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imwastingmylifeinhere · 7 years

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Magnus Chase and the Obligatory Hogwarts Au Ch21

(My parents were asleep and the keys were in their room, I had to climb out of the door's window to go post this on the stairs. The things I do for you) The second task is here! Just so you know, when I told my sister what this task was going to be she looked me dead in the eye and told “Wow, Dumbledore must be jealous he didn’t think of that” and “Oh, shit. Please tell me they have cursed at you for what you write”. So, yeah. Also, if you think the chapter with the first task was big you haven’t seen anything. This thing is almost 10.7k words. Yes, it’s big, but I assume you don’t mind that. Anyway, time for the pain. Enjoy!

Dating Alex Fierro was great. Actually, great was an understatement. It was bloody fucking amazing. And no, he wasn’t overreacting. (Okay, maybe a little bit, but cut him some slack.)

Since they got together right before Christmas and everybody left for the holidays, they had all the time in the world to go on as many dates as they wanted and boy, did they take advantage of that. They were out of the house pretty much every day, sometimes doing little more than just walking around holding hands, but Magnus loved it nonetheless.

They’d walk around London hand in hand, bundled up in warm clothes and just enjoy the city and the festive atmosphere. They’d visit some park – whichever they stumbled upon – and play in the snow. They’d make a competition out of building things from snow and Alex always won but then Magnus would through snow at her and they’d start a snowball fight. One time, a little kid asked if he could play too and soon enough every child in the park was divided between the two of them and they were having the most epic snowball war in history.

They’d eat lunch outside and they wouldn’t go back at Perthro until it was time for diner, after which they’d cuddle up on Magnus’s bed and watch a movie (or multiple movies). Making Alex leave his room when it was time to go to sleep was probably the most difficult thing because Alex would just cling on him more, make puppy eyes at him and kiss him to distract him (she was a cuddler and Magnus was like her own personal heater, don’t judge her). It worked and she would win one extra hour before Magnus made her leave. They didn’t need another awkward talk from Blitzen and Hearthstone.

Their teachers and guardians picked up on the fact that they were together fast, probably because Alex would tease Magnus all the time to make him blush and once she succeeded she’d call him cute and kiss him on the cheek.

…Yeah, they weren’t subtle.

And that lack of subtlety lead to them being sat down by Blitzen and Hearthstone so they could be given the Talk. The whole thing ended with Magnus and Alex blushing like mad and knowing where the, um, “safe products” were kept. Needless to say they weren’t eager for a repeat of that conversation.

The same routine went on for the entirety of the holidays and Magnus couldn’t be happier. The message on the parchment and the Task he would have to compete in next were completely forgotten until he stepped foot on the Hogwarts Express.

They were walking to their compartment at the train, hands clasped between them as Magnus talked about that to Alex, letting his boyfriend today know about his worries concerning the Second Task.

“Hey,” Alex said as he squeezed Magnus’s hand to make him look at him. The familiar feeling of Alex’s hand in his helped to calm him down, but he could still feel the worry creeping up his spine like a snake.

“It’s going to be alright,” Alex said. “You’re gonna go out there and mop the floor with Helga’s face and you’re going to be awesome while doing it, I’m sure of it.” Alex leaned forward to kiss Magnus on the lips and Magnus smiled into the kiss.

It was then that the door of the compartment opened and T.J walked out. “I’m going to go find-“ he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Magnus and Alex kissing in front of the compartment and he turned back to their friends. “Found them!”

Magnus was flushing brighter than a light bulb as they walked into their compartment, their friends all looking at them and their joint hands with big smiles on their faces.

“Well, we were gonna have to tell them somehow,” Alex amended, not sounding guilty at all. Magnus would have glared at him if he wasn’t too busy glaring at Mallory who was wiggling her eyebrows at them. “Guys, Magnus and I are dating. This dork is mine!”

“It’s about time!” Mallory yelled.

“If you took any longer we would have tried to set you up,” T.J, who was plopped down next to Mallory, said. “Honestly, we were expecting you to get together by the Yule Ball at the latest.”

“That’s when we got together, actually,” Alex said as he and Magnus sat down next to Sam, who smiled at them and gave them thumbs up. “I call dibs on best woman at the wedding,” she whispered into Magnus’s ear, making the blonde go red and glare at her before he got an idea and whispered to her, “Only if I’m best man at your wedding with Amir.” Sam blushed redder than a tomato and Magnus felt satisfied.

“I knew it!” T.J yelled as he jumped to his feet, fists up in the air in victory. “In knew that’s when you’d get together! Mallory, Sam, pay up!”

“You betted on us?” Magnus asked incredulous.

As Mallory and Sam were digging in their pockets for their money, T.J looked at Magnus over his shoulder with the most confused expression in the world, like Magnus had just asked him if fish can swim. “Well, duh.”

Magnus couldn’t help himself; he burst out laughing. It was there, laughing with his friends in a compartment in the Hogwarts Express like they always did, that Magnus was able to put his worries about the second task aside for now. It was going to be fine, like Alex said. How much worse than the First Task could it be?

///

Magnus could only wish that he was feeling that confident a few weeks later, at the morning of the Second Task. He was already wearing his uniform for the Task, and so was Raphael, who was having breakfast at the Beauxbatons table. Strangely enough, Louis wasn’t by his side today and it surprised Magnus to say the least – those two were practically joined at the hip. He didn’t ponder on it for long, though; Louis could simply have slept in late, or maybe he was in the kitchens stress-baking. Besides, he had his own troubles to worry about – like the fact he kept postponing figuring out the riddle in favor of spending time with Alex.

He just – he forgot about it. He told himself he would work on it during the holidays, but then he and Alex got together and it flew out of his mind. He’d then tell himself it didn’t matter and that he still had time to solve it when school started again but then they got back at Hogwarts and Magnus would put it aside in favor of dates and cuddling and even studying together. So yeah – he forgot. Damn Alex and her nice kisses!

Speaking of Alex, the green-haired troublemaker was nowhere to be seen. Magnus hadn’t seen her since yesterday, when they had spent the afternoon together at the Room of Requirement, just hanging out and working on homework (and kissing) to get Magnus to relax before the Second Task.

��Are you sure you haven’t seen Alex around?” Magnus asked as he played around with the food on his plate.

“I had gone to sleep before she came back to our dorm, but her bed was made this morning so she must have left before we woke up,” Mallory said casually. It wasn’t weird for Alex to come back to their dorm late – she did that a lot when she was working on a drawing and needed to get a change of scenery.

Still, that didn’t reassure Magnus a lot. He heard Sam and Mallory complain about Alex never making her bed hundreds of times – something in him doubted that if she suddenly wanted to draw in the morning she’d take the time make her bed. He wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t even put clothes on because she was too busy drawing!

He didn’t get to ask his friends any more questions because the bell soon sounded and the students run out of the Hall of the Slain excitedly, eager to see what the Second Task had to offer.

“Good luck, Magnus!” Sam called out to him as he was making his way to the back door of the dining hall, like Headmaster Odin had instructed him.

“Kick their asses, Magnus!” Mallory yelled, her cupped hands making a cone in front of her mouth to make sure everyone in a ten kilometers radius will hear her.

“Go show them who’s boss!” T.J cheered, fist pumping in the air. Magnus smiled at them and gave them a thumbs up before walking through the door.

The three Headmasters were waiting for them in the back room. Raphael and Helga were already there and Raphael waved at him with a smile. Magnus returned the silent greeting as they all sat down on a bench so the Headmasters could explain to them what the task would be about.

Or, that’s what Magnus thought they’d do, but instead their explanation was just as cryptic as the riddle from bottle. Apparently the task relied heavily on them not knowing much about what they were going to face. The pre-task speech was more about the importance of fair play than anything else and Magnus soon found himself tuning it out – and from what he could see, Raphael and Helga were doing the same thing.

He started repeating the riddle in his head, trying to see what he could come up with.

In dusty corridors you will find us. That’s the location of the Task, but it told him little more than the fact they would compete in a closed space.

And know our guards will not let us go without a fuss. That, along with the line after the next, what they guard you need to save that for which you care unconditionally, made it clear to Magnus that they would have to take something that someone was guarding, but he wasn’t sure what that something was or what they would need to save with it.

As for the guards themselves, they only had three characteristics to go off of and Magnus really regretted not taking his time to research that part to see what they might be referring to.

The last two lines were the time limit, but what send chills down Magnus’s spine was the last line. Too late – we’re sorry, your treasure is gone. It brought back memories of the night four years ago, the scorching heat of the flames as the home he had spent his whole life in burned down around him, his mother trapped under the remains of their ceiling.

“Alright, let’s get going,” Headmaster Sonia said as she gestured at the door leading back to the dining hall. The three Champions got up from their bench and stood behind the Headmasters, their expressions deadly serious. They all knew what they were about to take part in wasn’t going to be a walk through the park.

The moment the door opened and Magnus stepped back into the Hall of the Slain he was greeted by the cacophony of voices from the stands. The hall had been cleared from tables, looking like it did when Magnus and the other Hufflepuffs decorated it for the Halloween party. The stands were the audience was sitting were mounted on the walls, like balconies in a theater. Magnus noticed his friends on one of the balconies, their eyes locked on him. His stomach dropped when he saw that Alex wasn’t there and he realized why when he looked at the middle of the hall.

There, in the middle of the room were three long tables arranged in a triangle, each with its own cauldron and items needed to brew a potion. In front of the tables was what made Magnus’s blood run cold in his veins – Alex’s body was lying motionless like a corpse on a table, her eyes closed and her cheeks devoid of color. She looked like a dead body waiting to be dressed before a funeral and Magnus hated thinking of her like that.

“A-Alex!” Magnus found himself crying out as he ran forward to where Alex was lying. He grabbed her hand immediately and he gasped at how cold her skin was. His fingers fumbled as her tried to take her pulse and he almost dropped her hand once in his hurry. His eyes burned with unshed tears and he felt his heart stop beating when he wasn’t able to feel a pulse.

“No no no no no…” He kept chanting his mantra without realizing as he moved his hands, hoping with everything he had that he had made a mistake, that Alex wasn’t – that she wasn’t-

She’s not dead. She’s not dead. She can’t be dead. Merlin almighty, please let her not be dead.

But he felt nothing, nothing but cold waxy skin –

Thump thump thump.

Magnus let out the breath his was holding when he felt Alex’s pulse underneath his fingertips. He smiled relieved, but the smile soon fell from his face when he realized how slow and faint it was.

“Louis! Louis! Mon cher, s’il te plait, reveille toi!” Raphael was by Louis’s side, holding the blonde’s face in his hands and whispering French at him. Yet as much as he talked and cried out, Louis remained unmoving.

“Agatha!” Helga was standing by Agatha’s body, her knees trembling visibly, her palms covering her mouth as if they would stop her crying from coming out. Her knees seemed to give out and she rushed forward, taking Agatha into her arms. She held her friend in her arms as she mumbled rapidly in Swedish – “Fan, snälla vakna, jag ber dig, vakna”. She cupped Agatha’s face gently before moving her hand downwards to her slender neck and feeling for her pulse.

“Champions!” Headmaster Gilbert called out. “Please step aside from your friends!”

“What’s going on?” Raphael was looking at the Headmasters but he didn’t stop cradling Louis’s head in his hands. Agatha was still in Helga’s arms and Magnus was holding Alex’s hand in both of his own.

“We will explain shortly, but please step aside for now.” As much as they didn’t want to, the three Champions stepped away from their significant others and friend like they were told to, if only just barely.

“Students of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, my dear guests, it’s time for the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament!” Headmaster Odin’s cheery tone felt very out of place as Magnus held onto Alex’s cold hand. “As you know, each Champion got a bottle with a piece of parchment inside at the end of the last task. On that parchment was a clue about today’s task.”

Headmaster Sonia went on to recite the poem from the parchment as Magnus let his eyes wander back down to Alex’s body. She looked so calm. One could have assumed she was just sleeping if it wasn’t for her being a bit to still, her breathing a bit too slow, her skin a bit too cold. It was so easy for his mind to replace their surroundings with crumbling walls and scorching flames.

“On each table is parchment,” Headmaster Gilbert went on. “On the parchment is a lead to the first of three special ingredients necessary to heal their friends. Each one of them has been given a slow-acting poison. It will take two more hours for it to take full effect. In that time they must get all three ingredients and brew the antidote according to the instructions they will find on their table. The-“

“You what?” A loud, furious voice interrupted the Beauxbatons’s Headmaster. Helga had put Agatha back down on the table carefully and was now walking to the Headmasters like a soldier on a mission. Her shoulders were held back, her brows were furrowed and her eyes seemed to have fire burning inside them – she looked like she was willing to bring down a building to get what she wanted.

“You mean to tell me you poisoned three students, you poisoned Agatha, all for your stupid Tournament?” Venom dripped from her every word and she was glaring at the Headmasters so hard it was a wonder they hadn’t dropped dead on the spot. For the first time since he met her, Magnus found himself agreeing with Helga.

“Miss Leifsson, please calm down,” Headmaster Odin said as he put a hand on Helga’s shoulder. She whipped around to him and threw his hand off her like she wanted to break it.

“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down! I knew this Tournament was dangerous and I was prepared for that when I put my name in the Goblet, but you have no right to put Agatha in danger like this!”

“Miss Leifsson.” The stern voice of Headmaster Sonia made Helga turn around. “I suggest you leave your complains about the Tournament for later.” Helga opened her mouth to talk but her Headmaster cut her off. “If we have this discussion now it will cause your friend valuable time.”

That seemed to finally calm Helga down, or at least enough so that she looked like she was only thinking about murdering the teachers in front of her instead of being on the brink of doing it. “Alright,” she said with a tight voice and moved back to her table.

“I believe we are now ready to start,” Headmaster Odin said. “Like last time, the floating cameras will be showing the Champions’ progress to the audience. Champions, please take the parchment in your hands.”

Magnus didn’t want to let go of Alex’s hand. He knew what happened to his mother when he let her go that night in the fire; he didn’t want the same to happen again.

It won’t, he told himself with all the confidence he could master. You’ll save her. You’ll get those goddamn ingredients and make the antidote. You can do something this time.

He took the parchment in his hands.

“Get ready.”

He closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. He could swear the air around him was getting warmer, like he was standing inside an over. He could hear the crackling of flame in his ears.

“Set.”

Focus. You have this. You can do it. Alex won’t burn.

“Go!”

Magnus untied the thin string that was holding the parchment together and opened it. One of the floating cameras was flying over his shoulder, showing the message of the parchment on the screen.

“My guardian’s bite is worse than its growl you’ll find me in the room of souls. They have tales to tell but they have no voice; they have scenes to show but they have no sight.”

Magnus’s first thought was that the ‘room of souls’ referred to ghosts, but then the last two lines made no sense – Magnus knew plenty of ghosts in Hogwarts and not one of them was close to having no voice. He couldn’t think of any ghosts that were blind either, so that ruled ghosts out.

Paintings were ruled out in much the same way. He raked his brain to figure out what it was the riddle was referring to. The ‘room of souls’ wasn’t much help, so he focused on the last lines. Stories told with no voice, scenes shown with no sight… No sound, no pictures…

Magnus’s eyes widened as he realized were he needed to go. He scrunched the parchment in his hand, not bothering to fold it, and run out of the Hall of the Slain as fast as he could with the bag he found on the table hanging from his shoulder.

“Magnus Chase is leaving the dining hall, ladies and gentlemen! It seems like he has figured out the riddle!” Professor Thor was the announcer once more and hearing his cheery voice made Magnus’s pulse pick up with rage. You’re commenting on a competition with people’s lives in the line! You shouldn’t sound happy!

Magnus was running down the corridor, his steps almost as loud as the beating of his heart. There was a bad, sour taste in his mouth at the thought of what would happen if he took one wrong step, if he was a minute late, but he pushed it down. Don’t think about it. Focus on the task.

He saw the floating cameras flying by his side but he paid it no mind, letting his legs follow the path he had taken so many times in his seven years at Hogwarts. Yet the familiar halls felt strange and cold now without the students milling about. The knowledge that Alex’s life was in the line made the once well known castle feel unwelcome.

He turned the corner and run into the Hogwarts library. The bookcases were pushed to the side, making a wide corridor was created down the middle to the windows. Magnus realized what the room of souls must have meant; this was a room full of books, works that their authors had poured blood, sweat and tears into. He had heard people saying that a book held a little bit of the author’s soul in it (the librarian in his old neighborhood would say that), but that was still a very dramatic way to describe a library.

Magnus recognized the window where his favorite table was, the place he had studied at so many times and exchanged gifts with his friends at Christmas.

Sitting in front of that very window was a large beast. Its body was that of a lion, its golden fur glistening in the light coming in from the windows. But instead of a lion’s head it had a human one, its long hair looking like a mane. It’s face looked human enough, but the closer Magnus got the more details he was able to make out. Its eyes were yellow and its pupils silted, its nose resembled a snout and sharp teeth picked out from its lips.

Magnus knew what it was very well. A Sphinx.

Behind it, inside a glass box, was a vial of purple liquid.

“Ah, so you are the first Champion that has come to try and solve my riddles.” The beast’s voice was low and it reminded Magnus of a lion’s growl. He recalled the line in the riddle and his stomach dropped when he remembered what a Sphinx does to anyone who can’t answer its riddles.

“I have to admit, you’re shorter than I expected,” the Sphinx went on. “But then again, a man’s intelligence is not measured by his physical might. I should know, I’ve eaten many a strongmen with not a drop of knowledge in their heads.” The Sphinx shrugged, Magnus never though he would have seen a lion (or someone with a lion’s body) shrug. “They were tasty snacks.”

“What’s your riddle?” Magnus asked as confidently as he could. Yet as much as he tried to make his voice sound even he knew it trembled a bit at the end, that his hands were sweating way too much where they were clenched by his sides.

The Sphinx frowned at Magnus before sighing deeply. “Now, don’t be so serious. Let’s have some fun, shall we?”

Magnus would have protested that he has no time to have fun with a beast that could easily kill him when his girlfriend’s life was in danger but the words stuck in his throat when the Sphinx started getting up. It stood up on its hind legs, easily two heads taller than the bookcases. Magnus pictured really clearly how easy it would be for the beast to pick him up by his head and eat him like a piece of falafel.

The Sphinx gave a sharp jab at the wall with its elbow. The curtains by the windows fell closed, plunging the room in shadow. Then, as Magnus was looking around alarmed, a spotlight fell on the Sphinx, making its hair glow under the light. It pulled a bowtie and a top hat from somewhere inside its mane and looked at Magnus with a smirk on its lips.

“It’s time for everyone’s favorite game, ‘Riddles and Disembowelment’!”

Magnus was left speechless as a two shining blue podiums rolled in, not unlike those in game-shows. The one that stopped in front of the Sphinx had a shining name plate on it that read “Alfred the Sphinx”. The one that must be for Magnus had a name plate reading “Fool #1”.

“Please, take your place!” The Sphinx – Alfred – said, gesturing to Magnus’s podium with a paw. Magnus went there quietly, still very confused about what he was seeing. Did someone slip something into his food this morning?

“The rules of the game are simple,” Alfred started, wearing that stupid game-show host smile on his lips. “I tell you three riddles and you have as much time as you want to answer them. If you answer at least two correctly, you can get your reward.” He gestured at the glass case. “If you don’t get at least two correct, well, that’s better for me, I suppose!” Magnus saw Alfred’s paw press down slightly and a recorded laugh track rang out in the library. Magnus wondered if the laugh track would play while Alfred ate him, but he decided not to think too much about that.

“So, should we start?” Alfred asked with a wide smile that showed all of his sharp teeth. Well, that just helps my confidence.

Despite the fear coursing through him at the sight of those teeth, Magnus nodded. “Yes.”

Alfred seemed delighted by his answer and he smiled even wider. “Alright! First riddle!” The Sphinx took of his top hat and made a big show of searching inside it, moving his paw inside it a lot and making faces, as if he was consecrating very hard on this. Finally, he pulled his paw out with a loud “Aha!” It was a bizarre enough sight as it was but what made it weirder was the dramatic music playing in the background.

“How do you build a house whose every wall faces the south?” Alfred said the question the same way every game-show host did; in a stern, deadly serious voice, with pauses between words for extra dramatic effect.

Magnus repeated the riddle in his head, trying to figure it out. It was weird how he felt confident he’ll be able to solve the riddles easily a moment ago yet the second it was asked his mind went blank.

He tried to see if it would be possible for a house like that to be build in any normal neighborhood, but that was quickly scrapped. Even if two walls faced the south at an angle, the other two would face the north. Then he thought of building it in the South Pole and he almost opened his mouth to answer. Alfred raised an eyebrow at him but Magnus shut his mouth as he realized that if the house was in the most southern point in the earth all its walls would face north.

So, then…

“You build it in the north pole,” he said. “This way, everything else will be south from it.”

Magnus couldn’t deny that his heart was beating louder in anticipation as Alfred’s remained serious, giving him no clue as to whether he was correct or not. The dramatic music rose steadily in tempo and after a good minute of looking straight into the contestant’s eyes, like any good game-show host should, Alfred spoke.

“And that was…” A wide grin spread across the Sphinx’s face. “Correct!”

A recorded applause started playing when Alfred slapped the podium in excitement over Magnus’s correct answer.

“Let’s move on to the next riddle then! You have a room with a single light-bulb inside and three switches outside the room. The door of the room is closed, you can only open it and go inside once and you can’t leave it open. How do you figure out which is the correct switch?”

Magnus scrunched his eyebrows and ducked down his head, drawing designs in the slick surface of the podium so he wouldn’t get confused. His first thought was that you just open and close the switches with the door open, but the Alfred said he couldn’t leave it open.

How do you know if the light is on in a room with a closed door?

Memories came back to Magnus suddenly, his young self clutching his goat plushy as he looked up and down the hall for his mother after a nightmare. He’d see the light spilling out from the crack under his mother’s bedroom and he’d run to her, tears almost falling from his eyes.

“You turn on and off each switch and look under the crack in the door to see if any light is coming through.”

Once more, Magnus didn’t know immediately if what he said was correct because of that goddamn dramatic music. Who made that music, anyway? Because it was getting annoying. There was even a part that sounded like someone had told a five year old to count to five and then press the same stupid piano note.

“That was….” More of that blasted drum roll. “Wrong! Oh, too bad!”

Booing sounded out in the library and Magnus was considering taking whatever sound box this Sphinx had and making him eat it. I don’t have time for this! I need to get to Alex!

“The correct answer is this,” the Sphinx started. “You turn on the first switch and leave it on for a few minutes. After you turn it off, you turn on the second one and open the door. If the light is one the correct switch is the second. If the light is off and the light-bulb is hot it’s the first switch and if it’s cold it’s the third one.”

Magnus felt like hitting his head on something for not thinking of that. (Or maybe he could hit Alfred’s head on something.)

“Aww, don’t be like that! You still have one last riddle!” Alfred’s over-exaggerated sympathy wasn’t really helping him much – Magnus was still annoyed at him. Why are all show hosts like this?

“Of course,” the Sphinx continued, “it’ll be the most difficult one, but people love an underdog, right?” More of that blasted applause track.

“If I don’t answer it correctly you’ll eat me, right?” Magnus wasn’t sure why he asked. Maybe he wanted to make sure that if he died today at least Alfred would make his corpse into a healthy meal.

“Eat you?” Alfred started laughing, his laughter just as exaggerated as everything else he did. “Oh, please, do you know how unhealthy humans are? If I ate you not only would I be in trouble with the Ministry and have to pay a heavy fine but I’d get indigestion for two weeks! Nah, I’ll just have a limb. Probably from the knee below too, to be honest. I prefer females. They have juicier meat.”

Magnus took that in quietly. There was something very bizarre about a giant cat with a human face speaking about you like meat at the butcher’s.

“Anyway, enough with my dietary habits, time for the last riddle!” The music’s tempo picked as did Magnus’s heartbeat. He had to get this one right. If he didn’t get this one right Alex would be a goner and he’d be a limb shorter.

“You have ten sacks of gold coins. Each sack was a hundred coins at the most. Each coin weights 10 grams but one sack has fake coins that weight 9 grams. You can weigh the coins, but only once and you’re not allowed to take or add anything to what you weigh. How do you know which sack has the fake coins?”

Magnus’s eyes widened as he heard the riddle and he gulped. Oh great, he’s back at math class. “Can I have a piece of paper and a pencil?” he asked.

“Oh, of course.” The Sphinx handed him what he asked for and he got to work.

First, he tried to calculate how much each sack would weigh. But the riddle never specified how many coins were in each sack; it just said it they had a hundred coins max. So then what about calculating how much ten coins from each bag would weight? That’s 100 coins that weigh 1000 grams. If one sack has face coins then ten of those coins would weigh 90 grams and the total weigh would be 990 grams instead of 1000. But then that doesn’t tell you which sack has the fakes. So then…

Magnus did a few quick calculations before allowing himself to grin. Yes, this must be it!

“Do you have the answer?” Alfred asked. The music was low and ominous.

“Yes.” Magnus’s heart was beating louder than the music and something in him told him to stop and reconsider, but he had two more ingredients to find and he couldn’t afford staying here any longer. “You weigh one coin from sack number one, two from the second, three from the third and so on. That should give you a total weight of 550 grams for 55 coins if all coins were real, but one sack has fakes, so it’ll be less than that. You know what sack has the fakes because of how many grams are missing. If the final weight is, for example, 547 grams you’re missing three grams, so the one with the fakes is the third sack.”

Magnus let out a breath when he finished his answer. The music had become white noise and he no longer paid attention to it. Alfred’s expression was truly surprised, his silted eyes wide and his mouth hanging wide.

“I… wow. That’s the one most people get wrong,” he said quietly and Magnus was so surprised by the fact his reaction wasn’t over-the-top that it almost didn’t register in him. “Well, guess I’m not having you as a snack today! You won!”

“Magnus Chase has done it! The Hogwarts Champion has managed to get the first ingredient!” Magnus could hear Professor Thor making announcements from somewhere as ‘We are the Champions’ started playing in the library.

Confetti burst out from somewhere behind the bookcases and Alfred handed Magnus the glass box and the key that opened it. Magnus snatched the key out of the Sphinx’s paw faster than he thought he could and opened the box, putting the vial inside his back. Under the vial was a slip of parchment.

He run out of the library with a hasty bye (he knew creatures like Sphinxes valued manners) and read the message on the parchment.

“Come find me quick ‘cause I’m afraid of heights. To my guardian, manners hold lots of weight. My guardian wants to take to the sky but he’s stuck underground. At least there’s a lot of space around.”

Magnus didn’t think much about and immediately started running for the dungeons. The guardian is stuck underground, so that’s obviously in the dungeons. Afraid of heights and a lot of space around… Magnus was finally glad for all the time he had spent wandering around the castle with Alex and Annabeth and Percy. He knew just were the second ingredient must be.

His steps sounded louder and louder the deeper he went into the dungeons, the sound echoing of the walls. The air was much more humid here, he could practically taste the moistness in the air. He run past the classrooms, past the corridor he knew lead to the Slytherin common room, past the locked storage rooms.

Finally, he found the room he was searching for. Magnus and Alex had found it back in fourth year, when he was showing Alex around the castle and she wanted to explore the dungeons. They found this room, circular and tall, taller than the dining hall, and they nicknamed it “Echo Room” because it their voices echoed really loudly there. They spent a little more than half an hour here, yelling stupid things at the top of their voices. Magnus really wished he was there again to hear Alex yell “I WANT A DIVORCE” and “MOTHERFUCKING GOLD SHITTING DUCKS” instead of trying to get ingredients for the antidote to the poison she was given.

The room was used for storage, like most unused rooms in the dungeons, and it was one of those rooms that was completely forgotten. Everything inside it – old broken desks, filling cabinets, chairs, bookcases of yellow-paged books – were covered by a thick blanket of dust. Alex had joked that sneezing inside here would create a dust-storm.

And in the middle of the room, inside an object-free clearing, stood a Hippogriff. The feathers on its head were snow-white and they changed to brown at its neck. Its horse hind legs matched the color of its brown feathers perfectly. Its black tail and its wings twitched irritably, its large talons scratched at the ground. Magnus knew it really didn’t want to be down here, trapped under the weight of the whole castle, and its annoyance meant trouble for Magnus.

One wrong step and I’ll get my eyes clawed out.

He took slow steps around the room, making sure to stick to the unused objects lining the walls. He knew the winged beast wouldn’t attack him if he kept his distance and that’s what he did as he looked around for where the next potion ingredient was. Yet as much as he looked, opening cabinets and searching the top of bookcases, he couldn’t find it. He had circled the whole room and found nothing.

Afraid of heights, afraid of heights…

An idea came to him like a flash and he looked upwards. There, stuck to the ceiling, was a glass box with a bunch of some sort of weeds inside that Magnus couldn’t recognize from the ground.

Magnus gulped as he realized what he had to do and he steadied himself before taking the first step. He waited until the Hippogriff had turned to him and he locked eyes with the large beast. He remembered what he had learned at Care of Magical Creatures and he didn’t break eye contact with the winged beast.

Fortunately, the Hippogriff didn’t lunge at him. It recognized Magnus etiquette, that the human in front of it respected it and showed back the appropriate politeness. Magnus walked forward excruciatingly slow, careful not to make any sudden movements. When he was bet a few steps away from the Hippogriff, he bowed.

He stayed there – bowed over, the dusty floor the only thing he could see – for what seemed like a century. Every second felt like an hour, every beat of his heart like a week. All he could think was Alex on that table, cold and motionless, getting closer and closer to what he hated to think about with every moment he spent here. He wanted to get this over with, he wanted the Hippogriff to just bow back already so he could get the ingredient and save Alex.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the Hippogriff bowed down and Magnus saw its feathered head touch the ground. He waited until it stood up again and followed suit. He gently placed his hands at the side of the beast’s head and looked into its orange eyes. He knew attempting to ride a Hippogriff the first time he met it could be trouble but it was the only idea he had that didn’t result in him having one less eye.

“Please, may I ride on your back?” He asked slowly. He looked into the Hippogriffs eyes, trying to convey all the things he needed to tell it and couldn’t find the words for. “Please, it’s urgent. Alex… she…”

Thankfully, the Hippogriff seemed to understand the desperation in his eyes and made a crooning sound in the back of its throat. It bowed down its head again along with its legs, his body now low enough for Magnus to climb on.

Once on the beast’s back, Magnus wrapped his arms around the Hippogriff’s neck. “Up there,” he said, pointing to the ceiling. The Hippogriff seemed to understand because it made a high-pitched noise before jumping up in the air, its wings unfolding at each side of its body.

Magnus screamed despite himself; the sudden take off startling him and making him almost slipping off the Hippogriff. He managed to hold on, his hands clutching at the beast’s feathers. The Hippogriff flew in circles around the room, relishing in the feeling of finally using its wings. It didn’t indulge in it for too long though – it knew that the little human ridding on its back needed its help and it could cost such a polite human his mate.

Finally, the Hippogriff reached the highest point it could each inside the enclosed space. Magnus carefully stood up on the beast’s back, feeling the Hippogriff’s muscles move under his feet as it beat its wings. He reach up and screamed when he felt himself wobble, but he quickly spread his arms out to steady himself.

He tried again, his fingers brushing the cool glass. He found that this box didn’t have a lock and key like Alfred’s, but getting to the box was more challenge than finding a key. Opening the glass box, he reached his hand inside and took the small bunch off weeds along with the small parchment under it.

“Alright, I got it,” he said as he petted the back of the Hippogriff’s head. The Hippogriff responded with a happy cry and flew to the ground.

“And Magnus Chase has taken the second ingredient! He only needs one more before he can make the potion and save his treasure! The time that remains is an hour and five minutes!”

One more ingredient. One more and I can save Alex.

He turned back to the Hippogriff and bowed. “Thank you,” he said and then left the room. His feet carried him through the familiar halls without him thinking much about it. He unfolded the parchment as he turned a corner and he read the message written on it with dark ink.

“Come find me where the present, past and future are seen but know my guardian will show you things you won’t want to see. Be prepared, Champion, be brave; Fears cannot be easily tamed.”

Magnus cursed inwardly. The Divination classroom was at the other side of the castle – walking, it would take him twenty to twenty five minutes to get there from the dungeons. Taking that long was out of the question so he started running.

His feet hitting the stone floor sounded like the ticking of a clock, each step bringing him closer to the two-hour time limit. He run through the halls as fast as he could, his legs and lungs soon burning but he didn’t slow down. He would have enough time to collapse on the ground and pant after he saved Alex; right now he had not time to spare.

He pasted the empty classrooms, pasted the vacant corridors, the portraits on the walls looking at him with curiosity as he run by. His blood run through his veins so hard he could hear it in his ears and his heartbeat seemed to drown out all other sounds. He crossed paths with Raphael at one point, but they didn’t acknowledge each other past a quick glance – they both had something much more important to do now.

He reached the stairs that lead up the tower to the Divination classroom and climbed them two at a time. His legs were yelling at him to stop but he didn’t, not until he reached the top of the stairs. He let himself take a deep breath before sprinting to classroom. He had never taken this class, but Mallory and T.J had and he often came with them up here when he didn’t have a class and wanted to walk around. Even despite all the times he had come up here, he had never been inside the class.

The room was more like an attic than anything else; you had to open a trapdoor and pull down a folding ladder to get to it. Inside, the roof made a tall cone above his head. Tapestries decorated the walls and drapes were hung across the ceiling, making the room feel like the inside of a dark circus tent. The desks – meaning the low tables and cushions the students sat on – were pushed to the walls, leaving space in the middle of the room. Opposite Magnus, next to wooden chest, was a small table with the only source of light in the room on it, one lit candle on either side of the glass box. Inside it was a much smaller wooden box with a metal clasp at the front.

Magnus took a moment to look around, baffled by the absence of a guard. This was the last and final ingredient, he expected this to be the most difficult part and yet no one was around. Something in him didn’t like this, it seemed too easy, felt too much like a trap. Still, he found himself stepping forward, his hand reaching out for the box in front of him. Whatever this trap might be, he would face it and win. For Alex.

He had hardly taken two steps towards the glass box when a gust of wind blew out the candles. At the same there was a loud bang and the trapdoor behind him shut closed. What little light there was in the room disappeared and Magnus blinked to try and get used to the sudden darkness. He looked around him frantically, searching for the source of the wind and this ingredient’s guardian, but he could see nothing in the dark. He run to the trapdoor and pulled on the handle. Locked. Of course.

“Lumos,” he said, but nothing happened. What? “Lumos,” he tried again and again nothing. Fear spread through him and he felt his blood run cold as he realized what was happening.

Magic nullification. They’ve made it so no magic can be cast inside the room.

Cold sweat run down his skin as he darted to the walls. Being without his magic, something that was a part of him for so long, made him feel vulnerable, naked. He pulled the tapestry covering the stone wall away roughly, the thick fabric falling to the ground. Hidden behind it was a rune Magnus knew was used to bind magic. Similar runes were no doubt behind every tapestry in the room. Magnus wouldn’t be able to cast magic without exiting the room and there was no way to do that with the locked trapdoor behind him.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the darkness disappeared, replaced by a bright, scorching heat. Magnus shut his eyes tight to shield them from the sudden light and brought his arms up to his face. He blinked until his eyes got used to the new light and looked around him.

The Divination classroom had disappeared, replaced on all sides by flames. They licked the walls that seemed to crumble under their heat, stained black by soot. The ceiling was in the same state, the now flat plaster cracking from the high temperature and falling to the ground. The flames seemed to be drawn to him, the fire forming shapes like wolves that pounced at him and tried to bite at his legs.

But worse of all, there, in front of the chest and the little table, under a broken bean and a large part of the ceiling, was his mother. It was like not a single day had passed since that night and he was back at his living room as it burned down around him. His mother was trying to get out from under the broken ceiling, but the plaster wouldn’t budge no matter how much she struggled. There were tears in her eyes and down her cheeks, her face the definition of panic.

“Magnus!” She cried out. Magnus felt tears sting his eyes at the sound of his mother’s voice, the fright, the helplessness in it. “Magnus! Help!”

Magnus was frozen on the spot. He’d seen this scene play out again and again in his nightmares after the fire - he still did sometimes - but to be back here, back at his burning house, to see his childhood go down in flames around him, realer than any dream, was almost too much. Something in him screamed at him to rush forward, to save his mother now that he had a second chance, but he held himself back, as horrible as it was.

This wasn’t his mother. She wasn’t here, in this burning room in Hogwarts. She was buried in a London cemetery with wild geraniums on her grave.

Still, despite knowing this wasn’t real, it hurt. It hurt watching his mother die all over again in front of him. Tears welled up in his eyes and run down his face as the flames licked at her trapped body and she wailed in pain.

Then the fire flickered and suddenly his mother wasn’t there anymore. Alex was in her place, the tears in her two-colored eyes shining in the light of the flames. Her hair smoked at the ends and soot covered her face. “Magnus!” She cried out, her voice breaking at the end as she started coughing hard from the smoke. She reached out for him desperately, the tears rolling down her face in fat drops that were burned away by the heat. “Where are you?”

Magnus darted forward to get to her, his arm already outstretched to pull her out from under the rumble. “Alex!” He called out, his voice sounding like it was ripped out from his throat.

He had only taken a step when Alex disappeared, consumed by the flames. Sam was in her place now, coughing frantically as smoke filled her lungs. Her hijab was charred by the fire, flames burning away the fabric whose color couldn’t be made out anymore. She pushed her body up, trying to get the heavy bean and debris off of her. She was doing good but then she coughed again and slumped down on the floor, crying out from the weight that fell on her. “Help!”

Magnus’s step faltered for only a second and then he was running to the other side of the room. With every step the person under the rumble changed, but the fear in their eyes and their cries for help didn’t.

Sam was replaced by T.J, his dark skin glowing with sweat under the light of the flames, his face transformed by fear.

“Magnus!”

Then Halfborn, his hair singed, coughing hard and struggling to pull himself out from under the debris and failing.

“Please!”

Mallory took his place, her face burned red at the side, tears in her eyes as she fought to get out.

“Help!”

Annabeth, her strong arms covered with burns and blistering skin as she struggled to free herself but couldn’t seem to get her legs from under the debris.

“Magnus!”

Blitzen and Hearthstone, trapped together under the broken bean and ceiling, crying for help with tears in their eyes and soot on their faces.

“Magnus!”

All the other kids from Perthro, boys and girls and everything in between, all of Magnus’s new family, trapped and crying and begging for him to help them.

“Help!”

With each step the cries grew louder, the flames rose higher and hotter. Magnus’s eyes were blurry with tears and he seemed to be moving slower, as if time had froze and he’d have to stay here, watching his friends, his family, the person he loves burn to death because he couldn’t help them.

They switched again, Alex, Blitzen and Hearthstone, Annabeth, Mallory, Sam, the kids from Perthro, Halfborn, T.J, Alex, Annabeth… They screamed and cried, wailed as they fought to get out and called for help, their frightened broken voices clawing at his ears, making the tears come out harder.

“Magnus!”

“Help!”

“Please!”

He fell on his knees in front of now Mallory and tried to push the beam off her as she turned into Sam. Yet as much strength as he put into it he couldn’t make the burnt wood budge. Sam was grasping his shirt his soot-covered hands, crying with broken sobs.

“N-No! L-leave, Magnus!”

Alex took her sister’s place, taking his face into his hands and looking into his eyes with frightened, tear-filled eyes.

“Leave me behind! Go!”

Then his friends from Perthro were under the rumble, Sarah and Helen, little Cheyenne and Tommy.

“N-n-no! P-please don’t leave! Help!” Cheyenne cried, her body shaking like a leaf by her sobs.

The people changed, teary eyes and frightened screams, they clawed at his clothes begging for help. Magnus was crying so hard he almost couldn’t see them anymore because of the tears in his eyes. His heart was beating like a drum and his breathing was fast and shallow. He felt his hands shake and the air seemed to catch in his throat, stopping him from breathing properly.

You can’t, save them, they’ll die. They’ll die and it’s your fault. You couldn’t help them and they’ll die like you feared.

Magnus’s body was shaking now, the sobs reaped out from his throat. Mallory was reaching out to him with her burnt hands and Magnus wanted to lie down and let the flames eat him along with the whole room but something about that last thought shook him like cold water in the face.

Feared. “Fears cannot be easily tamed,” the parchment said. This guarding was supposed to show him “things you won’t want to see” and there was a chest on the wall next to the glass box.

A boggart, he realized with a start. The final guardian is a boggart. You need to get through your worse fears to get the last ingredient.

The realization helped ground him and his shaking stop. He knew how to take on a boggart and that knowledge helped, even if he wouldn’t be able to cast the spell with the magic-binding runes on the walls.

Slowly, with trembling legs, he stood up. T.J’s fingers were tugging at his leg desperately, but he moved on. He stepped towards the glass bow, tried to shut out the shrill voices of his friends under the debris.

“Magnus! No! P-Please!”

He wasn’t able to figure out who was screaming anymore. All the voices had blended together into an ear-splitting cacophony. His fingers touched the glass lid and opened it as the nightmarish chorus shrieked, “Your fault your fault you let us die your fault.”

Magnus took the small wooden box and the key that lay behind it and turned for the door. The boggart’s appearance was changing so rapidly now that he couldn’t make out each person, only characteristics – the grey eyes he shared with Annabeth, Mallory’s red mane, T.J’s dark skin, Sam’s shinning eyes and Alex’s green hair. The shrill screaming kept coming out of the creature’s mouth was yelling accusations at him – your fault your fault you left us your fault – and the tears didn’t stop pouring from his eyes.

Still, he kept going, reminding himself with each painful step that these weren’t his friends, his family, his Alex. They weren’t dying, they weren’t in danger. And even if they ever were, if they ever got in danger, he wouldn’t let them get hurt.

He pushed the key into the keyhole and unlocked the trapdoor, falling through onto a heap on the floor. The trapdoor closed behind him, keeping the boggart inside.

Magnus lay there on the floor for a second, panting heavily. Then he pushed himself up despite how much he wanted to stay on the floor, wiped the tears out of his eyes and run to the Hall of the Slain.

“And Magnus Chase has taken the last ingredient! He’s making his way back to the dining Hall!”

Magnus tripped as he was climbing down the stairs, half-paying attention to Professor Thor’s words. He picked himself up and kept running down the necks at breakneck speed. He jumped over the last three steps and sprinted down the halls to the Hall of the Slain, pushing his body as much as he could and then some.

“The Hogwarts Champion is almost there!” Magnus heard Professor Thor say as he run. “Raphael Beaumont is close behind him and Helga Leifsson…” Thor’s voice faltered there and when she spoke again his voice sounded more distant, like he had turned away from the mike and was talking to someone else. “Are you sure she’s fine? She doesn’t look too good.”

Magnus finally reached the doors of the dining hall, which were thankfully open because he would have probably run straight into them at his speed. He rushed to his table and emptied the contents of the bag on it, scrambling to find the parchment with the instructions for the potion.

“Magnus Chase has set to work! He has thirty minutes to make the antidote!”

The room around him was a mess of screams and cheers but they were white noise to him as he put his cauldron on the fire and started heating water. He was cutting up the weird glass he got from the Hippogriff when Raphael came running into the room and started making his own antidote.

Magnus was moving his spoon in circles inside the murky contents of the cauldrons, hating the five minutes he had to repeat the action according to the recipe. His eyes were trained on Alex’s body the whole time, the shallow rice and fall of her chest. Once he was done stirring he dumped inside the ingredients from the wooden box, a fine ashen dust.

Twenty minutes remained in the clock when Helga arrived looking like a complete mess. Tear tracks run down her cheeks, her whole face was red from crying and her hair looked like she had been pulling at it. Blood had seeped through her sleeve and she must have cast a spell to stop the bleeding. Thor made an announcement about her arrival but Magnus wasn’t paying attention to him, only to the liquid that bubbled inside his cauldron, changing from brown to a deep green. The recipe said it had a sky blue color when it was ready.

Ten minutes to go and Magnus was measuring the amount of the purple liquid he had to add to the mix. His hands were shaking as he tracked each drop falling from the bottle.

Just then, a loud clanging sound sounded, startling Magnus and making everything he held in his hands fall to the ground. If he had looked up from the spilled liquid on the floor he would have seen that the source of the noise was Raphael pulling all the measuring cups out of their place under the table.

Gasping was heard from the stands. “Oh no, Magnus Chase just spilt one of his ingredients!”

Magnus was understandably freaking out. He was almost done with the antidote too. What was he supposed to do now? What would happen to Alex?

“H-here,” he heard a voice saying. He looked up and was surprised to see Helga holding out her bottle of purple liquid to him. He hadn’t recognized her voice at first, not with how broken it was. “I-I only n-need half of it.”

Magnus couldn’t believe what he was seeing but he took the bottle from her hand. “Why?’ he asked.

Helga didn’t answer, just stared at a spot in the stands and when Magnus followed her gaze he found her parents looking at them with angry eyes.

Magnus measured the liquid he would need and gave the bottle back to Helga with enough inside to use for her own antidote. He stirred the antidote in his cauldron and raised the temperature in the fire. The liquid’s color was changing from green to blue and Magnus felt his pulse pick up and a smile break out on his face the closest he got to completing the potion.

Once the liquid had a light blue color her scooped it up and put it in a small bowl. His eyes were stuck to it as he walked as fast as he could to Alex. Every time it sloshed inside the bowl and got too close to the lid his heart dropped but he managed to reach his girlfriend’s unconscious body without dropping it.

He cradled Alex’s head in his hands and touched the bowl gently to her lips, opening her mouth to make her drink it. He was thankful for his Healing classes showing him how to do this. The blue liquid trickled past her lips and into her mouth, a drop trailing past her chin.

Once the contents of the bowl were drained, he waited. With every passing second he felt his fears grow – what if he had made a mistake, what if it didn’t work, what if it was too late and she never woke up?

Then Alex’s eyes opened and she shot upwards. She started coughing violently, like she was trying to force a rock out of her throat. Magnus let out the breath he had been holding and broke out into a wild smile, tears welling up in his eyes, happy tears. He couldn’t help the joyful little laugh that left his mouth as he surged forward and hugged Alex close to his chest.

Alex had stopped coughing and she wrapped her arms around Magnus, looking at confusion at the laughing and weeping boy in her arms. The world around her came into focus and she looked up to see the students of the three schools looking down at her and Magnus. To her right, Raphael was pressing a bowl to Louis’s lips, who was lying on a table. Helga, face red and tears in her eyes, was rushing to finish a potion of some sort while Agatha lay on a table in front of her. Magnus was still holding her like he thought he’d never see her again and his tears were seeping into her shirt.

“Um, not that I’m complaining for the hug, but what’s going on?”

Magnus looked up at her, a smile brighter than the sun on his face and tears in his eyes. Alex cupped his cheek, wanting to kiss the tears from his face. Magnus leaned into her touch and the love she saw in his eyes left her breathless.

“Remember the treasure I was supposed to save for the second task?” He asked softly. Alex nodded.

“Well, I saved it.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, kissing her gently and softly, like he wanted to take his time and do this for the rest of the day. Alex relished in the feeling of his lips and put her arms around his neck, pulling him closer and drowning in him.

They pulled apart, but just barely, staying close enough that it was like the rest of the dining hall didn’t exist and they were the only ones there.

“You’re a sap,” she told him quietly, affectionately, making it clear that she loved that about him even if she teased him.

“But I’m your sap,” Magnus replied with a smile. Alex wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and pulled him in for another kiss as the crowd clapped around them.

Goodness, that was huge. In case you’re curious, I got the first two riddles from my dad and the last from my grandpa’s crossword magazine. You can thank my sister for the name Alfred for the Sphinx (I asked her what I should name the Sphinx and she told me to name him after Batman’s butler) (I hope I remembered the name correctly). The top hat and bowtie are also thanks to her because I wasn’t sure if I should include that but she said I should. If you’re wondering, Helga got injured when she insulted the Hippogriff. Mon cher, s’il te plait, reveille toi! – My dear, please, wake up! Fan, snälla vakna, jag ber dig, vakna - basically "Shit, please wake up, I beg you, wake up" Until next time, see ya!

#Magnus chase and the obligatory hogwarts au #magnus chase #alex fierro #fierrochase #fanfiction #fanfic #my fic

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