Chapter 39 - The Man with Two Faces

People in this Chapter.

Harry James Potter, Ronald Weasley, Minerva McGonagall, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan,
Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy,
Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott

It was Quirrell.

"You!" gasped Lewis. "How was it you?"

Quirrell smiled. His face wasn't twitching at all.

"Me," he said calmly. "I wondered whether I'd be meeting you here or your twin."

"But I thought - Snape -"

"Severus?" Quirrell laughed, and it wasn't his usual quivering treble, either, but cold and sharp. "Yes, Severus does seem the type, doesn't he? So useful to have him swooping around like an overgrown bat. Next to him, who would suspect p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell?"

Lewis couldn't take it in. This couldn't be true, it couldn't.
"But Snape tried to kill my twin!"

"No, no, no. I tried to kill him. When someone set fire to Snape. I got knocked me over as people rushed to put Snape's fire out.
They broke my eye contact with Harry.
Another few seconds and I'd have got him off that broom.
I'd have managed it before then if Snape hadn't been muttering a counter curse, trying to save him." Said Quirrell.

"Snape was trying to save my twin?" Asked Lewis.

"Of course," said Quirrell coolly. "Why do you think he wanted to referee your next match? He was trying to make sure I didn't do it again. Funny, really... he needn't have bothered.
I couldn't do anything with Dumbledore watching.
All the other teachers thought Snape was trying to stop Gryffindor from winning, he did make himself unpopular...
and what a waste of time, when after all that, I'm going to kill you tonight." Said Quirrell. "I through it would be your twin."

Quirrell snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of thin air and wrapped themselves tightly around Lewis.

"You're too nosy to live, Potter. Scurrying around the school on
Halloween like that, for all I knew you'd seen me coming to look at what was guarding the Stone." Said Quirrell.

"You let the troll in?" Said Lewis.

"Certainly. I have a special gift with trolls - you must have seen what I did to the one in the chamber back there? Unfortunately, while everyone else was running around looking for it, Snape, who already suspected me, went straight to the third floor to head me off - and not only did my troll fail to beat you to death, that three-headed dog didn't even manage to bite Snape's leg off properly." Said Quirrell.

"Now, wait quietly, Potter. I need to examine this
interesting mirror. It was only then that
Lewis realized what was standing behind Quirrell.
It was the Mirror of Erised.

"This mirror is the key to finding the Stone,"
Quirrell murmured, tapping his way around the frame.
"Trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this...
but he's in London... I'll be far away by the time he gets back..."

All Lewis could think of doing was to keep Quirrell talking and stop him from concentrating on the mirror.

"I saw you and Snape in the forest -" he blurted out.

"Yes," said Quirrell idly, walking around the mirror to look at the back. "He was on to me by that time,
trying to find out how far I'd got. He suspected me all along. Tried to frighten me - as though he could,
when I had Lord Voldemort on my side..."

Quirrell came back out from behind the mirror and stared hungrily into it. "I see the Stone... I'm presenting it to my master... but where is it?" Said Quirrell.

Lewis silently did a spell to cut the ropes.
He had to keep Quirrell from giving his whole attention to the mirror. "But Snape always seemed to hate me so much."
Said Lewis.

"Oh, he does," said Quirrell casually, "heavens, yes.
He was at Hogwarts with your father, didn't you know?
They loathed each other. But he never wanted you dead."

"But I heard you a few days ago, sobbing - I thought Snape was threatening you..."

For the first time, a spasm of fear flitted across Quirrell's face. "Sometimes," he said, "I find it hard to follow my master's instructions - he is a great wizard,
and I am weak -" Said Quirrell.

"You mean he was there in the classroom with you?"
Harry gasped.

"He is with me wherever I go," said Quirrell quietly.
"I met him when I traveled around the world.
A foolish young man I was then, full of ridiculous ideas about good and evil. Lord Voldemort showed me how wrong I was. There is no good and evil, there is only power,
and those too weak to seek it... Since then, I have served him faithfully, although I have let him down many times.
He has had to be very hard on me." Quirrell shivered suddenly. He does not forgive mistakes easily. When I failed to steal the stone from Gringotts, he was most displeased.
He punished me... decided he would have to keep a closer watch on me..." Quirrell's voice trailed away.

Harry was remembering his trip to Diagon Alley -how could he have been so stupid? He had seen Quirrell there that very day, shaken hands with him in the Leaky Cauldron.
Quirrell cursed under his breath.
"I don't understand... is the Stone inside the mirror?
Should I break it?" Said Quirrell.

Lewis's mind was racing. What I want more than anything else in the world at the moment, he thought,
is to find the Stone before Quirrell does.
So if I look in the mirror, I should see myself finding it which means I'll see where it's hidden!

Quirrell ignored him. He was still talking to himself.
"What does this mirror do? How does it work?
"Help me, Master!" And to Lewis's horror, a voice answered,
and the voice seemed to come from Quirrell himself.

"Use the boy... Use the boy..." Said the voice.
Lewis released who voice it was.

Quirrell rounded on Lewis.

"Yes - Potter - come here." Said Quirrell.

Lewis ignored Quirrell, stood up and said,
"So, Tom your back." Said Lewis.

"Come here," Quirrell repeated. "Look in the mirror and tell me what you see."

Lewis just stood there, "So you did survive."

Quirrell moved close behind him and pushed Lewis to the mirror, and he closed his eyes, stepped in front of the mirror,
and opened them again.

He saw his reflection, pale and scared looking at first.
But a moment later, the reflection smiled at him.
He put its hand into its pocket and pulled out a blood-red stone. He winked and put the Stone back in his pocket - and as he did so, Lewis felt something heavy drop into his real pocket. Somehow - incredibly - he'd gotten the Stone.

"Well?" said Quirrell impatiently. "What do you see?"

Lewis did a spell and made the stone translocate to
Albus Pocket. "I see myself shaking hands with Dumbledore,"
he invented. "I - I've won the house cup for Gryffindor."

Quirrell cursed again. "Get out of the way," he said.
As Lewis moved aside. A high voice spoke,
though Quirrell wasn't moving his lips.

"He lies... He lies..." Said Voldemort.

"Potter, come back here!" Quirrell shouted. "Tell me the truth! What did you just see?"

The high voice spoke again. "Let me speak to him...
face-to-face..." Said Voldemort.

"Master, you are not strong enough!" said Quirrell.

"I have strength enough... for this..." Said Voldemort.

Lewis felt as he was rooting him to the spot.
He couldn't move a muscle. Petrified, he watched as Quirrell reached up and began to unwrap his turban. What was going on? The turban fell away. Quirrell's head looked strangely small without it. Then he turned slowly on the spot.

Lewis would have screamed, but he couldn't make a sound. Where there should have been a back to Quirrell's head,
there was a face, the most terrible face Lewis had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake. "Lewis Potter..." it whispered.

"See what I have become?" Voldemort said.
"Mere shadow and vapor ... I have form only when I can share another's body... but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds...
Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks...
you saw faithful Quirrell drinking it for me in the forest...
and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own... Now... why don't you give me that Stone in your pocket?" Said Voldemort. "Don't be a fool,"
snarled the face. "Better save your own life and join me...
or you'll meet the same end as your parents...
They died begging me for mercy..." Said Voldemort.

"You're a failure and a coward, you tried to kill me as a baby,
and now you failed at this, The Fail Lord." Said Lewis.

Quirrell was walking backward at him, so that Voldemort could still see him. The evil face was now smiling.

"How touching..." Voldemort hissed. "I always value bravery... Yes, boy, your parents were brave..."

"I know what happened that night, I am not talking about it with the scum that killed them and caused my separation from my twin and me live on my own in an orphanage you of all people should know how bad this is Tom.
I don't have the stone, sent it off to Dumbledore."

The next second, Lewis felt Quirrell's hand close on his wrist.
At once, a needle-sharp pain seared across Lewis's scar;
his head felt as though it was about to split in two;
he yelled, struggling with all his might, and to his surprise,
Quirrell let go of him. The pain in his head lessened - he looked around wildly to see where Quirrell had gone, and saw him hunched in pain, looking at his fingers - they were blistering
before his eyes.

"Seize him! SEIZE HIM!" shrieked Voldemort again,
and Quirrell lunged, knocking Lewis clean off his feet.

Lewis rolled over and run a distance.
"Quirrell you were not always bad, you use to be a good person,
stop what you're doing. I can't be responsible for more death."

"Stop him." Ordered Voldemort.

Quirrell landing on top of him, both hands around Lewis's neck Lewis's scar was almost blinding him with pain,
yet he could see Quirrell howling in agony.

"Master, I cannot hold him - my hands!" Said Quirrell.

"If this is your choice, fine" Said Lewis.

And Quirrell, though pinning Lewis to the ground with his knees, let go of his neck and stared, bewildered,
at his own palms. Lewis could see they looked burned,
raw, red, and shiny.

"Then kill him, fool, and be done!" screeched Voldemort.

Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Lewis, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell's face -

"AAAARGH!"

Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too,
and then Lewis knew: Quirrell could not touch his bare skin,
not without suffering terrible pain his only chance was to keep hold of Quirrell, keep him in enough pain to
stop him from doing a curse.

Lewis jumped to his feet, caught Quirrell in a full bear hug,
clasped his hands around Quirrell, and hung on as tight
as he could. Quirrell screamed and tried to throw Lewis off the pain in Lewis's head was building he couldn't see he could only hear Quirrell's terrible shrieks and Voldemort's yells of,
"KILL HIM! KILL HIM!" and other voices, maybe Harry's, crying, "Lewis! Lewis!"

He felt someone trying to pull Quirrell's out of his bear hug.
He knew all was lost, and fell into blackness, down ... down... down... Something gold was glinting just above him. The Snitch! He tried to catch it, but his arms were too heavy.

pg. 9