Chapter 91: The Clever Devil's Snare
The afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows, spilling across the corridor as Harry, Hermione, and Ron stood before Professor Wesson's office door.
Harry and Ron were cautiously pushing the door open a crack, squinting to peer inside.
"Why are you two sneaking around like that?" Hermione asked, puzzled. "It's daytime."
Only then did Harry realize this wasn't a nighttime expedition; there was far less to worry about.
So Harry simply knocked.
"Knock, knock."
After a moment's wait, there was no response from inside the office.
Harry tried pushing the door; the wooden door creaked softly.
"It's terribly rude to enter a professor's office without permission," Hermione muttered, but her feet still very honestly followed Harry and Ron into the office.
The moment they stepped inside, the scene before them left them dumbstruck.
The entire wall to the left of the desk was covered by a rolling sea of green—Devil's Snare.
And what astonished them even more was that one tendril of the Devil's Snare was flipping through a book on the desk, while another tendril was twined around a wand, its tip continually spitting sparks.
Harry recognized it at once—that wand was Wesson's spare.
"This is…," Ron said blankly. "What is that thing?"
Harry was, of course, familiar with Devil's Snare, so he strode straight to the desk and found that the book it was reading was The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1.
That left him a bit perplexed.
The Devil's Snare seemed to be learning how to cast spells. That was absurd.
Just then, the Devil's Snare, absorbed in its reading, came to its senses and realized several figures had appeared in the office. In a flurry, it stuffed the wand into a desk drawer and hastily put The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 back on the desktop.
"We saw," Harry said, patting one tendril. "No need to hide it."
The tendril drooped at once.
"Don't worry," Harry laughed when he saw that. "I won't tell the professor."
Watching Harry chatting and interacting with a vine, Hermione and Ron glanced at each other.
"Is he mad?" Ron whispered to Hermione.
Before Hermione could answer, Harry called to them, "Come on. It won't hurt you. This is Professor Wesson's Devil's Snare—very friendly. It's my friend."
Hermione and Ron edged over to Harry, nervous.
As they inched forward, the Devil's Snare's tendrils curiously brushed their robes.
"It truly won't attack us?" Hermione said, trembling. "I've read that Devil's Snare is a terrifying creature that coils around anyone who comes near until the person dies."
Ron hadn't thought much of it at first, but he stopped in his tracks when he heard Hermione's explanation.
"Professor Wesson's Devil's Snare is different," Harry said, turning to the plant. "Could you brew three cups of tea for us?"
To Ron and Hermione's astonishment, the Devil's Snare quickly brewed three cups of black tea, set them out in dainty cups and saucers, and placed them on the table before them.
"See?" Harry said proudly, gesturing at the tea.
"But we barged into Professor Wesson's office on our own—won't he be angry?" Hermione began to worry about something else. "This doesn't seem quite proper."
"Relax," Harry said as he walked to the bookcase. "I've never seen Professor Wesson angry."
"That still doesn't—"
Hermione got halfway through before Ron clapped her shoulder and said offhandedly, "Professor Wesson's fond of Harry. It's fine."
"Hermione, is it this one?"
Harry's voice floated over from the bookcase. Hermione and Ron turned to see him holding up a book.
They hurried over.
Hermione took the book from Harry, then turned to the two of them. "This is it."
She skimmed through The Little-Known Stories about Nicolas Flamel.
"Got it!" she said suddenly. "The Philosopher's Stone. It says Nicolas Flamel once made a Philosopher's Stone. The Stone can turn any metal into pure gold, and it can produce the Elixir of Life, which makes whoever drinks it immortal."
"Turn any metal into pure gold?" Ron said, dazed. "Then once we get the Philosopher's Stone, we'll be rich, won't we?"
Hermione rolled her eyes and shut the book. "It's only a guess. It may not be the Philosopher's Stone."
Harry, meanwhile, was deep in thought.
Was the thing hidden on the fourth floor really the Philosopher's Stone?
Hermione closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and called to the other two, "We ought to go. We've another lesson in a bit!"
Soon, the three of them left Wesson's office.
The Devil's Snare saw this and locked the door.
Then it took out the textbook again and began to brandish the wand.
The sparks leaping from the wand tip shone especially bright in the dim office.
After learning that the thing on the fourth floor was very likely the Philosopher's Stone, Harry's interest in that room actually waned.
Gold?
He had a vault full of Galleons his parents had left him; he had no need of that much money for the time being.
Immortality?
That was far too distant; he was only eleven, with a long life ahead.
Ron, though, kept muttering "Philosopher's Stone," "Galleons," and "pure gold" in his ear, all excitement.
Hermione seemed interested as well. As soon as classes ended in the afternoon, she ran off to the library, saying she'd look up information on the Philosopher's Stone.
At dusk, Wesson was on his way back to his office.
Just now, he had gone to observe Quirrell again.
Quirrell's change was startlingly large; he had even heard from some students that, although Quirrell still read straight from the textbook in class, he no longer stuttered.
This only made Wesson more suspicious.
Lost in thought, Wesson pushed open his office door.
He had barely opened it when he froze.
Someone had been in his office!
Look—those bold intruders had even left three cups of tea on his desk.
Not a sip taken!
At that moment, the Devil's Snare wriggled out of the suitcase and sketched Harry's face in the air with a tendril.
"Oh, it was Harry and the others."
No wonder the Devil's Snare hadn't blocked the intruders; Wesson relaxed and sat back down at his desk.
He needed to mark the fifth-years' holiday assignments. The task was simple: a paper Wesson had set based on past O.W.L.s material. "Miss Donovan, Mr. Flint…"
The quill scratched across the parchment.
"Hmm… Mr. Cartwright, let's see… the uses of Fwooper eggs… 'Can be stewed with beef? Produces unrivalled flavour?' Genius!"
Wesson gave him a failing grade—and made a note to try the recipe sometime.
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