is it a secret anymore, if such things will continue to happen, now we have a troll which is still manageable. But what about next time? If the man were to get desperate then there is a possibility that some of the students will get harmed as well."

It didn't take long for my brother to relent, taking a deep breath as he was gathering his wits and pushed away the panic inside of him.

"You want to steal it first." He stated, his steps catching up in speed as we now walked side by side. All traces of hesitation were gone, replaced with determination. "This is a horrible idea, if found out then not only will we be thrown out of Hogwarts but father will be accused of being the real mastermind. I know you will go through this plan regardless, so don't expect me to leave you behind — we stick together no matter what."

Now that was my brother, I was proud of his decision.

"I'm glad you agreed, I promise this won't take long. We only need about ten minutes to get inside and retrieve the item before heading straight to our room. But first, we'll need to stall Quirrell from getting inside." I said.

A few seconds later, I felt the floor below me shake from the heavy steps of a heavy creature.

"Can you smell something?"

Draco sniffed and a foul stench reached his nostrils, a mixture of old socks and the kind of public toilet no one seems to clean.

And then we heard it — a low grunting, and the shuffling footfalls of gigantic feet. Ron pointed — at the end of a passage to the left, something huge was moving toward us. We shrank into the shadows and watched as it emerged into a patch of moonlight.

It was a familiar sight to me.

Twelve feet tall, its skin was a dull, granite gray, its great lumpy body like a boulder with its small bald head perched on top like a coconut. It had short legs thick as tree trunks with flat, horny feet. The smell coming from it was incredibly disgusting — there were even some mushrooms growing on then. It was holding a huge wooden club, which dragged along the floor because its arms were so long.

Draco gulped, sweat coming off of his head from the sight of such a beast.

"How… how are you going to have that bloody thing follow us to Quirrell!?" He asked, being careful to stay quiet from the beast hearing his voice.

"Easy enough, with Whiteley of course." I motioned my head, the owl understood my words and flew around the troll's head. Catching his attention with constant pecking and scratches on its head. The bird managed to dodge every strike of the club with ease, even going so far as to mock it by landing on its skull to groom its feathers.

"Let's move."

Both of us ran across the corridor while I was at the lead remembering the direction of the chamber. I made sure to keep a lookout for Snape or Quirrell, not wanting to encounter any of them at this point.

"Raahh!!" The troll roared in furry, getting increasingly more furious with Whiteley's attacks that it started to mindlessly everything around him.

Crash!

Paintings and pieces of rubble were torn and destroyed by the Orc.

"Run, run, run!" Draco shouted, both of us pushing ourselves to our limit. I was beginning to feel the previous soreness from my earlier outing in the forest.

"There!" In front of us was the area where the door led to Fluffy. And just like I expected, Quirrell was standing in front of it. He was fully cloaked like Draco and me, but I knew it was him. "Up here." Both of us got into a corner of the corridor, hiding ourselves perfectly from sight while also giving me a sight of what was happening outside.

"Raaarh!" The troll roared once again, trying to hit Whitley but failing every time. I made sure for the owl to see me as I gesture at Quirrell, understanding my orders he flew towards the professor and landed on his shoulders.

"What!?" He was shocked, it was clear from his tone that he wasn't expecting such a thing to happen in the first place. Before he could react in time, the Troll swung the wooden club and hit the man square in the chest before sending him flying like a kite. Whiteley had already flown away and made sure to return to safety.

"Come on, let's go!"

We both quickly snuck inside the room Quirrell wanted to enter and quickly closed the door before anyone noticed.

"Is that a—" I put my hand over Draco's mouth as he fearfully pointed at Fluffy in horror, having never seen such an enormous dog before.

This time, the dog slept differently and wasn't blocking the path like before. Fortunately, I didn't have to say much when Dobby began playing the harp and further putting Hagrid's pet to slumber.

"What the…"

Unlike before, I knew what steps to take and didn't hesitate to rush for the trap door. Draco did hesitate to jump but I just pushed him in while following suit myself. The free fall lasted only a few seconds until we landed on the bed of black vines that saved us from splattering on the floor.

"Don't ever do that again!" He shouted, having seen his life flash before his eyes most likely.

"You took too long, wasting a single second would have awoken the dog and that would have put our lives in real danger." I explained calmly. "And we don't have much time to waste, the troll won't keep the man distracted for long. And trust me, facing him head-on without any preparation is far more dangerous than dealing with the Cerberus dog."

Not to mention Snape finding out about us as well. At least now he wouldn't come inside the room and would most likely help Quirrell to take out the troll.

"M-My hands! I can't move!" He finally noticed his limbs getting entangled by the dark tendrils.

"Don't panic, this plant is called the Devil's Snare, follow my instructions and you'll be set free. Take a deep breath and don't move, like this." His eyes widened when he saw me descend below without any issues.

"Wow!"

Impressed, he closed his eyes and waited a few seconds without moving and slowly started to sink further below until he was released onto the floor below.

"Oof!" He landed on his but, his face twisting in pain. "What imbecile thought it was a great idea to make such a ridiculous trap in the first place!? Urgh, it's disgusting, there is no way I'm not burning these clothes after."

I laughed, after helping him up we both rushed to the next trial that I failed to pass. That accursed flying key room which needed more than one person to catch the specific key with every other decoys trying their best to get in our way.

"There are so many keys… I don't think we'll be able to find the right one, brother."

"There," I pointed at one of the keys with a slightly damaged blue wing. It was blending in with the others just like before. "It's the damaged one at the top left. We need to catch it if we want to move forward and spells like Accio won't work I'm afraid. Also, the moment we touch any of these brooms, all of these decoys will start flying toward us like a swarm of bees and even attack us. Ignore them if you can and make sure to corner the real key. Going in from the bottom and pushing it towards the ceiling, I'll swoop in as fast as I can and catch it before it can escape. The faster we complete this trial the less we will suffer, got it?"

Draco looked at the room before sighing.

"This is by far the most ridiculous thing we have done until now and that is saying something. And why do you know all of this? It seems to me that you tried to get the item before… just what is it exactly?"

"You'll know soon, come on grab a broom and let's get started."

He nodded, he went towards the pile of brooms on the floor and went to grab one of them.

"Ready?"

"...yeah, I think so."

"Alright, get ready and move quickly."

Bzzzz!!!

The moment we grabbed our brooms and got on, the keys started swarming us from all angles. Draco was having a hard time ignoring them, waving his hands around to wave them away as best he could. "Go, now!" Gritting his teeth, the boy flew into the air and headed straight for the key. Making sure to not rush and be careful to corner the item instead.

"Argh, I swear I'm going to destroy each and every one of these bloody keys when this is over!" He exclaimed in anger, getting sick of them.

"You're doing great, when I catch the key head to the ground and next to the door. Open it as fast as you can and I'll fly to it. Be sure to close it or else these murder hornets will follow through the other room as well!" I flew closer to the top and slowly approached the key. Most of the attacks were concentrated on Draco so I had an easier time, but that changed as soon as I rushed in and grabbed the darn thing the moment it got cornered. "Got yo—ouch!"

Immediately, I became the main target of these keys and they all started to attack me with increased aggression.

My brother already hurried to the ground before running to the door, while I flew circles just to keep away from these things. "Here, catch!"

I threw it for him to catch it immediately, he unlocked the door quickly and opened it wide for me to pass through. Flying the broom to its limit, I passed the door before he closed it with a loud bang!

"Haa… Haa… Has…"

We both fell to the ground, panting heavily from the relief that flooded our bodies and minds. Thankfully, we wouldn't have to deal with anything remotely similar to what just happened, all that remained was the wizard chess game and the mirror.

"How many more of these chambers have we left?" Draco asked, feeling sore all over his body from the constant attack he just experienced.

"Look for yourself," I pointed at the room we were currently in. He lifted his head to find that were standing on the edge of a huge chessboard, behind the black chessmen, which were all taller than us and carved from what looked like black stone. Facing us, way across the chamber, were the white pieces.

"Chess?"

"Yeah."

"This looks intimidating," he commented. "Thankfully you know how to play chess."

"Mother forced you to learn games like chess back home." Narcissa was quite strict with our upbringing and made sure to have us learn a few games, lessons, and manners. Chess was one of the games we played with her whenever she had the time or when we were bored. Draco never really got into it but he knew his way around.

"Unfortunately… Now, what do we do?" He whispered.

"It's obvious, isn't it? We've got to play our way across the room."

Behind the white pieces I could see another door.

"By becoming chessmen, great."

He walked up to a black knight and put his hand out to touch the knight's horse. At once, the stone sprang to life. The horse pawed the ground and the knight turned his helmeted head to look down at him.

"Do… do we have to join you to get across?" The black knight nodded, a bit creepy in my opinion.

"This should be easy, " I said. "We've got to take the place of three of the black pieces..."

"Which one are you taking?"

"Doesn't really matter, I guess the Queen."

Then I'm taking a rook. There is no way I'm risking the knights, pawns, and the bishops." And so, we both took our position and began the game.

The chessmen seemed to have been listening, because at these words a rook and the Queen turned their backs on the white pieces and walked off the board, leaving two empty squares that we took.

"White always plays first in chess," I waited for the opposing side to start moving, a white pawn had moved forward two squares. A classic Grob's attack G4 move.

I started to direct a black pawn piece to E5, I didn't know if my opponent would be difficult to beat or just an average one.

Draco managed to guess what I was planning on doing." A strong reply, though do you honestly think they're going to fall for such a basic trap?"

"We won't know until we try, if possible I don't want any of our pieces to get taken out, and finish this game as soon as possible."

Their first real shock came when the other side actually sent their pawn to E5, endangering the black pawn but that wasn't important. Did… did they mess up? A blunder?

"We're either very lucky or this is another trap," said Draco, looking very wary. "This leaves their King wide open, I believe it's your move."

Nodding I carefully moved towards F4, this should be a clear win with a direct checkmate and no other possibility of winning from the other side. Though I couldn't help from having fear creep into my heart, if I was wrong then one of these pieces would be able to slice me up and kill me with one move. I began second-guessing, reviewing the board again and again just to see if I hadn't missed something. This couldn't be this easy, but maybe it was.

"Checkmate."

To my surprise, the white king took off his crown and threw it at my feet. We had won. The chessmen parted and bowed, leaving the door ahead clear.

"Well, that was… easy."

"We got lucky," I said, unconvinced that this was the same level of play Ron had to deal with in the movies or even the books. It almost felt like I was handed the victory on a silver platter… like if someone decided to make the game easy for us. I didn't like it, was it Dumbledore who interfered?

No matter, we needed to hurry.

They had reached another door.

"All right?" I whispered.

"Go on."

To our surprise, the room we found ourselves in was empty. With traces of food and rotten animal carcass on the floor. There even was a giant ankle chain that had broken into pieces by now. Something lived here, something big but it was gone by now.

"Do you think… that the troll came from here?" Draco suggested. "Because the stench is bloody familiar."

I couldn't help but agree, but if it were so… then how did it manage to leave the room in the first place? It made me wonder how could they transport such giant creatures in and out of the place. Maybe a secret passage I wasn't aware of…

"Come on, let's keep moving.

I pulled open the next door, both of us on our guard from any other danger, but there was nothing very frightening in there, just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line.

"Potions?" said Draco. "What do we have to do?"

We stepped over the threshold, and immediately a fire sprang up behind us in the doorway. It wasn't ordinary fire either; it was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward.

"Shit, we're trapped."

"Look!" My brother seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. I looked over his shoulder to read the following;

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 bidden 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 at either end,

But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;

Third, as you see clearly, all are different sizes,

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.

"I'm afraid to say it brother, but I have absolutely zero clue on what this is about."

"Looks like a puzzle, though if I had to guess then one of these potions will help us take out the fire."

"Of course," he exclaimed in realization. "But how do we find the correct one?"

I walked to the table, gazing at everything in front of us with squinted eyes. Snape's lessons and teachings resurfaced in my mind as I pondered on our next move. "Everything we need should be on this paper. There are seven bottles with different effects, as stated by the paper only one will make us go through while the others are either wine, a teleportation potion that will send us back, and three potions that are poisons..."

"But how do we know which to drink?"

"Give me a minute."

I read the paper several times, observing the finest details I could find. It didn't help that all of them had the same color and smell, so I couldn't identify them using my senses and knowledge of potion-making. Though one small detail I noticed was differences in size for each potion, why would they go through all the hassle by making each potion look and smell the same while having the glasses in different sizes? I glanced suspiciously at one potion in particular.

"I think I may have found the potion." I said, showing Draco what I picked.

"The smallest bottle?"

"Yes, I believe only a single person is allowed to get to the artifact at the end of the day. If the correct potion lied in one of the bigger bottles then many would have been able to access the last chamber. And if this bottle is something else like wine or even poison, then if one were to drink it then it would reduce the number of traps for good."

"How are you sure this isn't just any mind game?" he said. "That could easily be one of the three poisons which could kill you."

As he said that, I finally remembered a particular mention from Snape's class when I was making the Draught of Peace. I took the one bottle I had saved up and opened it.

"This potion's effect is to make the one who drank it more peaceful and less prone to panic attacks and fright. But it has one ingredient inside which I can use, water stewed with a mandrake. This ingredient aside from its use in potion making has another interesting property, it changes color when in contact with toxic or poisonous substances."

To further prove my point, I poured a single drop from all six other options on the table and added a bit of my Draught of Peace. Right before our eyes, three of the mixes didn't have any reaction and the other three changed color from a dark red to a sickly green.

"See? We have found the poison."

Draco was amazed, "Next time I promise to seriously learn Snape's lessons by heart."

I raised one of my eyebrows before shrugging. "I rather you do that with all of your classes but I'm happy with the outcome nonetheless."

"So you will go by yourself." He stated, looking at me worriedly. "This is dangerous for you, who knows what kind of trial awaits you on the other side. At least let us contact father…"

Putting my hands on his shoulders, I comforted the boy.

"Everything will be alright. You know me, I'll find a way to escape if the challenge is too big or dangerous for me. Now, since we've identified the dangerous potion, you can try the rest for the teleportation potion. I would advise not going back through the way we came as there is likely a crowd of professors prowling the chambers by now."

"I swear this is only something a Gryffindor would do…" he muttered, unpleased by my decision.

"Heh, I don't know about that. We are technically stealing the artifact before Quirrell, I'd say it's quite Slytherin-like. Just promise me you'll immediately head back to our dorm when out of here, don't take any risks and I'll join you soon. Also, make sure Hermione hasn't left the dorm as well, I feel like she has noticed our disappearance."

The moment he nodded, I drank the potions in one gulp and disappeared from the room before appearing inside a dark chamber with a large piece of cloth covering a giant rectangular-shaped object in the middle.

"Finally… it's here."