Chapter 36 — The Pieces We Could Spare

Ron looked from Hermione to the empty places on the board. He told her to stay beyond its edge, where someone would be able to help if we were hurt. She disliked the answer, particularly its last part, and tried moving towards an occupied square. The nearest pawn followed her with its sword until she stepped back.

‘I can stay out,’ Harry offered. Ron shook his head and pointed him towards the bishop’s position.

‘You’re quicker if something goes wrong. Oswald, take the rook. I’ll be the knight.’ He went to the waiting horse before either of us could suggest a better arrangement. I knew enough chess to recognise a bad position once it had been explained; Ron could recognise one before we arrived in it. That seemed a sound reason to follow his instructions.

I stepped onto the rook’s empty square. The stone figures turned towards us as Ron hauled himself into a saddle much too large for him. He shifted until he could sit squarely and gripped the carved mane. Harry asked what would happen if one of us was taken, drawing Ron’s eyes to the white queen’s sword.

‘Let’s make sure we aren’t,’ he said. The first white pawn advanced two squares before anybody found that answer reassuring. We all jumped, then waited while Ron studied the position and ordered one of our pawns forwards.

The reply came almost immediately. Stone struck stone, and a white pawn dragged the broken remains of ours aside to occupy its square. Hermione put a hand over her mouth at the edge of the board. I watched the smashed head roll across the floor and said Ron’s name, unable to finish the question attached to it.

‘I saw,’ he replied. His eyes moved between the pieces, pausing at the three positions occupied by living people. There was no clock forcing him to hurry, and I was grateful for every second he used before ordering the next move.

At first I tried to follow his plan. He appeared to be opening space for Harry while keeping the strongest white pieces away from us. Then a knight moved where I had expected a bishop, and I lost the sequence. When Ron told the rook to move across, I waited for the figure beside me to obey until he added my name.

I walked to the square he indicated. It was difficult not to hurry past the white bishop, whose expressionless face sat above a blade that needed no expression at all. A pawn scraped forwards behind me. I stopped in the centre of my square and kept my hands still while Ron considered the answer.

We gained ground, then lost it. Ron surrendered a bishop and spent long enough on his following move that sweat began running down his face. I offered to be used if he needed another piece, and he answered that he was already using me. When I tried to explain what I meant, he said he understood and ordered a pawn towards the queen instead.

She destroyed it with one blow. Harry flinched across the board, now far enough away that speaking to him meant raising my voice through half the room. I disliked the distance almost as much as the swords. If something went wrong on his square, I would have to cross several others to reach him.

Another exchange cost us the other rook. Its head struck the floor near Hermione’s shoes, making her retreat before she forced herself to stop. Ron barely looked at the wreckage. He was staring at Harry with the concentration I recognised from the common-room chessboard, just before he became certain of a finishing move. This time there was no beginning of a smile.

‘Harry, listen carefully,’ he said. He pointed beyond the white king. ‘After my move, she’ll take me. Then you go there. Oswald stays where he is and covers the way out. You’ll have mate.’

Hermione said no from the edge of the board. Ron kept looking at Harry, as though turning towards her might make it harder to finish the explanation. I studied the pieces between us and asked whether there was another move.

‘Find one,’ Ron said. He waited, giving me time to look rather than dismissing the question. I could suggest a way to keep him safe for another turn. I could not see how it would get the rest of us through, and the silence became my answer.

He nudged the stone horse with his heel. It carried him forwards while he held the mane with both hands. His voice was thin but clear when he announced check. The white queen turned and began moving towards him.

Her weapon smashed through the horse’s raised neck. Stone broke, the body lurched sideways, and Ron fell with it under a shower of fragments. Hermione started onto the board. I shouted for her to wait before she had brought her other foot across the edge, and she stopped with her eyes fixed on the broken horse.

‘The game isn’t over.’ I could see Ron’s sleeve beyond a fragment of stone. It moved once and went still. Every instinct I had urged me across the squares, but the queen was already turning towards Harry. ‘Finish it. Do what he told you.’

Harry looked at Ron, then walked to the chosen square. The white king lowered its head and let its sword fall point-first against the floor. Around us, the other figures lowered their weapons. A door opened at the far end of the room, and I ran before the ringing of the blade had died away.

Ron was breathing. His face had gone grey beneath his freckles, and when I touched his shoulder he tried to sit up. The sound he made stopped all three of us. He managed to say ‘Leg’ before biting back the rest, and I told him not to move it.

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Harry cleared loose fragments while Hermione knelt beside Ron. I held part of the broken horse away from his robes, and between us we freed him without making him stand. A shallow recess lay beyond the board, clear of every place we had seen a piece move. We carried him there, supporting the injured leg, and put a folded robe beneath his head.

His shin was swelling. Looking would not tell me how badly it was damaged, and I had no intention of twisting it about to find out. Ron watched my face, then asked whether his move had worked. Harry gave an unsteady laugh and told him yes.

‘Told you.’ Ron tried to smile, but his next breath caught. Hermione wiped her face with her wrist and said we could not leave him. He insisted that he was awake, which she pointed out was different from being all right.

I crouched where he could see me. ‘We’ll look at the next room. If there’s a way through, one of us comes back for you. If there isn’t, we all come back. You don’t try standing up.’

He caught my sleeve. ‘Don’t let him get it,’ he said, holding on until I squeezed his hand. I wanted to promise him a great deal more than I could deliver. Instead, I stayed while Hermione checked that he could answer without losing his breath, then helped put his wand within reach.

We left Harry’s cloak over his legs. I looked back twice while crossing the room, and on the second occasion Ron lifted a hand. The gesture made it possible to keep walking. It did not make the decision feel any better.

The next chamber smelled worse than Fluffy’s. A troll lay across the floor, larger than the one I had brought down at Halloween, with its club in a corner and a bloody swelling on its head. I stopped the others in the doorway until I saw its chest rise. Somebody had already dealt with it, but breathing meant it might wake.

We edged round the wall without using a spell. I kept watching its fingers while Hermione glanced between it and the room behind us. Quirrell had covered trolls in Defence, she said; if the teachers had each supplied a protection, this might be his. I agreed it was possible and kept moving, unwilling to test whether the unconscious creature had heard us discussing its owner.

Harry reached the next door first. Once we were through and it was closed, the smell stopped with a suddenness I could only attribute to magic. The room contained a table and eight bottles, which looked wonderfully ordinary after the troll. Then purple flames rose across the doorway behind us, and black fire filled the way ahead.

Harry seized my arm. I pulled him away from the nearest flames and looked for anything on the table that might explain the choice of colours. A sheet of instructions lay beside the bottles. I read it once, then again more slowly before handing it to Hermione.

Two bottles would let us pass through the black fire. One would take us back through the purple, two contained nettle wine, and the remaining three were poison. Harry said Snape’s name as Hermione spread the instructions flat. I agreed he was the likely contributor; at least this protection explained what would happen if we chose badly.

There were four clues. Each wine had a poison immediately to its left. The bottles at the two ends held different things, and neither would take us forwards. The largest and smallest contained no poison, while the second from each end held the same substance. I looked along the row, trying to make those statements into something more useful than eight opportunities for a mistake.

The first bottle was a little squat thing, smaller than all the others. The second was the largest, while the seventh had a long, narrow neck and looked nothing like it. Hermione told us not to touch anything. I withdrew my hand and watched her number eight spaces on the back of the sheet.

‘The first takes us back,’ she said. Harry leaned closer as she explained. ‘It’s the smallest, so it isn’t poison. Neither end takes us forwards. It can’t be wine, because there’s nothing on its left to be poison. That leaves the way back.’

She tapped the second space. ‘This isn’t poison either; it’s the largest. It can’t be wine because the first bottle isn’t poison. There’s only one way back, and we’ve found it. This one takes us forwards.’

‘And the seventh holds the same,’ Harry said. He looked between the two bottles, then at Hermione for confirmation. She nodded, but continued checking the remaining positions instead of reaching for either.

The eighth could not be wine with a forward potion on its left. It could not be the way back, because the end bottles were different, and the instructions ruled out going forwards. That made it poison. Hermione filled the remaining four positions with poison and wine in pairs, then checked every clue once more. All eight places fitted.

‘These three,’ she said, indicating the safe routes. ‘Nothing else. Leave the other bottles where they are.’

I let out a breath I had been holding too long. ‘Remind me to complain about your revision timetable less,’ I said. Hermione told me I could begin immediately, still studying the row as though the bottles might rearrange themselves if she looked away.

There was very little liquid in either forward bottle, despite their different sizes. I held one up without uncorking it, judged it at roughly a mouthful and put it down again. Splitting either would mean guessing whether half an answer worked against a wall of fire. I told Hermione to take the way back.

Her relief disappeared. ‘You don’t know what’s through there,’ she said. She looked towards the black flames and then at Harry. ‘Neither of you does.’

‘A teacher, if I’m right. Do you think all three of us could beat him?’ I waited until she shook her head. ‘Ron needs help. You got him out of the plant, you know the route, and you can explain it to McGonagall when you find her. We might keep Quirrell occupied until you get back.’

Harry picked up the other forward bottle. His hands looked steadier than mine, though that gave me no reason to believe he was less afraid. Hermione watched us both before taking the small bottle from the end of the row. She repeated that we were only to keep Quirrell busy; there was nothing we needed to prove.

‘I’ll try to remember,’ I told her. She did not smile, and I stopped trying to make the decision sound easier than it was.

We drank together. The potion was cold enough to hurt my teeth, and I gripped the table while swallowing it. Hermione hesitated in front of the purple fire, then stepped through. Her shape appeared briefly beyond the flames; she lifted a hand towards us before disappearing down the passage to Ron.

Harry placed his empty bottle on the table. ‘Ready?’ he asked, looking at the black doorway.

I checked that the prepared strips in my pouch were dry and within reach. I told him no, which was the most accurate answer I had given for some time. Then we went through the fire together.