In the vast chamber below stood a giant troll. It tilted its tiny head upwards and stared at the fliers in bewilderment.
"Harry, crash into its head!" Richard shouted loudly.
Harry Potter's adventurous streak immediately made itself known. Without a second's hesitation, the boy spiralled downward like a drill, thrusting forward the four flexible metal manipulators locked together. The blow struck the troll squarely in the head, followed by a powerful kick from Harry's legs. There came a sickening crack, and the troll collapsed onto the floor with a tremendous crash. It was quite clearly unconscious.
The boys landed at the far end of the chamber beside the door, which Harry carefully cracked open before peering nervously inside.
"Lads," he said, "I think everything's fine in there. There's a table in the middle with seven bottles of liquid on it."
The boys entered the chamber. The moment they reached the table, a wall of bright violet magical fire suddenly erupted behind them from the floor. At the same time, tongues of black flame sprang up before the door ahead.
"Brilliant!" Richie declared with indescribable sarcasm. "We've been locked in."
"There's some sort of riddle here," Ron said, snatching up an unfurled parchment scroll lying on the table.
"Ron, you'd better keep hold of your owl instead of grabbing random rubbish," Richard admonished him.
"It's not my owl, it's Malfoy's," Weasley replied. "And why shouldn't I touch the parchment?"
"What if it's cursed or poisoned?" Richard said.
"That's actually possible," Potter remarked. "Judging by everything so far, each trap was made by a professor. The first was Professor Sprout's, the second Flitwick's, the third McGonagall's. The troll was Quirrell's surprise. And the bottles…" He narrowed his eyes. "That's definitely Snape's trap. He's exactly the sort who'd poison parchment."
The scroll instantly dropped from Ron's hands onto the floor. The boy jumped away from it as though it were a snake and began nervously wiping his palm against his suit, as if that would somehow remove the poison.
Standing in his massive exosuit, Potter loomed over the parchment.
"There's a riddle here," he announced. "Looks like one potion lets you go forwards, one takes you back, one bottle contains wine, and the rest are poison."
"There!" Weasley exclaimed joyfully. "We'll test the liquids on the owl! I told you it would come in handy!"
Ron had only just managed to peel the tape off the owl's beak — which he did with extraordinary enthusiasm — when Harry approached the fire blocking the doorway and cautiously stretched out a hand protected by the exosuit's fabric.
"No need to poison the bird, Ron," he said. "You can get through in the suit. The fire doesn't burn."
"Well, the exosuit is designed to withstand temperatures of one hundred degrees for prolonged periods," Richie remarked. "So it should survive even higher temperatures for a short while."
"But we only have two suits," Weasley said with mild disappointment.
"No." Grosvenor shook his head. "We have two exosuits and one prototype robotic colonisation armour. Granted, a couple of the tentacles are broken, but that's irrelevant in this case."
"Oh!" Ron brightened immediately. "Then all of us can get through."
Richie pulled out both suits. While he climbed into the robot armour, Weasley struggled to squeeze a furious, screeching owl into the exosuit, pinning the bird against his stomach as it fought every step of the way. Meanwhile, Potter boldly leapt into the flames and slipped through the doorway.
From the other side came his loud voice, amplified through the suit's speakers:
"Everything's perfectly fine, lads. Come through."
Richie and Ron successfully passed through the magical flames without so much as singeing their protective suits.
At the centre of the spacious chamber stood a single object — a huge floor-length mirror.
"Oh!" Potter exclaimed happily. "That's the Mirror of Erised! It shows a wizard's desires."
"How curious, Harry," Richard said, studying the mirror with interest. "And where exactly would you have encountered an artefact like this?"
Young Grosvenor instantly burned with the desire to acquire the mirror. An artefact capable of displaying people's desires would undoubtedly bring unimaginable profits. If something akin to virtual reality headsets could be created based on it, people would willingly pay enormous sums.
…Though perhaps not. Manufacturing virtual reality headsets on such a scale would require the labour of thousands of wizards. But if he could create something like magical servers capable of remotely connecting to users through Protean Charms, that would be truly magnificent.
"Lads, be careful with the mirror!" Richie barked sharply at his friends.
Ron, who had been about to approach it, immediately jumped backwards and turned towards Richard.
"Is it cursed?" he asked warily.
"I don't know," Richie replied. "But I need it, so don't even think about getting near it. In those suits, you could smash it by accident."
"Eh?!"
Ron's face displayed unimaginable astonishment. His lips puckered, his eyes bulged, and he stared at Richard in utter confusion.
Harry looked at Grosvenor with equal incomprehension.
"What do you want the mirror for, Richie?" he asked. "When Dumbledore caught me looking into it, he said it was really dangerous. Sort of because people end up wanting to stare at their dreams over and over again."
"Yes! Yesss, baby!" Richard practically moaned in delight, as though he had just spent the night with a stunning witch. "I realised immediately this thing's addictive, just like games, so don't you dare scratch this beauty! It's going to make me billions. People will throw money at me just to immerse themselves in their fantasies! No money — no honey! Ha-ha-ha!!!"
"Harry… I'm scared of him when he's like this…"
Ron had intended the comment as a whisper to his friend, but since he was wearing the exosuit and his speech was amplified through the speakers, his voice came out unexpectedly loud. Richard, however, did not seem remotely offended by it.
(End of Chapter)
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