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The break ended, and the Hogwarts student population returned to the castle via the Hogwarts Express. A snowy Hogwarts castle greeted them, with its entirety covered in ice and snow because of the January snowfall. Even in the cold, the castle looked majestic and full of life.

Quinn passed by the common room when he noticed Michael Corner and Anthony Goldstein sitting in front of a foxglove herb sitting in a jar. Anthony had the glass jar in his hand, his other hand on the lid, unscrewing it.

Quinn frowned and immediately whipped out his fake-wand and shot a light Pinching hex on Anthony's hand that was unscrewing the lid.

"Ouch," squealed Anthony as he rubbed the back of his hand on his robes. Both of them turned to the offender and watched Quinn walk towards them.

"What was that for?" asked Anthony as he frowned at Quinn.

Quinn pointed at the foxglove jar, "That herb is poisonous. You would definitely have gone to the Hospital Wing if you had picked it with bare hands. It can lead to death, and if Professor Snape found out, he would make your life miserable in the potions lesson," He waved his fake wand, and the glass jar floated from Anthony's hands back to the table.

"Just a piece of advice, when handling potion ingredients or tending to herbs in herbology, always," Quinn repeated, "... always, wear gloves. It is much safer and is an excellent work habit."

Quinn sat down near them, took out a pair of leather gloves from his robes, and put them on. Micheal's brow twitched; he looked towards Quinn's face and asked, "You keep gloves in your robes?"

Quinn nodded, picking up the glass jar, looking at the foxglove, "I have all sorts of things in my robes; gloves is just one of those things." He looked at Anthony and questioned, "What are you brewing with a foxglove?"

Micheal took out the first-year potions book from his bookbag and showed it to Quinn.

"We are preparing for the Pompion Potion that Professor Snape is going to teach in our next potions class."

Quinn glanced at the chapter for the Pompion Potion and smiled as he recalled its effects. "Ah, the potion that turns the drinker's head into a pumpkin. This was a good one," chuckled Quinn. Last year, he had used the potion on himself to scare many unsuspecting Ravenclaw's as they entered the common room on Halloween. It scared the crap out of them to see a pumpkin head charge towards them.

Anthony nodded but frowned in criticism, "Why didn't they teach us this before Halloween? It would have been perfect for Halloween."

"They teach it after Halloween because the staff doesn't want hordes of students with pumpkin heads on Halloween, though it would be quite fun to orchestrate such a scene," said Quinn, flipping through the pages of the book. He had learned to brew this potion when he was eight with Elliot at the West Manor.

"Why do they even this type of potion," asked Micheal, not seeing the practical use of the spell.

"Turning a person's head into a pumpkin sure isn't practical, but the reason it is taught because it is one of the simpler transfiguration potions. Pompion Potion is the best way to introduce this line of potions to students," explained Quinn as he returned the book to Micheal.

If Pompion Potion was on the simple end of the transfiguration potion difficulty scale, then Polyjuice Potion was on the hard end of the Transfiguration potions.

"Hmm... okay, keep this in mind," Quinn waved his wand, and a transfigured replica of foxglove appeared on the table. He took out a knife from his robes and removed the cover from the blade.

"You would want to slice the foxglove at a diagonal angle, like this." Quinn showed the type of cut on the transfigured foxglove. "This way, you would get maximum surface area on the slices. It is an important part of the recipe for Pompion Potion."

They did not specify the instruction to slice foxglove in the recipe from the Hogwarts book. Quinn had researched foxglove and its properties, the Pompion Potion, and why was foxglove used in the potion. From all these things, Quinn was able to discover the ideal cut for the foxglove.

"Something as simple as a specific way to cut a single ingredient can change how the potion would end up at the end. Always research the ingredients before you brew," advised Quinn as he cleaned his knife before sheathing it back into the covers and storing his things back into his robes.

"Remember it or note it down before I vanish it," said Quinn to the two first years. The two scrambled, fishing out their parchments to write everything Quinn had told them.

Quinn vanished the transfigured foxglove and said while getting up, "Always remember to wear gloves while handling herbs and potion ingredients. Now, see you guys later."

Anthony and Micheal looked at each other before taking out their gloves from their bookbags, wearing them so that they could get a hand on the real foxglove.

- (Scene Break) -

After curfew, Quinn searched the corridors of the fifth-floor, looking for the first vault. He had scoured the fourth and fifth floor with the bare eye but had found nothing out of the ordinary, but after returning from the Christmas break, he had switched his means of investigating by using various detection magics.

Wisps of magic emanated from Quinn towards all walls, floors, and the ceiling. Quinn was walking around, checking his surroundings for illusions, hollow walls, trap doors, heat signatures, out-of-place charms planted into the walls, or any parameter that Quinn could think about and find in books on detection magic.

Quinn walked with his eyes on Recon, checking and making sure that he wasn't seen. When he reached the left-most corridor on the fifth floor, various detection spells returned positive feedback from a specific square piece of wall.

"What do we have here?" said Quinn as he stepped back from the wall, shooting another wave of detection spells on the wall and once again getting positive feedback.

"Great, this is great," said Quinn, walking to the wall and putting his hand on it, funneling magic into the wall, trying distinct patterns and arrangements to get some kind of reaction.

After trying various methods, the wall gave no reaction whatsoever. It didn't budge, shift, morph, or outright disappear.

"This is the wall. It has to be," said Quinn, summoning Recon and shifting it to his current position. He placed his finger on the wall's position on Recon, marking it so that Quinn could easily find his way to this area of the fifth floor.

"I need to find a way to unlock this wall," muttered Quinn, staring at the unassuming wall. It had no distinct features than the surrounding walls, but Quinn could feel the variety of charms placed into the bricks making up the wall.

After observing the wall for another half an hour, Quinn moved away from the wall. He was thoroughly determined to do some research work to find what the charmed wall was hiding.

- (Scene Break) -

"Test #1: Projecting magic in the pattern of {mannaz} alphabet. Alphabet meaning: Man," announced Quinn as a charmed pen that did the same work as a dictation pen, wrote notes for Quinn.

With his hand on the wall, Quinn sent his magic into the wall. Tracing the pre-decided pattern. A pattern appeared on the wall in the shape of the {mannaz} alphabet.

The wall glowed once, but the glow died down, and the wall showed no sign of change.

Quinn cracked his knuckles and announced to his dicta-pen.

"Test #2: Projecting magic in the pattern of {mannaz} alphabet. Alphabet meaning: Man. Applied in a triangle configuration."

This time three {mannaz} alphabets glowed on the wall, and when they fully formed, three faint lines of magic joined them to each other. The wall glowed up and died down, but Quinn saw no difference in the wall.

"Test #3: Projecting magic in the pattern of {mannaz} alphabet. Alphabet meaning: Man. Applied in a pentagon configuration."

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"Test #83: Projecting magic in the pattern of {gyfu} alphabet. Alphabet meaning: Gift. Applied in an off-side double star configuration."

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"Test #346: Projecting magic in the pattern of {feoh}, {eoel}, and {entrok} alphabets. Alphabet meanings: Castle, estate, entrance. Applied in a linear configuration."

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"Test #421: Projecting magic in the pattern of {isa}, and {logr} alphabets. Alphabet meanings: Ice and sea. Applied in an overlapping configuration."

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"Test #613: Projecting magic in the pattern of {feir}, {agni}, {wirl}, and {oen} alphabets. Alphabet meanings: Fire, fire, wall, and open. Applied in a diamond configuration."

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After two months of running tests on the bloody piece of wall that refused to budge, Quinn finally got a hit.

"Test # 713: Projecting magic in the pattern of {isa}, {isaz}, {Yr}, and {is} alphabets. Alphabet meanings: Ice, Ice, Death, and Ice. Applied in a dual-branch (Y) configuration."

Quinn's one hand was on the wall while he was holding his notes in his other hand. Quinn wasn't expecting the wall to open and read the next configuration from his one thousand pattern list.

But, his eyes widen when the patterns he was funneling magic in glowed, glowed brighter than ever in his two-month-long trials. Quinn stepped back a step, looking with wide eyes as he saw the bricks vibrate and came to a sudden stop.

Line-by-line, the bricks moved aside, leaving a square entrance in the wall he had spent hours in front of.

"Merlin, Morgana, Solomon, Circe...! The stupid wall opened up. Take that you unresponsive, dumb, freaking mad piece of brick," shouted Quinn as he collected his notes, storing them into his bookbag. Quinn vanished the barstool he was sitting on and gleefully yet carefully entered the entrance in the wall.

Quinn stepped into the opening and felt that he passed through a membrane. The moment he stepped past the membrane, a freezing cold suddenly appeared, lowering the surrounding temperature drastically.

"W-Woah, Friar w-wasn't j-oki-ng when he said a v-vault so co-o-o-ld that even d-death might die," said Quinn as his teeth rattled because of the cold.

The charms in his clothes did absolutely nothing to shield Quinn from the biting cold as he walked deeper into the new corridor. Within a few steps, there was a thin layer of ice on the walls, and Quinn's breath became visible.

Quinn could barely get by; he had to ramp the heat around him with magic so that he could function normally in the freezing cold. Even then, he still felt cold because he couldn't turn the heat up anymore in fear of burning his clothes.

Slowly, the ice got thicker, and the surrounding turned icy-blue because of the thick casings of ice everywhere.

After a short walk, Quinn finally reached a pure icy-blue corner of the corridor. The height and width of the corridor increased to open into an enormous gate. A gate made of pure ice, and in front of the gate was lazily spinning snowflake-shaped icicle. The snowflake was huge, big enough to cover the enormous gate.

Quinn climbed down the stairs that lead to the larger end of the corridor, but the moment Quinn climbed down the last step, the cold, which he thought was already freezing, turned into a cold so frigid, so bone-biting that Quinn's body immediately began showing signs of hypothermia.

Quinn looked down to see his fingers slowly turning blue, freezing over. Ice began covering his hair, quickly freezing them. Quinn's heartbeat began to slow down, and his eyesight started to turn dim. And, these were the things that Quinn could feel. There were a lot more symptoms that Quinn wasn't even aware of.

Quinn's survival instincts started to go crazy as his entire being screamed at him to leave this place. It took all of Quinn's focus and the entirety of his magic capabilities to push himself back up the stairs and escape the freezing cold.

The moment the cold reduced, Quinn collapsed on the floor. The surrounding temperature felt like heaven compared to the frigid hell down the steps.

Quinn's body started to glow a bright red as his magic began to show itself in this time of need. Quinn's magic began operating on its own, working to keep him alive. Raising the temperature of his body, preventing him from going into shock. His magic was responding to his will and wish to live, a special brand of accidental magic. All Quinn could do was to make sure he was awake and not unconscious, giving his magic a fair chance to fight for survival.

And, that was what he did, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes as his pale body laid on the floor, waiting and wishing for his magic to make it so that he could live past this disaster.

The red light formed a cacoon around Quinn, completely covering him in its light.

- (Scene Break) -

Quinn didn't know how much time had passed, but the red cacoon of light subsided, and he was finally in a condition to eventually able to stand up. His legs felt like lead and jelly at the same time. Quinn slowly dragged his weak and dead pale body out of the Icy corridor to the fifth-floor corridor. He was so out of it that he didn't even notice the wall close behind him.

Currently, Quinn only had one objective, and that was to haul himself to the Hospital Wing. Slowly but surely, Quinn made his way from the fifth floor to the first floor where the Hospital Wing was located. Quinn had to be extra careful at the grand staircase, so the journey was excruciatingly long. Quinn almost fainted several times along the way.

Quinn entered the Hospital Wing and plopped himself on one of the beds. The room was dim, with scare lighting from the few candles and moonlight. The time was already past midnight, and the room was dead silent. He dazedly looked around the room to see if there was anyone here but couldn't find a patient or the Matron.

Quinn wasn't even sure how to call for the Matron, Madam Poppy Pomfrey. He had been to the Hospital Wing, but he never interacted with the medi-witch who ran this whole operation. He didn't have the magic or mental faculties to heal himself from this, so she was his only choice.

Quinn wheezed in pain and fatigue; it was getting difficult for him to stay awake. The moment he had stood up in the Icy corridor, his magic was back in his control, no longer working on its own. So, Quinn had consciously maintained his body temperature throughout his journey and barely had any magic left in him; the accidental magic had taken a lot out of him, leaving him peanuts to work with.

Eventually, Quinn ran out of magic and sank into unconsciousness. With the last drop of magic exhausted, Quinn fell unconscious, saying goodbye to the conscious world.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn groggily woke up to see the Hospital Wing ceiling he had fallen unconscious to last night. Unlike last night, Quinn felt warm and cozy and not the freezing and frigid cold of last night.

Quinn could see the daylight coming from the windows, illuminating the room. He had slept through the night. He could feel a bed cover on his body, which meant that Madame Pomfrey had found him and had at least started his treatment.

He tried to get up but felt a body-wide pain erupt from every corner.

"Aaaaaaah!" he yelled in pain as he collapsed back on the bed. The pain came from his bones, skin, organs, head, and everywhere Quinn could imagine.

"Oh, Morgana! You are awake, Mr. West," said a voice, moving closer to him.

Quinn slowly turned his neck, not wanting the pain to assault him again, to see Madame Pomfrey, dressed in her usual medi-witch uniform, standing by his bedside, casting charms all over his body. Various spell lights made contact with his body, telling Madame Pomfrey the current status of his health.

"Should I set my affairs in order, Madam Pomfrey..." said Quinn in a crackling, barely audible voice. He tried to crack a joke, but his voice turned it into a morbid statement.

"Mr. West, what in the world happened last night! I found you with severe ice burns, frostbite, damaged organs, brittle bones, and, and...." she couldn't complete her list thinking about the severity of Quinn's condition.

"I found you after I woke up this morning, and imagine my shock to see you battered, pale, lying on one of my beds, completely unconscious," she said as she applied balms and creams on his body, causing Quinn to hiss in pain. He clutched his fist to endure the pain, and even that bought him more pain.

Quinn looked at Madame Pomfrey and asked, "Dear Matron, can you give me something for pain... I can't even move my finger without harsh p-pain. I will p-pray to you every day if you just f-fix me up with s-s-something." His voice was still raspy and barely a whisper. The jokes were just Quinn's way to distract himself from the pain.

Poppy Pomfrey frowned, "Mr. West, if you can still joke around, then maybe you don't need to something for pain." She ignored his repeated hisses due to pain and continued to apply ointments on his body.

Quinn wanted to cry and couldn't do anything but stare at the ceiling, thinking about last night.

'I got too excited about opening the vault and rushed in blindly,' thought Quinn. He knew the warnings from Friar's words and riddles but neglected them because of foolish emotions. Quinn felt that Fiddle's riddle was easy, and it was for a reason. The cold in the vault was too much for Quinn's body or magic to handle; it was pure luck that Quinn was able to push himself up the stairs to exit the killing cold.

'A vault so cold that even death might die,' repeated Quinn in his mind, thinking how true that statement had turned out to be.

"What led to this, Mr. West," asked Pomfrey, her voice showing that she didn't want any nonsense. Quinn's condition was gravely serious when she found him this morning.

"I fell into a size-F cauldron full of freezing potion," was the answer Quinn gave. Quinn just made up an answer that would lead Quinn to his current condition.

"You fell into a cauldron of the freezing potion?" asked Pomfrey, incredulously.

Quinn nodded weakly.

"Why were you brewing a freezing potion in March?!"

Quinn sighed, and even that hurt a little bit, causing him to cough, which in turn a little more. "I am Ravenclaw... I saw the recipe, had the urge to brew it... so I did... Madam Pomfrey, it might surprise you to h-hear that we can be quite stupid."

Madam Pomfrey stared at Quinn and interrogated, "Mr. West, a cauldron full of freezing potion won't cause this level of harm. Your injuries are much too severe."

Quinn called on his confidence and scoffed, "It will if I am the one brewing the potion. Matron, heal me back to normal, and I will brew you top-grade potions. Murtlap Essence, Calming Draught, Sleeping Draught, Poison Antidotes, Blood-Replenishing Potion, Pepper-up Potion, Cure For Boils, or any healing-grade potions you like for an entire school year." By the time Quinn was done speaking, his throat was burning with agony.

Madam Pomfrey sighed in annoyance, thinking about the stupidity of the students. She had gotten numb at the student's bumbling action that bought them to her doors.

She sighed once more and informed, "Wait here, I will inform Professor Flitwick. He asked me to inform him when you wake up."

Quinn gave a light nod and waited for his head of the house to come and tear him a new one. The half-goblin had clearly inherited the fierce traits from his lineage, and Quinn didn't want to face that in his current condition.

Quinn just hoped that Flitwick would go easy on him.

"MR. QUINN WEST!" Quinn heard the bellowing voice from his Charms Professor.

'Of course not,' sighed Quinn as he got ready to face the music.

-*-*-*-*-*-

Quinn West - MC - Almost turned into a White Walker.

Icy Corridor - Cursed Vault - A vault so cold that even death might die.

Poppy Pomfrey - Matron/Medi-witch - Children are inherently stupid.

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The link is in the synopsis.