THROUGH THE TRAPDOOR
purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway
leading onward. They were trapped.
“Look!” Hermione seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles.
Harry looked over her shoulder to read it:
Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,
One among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead,
Two among our number hold only nettle wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine’s left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.
Hermione let out a great sigh and Harry, amazed, saw that she was
smiling, the very last thing he felt like doing.
“Brilliant,” said Hermione. “This isn’t magic — it’s logic — a
puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic,
they’d be stuck in here forever.”
“But so will we, won’t we?”
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