"Your brother gave a tougher fight." Alexandra affirmed, stepping over the monstrous body of the troll."Only Snape and Dumbledore trials are left."
She pulled open the next door, and for once there was nothing frightening there, only seven bottles of different shapes and sizes.
She stepped over the threshold and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn't ordinary fire either; for one thing it was purple, and for the other the warmth which came from it was properly infernal. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onwards. Alexandra grimaced. Any challenge now, she had had the option to go back safely if she did not find the clue to solve the trial of the room. But now, she was well and truly trapped, her magical capabilities useless to extinguish such dangerous and cursed flames. And at the other extremity of the Forbidden Corridor, no less. Fantastic.
There was a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. Alexandra looked and read the message upon it:
Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,
One among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead,
Two among our number hold only nettle wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here for evermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onwards, neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.
Her reaction after reading the parchment was relief. She had feared she would have to combine a bottle with another to have a potion having the capacity to pass through the flames. Instead, she faced a riddle to find the correct potion. Easy, especially as she was a Ravenclaw, and Ravenclaw always had to find the solution to riddles if they wanted to enter their common room. Especially her, who had no allies or friends inside her own House to open her the door if she did not find the solution to the question posed.
Pausing for a moment, she wondered for whom in Gryffindor this task had been designed for. Perhaps Leo Black with all his knowledge of pranks potions. Certainly not Ron Weasley, nor Seamus Finnegan, Dean Thomas or Lavender Brown. The first-years Gryffindors were not known for their deductive abilities or their Potions skills. The troll had certainly been put for Longbottom on the other hand; the Boy-Who-Lived had by far the largest arsenal of offensive spells among the first-years.
Alexandra took the smallest bottle in her hand, who according to the riddle was the one to pass the black flames. She was forced to grimace: she had hoped there would be enough to go in the next room and come back (there was no exit in that part of the castle, she had checked on the plans) but it didn't appear so. She had better hope there was magic in the bottle to replenish the potion, else she would be trapped in the next room until someone came to deliver her.
She drank the little bottle in one go and placed it in her pocket. It was like ice had replaced blood in her body. Not wasting any time, she raced in the black flames, only to find a simple room with a mirror in the centre.
Strange.
Considering she had managed to come through every challenge of the Senior Professors, it had to be Dumbledore's trial.
A quick look at the rest of room informed Alexandra there was nothing else in this place. Nothing else she could see, anyway.
Formidable.
Approaching the mirror slowly, Alexandra noticed it was very large, and given the pattern of the gold frame and the inscriptions, likely very old too. There was an inscription carved around the top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.
She didn't know why, but she felt something clearly wrong with this mirror. Why had it been placed there to begin with? It was the last room, she had triumphed over the other trials. Alexandra had expected to find the Philosopher Stone here, not some old magical artefact the Headmaster found "interesting". Unless the mirror had been a creation of Nicolas Flamel and the obstacles were to guard it all along?
Trying to find what was in the mirror, she stepped fully in front of it to see her reflection. However, it was not her who appeared, or rather not Alexandra's reflection as she was now. Alexandra was a bit older and taller, a bit less thin, and she smiled as she had like she was really happy. A really pretty woman and a handsome man were standing behind her.
The woman had brilliant red hair and her flamboyant green eyes, eyes of a colour only Alexandra had at Hogwarts and Privet Drive. Bright green – exactly the same shape, but then she noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time. The tall, thin, black-haired man standing next to her put his arm around her. He wore glasses, and his hair was very untidy.
"Mum?" She whispered. "Dad?"
They just looked at her, smiling. And slowly, Alexandra looked into the faces of the other people in the mirror who appeared one by one. A little girl. Several old men and women. Dozens of witches and wizards in eighteen or nineteen centuries robes. About half harboured distinctive black and unruly black hair. The rest had the bright green eyes of her maternal side. Her family. The family she should have had, but that the war and destiny had robbed her from. Looking once again the mirror's inscription she read it backwards and smiled.
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