The stone gargoyle stood sentinel against the third-floor wall, its blank eyes catching torchlight.
Dumbledore approached without breaking stride.
“Cherry Pudding.”
The creature sprang aside, joints grinding.
Wall split into staircase.
Elias followed the headmaster onto the rotating steps, and the stone sealed behind them with a boom that vibrated up through his shoes.
The staircase climbed in silence.
No cables, no gears — just the faint hum of something alchemical pushing against gravity.
Elias catalogued the mechanism in the back of his mind.
One day, when he understood how these things worked, he’d build one himself.
The door at the top bore a carved lion.
Dumbledore pushed through.
First, the phoenix.
Vivid red, perched on a golden stand, watching him with eyes that knew too much.
Then the silver instruments on spindle-legged tables, spinning and puffing white smoke in lazy spirals.
A low thrum filled the room — not quite sound, not quite silence.
Portraits lined the walls, their painted occupants cutting curious glances his way.
Two of them were mid-scuffle in a shared frame.
The Sorting Hat sat on a shelf, crumpled and still.
Dumbledore settled into the largest chair and conjured another with a flick of his fingers.
“Sit.”
Elias sat.
“Would you like something? You haven’t eaten today.”
“Milk and pumpkin pie, Professor.”
A wave.
Steam curled from a glass of milk.
The pie appeared warm, the crust still flaking.
Elias picked up his knife and fork and ate with deliberate restraint, even as his stomach cramped with hunger.
Dumbledore didn’t stay to watch.
He slipped through a side door and left Elias alone with the phoenix and the soft click of silver instruments.
By the time the plate was clean, the headmaster was back in his chair, hands folded on the desk.
“Can you tell me what happened, Mr. Sorenson? I suspect matters are not as simple as you made them out to be.”
Elias set down his fork.
Dumbledore had stepped out after the incident — and come back already knowing the first story was thin.
The portraits.
Of course.
Every corridor had eyes.
“Is it the paintings?” Elias asked.
Dumbledore smiled and said nothing.
Right.
So lying was pointless.
He told it clean, one event after another.
He left out the Forbidden Forest.
Instead, Quirrell had grabbed him while he was asking some question, and he’d been surprised, subdued.
Dumbledore’s expression didn’t flicker.
His eyes held something unreadable.
Elias took a sip of milk and watched him over the rim.
The Forbidden Forest omission didn’t matter.
The headmaster had bigger things on his mind than a student wandering past curfew.
Long pause.
Then: “If I don’t intervene, Mr. Sorenson, what do you intend to do?”
Elias blinked.
A professor had used an Unforgivable on him, and Dumbledore was asking about his plans.
Not reassuring him.
Not making promises.
The school’s security was full of loopholes — this he already knew — but the hesitation was strange.
Either the headmaster didn’t trust him, or he already had a line in the water and didn’t want anyone cutting it.
The second option fit better.
Elias thought back to Quirrell’s nervous glances, the request to distract the other professors.
He set the glass down.
“Professor, Quirrell’s goal is the restricted corridor on the third floor, isn’t it?”
Dumbledore didn’t answer.
Which was an answer.
Elias leaned forward.
“So that’s it. The forbidden area wasn’t just to scare students. It’s bait.” He could see the pieces locking together.
“Those challenges — they were never meant to stop anyone serious. They were a trail. And Quirrell’s the one following it. That’s why he’s always anxious in his office, why he seems to be running out of time. Something down there, something he needs badly.” The words came faster now.
“He’s capable, but he plays incompetent. The weakness isn’t all an act, though. Someone’s forcing him to steal whatever’s hidden there, and the pressure’s been getting worse.”
Dumbledore’s calm cracked into genuine surprise.
He raised a hand.
“Mr. Sorenson, one moment.” His voice was warm but firmed into a gentle stop.
“You are very clever. But we must return to the question, mustn’t we?”
Elias nodded, heart still beating fast.
He’d been right, then.
He was close to the truth.
“Under Quirrell’s control,” he said, “he gave me three professorial authorisations for the Restricted Section. To ‘teach’ me to control trolls. I’ll use the Restricted Section as a base — pretend to help him explore it, get more authorisations out of him. I’ve already been inside once, so I don’t actually need to do the exploring. It’s freeloading.” A thin smile.
“Consider it interest on a bad debt.”
Dumbledore’s lips twitched.
The books were school property, not Quirrell’s, but the boy’s instinct for revenge was remarkably practical.
He exhaled, a tightness in his chest easing.
He’d worried Elias might want blood — or worse, try to ambush Quirrell himself.
But if borrowing books was the full extent of his retaliation, then the child’s nature was still kind.
The headmaster’s gaze sharpened.
“You said you entered the forbidden corridor, Mr. Sorenson. All the way to the end. You weren’t afraid your conversation with Quirrell might be exposed?” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Elias’s expression froze.
Caught.
But then the realisation hit — the mirror.
Dumbledore had placed it there.
Quirrell wanted the mirror?
No, it was valuable but not that valuable.
Not worth a professor risking everything.
So it was something else.
Something the mirror was guarding.
The ordinary stone.
His mind raced.
Quirrell desperate.
A hidden treasure at Hogwarts.
Nicolas Flamel’s name on a letter Dumbledore had left carelessly visible during one of his visits to this very office.
Alchemy.
Six layers of protection.
A stone.
Elias’s voice came out slow, careful.
“Professor. That stone. It isn’t — ”
He stopped, the word lodging in his throat.
But it was too late to take it back.
” — the Philosopher’s Stone, is it?”
Dumbledore went still.
For one long breath, neither of them moved.
Then the headmaster remembered something — a muttered comment, a slip of the tongue — and relief flooded his face so quickly it almost looked like fear.
Thank goodness Quirrell hadn’t asked this boy about the Forbidden Forest while the Imperius held.
The entire plan would have been ash before it kindled.
Elias saw the silence and knew he’d guessed right.
The envy hit before he could stop it, a sharp twist under his ribs.
The Philosopher’s Stone.
Gold.
Endless gold.
And he’d been digging through the Forbidden Forest like a common treasure hunter.
[Envy +1]
He kept his face still.
But the thought lingered, bitter and clear: if he’d only figured it out sooner, he could have spent his days somewhere far warmer than the Forbidden floor.
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