Dumbledore's Subtley
"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! You thought me dead?" asked Quirrel, laughing manically as he pointed the wand at Harry. "Tell me, did Dumbledore ever tell you that I was dead?"
"Ye-you..." stammered Harry, falling to silence as he tried to remember the moment he woke up after the ordeal and remembered Dumbledore speaking about the fight nearly seven years ago.
"I arrived in time to prevent that, although you were doing very well on your own, I must say," said Dumbledore.
"You got there? You got Hermione's owl?" asked Harry.
"We must have crossed in midair. No sooner had I reached London than it became clear to me that the place I should be was the one I had just left. I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you--"
"It was you."
"I feared I might be too late."
"You nearly were, I couldn't have kept him off the Stone much longer--"
"Not the Stone boy, you -- the effort involved nearly killed you. For one terrible moment there, I was afraid it had. As for the Stone, it has been destroyed."
"Destroyed?" said Harry blankly. "But your friend -- Nicolas Flamel --"
"Oh you know about Nicolas?" said Dumbledore, sounding quite delighted. "You did do the thing properly, didn't you? Well, Nicolas and I have had a little chat, and agreed it's all for the best."
"But that means he and his wife will die, won't they?"
"They have enough Elixir stored to set their affairs in order and then, yes, they will die."
Harry lay there, lost for words. Dumbledore hummed a little and smiled at the ceiling.
Sir?" said Harry. "I've been thinking... Sir -- even if the Stone's gone, Vol-I mean, You-Know-Who--"
"Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."
"Yes, sir. Well, Voldemort's going to try other ways of coming back, isn't he? I mean, he hasn't gone, has he?"
"No, Harry, he has not. He is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share... Not being truly alive, he cannot be killed. He left Quirrell to die; he shows just as little mercy to his followers as his enemies. Nevertheless, Harry, while you may only have delayed his return to power, it will merely take someone else who is prepared to fight what seems a losing battle next time -- and if he is delayed again, and again, why, he may never return to power."
"No... He couldn't have... He didn't spare you!" yelled Harry, remembering that Dumbledore never said once that Quirrell was truly dead.
"Oh but he did, he didn't want you to be going after me," said Quirrel. "He did a very wrong thing, he did! Crucio!"
Harry screamed, his body convulsing with each shock of the spell. But worse than that, the pain was unbearable inside his heart- why couldn't Dumbledore ever kill anyone? He felt betrayed, he thought Dumbledore would at least have informed him that Quirrell was locked up or dead. This pain was worse than the height of the Cruciatus Curse. He sobbed as he rolled over to his left and curled up into a ball.
"Why?" asked Harry as the spell was lifted. "Why?"
"Must you question how Dumbledore thinks? Especially when he was alive, Potter... Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Yes, he is dead, Potter!" laughed Quirrell. "I did it without any orders from the Dark Lord. And you thought I was still in the Dark Lord's service! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! He thinks I am dead, but no one ever knew..."
Harry stared at the man with distaste; his mind wasn't comprehending what Quirrell had said. He blinked once, and his heart felt as though it wanted to split; breathing became harder to draw in. His mind flashed back to when Voldemort said something about three missing Death Eaters at the end of the Third Task. The faithful, which was Crouch jr.; the coward, Karkaroff; and the leaving his service forever -- Quirrell. That much was suddenly clear.
Harry's face turned stiff at the last thought and he smirked at Quirrell. Quirrell stopped laughing and glared at him, walking up to him and stopping inches from his face.
"Are you mocking me? Look at you, you're tied up to a pole!" snarled Quirrell.
Harry shook his head, chuckling. "No Quirrell, you're wrong about Voldemort knowing that you're dead... He does know... That you're alive, Quirrell." Then he felt a sear of pain through his scar. "In fact, he knows you're with me!"
"Shut up!" yelled Quirrell, pointing his wand at Harry's heart. "I swear I will--"
"You will, what?" asked Harry, and his eyes glanced beyond Quirrell's face.
He then saw that Quirrell's hand began to shake, the wand was not steady in his hand at all. Harry knew that Quirrell knew that they had company. Harry closed his bonds off from Voldemort to stop the burning pain in his scar.
"So... Where had thou gone, all this time?" asked Voldemort, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I have missed you so much, I had quite liked being in your body, Quirrell... It was rather comfortable."
"Y-Dark Lord!" stammered Quirrell, his eyes wide with fear.
He fell to the ground, trying to inch closer to the hem of his master for a kiss. Voldemort snarled and kicked him in the face, sending him flying back and down at Harry's feet. Harry growled and spat at him and looked up at Voldemort, having a new problem to face. Voldemort.
"Let me just take care of this traitor and I'll be right with you," said Voldemort with a smile, waving his wand. Quirrell was lifted from the ground to face Voldemort. "Now... What kind of a fitting end should it be? Actually, you're hardly much to waste efforts on, so... Avada Kedavra!"
With a thump, Quirrell fell to the ground, finally dead.
Fin