Harry gulped as he slowly approached the mirror. His eyes focused more on Quirrell as he made his way down the steps, though once he passed the dark wizard his gaze shifted towards the Mirror of Erised. As much as he didn’t want to step in front of it, he didn’t at the moment see much choice.
And more importantly, he was still grappling with all that he had just learned. About Snape and his father, the very fact that it was Quirrell who was working with Lord Voldemort and not the former Death Eater. And the realization that he actually hadn’t had much of a plan beyond “Confront Snape”.
“Tell me… what do you see?”
Harry didn’t break his eyes away from the mirror, where he and Quirrell’s reflections stared back at them. Not surprising. He half expected to see his parents again, but they did not appear.
Instead, he saw his reflection start to smirk as he reached into his pocket… and pulled out a strange red stone. The reflection’s smirk widened, winked, and put the stone back in its pocket… whereupon Harry felt a weight in his right pocket that had not been there before. It made his eyes widen and his body stiffen once he confirmed that indeed, the Philosopher’s stone was now in his pocket.
Quirrell noticed. “What is it?”
Even though he had a feeling Quirrell wasn’t going to believe him, Harry had to think quickly. Scooting back a bit, he stammered out, “I-I see myself… holding the House cup. D-Dumbledore is besides me… I’ve won it for Gryffindor.”
“HE LIES!” A raspy voice rang out, echoing around the chamber. It made Harry flinch and take a few more steps back. Something about the voice also made his head hurt, which wasn’t helped when Quirrell nearly screamed into his ears.
Harry shook his head, and Quirrell began to reach for something… but then, he paused as the voice spoke again. “The turban… remove it. I wish… to see the boy.”
Taking several steps back, but finding himself unable to just book it, Harry watched as Quirrell began to undo his turban. Something seemed to almost be keeping Harry rooted to the spot, and all he could do was watch as the last bit of cloth was removed… And the horror that the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had been hiding all this year.
“Hello Harry… it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
It was the face of Lord Voldemort. The face of the person who had killed his parents and left the scar on his head. The very dark lord after the artifact in his pocket.
He should have been terrified. He should have been horrified. And well, he was, but not for long. Because as soon as Quirrell was letting go of the line of cloth, there was a flash of light above him… and six teenage girls with unnaturally colorful hair screamed as they crashed down upon him.
If Harry hadn’t been prepared for such, Quirrel and Voldemort were even less so. Quirrell only had time to look up and try to get out of the way. He stumbled on the very cloth he had dropped, and was then knocked forward. His head smacked the stairs hard, a grunt being the only sound he made as Voldemort’s face went silent and Quirrell laid still.
Harry stared, blinking and unmoving as the six girls who had appeared from out of nowhere groaned and struggled to get up. They all looked exceptionally tired, and five of them were wearing strange necklaces that had a decent sized gem in them. One of them was wearing a tiara with a gem that was slightly bigger. All the gemstones were blinking, and with each blink, the gems grew dimmer.
The one with the tiara said something, though to Harry’s ears it sounded like she was singing something at him. She looked towards him, confusion shining as brightly as the gems had but a moment ago and mirrored in that of the other five.
She tried to say something else, but instead, she drooped down and passed out. The other five quickly followed suit, leaving Harry alone with an all powerful magical artifact in his pocket and six strange girls passed out atop an unconscious dark wizard who seemed to have the darkest wizard Britain had seen residing in him.
“B-Bloody hell…” There was no way this day could get any stranger.
Another flash, same spot, and a small purple and green dragon appeared and flailed in the air before landing atop the pile of people with an ‘oomph’. It swayed on the spot a bit before looking down and around, before finally seeing Harry standing nearby. Whereupon, it gave Harry a shy wave and sang something to him as well before looking at the strange girls with concern shining in its eyes.
Harry could only shake his head in disbelief, before the weight of the stone in his pocket reminded him of why he and his friends had come down here. Glancing from his pocket to the talking dragon and the pile of people, Harry bit his lower lip as he tried to figure out what to do. Quirrell was unconscious, but who knew if he’d get back up. And well, it didn’t feel right to just leave these strangers here in the same room as a dark wizard...
The sound of footsteps coming from the stairway thankfully gave him an answer, and he felt a smile spread across his face. They were a bit late, but the cavalry had arrived.
-*-
To say that the last twenty-four hours had been stressful for the head of Hogwarts would be a bit of an understatement.
Even ignoring the diversion in London that had taken up some of his time, the knowledge that Quirrell was making his way through the traps guarding the Philosopher’s stone and being pursued by several Gryffindor students had left him quite worried about what he might find once he reached the final chamber.
He had worried he would find Harry mortally injured, or otherwise in serious danger. That Quirrell might try to hold Harry hostage in return for the stone. Or that by some small chance with the assistance of Lord Voldemort, Quirrell would have found a way to retrieve the stone so that the Dark Lord could once more bring terror to Britain.
What he found, instead, was Harry Potter. Alive if a bit battered, and Professor Quirrell with a nasty looking gash on his head underneath a pile of several teenage girls and a young, unfamiliar species of dragon sitting atop them.
The latter sets of whom, so he had been told by Harry, simply appeared in a flash of light.
While the event was fortuitous in that it had incapcitated Quirrell, their appearance only brought more questions. Thus why he was on his way to the infirmary to check on their guests and get some of those answers.
Arriving there, he saw that it was Rolanda who was taking a turn standing guard over where Quirrell was being kept. Madam Pomfrey had already informed him that it was only luck that Quirrell wasn’t already dead, as he had cracked his skull when he hit the steps as he had. Given who he was carrying with him, and the fate that was in store for him once the Auror’s arrived… he was not so sure the word he would use would be ‘lucky’.
Nearby was also where Ron Weasley was recovering, and Dumbledore was quite pleased to see that both Harry and Hermione were there checking up on him. All three of them seemed to be in high spirits, though Dumbledore noticed that Harry kept glancing towards the other end of the infirmary, where the strange girls were all currently resting, the small dragon watching over them. Which in of itself only earned more questions in Dumbledore’s mind.
Harry and his friend’s presence reminded Dumbledore that he longed to pause and speak with the three courageous young students. First Years, and already they were throwing themselves into the fight against Voldemort. But the patronus that Poppy had sent just after he finished speaking with Madame Bones suggested what she had found in her examinations of their guests would be of great interest to him.
Striding over to Pomfrey’s office, he pushed the door open gently and smiled as he saw the Healer shaking her head over the roll of parchment she had in her hands. She lowered it when she saw him entering, and gave a tired smile.
“Didn’t expect you so soon Albus. Figured you’d be talking to the Ministry still about our former Professor.”
“It didn’t take much to reassure Madam Bones that it was of the utmost importance she send a few Auror’s over here to take Professor Quirrel into custody. Even without the mention of Voldemort, he was trying to steal an exceptionally powerful artifact.”
Pomfrey shivered a bit at the use of the Dark Lord’s name, but quickly replied, “And you were of course curious and worried about our new guests. Well, they’re an interesting bunch, that much I can tell you.”
“Your patronus mentioned as much.” Albus said with a nod. “So, just how interesting are they?”
At that, Pomfrey sighed and passed him the scroll. “Where do you want me to start? The strange markings on four of them, two shaped like wings on the shoulder blades and two like unicorn horns on the forehead? The weird magic they seem to have around them? The fact that they aren’t human?”
Albus took the scroll from her, noting it was a detailed transcript from a diagnosis spell. He lowered it to look at her when she mentioned that last bit. She shrugged and pointed through the door where they could see two of them through the crack.
“They may look human, but they aren’t. Granted, I would have found that out anyways, seeing as that baby dragon there seemed to poke one of them a bit too hard and drew blood. Black blood I might add. Almost mistook it for ink.”
“Most intriguing.” Dumbledore murmured, glancing back down to the scroll. The spell Pomfrey had used was normally used to find maladies or injuries that weren’t obvious to the eye, the magical equivalent to some of the tests muggles used. In this case however, it had recorded the fact that all six of them seemed to have silver based blood, and strange magical anomalies for each of them.
“Were any of them hurt?” He asked as he pulled his wand out, making a copy of the parchment to look at in more detail later.
Pomfrey shrugged. “Well aside from being tired and drained, they seem otherwise fine. One of them woke up briefly but just looked around in confusion before slipping back under. The diagnosis spell suggests they might be fatigued.”
Dumbledore nodded at that. “What about the Dragon?”
“Hmmph. You’d be better off asking Hagrid or Professor Kettleburn.” Pomfrey said with a snort. She did however frown a bit as she said, “He’s certainly… talkative, though not so much since he pricked one of them. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was actually talking, or, well…”
“Singing?” Dumbledore offered, earning a curious nod from the healer. “I heard it sing something when I first arrived. And Harry says it waved and sang something to him as well. I suspect that it was in fact talking to us… but not in a language we can understand.”
Pomfrey hummed at that, then frowned sadly. “No wonder then that I felt so sorry for him when he got upset at pricking one of them.”
“A musical sounding language is likely to do that. As an old saying goes, if one hears a song of mourning from the merpeople, even the coldest of hearts will be touched.” Dumbledore said with a soft smile, before glancing out the door. “Tell me Poppy, do you think you would be able to wake them? I’d like to try and see if I can communicate with them.”
Standing up, Pomfrey fetched her wand from her table as she said, “I don’t see why not. The spell I used to heal the claw prick worked without issue.”
“Then I’d like you to try.” Dumbledore replied, letting her go first as they moved back into the infirmary proper.
Madam Pomfrey slowly waved her wand over the face of each of the girls as Dumbledore brought his wand up to his glasses and gave them a few taps. The charm that let him see magic itself kicked into gear, allowing him to see the magic these girls possessed which was unique but similar to that of most wizards and witches.
It also allowed him to note remnants of two other magics.
One was centered inside the gems of the golden jewelry they had arrived with. It was faint, but reminded him of magic that was powered often by feelings of love or strong bonds between friends.
The other however was… something else. There wasn’t much of it around them, but it seemed… chaotic. Disconcerting to look at. Dumbledore even got the sneaking suspicion he might go mad if he tried to study that magic for too long.
His attention was drawn back to the girls themselves however as they began to stir. The first to awaken was the one wearing the crown, and her eyes shot open after she started rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. The amount of shock she displayed as she shrieked in confusion and moved her hands away from her caught everyone’s attention, including the other girls who didn’t seem to respond much better as they looked over themselves.
Dumbledore listened for a moment as each spoke, noting that just as he had thought, their language seemed to have a musical element to it. It also seemed to be quite empathic, as their panicked state was quickly starting to get to Pomfrey as well as Harry, Ron, and Hermoine, though the latter three were trying to keep from being noticed.
It was quite interesting to Dumbledore that the dragon, who seemed the most calm of the bunch, had waddled onto the bed and seemed to be trying to calm the one with the crown and the dark blue hair as she started hyperventilating. She tried to say something, but she said it so fast Dumbledore was sure even if he knew her language that he wouldn’t have understood.
With a hum and a light bob of his wand, there was a loud pop that got the strange girls attention, drawing their eyes to him and seeming to put their various states of freaking out on pause. He gave them all a kindly smile and a nod, then started to draw some simple illusions in the air before them. They were, in essence, nothing more than magical stick figures, but they would suit the purpose he had in mind.
Again, he made a point of watching the strangers as they in turn watched him. The one with the crown seemed particularly interested in every little movement of his wand, while the others seemed to be focusing more on trying to compare themselves to him. There was a great deal of intelligence in the eyes of the crown bearing girl… he had a feeling she was studying him as much as he was trying to study her and her companions.
Speaking slowly and using simple words, Dumbledore proceeded to explain where they were and why. He was actually quite glad that Harry was present, as he was able to point to him and see the barest flicker of recognition. Likely from when they had first arrived in the Mirror chamber. He strongly suspected that the words wouldn’t be understood, but the tone was what mattered more. Calming and reassuring them was key if he wished to get some answers.
Dumbledore finished by introducing himself, saying his name slowly before pointing inclining his head towards her. And much to his delight, she seemed to grasp it.
“Dum...ble...dore.” She said, pointing to him. He gave a nod and a smile, and she clapped her hands and giggled excitedly. “<Twilight Sparkle>” the girl replied, then tried to do… something. She blinked, and looked quite confused.
Dumbledore took a moment to try and repeat what she had said, but from the way the dragon started giggling, he had a feeling he mangled it. In fact, when the one with the rather curly and poofy pink hair started giggling, followed by smiles on the others faces, he was sure of it.
The girl didn’t seem to mind though, having closed her eyes in concentration. The reason of which became quite clear a moment later as the horn mark on her forehead began to glow. Dumbledore watched her hands grip the sheets around her as she started to sweat, but after a moment, cruder, almost child-like stick figures began to form in the air in front of her.
What followed was a similar demonstration by the girl with her own magic, though it was clear she was having difficulty. Given the fact that her figures were all shaped like ponies, with two resembling unicorns and two resembling pegasi, something told Dumbledore that Pomfrey’s conclusion they were not human was likely far more on the nose then appearance would suggest.
There were also several pauses, and not alot was actually made clear as the girl tried to tell their side of things. The look of confusion on her face and that of the others at times made Pomfrey lean in as she said, “I’ve seen looks like this before… folks who’ve had memory charms cast at them, on purpose or by accident.”
“It's possible whatever brought them here interfered with their memory… though I have a feeling they’re from further afield then we imagine.” Dumbledore agreed as the girl finally seemed to give up, sweating and looking exceptionally apologetic.
Dumbledore gave her a sympathetic look, coming around the bed to give her a reassuring pat to her shoulder. She seemed to recognize the gesture for what it was, and gave an appreciative smile, though it quickly fell as she reached up and looked the crown over, eyes growing distant before she looked to her friends.
That seemed to remind them of the necklaces the others bore, which they each took off and began to examine. Just as Pomfrey had suggested, they seemed to hold them as if they knew they were important, but they looked at the pieces of jewelry as if this was the first time seeing them.
Very curious… curious indeed. Dumbledore thought to himself. Turning, he walked up to Pomfrey and said, “For the moment, don’t let them out of the infirmary. Get them something to eat and make sure they are kept comfortable.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard. I don’t think these seven are in any particular hurry to go anywhere anyways. I presume you’re going to try to find a way to make talking easier?”
“That would be much more useful in getting the answers we seek. And besides… I would like to be able to actually say our guests names, be it in our tongue or theirs.” Dumbledore remarked as he made his way for the door. He gave Harry, Ron, and Hermione a small nod, and quickly added,
“I would like a chance to speak with you all about what happened later. For now, just try to relax and recuperate.”
With that, Dumbledore headed on out of the infirmary. His first impression of their strange guests was that they were lost in a strange place and with little idea how they got there… perhaps even less idea of who they were if his and Madam Pomfrey’s instincts were on the mark.
There were still many questions… fewer answers. But, perhaps if he could find a translation charm or other spell that could help them understand one another…
He could have the answers he wished for.