The Philosopher's Stone

They went on ahead, following the corridor down a slope. Apart from their own footsteps, the only sound around them was the slow drip of water trickling down the walls.

"Do you hear that?" Daphne stopped and listened intently. The others fell silent and listened as well. Sure enough, they could vaguely make out a soft rustling sound coming from ahead.

"Let's go. We'll find out once we get there." Skylar pointed ahead, where light shone. At the end of the corridor was a brightly lit room, and the sound was coming from directly above them.

Countless little birds fluttered their wings and flew all over the room beneath the high vaulted ceiling.

"Is this... the second obstacle?" Having learned from the last encounter, Daphne had become much more cautious, afraid of charging headlong into another trap. "What do you think? If we go straight in, will those birds attack us?"

Meredith was more observant. Pointing at the heavy-looking wooden door on the other side, she said, "There's a door across from us. We'll probably have to pass through this room."

"If all those birds rush at us, we can cast the Blasting Curse together and blow them all away. Wouldn't that get us through?" Daphne suggested.

Skylar shook his head. "Daphne, your spellcasting and ability to react in a crisis are both excellent, and you certainly don't lack the courage to face danger. But when it comes to observation and deduction, you should learn more from Meredith—look carefully. Those things overhead aren't birds."

Skylar had no intention of fighting alone in the chaotic times to come.

After observing and spending time with the two girls for an entire term, he felt that both their talent and temperament were quite good. They were people he could trust, so he had begun considering cultivating their abilities and making them his future confidantes. Of course, their pleasing looks were also a factor. Those two hulking idiots, Goyle and Crabbe, would never get the chance to become Skylar's lackeys.

Daphne took a closer look and realized they were a swarm of winged keys. "Damn it, this must be an obstacle set by Professor McGonagall. Did she get the idea from that award-winning paper of yours about magical lamps?"

Skylar merely shook his head without commenting, then asked, "Have you figured it out? How do we get past this obstacle?"

Daphne frowned. "Don't tell me we have to find a key among all these keys."

"Bingo! You got it. We probably need to find the right key to open the door." Skylar spoke calmly. "They obviously aren't just decorations."

"But there are hundreds of keys up there!" Daphne said with a frown.

Meredith had already picked up the Broomsticks, preparing to hand one each to Skylar and Daphne.

All three of them were decent flyers, but compared to Harry or other Quidditch players, they knew that flying was not their strength. Meredith thought they could only grit their teeth and give it a try.

Skylar said leisurely, "Let me teach you another valuable lesson. In real combat, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. You need to learn to make use of your strengths, and to use every tool at your disposal to achieve your goal. Tools aren't limited to wands—potions, herbs, and Fantastic Beasts can all become our tools, along with many things from the Muggle world. A wizard's true strength lies not in magic, but in wisdom. Whenever a problem arises, immediately relying on magic to solve it is a sign of weakness. I've always thought people like that are nothing more than barbarians who happen to know magic. Flexibly using every tool we can obtain, using our brains to solve seemingly unsolvable problems... rather than simply relying on magic or brute force—that is what makes a truly outstanding wizard!"

The two girls seemed to gain some insight from his words, their eyes immediately shining as they looked at Skylar.

Then Skylar took a Muggle Universal Lockpick from his pocket. After a few attempts under the girls' astonished gazes, there was a click, and the lock actually opened. The two girls stiffly watched him grasp the doorknob and smile at them. "The door's open. Let's go in." With that, he pushed the door open.

"H-how did you do that?" Meredith stammered.

Skylar explained, "This is a Muggle Universal Lockpick, specifically used to pry open doorknob locks. An Anti-Alohomora Charm was placed on this lock, so wizarding methods of unlocking it won't work, but—"

At that point, Skylar gave a cold laugh. "Wizards are too arrogant. Even Dumbledore failed to give Muggle methods the attention they deserved, which is why he left behind this loophole. Likewise, I'd wager that any defensive measure in the school, including the locks on any professor's office, could be bypassed with this tool."

The three crossed through the door and entered an empty room. It was pitch-black inside, and they could see nothing at all.

The torches on the surrounding walls suddenly flared to life. It felt like entering a boss battle in a game, and what the light revealed was equally startling.

They stood beside an enormous chessboard. Before them were two rows of black statues, each taller than they were. At the far end of the room, facing them, stood two rows of white statues.

"This can't be... Wizard's Chess, can it?" Daphne muttered. "What do we do now?"

"We may have to enter the board as pieces. We can only proceed to the next obstacle after defeating the other side." Skylar shared his guess, though he was not sure whether he could win while protecting three human pieces.

Daphne and Meredith both frowned. After all, if they truly had to become chess pieces, getting struck by the weapons wielded by those statues would be anything but fun.

After thinking it over, Skylar came up with a plan. He had Daphne take the role of the king and Meredith the queen, since those two pieces were the least likely to be lost, while he took the role of a knight.

"What if we get captured?" Meredith was still full of worry.

"I'll prevent that from happening. If it truly can't be avoided, we'll force our way through with the Blasting Curse." With that, Skylar began moving the pieces.

The opening was nothing unusual: exchanging pieces to clear more space on the board. Skylar found that Professor McGonagall's game was not as sophisticated as he had imagined. The match went even more smoothly than expected.

Once the number of pieces on the board had fallen to a certain point, there was no longer any need to consider exchanges. Skylar began thinking about how to defeat the king as quickly as possible.

After the White Queen viciously knocked another bishop onto the floor and tossed it off the board like trash, Skylar immediately stepped forward and happily checkmated the king. Just as he raised his wand, preparing to blast the White King before him to pieces, the fellow actually removed his crown and threw it at Skylar's feet.

That meant Skylar had won.

Past the wooden door was another corridor, and the group continued onward.

Meredith mused aloud, "The Three-headed Dog was Hagrid's obstacle, so Devil's Snare must have been Professor Sprout's. The magic placed on those keys was definitely Professor Flitwick's work, and then there was Professor McGonagall's Giant Chessboard. Three Heads of House were involved, so... are we very likely to face an obstacle set by Snape next?"

Skylar smiled. "Have you forgotten our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?"

As they spoke, they arrived before another door. The moment it opened, a nauseating stench assaulted their noses, and they almost instinctively pulled up their clothes to cover them. The next moment, they heard chains scraping inside, followed by a deafening roar from the room.

"It's a Troll!" Meredith screamed. Girls generally lost all will to fight when confronted by a Troll that was both hideous and enormous, regardless of their own strength. Daphne handled it slightly better than Meredith. She did not cry out, but her face looked equally unpleasant.

Skylar said blandly, "It's only a Troll. Haven't you forgotten that I defeated one on Halloween?" After Skylar said that, the two girls seemed to come to their senses, and their expressions became less awful.

Skylar continued, "Trolls have brute strength like Giants, and their skin is highly resistant to magic. It isn't practical to try to knock one out with a Stunning Spell, but they have a weakness. Do you know what it is?"

Meredith and Daphne answered in unison, "The back of its head! The back of its head is its weak point."

Skylar snapped his fingers and smiled in satisfaction. "That's right. Once you know its weakness, it's not nearly so frightening. In a moment, I'll use the Impediment Jinx to restrict its movements. You two will use the Levitation Charm to control the club in its hand and give the back of its head a hard blow. Understand?"

The two girls had previously received Skylar's guidance on advanced uses of the Levitation Charm, and they hurriedly nodded.

Once the door was opened, Skylar took the lead and used the Impediment Jinx to hinder and slow the Troll's movements. At the same time, the two girls cast the Levitation Charm on the Troll's club. The coordination they had built over the entire term showed itself then; together, they guided the club behind the Troll's head and delivered a solid blow, successfully knocking it unconscious.

With the job done, the two girls happily hugged and high-fived in celebration. Without realizing it, the small trace of resentment between them had vanished as well.

Next came Professor Snape's logical puzzle obstacle.

Neither girl was particularly skilled at logical reasoning, so Skylar patiently explained the principles behind it and gave them several sample problems from the Muggle world. While they waited, he had them attempt the puzzle with their own abilities. He then drank the potion himself and passed through the black flames alone, arriving at the final obstacle—the room containing the Mirror of Erised.

Skylar was not as ignorant about the Mirror of Erised as Harry had been in the original story.

The Mirror of Erised was the work of an alchemist from the fourteenth century. Unfortunately, the method of creating this alchemical product had long been lost. It was not an isolated case in the alchemy world; many alchemical creations from the same era had likewise lost their manufacturing methods—the Vanishing Cabinet, the Two-Way Mirror, the Resurrection Stone, the Cloak of Invisibility, and so on. This was the result of the wars of that time, compounded by wizards' habit of hoarding their knowledge.

The magic inscribed upon the Mirror of Erised was none other than Legilimency.

It used Legilimency to read the thoughts of whoever looked into it, discover what they desired most deeply, and project that image into the mirror. Dumbledore had tampered with the mirror, allowing it to store valuable items—anyone who wished to obtain the Sorcerer's Stone could see an illusion of themselves holding it in the mirror, but only someone who had no intention of using it could truly retrieve the stone.

But that was not necessarily the case once one understood the principle behind the mirror. After casting Occlumency, Skylar tried to touch the mirror. He found that his reflection was smiling at him. Then the Skylar in the mirror took a red stone from his pocket. Skylar reached into his own pocket and, sure enough, found the legendary Philosopher's Stone.

Having obtained the Sorcerer's Stone, Skylar used Transfiguration to create a fake Sorcerer's Stone that looked exactly the same. Then, using Occlumency, he began experimenting with the Mirror of Erised. After several attempts, he finally found the trick and successfully placed the fake Sorcerer's Stone inside the Mirror of Erised.

Perhaps Dumbledore would be able to see through the fake, but so what?

There were several hundred people in the entire school. It would be difficult for Dumbledore to suspect a first-year student like him. Besides, tonight's operation had been meticulously prepared—he knew that, aside from Filch the caretaker, every portrait in the castle served as Dumbledore's eyes and ears. The three of them had slipped out of their dormitory under the Disillusionment Charm and the Silencing Charm, so none of the portraits in the castle knew they had ever left their dormitory.

The only remaining problem was that Dumbledore might use the Summoning Charm to summon the Sorcerer's Stone away. But that was not without a solution—Hogwarts' anti-Apparition wards had a fatal flaw: Apparition outside the wizarding system could not be prohibited, such as that used by Phoenixes, Zouwus, and House Elves.

Skylar hurriedly had Dobby take the Sorcerer's Stone back to Malfoy Manor and place it in the Chamber of Secrets, where layer upon layer of protective wards, concealment wards, and shielding wards had been set up.

After finishing all this, Skylar hurriedly took Daphne and Meredith back to the Slytherin dormitory under the effects of the Disillusionment Charm and the Silencing Charm.

Speaking of which, Skylar had to be grateful that the entrance to the Slytherin dormitory was a stone wall. As long as one spoke the correct password, an entrance would appear in the wall. It was not like Gryffindor, where the Fat Lady's portrait stood guard—this spared them the risk of anyone discovering that someone had left the dormitory.

[Philosopher's Stone Obtained!]