"First, the king of the grasslands let out a roar, angry that it had never set foot in a forest. The first question it thought of was: where should it go to find a forest?"
"It figured out the other things, leaving one final question in its mind: what could it do once it reached the forest? Now put them together and tell me—what is something that troubles you and requires effort?"
After hearing the Sphinx's riddle, quite a few spectators, including Ludo Bagman, wore baffled expressions.
Seamus Finnigan looked at the students around him. "The 'king of the grasslands' in the riddle must refer to a lion, right?"
The Gryffindor students all nodded. Their house crest was a lion, so it was easy for them to associate the riddle with the lion on their emblem.
"Could we ask the Sphinx for another hint?" Dean Thomas scratched his head. "Otherwise, it's way too hard to guess... Why does this feel like a fairy tale?"
Ron looked blankly at Hermione. "Hermione, what do you think the answer is?"
"I'm thinking too..." Hermione's brows drew together. "What if this is a riddle story? The lion's predicament... then making a change..."
"Maybe we're supposed to guess some famous wizard? Like Bowman Wright... or Bridget Wenlock?"
"Could it be Carlotta Pinkstone? No, that's not right! What if it's just a word puzzle? Maybe it isn't as complicated as I first thought..."
"Maybe everything else is a trap, and the key is only the phrase 'king of the grasslands'! After all, the entire story revolves around the 'king of the grasslands'..."
Just as Dean Thomas had said, there were quite a few ways to interpret this riddle;
whether one interpreted it literally, through its symbolic meaning, or as a word puzzle, none of those approaches