Daphne: Feeling Targeted

Chapter 95 Daphne: I feel targeted (Happy New Year!)

"Great! Snape isn't ready to steal the Philosopher's Stone yet!" Harry exclaimed excitedly after Snape walked away.

Daphne: ?!

Her eyes widened in anger and shock.

She found it incredibly difficult to communicate effectively with someone like Potter—if she couldn't see Professor Snape, it meant he was off stealing the Philosopher's Stone; if she saw him, it meant he wasn't ready to steal it. So, Professor Snape was definitely the villain no matter what?!

She felt herself getting angry again.

"Can you stop being so unreasonable!" Daphne didn't want to play house with these two kids anymore; she just wanted to go to the school hospital to check on Rice.

She thought it was absurd that Rice would be poisoned by a potion she had concocted; the probability of Dumbledore choking on a mint in St. Mungo's was much higher!

There must be some hidden story behind this, and she needs to find out.

Seeing that Daphne seemed about to leave, Harry quickly ran in front of her and blocked her way—if she left, he and Ron wouldn't be able to get past Fluffy.

"Wait, Daphne, I'm begging you, please believe me!" Harry pleaded earnestly. "I'm absolutely certain Voldemort is after the Philosopher's Stone. I have to get into that corridor; I can't just watch him steal it."

"Daphne, if the Philosopher's Stone falls into Voldemort's hands, he will surely return with a vengeance. Then, Hogwarts, and indeed the entire wizarding world, will be utterly destroyed. Voldemort and his henchmen will raze the school to the ground, or turn it into a school dedicated to teaching dark magic. Countless people will die in the process—to survive, they will have to kneel before him, become his servants, his dogs! If I fail, I'll simply be killed by him. If I hadn't tried to stop him, wouldn't I have been killed too? Just a little later, because I would never side with him. Voldemort killed my parents! Can you understand this hatred? I must pass through that trapdoor. Whatever responsibility I bear, I will bear it all!"

Daphne was somewhat moved; Harry's words had indeed touched her, causing her to waver slightly.

Her last shred of reason compelled her to ask, "What if you get the Philosopher's Stone, but that person intercepts you and steals it? It's perfectly safe now with Professor Dumbledore's protection."

"Then I'll guard the last checkpoint. Voldemort will have to step over my dead body if he wants the Philosopher's Stone," Harry said in a resolute tone.

Harry's resolute gaze successfully persuaded Daphne, who felt she should help Harry—since he had already made up his mind, she shouldn't waste his resolve.

"Daphne, you could have stayed out of this. I only ask you for two favors: First, lend me this potion—if it's hard to explain to Rice, I can pay for it. My parents left me a large sum of money; ten times, a hundred times the market price, I'll pay. Second, when Professor Dumbledore returns tomorrow, please tell him about Ron and me going into the corridor. Please, just these two things, do these two things for me, and I'll repay you with anything in the future!"

Daphne pursed her lips, hesitated for a few seconds, and then gave her answer.

"Harry, I'm sorry, I can't do either of those things."

Harry's eyes dimmed, but they brightened again a second later, because Daphne said—

"This potion requires a professional to use, so I can't lend it to you. Let me do it myself. As for tipping off Dumbledore, I can't do that, because I also need to cross that trapdoor with you—we can't just let you Gryffindor students show off all the time, can we? If we don't show some real skills, it'll make us look like villains."

"Daphne, you..." Harry felt as if something was stuck in his throat. He hadn't expected that Daphne would actually be willing to run with him to the trapdoor to guard the Philosopher's Stone.

There are good people in Slytherin! Like Daphne, like Rice, and like... uh, I can't think of any, but there are definitely good people there!

"Let's go," Daphne urged.

"Walk!"

The three of them went up to the fourth-floor corridor.

Upon reaching the door on the fourth-floor corridor, the three of them instantly changed their expressions—the tightly closed door was now slightly ajar.

Seeing the half-open door, they clearly realized what they were about to face, and even Daphne was now convinced that someone was stealing the Philosopher's Stone.

"See?" Harry glanced at Daphne and whispered, "Snape, well, the one who coveted the Philosopher's Stone has gotten past Fluffy."

After being glared at by Daphne, Harry changed his tune.

"Move aside, get away from me." Daphne shooed the two troublesome boys aside, then opened the crystal bottle that Rice had left behind.

Driven by magic, the sleeping potion that Rice had prepared drifted in through the crack in the door. Behind the door, Luwei's breathing gradually became long and steady, and it soon fell asleep.

After waiting a few seconds, until all the remaining potion in the room had been inhaled by Fluffy, Daphne opened the door. Behind the door, the three-headed dog Fluffy was fast asleep, a harp at his feet.

"It seems that Fluffy's weakness is music." Harry walked to Fluffy's feet, and after some effort, moved the big dog's paws aside, revealing the trapdoor that it had been guarding for a whole school year.

The trapdoor opened, revealing a hole. Harry looked down through the hole, but it was pitch black, and he couldn't see anything at all at the bottom.

Harry braced himself against the edge of the hole with his hands. Seeing his movement, Daphne had a bad feeling: was he planning to jump in?

"Hey, wait a minute—" Before Daphne could finish speaking, Harry jumped down.

Daphne felt a sense of suffocation: what if it was deep down or there were traps at the bottom? Harry would be dead!

She dared not delay, and after casting a levitation spell on herself, she floated down along the cave entrance.

As she slowly descended, Daphne became more vigilant. Her efforts paid off; about four or five seconds later, a series of whooshing sounds came from the air as several gleaming crossbow bolts shot towards her from various angles. Daphne flicked her wand, using a protective spell to deflect them all.

"There was definitely a trap." Daphne narrowed her eyes, now starting to worry about Harry's fate—had he been smashed to pieces, or riddled with crossbow bolts?

When she landed, Daphne was shocked: there was no trap on the ground, but instead there was a soft thing to cushion the impact for the person who jumped down!

Harry was standing on that lump, bouncing around, seemingly unharmed.

"Was it because the descent was so fast that it didn't trigger the crossbow traps on the wall?" A realization dawned on her.

Daphne felt like she was being targeted—were the traps here only for experts?!

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Second update! A third update is coming soon!

(End of this chapter)