chapter 7
His equal
07:33 pm 4th June, Hogwarts underground chambers.
*Voldemort screamed "SEIZE HIM!" and the next second, Harry felt Quirrell's hand close on his wrist, but not for long, Quirrell let go of him. Quirrell had hunched in pain, looking at his fingers — they were blistering before his eyes.
"Seize him! SEIZE HIM!" shrieked Voldemort again, and Quirrell lunged, knocking Harry clean off his feet landing on top of him, both hands around Harry's neck.
"Master, I cannot hold him — my hands — my hands!" and Quirrell, though pinning Harry to the ground with his knees, let go of his neck and stared, bewildered, at his own palms — Harry 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 Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell's face — "AAAARGH!"
Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too, and then Harry knew: Quirrell couldn't touch his bareskin, 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.
Harry jumped to his feet, caught Quirrell by the arm, and hung on as tight as he could. Quirrell screamed and tried to throw Harry off, he could hear Quirrell's shrieks and Voldemort's yells of, "KILL HIM! KILL HIM!"
He felt Quirrell's arm wrenched from his grasp, and fell into blackness, down…down… down….(*1)
Twenty five minutes ago, Room of Requirements.
Harry was working on one of the spells offensive spells he had been intending to create, it was quite simple, a physical flux of gravity which could be altered at whims of the caster, it could be used in a number of ways to achieve a wide range of results. It's inspiration came from legends of the Norse God Odin the god of wisdom & war amongst other aspects, and his use of Odin Force, the mystical energy he is said to wield like an extension of himself.
The closest understanding of the odin force that harry was able to make was that of Gravity. Of course there were other gravity manipulationspells like Schwere the german spell that literally allowed the user to increase or decrease the gravity of any particular area, it was a spell that while had a lot of potential but was generally disused because of its enormous magic requirements, not to mention obscurity and the fact that - his thoughts were interrupted by a tug on his magic he was all too familiar with by now, Hogwarts was calling him out and it was quite similar to the time when he had been called to deal with the troll, except this time it was urgent, if last time hogwarts was buzzing him with instructions this time it was screeching.
He got out of his sanctuary and sent out a magical pulse of his own towards the ward stone of hogwarts which was situated directly below the entrance chamber, of course half a kilometer but still directly below it, and he received a reply which was the most direct and what would qualify for a proper reply was a vision of a particular path leading from his position to the 3rd floor forbidden corridor, as soon as he even thought of teleporting to the corridor in question he received another pulse from hogwarts which was quite clearly an order against doing so, without giving it another thought he started running towards the grand staircase as he was instructed to, on the way though he sent out another pulse of magic, this time it was meant to sweep the residents of castle for to search for a specific person, the headmaster, and when he was done with the sweep as he had thought, he wasn't there, hence why Hogwarts was contacting him for help.
As soon as he reached at the staircase, there was a swirl of energy which surrounded him which he recognized as belonging to Hogwarts, unalarmed he kept progressing towards his destination, and soon he encountered Bones, Granger and Weasley being led by Longbottom, they were hurrying down the stairs just next to him yet they didn't notice him, Hogwarts was cloaking him from being detected by others, had it been anyone else they might have wondered the why this was happening but given he wasn't anyone else he didn't. And Hogwarts was now instructing him to go faster so that is what he did.
Leaving the quartet behind he soon reached an intersection at the sixth floor, there were two corridors, one was straight which would take him to his destination as soon as possible and another was towards the right which would be a detour delaying him by three minutes at least, and he thought that it was no coincidence that he encountered those four, that too mere moments after hogwarts decided to cloak him from being seen, he brought out his wand and forgoing any subtlety and control he had been working towards, he cast the strongest wizard notice me not charms and compulsion charms he could the former hid the shorter route from all those who weren't at least competent enough in occlumency to fight against his charm, like Dumbledore, while the latter similarly compelled those who couldn't fight the former to take the detour without a second thought of suspicion, all in all it took him five seconds, after which he again set pace towards his destination, soon he reached the fourth floor where he again encountered one such opportunity and he utilized it just as he had before.
And now 10 minutes from the time he had began his sprint he was standing outside the door of the forbidden corridor, with a wordless Alohamora he opened the locked door and entered it, closing the door behind him, he saw the humongous cerberus that had been seemingly sleeping before he entered the door and was now growling at him, he had read that music could put these creatures to sleep, he knew nothing of music, something he would need to fix he supposed, as for the cerberus, he simply looked into the eyes of the creature in front of him and while looking at all the three heads, he let loose a fraction of his power in a show, the dog that had been growling was now whimpering, huddled in the corner of the room, he hadn't hurt the dog as it was innocent, there was no need to cause needless destruction.
He forged ahead and jumped down the trapdoor the dog was previously covering, below the trap door he found some Devilsnare which was trying its best to not touch him, so he found himself standing in a corridor which led to another room, following the path he discovered that the room in question was pretty simple and and it even had a door to pass by from, except there were many flying keys there out of which probably only one would open the door and without a doubt the rest of the keys would attack any unauthorized person approaching it, so the problem was the door, in another world and time one harry potter would describe the situation as adorable, undeterred he marched forward and again with a wordless, yet overpowered, Alohamora he opened the door and closed it behind him as soon as he had passed it, he heard what was quite probably a few keys hitting the door at great speed, ignoring it he proceeded to the next chamber.
In this chamber he found a giant chess game wherein the black set was positioned as the challenger and the white set was positioned as the defender beyond which lied the exit from this chamber, it took him a single glance to deduce that it served to be both a hazardous trap but also stall the intruders, for others it would be quite a problem for him it was quite simple, he vanished from the spot he was standing only to reappear behind the white set just in arms reach to the exit, of course he would have preferred to teleport from the entrance to here and beyond directly but he couldn't teleport somewhere he hadn't seen.
In the chamber past the chess set he saw a dead troll and concluded that his adversary was nearby, upon reaching the next chamber he saw there was a shelf upon which there were 7 bottles, and a piece of parchment, and the entrance to the next chamber was engulfed in black flames, the infamous Flammes des ténèbres an extreme hybrid variant of the incendio charm which produced some black flames with the help of some runes courtesy of some french runemasters, it was highly intricate piece of rune work and charms, not to mention the flames while more destructive compared to the basic incendio and quite harmless to fiendfyre, were quite hard to extinguish in their own right.
Also he noticed that the entry he had came through was now engulfed in purple flames, he had read about them too the lahib alsahra' alty la tandab, developed in the desserts of persia were a relatively harmless wall of flames though were hard to extinguish just like Flammes des ténèbres.
He strolled to the table in front of him and picked up the parchment, reading the riddle written on it and then immediately he picked up the bottle which held the flame immunity potion that could be used to cross these flames, he could have of course simply extinguished the flames that was if he needed to do so in the first place, given his proficiency in Pyrokinesis and his work with Fiendfyre, but he wasn't wasteful of any additional resources he could get his hands on, and not to mention if any wizard or witch couldn't cross these flames without the use of the potion then they wouldn't be of much use in the upcoming confrontation.
Gulping down the contents of the entire bottle in one go, he waited to let the potion take effect, in the meanwhile he utterly destroyed the table and the rest of the bottles kept there, vanishing the remains in the aftermath, lest the quartet somehow find themselves here by any stroke of luck, they wouldn't end up killing themselves by the poison.
He hurried through the flames and reached a big chamber where a man was standing in front of a mirror, he recognized the man as professor Quirinus Quirrell and when he saw the mirror he read the transcription of "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi" which he immediately figured as saying I show not your face but your heart's desire, ignoring it for now he tried to sneak up to Quirrell and end the fight before it could truly start, with his wand in his hand going through a list of all the spells he could think of using at the moment, 'Gaea, Zeus, Fiendfyre, Supernova, ….' his thoughts were interrupted by a disarming charm that hit him all too unexpectedly, and he saw that professor quirrell, the man who was too scared of his own shadow as some of his classmates were used to saying, he had never really took notice of the man, never caring to, was now standing in front of him, with a triumphant smile on his face as he caught the wand that he had disarmed and then he snapped that wand and threw its pieces behind him.
"Ah, mr Potter, a pleasure to meet you really," began Quirrell calmly.
Harry's reply was as usual silently stare at the man in front of him.
"Hmm, nothing to say as usual i suppose," mused Quirrell.
Again his musings were met with silence and a stare.
"I suppose time to end this, nice meeting you mr Potter," said Quirrell as he raised his wand to perform some kind of spell.
"Wait Quirinus, let me speak to him face to face," came a gravelly voice from Quirrell's turban.
"Master, you are not strong enough!," requested Quirrell in a far more polite and formal tone than before.
"I am for this," replied the gravelly voice.
And slowly Quirrell unwound his turban and revealed another face that was attached to the back of his head, harry who had been watching all this had remained silent and unreactive outwardly but on the inside he was thinking, 'he was there all along, the man responsible for their deaths!, i overestimated myself, my failure could have jeopardized my plans, even if i had somehow brought them back this man could have killed them again, having more power than your enemy was useless if they could take you down faster with their experience, i could have failed them, failure is not acceptable' , at that moment harry who had an epiphany of sorts, one, compared to his enemies he had no practical experience in combat, two, his body which was underdeveloped even for his own age group stood little chance against someone older and mature, not to mention physically fitter than him, he wasn't truly worried about dying he had survived the Dursleys, and Fiendfyre, he would survive this too, it was not some kind of self reassurance but a simple matter of fact.
"Harry potter the real boy who lived, my greetings to you," began Voldemort.
He had seen how the boy didn't speak at all and had heard from Mcgonagall how it might be one of the eccentricities he developed due to his large reserves of magic, easily rivaling those of his own at his prime as he had detected them during the beginning of the year, so he continued, "Harry, we're both wizards of unmatched calibers, we shouldn't be opposing one another, if we join forces we could easily rule the world as equals!" he proclaimed, "what happened to your parents were just an unfortunate misunderstanding, become my ally and i shall grant you knowledge of the arcane, the dark and forbidden, the power to bring back your parents, and i have paid my price for that already as you see, i am nothing more than a mere shadow and vapour of my former self, i have form only when i can share another's body.. But there have always been those who have willing to let me inside their hearts and mind, Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks, my faithful servant quirinus drinking it for me in the forest," at this he turned to look at the mirror "and now once i have the elixir of life, i will be able to create a body of my own".
Harry who had been watching all this happen suddenly got up and jumped a little further away from where he was lying, trying to use his enemy's monologue to his advantage jumped a little further away from where he had been lying, trying to come up with a plan on how to deal with this situation, the only few ideas he had were to, one, stall till help comes, or, two, somehow engulf Quirrell into the Flammes des ténèbres, his eyes followed the mirror Voldemort was looking at and he saw in it.
He saw.
His family, his parents alive, surrounded by other people he did not know about, and he was standing there with them, smiling, then at once the him and his parents in the mirror looked up at something, his eyes followed but failed to see anything, they looked back at him, and all of a sudden his father winked at him and pointed at his pocket, where he felt a weight settle, he realized it was the Philosopher's stone, what Voldemort needed, and if he could destroy it by using Flammes des ténèbres then it would be a victory for now.
He turned to look at the black flames and thought out his actions, but it was for naught, as for whatever reason, Voldemort started screaming "Seize him!..."
=0=0=0=0=0=
Albus Dumbledore had come back from the ministry in a hurry, for the first time in years he was scared, not unlike the times in war where everyday he woke up with a feeling of dread for the lives of his fellow witches and wizards.
He had encountered Harald, young Neville's post owl just a few minutes ago, during one of his apparation jumps, tom had truly out maneuvered him this time, he put some low leveled clerks at the ministry to send him an errant summon, and make him take a wild goose chase, thankfully he had seen through it soon enough, though unfortunately too late at the same time, every minute given to tom to work towards regaining his body was dangerous, so with a speed belying his age he proceeded towards the third floor corridor and then to the underground chambers, he had seen how Fluffy, the Cerberus, was acting oddly terrified, he had seen how the Devilsnare put up by Pomona had been burned, the keys charmed by Filius were still intact but the door was barely holding up, and then he came up to a sight which nearly stopped him in his tracks, there were young Neville, miss Bones and miss Granger surrounding young mr Weasley who seemed to be unconscious, he feared for the worst and picked up his speed, and at the same time young Neville had seen him and shouted, "professor Dumbledore!" with a pleading tone.
The other two children who were conscious with him also saw him and made similar exclamations, he didn't pay much attention to them as he started running diagnostic charms on young Ronald, much to his relief the boy was merely unconscious, though had a concussion, he called out "Fawkes!" and all of a sudden his faithful companion came by his side, he wished he had been able to call him from the ministry itself but there were limitations as to how far Fawkes could be summoned from, even with their bond 20 kilometers was the most distance and for a wizard his calibre that was an easy apparation to make, abandoning his thoughts, he relayed his directions to his friends and then looked at the three children surrounding their injured friend, and instructed them, "all three of you grab one of Fawkes' tail feather by one hand and mr Weasley by the other, fawkes here shall take you to the infirmary! Go now".
Without hesitation the children followed his directions and once they were safe out of harms ways with fury etched on his face Dumbledore strode towards the still alight lahib alsahra' alty la tandab
which was since it wasn't meant to happen unless there was someone present in the next chamber, prepared for a confrontation he flared his magic to its peak, old magic, mature magic, powerful magic, and above all, destructive magic, the walls of flame stood no chance in front of a furious Dumbledore, they extinguished out of existence with a single, small, movement of his wand, much to his surprise the chamber was empty, so the flames had somehow malfunctioned, he concluded as he strode towards the Flammes des ténèbres with a hard and long arc of his wand these too were extinguished, what he saw was definitely not what he had expected. Ever.
There was lying the traitorous professor Quirrell, his body was charred as if he had been burned through Flammes des ténèbres, though what was more horrible was Tom's face sticking out of the boy, in all his fury Dumbledore roared "TOM!" but before he could do anything else a black miasma broke through the husk of the former professor and took the shape of the aforementioned dark lord and it fled out of the chamber faster than thought possible.
Dumbledore looked around to find clues as to what had transpired, finding nothing wrong he concluded that Quirrell's body was probably no longer able to handle the burden of housing tom hence it disintegrated, even though he doubted his conclusion was correct, this seemed to be the only plausible explanation for now, then he sent some messenger patronus to Severus and Minerva, to ask their help to clean up this place as soon as possible, covering the deceased professor's body with a conjured white cloth he went towards the mirror to check upon it and the stone in it, while the mirror was fine the stone was missing and that worried him greatly.
From what he had seen Tom didn't had the stone, the children never reached the last chamber, thankfully, but still that meant even they didn't have the stone which meant most likely some 3rd party, some unknown had the stone, this could be dangerous, someone who killed Quirinus the way they had especially in Tom's presence, and escape undetected could be another dark lord in rising, for a moment his mind wandered off towards young Harry, but he dismissed that thought just as soon as it came, for someone so young regardless of all his talents and what seemed to be experimentations in magic couldn't defeat Tom like this, even in his weakened state.
Feeling frustrated, helpless, and defeated, not to mention confused and every last one of his 110 years Dumbledore sighed deeply and moved to greet his friends as soon as he heard them entering the chambers.
He had a lot of work to do, not to mention somehow break this news to the Flamels, and that alone broke his heart, to inform his mentor, that his stone was now quite possibly in the hands of someone who quite possibly would use it for ill.
12:30 pm 5th July, Hogwarts infirmary.
Dumbledore had come to visit young mr Weasley to check up on his health after the ordeal he had been through, much to his delight but not surprise he found young Neville, ms Bones and ms Granger surrounding his bed chatting with him, 'ah friendship!', he almost felt bad for interrupting them, but this could help in future, so he began by clearing his throat, "uh uh uh, i apologize for interrupting your meeting but i would like to have some words with the four of you," he began.
The four kids startled by the sudden arrival of their headmaster whipped their heads in his direction so fast that dumbledore was in wonder about how they didn't have any whiplash, and then they chorused "professor Dumbledore!".
Neville who had been sitting left to ron's bed, and closest to Dumbledore started getting up to offer his seat to the headmaster, Dumbledore called out '"remain seated young Neville, i will make my own arrangements for seating," waving his wand once he conjured a velvet red recliner and took seat look at the children who was looking at him with awe, his eyes twinkling at them.
It was not some magic of arcane but it still caught their awe they had never seen heir headmaster perform magic in front of them, but the utter ease by which he conjured the chair was what got their attention, of course the only man credited of being feared by the dark lord Voldemort was as strong as his legends, "hmm, so mr Weasley how are you?"
"I'm alright sir," he replied.
"Of course, Madam Pomphrey is good at what she does," Dumbledore began, "Ronald, while it was highly brave of you do do what you did, it would be highly preferable if you didn't attempt something like that again".
The quartet looked quite chagrined at this, and Neville was about to speak up, presumably to defend themselves, especially his injured friend, but Dumbledore held up his hand to stall him and continued "Minerva informed me that you approached her first, and she really regrets not taking your warning seriously, as they say hindsight 20/20, and she was blaming herself for young Ronald's injury, i ask of you to forgive her". He saw that the children were taking his words seriously, so he continued, "we know that you also tried to approach professor Sprout but weren't able to find her, so yes while we understand why you did what you did, again, like i said it would be preferable if you didn't".
Now Susan spoke up, "so sir, was you-know-who really after the stone?"
"Call him Voldemort ms Bones," he ignored how Susan and Ron flinched "and yes, they were after it, but for now you can remove your worries about Quirrell, voldemort and the stone from your mind for now".
"So it was Quirrell!" exclaimed Neville.
"Pardon?" questioned Dumbledore.
At this the quartet squirmed a bit then Hermione began, "all this time we thought that professor Snape was after the stone and professor Quirrel was trying to stop him, but after we saw him at breakfast this morning, we, especially Susan," at this the girl in question blushed, "deduced that we had it wrong the whole time, and it was the opposite of what we were thinking".
As Hermione was speaking Dumbledore's eyebrows had been climbing steadily, and when she was done he chuckled slightly and began, "well i can see how you came to that conclusion, but no, it was as you now realize, with professor Snape protecting the stone and not the other way around".
"And what happened to professor Quirrell?" questioned Neville.
For a few seconds Dumbledore looked at the determined faces of the quartet, and then hoping that what he was doing was not wrong and wouldn't become one of his many regrets, "he's dead, most probably because of his failure to get the stone for Voldemort," 'it wasn't a lie, but they didn't need to know the whole truth'.
The faces of the children were stark white, Dumbledore understood how they were feeling, giving them a small smile he said, "well, i think i'll see you at dinner today, unfortunately i'll be missing out the lunch," once again growing somber he looked at the children and told them softly "for now i want you to worry only about your studies, and having fun, is that clear?"
The children nodded and at this Dumbledore left them to their thoughts.
A/n : That's it for today folks!
"Flammes des ténèbres", is French for "flames of darkness".
"lahib alsahra' alty la tandab" is arabic for flames of the unyielding desert.
Hope you liked it.
