The winter holiday felt like it had ended even before it had begun, and Harry barely managed to squeeze in all his essays in between Petri's catch-up lessons on animating dead mice and the chaos that followed the opening of the shop.
They had concluded that there was literally nothing to be done about the probable Dark Lord, who was obviously at Hogwarts to get his hands on the philosopher's stone, which was likely some sort of trap that Dumbledore had set up.
"Try to stay away from him," Petri had suggested, and Harry was keen on following that advice.
The problem was that Professor Quirrell seemed to have recovered from his illness by the time term started, and was eager to resume their supposed lessons. Harry had no choice but to attend the first one, but he figured he needed to find an excuse to get out of future meetings as soon as he could.
"You've shown me quite a few curses, sir," Harry told Professor Quirrell, after a session where he began to learn the reductor curse, and had met with only limited success. "I think I should spend more time practising them before I learn any new ones. And I don't want to waste too much of your time."
"Oh it's no p-problem at all," Professor Quirrell said, before Harry could suggest that they hold off on further sessions. "I q-quite enjoy our little lessons."
The Dark Lord enjoyed giving him lessons. Right. If he really was the Dark Lord.
"Of course we can review the spells we've already covered, if you'd prefer that," said Professor Quirrell.
Harry supposed that he might as well get the most out of the tutoring, if he had to attend. "I'd actually like to learn more, er, theory about some spells, sir. Like the conjunctivitis curse. How does it actually work? I mean, I know what it does, obviously, but how does it do it?"
He half expected Professor Quirrell to say something involving the "intent" that he seemed so fond of. Perhaps he had some motive for misleading Harry, or Petri had been mistaken about this particular curse. Instead, the man sort of smiled, but in a horribly stiff way, like his face did not belong to him.
"You're in Ravenclaw, I suppose, so I can't simply tell you that it just works. The theory is much more complicated than the practice, and I will try not to lose myself in the details. First: do you know how most dark spells are invented?" Professor Quirrell asked.
"Er, no sir," said Harry.
"The majority of them are lucky, or perhaps unlucky, accidents. No doubt you experienced accidental magic as a young child. It's unlikely that it did exactly what you wanted, or even accomplished anything."
Harry supposed that was true, thinking back on when he had turned his teacher's wig blue. That hadn't earned him anything more than a moment's satisfaction and a week's worth of detentions and being locked up in the cupboard under the stairs.
"But sometimes, I hope, it did do something useful, and you might have wanted to replicate the effect. The most foolproof way to do it would be to break the effect into smaller parts, and construct it out of many spells that you already know, to create a new spell that does exactly what you want. But once the spell exists, it isn't immutable, and another wizard might take it and achieve a similar effect, as if it were a guided accident. That's why I have been teaching you curses without explaining all the minutiae of them. That way, the curse becomes your own. Why should you have to cast it according to another wizard's instructions, after all, when the magic comes from you?" Professor Quirrell's voice had got intensely quiet by the end, and there was a whispering, almost sibilant quality to it. Harry wondered, all of a sudden, whether he had been speaking Parseltongue.
"That makes sense, sir," Harry said, and it did, but what Petri had told him also made a sort of opposite sense. What was the point in learning a spell if you couldn't get it to do what it was supposed to do? "But wouldn't the conjunctivitis curse, say, take quite a bit of will, or intent, to manage? What if you just want to cast it while you're not panicked, or desperate?"
"Do not confuse affect with intent," said Professor Quirrell. "Feelings like desperation serve to force one desire to the forefront of your mind, but are unnecessary. To truly have intent to do something is just to know exactly what you want. Magic is a natural extension of desire. Only when your desires are conflicting or confused, do you have a failure of intent."
"Is that sort of like sympathetic magic again, sir?" Harry asked.
"That's right. Wizards have been studying for centuries to imitate a function that comes naturally to almost every other magical species. Of course, all non-humans are constrained greatly by instinct, and so can never have the full breadth of a wizard's potential. Humans, too, have instincts which we must be careful to control."
This view, at least, Harry had heard of from Petri, but he still wasn't sure if he believed it. Sure, there were magical creatures that were sort of like animals, but there were also goblins and hags and other such sentient beings, and even vampires, who were transformed from humans! Why should they be any more constrained than wizards?
He nodded anyway, because he had no plans to disagree with the Dark Lord's philosophy to his face.
"I digress," said Professor Quirrell. "With all this in mind I can tell you more about the conjunctivitis curse."
Professor Quirrell had been right at the outset—the way the curse was actually supposed to work was rather complicated. Instead of directly swelling the eyes, the magic began only by locating them, and then it conjured an irritant, which produced eye-watering and swelling. The swelling could then be aided by the curse's original intent, as the body's will would now be aligned, to extend to uncomfortable or even horrific proportions. Because the curse involved a nearly microscopic conjuration, it was almost impossible to reverse through spellwork.
Harry had to admit that it sort of was the case that hearing more about the curse made him less confident that he could cast it, even though he had done it before. What if what he had managed was only a facsimile of the real thing? It was a frustrating sort of thought that wouldn't go away once he'd had it.
Professor Quirrell secured an agreement for another meeting before Harry could come up with an appropriate excuse. The problem was that anything he could do to fill up that time only meant that Professor Quirrell would try a different time. It wasn't as if Harry could be doing scheduled activities all week long, and his homework, while copious, did not occupy close to all his free time.
Harry decided that if avoidance wasn't going to work after all, then he needed to find out once and for all whether the man really was the Dark Lord, and what he was about. He thought about tailing the man while invisible, but there was always the threat of the human-revealing spell, which Professor Quirrell had already proven himself paranoid enough to cast on the night of the troll incident. Instead, he came up with the better idea of snooping about in the man's rooms. After all, he knew where they were, and he knew that Professor Quirrell would not be in them when he had lessons to teach.
The only concern was that there might be some sort of alarm, sort of like a muggle burglar alarm. He asked Elaine about it in charms club.
"Hey, is there any charm that tells you when someone's gone somewhere? Like stepped through a door, maybe?"
"Well, you could tag them with a tracking charm, or set up a surveillance enchantment," she suggested. "I think those are sort of illegal, though, unless you own the place."
"Er, I was thinking more like an alarm," Harry said quickly.
"There's the caterwauling charm. It makes this right awful scream as soon as you go into its area. People use it on their houses sometimes, to stop thieves," Elaine said.
"But you have to be there to hear it, right?" Harry confirmed.
"Well, yeah," she said. "I don't think there's a way to get notified from far away. Well, maybe if you had a protean charm on something glass, and then you used the caterwauling charm—that thing can shatter windows if you set it loud enough..." And then she was off, muttering theories to herself. Harry decided that it was unlikely that Professor Quirrell would be able to catch him breaking in from afar.
The question now was when his lessons coincided with one of Harry's free periods. He couldn't just ask for an older student's schedule for no reason, so he tried some basic subterfuge.
"Hey, Robert," he asked the prefect when he found him lounging about in the common room.
"Yeah?"
"I was wondering, do you know when Professor Quirrell isn't teaching during the day? I've got a question for him and I keep missing him after the lesson," Harry said.
Robert didn't seem to think much on how unlikely this was, but he said, "Why don't you ask him after hours?"
"I'm lazy and I don't want to walk all the way to his office then," Harry pretended to complain, "And what if he's not there? I was hoping I could stop by during a free period."
"Well, I only know I've got lessons with him Mondays and Fridays at two thirty," Robert said.
"Just twice a week?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, it's nice. After fourth year you don't have nearly as many lessons for our core subjects. I mean you've got your electives and everything. Third year is the worst because you have pretty much the same schedule as you firsties do now, but with electives stacked on top," Robert told him.
Harry nodded. "Sounds rough," he agreed, but Robert had already turned back to the book he'd been reading.
Friday at two thirty, luckily, was right after the afternoon Potions lesson ended. It was the last lesson of the week, and nobody would question it if he went off somewhere on his own. He hardly spent time in the distant common room during the day, anyway. The first years had finally realised after a few weeks that it was a complete waste of time to make multiple trips back and forth. Mandy, who was a numbers sort, had estimated that it was a twenty-minute detour on average to stop by the common room before going somewhere else.
Harry brought his cloak with him to the potions lesson, and went over his plan repeatedly all throughout. This was unwise, as his distracted state almost caused him to blow up his potion by adding an ingredient too early. Only Hannah's rapid intervention saved him from being eviscerated by Professor Snape, and failing them both—it was a paired potion today.
"Harry!" Hannah hissed, letting go of his arm. "Stop daydreaming. You'll give me a heart attack."
"Sorry," Harry whispered, shaking his head and reading the instructions again. They were to add the chopped valerian root after stirring in the lavender oil six times anticlockwise.
While Hannah stirred, he tried to chop his root into more aesthetically pleasing chunks.
"You should probably stop cutting that," said Hannah. "It says chopped, not diced."
Harry picked up the rather unevenly distributed pieces with the flat of his knife and scooped them into the cauldron.
Miraculously, he managed to get through the rest of the practical without ruining anything, and split from the rest of the Ravenclaws by claiming that he needed to go to the loo.
He did actually go to the loo, and as soon as he certified that it was empty, pulled his invisibility cloak out of his expanded pockets like a muggle stage magician and swept it over his shoulders. Checking in the mirror that he was indeed invisible, he paused to cast some softening charms on the soles of his shoes, stomped his feet a few times to ascertain that the sound was sufficiently dampened, and exited to begin his mission.
Avoiding people in the halls while invisible was a little more difficult than he'd anticipated. He should have just waited the ten minutes between lessons for the corridors to clear out some, but it was too late. He practised dodging streams of inattentive students moving at high speed, and once had to evade right into the Gryffindor house ghost, which was decidedly unpleasant. It was as if someone had dunked him in ice water, but worse, because he felt immediately soaked through to his bones.
"Who's there?" asked the ghost, turning his head too quickly so that it flopped off his neck. Harry grimaced and hurried away.
"Who's there? Who's there?" a singsong voice yelled at the end of the corridor. A swirling blob of colour zoomed into view, slowing to reveal a floating boy with distorted features, dressed in fool's clothing. He was clutching something undoubtedly unpleasant in his green-gloved hands.
It was, most certainly, the school poltergeist, Peeves. Somehow, Harry had managed to go a whole term without ever seeing him. According to the prefects, for some reason or other he seemed partial to terrorising the Gryffindors and the Slytherins over the other houses, at least whenever the Bloody Baron wasn't around.
"He shows up when people are making trouble," Penelope had theorised.
Harry thought she might be onto something there. What were the odds that he had his first encounter exactly the first time he was doing something illicit?
Well, he wasn't breaking any rules yet, actually. It was his free period, so he wasn't skipping lessons, and surely there was no rule against walking around while invisible?
Holding his head high, though of course nobody could see, Harry turned right back around to try and find a different route to the third floor. One of the moving staircases would take him there, eventually.
Luckily, he had moved just in time to avoid a dungbomb that Peeves had chucked at the wall near his prior position. It exploded in a rancid brown burst mere meters behind him, and the poltergeist cackled in delight, winding up for another throw. Harry hurried further out of range before casting some scouring charms at the hem of his cloak. He didn't want to take any chances.
He made it the rest of the way to Professor Quirrell's office without incident, thankfully. The door was locked, but yielded to a simple unlocking charm, and then he was in front of the entrance that was disguised as a wall.
"Peppercorn," he said, but nothing happened. He bit his lip. Of course the professor had changed his password by now. In fact, he'd probably changed it right after Harry's first visit. Well, there was no chance that he was going to be able to guess the new one. Unreasonably irritated, Harry abandoned the office hurriedly, barely remembering to lock it behind him, and stalked down the corridor.
He paused at the intersection. The forbidden corridor was right there, and obviously it wasn't dangerous just to look in briefly, because Professor Quirrell had done it right in front of him. Draco Malfoy had seen behind it too, Harry was almost certain, though the boy had denied it when questioned, claiming that Professor Snape had caught them and given them detention before they could get a proper look. Vince had been altogether too cagey about the subject for that to have been the whole truth, but Harry hadn't cared enough to press.
Now, though, he was invisible and had plenty of vision down the corridor. If somebody came he could run back around the bend, remove his cloak, and pretend he had been waiting at Professor Quirrell's office the whole time.
Confidence bolstered by this plan, he stepped up to the door and tried the handle cautiously. Locked, as he expected.
"Alohamora," he whispered, wiggling his wand in an S-shape and then flicking it sharply downwards. The door gave a satisfying click, and he tugged it open a crack.
It was totally dark inside, but a low, rumbling growl reached his ears as soon as the creaking of the hinges ceased. As he peered into the gloom, he saw three pairs of lamp-like yellow eyes glaring in his direction, and the edge of a great, furry paw bigger than he was.
Feeling daring, he whispered, "lumos," and stuck his wand tip out carefully to cast the beam out. The growling immediately escalated to a roar, and Harry withdrew his wand and slammed the door shut, rubbing at his chest to calm his spiking heart rate.
That had been a little foolish, but totally wicked, he thought. He locked the door and tugged his cloak around him more securely to make sure he was still invisible, before he backed away into the side corridor.
So now he knew what was behind that door—some kind of gigantic, three-headed beast. He thought it might be a dog, if such a plebeian word could apply to something so eldritch.
If the philosopher's stone were really somewhere in there, he supposed the dog was serving as a guard. It seemed like an effective deterrent for thieves. Harry was certainly not taking one step into that room.
But why had the Dark Lord not made his move yet? Petri had claimed that the man could cast a killing curse that could kill anything. He wouldn't even have to get within ten feet of the giant dog. It wasn't exactly a difficult target to aim at.
Maybe he was concerned about other protections? Petri had said that the stone seemed to be inside a mirror, somehow, in a chamber guarded by fire. Harry hadn't seen any fire, so he could only conclude that there was a whole series of protections. Scrying for them all was probably not possible, since one could apparently only scry for an immediate or a general location, and not every detail in between.
What now? His plan of getting into the professor's rooms had totally failed, so he would have to try something else, or perhaps get his hands on the password somehow. Maybe after next week's evening session, he could pretend to leave, immediately put on his cloak, and eavesdrop until Professor Quirrell went inside his rooms? That might actually work.
For how, he decided to go to the library and do some of his homework, so that he wouldn't have to worry about it later. He remained invisible for the fun of it, and for practice, though there weren't so many people walking about in the halls at the moment.
As he passed by the staffroom on the ground floor, he heard voices emanating from the door, which was ajar, and he could not resist stopping to listen. It was difficult to hear, so he pressed up against the door frame and edged himself through the crack. Success. He was inside.
The staffroom was long and rectangular, with green armchairs and glass tea tables laid out like chairs and desks in a classroom. A tall, ancient wardrobe stood in a corner at one end, beside a relatively pristine chalk board. Professor McGonagall was speaking to Professor Flitwick in hushed tones in front of the board.
"…unacceptable amount of time overseeing detentions," she said, shaking her head.
"If only they let us have another set of turns," Prfoessor Flitwick murmured.
"Filius!" Professor McGonagall said sternly, "That's hardly the solution!"
"Perhaps if you would take points more often, it wouldn't be a problem. I always said the house points give the wrong incentives to teachers," Professor Flitwick grumbled.
"I've been trying to delegate," said Professor McGonagall. "Argus has been a great help but he only has so many daylight hours."
"So you're the one blocking up his schedule!" Professor Flitwick exclaimed, crossing his arms. "He gave mine to Hagrid."
"Hagrid?" Professor McGonagall repeated, aghast. "Is that safe?"
"He brought them into to the forest." Professor Flitwick sighed and rubbed at his goatee. "They were fifth years, though. Should be able to handle anything in there."
"I'll know to expect parental complaints soon," said Professor McGonagall dryly. "Hagrid's got a good heart, but you can't deny he's a little..."
Just then, the door opened up all the way and Professor Snape stalked in, looking very dishevelled. He slammed the door behind him. Harry jumped to the side at the last minute, only narrowly dodging out of the way.
That couldn't be right. Professor Snape was supposed to still be teaching. Harry knew for certain that there was another potions lesson after his. Had something happened?
"Rough day, Severus?" asked Professor McGonagall.
"In half an hour, my classroom will be completely covered in paralysing sludge," said Professor Snape, as if he were forecasting the weather.
"You should give your detentions to Severus," Professor Flitwick suggested. Professor McGonagall snorted.
"I'm sure he already has it covered," she said.
"The Weasley menaces still owe me a month of Saturday evenings," Professor Snape ground out vindictively as he lowered himself into an armchair and swung his bag up onto his lap, extracting a stack of parchments and a quill.
Harry glanced to the closed door nervously. How was he going to get out without alerting the professors that somebody was there? He ought to have stayed outside.
"I wish we could give detentions where they mark papers," said Professor McGonagall.
"Detention?" Professor Flitwick exclaimed, as if scandalised, "Make it a reward! I tell my sixth years that they can get experience and extra credit if they help me."
Professor McGonagall groaned. "You lucky bastard," she muttered.
"Marking is marginally entertaining," said Professor Snape, not pausing in his bloody evisceration of an unlucky student's essay. "Listen to this one. 'The Wit-Sharpening Potion makes your wit sharper.' I definitely couldn't have deduced that from the name. 'It can make it easier to hurt others with words.' Not even Wit-Sharpening Potion is enough to save this imbecile."
Professor McGonagall covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.
"Submitted by a Gryffindor, of course," Professor Snape added, sneering.
"Oh, don't act as if your Slytherins are any better," said Professor McGonagall.
Harry edged closer to the door, so that he was standing beside it but not in the way in case somebody opened it suddenly. He was counting on slipping out behind the next person who came inside.
Unfortunately, that next person was Professor Quirrell, and Harry flinched at the sudden stab of pain in his scar as the man squeezed inside through the tiniest crack and shut the door ever-so-gently behind him.
Professor Quirrell definitely had a lesson to teach right now. There was no way the period was over yet. Had his classroom exploded as well?
"Hello," Professor Quirrell said rather weakly, glancing about the room before choosing a seat in one of the corners. Professor Snape did not even look up as he passed by.
"Hello Quirinus," Professor Flitwick greeted. "Should we break out the tea?"
"Let's wait for Albus," said Professor McGonagall.
"He's coming today?" asked Professor Flitwick. "I thought—"
"The Wizengamot session was cancelled, I heard," said Professor McGonagall.
Oh no. Harry realised that he must have stumbled into the start of some sort of staff meeting. On the one hand, it meant he had more opportunities to slip out as other teachers arrived. On the other hand, he had a strong and ridiculous urge to eavesdrop some more, even though he reckoned it was likely to be boring.
Eventually, sense won out after a rather close battle inside his head. He could eavesdrop from outside, so that he could leave at any time.
The door opened wide and Headmaster Dumbledore entered with a regal gait, his orange high-heeled boots clicking against the stone floor. Harry seized the opportunity to slip past as quietly as he could, but it had been unnecessary—Professor Dumbledore left the door open. Harry leaned up against the wall outside and decided that he felt much better being out of there.
There was a chorus of greetings from inside, and a pop and the clattering of china as the headmaster evidently ordered tea for everyone.
"Pomona won't be joining us, unfortunately," Albus said. "She's out of time. We're only waiting on Rubeus."
And then Harry had to press himself against the wall as the giant form of the gamekeeper trudged past.
A few moments later, there was a thump and the sound of shattering glass.
"He's fainted!" said Professor McGonagall. "Rennervate! It's not working. Albus, you try."
"My dear, too energetic a reviving spell may do more harm than good," said the headmaster.
"I'll let Poppy know," said Professor Flitwick. "Expecto patronum! Tell Poppy, come to the staff room, Quirinus collapsed again."
A silver streak shot out the door, too fast for Harry to make out its form. He peered inside cautiously. All the professors except Snape were huddled in the corner, hovering over Professor Quirrell, who appeared to have passed out in his chair.
"You don't think we should just take him to the hospital wing?" Professor McGonagall asked.
"Best not to move him before we know what's wrong," said Professor Flitwick.
Professor Snape looked like he'd rather go back to marking his papers, but knew well enough that it would be inappropriate.
Madam Pomfrey arrived soon enough, and shooed the professors out of the way before waving her wand over Professor Quirrell.
"It's just like last time," she muttered. "There's nothing wrong with him except that his body seems on the verge of falling apart."
"A side effect of dark arts misuse," Professor Snape suggested.
"Now, now, Severus. Let's not accuse him who cannot defend himself," Professor Dumbledore admonished. Professor Snape scoffed, and turned mulishly back to his stack of essays.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Madam Pomfrey. "It doesn't seem to be getting worse, so for now I'd say let him sleep it off."
"Sleep it off," Professor Snape mouthed to himself, rolling his eyes.
Well, if Professor Quirrell was really the Dark Lord, then he was clearly not in a good state. It raised the question of why Professor Dumbledore did not just seize the moment and capture him, or even off him. Could Petri be wrong about the assumption that Dumbledore knew everything that was going on? Then again, it seemed very unlikely that the headmaster would put a sought-after item like the philosopher's stone in Hogwarts without expecting some attempts at thievery. He was most certainly on his guard.
Maybe he was an honourable sort. Hadn't Petri mentioned being pardoned for crimes after some war by Dumbledore (who, Harry had to remind himself, was apparently some kind of international authority in addition to being a school headmaster)? That had obviously been a big mistake.
Madam Pomfrey levitated Professor Quirrell out of the room. He lay horizontally, stiff as a board, perhaps to prevent jostling. Harry, who felt that he was committed to seeing this espionage to the end, followed her up to the hospital wing.
She went straight for the light blue curtain that partitioned the room, disappearing behind it. Harry slipped through after her, and saw that this section of the ward was darkened, with shuttered windows and curtained beds. Madam Pomfrey deposited the prone professor on the nearest bed and cast a few more spells to change out his clothes. She placed his robes and boots at the end of the bed, though she left his turban on his head, before leaving. Harry waited until the sound of her footsteps had disappeared completely before he crept closer to Professor Quirrell.
He felt a little foolish, not to mention awkward, just looking at his unconscious professor. Just as he was wondering whether to give up this rather unexciting adventure and go attend to his sorely neglected homework, Professor Quirrell stirred, cracked an eye open, and then sat up straight in bed, looking quite alert for someone who had allegedly been unconscious a second ago. He withdrew his wand, and Harry had an inkling as to what was about to happen the moment before it did. Without thinking, he threw himself to the floor and rolled underneath the hospital bed, just as the professor murmured, "Homenum revelio."
Had that worked? Harry figured that the person to be revealed had to be in the circle traced by the wand, so if he was right underneath the professor, it should have missed him. He also hadn't felt the telltale sensation of something feather-light swooping over his head. He held his breath in anticipation, and to prevent inhaling all the dust.
There was a light creak from above as the professor shifted his weight, and Harry saw his bare feet swing over the side. Professor Quirrell walked to the end of the bed, presumably to retrieve his robes, and Harry inched out slowly from his hiding place, clutching the edges of the invisibility cloak securely around him. He didn't think any of the dust had clung to his cloak—it was incredibly slippery and seemed to repel particles. The hems had not got dirty (and therefore visible) despite dragging against the floor the entire time.
By the time Harry managed to right himself, Professor Quirrell had dressed and retrieved what appeared to be a gyroscope with a golden chain from his pocket. He slipped the chain over his head, pinched the apparatus between his fingers, and turned the outside ring several times.
He disappeared.
Harry did a double take at the empty air where he'd formerly been, and looked around wildly, before he came to his senses. Had the professor gone invisible like him?
"Homenum revelio," Harry tried to mouth without voicing, but he felt nothing, and couldn't be sure if the spell just hadn't worked on account of the lack of actual incantation, or if there was really nobody there.
His uncertainty was put aside when the curtain sectioning off the ward was pushed aside, and Professor Quirrell, completely visible, stalked inside. He stopped by the bed, changed back into the hospital nightgown he had just discarded, and lay down on the bed as if nothing had happened.
Harry leaned over to peer at Professor Quirrell carefully. His breathing was shallow and even, and he appeared to be actually out cold, and not just feigning sleep. Perplexed, Harry padded cautiously over to the professor's robes. Was that gyroscope-like device still in there? He checked a robe pocket and found it thankfully not expanded, but clearly empty. On the other side, he struck gold.
Glancing over again to ensure that Professor Quirrell was still sleep, he quickly withdrew his arm, prize in hand, and pulled it underneath his invisibility cloak. Success.
He examined it more closely. It seemed to be a tiny hourglass, filled with real sand and mounted on two sets of rotating golden rings. The whole thing was smaller than his palm. What was it that Professor Quirrell had done with it? Harry checked another time that he was still out cold, and reached out to pass the chain over his head. Then he held up the apparatus and spun the rings until they jammed and would go no further.
The world spun in a kaleidoscope of colour, though he felt no jostling and heard no whooshing of wind. He had a moment to realise that that had perhaps not been the best of ideas, and then everything was back in order, except he noticed immediately that Professor Quirrell was gone, and his clothes with him. The hospital bed was neatly made up, sheets perfectly pressed and tucked, as if nobody had recently been sleeping there at all.
A little shaken, Harry pulled the chain back up over his head, thankful that it had not adhered to him or had some other unpleasant effect, and tucked the strange object into his pocket. He really had no idea what it had done, besides mysteriously transport Professor Quirrell out of sight.
It was about time he addressed his homework, anyway. He'd spent far too long sneaking about under his cloak like a criminal.
Determined to return to acting like a normal person, he hurried out of the hospital wing and, once he made sure the coast was clear in the hall, stripped the invisibility cloak off and stuffed it back into his pocket.
Just as he made it downstairs, intent on heading to the library for real this time, he saw Professor Quirrell running down the corridor at almost full tilt, the ends of his purple turban streaming behind him.
It was impossible not to follow. Harry warred with himself for about two seconds before he pulled out his invisibility cloak again and wrapped it around himself, giving chase.
There was no need to be stealthy—Professor Quirrell was practically out of sight already, but this was the third floor and there were only so many places he could be going. Harry hurried along, stopping only at the corner to peer around it carefully in case the professor was waiting nearby and was going to cast the human-revealing spell again to be paranoid.
But there was no sign of him. Harry almost thought he had pulled some sort of disappearing act again, when he heard the strangest thing—there was music coming from up ahead, a soothing melody from some kind of stringed instrument. Thoroughly confused, Harry crept along cautiously until he was at the forbidden door. It swung shut just as he had it in view, and the sound of the music cut off abruptly.
Logic suggested that Professor Quirrell had gone inside, and had done something to neutralise the dog. Harry wanted desperately to follow, but he couldn't open the door now, invisible or not. If he did, the light from the corridor would be completely obvious to anybody inside.
Harry whirled around at the sound of footsteps, moving closer to the wall in fear of being detected. Only someone ridiculously paranoid would bother casting the human-revealing charm at every turn, but as it was effectively one of the only weaknesses to his concealment, his mind kept jumping to how to hide from it.
Professor Quirrell, yet again, emerged from the corridor leading to his office at a casual stroll and turned away from the forbidden door, towards the main landing. Harry stared in incomprehension. Were there multiple copies of the man? As absurd as that was, it was the only explanation he could conjure for how he'd just seen him run toward the room with the three-headed dog, before watching him come out of a different location. It wasn't as if one could apparate in Hogwarts, at least, not according to Hogwarts, a History.
Was there a spell to make a clone of oneself?
Harry shuddered at his own thought, because yes, there was. The clone was called a horcrux, and it was a horrible thing. Also, as far as he understood it, nobody ever used a horcrux as a literal copy of themselves while they were still alive, so that couldn't be it.
A few minutes later, Professor Quirrell exited from the forbidden door, confirming beyond a doubt that he had been in two places at once. He didn't look excited or nervous, as if he'd just got his hands on a priceless artefact that bestowed eternal life, so Harry figured he was only scouting out the protections.
As he appeared to be returning to his office, Harry followed him to see if he would reveal the password to his rooms, remembering to stop just outside the door so he wouldn't trap himself. He pressed his ear up against the crack.
Harry flinched as he felt a sudden pain in his scar that trumped the usual headache. From inside the office, Professor Quirrell give a muffled whine which tapered off into a high whimper, as if he too were in pain. There was a sort of heavy thump. Had he fallen to the floor?
"I'm s-sor—I'll do better next time," Professor Quirrell said rapidly, his breaths coming in ragged pants. Was he talking to somebody? Harry pressed his ear closer to the wood.
"Master, please, p-please, I—" His words were cut off by a moan that threatened to escalate into a scream. Then it was silent.
That didn't sound too good, Harry thought. Somebody was definitely there with Professor Quirrell—somebody who Harry strongly suspected might be the Dark Lord. He'd been wrong. The Dark Lord couldn't be the professor himself, who was clearly some sort of servant. But was he a relation of the Dark Lord, then? How had he been able to speak Parseltongue?
If only he could see what was going on inside without opening the door.
Wait! He could! His spectacles. Harry could hit himself for failing again to remember that they were magical. It was only that he was just so used to having them sit on his face that he generally quite forgot they were there at all.
Fiddling with the screw on the side, he braced himself for the wild swing in his vision that was about to come next by shutting his eyes. All he saw when he opened them again was an unexciting mixture of dark grey and brown. He tried pulling back a little, and then he could see gigantic black letters on grainy paper—that was the wall—and finally when he withdrew a little more he managed to get a good view of the room, as if he had just stepped through the door.
Professor Quirrell was sprawled out on the floor, out cold. There was no sign of whomever he'd been speaking to. Had they gone into the professor's rooms? Were they invisible, like Harry? The human-revealing spell did not work through doors, so there was no way to tell.
Should he just leave Professor Quirrell like that? Perhaps it was as Madam Pomfrey had said earlier, that he only needed to sleep it off. Still, he didn't know what he would do if it turned out later that the professor had died or something.
Before he could come to any kind of decision, Professor Quirrell stirred on his own, and then stood up as if nothing had happened. He looked perfectly composed and confident as he made for the door. Harry stepped back quickly, reeling a little as his vision returned to normal and showed him only the smooth wood of the door.
A moment later, Professor Quirrell emerged and stalked down the corridor.
Harry relaxed at last, only now discovering how tense he had been. His whole body ached. He rubbed absently at the scar on his forehead, which felt a little inflamed under his fingers. He needed to go do something less stressful, like lie down. Or perhaps finally do his homework.
"Time?" he muttered, looking to his wand tip expectantly, before doing a double take. There was no way it was only near half past noon—it had to be at least half past three. Could access spells malfunction? He tried to call for the time again, but persistently received the same feedback.
A little perplexed, he nonetheless began to make his way out of the corridor and towards the common room. There were quite a few people about in the halls, more than he expected during class time, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.
Then he heard Terry's voice coming from the staircase just up ahead, and glanced up automatically to see the most bizarre thing ever—himself. But this wasn't like the case of his face on Nalrod, the reminder of which made him wince. It was literally him, in every way, and he was even talking about Quidditch.
"… because it makes the seeker totally useless," he heard himself say.
"That's the whole point," said Terry. "It showcases how good the rest of the team is."
"Okay, fine. But it seems really uneven. Like why isn't it the other way around? You'd think you would want to spend more of the game with most of the players contributing, and less time with it all riding on one person," Harry, the other Harry, was saying.
Only, Harry remembered saying those things, or at least, their debate about Quidditch, and the role of the seeker in particular, all triggered by the Ravenclaw knocker's difficult question of what made a group of people a team. They'd talked all through the free period and most of lunch, before the imminent potions lesson had forced them to attend to more academic matters.
Well, the time-telling spell had told him quite clearly that it was half past noon, he thought numbly. Perhaps it really was.
Thankfully, he was still shrouded by the invisibility cloak, and so his past self and his friends did not have the utterly traumatising experience of meeting another one of him with no explanation even remotely at hand. Harry, right now, thought he had a pretty good idea of what had caused him to go back in time.
He needed to think. Now that he was aware that there was another one of him (perhaps the proper version of him, for the moment) running about, he knew he had to stay under the cloak to avoid being seen by anybody else. This also explained how there were two of Professor Quirrell. Time machines.
Had Professor Quirrell pretended to faint at that staff meeting in order to buy himself more time? Harry wasn't sure—it had looked pretty realistic. He'd also seen the man faint in the privacy of his own office, before recovering with impressive alacrity. He certainly hadn't done that on purpose, or at least, not on his own purpose. There was the matter of the Dark Lord. Harry hadn't seen anybody, not even with his spectacles that could see through things, but that still didn't mean anything. He was sure the Dark Lord had been in that room. No better explanation was readily available.
Harry supposed he had the entire afternoon effectively off, and necessarily under the invisibility cloak, which was prime for continuing to tail Professor Quirrell. Most likely some version of the man was at lunch, while the other was off doing who-knew-what. Harry decided to go to the Great Hall, figuring he might as well nick some food while he was at it, as he felt rather peckish from all the sneaking around he had been doing.
Professor Quirrell was, indeed, sitting in the Great Hall, and appeared visibly ill. His face was sort of greyish, and his eyes were sunken, like those of an inferius. Harry supposed he'd eschewed his prescribed bed rest to go gallivanting about in the past with his time machine, and that couldn't have been good for his health.
Feeling rather powerful, Harry walked right up to the head table until he was standing practically under Professor Snape's long nose. The man sort of stiffened as he approached, and Harry paused too, a little nervous, but then the moment passed and Snape returned to his peas.
On Professor Quirrell's other side, Professor Flitwick was amicably trying to make conversation, completely oblivious to Professor Quirrell's obvious reluctance to engage.
"You can learn so much from the students," Professor Flitwick was saying. "Why, did you know Ms Tonks is always coming up with new uses for old charms? Recently she's put household spells to duelling. A scouring charm to the mouth isn't just for misbehaving children! I always said there's not one charm that couldn't be an offensive one."
"Quite, quite right," Professor Quirrell agreed after a long pause.
This was boring, Harry quickly realised. Professor Quirrell wasn't doing anything suspicious, besides exhibiting an incredibly anti-social demeanour. Harry slumped against the back of the table and slid down until he was sitting on the cold stone. Of course this was the version of Professor Quirrell that was pretending to be normal, so that the other one could get up to all sorts of illicit activity. Just his luck.
After lunch, Professor Quirrell also did not slip off to complete nefarious plots unknown, but proceeded to go teach the second years. Harry discovered that he was just as unintelligible and uninteresting there as with the first years. Life was sometimes fair, he supposed.
Harry eventually lay down and took a nap, no other good ideas in mind. A whispered softening charm at the back corner of the classroom and he was quite cosy, until the fifth years started duelling practice and Penelope nearly stepped on him. It was a miracle she hadn't paid much attention to her foot dragging on the hem of his cloak. Harry certainly felt it and woke up, and for a heart-stopping moment thought she'd pulled it far enough to break the invisibility and expose him.
He managed to tug it back at the last instant, and scrambled to get out of the way. He had no desire to be hit by a wayward disarming charm. It would be best if he went to sleep elsewhere. No sooner had he had the thought than he was struck in the side by the full body-bind curse. His arms and legs snapped together, and he toppled sideways and hit the wall very painfully. Helplessly, he watched as the edge of the cloak slipped to the side and revealed him for all to see.
At first, nobody noticed, but then the boy who had shot the spell pointed and yelled, "Behind you!"
"I'm not going to fall for that one," said his opponent, "Stupefy!" and the first boy was already so stupefied that he only stood there and let the spell take him out. Surprised, the other student turned around and jumped backwards when he saw Harry lying there at his feet.
"Professor! There's a firstie or something here!" he called. Harry would have scowled if he could—why didn't the boy cast the cancellation charm first? As it was, all he could do was lie there, paralysed.
Professor Quirrell took his time crossing the room, skirting around the students who were still duelling obliviously. Others nearby had stopped to see what was going on. Embarrassingly, Penelope and Robert and a smattering of other Ravenclaws were among them. Finally, Penelope freed him from the curse and he scrambled to his feet, glancing from face to face and finally looking to the floor as he felt his face grow hot.
"What are you doing here?" Penelope whispered, looking torn between scolding him and laughing out loud. Thankfully, she didn't have the opportunity to do either, because Professor Quirrell finally came near, pushing through the huddle of students.
"What's g-going on here?" he asked, before looking down and finally noticing Harry. "Mr P-potter! What are you d-doing here? This is the f-fifth year lesson."
"Er," Harry said, no convenient excuses coming to mind for why he might have been invisibly tailing Professor Quirrell for the better part of the afternoon. Then again, it wasn't clear at all that that was the case. "I, er, wanted to see what kinds of spells they were casting," he said lamely.
"Could've just asked, mate," Robert muttered.
"W-well I suppose it's not tech-technically against the rules to attend other lessons," Professor Quirrell said after a pause. "B-but it's hardly safe to be sk-skulking around in the middle of a duel. F-five p-points from Ravenclaw for endangering yourself and others, and detention with me t-tonight at eight."
Harry winced, not at the points but at the prospect of spending even more time with Professor Quirrell while visible. Well, he'd dug himself into this mess.
"Er all right, I'll just be going now," he muttered awkwardly, and then turned and ran out of the classroom. His head was about to explode with shame. As soon as he was out the door he wrapped his cloak around him, retreating into his invisible cocoon. "Ugh," he muttered to himself.
Could he just erase the last few minutes? He reached into his pocket, rummaging around until he felt something smooth and cold. He tugged at it and found the time machine on its golden chain. Putting it on, he flicked the outer ring, but it appeared to be stuck. Most likely there was a limit to how much it could be used. Well, there went that plan.
Naturally, when he finally returned to the Ravenclaw common room after spending the rest of the afternoon holed up in the library to avoid his past self, everybody had already heard the story.
"Mate," said Terry, standing up as he walked in. "Heard you went in for some extra studying."
"Shut up," said Harry, burying his face in his hands as the others laughed.
"It's pretty hilarious, you've got to admit," said Anthony. "They'll make you the Ravenclaw mascot."
"Go ask Flitwick if you can skip years," Terry suggested. "Four of them, to be exact."
"Were you actually there to learn advanced spells? From Quirrell?" Stephen asked.
Harry had some pride left, and he he shook his head vehemently. "No! I was, er, taking a nap in the classroom." Well, that was true, at least.
Everybody looked totally incredulous. "Mate, that makes even less sense," Terry said. "You're mental."
"You've got a bed," Stephen pointed out.
"It's far," said Harry. Terry frowned thoughtfully.
"True, it is a bit far. Why'd you come back here anyway? Heard you got detention."
Harry scowled. "Yeah. I dunno. I finished my homework and I just walked back without thinking." He'd accidentally skipped dinner, to boot, and was starving.
"You finished all your homework already?" Terry demanded. "Look, he's bored, that's what. That's why he's spying on fifth year lessons. If you've got nothing to do, you should join broom racing."
"I haven't got a broom," Harry said. He'd heard, to his disappointment, that it was a requirement for the club.
"Neither have I," said Terry. "You can't go in the competitions but they still let you join practice if you can get Madam Hooch to lend you one of the school ones. Mind you most of us still can't go straight on those, but you obviously haven't got an issue."
Harry nodded thoughtfully. The final flying lesson of the year had seen much rejoicing from just about everybody. People who had various coordination issues, fear of heights, or motion sickness had been glad to see the last of the jerky school brooms. On the other hand, proficient fliers like Harry had been bored out of their minds by the repetitive and easy drills. Broom racing sounded much more exciting.
"Racing is for hooligans," Lisa muttered with a sniff.
"Oi!" Terry yelled. "At least we don't bash anybody's heads in with bludgers like in Quidditch."
"You like Quidditch too," Lisa pointed out.
Harry excused himself from the budding argument, if one could call it that (Lisa was already clearly winning, as usual) with a quick, "I've got to head to detention."
He'd received a notice earlier from Professor Quirrell to meet him in front of the Great Hall and to wear something warm. From that Harry figured they would be going outside, which was new. He'd already forgotten his cloak, at least, the non-invisible one, but he figured a warming charm would do in a pinch.
"G-good evening Mr P-potter," Professor Quirrell greeted as Harry stepped off the stairs. He checked the time discreetly, but it was still five to eight. Professor Quirrell was just very early.
"Evening sir," said Harry, looking him up and down in an attempt to divine what they would be doing. He was dressed normally, with the addition of a heavy cloak, but the extra bulk only increased his deathly pale and haggard appearance. Harry almost asked him if he was feeling better—it really didn't look like it—but then remembered that he wasn't supposed to know about his fainting earlier in the day.
"Since you're here," Professor Quirrell said, "let's go." He pushed one of the great double doors open a crack and slipped through, beckoning for Harry to follow.
A blast of frigid air struck him as he approached, and he shivered uncontrollably as he stepped out.
"You don't have your c-cloak," Professor Quirrell observed.
"Calesco," Harry said, pointing his wand at himself and making a tight zigzag. A blast of warmth struck him and enveloped him like a cocoon. He'd practically perfected this spell cooking potatoes one at at time over the holiday. Fortunately, warming a person took about as much effort as baking several potatoes, which meant he was hopefully not at risk of cooking himself. That would be a pretty stupid way to die.
"Imp-pressive," said Professor Quirrell.
Harry didn't see what was so impressive about this given that the man had seen him learn multiple curses already, but he accepted the compliment with a muttered, "Er, thanks, sir." His breath came out in a puff of mist that dispersed into the shimmering moonlight. "So what are we doing?"
"We're g-going to be looking for unicorns in the forest," said Professor Quirrell.
"The Forbidden Forest?" Harry said, for clarification. "Isn't that forbidden?"
"Only to unaccompanied students," Professor Quirrell assured him. Harry supposed the professor could probably defend them from any of the wild creatures rumoured to live in there, supposing he didn't pass out again.
"Why are we looking for, er, unicorns?" Harry asked. What a peculiar detention.
"Injured unicorns. Hagrid has informed us that there's something attacking them in the forest," said Professor Quirrell.
Harry tried to think of what might attack a unicorn and came up blank. They didn't have any natural predators, from what he remembered reading.
"Is it a wizard, do you think, sir?" he asked.
Professor Quirrell looked very surprised at this, and took a moment to formulate a response. "M-maybe," he said ambivalently, and turned to begin walking down towards the dark forest. Harry didn't like the look of it. Were they planning on just wandering about inside?
"Sir, is there a plan?" he asked, before trying to suggest something. It was supposed to be his detention after all, not some leisurely excursion.
"We're looking for b-blood. It's silver," said Professor Quirrell. Harry thought it was a pretty stupid plan.
"Can't we—I mean, wouldn't it be safer if we used the patronus charm?" he asked. "It attracts unicorns."
Professor Quirrell paused.
"We don't want to alert the hunter," he said finally. Harry narrowed his eyes. They were hardly being discreet, otherwise. Was Professor Quirrell incapable of casting the patronus charm? He remembered Petri saying that it was a common weakness in other dark wizards.
"We should muffle our footsteps," Harry suggested as they reached the border of the forest, which, even if not forbidden, looked very forbidding.
"How?" asked Professor Quirrell. How unhelpful. Wasn't he supposed to be the fully-trained wizard here?
"I dunno, sir," said Harry, not eager to give away his own technique. "I thought maybe there's a spell for it."
There was also a spell to blend right into ones' surroundings, called disillusionment or something. He vaguely remembered having to sign some papers saying he agreed not to bring any suit against the security company if the shop was robbed by disillusioned thieves, because standard security charms didn't work on them.
He decided not to bring it up, since Professor Quirrell obviously wasn't serious about not being detected, and had even lit his wand. They crunched rather loudly through the undergrowth and their robes got caught easily on thorn bushes every other minute. Harry made liberal use of the severing charm, relying on the night vision provided by his spectacles to see.
Something bright flashing in the corner of his eye gave him pause. He glanced down and saw flecks of viscous liquid beading at the tips of some thorns, like quicksilver.
"Professor, look," he called, pointing out what he was fairly sure was unicorn blood. The last time he'd seen it, it had been blue, but that was when all the magic had been drained out of it.
"Very good," said Professor Quirrell, reaching above Harry's head to tug something off a nearby branch. It was a tangle of fine white hair. "Do you see hoof marks?"
"There," said Harry, looking on the other side of the thicket. The imprints in the ground were dark crescents in his brightened vision.
Now apparently interested in stealth, Professor Quirrell turned and cast a quick "Silencio!" at him. Harry was about to complain that the silencing spell wasn't going to do any good in silencing their bumbling about in the forest, but of course no sound came out of his mouth. What if he needed to cast spells? The hot-air charm he'd used to warm himself was probably going to need renewing soon.
Professor Quirrell was moving very swiftly now, the crackling of his boots in the leaves almost a continuous susurration. Harry crunched along behind him in an attempt to keep up, proving that the silencing spell had done no good whatsoever. How did Professor Quirrell expect not to startle their quarry now?
Well they found the unicorn, anyway, soon enough. It was just lying in another thicket of thorns, bleeding everywhere and apparently unconscious. Harry felt cold looking at it, and couldn't tell if it was coming from inside him, or just his warming charm wearing off.
Professor Quirrell cast some non-verbal spell at it that made a great slash in its throat. Harry felt a sudden stab of pain in his scar, and he flinched for a moment, clutching his forehead.
When he looked back, Professor Quirrell was somehow standing next to him, looking at him in concern. Harry glanced down bemusedly at his hand, which he didn't remember lowering. The unicorn was clearly dead now—there was a small puddle of blood where Professor Quirrell's powerful spell had cut its neck.
"Are you all right?" Professor Quirrell asked him. "I'm sorry you had to see that, but it was kinder to put it out of its misery."
"Mm," Harry croaked out, surprised to hear himself. When had Professor Quirrell lifted the silencing charm? "I'm fine, sir," he said more clearly. What was there not to be fine about? Only, he felt a little disorientated, for some reason, and the feeling persisted as they left the forest.
"We'll need to stop by the gamekeeper," Professor Quirrell told him as they made it to the edge of the dense wood. They continued along the perimeter of the forest until they reached the lonely but sturdy wooden hut, which was surrounded by a tall picket fence that looked like it had been carved right out of the neighbouring trees. The gate was open, and they made their way down a short path up to a stone porch. Harry observed a massive pair of furry boots resting beneath the shuttered window, along with a crossbow that was bigger than he was.
Professor Quirrell ascended to the door and gave it a few quick raps with his knuckles, before backing away hurriedly. Immediately, loud barking could be heard from inside, and there was the scrabbling of claws at the door.
"Back, Fang, back!" said a gruff voice. They heard the clattering of a heavy chain and the snick of a deadbolt, and then the door opened up a crack to reveal a mess of curly hair and one large, beady black eye. A stream of blisteringly hot air puffed visibly outwards, and it suddenly occurred to Harry that he was freezing, and had forgotten to reapply his charm.
"Professor Quirrell," said the gamekeeper over a continuing serenade of barks and growls. Harry saw an excitable shadow moving about somewhere behind the large man's flannel-clad leg. "Ter what do I owe the pleasure?"
"We've just c-come back from the forest," said Professor Quirrell, gesturing for Harry to come into view. The gamekeeper's visible eye widened, and he held up a finger to bid them wait a moment as he turned, reprimanded his presumed dog, and then slipped out the door with surprising alacrity to join them on the front step.
"Hullo. Don't believe we've met properly," said the gamekeeper, reaching out a hand the size of dinner plate. "Hagrid, Keeper o' the Keys."
"Nice to meet you, Mr Hagrid, sir. I'm Harry," said Harry.
"Oh no sirs or misters. Jus' call me Hagrid," said Hagrid. Then he did a sort of double take, and had a bit of a consternated expression on his face, what little of it was visible behind his gigantic beard, as he stared at Harry. Finally, he turned to Professor Quirrell. "Yeh find anything out there, Professor?" he asked.
"We found a unicorn," said Professor Quirrell. "Terribly injured. I had to—I had to…" The professor sort of went pale there, and didn't finish his sentence.
"He had to put it out of its misery," Harry finished for him, wondering what was wrong with the man all of a sudden. Wasn't this the same person who had tried to teach him the enemy's curse, and an assortment of other curses, with the intent that he use them on a sentient being? Or was Professor Quirrell worried that he'd hurt his soul? From what Harry understood of it, the intention behind the killing was what mattered, and he wasn't sure killing a unicorn was even sufficiently "unspeakable" for an adult to matter.
"Oh," said Hagrid a little breathlessly, and Harry was surprised to see a lone tear leaking out the corner of his eye. The man wiped it away quickly on his sleeve. "I'd hoped… but it was the right thing ter do, Professor. Could yeh show me the spot?"
"Of c-course," said Professor Quirrell. "But p-perhaps I should walk Mr P-Potter here back to the castle first."
"O' course!" Hagrid agreed. "I'll be 'ere."
Professor Quirrell led the way back up, and Harry tried to cast the hot-air charm again but found his hands too frozen to execute the proper wand movement. He shoved his whole arm in his pocket and rubbed it against the fabric to warm it up, but only succeeded in making his skin prickle unpleasantly.
"You'd best hurry back to your c-common room," Professor Quirrell suggested. "It's nearly curfew."
"Right. Er, goodbye, sir," Harry muttered, already moving for the stairs. He needed to thaw out, and sleep wouldn't be a bad idea either. He had a bit of a headache, beyond the sort usually triggered by Professor Quirrell's presence.
As it was Friday evening, the common room was packed and the fireplaces were roaring merrily. The first years were still occupying the prime piece of real estate they'd claimed earlier before the upper years had got out of lessons, one of the glass tea tables that was surrounded by cushy armchairs. There weren't quite enough for everybody, but Sue and Mandy seemed content to squish on one seat, while Lisa was draped over its arm and back. Oliver and Michael had elected to sit on the floor at the corner of the table, where Monopoly had once more been set up. Terry was lazily moving his game piece with his wand from a distance.
"Want to join?" asked Anthony as Harry approached. He was off to the side with Stephen, Morag and Padma, playing Exploding Snap.
"Maybe for a few rounds," Harry agreed.
"How was detention?" asked Stephen.
"Weird," said Harry. "We went into the forest—"
"The Forbidden Forest?" Morag demanded. "No way."
"Apparently it's not forbidden if you go with a teacher," Harry said. "Was news to me too."
"Sounds horrible," Morag said, shuddering. "I can't believe they can make you go in there for detention."
"Don't get detention then," Stephen advised.
"I wouldn't," said Morag.
"I wouldn't for such a weird reason," said Anthony.
"Oh, come on," Harry muttered, and then card he just picked up exploded in his hand. "Ouch!"
"Snap!" Padma yelled, just as Anthony managed a weak "Ss."
"Bugger," he muttered as she took the cards, and Padma gave a scandalised sniff. Anthony tried to turn over a card, but it promptly exploded on him.
The explosions soon proved to be a little much for Harry's headache, and he begged off after one round and went upstairs.
He remembered to empty his pockets before he put his robes out for laundering. After that time he'd accidentally washed Uncle Vernon's expensive watch, he always checked. Besides, he didn't want to know what would happen if he submerged the time machine. Maybe nothing, or maybe the world would end.
He put the time machine under his bed in his cauldron, where he put all his miscellaneous things. Nobody had ever stolen anything of his, so he figured it was safe.
When he pulled out his remembrall, the smoke immediately flared bright red.
So he'd forgotten something important, and obviously, that something wasn't to check his pockets. What else did he have to do? His homework was done, he swore it was.
The smoke remained stubbornly red. Just in case, Harry went over each subject. Once he'd enumerated them all it was clear that he'd written every essay for this week. It wasn't the homework then. He'd gone to his detention already, and now it was curfew, so he didn't have anywhere he needed to go, this late.
That left something that he'd forgotten to think about, which was the worst kind. His head pounded. Maybe he'd try to think on it more tomorrow. But he couldn't—he wouldn't be able to sleep. The remembrall wouldn't have alerted him to some pointless thought he wouldn't care about, like what he'd eaten for dinner—which was nothing. His grumbling stomach remembered that clearly enough.
Staring at the remembrall did nothing to help, which was odd. If it was something he'd thought of while having it on his person, it ought to at least prompt him a little. Maybe carrying it around all the time was dulling the effect.
He knew he hadn't forgotten anything important by the time he was in the library, because he'd been using his remembrall to help him study. If he hadn't forgotten it then, he didn't see why it would be something relevant now, so it was probably something that had happened between studying and now—so his detention.
Right. It had been exceedingly odd, and some things didn't add up. He reviewed the whole thing in his head, wishing he had a pensieve. Professor Quirrell had inadvertently suggested that he was a serious dark wizard who couldn't cast the patronus charm. Yet he had pretended to be concerned about killing the unicorn. In front of Hagrid, Harry understood—the large man exuded obvious gentleness and sensitivity despite his size. But why when they had been alone in the forest? It wasn't as if Harry didn't know that Professor Quirrell knew how to use curses for their intended purpose.
The smoke in the remembrall pulsed pink, and then flared red again. Harry narrowed his eyes. He'd almost remembered?
His mind flashed to the last time he'd almost remembered something. His fingers came to rest on the tiny, ridged scars at the base of his neck. "Are you all right?" Professor Quirrell had asked him. Had he obliviated him?
But why? And of what? Suddenly paranoid, Harry raced through everything he knew about the man. He was probably a servant of the Dark Lord, whose location was still frustratingly vague. Was the Dark Lord somewhere in Hogwarts, or were they communicating some other way? If Harry still knew that, Professor Quirrell couldn't have found out that he knew. And he still had the professor's time machine, so it wasn't that.
The time machine! Could he go back and follow himself and see what had happened? Excitedly, he retrieved it from the cauldron, grabbed his invisibility cloak again, and tried giving it some turns. It was still stuck. His face fell. Perhaps it was broken, or it had reached its limit. There went that plan.
He dropped his things back in his cauldron and slumped onto his bed with a groan. How did one go about reversing oblivation? He had no idea.
A/N: The Hogwarts schedule is a big nightmare (it's technically possible to have all seven years of lessons without overlap, but that leaves every day jam-packed), and I can't imagine the teachers functioning without time turners. Given that they issued one to Hermione just so she could take some extra classes, it seems unlikely that they would deny them to the teachers anyway.