Harry barely noticed that his reflection had turned back into a pony and stood beside his mum. And that his reflection looked sad even as his mum hugged him tightly with her wing. The fillies tried to crowd as close as possible, offering their reassurances to the Harry in the Mirror. In the far distance, he vaguely saw a black-coloured unicorn — something was odd about its horn — slowly walking away, a tiny red something floating beside it.
Quirrell cursed. And pushed him roughly out from in front of the Mirror. “Get out of the way,” he ordered crossly.
Harry gasped and stumbled, but kept his balance. His face was cold, but he was sweating.
“I must speak to him . . . ,” the strange, but familiar voice ordered, “. . . face-to-face . . . .”
“Master,” Quirrell objected, “you are not strong enough!”
“This . . . I can do . . . .”
Harry froze in place, too scared to move.
Quirrell bent his head and started to unwrap his turban. He dropped the last of it on the floor, then slowly turned. He was completely bald.
“Harry Potter,” Quirrell said mockingly, “It is with great delight that I inform you that this is my Master, Lord Voldemort, on the back of my head.”
Harry tried to scream, but nothing came out of his mouth.
On the back of Quirrell’s head there was a face — with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake. Its chalk-white colour stood in sharp contrast to Quirrell’s darker complexion. It was simply terrifying to behold.
It whispered his name haltingly.
Harry stood frozen, unable to move.
“See what you did?” the face said. “You made me shadow and vapour . . . . I must share another’s body to have form . . . but then, there are always those willing to give me their hearts and minds . . . .” Its eyes narrowed. “You know how to get to the Stone, don’t you?”
Harry didn’t hear the rest as he awkwardly ran for the door at the other end of the room. He dodged to the side as a yellowish spell shot by him to splash on the wall. He didn’t dodge the next spell, however and he tumbled painfully to the ground, wrapped in ropes.
He jerked as he suddenly awoke.
That horrible face loomed over him, and stared down. “It took me a while to decipher the Mirror . . . but it is obvious in hind-sight.” He paused a second, then smiled gruesomely. “Get it? Hind-sight?”
Harry stared at the horrible visage, too terrified to react. He heard a chuckle from Quirrell.
It rolled its eyes, “It’s quite simple really . . . . Only someone who doesn’t want to use the Stone can get it from the Mirror. . . . And you, you don’t want to use it . . . do you?”
Harry shook his head frantically.
“Good . . . good.” Then he made another horrendous smile. He leaned down, awkwardly, on one knee. He loomed over Harry, one hand on the floor as he bent backwards, until his face was all Harry could focus on.
“Once I have it, I shall become . . . you. . . . Fitting, don’t you think? . . . Me becoming the one who made me a wraith? . . . The perfect revenge. Regaining my body at your expense?”
“But they’ll search for me!” Harry blurted out desperately.
He gave a short vicious laugh. “Once I have the Stone, you and it shall be stashed somewhere far, far away. . . . No one will find you before I consume you on the summer solstice. . . . A transformed chair is taking Quirrell’s role of a sick wizard. . . . It should easily last until we return. . . . And we have the perfect alibi . . . Madam Pomfrey will swear Quirrell was there all day!” He smiled gleefully.
“And that creature you call your mum will blame Dumbledore . . . not poor, st-t-tut-t-tering and s-s-sick me. . . . It will drive a permanent wedge between her and the wizards.” His expression became grim.
“Now. . . . Where! . . . Is! . . . It!”
Harry felt Voldemort’s eyes bore into him. He tried to close his eyes, but nothing happened. The last year seemed to fly before his eyes.
There was a sudden pop, and then Quirrell flew across the room away from Harry.
“Oh, Quirrell, how could you?” came Dumbledore’s disappointed voice.
At the same time, there was a loud gasp. “Harry!” cried his mum in horror. He heard her rush to him and felt her lift his head. He could feel tears of relief start to trickle down his face as he looked up at his mum.
A moment later, the ropes disappeared. And a moment after that, he felt healing spells wash over him. They quickly healed the various aches, cuts, and bruises he had accumulated. His arm hurt abominably, but he could live with that. He was still tired, but he no longer had blurred vision while wearing his glasses.
His mum was here. They had finally realized he was missing, and where he had to be. Everything would be alright.
Harry’s mum stood over him, wings spread wide as she stared angrily at the one who had dared hurt her son. He could see flames flicking around her hooves, and the stone floor starting to redden around them.
“Quirinus,” Dumbledore said softly. “Was it really you all this time?”
Harry tried to say “He’s Voldemort!” but nothing came out of his mouth.
Voldemort was clearly in full control, as he was the one who faced the Headmaster as Quirrell regained his feet. But it was Quirrell’s voice they heard. He laughed. “Yes, yes it was me! Behold! My Master, Voldemort, has been on the back of my head all year! Right under your nose. You never suspected!” he concluded gleefully.
Voldemort’s face sneered. “Amazing what you can do with a Fidelius charm, isn’t it? Especially when you have a secret-keeper who can actually keep a secret!” he said in a taunting and sharp half-whisper.
Dumbledore shook his head sadly while his mum gasped above him. The flames on her hooves began to rise up her legs.
Watching as Quirrell’s body moved on the far side of the room, the back facing them, made Harry’s head hurt. The human body wasn’t meant to move like that. It was like watching a real-life horror movie. He shuddered.
“Surrender now, and I promise we’ll do all we can to separate and save you,” the Headmaster said steadily, holding his wand lightly at the ready.
Quirrell didn’t reply, instead he confidently launched a vicious green spell at Dumbledore, then another a split second later at Harry’s mum. They both easily dodged the spells. Watching as Quirrell somehow managed to cast spells behind his back while moving the wand in the correct patterns was terrifying.
But it was his mum that returned the spell-fire. She took to the air, a flaming vengeful pony. The floor cracked and split where she had been standing. Hoof-prints were clearly impressed into the softened rock. She was like an alicorn made not of just flames, but the sun itself. “How DARE you attack my son!” she bellowed above the roar of her flames and the flame-spell she launched. She held it steady as she moved sideways, waves of heat baking the stones in the room.
After only a few moments, Harry started sweating. A spell flew out of the flames. Apparently, Quirrell had two wands. She easily dodged it, momentarily standing on the ceiling. More spells followed, rapidly and blindly, shot out from where Harry thought Quirrell was standing. Gouges and small craters began to appear in the room, debris blasting across and falling to the floor.
Harry still on the floor, concentrated and sent a slug-vomiting hex into the fray. It was barely above the floor. Maybe he wouldn’t notice it. It wasn’t very powerful, but the more spells Voldemort had to dodge, the better it would be for his mum. And if he hit him? So much the better.
The flame-blast winked out, unlike the flames that surrounded his mum. If his mum looked like that, what would Princess Celestia be like if she was angry? Just the thought made Harry shudder.
A moment later, the shield that had protected Quirrell vanished. “Surrender or suffer the consequences!” She shouted, and launched another steady blast as he simultaneously sent two spells at them, both the sickly colour of the killing curse.
Twilight and Dumbledore dodged the spells. Dumbledore sent his own curses into the fireball that surrounded Quirrell.
Harry quickly got to his feet and moved as far from the action as he could. He needed all the time he could get to dodge a dangerous spell. In the meantime, he kept casting the slug-vomiting hex at where he thought the wizard was. The spells weren’t powerful without his wand, but they were better than nothing.
There was no finesse in his mum’s attacks, no subterfuge. Just sheer, raw power.
Voldemort, at one time, might have been able to duel them, if the stories Harry had read were not exaggerations. The wizard might have been the equal of Dumbledore or his mum. But Quirrell was just a common wizard, playing host to a possessing wraith with only limited powers. Plus, Harry hoped, he was already weakened from the possession and the spell casting earlier that day.
His opponents were well-rested, at least from a magic point of view.
Spells continued to pour in random directions from the area where Twilight directed her blasting beam. But the power in Quirrell’s spells steadily declined. That his mum’s blast was abrading the spells fired through it didn’t help the wizard any.
Quirrell tried to run, it appeared, from the way his mum manoeuvred the blasting beam around the other side of the room. The alicorn halted her spell. Quirrell was down on one knee. He held one wand now, the other he had dropped to the floor. He fumbled in a pocket and drew out a small object. He dropped it as he snatched the wand on the floor.
“No,” shouted Twilight, blasting him away. His shield kept him safe but didn’t prevent her from knocking him to the side. That left the thing on the floor outside his shield.
The object shot across the room to clatter to the floor behind her, not far from Harry. He quickly grabbed it in his magic and pulled it close. It looked like a tiny framed painting, barely a postage-stamp in size. He held it tightly in his hands. He didn’t know what it was, but whatever it was he didn’t want Voldemort to get it, again.
Voldemort snarled and launched a series of spells, most blocked by the shields from Dumbledore and Harry’s mum. The remainder splashed explosively against the walls and ceiling, showering the room with more debris, but not breaching the spells on them.
Voldemort’s attacks, while fast and furious, wielded from two wands, were steadily dropping in power.
“Give up, Quirinus, we can help you!” pleaded the Headmaster, casting primarily defensive magic, now, allowing the alicorn to concentrate on offense and occupy the wizard’s primary attention. Besides, what good would it do to send spells when he couldn’t see his target?
Quirrell suddenly screamed and dropped his wands, both hands grabbing at his head. He grimaced in pain, still screaming.
A black, smoky cloud erupted from the back of his head and fled to the far corner of the room, then swerved and headed for Harry.
“Now,” screamed Twilight. A bright purple beam came from her horn and struck the cloud. It stopped dead in the air, roiling violently. It seemed to have a face with malevolent eyes. It silently howled at being held still.
Dumbledore reached into a pocket and withdrew a box. He opened it and tapped it with his wand. Then he threw it into the air and used his wand to guide it to the cloud.
The cloud screamed in silence as the box expanded to completely cover it. Then the lid closed and the box shrank to its former size. The Headmaster used his wand to gently guide it to the floor.
The room was silent, except for the moans coming from Professor Quirrell. He laid on his side on the floor, writhing, hands clutching his face and head.
The Headmaster walked over to the box. His mum flew down, as the flames around her subsided. She was once again a purple Alicorn when she touched down on the floor.
Dumbledore bent over and picked up the box. Sighing, he started casting spells on the box. Then he placed it back in his pocket. He looked up at Harry’s mum, and nodded.
They walked over to Quirrell, as did Harry, now that the spells seemed to have stopped flying. His mum nodded her head and the wands beside the wizard flew over to hover beside her, in purple auras.
Quirrell writhed on the floor as they approached. He stopped, gasping, and looked up at the Headmaster.
Dumbledore knelt down beside the wizard. He moved his wand in a complex series of motions, then shook his head. “I’m sorry Quirinus, there’s nothing I can do for you. You’re almost completely out of magic and what little is left is haemorrhaging away at a frightful pace. There will be none left in a few moments. And we can’t get you to St. Mungos in time.”
He shook his head again and said in mild reproof, “You should never have listened to Voldemort.”
Quirrell’s mouth quirked. “I discovered Lord Voldemort as I travelled on my sabbatical. There is no good and evil, he showed me, only power, and those too weak-willed to seek it. . . . And I am not weak-willed. I have served him faithfully since then. . . .” The wizard looked away from Dumbledore for a moment. “He demands perfection. He was most displeased when I failed to acquire the Stone from Gringotts. He . . . elected to keep a . . . closer watch on me. . . . But the rewards,” his eyes sought Dumbledore’s, “the rewards I would have had if we had succeeded would have been worth the pain. . . .” His eyes drifted to the side, again. “I would have had power to nearly rival your own,” he whispered. “It was worth the gamble. It was worth the risk to seek it.”
Dumbledore sighed sadly. “And you are merely the latest in a long string of victims of his lies,” he said softly. “As much loyalty as you might have felt to him, he had none to you. He thinks only of himself. Everyone else is merely a tool, a means to an end. Look how he abandoned you, without a thought.”
Quirrell looked over at Harry and smiled wryly, which was odd given the pain he must have been in, Harry thought.
“I know. He always puts himself first. It comes from having an Existentialist Absurdist outlook on life. But I knew that. And being second to such power as he has is not a bad position to be in.”
Harry watched as the wizard’s eyes glazed over and his body stilled and stopped twitching. It took him a moment to realize that the man had died, that he was truly gone.
Dumbledore reached out and gently closed the wizard’s eyelids.
Harry blinked. Then he looked away and around the chamber they were in. Several of the columns in the room were shattered or melted, or both. Several places on the walls and floor looked as if they had flowed and pooled like molasses. And there were hoof-prints on the ceiling.
With some regret he saw that the Mirror, too, had been blasted and partially melted. While rugged, the Mirror had not been designed to turn away, unharmed, a series of magical blasts and tremendous heat.
Seeing where he stared, Dumbledore looked. “Oh, dear,” he said. He stood and went to the Mirror. He took out his wand and cast a few spells. Then he began to weave a spell. Not the simple reparo Harry expected, but a spell far more complicated and powerful. The Mirror began to fly back together. In a matter of seconds, the Mirror was once more standing tall and intact, as if it had never been harmed. And glowed with power that quickly faded.
Dumbledore’s determined expression faded into dejection as he cast another spell and read the result. He stared at the Mirror forlornly. “The Stone is gone. Restoring the Mirror, and its runes, to what it was seconds before it was destroyed simply reset it to what it was when it was made. My spell is gone.” He sighed.
“It appears the Philosopher’s Stone is . . . lost.” He turned to Harry. “Unless you have it?” he said hopefully.
Harry shook his head. “If it was in the Mirror,” he said slowly, “then neither I nor Quirrell managed to get it out.”
From the Headmaster’s heartfelt sigh as he turned from the restored Mirror, Harry concluded the Stone had been in the Mirror before its destruction.
Shaking his head, the Headmaster slowly walked to them. “I could still find traces of the Stone’s and my magic in pieces of the Mirror before I repaired it. Now, there are none. I fear it is lost forever.”
As Quirrell had said, Harry realized, destroying the Mirror placed the Stone forever out of his reach — and everyone else’s.
“Nicholas will be most unhappy with me.”
۸-~-۸
Harry sat restlessly in the bed. He was in hospital. His arm was in a simple sling, the bone healing after a sip of Skele-gro — nasty, nasty tasting stuff. Madam Pomfrey insisted he stay there until it was time to go to The Burrow, after dinner. In the meantime, the Headmaster and his mum were carefully stepping him through everything that had happened after he had been stupefied.
His mum had her head in her hands. “Of course he used the book-walking spell to bypass all of our alarms, security, and Guards.” She was sitting on a regular hospital bedside-chair. “And the fidelius is the perfect explanation for why you could never find any trace of Riddle either inside or outside the school. And I’m sure that not suspecting Quirrell was all a part of it, too.”
Dumbledore, sitting beside her in his comfortable armchair, nodded. “And the painting you took from him is a miniature landscape linked to another in the Forbidden Forest. It is far out of sight and just outside of Hogwarts’ protective charms. He could have escaped the trap at any time he desired. Fortunately, it seems, he only discovered that option when you told the staff and Guards about it last week.”
She leaned back. “And the only effective traps were the keys, the chess-set, and the Mirror of Erised.” She looked over at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore looked back, his eyes twinkling.
“That was the best one of them all,” she said.
“Hmm, yes,” he said. “It was quite clever, I must admit.”
“You will show me your spell, later, won’t you?” There was a touch of eagerness in her tone and expression.
“Of course, my dear, of course.”
She nodded in acknowledgement, then sighed. “He shot by my enhanced plant trap like it wasn’t even there,” she continued. “Glacius.” She shook her head ruefully. “Like the cerberus, it didn’t even slow him down when he made his move.
“And the potion alarm he got past simply by duplicating the potion bottles and not touching anything on the table.” She sighed. “And having a hostage to taste the potion before he did would have negated making them all the Draught of Living Death.”
“The traps by the staff were merely to slow him down, to give me time to arrive,” the Headmaster reminded her.
“Time which we sorely needed, it turned out,” his mum said sourly.
“No one expected him to set up a fake hostage situation in Diagon Alley to draw me away. Nor to actually kidnap a student,” the Headmaster reproved.
“Well, looking back, it certainly makes sense, doesn’t it? He wants a new body, why not use one of the students as a template? That way he doesn’t sacrifice a follower so early.” She sighed. “We’re lucky none of the traps were fatal! And that he didn’t take several students as hostages.”
He nodded again.
They sat in silence for several minutes.
“I did not expect him to be so proficient at finding and disabling the alarms in the rooms,” his mum continued, dispiritedly.
The Headmaster nodded. “Even putting a proximity alarm on the Mirror itself wouldn’t have escaped his detection and its silencing. But why should we do that when the only way in or out is through the door? Anti-teleport, anti-apparition, and anti-portkey charms were all in place, courtesy of Hogwarts. Your runes strengthened the walls, so tunnelling or blasting in from outside wouldn’t work. We should have had a warning long before he got to that room, so why bother with a last-minute alarm?”
She leaned back in her chair. “I suppose a portal would have bypassed all the traps, and then we would have needed another alarm. But if he had known how portals work, he would have avoided all the obstacles and simply taken the Mirror before we even realized he was in that room.” She looked up at Dumbledore. “Maybe we should have given the stone to Discord. He’s already immortal and he has no use for gold. He’d probably use it as a doorstop,” she said drily.
“Or just given it to Riddle in the name of Chaos,” Dumbledore said.
She sighed. “There is that. I don’t think he would, but you can never really tell with him.”
“I do believe we owe Miss de Rippe a thank you,” the Headmaster finally said.
Harry sat up a little straighter, listening.
“If she had not been as attentive as she was,” the Headmaster continued, “if she had been a little more focused on her exams, she might not have noticed anything amiss with Mr. Twycross. She is a very observant witch. We wouldn’t have discovered Mr. Potter was missing until much later. Possibly not until dinner.”
His mum shuddered. “He might have decided to simply flee with the Mirror, by then, to study it at his leisure.” She glanced at Harry, “And taken Harry with him.” She shuddered again. She stood, then leaned over and hugged him. “Celestia forbid,” she murmured in his ear. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”
Harry could feel tears streaking down his cheeks. He stifled a sob. It was beginning to sink in. He really wasn’t dead. His mum had saved him, just like she had said she would.
It wasn’t as drawn-out an experience as what had led to his first hospital stay in Equestria, but it was nonetheless real. This time, he hadn’t been delirious. He had known he was facing death.
“Yes. That would have been a disaster.”
Harry looked blurrily over his mum’s shoulder at the Headmaster. “What are you going to do with . . . that?” He glanced at the old wizard’s robe-pocket, nauseated at the thought of the cube with Voldemort’s soul hidden in it.
His mum sat back in her chair and exchanged glances with Dumbledore. She sighed. “It’s a bit more complicated than you think, Harry.” She rubbed her eyes with her right hand. “Things like that have a way of coming back, like the Alicorn Amulet, even if you think you have destroyed them.”
He nodded, and wiped the tears from his face.
She smiled. “But you don’t have to worry about that, we’ll take care of this.” She leaned forward and grasped his hand. “You concentrate on getting better, and passing your History exam tomorrow.”
Harry glanced at his wand and holster on the bedside table. Quirrell had had the holster in his pocket, and used his wand to battle his mum and Dumbledore. Harry was almost afraid to touch it, now, worried he would find it tainted or stained.
She smirked. “And I know five fillies just dying to get in here to see you.” She stood.
The Headmaster also stood, and vanished his comfy armchair. “Yes, indeed,” he said in agreement.
They started to head for the door, but Dumbledore stopped and half-turned back. “Oh, and Harry? Please don’t tell everyone that we captured Voldemort, or that it was Professor Quirrell. Just say it was one of his supporters. We don’t want to cause a panic.”
Harry nodded.
They had barely stepped outside the ward when five girls and two boys rushed past them, all making a bee-line for his bed. They were followed by a stream of others from the Gryffindor dorm, with the Quidditch team in the lead. The memories of his points lost last week weren’t forgiven, but they were set aside for the moment. He had almost died, they knew.
He slumped down, pulling the covers up to his neck. Now he was really going to get it.
But deep inside he felt warm that he had friends who were actually worried about him. Friends who cared enough to come see him. Friends who were friends because of who he really was, not what he could do for them. Or to them. It was especially nice to see that he even had friends outside his herd-mates.
And his herd-mates. Just seeing them made him happy inside. They, he realized, gave true meaning to his life. Nothing was more important than protecting them and sharing his life with them.
۸-_-۸