Professor Sprout set up the Devil's Snare; Flitwick was behind the Boggarts; McGonagall transfigured the Chessmen, of course, dead set on killing the intruder.
Knowing all this, the children knew they would be meeting either Quirrell or Snape's trap.
Professor Snape's trap would be certainly related to the Potions. However, they weren't sure about the timid Quirrell.
No matter how far, or what, they had thought to find in the next room, though, it certainly wasn't this sight.
Well… there was no sight.
Smoke was boiling in front of them, churning and coiling.
It twirled, hissed, and hushed as bellows after bellows passed by the children's eyes, blinding the path ahead.
"A Smokescreen Spell?" Hermione mumbled, frowning.
She had returned to her original self, regaining her childish appearance.
Despite the questions, doubts, and the sheer amount of ecstasy bubbling in their hearts, they had decided to not talk about the notifications without explicitly saying it out loud.
Something extraordinary had happened to them; to all of them.
For now, nothing mattered more than surviving this ordeal and getting the Philosopher's Stone as soon as possible.
Daphne looked at the magical creature from another dimension sitting on her shoulder.
"Can you find the way?" she asked, still wondering about the creature's true nature.
"Pika…?" The Reanimated Corpse let out a confused noise. The Echo within mimicked the true nature of a living organism, not knowing that it wasn't alive itself.
The Pokemon jumped off Daphne's shoulder and landed on the floor before going a few feet ahead of the children.
They saw the yellow creature lifting its nose and smelling.
Pikachu again took several steps forward.
The children eyed it with excitement.
Suddenly, a cloud of smoke fell like a waterfall between their sight and the creature.
"Pikachu!" Daphne cried.
"Pikaaa....!!"
They heard the creature's call in return. But, to them, it felt like it was coming from dozens of meters away, the smoke twisting not only sight but also hearing.
Daphne, panicking, threw herself into the smoke.
Before the boys could react, and not wanting to lose her friend, Hermione lunged behind Daphne as well.
Harry, Draco, and Ron's eyes widened.
"Hurry!" they said together, following the girls.
However, the moment they crossed a few feet, they came face to face with the terrifying reality.
They all were already lost.
Not only lost but also separated.
"We were just behind them!" Ron complained, shocked.
"What to…"
Harry had just opened his mouth to ask when he spotted something moving from the corners of his eyes.
Was it smoke? Why did it feel like…
Then it happened.
A low growl entered their ears, following a scream.
"Ahhhhh!"
It was Daphne's, they knew.
"Where are you, guys?!" Harry shouted. "What's going on…"
Grr!!
The growl came out of nowhere.
Before Harry could turn his head to look, something smoky pounced on him from behind and bit into the back of his thigh.
"Ahhhh!!!!!"
By the time Draco and Ron rushed behind Harry to look, there was nothing in sight except smoke.
Harry looked down, falling to his knees.
He saw several teeth marks on his flesh, fresh blood squirting out. A hot rush of pain was making him squint his eyes, grit his teeth, and breathe harder.
"What was… it?" Harry questioned brokenly.
Draco and Ron shared a glance but neither of them had seen the creature; if a creature it was.
As if that wasn't enough to send chill running down their spines, another scream entered their ears, louder than ever.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!"
This one had come from Hermione.
Her scream followed a wolf's howl. She must have turned again, they guessed.
But if Daphne's creature couldn't do anything against the smoke, Hermione's wolf transformation wouldn't help her either.
"Help me up!" Harry said.
Draco and Ron pulled him up and the boys stood with their backs against each other.
A hush!
A blurry swish!!
A growl like hissing of smoke!!!
By the time Harry saw it, it was already right in front of his face.
It was a large, dog-like spirit with a forked tail. Its beady, black eyes were glowing gray. Its entire body looked as if it was smoke, but the fangs it carried in its mouth couldn't be anything but real for they had already left their marks on Daphne, Hermione, and Harry.
A Gytrash!
Harry recalled the creature's name.
That, too, because Black had made a joke about it with the boys.
The creature opened its mouth and was about to bite into Harry's face when a gloved punch came from his right and blasted the thing away.
Harry looked to his right and saw Draco eying him back.
"We are surrounded," Ron told them without looking.
Soon, the boys, and the girls far from them, realized the horrifying truth.
It wasn't the Smokescreen Spell that they needed to fight against in this room. It was the pack of Gytrash, assisted by the smoke!
"Use light!" Daphne's scream found them from somewhere.
"Use on what?!" Draco spat back. "How to see them coming?!!"
Silence.
…
Grr!
Grrrr!!
Grrrrrrrrrr!!!
The growls had gone louder than ever.
No matter where they looked, they couldn't see anything but smoke.
A Gytrash blurred into appearance right in front of Ron, bit into his ankle, and melted with smoke before he could even scream.
"Argh!"
"Ugh!!"
"Ahshhh!!"
Bites after bites, leaving their legs bloody, the Gytrash perfectly took advantage of the massive Smokescreen Spell.
From the other side, the boys kept hearing Daphne and Hermione's screams as they too got overwhelmed by the dogs.
An even more terrifying fact was that, unlike them, the girls seemed to have separated as well, for their screams were coming from two opposite directions.
They needed to do something and they needed to do it now!
"I am doing it…" Draco let out through the gritted teeth.
Harry and Ron instantly knew what Malfoy was talking about.
Sure enough, in the next instant, they heard Draco saying the words they both had been thinking of shouting out for all this time.
"Spell…" Draco hissed, "… Acute Perception!"
And voices vanished from his mind.
…
Draco felt like he could sense everything.
No matter which place he had been to in the past, in a matter of moments, he began recalling them with mind-boggling accuracy.
Not only places, but Draco could also sense his immediate surroundings with minute details.
His hand moved before he willed it.
A Gytrash came into existence right above Ron's head, but it met Draco's wand first.
The wand lit up, letting out a blue orb of light right in the dog's face.
The spirit's eyes shook. It fell, whimpered, and then ran away, its forked tail tucked between its legs.
Draco's hand moved again. Another Gytrash got humbled back to wherever it had come from.
Again.
Again and again.
Half a dozen times the dog-spirits attacked the boys.
Half a dozen times Draco's wand met them, sending them back with pained whimpers.
"Whoa!" Ron exclaimed. "How did you…"
Suddenly, Draco didn't know what came to him, but he had a feeling. An incredibly, good feeling. This feeling he had felt before…
… right after the Pink Toad, Umbridge, had left him to die.
Guided by his feelings, Draco grabbed Harry and Ron's hands. "Do you guys trust me?"
Harry and Ron frowned, sensing the oddness.
"Well…"
"I don'…"
Draco let out a sneer. "That was rhetorical."
Then, the boys spun around each other midair before disapparating with a loud Crack!
**************
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