Queen Potter (The Potter Xenomorph Saga: Book 1)

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Quirrell looks at the Devil's Snare, that's just below the trapdoor of the off limits suite, with disgust, "Master, what sort of protection is this? A first year could get past this."

"Approach it carefully, the headmistress is obviously more canny than the old fool, as she's even clearly labelled the room."

Cautiously, they use light to make their way past the plant, searching the walls for any sign of more complicated traps or snares. As they get to the bottom of the chimney, the sound of a large amount of flying objects starts to reach their ears. As they cautiously make their way down the short corridor towards the sound, a wooden sign illuminates in the middle of corridor.

'This room is off limits to all staff and students who do not wish to die a horrible and painful death.'

As they cautiously step past the sign a flash of light illuminates an obstacle course that looks like it came out of a nightmare, with flying blades suspended in mid-air, spikes sticking out of the wall, and impossible jumps through holes that look barely big enough for a man to crawl through. A second flash shows that the blades have moved, and there are some additional swinging blades. When Quirrell tries to cast a spell to illuminate the room, the whole area is blanketed in smoke like darkness leaving him barely able to see the wooden sign that's only a pace behind him. Once he extinguishes his wand, the flashes of light start up again, and over 5 minutes become faster and faster, until they can no longer tell that the light is flashing. The effect of this is that the blades no longer appear to be flying, instead they appear to teleport from place to place, same is true of swinging blades. High, in the upper reaches of the room, a doorway can be seen in the far wall.

"Master, how are we going to reach that doorway?"

"First of all, you're going to try using a broom. After that, we will be seeing what we can do to bypass the obvious route."

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Thwau'tha-Than looks at the door to his suite that has just closed with a grinding noise, and the completely spotless interior with something akin to concern. The concern is mainly because he used his own locking program on the door, and it hasn't been accessed since he went to the meeting with matriarch with the other Arbiters. Stalking across the room, he pulls down one of his weapons and inspects it before throwing it on his bed in frustration. It is perfectly clean and maintained, and ideal for a show piece that only lives on the wall. Even the acid scars he'd left on the blade, as a sign of how it had survived against even hard meats, were gone. As it neatly slices through his bedding, he re-emphasises the fact that it's perfectly maintained.

With a growl, he pulls out his maintenance kit, only to find that the oil rag has also been spotlessly cleaned and repaired. Which is a problem as the it takes a lot of work to get just the right amount of oil into the rag so that it leaves the thinnest possible coating on the blades and trophies. As he reaches around for the weapon, he finds that it has been placed back on the wall, and the gash in his bedding repaired. Mandibles open, he puts the maintenance kit down and inspects the bedding. Turning back to the maintenance kit, his mandibles open as it is no longer on the side where he left it.

"Pauk!" He roars before storming out of the room. A faint pop behind him has Thwau'tha-Than spinning around, only to see nothing in the room.

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Sally-Anne carefully pushes the door to her mothers room at St Mungo's open before padding in and transforming into a human to sit on one of the chairs.

"Hey Mum, how are you feeling?"

Her mother looks at her for a long moment before saying, "Sally-Anne?"