Across the vast chessboard, Harry's hoarse, desperate roar rang out. To allow him to promote, the White queen had sacrificed herself, exchanging herself for the enemy's Black queen.
Hermione had been exposed to the enemy's encirclement.
Ron... Ron...
The earth trembled. Tears filled his emerald-green eyes, reflecting the suddenly darkened sky, the howling gale, the flying sand and stones.
Reflecting lightning that writhed across the horizon like silver serpents.
Reflecting Quirrell's steadily growing terror!
Power...
Violent power flooded Harry's body. He felt his perspective rising, rising so high that Quirrell looked like nothing more than... an ant!
Vaughn raised his head and looked at this "world" created through alchemy.
The magical radiance in his eyes was brilliant and mysterious, like a faintly cool morning mist drifting before him, setting off the early sky glimpsed through gaps in the forest—bright, pale blue, tinged with a touch of gold.
Magical radiance was never blindingly intense. Instead, it was like flowing water, trickling in and murmuring away, yet seeping into every crevice.
Just like now.
Below, Harry's body was undergoing changes as he promoted. Gray stone patterns, like some spreading disease, crept up from the soles of his feet and covered his entire body.
Crack, crack...
The chessboard surged toward Harry like melting concrete flowing backward. Amid the grinding and crashing of stone, in no more than an instant, he had been encased in a stone statue roughly eight feet tall.
Tall and elegant, dressed in intricate yet sharply angular garments, crowned, and holding a six-foot stone greatsword.
The queen!
Her promotion, her birth, seemed to draw a response from the entire "world." The earth trembled, dark clouds rolled in, and lightning flashed amid peals of thunder.
These abnormalities were not "special effects" arranged by Dumbledore.
In Vaughn's eyes, he could clearly see