The other three Heads of House didn't know the full story, but since Dumbledore had asked Loren to stay, none of them spoke up to make trouble. Besides, Loren had real sway among the students; there were things the staff were ill-suited to handle that he could take on—and sometimes that produced surprisingly good results.
Once Loren sat, the Heads turned their eyes to Dumbledore, who was calmly drinking tea, clearly wanting an explanation. Under their collective stare, Dumbledore set his cup down with a sigh and began to recount how Harry's trio had set out to steal the Philosopher's Stone.
As he spoke, Loren could plainly see the Heads' faces growing dark. Professor McGonagall even drew her wand, looking a hair's breadth from giving Dumbledore a well-deserved jolt. Anyone would be furious to learn their own boss had led the charge in undermining their work. If Loren had been in McGonagall's position, he would've gone for Dumbledore's throat already.
When Dumbledore finished, silence fell—a "calm before the storm."
Loren was ready to sit back and enjoy the show when he heard a voice: Dumbledore's. "Loren—divert their attention. If you don't, I won't be able to step off this stage."
Loren glanced from the five people whose tempers were about to boil over back to the headmaster. Dumbledore truly was a great white wizard—he'd just performed a whispered transmission right under the Heads' noses and none of them noticed.
He had promised to help; reneging now would be graceless. Loren cleared his throat. "Professors, I have a question."
The tension in the room eased at once. As the Heads turned toward him, Loren understood: everyone had wound themselves up and needed a way to climb down; only an "outsider" like him could provide the step.
No one objected to the headmaster's whispering—silent consent for Loren to break the stalemate. Loren embraced his role; this was part of his bargain with Dumbledore.
With every gaze on him, he asked, "May I ask whether you knew the obstacles you set were meant to protect the Stone?"
The professors nodded.
"Then whom did you imagine would attempt the theft?" Loren pressed. "A powerful dark wizard capable of infiltrating Hogwarts… yet the obstacles you set couldn't even stop first-years."
At that, the Heads all looked to Dumbledore as well, plainly puzzled why their protections had proved so easy for first-years to bypass.
To be fair, Loren was being a bit glib. Harry's trio had had a charmed run. Judged against the original accounts, the Stone's protections weren't actually weak.
First: the three-headed dog. Even Voldemort had been wary of it. Professor Quirrell hadn't dared move for half the year before finding its weakness. Severus Snape—formidable by any standard, second only to Dumbledore and Voldemort—had been forced to retreat, injured. Even if Quirrell knew the counter (music to lull it to sleep), if he'd blundered into a fully roused three-headed dog and it went all-out, he'd likely have been torn apart before he could draw an instrument.
Next: Professor Sprout's Devil's Snare. The plant's textbook weakness is common knowledge, and in the original Hermione solved it with a spell. But Devil's Snare can be lethal. In Order of the Phoenix, a Ministry employee in St. Mungo's was strangled by a specimen disguised as a potted plant. If a potted Devil's Snare can kill a trained adult wizard—a Ministry hand, no less—then imagine Devil's Snare at full strength beneath first-years.
Professor Flitwick's room of winged keys: at first glance it seems tailor-made for Harry, the Quidditch prodigy. But Ron's line—"If we crossed the room, would they attack us?"—may have been the real hint. For a Charms grandmaster like Flitwick, crafting a magical "volley of a thousand arrows" would be trivial: open the door and get swarmed from all directions.
Professor McGonagall's giant Wizard's Chess: win a game to pass. Simple? In Deathly Hallows, McGonagall awakened Hogwarts's stone army as a core force against Voldemort. In Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore animated the Ministry atrium statues to both withstand Voldemort's magic and pin Bellatrix Lestrange to the floor as if she were nothing. Imagine thirty-two person-sized, enchanted stone pieces not playing fair, but simply rolling over intruders.
Neville had hacked the pieces to rubble like vegetables, true—but aside from Loren and Hermione, who else could match that brute strength? And even in the original, when Ron sacrificed himself, the white queen only knocked him out. A professional fighter striking a head can kill in one blow; how much worse a magically empowered stone queen taller than a man?
Then Quirrell's troll: foul-smelling, strong, highly resistant, thick-skinned—not easy to handle. Loren had crushed a troll, yes, but he's half-giant in physique with overwhelming magic; an ordinary adult wizard would have fled in a panic. Harry's trio only "slipped through" because Quirrell had already neutralized that room's troll.
Finally Snape's room of cursed fire and logic. Choose the right potion to pass through flame. When Loren examined it earlier, both fires were ordinary—just glamours. That didn't fit Snape's temperament at all. Knowing him, both should have been Fiendfyre. And Snape likely never intended to let intruders through; the table of bottles and riddle was bait—to hold attention long enough for the flames to burn.
When Dumbledore had just summarized, he'd glossed the details, and the Heads had focused on Voldemort. Loren's reminder made them realize something was wrong with the entire design—and the culprit seemed obvious.
Once again the Heads glared daggers at Dumbledore, clearly demanding an explanation.
Dumbledore glanced at them, then at Loren, and could only set down his tea with a sheepish look. "I added identity recognition to your obstacles," he said. "If someone from within the school entered, the rooms would operate on 'easy mode.' If not, they'd—"
That answer might have passed—until Loren asked quietly, "Then why did Quirrell face easy mode too? That's the only reason he reached the last chamber so easily."
Only then did the Heads realize they'd been led around the nose—especially Professor Snape, whose face contorted. The three-headed dog he'd met had been in a berserk rage; it had charged straightaway. If not for his skill and quickness, he'd have suffered more than a mere wound.
Dumbledore couldn't defend himself. He couldn't very well say, I left the gate ajar and used him as an experience pack. Besides, he had been shadowing Harry's trio the whole way; there had been no real danger.
As the five seemed ready to lock up again, Loren stepped in. "Voldemort's already escaped. What matters more is what Peter said."
That turned the Heads' eyes on Dumbledore again, searching for what else he'd concealed. Which didn't fit Loren's plan—he meant to use this opening to pull Sirius Black back out into the light, then—through Harry's ties—get into the Black ancestral home and angle for Slytherin's locket.
Seeing Loren had cued the topic, Dumbledore stopped hiding and began to recount Peter's tale.
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