In this part of Hogwarts Legacy, players enact a plot to gain access to Headmaster Black's office and the Keeper trial that lies within, encountering a tale reminiscent of the Deathly Hallows within the pages of an old and magical book.
This part of the Hogwarts Legacy Walkthrough begins with a trip to the Map Chamber to fill in the Keepers on everything that has happened so far in the chapter and see if they're ready to let us continue their trials.
The Headmistress Speaks
Niamh Fitzgerald, being a previous headmistress of Hogwarts, put the entrance to her trial in her office, not accounting for the possibility that the current Headmaster might be the tremendously unhelpful Professor Black. Given that this is the case, players are tasked with finding a way to get into the Headmaster's Office so that they can take on the trial.
The Polyjuice Plot
Suspecting that Professor Fig might know how to get into Headmaster Black's office, players are tasked with heading over to his office to ask his advice. Helpfully, Professor Fig has a polyjuice potion with some of Professor Black's hair just sitting around ready to use, and suggests the player track down Black's house elf and get the password to the office from them while disguised as Professor Black.
This leads to a rather entertaining sequence where players must walk to the Great Hall while disguised as Professor Black, and can take a number of opportunities to play pranks and otherwise take advantage of the disguise.
After tracking down Scrope, it doesn't take too long to convince him to reveal the password, which is the Black family motto in French: "Toujours Pur." With the password, players can head up the grand staircase and find the entrance to the Headmaster's Office, speaking the password and heading up to find the trial.
Niamh Fitzgerald's Trial
Exploring the Headmaster's Office for some field guide pages and loot, players will also find Niamh's portrait, allowing her to explain that they can reach the trial by reading a book in the antechamber. Heading up the stairs and into said antechamber will reveal the book, which pulls the protagonist inside once opened.
Inside the book, Niamh tasks the player with finding her. While this sounds simple, this in fact requires players to traverse the story within the book whilst evading deadly foes and collecting some very familiar magical items.
In this first section, the player has no choice but to sneak through the town and past Death's Shadows. These deadly foes can't be fought due to the player being unable to fight during this part of the book, so players will need to watch their movements carefully to get through. Luckily the first group of Shadows is easy to pass by simply moving straight ahead since they should all have their backs to the player.
After ducking under an obstacle and reaching some hiding villagers, check around the side of the house for a chest and then continue following the quest objective, dropping down and following the path until players reach a road where Death's Shadows are patrolling.
Wait for the shadow near the path on the other side of the road to move away, and head across quickly. Follow the path down and hide behind the barrels until the shadows aren't looking, and then continue down and under the toppled water wheel.
After a brief encounter with Death, players should head under the bridge and into a new area, where some more of Death's Shadows apparate in after the protagonist spots a ladder. Climb it to get out of the way, and drop down on the other side of the building by the quest marker.
Wait for the Death's Shadow up ahead to walk past the path beyond, and then rush across the road and onto the path. The Death's Shadows in this next area alternate between watching the path, so players will need to wait for the nearest shadow to turn away, take cover behind the cart halfway along the path, and then wait for the next shadow to look away before going the rest of the way across.
After Death's Shadows apparate ahead of the player, turn around and go through the door that bursts open, then grab a wiggenweld potion from the chair on the left before taking the stairs up to the next floor. Watch for the Shadow by the door to turn around and walk into the room before moving up to the door, then watch the Shadows in the room until they're all looking away from the door before heading inside and slipping past.
A short walk from there and players will find the Cloak of Invisibility, allowing them to move freely without the Shadows spotting them. This allows players to simply follow the quest marker through the rest of the area and complete this stealth sequence. The cloak vanishes, but the player is given what appears to be the Elder Wand, and now it's time to fight.
Use Bombarda to blast the blocked archway open and head out into town. Players have been given four spells to use in this sequence: bombarda, depulso, descendo, and diffindo. Bombarda causes blasts that deal a lot of damage and hit in an AOE, and can hit a wider area if players have the bombarda mastery talent.
Diffindo is a single target spell that also deals tremendous damage, and can create a blade that cuts through multiple targets if the player has diffindo mastery. Depulso pushes enemies backwards and also creates a knockback wave at the player's location if they have depulso mastery. Finally, descendo slams enemies into the ground, doing bonus damage if they were in the air when the spell hit them, and causes an AOE shockwave around the target if the player has descendo mastery.
The main methods players have for dishing out damage during this sequence are bombarda, diffindo, and ancient magic, so players should fight carefully and try to bunch enemies up to take advantage of bombarda's blast.
After beating the group of enemies guarding a door shrouded in black fog, players are able to proceed further forward. Death's Dark Mongrels start appearing here, and they use charging attacks that can be deflected with protego or interrupted to great effect with depulso. After beating them and heading further in, look for a fallen pillar to duck under and grab some wiggenweld potions before advancing to a huge arena.
Along with the previous enemy types, two Death's Trolls will show up, which fight identically to the other trolls in the game. These should be priority targets for unleashing ancient magic, since they're essentially giant damage sponges. After the first wave Death will summon more trolls and shadows and the fight repeats. After that round, players can head for the way out of this area, as indicated by the quest marker.
After collecting a Mysterious Stone which is most definitely the Resurrection Stone, players will find themselves at a graveyard where people are mourning Niamh. Approach the grave to trigger a scene and then Niamh leads players to her Pensieve, where they witness a memory of Isidora Morganach attempting to pull pain out of Niamh to prove that her spell for removing pain is a good thing, before inhaling what she took.
Return to the Map Chamber to meet the final Keeper, Professor San Bakar, and discuss what was seen in the Pensieve to end the chapter.
Hogwarts Legacy is available now for PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S. It's coming soon to PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.