BOOK 1: PHILOSOPHER. (Mattheo Riddle).

Chapter 31.

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PHILOSOPHER.
Chapter 31.
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  The next room is dark for a moment, and only a few shapes can be made out in the darkness. Tall and statuesque.

  "Now, what?" Mattheo grumbles. They've already had to get past a killer dog, a killer plant, singing toads and a miniature escape room that wanted to squish them.

  Artemis tries to light the tip of her wand, but her magic doesn't work. "I can't cast" Artemis tells the boys. And they both try as well, to no avail. Anti-magic runes litter the walls of the space.

  Lorenzo squints to try and make out what the statues are. "Mate, it almost looks like some sort of graveyard" Lorenzo tells Mattheo. "Like those are massive gravestones or something?" Lorenzo suggests.

  "Why would they have a graveyard in a school?" Artemis asks. It would not be too much of a shock for this school.

  "Bells, after all that we've seen tonight, this is what shocks you?" Mattheo asks the girl. A Slytherin army, a three-headed dog, a killer plant, singing toads, a room that wanted to crush them. Yet, it's a graveyard in a school that Artemis is surprised at?

  "I haven't been shocked by any of it, Riddle" Artemis roars back at Mattheo. "In fact me and Lorenzo have done most the heavy lifting so far" she points out. Lorenzo has help to beat three room, Artemis one, and Mattheo has just been there to give them attitude while they do so.

  "My whole job here is to face off against Voldemort" Mattheo reminds Artemis. "You two have to get me there" Mattheo tells the two of them.

  "A nice way of saying we're expendable?" Lorenzo shouts at Mattheo. "I had to overcome one of my childhood traumas in there, and let's face it me and Artemis have been doing all of the work" Lorenzo tells Mattheo.

  Mattheo swears. "Maybe this is the one challenge that I will be able to best?" Mattheo suggests to them.

  Mattheo takes a few steps forward.

  "How are we supposed to defeat a graveyard?" Lorenzo asks Artemis.

  "Snape got past it somehow, so there must be a way" Artemis tells Lorenzo. "Let's not let him get too far ahead, he's liable to piss something or someone off, and we should be with him for backup" Artemis tells Lorenzo.

  Mattheo steps off of a stone floor and onto what feels like wood. And as Mattheo steps against the board, all of the braziers in the hall flash to life.

  Mattheo is standing right on an empty square of a giant chess board, and Mattheo has assumed the place of one of the pieces. "Urm...Bells?" Mattheo calls back.

  Artemis and Lorenzo go to move to him, but Mattheo holds out his hand to stop them. "Wait, you step on the board and you become one of the pieces" Mattheo warns them.

  The board has two more empty spaces in the white pieces. It must know how many people seek to get past. Adapts itself to suit for any amount of people.

  "Do you know how to play chess?" Lorenzo is very worried now. He knows how barbaric wizard chess can be.

  "Are you kidding? My grandparents don't even like me reading muggle books, they never taught me how to play a muggle-invented game" Artemis tells Lorenzo. "You never learned?" Artemis asks.