Chapter 15: Narrative Progress Goes 'Boink'!
I must say, the Halloween decorations were impressive. Not that I could really focus on enjoying the feast while Quirrel was missing and probably getting a mountain troll into the castle as a diversion for stealing the Philosopher's Stone.
At least Hermione wasn't crying in a bathroom, but right here at the Ravenclaw table, discussing Arithmancy with upper years. Meanwhile I was nervous and constantly checking the map, which I had borrowed from the twins for the occasion.
There! Quirrel and an unlabeled, but rather large dot, just appeared on the grounds right where the map ends.
"Psst, Hermione," "I need to take care of something. If anyone asks, I'm spending some time alone on the anniversary of my parents' deaths."
That seemed like the best excuse to roam the castle and accidentally stumble across the troll. Not the best plan, but Dumbledore didn't want to take my warning based on a feeling too seriously and I can't reveal my future information, so I had to cobble a new plan together.
So I went to the entrance hall where Quirrel was according to the map. Invisible, of course. And thank Merlin I paid extra for silencing charms on my boots.
"Nobody's here. They're all at the feast, my Lord."
"Good. Get the troll somewhere where it won't be immediately found, we need the diversion to last as long as possible."
My knowledge of Voldemort being here had already made Defence class difficult, but hearing him from under the turban was on a whole new level of scary. Especially since we were alone with a troll.
"Imperio. Go to the dungeons and attack anyone you see. Except me."
Imperiusing the troll? Interesting, although I had kinda expected something like it. Trolls are intelligent enough to dance, talk and usually don't immediately attack everyone they come across. Unless instructed to do so.
According to my original plan this would've been the point where I should've returned and gotten Dumbledore involved after "accidentally witnessing" Quirrel smuggling in a troll. But I got this idea out of the blue that I really wanted to try.
You see, there's a neat spell I had learned for Voldemort which, while I wasn't good enough at it to try it on its intended target, should have theoretically worked against the troll. I couldn't cast it silently, but given the noise that the troll was making walking past me I only needed to whisper it to avoid Voldemort or Quirrel noticing.
"Obliviate."
As a memory class charm, it's surprisingly easy compared to Occlumency, but takes a lot of power. But I only needed to wipe a few seconds.
Except me.
The troll stopped, reprocessing its orders, and turned around.
Did that really work?
Quirrel was distracted by Voldemort and thus didn't react quickly enough to avoid loosely reenacting the Puny God scene from The Avengers.
Wham!
Wham!
Wham!
It looked very painful, seeing him getting smashed around like that. But hey, that's what he planned to happen to Hermione or any other student who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I regret nothing.
But I should avoid him getting killed, otherwise Voldemort would just possess someone else and I won't be able to predict anything. And some people might notice that I wasn't at the feast. Also, murder is wrong, so I had to save him.
What did I do? I left the hall, took off the invisibility cloak, ran back in and aimed at the troll's club screaming "WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA," just as it was about to turn Quirrel into mush.
Boink!
"Oh my God Professor are you alright? I was just going to the bathroom and heard a scream, what is that monster? Did it attack you? How did it get in?"
And that's when Dumbledore, Snape and McGonagall, who had also heard Quirrel's scream, came rushing in to find me applying first aid spells to Quirrel next to a knocked out troll.
-HP-HP-HP-
"Harry, could you please explain why you weren't at the feast?"
"Well, Professor, officially, I was trying to have some time alone, because my parents died 10 years ago, and then I heard Quirrel get attacked and just barely managed to save him. But the real story is, well, I don't really know how to explain. You would have to have seen it to really understand."
"I think I could very well understand, if you tell me what happened."
"Actually," I said pointing at the various gadgets in Dumbledore's office around us, "I was going to ask if you happen to have a Pensieve. I've read about them, they seem like the kind of rare item you'd have, and I think it'd be best to show my memory of what happened."
-HP-HP-HP-
"Alright, could you pause and replay that? That voice he called Lord, probably Voldemort, came from the turban. Either some sort of communications device or he's keeping Voldemort's spirit there. Since the same turban tried to read my mind on my first day here, I'm leaning towards the bodiless evil spirit theory.
"Now, here he mentioned that he needed a diversion lasting long enough to accomplish something. I can only think of three things Voldemort might want here: My death, your death, and whatever that Cerberus on the third floor is guarding. Since as far as he knew both of us were at the feast with everyone else, he was probably after the third floor.
"In hindsight, it was probably not the smartest idea to Obliviate the troll with no idea what'd happen, but when else do you get the opportunity to see how the Imperius and memory modification interact? It did end with both Quirrel and the troll, both potential dangers to everyone in the castle, both knocked out, so I think it worked out quite okay."
After watching the entire sequence three times, we left the Pensieve.
"I'd say first priority is to figure out if Voldemort is here or just communicating with Quirrel. He's currently unconscious in the infirmary so it should be possible to sneak in and see what's under the turban. If he's here, we need to figure out in what form, how he stays alive, and if there's some way of permanently getting rid of him."
-HP-HP-HP-
After Dumbledore confirmed my "Voldemort's spirit in the turban" theory we spent multiple hours going over the theory of how a spirit like that could be fought against and on what we should do with Quirrel. In the end, Dumbledore told me that he'd have to do more research on bodiless spirits and that until he found a way to permanently destroy Voldemort, we should keep Quirrel under the belief that we think he was just attacked by a troll that inexplicably managed to get into Hogwarts, while informing all the trusted teachers that they should keep an eye on him. As long as he doesn't realise that his cover is blown and the Philosopher's Stone is just barely out of reach, he should continue to pretend to be a harmless stuttering teacher. I hope Dumbledore finds what he needs soon, because I'm not quite comfortable with Quirrel staying here, but if Voldemort found out that we're onto him he'd just abandon Quirrel and return on someone else's head.
At that point it had gotten pretty late and I returned to Ravenclaw to get some rest, where I found Hermione waiting for me.
She cast Muffliato, took a deep breath, and started shouting.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER, or whatever your real name is! Don't you DARE do that EVER AGAIN! Do you have ANY IDEA how WORRIED I was? You just LEFT without telling me why, and then I realised that the ONLY OTHER PERSON not there was the teacher working for VOLDEMORT! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!"
She really does get quite scary when she's angry.
"Hermione, please, calm down! I know, I shouldn't have left you worrying, but please, just let me explain!"
"Explain? EXPLAIN? You NEVER tell me ANYTHING until way too late! First you meet me and then you don't tell me for MONTHS that you already know me because you're from the FUTURE, we go to Hogwarts and you don't bother to inform me beforehand that one of the teacher works for the WORST DARK LORD of the CENTURY, then you just SNEAK OFF to fight him on your own? If there's anything else like that that you're keeping from me you better tell me RIGHT NOW!"
"Okay, okay, I know, I've been keeping way too many secrets. I'll explain as best as I can. When I first arrived in this time, I immediately knew that I'd have to defeat Voldemort somehow. So my first idea was to think back to everything I remembered about how he got defeated in my time, then try to get that done but better. So I had this idea, well, to bring together a group of remarkable people."
"If you're trying to calm me down with future reference jokes, forget about it."
"Well, it really was my first plan. Remember all the people who played a major role in Voldemort's defeat the first time around, get them together, defeat Voldemort. That's pretty much what I did at the beginning, contacting people. Sirius, Remus, well, and you. Then I realised that repeating what happened isn't really the best way to do it, a group of schoolkids shouldn't really have to fight a bloody war. So I changed my plan to where I and Dumbledore will do most of the dirty work. I won't lie, when we first met I did kinda see you as a character from a book, important for strategic reasons, but since then I got to know the real you, and I really like you, you're kinda like a young sister to me, and I really really don't want you to have half a dozen cases of almost dying before the age of seventeen, so please understand that I'm doing everything I can to keep you and all the other students away from the danger. I know you're worried about me, but I don't really have a choice to not fight Voldemort, but you do. Please, don't get involved more than you already are. I don't know if I could ever live with myself if something happened to you because of me."
Hermione turned from furious to shocked.
"Half a dozen cases of almost dying? Just how bad is it going to get?"
"Very bad, if I don't prevent it. That's why I have to do it. I could probably get a new identity and live in Australia, but I can't just let a war happen here. I really hope I'll be able to stop it. But if I fail, please, stay safe and get away."
"So you want to fight, but you want me to just run away?"
"I'm a time traveller and the prophesied enemy of Voldemort, I really am the only one who can stop it, so I have to. You're a twelve year old schoolkid, you don't have to do anything. Just promise me that you won't get yourself involved in anything dangerous and that if things go bad, if something happens to me, that you get out of here before it turns into a warzone, okay?"
"Okay," she said, breaking down, "I promise that I'll stay safe."
"But please," she cried between sobs, "don't run off, leaving me worrying like that again."
"It's okay," I tried to calm her, "I think I got things under control. I still have around four years before things got ugly in the other time, I will figure something out by then, I promise. Chances are, it'll all be fine."
But right now, all I can do is hope that Dumbledore finds a way to get Voldemort out of Quirrel and permanently destroyed soon.