Harry took a deep breath and stepped onto the white jade staircase.
The air grew thinner as he climbed, but the concentration of magic was astonishingly high, sending a faint prickle across his skin.
By the time he finally stood before the fifty-foot-tall crystal gates, he felt like an ant standing at the toe of a giant.
Crouched on either side of the gate were two massive obsidian gryphons.
As Harry approached, their tightly closed stone eyelids snapped open, revealing burning golden magical flames within.
“Halt.” The statue on the left spoke, its voice like the collision of two mountains, making Harry’s eardrums ache.
“Applicant?” The statue on the right lowered its head, the golden flames sweeping over Harry.
“Magical reaction…
acceptable.
Soul strength…
acceptable.
Knowledge reserve…” It paused, letting out a snort that sounded like a scoff.
“…completely empty.” Harry felt offended.
“Hey!
I might not have gone to school this term, but I—” “The first trial,” the left statue said, completely ignoring his defense.
“He who enters this gate must know his limits.
If you cannot even conquer gravity, you have no right to touch the truth.” “What?” Harry hadn’t even reacted.
The next second, the massive stone statue violently flapped its stone wings.
It wasn’t a physical attack, but a despairingly massive Banishing Charm.
Without any spell beam, Harry simply felt as if he had been slapped hard by an invisible giant hand.
“Waaaaah—!” The Savior, Harry Potter, flew straight off the cliff platform thousands of feet high like a discarded ragdoll.
The feeling of weightlessness enveloped him instantly.
Falling, madly falling.
Harry flailed in the air, trying to reach for his wand, but the Banishing Charm seemed to disrupt his sense of balance.
The clouds below rushed up to meet him—a prelude to being smashed to pieces.
Just as he thought he was about to become the first Savior in the wizarding world to plunge to his death, a silver light flashed.
It wasn’t Fleur who had acted.
It was the magical field in front of the gate.
After he had fallen about five hundred feet, a soft but unyielding force suddenly caught him, then snapped back violently like a rubber band.
Whoosh—!
Harry was flung back toward the clouds like a pebble from a slingshot, traveling even faster than he had fallen.
With a wet splat, he crashed face-first right back onto the platform before the crystal gates.
“…Ow.” Harry crawled up from the ground, feeling as though his internal organs had all shifted.
He rubbed his nose and glared angrily at the statue.
“What was that?
Attempted murder?” “The first trial: survival,” the right statue said coldly.
“You didn’t die, and you didn’t wet your pants.
Barely passed.” “You call throwing me off a cliff and yanking me back like a yo-yo a ‘trial’?” Harry was angry enough to cast a Reductor Curse on the statue, though he knew that would likely only snap his own wand.
“This is a test of character.
The cowardly faint during the fall; the foolish attempt to fight gravity,” the statue replied, devoid of emotion.
“Now, the second trial.” Harry stood up, brushed the dust off his clothes, and his gaze sharpened.
Since he had survived the physical attack, next should be the so-called riddle.
“Ask,” Harry took a deep breath.
“I’m ready.” The eyes of the left statue flared with golden light, its voice turning ethereal and profound: “If one considers a wizard’s soul to be an incomplete circle, when he casts ‘Avada Kedavra’, what is the curvature of his magic in imaginary space according to Adalbert Waffling’s Third Law of the Soul?
Please derive and answer in Ancient Runes.” Harry: “…” The wind on the mountaintop howled.
Harry stood there with his mouth open, his expression frozen.
He understood every single word—except for that law—but put together, it was even more baffling than Professor Sybill Trelawney’s prophecies.
Imaginary space?
Curvature?
And deriving it in Ancient Runes?
At Hogwarts, he had learned how to turn teapots into tortoises, not how to calculate soul geometry!
“Err…” Harry tried to struggle.
“A lot?
Or…
is it -i?” The two statues fell into a long, awkward silence.
The silence was more hurtful than being thrown off the cliff.
It was a silent contempt for his intelligence.
“Hermione would definitely know,” Harry muttered under his breath, his cheeks burning.
“Uncivilized,” the left statue pronounced.
“Savage growth,” the right statue added.
“Go back, boy,” the left statue closed its eyes again.
Its voice no longer held its previous killing intent, but was instead tinged with a hint of…
a tired professor looking at a failing student.
“Your magic is like an unpolished axe—sharp, but crude.
This is a place for studying scalpels.” “My mother…
Lily Evans.
Did she get it right?” Harry asked, unwilling to give up.
“The red-haired witch?” The right statue seemed to reminisce.
“She did not answer.
She pointed out the logical trap within the question, and in turn asked us about the magical conversion formula for love and sacrifice.
She is the only person since Dumbledore who did not have to answer the third question.” Harry lowered his head.
Talk about a gap.
This was the difference between a top student and a slacker.
“I’m not qualified, am I?” Harry felt a bit dejected.
“Not now,” the right statue said.
“Your soul is full of turmoil, anger, and unfulfilled destiny.
This place requires tranquility.” Then, a golden rune floated from the forehead of the statue, gently landing on the back of Harry’s hand, forming a faint golden hourglass mark.
“But you have potential.
Great, chaotic potential,” the statue said.
“Go experience the world.
Go wander.
Let the world sharpen that axe of yours.
When you can understand that death is more than just a green light, when you can replace your roars with silence…” “Twenty,” the statue gave its final verdict.
“Come back and knock when you are twenty.
Perhaps then you will bring a different answer.” With that, the two statues fell completely silent, turning back into cold stone.
Harry touched the mark on the back of his hand.
It wasn’t hot, just slightly warm.
He turned and walked down the white jade staircase.
Fleur was still leaning against the car, a small pile of hazelnut shells already accumulated at her feet.
Seeing Harry return looking disheveled, she wasn’t surprised at all.
“Thrown off?” she asked with a smile.
“Thrown.
Then reeled back in.” Harry pulled open the car door and slumped into the passenger seat, feeling as though every bone in his body was protesting.
“And then I got instantly killed by a math problem—or rather, a magical philosophy question.
I didn’t even understand the prompt.” “Normal.
I didn’t understand it either back then.” Fleur started the car.
“So I just cursed at the statue in French mockery.” Harry looked at her in surprise.
“And you still let me go?” “Because you needed to know, Harry.” Fleur stepped on the gas, and the Citroën began its descent down the mountain.
“Hogwarts taught you the baseline for survival, but there are many things in this world that lie far above a ‘passing grade’.
Right now, you are a powerful warrior, but not yet a great wizard.” “It told me to come back when I’m twenty,” Harry said, looking at the mark on his hand.
“Then we go back at twenty.” Fleur snapped her fingers, and the car radio resumed playing that cheerful French folk song.
“Anyway, I’m only seventeen now, and you’re fifteen.
A seventeen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old should do things appropriate for their age—like going to Austria and figuring out how to get some cash.
My stomach is empty enough to swallow a Hippogriff whole.” Harry smiled.
He looked back at the towering spire reaching into the clouds.
Twenty.
By then, the war would be over, right?
What kind of answer would he bring back then?
“Let’s go, sister,” Harry said.
“I’m hungry too.”