The new term soon picked up, with increased school work, and also increased quidditch practice for Harry. The only difference to the previous term was the exchange of letters with Dudley, something that had not deteriorated as Harry had suspected. Instead, the letters between them were getting longer and more frequent.

After the start of term, Harry had written to let his cousin know he was willing to answer any questions Dudley might have, and Hermione had been so supportive, she had even lent her Hogwarts: A History, with strict instructions that Dudley could only keep it for a week, and that it better be returned undamaged.

From the few hints he let drop in his letters, Harry had surmised that his muggle cousin had some difficulties keeping the magical correspondence under wraps at Smeltings, but he seemed willing to go through a lot of trouble – buying owl treats, waking up at unreasonable hours to avoid being seen, and so on – to keep up the correspondence.

At least Harry's letters were written with pen on paper now – and would not look too suspicious if Dudley was ever seen holding them. He had sent a notebook after Harry had written that pens did not write too well on parchment. Then he had wanted to know why witches and wizards did not use paper – the first question about his world Harry did not have an immediate answer to. Hermione had become curious, which of course meant she had to find the answer, and so she had asked McGonagall.

The answer, it turned out, was that the existing charms – for spelling correction, translation, anti-cheating, and so on – were designed for parchments, and would need to be modified for paper. Hermione then had had a lengthy discussion with an intrigued Percy about whether such a thing could be done.

The whole thing had sounded awfully dull to Harry, especially as it seemed that it would take quite a bit of work and was not something that school students would be able to do. Percy, he suspected, was the only one who could find that discussion entertaining, but it almost seemed worth it, seeing the usually pompous Weasley deeming Ron and his friends worth his time, even if his lengthy explanations even managed to bore Hermione eventually.

Then the second Hogsmeade weekend arrived, and for all that Wood's training schedule had started to border on obsessive, he finally relented and allowed the older members of the team to go to Hogsmeade. Harry asked Fred and George to buy a bunch of sweets for him – something they did in exchange for testing some of their newly-acquired Zonko's merchandise on him. They slipped in a handful of Zonko's specialty sweets with the bunch he had ordered. Harry ended up eating one of the Hiccough Sweets in McGonagall's class, and changing his hair colour with each loud hiccough. The professor finally got so exasperated that Harry was dismissed from class - not an altogether tragic result. Harry even thought he might have spotted a nostalgic, fond smile on the usually strict professor's lips, but decided he must have been wrong.

In his next letter to his cousin, Harry sent a bar of Honeyduke's – "Ron says it's the best chocolate in the world" – curious to know whether the muggle boy's love for food – especially sweets – would overcome any remaining fear of magic. The chocolate went down surprisingly well, and in his reply Dudley sent some Lion bars.

...The magic chocolate was good, I'll give you that. But tell your wizard freind hes wrong. Its not the best in the world. Theres plenty of exelent chocolate in the muggle world... wrote Dudley, and the spelling was nowhere as bad as he was capable of producing.

Ron was willing to admit there might be some truth to Dudley's words after trying the chocolate bars. But always willing to accept a challenge, he suggested they send Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans next, as he was sure there was nothing similar in the muggle world. Harry agreed, and even found out some interesting facts about the sweet to write Dudley. It turned out, even Ron had not known that Bertie Bott had created them by accident, as no one had attempted to reduce food in size before, rather than try to expand or multiply it. Bertie Bott's were not magical as such, but magic was necessary to produce them – which, in some sense, made them the first magical food Dudley would receive.

Harry was curious how long Dudley's fascination with magic would last, but he was aware that for the most part finding answers to the muggle boy's questions and discovering new bits of information about the magical world to write about served to distract him from a lack of progress in his search for Flamel.

The trio had by then almost given up on finding out who he was. Harry could not remember where he had read the name before, and even though they still searched the library books every day, the only useful information they had found had been of the sort to amuse Dudley. Nothing on Flamel, however.

Then, another bit of bad news was added to that. Following a particularly wet and muddy training session, Wood informed the quidditch team that Snape would be refereeing the next match.

It was when Harry had hurried back to the common room to inform his friends – whose most helpful suggestion was that he should break his leg – that they finally had a break in their investigation. Neville came in, still suffering from Malfoy's jinx, and Harry offered him his last chocolate frog as consolation after Hermione had ended the spell. It was from that chocolate frog's Famous Wizard Card that they found out Flamel's identity, and finally figured out what was hidden in the castle: the Philosopher's Stone.

That evening, after finishing the Cadbury's chocolate bar Dudley had sent, Harry began another lengthy letter to his cousin, and for the first time he actually told him about some of the strange things that had been going on at Hogwarts.

The next morning, in Defence Against the Dark Arts, while copying down different ways of treating werewolf bites, Harry and Ron were still discussing what they would do with a Philosopher's Stone if they had one. It was when Ron said he would buy his own quidditch team that Harry remembered about Snape and the coming match.

"I'm going to play," he told Ron and Hermione. "If I don't, all the Slytherins will think I'm just too scared to face Snape. I'll show them... it'll really wipe the smiles off their faces if we win."

"Just as long as we're not wiping you off the field," said Hermione.

Harry frowned. "You know," he began, "Maybe we can do something."

"Yes?" Ron asked hopefully.

"Well, if we make sure whoever was casting the counter-curse last time will be there tomorrow-"

"Counter-curse?" Hermione asked louder than strictly necessary, enough for Quirrel to pause in his stuttering and halt the chalk on the blackboard, which was at moment occupied with completing a gruesome drawing of a werewolf bite.

"Counter-curse? Whatever makes you think someone was casting a counter-curse?" asked Hermione more quietly a little later, once Quirrel had gone back to his monotonous stuttering.

"That book you sent me, Hermione. Curses and Counter-Curses. The way my broom would jerk instead of going one way or another – that's exactly what a counter-curse is supposed to look like. Without someone countering it, a curse should have thrown me off sooner. I think."

"Well, did it say how a counter-curse is cast?" asked Hermione. "I mean, how are we supposed to guess-"

"The same as a curse. You need eye-contact, and everything."

"But that's what I was looking for when you were being cursed," said Hermione. "That's how I found Snape. I'm sure I'd have noticed if someone else was doing the same."

"She's right," said Ron. "I took the binoculars from her after she left to deal with Snape. Everyone was looking at you, but no one was muttering and staring as obsessively as Snape."

The three teens exchanged frustrated looks, willing each other to think of a solution.

"Could it have been non-verbal?" suggested Hermione.

"But that book said you're not supposed to do that. Counter-curses are more difficult than curses, and non-verbal ones wouldn't be strong enough."

"I know," Hermione almost whined out of frustration. "But if you're sure someone was casting a counter-curse-"

"Quirrel," Ron said suddenly.

Harry and Hermione immediately looked towards their teacher, and noticed he had stopped talking again. Harry suddenly felt a sharp pain in his scar, and could not suppress a half-muffled exclamation. Quirrel turned around.

"Did someone s-say s-s-something?" he asked.

Hermione turned concerned eyes towards Harry, but his pain had passed, and he shook his head.

When no one replied, Quirrel turned back to his lesson. The three teens stopped talking after that, trying to follow what they were being taught instead. Harry supposed it was because of the harsh topic they had just been discussing, and the mood had stayed with him, but something about the way Quirrel kept talking about subduing werewolves suddenly struck him as cruel. He shook off the feeling and went back to taking notes.

"How embarrassing," moaned Hermione after class. "We were caught chatting during a lesson. I didn't even notice Quirrel had heard us until you said so, Ron."

"What?" Ron frowned, and then he caught on. "No, that's not – I meant it was Quirrel. He was the one casting the counter-curse."

"Really? Are you sure?" Hermione asked eagerly.

Ron nodded slowly. "I think so, yeah. You ran into him, remember? When you were-"

"Oh! On my way to Snape-"

"Yes. It was – odd. That's why I remembered. Everyone kept looking at Harry, but Quirrel was twisted sideways, and seemed distracted. His face was turned away from me, so I'm not sure if he was muttering, but he definitely had his wand out."

"But if he wasn't looking at Harry..."

"I know! Maybe he was jinxing Snape directly," suggested Harry.

"I guess."

"Maybe." His friends agreed hesitantly.

They decided to find out if their suspicion was correct, and if so, if Quirrel would be watching the next quidditch match. Even though he did not seem the strongest defender one could wish for, he was their Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, and if his counter-curses could stop Snape, Harry wanted him in the stands again during his next match.

That afternoon, Harry tried to find an opportunity to talk to Quirrel, but it proved more tricky than he had anticipated. He only saw the professor at dinner, and he left before his students could casually walk up to him, trying hard not to be obvious about it. Instead, Snape kept running into them wherever they went – something Harry had noticed the potions professor doing more than once in recent weeks. They were no more successful during breakfast the next morning, which was unfortunate since they did not have any classes with Quirrel that day.

Disappointed, Harry conceded defeat for the moment and opened Dudley's letter instead, which had arrived with the owl post during breakfast, and let his friends read over his shoulder, before they had to face the day's lessons.

Hi, Harry, wrote Dudley.

What's the matter with your profesors, are they all crazy? Just saying. Mine are crazy, to, but at least they only want me to work harder. Me and Piers copied the same homework from Artie – he's the nerd in our dorm – the other day, and Artie changed his later, but me and Piers were in trouble. We have to explane to him to change ours to next time. And I mean explane, I'm not going to beat him up or anything, cos I'm not a bully, so stop saying that.

So what about that Snape guy? Are you sure hes really trying to steal some magic thing, or maybe he hates you cos your awful in his class? Are you awful in his class? You're lessons sound pretty dificult, so I wouldnt be surprised.

It would be pretty cool if youre teacher were a thief, tho. Maybe you could catch him, that would be even cooler. Don't know if you can, tho. You could be wrong about the whole thing. I'm always wrong when I try to guess in a whodunit. Its never who I suspect.

Good luck!

Dudley

Ignoring Hermione's attempts to correct the spelling, Harry stuffed the letter in his bag, and tried not to think about that last comment. But something kept nagging at his subconscious.

The trio tried again to talk to Quirrel again after classes, but did not get a chance until the afternoon, right before the match. They saw him leave the great hall with a group of teachers who looked like they were already heading over to the quidditch pitch. Harry exchanged hopeful looks with his friends, but then they noticed Quirrel separate from the group. They followed him.

As soon as they were away from other people, he slowed down, allowing the students to catch up with him. Harry noticed his friends were as surprised as he was. Quirrel had not seemed aware that they were following him.

"Professor, are you going to the quidditch match today?" Harry went straight to the point.

"The match?" Quirrel sounded surprised. "Trying to c-collect more f-fans before the m-match, Mr P-P-Potter?" Despite the wide, disarming smile, Harry balked at the question.

"Er, no," he answered a lot more carefully. "I just think it might be an interesting match – like last time," he hinted. "Or even more interesting. Everyone wants to be there, it seems. Professor Snape's even refereeing. And you might..." He broke off, unwilling to accuse Snape outright. If Ron was right about Quirrel casting the counter-curse, that should be enough, anyway, he thought.

Quirrel made a show of looking around himself, as if to see if anyone was near them. When he briefly turned his back to them, Harry again felt his scar hurt. But it was gone before he had time to even raise his hand to touch it. Quirrel smiled again, and this time it seemed entirely genuine.

"Mr P-Potter, I'm s-sure there will be none of the excitement from last time." He gave Harry a knowing look, but then followed it up with, "You're m-much b-b-better at handling your broom by now, I'm su-sure-"

Harry wanted to to say his broom handling skills had been just fine last time as well, that it had been someone else – most likely Snape – jinxing his broom, but Quirrel went on before he could protest.

"A-and whatever problem there may be, all th-the other p-p-professors will be there, not just Professor Snape. Just in case. Even P-Professor Dumb-Dumbledore. Don't worry. And don't be l-late," he said, and the three friends realised they had been dismissed.

Dumbledore was indeed there, much to Harry's relief, which, he suspected, explained Snape's dark mood. He did not think too much of Quirrel's absence after that, and instead concentrated on winning the game. He did so in record time, and without any jinxes thrown at his broom.

Then Harry spotted Snape as he was returning his broom to the shed, and followed to overhear his exchange with Quirrel. Confused and worried, he collected his two friends who were still celebrating his quidditch victory and Draco's black eye, courtesy of Ron, and took them to an empty room so they would not be overheard. He then proceeded to fill them in on what he had heard.

"So Professor Snape really is trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone, and Fluffy and Quirrel's protection are the only things in this way," Hermione summed it up.

"It'll be gone by next Tuesday," Ron made the gloomy prediction entirely too cheerfully.

Harry groaned with frustration. "But that doesn't make any sense!" There had been something about Quirrel's behaviour that afternoon before the match. It had made Harry feel uncomfortable. He had begun questioning Quirrel, and the more he thought about it, the more he suspected something about the professor's behaviour did not add up.

"What do you mean?" Hermione frowned.

"Why did Snape think Quirrel might help him?"

"You mean the bit about where his loyalties lie?" asked Ron. "That probably didn't mean anything. Snape was trying to scare him, that's all."

"But then why wasn't he at the quidditch pitch today?" asked Hermione.

"Exactly!" said Harry. "That's what's been bothering me. Quirrel said he had no idea what Snape was talking about, but he did miss the match, and Snape seemed to think he was trying to get past Fluffy at that time."

"But he can't be helping Snape!" exclaimed Hermione. "He cursed Snape to save you, Harry-"

"So we're agreed he did that? Even though he wouldn't come out and say it-"

Both his friends nodded.

"Yes. He sounded a bit – odd – today, but he seemed to know exactly what we were talking about," said Hermione. "It must have been him. And then, today, he refused to tell Snape how to get past his protection of the stone."

"Maybe he's just pretending to be helping Snape," suggested Ron. "Because he's scared of him, or wants to know what the old bat's up to-"

"Ron!" Hermione admonished him.

"But he didn't seem to be," replied Harry. "He tried his best to pretend he had no idea what Snape was talking about. And yet, he stayed in the castle, and if Snape has talked to him before – and it sounded as if he had – then he must have realised Snape would assume he had gone to the third-floor corridor."

"Maybe-" began Hermione, but then fell silent, trying to formulate a credible argument.

"Maybe your cousin's right, Harry, and we got it all wrong," tittered Ron. "Maybe it's Quirrel who's trying to steal the stone, and Snape who's warning him against it." His laughter turned into nervous chuckles at the bewildered, speechless faces of his friends. "That was just a joke," he said.

A couple forced laughs joined his. "Yeah, of course," his friends agreed, but then fell silent again.

"That's nonsense!" Harry finally said forcefully, after a few aborted attempts at speech from his friends.

"It is. Except it makes an awful lot of sense," said Hermione. "And I can't think of a good reason why it can't be true."

"Well, let's see. Let's see." Harry took on the challenge. "Snape-" He wanted to say, "hates me," but instead decided to go with, "Snape tried to get past Fluffy at Halloween."

"Yes, that was our main argument against him-" said Hermione.

"Other than him being a git and hating Harry," supplied Ron helpfully.

"But it was Quirrel who told everyone about the troll," Hermione went on as if she had not been interrupted. "Maybe Snape wanted to check up on it-"

"Quirrel passed out, Hermione. He wouldn't have been much of a threat-"

"And Snape went to Filch to have his wound treated. That struck me as odd before, and now that I think about it, if he was trying to steal the stone, he'd hardly go around telling everyone about it-"

"Not everyone, just Filch. Who knows, maybe they're working together. It would fit, wouldn't it? They're both gits-" Harry tried to defend his argument, even though his conviction was slipping.

"The first time we got lost, Harry. Quirrel just happened to be passing by the third-floor corridor when he rescued us from Filch."

"Well, Filch was there, too!"

"Well, all right," said Ron. "To be honest, I'd much rather it were Snape, too. He's a right git, and if we can prove he's a criminal, too, we'll be rid of him once and for all."

But that was not how it worked, and they all knew it, too.

"That day, when there was a break-in at Gringotts, I met Quirrel in the Leaky Cauldron," admitted Harry. "But that's all coincidence! Snape hates me," he said it after all. "It makes a lot more sense that he'd try to kill me. Quirrel doesn't hate me-"

"Well, not to say your life isn't important, Harry, but maybe that attack on you had nothing to do with the stone," said Hermione sensibly.

Harry wanted to argue. It seemed too much of a coincidence, especially with the stone almost getting stolen exactly on the day he had returned to the magical world. But when he thought back, the first hint that Snape hated him had been his scar hurting. And now the same had happened around Quirrel as well. Twice. Come to think of it, that first time Snape had looked at him from behind Quirrel.

Harry shook his head to get rid of the strange thoughts. "All right. Fine. Maybe it's Quirrel who's after the stone, and Snape who's trying to stop him, while at the same time trying to kill me, and Quirrel trying to protect me. If you really think that sounds any more reasonable-"

"I didn't say that!" argued Hermione. "I just think we don't know anything for sure yet."

"We need to investigate more," said Ron, and did not sound sad about it at all.

His friends nodded resolutely.