It was soft, so very soft. And comforting as well.
He could feel himself coming to, but he didn't want to. All this time, and all he wanted to do was be convinced that it had been a dream. A nightmare, nothing more. Then he heard voices.
"How long was she placed under the cruciatus?"
"No more than twenty seconds."
"Then she should be alright. No lasting damage done. Unless it was a particularly strong cruciatus but the nerves don't seem to indicate that that was the case. But it would still have been agony." Harry shifted to a side, trying not to hear… But it was Dumbledore's voice.
Rage suddenly filled him. He opened his eyes and saw the Headmaster seated at the foot of his bed. He immediately grabbed his glasses and put them on. And then confronted him.
"How could this happen?" He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice but it was impossible. "How could you let this happen? In your school!"
Madame Pomfrey came running. "Mr. Potter please, other patients are resting."
Dumbledore raised a hand defensively trying both to calm and reassure him, and he flicked his wand to prevent eavesdroppers.
"I TOLD YOU MONTHS AGO ABOUT MY SUSPICIONS AND YOU DID NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! ARE YOU REALLY THAT INSANE OR JUST COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT?"
Ignoring Madame Pomfrey's desperate attempts to shush him, he tried to stand but was overcome by a wave of nausea.
"Mr. Potter! You cannot leave yet, I haven't checked your vitals after what happened…"
"What did happen?" Harry rounded on Dumbledore who was still looking at him somewhat apologetically. "Why am I all weak like this, Quirrel never-"
"Harry, Lord Voldemort tried to kill you after leaving Quirrel's body. Failing that, he fled, or at least that is what Ms. Granger reported."
"YOU NEARLY GOT US BOTH KILLED! You endangered the life of your students! Why-" Harry slowed down and glanced wildly around. At the far end of the Hospital Wing, Hermione was still sleeping.
"Harry, for the sake of Ms. Granger who is still recuperating I bid you please lower your voice. I will try to answer your questions to the best I possibly can and if you wish to rage at me further you may continue to do so from my office."
"Why didn't you do anything about Quirrel?"
Dumbledore sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Firstly Harry, I surmise you know everything about the Mirror of Erised from the chamber having encountered it before."
"How did you know?"
Dumbledore ignored the question. "I suppose I must explain my line of reasoning, in light of all this… The mirror was a trap for Voldemort. The reason why Quirrel kidnapped you and Ms. Granger in the first place is because Voldemort realized that good intentions were necessary to retrieve the stone from the Mirror, which is why I placed it in there in the first place."
"But Quirrel could still have threatened other people to try and retrieve it for him!" Dumbledore closed his eyes wearily.
"As I said the mirror was a trap for Voldemort. All the other obstacles we placed in his way, which you may not have seen, were worthless. The real objective was to allow Quirrel access to the mirror, and using that mirror affect his soul. Since Voldemort was possessing Quirrel this would have allowed his soul to break free from Voldemort's influence…"
"YOU DID THIS ALL TO SAVE QUIRREL'S LIFE?"
Dumbledore raised another hand and Harry reluctantly stopped. "Harry, it is true that those possessed had to be weak and flawed enough to allow themselves to be possessed. But that does not mean Quirrel had to die. I underestimated Voldemort's intellect. I thought he would require more time to look into the mirror to determine its nature and how to defeat its defences. In that intervening time, Quirrel's soul would have been affected by what he saw in the mirror and he would recall himself so to speak. That would have allowed him to fight back against Voldemort's influence."
"But you failed?"
"I failed because Voldemort only needed a fraction of the time to understand the mirror and so there was no opportunity to save Quirrel."
Harry was seriously beginning to get angry again. "But what about your students professor?" he asked mockingly. "I heard Quirrel speak! QUIRREL WASN'T BEING POSSESSED AGAINST HIS WILL! HE WANTED TO BE POSSESSED, HE WAS EVIL, DOWNRIGHT AMBITIOUS AND EVIL!"
"Another mistake of mine I'm afraid. I was fooled based on his odd mannerisms which he didn't have before, that he was being possessed against his will. Another ingenious trick of Voldemort's. As for the kidnapping, I must apologize. I never intended to leave the school defenceless but there was a sudden emergency from the Ministry."
"Well?" Harry demanded.
"I cannot tell you it has not been made public, but I think you have the right to know that insiders were probably responsible for an assassination attempt on the Minister of Magic." Harry snorted. So the Ministry was incompetent as well. What else was new?
"And so in the political uncertainty that followed, my presence was required to bring calm and to provide security, as well as to determine how the attack unfolded. I stayed for two hours, I handed control to Professor McGonagoll…"
"So how come she didn't know?"
"But the Deputy Head master doesn't have access to all the school's instruments that monitor the well-being of students." Dumbledore said somewhat ruefully.
Harry was shaking his head in disbelief at everyone's apparent incompetence. At the very least, the worst hadn't happened. But he would never, ever, trust any of them again. No he could only trust himself, and truth be told he had been foolish. He should have demanded action against Quirrel, an arrest, he should have threatened to reveal everything otherwise as blackmail.
"After I made myself invisible with the cloak, Quirrel couldn't find me, even with magic, though he expected to. Do you know why?"
"Harry your cloak is no ordinary Cloak," said Dumbledore gravely, "it's powers will never fade in time, nor will it ever be vulnerable to spells of detection. And so I repeat my advice from last Christmas."
Use it wisely, Harry thought suddenly aware of the immense value that lay spread out before him. So he had been the one to send him his father's cloak. But why did he have it in his possession in the first place?
"And why couldn't Voldemort kill me, I mean I had no idea how to protect myself against a spirit, apparition or whatever. Was it my mother's sacrifice again?" After Dumbledore answered in the affirmative again, Harry searched deeper in himself willing himself to ask…
"I was reading the old Daily Prophets. And they said you were responsible for placing me with the Dursleys. You wanted to keep me from knowing anything about the magical world until I was of age."
Dumbledore looked uncomfortable. "Harry, I never expected the Dursleys to completely keep you ignorant, but I did think that under the circumstances you were better off being as little exposed to our affairs and the dangers involved in your person. You certainly would have had a more normal childhood this way. "
"What gave you the right to make decisions affecting my life professor? I'm sorry to be rude but no one else in the wizarding world could have taken me?
"Your godfather is in Azkaban for betraying your parents in the first place. He killed another of your parent's friends. Another potential guardian is unfortunately barred from law to adopt. You have no living relatives beside the Dursleys, and that was the best way to keep your mother's sacrifice strong, if you lived with blood relatives from your mother's side."
"But why be so concerned about my safety," Harry questioned again. "After all as you said the Dark Lord is just an apparition now that any skilled wizard could drive away. The sacrifice doesn't help against former death eaters-"
"I placed additional wards around 4 Privet Drive."
"They didn't even tell me how my parents died. I grew up thinking a car crash killed them."
"You only need to return once a summer Harry," Dumbledore said looking more troubled than ever.
Harry left it at that. His head was still spinning from the torrent of information he had just gathered and he wasn't feeling well. Dumbledore left and Madame Pomfrey gave him another sleeping potion. By the time he woke up a second time it was late afternoon and Hermione was awake.