Chapter 29

Bella's POV

"With the cloak and necklace in our possession, Harry and I went out of our way to do a little more digging on this Nickolas Flamel so we snuck into the library after hours. Hermione, we knew had already checked so our only option was looking in the restricted area, which is full of books on dark magic and such; they're only available to older students and teachers unless you're given special access.

We got chased down by Mr Filch and ended up hiding, which I know is completely useless considering we were both invisible, in this almost empty room neither of us had ever seen before. And, I only bring this up because it plays a huge plot point later on, in the centre of this room is this hugely elegant mirror; the mirror of erised. The mirror shows its user what they want most in life, for Harry and I it was our parents and for Ron, him as head boy and the captain of the Quidditch team. We visited it every night until Dumbledore moved it." I smiled sadly. Just like the resurrection stone, for those who had suffered loss such objects of piece could become addicting.

The day Hermione comes back she fills us in some more regarding this philosopher's stone, remembering his name being prominent in a two thousand something paged book she had checked out a few weeks prior for light reading."

"That's not light reading" Alice scoffed, "Who would want to read such a boringly long book about history and important figures. Pick up a fashion magazine people."

"I could. In Fact, I have." I shrugged, "Hermione is a notorious nerd. She'll read near enough anything, an attribute I've never appreciated more than over the past few years." I though off all the times in these past few months alone that her knowledge had save us from near death.

Not that I would consider mentioning that to Edward.

"You read that book. Why?" Alice whined.

"Because I got bored. And to it's fairness it was actually kind of interesting, it was no Withering Heights, but it was a good pass timer.

Later that day we went to visit Hagrid who was still entirely against the idea that Snape would try to do anything against the school. Either way, we put all the pieces together and figured that who ever was trying to steal the stone, would do it that night."

"I hate to interrupt Bella, but what is this stone capable of? Why place it under such high security inside of a school?" Carlisle politely intervened.

"The stone has many powers, though for one it can be used as the elixir of life. As for why it was in Hogwarts…it was originally locked away in Gringotts but from what I remember there was an attempted robbery and so Dumbledore thought it best to have it moved elsewhere. After all, Hogwarts is one of the safest places in the world."

"…Gringotts"

Oh, yes, I had totally trodden over our first shopping trip. "Gringotts is the 'safest place' on earth. But above all else, it's a bank. Oh! And I don't think I ever confirmed it but for clarification, Dumbledore was our headmaster."

If anyone picked up on my use of past tense, it went by unnoticed.

"So that night the four of us headed back to the west wing. We knew how to send the dog to sleep, courtesy of one of Hagrid's accidental knowledge drops, however once we got to fluffy she was already asleep. Which meant that we were right and whoever was trying to take the stone was already ahead of us-"

"Why not tell someone?" Rosalie shrugged casually as I glanced over to meet her eyes, "No offence but a group of Wizards seem better qualified to stop a threat over four kids."

"No offence taken. Nobody would have taken us seriously when we were accusing a teacher of trying to steal something within the school. And Dumbledore, the only person who may have believed us, was away.

Now, in order to protect the stone each teacher had put in place a series of traps that would make it extremely hard for any intruder trying to get in. The first of which we were met with on the other side of that trap door. Think of it as some kind of swallowing plant that kind of acts like quick sand; the more you struggle the more you sink. Thankfully Hermione had remembered that keeping still was the answer to getting through safety and even managed to get Ron out when he refused to listen. And so would start the endless list of times where Hermione's intelligence would save all our asses.

Next, we had to choose from various flying keys to unlock the door which luckily Harry was very good at and then, a giant chess game."

"What's so scary about a chess game?" Emmett laughed.

"Wizard chess is different to regular chess, in wizard chess the pieces come to life. But as luck would have it Ron just so happens to be an expert chess player and with his help we managed to get across, but only in sacrificing his own piece. And well, because Wizard chess doesn't operate like regular chase…his piece was knocked down. With him on it."

"Was he okay?" Esme gasped.

"Nothing a trip to the hospital wing couldn't fix, thankfully it looked worse than it was." I reassured, "The last round was to pick from the right potion out of the collection available, drinking the wrong one would result in certain death but as I've mentioned before my Hermione is a genius. Though there was only enough liquid for the two of us to drink so Hermione went back to take Ron to the hospital wing and inform McGonagall or Dumbledore where we were when he came back.

The next room…the next room had the mirror of erised. It was this huge marble room with stairs leading down towards the centre and well, remember how I said it wasn't Snape trying to steal the stone? It was Quirrell. Turns out Snape had known all year and had been trying to protect it from him. And then…well Quirrell took his turban off to reveal Voldemort latched onto the back of his head."

"What!" the entire room yelled.

"How? I thought you said he was destroyed!" Edward growled, latching protectively onto my arm.

"Well…yes but what we didn't know at the time was that Voldemort had created horcrux's to preserve his soul, primarily making him immortal as long as those horcrux's were in place."

"A horcrux? What's that?" Alice shrugged.

"A wizard or Witch has the capability of splitting apart their soul and separating it into a different object, that way the individual can never be fully killed unless the horcrux is destroyed alongside them."

"Then why doesn't everyone do it?" Emmett asked once I had finished explaining.

"I don't know the entirety of what entails to create a horcrux, but I do know it is extremely dark magic and requires a horrendous act. You're not just moving your soul from one place to another, you're ripping it apart.

Therefore, when Voldemort was 'destroyed' that night sixteen years ago, he managed to latch himself onto Quirrell to survive; he had been drinking the unicorns blood to help extend his lifespan but with the stone, he would be able to return to his full power. And then, he could kill us like he wanted to do all those years back.

The mirror I believe was the last task, I think Dumbledore knew that Harry and I would always be entwined with Voldemort and had been expecting us to face him soon, and that's why he made sure we knew how the mirror worked before moving it. Quite frankly, I stopped trying to make sense of Dumbledore's mind; it's a lost cause." The past few months had seriously questioned our relationship with Dumbledore, it was impossible to tell where his genuine care started and his desperate need for Voldemort to be destroyed ended. That being said, I would never not care for him. "Quirrell got Harry to look into the mirror thinking it would lead him to the stone there, Harry saw himself place the stone in his pocket and that's where it landed. He tried, we both did, lying through our teeth to tell him otherwise but they either refused to buy it or was just really wanting us dead. Quirrell was ordered to kill us but when touched him, it burnt him.

Soon enough, Quirrell himself was killed and Harry and I passed out from our earlier tumble down a flight of stairs. We woke up in the hospital wing a few days later. Apparently, Dumbledore had gotten back just in time for Hermione to find him. Then, he explained to us how our touch was so painful to Quirrell and how we survived when Voldemort had first tried to kill us."

Edward leant over, his face anxious. "How?"

"My mother." I smiled sadly, thinking of seeing her in the stone only earlier today. How did it feel like so much time had passed when it had only been mere hours? At the time, dying didn't sound too bad. I would have had my family back…

"She had died protecting us and with that, she had managed to create a love shield that was indeed powerful enough to deflect Voldemort's spell. It was her dying wish."

Back at the mention of my mother's death Edward pulled me towards his chest, his large arms engulfing my small frame comfortably.

"Your mom sounds like a badass. I would have loved to meet her." Alice offered a warm smile.

"Me too." Me too, "Harry and I use to have nightmares about that night, a flash of green and a woman screaming. We never knew what it meant, Petunia and Vernon had told us that our parents died in a car crash, hence how we got the scar."

If only life was that simple.

"The rebounded spell utterly destroyed the house, blew the roof off. It's still there, they built a memorial to remember them by. Another family played victim by Voldemort scheme. We visited a couple of months ago, it had been the first time we'd gone back. The night ended with us almost getting killed by a snake and running from a burning building."

I felt Edward's arms tense around me and Alice glared at me with wide eyes,

"What? You saw that?"

"You running James Bond style from an exploding house? YEAH Bella, we saw that."

"I assume the demise of Quirrell didn't end the life cycle of Voldemort, did it?" Carlisle extended, moving the conversation away from the daggers I could feel Alice glaring into my back.

"Nope, he came back. Constantly. Honestly, I think the only year he wasn't trying to kill us was our third year. No one tried to kill us that year actually…I mean, we thought someone was trying to but that was a misunderstanding that actually ended in a happy story…" I trailed off, Of course that happy story lead into another bad one. A terrible one.

"Bella, somehow you have a group of vampires beaten on the most interesting story to tell; even Carlisle, and he's been around for years." Emmett emphasised, "…I wish we could have seen this. Not that I want to see you hurt." He quickly clarified, "You know what I mean."

Lightbulb…!

"Actually…there may be a way for just that." I stood to my feet, "Give- give me a moment." I apparated back to my world to pick a little something up.

I only hoped I wouldn't regret this.


.(updated)