18

It Was Who?!

No one's POV

Hermione walked into the purple flames and out to Ron and Draco.

Draco was sitting on the floor, staring at a fixed point. He looked up when Hermione came and stood up.

"Where's Ron?" Hermione asked hurriedly, looking around.

"He's in that corner." Draco nodded to the corner where Ron was sitting. "He woke up a couple minutes before you came through. Where's Potter?—Actually, I don't care."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that last part. Harry's trying to hold Snape off, but we need to go owl Dumbledore."

"Yeah, yeah."

Ron got up from the corner and walked over to Hermione. "Where's Harry?" he asked.

"He's trying to hold off Snape. We need to go owl Dumbledore! Come on!" Hermione exclaimed, starting to run back. She opened the door to the mountain troll's room. She plugged her nose as Ron and Draco followed her and did the same. They ran around the troll to the door of the flying keys. They ran towards the brooms, each of them getting one.

The three of them carried the brooms into the room with the Devil's Snare, and hopped on.

"You sure you don't want to get on mine?" Draco asked Hermione as he noticed her shaking a bit.

"I'm okay." Hermione said, and started to take off. The boys followed her and they flew up to the trapdoor. Hermione couldn't go very straight, as she had never had any practice, so Draco and Ron circled under Hermione in case she fell. She made it to the trapdoor and opened it. She slowly floated out and got off the broom. Hermione picked up the wooden flute she had dropped earlier and started to play. Fluffy lowered to the ground in a deep sleep. Draco and Ron followed Hermione quickly and ran out the door. She dropped the flute and ran outside.

"We have to go to the owlery." Hermione said. "We can send Hedwig to Dumbledore."

"Where is Dumbeldore?" Draco asked, for he had not been present in their earlier conversation.

"He's at the Ministry." Hermione explained, starting to run to the owlery. "We think Snape sent a note asking him to go."

Just then, none other than Albus Dumbledore walked in front of them. "Harry's gone to stop him, hasn't he?"

Hermione and Ron nodded and Draco just looked a little bored. Dumbeldore practically ran away to the dungeons.

"Good, everything's under control. I'm going to bed." Draco yawned. He started to walk back to the dungeons to go to the Slytherin common room.

Hermione whispered to Ron, "You go back to the common room, I'll meet you there."

Ron looked uncertain, as if he didn't want to leave Hermione alone with Draco, but nodded anyway and walked back to the Gryffindor common room.

"Draco." Hermione said, stopping Draco. He turned to face her. "Why don't you like Harry and Ron?"

"Well, they're not the best blokes to be around." Draco replied.

"What do you mean?" A pause. "Is this because of your little family squabble?"

"Sort of." Draco admitted. "At first it was. When I was little, my parents told me that the Weasleys' were terrible and stuff. They also said that Potter was the only thing stopping us from living the way we were born to. Being Malfoys and such…"

"But now?"

"But now, I don't exactly like them anyway. Especially the way they act around me."

Hermione sighed. "Alright. I shouldn't have even tried to get you to like each other. I'm heading to bed." she walked down the corridor, back to the Gryffindor common room.

Draco's POV

Draco sighed, turned around and started to turn back to his common room. He had tried to like Ron and Harry, but he just couldn't. He was only doing it for Hermione's sake anyway.

He trudged back into the Slytherin common room only to find Pansy and Blaise sitting there, waiting for him.

"Where have you been?" Pansy demanded.

"We were getting worried, mate." Blaise added.

"I was saving the world." Draco replied, as if it happened every day.

"Yeah… and I'm the Minister of Magic." Blaise said.

Pansy rolled her eyes. "Would you care to elaborate?"

"Ugh, fine. I was stopping You-Know-Who from getting the Sorcerer's Stone."

"With who?" Blaise asked. "There's no way you can do that alone."

Draco glared at him. "With Hermione."

"And?" Pansy was catching on much quicker than Blaise.

Dracos sighed in annoyance. "Potty and Weasel were there too."

Blaise blinked a couple of times, trying to soak in the information. "Hold up. You went with Hermione, Potty and Weasel to stop You-Know-Who from getting the Sorcerer's Stone?"

"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up."

Blaise and Pansy stared at Draco. "What?" he asked, a little weirded out.

"Sorry, it's just crazy to think you would ever help Potty and Weasel." Pansy chuckled. "And what's the Sorcerer's Stone?"

No one's POV

The next few days, Harry was in the hospitable wing. He had tried to fend off whoever it was trying to get the Stone, but he had gotten hurt. He was asleep in the hospitable wing, and lots of people had sent him flowers and candy. Fred and George Weasley had even tried to send him a toilet seat for some reason, but Madam Pomfrey had taken it away ("It is not sanitary, and I will not have it next to my patient's bed!").

Dumbeldore had just been inside to see Harry, and had come back out saying he was awake. Hermione and Ron were overjoyed by that fact, they had been getting so worried.

"Madam Pomfrey, please can we go see Harry?" Hermione pleaded with the matron.

"He needs his rest." Madam Pomfrey said.

"But you let Professor Dumbeldore in."

"Yes well that's different, he's the headmaster."

"Just five minutes?"

"Fine." Madam Pomfrey gave in, and led them into the hospitable wing.

"Harry!" the kids both exclaimed when they saw him lying on one of the beds.

"Hello."

"Tell us, what happened?" Ron asked.

"Well, first of all, it actually wasn't Snape, it was Quirrelll." Hermione and Ron both gasped. Whoever would have thought? "Yeah, so he tied me up in these magical ropes and that mirror that we saw earlier-

"The Mirror of Erised." Hermione cut in.

"Yeah, that thing. It was there, and Quirrelll was looking into it, and muttering stuff, like 'I see myself handing the Stone to my master, but where is it?'. So then, there was this… voice. I thought it was coming from Quirrelll himself, but I couldn't see his mouth moving, and it didn't sound like him anyway. You'll never believe what it actually was."

"What was it?" Ron asked eagerly.

"Voldemort." Harry whispered.

Ron shuddered as Hermione let out a very soft scream.

"Yeah, he was on the back of Quirrelll's head! It was terrifying. He's terrifying. I didn't know it was him at the time, I saw later. So anyway, he told Quirrell to 'use the boy', so Quirrell put me in front of the mirror, and I saw myself getting the Stone. I saw myself picking it up out of my pocket," Harry paused for suspense. "And I felt something fall into my pocket. I didn't know what to do, but Quirrell told me to tell him what I saw. I thought of something on the spot and said I was shaking hands with Dumbledore and that I had won the Quidditch cup."

"And he believed it?"

"Voldemort said 'The boy lies', so… no. And then, Voldemort asked Quirrell to face me in person. And… well… Quirrell took off his turban and turned around. I wanted to scream, it was terrible." Harry shuddered, thinking of what Voldemort looked like. "He talked a lot, and then he told Quirrell to get me, but when Quirrell touched me, he backed away super quickly. It hurt for me too. But then I realized, he couldn't touch me… for some reason. And so, I got a hold of his face and he screamed (and it hurt me, but whatever), and then… he fell onto a heap on the ground, dead. And Voldemort… I can't explain it."

"Woah." Hermione and Ron said simultaneously, amazed.

"Out!" Madam Pomfrey came running in. "I said five minutes, you've had more than fifteen!" Hermione and Ron scurried out only to be met by Fred and George Weasley.

"We came to visit Harry." The twins told them.

"I wouldn't go in there right now, Madam Pomfrey's really mad." Hermione advised.

The twins nodded and turned around instead. "You know, we heard rumors that You-Know-Who was on the back of Quirrell's head. Is that true?" Fred asked.

"Yeah, Harry just told us."

"That explains why we saw You-Know-Who's name right up next to Quirrell's on our map." George said to Fred. Fred nodded.

"You what?!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Well, we have this map that shows who everyone is in the school and where they are… if they're in the school. We saw You-Know-Who's name right up next to Quirrell's." They explained. "That's why we charmed snowballs to continuously hit the back of Quirrell's head."

"And you didn't think to say anything?!"

The twins looked at each other before turning back to Hermione and Ron. They shrugged. "It didn't seem very important."

A/N: Thanks for reading chapter eighteen! I can't believe there's only one more chapter! I hope you liked it.

To my guest reviewer, Bright Dawn: I'm not exactly sure what you mean…

Please review! Stay tuned and stay safe!