In the dead of night, the moonlight draped a silver veil over Hogwarts Castle.
Stelle, like a gray shadow, slipped noiselessly through the darkness of the corridors.
Her target was clear—the forbidden corridor on the third floor, and the trapdoor beneath Fluffy’s paws.
Thanks to her previous forced familiarity and several subsequent stealthy scouts, she avoided the patrolling Filch and Mrs.
Norris, once again standing before that familiar wooden door.
Inside, the stinky, heavy breathing of Fluffy, the three-headed dog, was clearly audible.
Stelle didn’t enter immediately.
She squatted down and pulled a small ball from her pocket—one she had rolled together using cold butter filched from the kitchens and a few strands of Kneazle hair.
She gently pushed the door open a crack and rolled the ball inside.
“The feeding strategy,” she whispered.
This was the plan she had devised after observing Fluffy for a few days.
A loud sniffing sound echoed from inside, followed by satisfied smacking noises and then an even louder snore.
The special treat, spiked with a harmless sleeping herb powder, had taken effect.
She slipped through the door.
The massive three-headed dog was sleeping even more soundly than before.
Nimbly squeezing through the gap between Fluffy’s massive, furry paws and his body, she reached the trapdoor.
Without hesitation, she took a deep breath and yanked it open.
Below was pitch-black and seemingly bottomless, exhaling a damp, musty scent of decaying plants.
“Trailblaze, start,” she muttered to herself, and jumped straight down.
The fall was shorter than she had anticipated.
She landed on something soft, damp, and writhing.
Devil’s Snare.
Cold, vine-like tendrils immediately wrapped around her and began to constrict.
Surrounded by darkness, the only sound was the faint rustling of the wriggling plant.
“Relax…” Stelle recalled Hermione mentioning the characteristics of this plant by chance in the library.
She tried her best to limp her stiff limbs.
But the Devil’s Snare only seemed to squeeze tighter.
“No, can’t do it,” she admitted honestly.
For a Trailblazer who habitually tensed her body to face crises, relaxing completely was simply too difficult.
The vines had already coiled up to her neck.
“In that case, let’s try a different approach.” She abruptly raised her arm—the only part of her still free to move—and reached into her pocket.
She pulled out a firework box she had traded from the twins for a pack of farting bubble gum.
They had claimed it was extremely potent.
She vigorously struck a small cylinder against the side of the box and tossed it deep into the mass of Devil’s Snare beneath her.
“Proudly sponsored by Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes!” *Sssss—BANG!* A burst of hot, blinding flame, accompanied by a piercing screech and a shower of multicolored sparks, exploded within the Devil’s Snare!
“吱——!” With a sharp, scorched shriek, the Devil’s Snare violently recoiled its constricting vines as if hit by an electric shock, fleeing into the dark corners.
Stelle tumbled onto the stone floor.
Rubbing her sore shoulders, she stared at the Devil’s Snare, which was now shivering in a tight clump out of fear of the fire.
“Seems it doesn’t like noisy guests,” she remarked, brushing the dust off her robes.
She picked up the box of fireworks and tucked it away safely.
In critical moments, friends—or rather, their prank products—were quite reliable.
She stood up.
Ahead was a narrow stone corridor.
Blocking the only path was a buzzing, glittering cloud that looked like a swarm of jewels—thousands of winged keys fluttering in the air, forming an impassable barrier.
Stelle observed them for a moment and noticed that near the walls, at the outer edges of the swarm, the keys were significantly thinner.
It seemed there was a weak spot she could exploit.
Instead of trying to catch a key, Stelle took a deep breath, suddenly accelerated, and charged like an arrow released from a bow, head down, straight toward the sparse area!
*Whoosh!* She slipped through by the skin of her teeth.
A few keys brushed past her hair and the hem of her robes, leaving faint trails of air in their wake, but none of them attacked.
It seemed that as long as she was fast and decisive enough, they wouldn’t have time to react.
Passing through the key swarm, she stopped before a heavy wooden door and pushed it open gently.
The next chamber contained only a giant wizard’s chessboard.
The pieces were taller than her, lifelike and gleaming with a cold, hard stony luster.
They stood silently on the board, as if waiting for their opponent.
Stelle looked at the chessboard, then at the door leading to the next trial on the opposite side.
“Play chess?
Too complicated.
Skip.” She had absolutely no intention of stepping onto the board.
Her eyes swept the room, finally locking onto the high, relief-carved ceiling.
Some of the protrusions and patterns on the reliefs looked like they could provide handholds.
A few minutes later, like a nimble gecko, Stelle was carefully gripping the ceiling reliefs, slowly and painstakingly shuffling her way toward the other side of the room.
Below, the stone pieces remained standing in silence, completely unprepared for a challenger choosing such an illegal route.
Just as she was about to reach the center of the room, a piece of relief beneath her foot suddenly sank an inch under her weight!
*Click.* A faint mechanical click rang out with striking clarity in the silent room.
“Uh-oh.” Stelle’s heart leaped into her throat.
Down on the chessboard, a black knight suddenly whipped its head around.
Its pupilless stone eyes locked onto her on the ceiling with pinpoint accuracy!
The stone sword in its hand began to slowly rise, pointing straight in her direction!
She had been spotted!
The chess game was forced to start!
Clinging tightly to the freezing ceiling, Stelle watched the chessboard below as a murderous aura began to spread.
Her mind raced.
Jump down?
Facing these stone pieces that looked capable of crushing her into a pancake offered dismal odds of success.
Keep climbing?
The black knight’s stone sword was already aimed at her, and the other pieces seemed to be stirring.
The oppressive magical pressure in the air was growing stronger.
“The rule is to play chess, but it never said I couldn’t dismantle the board.” A Trailblazer’s thinking was never bound by pre-established rules.
Her gaze swept the area at lightning speed, instantly locking onto the black knight threatening her from below.
To turn and look up, its base had shifted from its original square.
In the torchlight, she could see an unnatural crevice and a faint trace of adhesive where the base connected to the floor.
Right there!
Without hesitation, Stelle let go with one hand, letting her body swing downward.
Simultaneously, her other hand swiftly drew her wand, pointing it directly at the shadow connecting the base to the board!
“Incendio!” A beam of flame—not overly thick but highly concentrated—shot out like a blowtorch, searing directly into the seemingly fragile joint!
*Sssss!* A harsh, screeching noise rang out, accompanied by the cracking of stone as it fractured under the heat.
The black knight’s raised sword froze midair.
Its massive body wobbled violently, and its base groaned under the strain.
The extreme heat and sudden structural damage had clearly exceeded its design parameters.
*BOOM!* With a heavy thud, the black knight’s base shattered.
Bereft of support, its massive stone form crashed down onto the board, fracturing into several large chunks and kicking up a cloud of dust.
The entire room plunged into absolute silence.
The other pieces that had seemed on the verge of coming to life instantly froze, as if their programming had encountered an unhandled exception.
If they could be said to have faces, a look of utter bewilderment seemed to spread across their stony features.
Winning a chess match by violently destroying a piece?
That was completely outside the rules!
Taking advantage of the lull, Stelle dropped lightly to the floor, not even sparing a glance at the pile of debris.
She brushed the dust off her hands, calmly walked through the frozen formation of chess pieces, and headed toward the door on the opposite side.
“Rules are made to be broken!” she declared loudly as she passed the spot where the black knight had stood.
Just as her fingers wrapped around the handle of the next door, a soft click sounded behind her.
She turned her head.
In the middle of the black knight’s shattered remains, the surface of an inconspicuous black stone—once the core of its base—had peeled away, revealing a familiar plastic glint.
A Elation Token lay quietly in the center of the ruins.
[Elation Token 3/7 – Obtained from: Giant Chessboard Room.
Checked in at a loophole in the rules (physical), a tribute to the wisdom of non-violent (?) clearance.] Stelle walked back and picked up the token.
It was slightly warm to the touch, carrying the rough texture of stone dust.
“A clearance reward?
Fair enough.” Slipping it into her pocket, she pushed open the next door.
Behind the door was no longer a stone corridor, but a dimly lit chamber that reeked of a foul odor.
Before her stood a wooden table covered in sticky stains, cluttered with dozens of bottles of various shapes, filled with liquids of bizarre colors.