The word GLORY had been carved into the keystone at the top of the tunnel in bold, deep strokes.  The tunnel stretched ahead into the darkness with little to light the way.  The tinny rhythm of some distant dripping was the only sound to accompany the Champions' lonely footsteps as they braved the shadows and made their way into the tunnel. 

But they were not alone in the darkness, though they were clearly the only flesh-and-blood beings here.  The grizzled, stony faces of ancient kings and queens seemed to stare down at them from the tunnel walls, where they were carved into the hard, gray granite with precise care.  A close examination might reveal names and faces that were familiar, for the old heroes from all different countries seemed to be honored here.  But for all that they were enormous stone statues, it was impossible to shake the feeling that the blank eyes were following the Champions as they walked by, as if the statues were not truly frozen but merely holding their breaths.

It was not long before the tunnel narrowed abruptly, coming to a halt at an enormous, elaborate wooden door.  Embedded with iron spikes and reinforced with heavy oak, it looked as if it would take the strength of a stone statue to budge it.

Engraved into the wood were foreboding words: "FOR THOSE WHO DARE, A GLORIOUS END AWAITS."


The Champions will find that the door is unlocked and opens easily, despite how heavy it looks.  If they desire to move forward, post your action and I shall post your results. 

"Wand out, wits in..." Figaro said with more confidence than he actually had.  Glory it would be.   Striding forward, step in step with Raine, Figaro approached the tunnel brightly marked GLORY, his wand drawn and his chin up.

"Lumos."

Figaro lit his wand and muttered in awe at the stony faces watching their progress through the tunnel.  He wanted to hurry past them - they were creepy as all get-out in the dank, dripping tunnel - but he tried to keep his cool.  He stopped to inspect the engraving near the likeness of someone who looked no older than they were.  He winced.

"Died a horrible death at the hands of twelve dragons..." he supplied to Raine.  "Yup.  Alright."

He scratched the back of his neck.  He felt watched.  And then after what seemed like ages, but was probably only minutes, they came upon a giant, ominous looking door.  And it had an inscription.

Figaro read it aloud.  "For those who dare, a glorious end awaits.  Why am I not comforted?" he laughed a little nervously.

"Alright, no.  I know what to do.  Don't touch it.  Sasha and Alex showed me. Here."

Figaro took a proper casting stance and extended his wand at the door.  "Specialis Revelio!"[1]

1.	Scarpin's Revelaspell - http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Scarpin's_Revelaspell

Sellaphix led the way, his lit wand throwing gentle illumination across the tunnel walls as they walked. Raine had her own wand out and held it en garde as her pale eyes swept the faces that appeared to be following them. The stone statues stared back lifelessly but she found herself pausing at intervals to study them- their expressions, engravings.

It brought out a morbid curiousity in her. Impalings, duels, wars, battles, proud beheadings. Many of them were impressive- in an odd, historical sense. At Figaro's comment on one of the younger statues, the prefect smirked.

"Twelves dragons. That is a rather glorious way to go, I suppose..." Certainly better than choking to death on a chocolate frog or drifting off in one's sleep.

And then they were at the door, which towered over the two Champions like a monolith of wood. Raine was hardly done running her eyes across its ancient surface when her classmate warned against touching it and began to cast a charm. She shrugged, reassured by the mention of their Ravenclaw friends- Schlawkward had his dense moments but Raine could trust he knew his spells.

Nonetheless, she turned around and cast a wand light in the tunnel behind them while Figaro took the initiative. There was something eerie about having their backs to those statues.

The spell shifted over the door with a shimmer, sending a wave of faint light dancing over the dark, heavy wood.  The heavy iron handle stayed dark and dull.  Judging by the look of it, there were no locking spells or any other kind of enchantments present on the metal.

The wood, though, glowed a faint, pale yellow -- an indication that educated wizards might recognize as identifying a spell that decreased the weight of an object.  By the look of it, the heavy door should be relatively easy to open.

Figaro hated puzzles.  He always got bored of the figuring quickly and just barreled through.  If he got it wrong, at least someone supplied the correct answer or he could check the back of the book.  The Task wasn't set up that way though.  It had consequences.  And he was feeling jittery.

"I have no idea."  The results of his spell didn't show him anything dangerous or dismembering.  If he remembered, the yellow spell aura indicated something mild.  What was it again? If it's yellow let it mellow...?  Was that the right rhyme?

And rather than bend his brain on riddle, he laid his hand on the iron handle, thumbed the latch and pushed. 

The door leapt open with startling ease! Figaro had nearly pushed to hard for its magically reduced weight.  The momentum of his push actually carried him in a step or two.

Raine was still staring outwards at the statues when she heard her fellow Champion mutter to himself, followed by a creak of the door. A confused Sellaphix, how remarkable. But at least he'd gone ahead and made some progress. The witch tore her eyes away from the tunnel and turned around to lay a hand on his shoulder.

"You have no idea about wh-hey!"

Her hand met with air and she stumbled towards the door, barely catching herself in time to see Figaro cross haplessly past the threshold he'd just revealed. What in Merlin's name was he doing?

"Sellaphix!" Raine stared with a mixture of concern and reproach. Mostly reproach.

There was a second of pause just before Raine Almasy stepped over the threshold after Figaro Sellaphix and then, when she did, a thunderous noise filled the chamber.  At first, it might have sounded like danger, but as the torches lit around them it was clear: it was applause! Uproarious applause from dozens upon dozens of paintings covering every wall.

"The Illustrious Wonder of Gryffindor House! The Unmatched! The Most Successful Prefect of Her Age! Raine Elizabeth Gizella Almasy!"  a voice boomed.  And the applause swelled.

"The Incomparable Wunderkind of House Hufflepuff!  Hogwarts School's Golden Boy!  Cleverest in All History! Figaro Flamel Sellaphix!" the voice announced again, and the applause tilted into absurdity.

Every move or glance the champions made were greeted with swooning, cheering admiration from the portraits in that direction.  It was all so enthusiastic, it might have been difficult to miss what was in the center of the room.

It was a very large mirror with an engraving at the top.  Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.  It is, of course, the Mirror of Erised, and gazing into it will show your heart's desire.

At first the sudden din set Figaro back on his heels, but soon it was clear that something amazing was happening.  He wandered the edge of the room in a wide circle and waved at the portraits all waving at him.  He grinned from ear to ear and looked over at Raine.

"Raine, I think we won!  You think? All we had to do was open the door - guts or glory?  Nice!"  Figaro was ready to just take the cosmic favor, chalk it up to a clever trick to get them to stress out over the door but his bold, inquisitive nature had clinched it for Hogwarts.

"Wait - what's that?"  Figaro came round to the front of the mirror, looking over it up and down.  The glass was foggy, but when he peered closer, he saw himself.  But other people as well.

He was surrounded by people, smiling and laughing.  He was in the middle of all of them, his mouth moving like he was telling the most amazing story.  People were high-fiving and slapping him on the back. 

He didn't know how long he stood there.

The applause was such a shock to Raine's ears that she flinched as soon as they were through the door, one hand going up to cover her ear while the other tightened its grip around her wand. She looked around with a perplexed expression and was hardly listening to Figaro.

Illustrious wonder? The unmatched? If such praise had not come from a seemingly disembodied voice, it might have nearly sent her blushing. Nearly. Raine's shoulders relaxed marginally and she was about to move forward- towards the applauding portraits, curious as much as she was overwhelmed by the noise. But then: "Wait - what's that?"

Figaro had essentially gotten them this far, so the Gryffindor turned to see what he was going on about. She could have sworn that her heart had missed a proper set of beats. There was a peculiar mirror sitting right in the center of the chamber and in its reflection, Raine saw herself stood next to her deceased twin.

They looked so happy, so young. So unaware. Her blood ran cold and she took a step back unconsciously.

"This isn't right," the prefect muttered, even as she found herself unable to turn away from the image. There was a longing inside that wouldn't let her look away. The two redhead girls in the mirror were holding hands and laughing about a joke, a joke that probably only the sisters could understand. "Sellaphix. Figaro. It isn't real."

It wasn't real- she knew it wasn't real but it felt real... and it also felt cruel. Raine clenched her teeth and forced her gaze away from the Mirror of Erised. She stared into space, head turned in the other direction, and reached out until she felt Figaro's arm.

"Figaro, we have to look away." Her voice cracked. Determined, she pinched the Hufflepuff's arm. "Stop it!"

Figaro jumped and clasped his side.  "Hey."  He hadn't heard a word of what she'd said, he was so engrossed in what felt like the perfect moment.  A moment of triumph.  "Ow."

Raine was standing next to him, and she looked worried and thrown off.  He looked back at the mirror, just glanced, and he was still there with all his friends and everyone was still laughing.  "What's wrong? What d'you see?"  He pointed at it.

The pinch did the trick and she barely kept herself from sighing in relief. That mirror was a hazard, just being around it made her feel anxious. Figaro's question was telling; he didn't know what it was.

"I saw a dead person," Raine snapped and then paused to look at Figaro, a little apologetically ."Sorry. My sister, I mean. That's the the Mirror of Erised, w-we can't be distracted." Merlin knew how long either of them had stood there staring at their respective reflections. If she could trust her instincts, it couldn't have been too long.

At any rate, the applause in the chamber was making it hard for her to concentrate. She wasn't sure if she could look at the image again.

"At least I think that's what it is..." the witch shrugged. It could have been any sort of enchanted mirror but she would have to assume she knew its function. "The mirror is supposed to show us our deepest desire. So... I suppose we have to really want a way out of here. And then we have to look at it again."

A dead person?  Figaro gave her a wary glance.  Now he remembered - the Mirror of Erised was famous for showing you your deepest wants and just realizing that's what he'd seen was uncomfortably telling.  But he shook off the bad feelings and tried to focus on what they were supposed to do.

"You think?"  Figaro did want to look into the Mirror again, and he kept stealing glances, but he didn't know if he'd be able to change what it showed him.

"Mr. Sellaphix can do anything! He's amazing!"

"Raine Almasy - hero of the Second Task! Above the challenge, for sure!"

The cheering continued and it was hard to concentrate when such nice things kept being said.  Figaro found himself smiling even though he wasn't sure why.

"Alright.  I'll try."

He squared off to the mirror, leaving space for Raine, and shut his eyes tight for a moment.  A way out.  Win the task.  A way out.  Win the task.  He repeated the mantra in his head a dozen times before he opened his eyes.

Figaro saw himself again, standing triumphantly again in a crowd of people rapt with attention.  And again, he appeared to be telling a tale of great interest and entertainment.  People were clapping and laughing and he had the Tetra-Wizard Cup in his hands. 

And he couldn't look away.  It wasn't what he needed, but it was exactly what he wanted.

For a brief and brutally incandescent moment, Raine thought that this plan was actually going to work.

And then she saw the look on her classmate's face as he stared back at the Mirror of Erised for the second time- a look perfectly content, almost in blissful disbelief of the sight that faced him. Something told her it was rather unlikely that he happened to be looking at their way out of this room. And the cheering was beginning to eat into her. They would never be able to hear praise in the same way again.

"Not working," the prefect muttered as she turned away- not even bothering to disturb Figaro this time. She certainly wasn't going to look at her reflection again- not until she exhausted all other resorts. The portraits. Before they'd noticed the mirror, she had been going to the portraits.

Raine strode to the closest ones with solemn determination; the cheers were louder, the closer she came.

"Merlin's socks," the witch growled as she began to examine the people inside of them. She started tapping the sides with her wand while she blocked up her right ear with a free hand. "Won't you all shut up before I hex the frames right off of you."

The painted figures in the nearest portrait to Raine were dressed in the finest medieval fashions -- purple and blue and green satin dresses, lacy collars, black pointed shoes, and fine silks.  At her admonishment, they shrank back, looking momentarily afraid, but immediately burst into another round of raucous cheers:  "Long live the Hogwarts champions!  Such nerve!  Such daring!"

"Let's give them three rousing cheers, shall we?" another portrait burst in.  This one looked remarkably similar to the Fat Friar, though it would have had to have been painted when the portly ghost was still amongst the living.  "Hip hip --"

All of the portraits erupted in unison.  "HOORAY!"

"Hip hip --"

As the cheers began, the Figaro in the mirror lifted his arms, clutching the trophy above his head as he shook it triumphantly.  He was surrounded by an enormous crowd that seemed to cheer his every word, though if one squinted hard, one might notice that the Hufflepuff champion and his adoring masses were standing not on the Quidditch Pitch or in the Great Hall, but in the very stone chamber that they now found themselves.  The room seemed to be mirrored to the exact detail, down to the noisy portraits that were cheering relentlessly on the walls.

The reflection was nearly completely accurate, save for one small detail: in the mirror, a simple wooden door could be seen on the right hand side of the portrait that Raine was threatening.  Oddly enough, no door seemed to be visible on the real wall.

Figaro didn't even notice when Raine moved away from the mirror, or her threat to the praising portraits, or their resounding three cheers.  He was smiling and engrossed, soaking in every detail of the Mirror of Erised's realization of his wildest dreams. 

A part of his mind was naggling at him, that he should look away and go help Raine, that his House - all of Hogwarts! - was counting on them to pull through and do well.  But each time he noticed the thoughts, he would just say to himself... just one more moment and then... 

He was nearly swallowed up by the glory of his own reflection and hey - there was Raine!  He dumbly waved at her where she stood in the back of the crowd.  But her back was to him and she was laying her hand on a door knob, looking like she was about to leave.

This startled Figaro out of his revelry, and he spun around.  "Oi! Where are you g-" 

Turning to see Raine, Figaro saw that she was not leaving the room and there was no door.  He looked back at the Mirror and the door was still there, Mirror-Raine peeking through it.

"Raine, there's a door!"  Figaro tore himself away from the mirror and trotted over to her, and began running his hands over the wall to the right of a painting, touching the stone.  "The mirror showed a door right here and you were going through it..."