A/N: I read this review by The ChocoGoat and was powered to action! I wrote 99% of this today, just now, I was so inspired. So thank you! Hopefully you guys enjoy it - I have to say, I wasn't expecting it to go like this at all.
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Chapter Sixteen
To Step Into the Heart of Fear
Danny woke up.
"Danny," a familiar voice said. He struggled to place it for a moment, before Professor Quirrell's face swam into his vision. "You are awake, yes?"
"H-huh?" He shook his head, trying to clear it of cobwebs. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was…
Quirrell grabbing him on the way to Astronomy class.
He stared at the professor for a long moment, before it clicked.
Holy shit.
He was instantly on his feet, eyes darting in every direction.
I was just kidnapped?
"Where am I?" he asked, heart racing faster than he thought possible as he spun around. "Where did you take me?" He was in a large, rotund room. In the center of the room was a large, ornate mirror. Quirrell moved to swiftly block his view of it. "What is that?"
What was that spell?
"Nothing to worry about," Quirrell said smoothly. "In fact, I have a favor to ask of you."
"A-a favor? You... you kidnapped me," Danny accused.
What is this place? It looked completely empty. Other than that mirror.
"Please understand," the turbaned man said, "that I mean you no harm. Quite the opposite, in fact. If you would only listen…"
The man paused as Danny began searching his pockets, cursing his own stupidity for not thinking of his wand earlier. He was a wizard, wasn't he?
"You will not find it." Quirrel brandished Danny's familiar unicorn-hair wand with a wry smile. "A common precaution, of course."
Danny stared at it. His bravado, his energy, his panic, it all drained away, leaving him with a cold fear.
He was alone. Not knowing where he was.
He had been kidnapped. The fact seemed impossibly unreal, and yet. He had to – he had to accept this reality and face it. Just like he had with the ghost.
Again, he thought frustratedly, helplessly. Why is it happening again? Everything's out of my control.
Without a wand, he had no defense. He doubted he could overpower the professor either. He didn't know why he was here, or where here even was. Did anybody notice him going missing?
"What's going on?" Danny asked. His voice sounded too small for his liking. Too scared.
"Good," Quirrell said, watching him very closely. "You are listening now."
He didn't like that confident look the the professor's eyes. The way he looked down at him. It made him feel sick.
Maybe if he could sound bigger, more confident, the professor would believe he had something up his sleeve. Something to be wary of. Danny was so sick of being tossed around and battered with no say for himself.
Take control, take control. He repeated it to himself like a mantra, squaring his shoulders despite the cold fear weighting his veins. He would go down fighting. He couldn't, wouldn't sit still for another beating.
"You see," Quirrell continued, "in this mirror, lies the key to the Philosopher's Stone. The Great Elixir. I need you to retrieve it."
A memory sparked, and his eyes fixed themselves to the wand in Quirrell's hand.
(Maybe he did have something up his sleeve.)
Ollivander had warned him, oh so long ago, that his wand would not respond well to being passed to another. That mistreating this wand would have "grave consequences." What would that translate to in magical terms?
Explosions? he speculated optimistically, grimly.
Stiff as a board, Danny tentatively pulled his eyes from his wand to Quirrell's face.
"The Sorcerer's Stone?" he asked. He tried to look as clueless as possible, blinking innocently. "What's that?"
It was a lie. A necessary one. Danny knew what the Stone was; Hermione had explained it all to him a long time ago.
But he needed to buy time. To think. For… someone to rescue him. For something. So that he could do something, not just sit here and wait for whatever to happen to happen.
"It is the key ingredient for immortality. For the power to escape death." Quirrell cocked his head to the side, turban drooping at the motion. "But you don't seem surprised. You already knew about the Stone."
Danny swallowed.
His eyes latched to his wand again.
Now he got it. He just needed to make Quirrell use his wand, and then maybe it would backfire, or something.
He took a step forward.
"Alright, well," Danny said, voice babbling and high-pitched. "I do know about the Sorcerer's Stone. I-I mean, e-every wizard worth their salt knows about the Sorcerer's Stone. Right?"
Quirrell cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing, watching him.
Danny took another step forward, and a little bit to the left. He disguised it as a stumble, but it wasn't enough to see the mirror. He didn't want Quirrell to move to block the view again, just wanted to get a little bit off center to make it more likely his upcoming move wouldn't get him fried by whatever spell Quirrell cast at him.
"So, um," he continued, voice wavering. "So I don't really know why I'm here, or why you'd need the Stone, or whatever. So you could just let me go? And I won't tell anyone about any of this?"
He took another step forward.
"Incarcerous," Quirrell said flatly.
Thick ropes suddenly sprung out of Danny's wand, wrangling them around him like snakes. He gasped as he collided with the floor, rough ropes biting into his skin. Once he had overcome the sudden pain, he looked with wide eyes at his wand, which had so betrayed him.
But – he thought –
"What were you trying to do, boy?" Quirrell said, scowling contemptuously. Following Danny's shocked gaze, he briefly inspected the wand. "Hmm. Curious. It does seem to be resisting my influence. No matter." He tossed it into his pocket, then withdrew his own wand. "Of course, I have no need for theatrics. I know little of wandlore, so it is not worth the risk, if it decides to oppose me for whatever reason." Then he scowled. "The question is, why you seem so determined to oppose me."
"Do – do you really not get that you –" Danny choked out disbelievingly from the floor, before a silencio quickly quieted him.
"Let me explain some things to you," Quirrell said, sharply, in the lecturing tone that he had failed to bring to his own classroom. "I do not, in fact, need to engage in this roundabout manner to ensure your loyalty or your cooperation. Nor do you particularly have much worth to me. I am providing you an opportunity, one which I will now explain fully to you, now that you are finally in a position to listen."
He waited for a moment, and Danny took the opportunity to scowl at him.
He hoped he wouldn't pay for that.
The professor let out a long-suffering sigh.
"You don't remember this, of course, but after Halloween, you agreed to work with me. It was I who eventually released you of the ghost, in the Quidditch Pitch, when there was no other option. Danny, I am not your enemy."
Danny frowned, but otherwise remained still. Was that… the truth?
No, he had seen Quirrell controlling the ghost, in his office. Something else was going on. Something fishy. Besides, he trusted Remus far more than he did Quirrell.
"You show a remarkable affinity with ectoplasmic ghosts. The like that I have never seen before. Not that the Wizarding World gets much of a chance to study muggle ghosts – do you know how rare they are? What kind of power they hold?
"I could help you unlock that power," Quirrell said, a gleam entering his eyes. "What you hold, what you have experienced – is a complete mystery to the Wizarding World. Do you even understand what kinds of secrets you could unveil? Answers for flaunting death? Access to another realm?"
Danny frowned again. That didn't seem right. All he had done was…
Was what?
(Snatches of memory. A haunting voice, whispering into his mind. A torn portrait.)
He shivered.
He needed to get out of here. Yet, despite himself, he found himself listening.
"The things that I promised you, on that meeting after Halloween night, are nothing. What is flight, compared to the power to reverse death? What is invisibility, compared to the ability to make all men bow before you in fear? To be able to twist and control the minds of men?"
Danny felt sick. What Quirrell was saying… that wasn't right. He squirmed, testing the strength of the rope.
"Power is everything, Danny. Without power, all others will do is trod over you," Quirrell sneered, "mock you, forget you. Treat you as lesser than them."
Seeing Danny's nauseated expression, Quirrell scowled. "You still don't understand," he said, disbelievingly. "How could you not? Don't you remember? How after Halloween, everybody just forgot about you? How everybody blamed you for something you didn't do? How easily they forget their friendship with you?"
Danny stilled.
No.
Take control. Keep trying. He kept tugging at the rope.
Quirrell stepped forward. "I was watching, you know. You don't remember it, but they were all shunning you then, talked about you in quiet whispers. Because you were different."
Then Quirrell backed away, giving him temporary relief. But it was only temporary, for the man started speaking again, bitter, misshapen, ugly words.
"But that's not all, is it?" Quirrell said, his face twisted. "Once I had been blocked from you, I looked deeper. Trying to understand what made you different. Your parents – they must have fed you ectoplasm, hmm? Experimented on you?'
No – that wasn't – Mom was just a bad cook –
"And there's still more. I looked into your records. Poked into the pockets of officials, and made inquiries. Why did you leave America, Danny? Don't you remember?"
Danny squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't want to.
"That's right. They mocked you. Hit you. Put you down. Treated you as if you were nothing, because you were different."
Quirrell snarled.
"Isn't human nature disgusting? I have never understood such cruelty. Never. To me, it is beyond cold murder, beyond selfish greed. The need to put others down, to mock, to senselessly destroy."
Unbidden, images appeared behind Danny's closed lids.
He remembered Dash, dunking his head into the toilet. Paulina's cold, cutting words – even though – even though he had so badly wanted to trust her, be kind to her. He remembered Kwan's little shoves, his taunts, even though the boy had always looked guilty for it.
One day it went too far. Danny had stood up to Dash, and his comeuppance was returning home covered in bruises he couldn't hide. Mom had taken one look at him, one long, horrified look, then immediately called the school, told Jack they were moving far, far away from these people.
By the next month, they were gone.
It hadn't been that easy, of course. Dad had tried to reason, said they could talk with the other boy's parents, or get him expelled. After many meetings with his professors, the whole story had come out, the length and duration of the bullying was revealed, and Dash had only earned a suspension.
Danny had still tried to go to school then, determined to keep moving past it. But then everybody knew, and everybody was staring at him. Even Tuck had been giving him strange looks, pitying looks. He couldn't stand it.
So he finally acquiesced to leaving Amity Park. His mother put her foot down, his dad did his research, Jazz tried her best to support him, and soon enough, they were off to England, twenty miles away from what appeared to be the world's seventh greatest ghost hotspot. All the other major hotspots were all in non-English-speaking countries, and Mom refused to put her kids through that, even if it put her own profession on the line.
And so they had left. Left Amity Park for England. Left everything Danny had known as home.
Danny realized that Quirrell had long since stopped speaking, and drew himself slowly back to the present. He felt raw. He hated remembering.
"You can speak now. I removed the silencio charm."
When Danny remained angrily silent, Quirrell's gaze turned contemplative.
"I wish I could give you more time to decide. But I need your help now. All I need you to do, is to look into this mirror, and think of the Sorcerer's Stone." The man's voice turned soft, sympathetic. "No more than that. And then I swear, that I will come to give you any aid you need. Offer you any path to power in my capability. The ability to defend yourself against those who would do you harm."
Danny had spent so long trying to forget what had happened in Amity Park. More time than he had spent trying to forget the ghost debacle. The ghost, at least, was understandable. It was evil, a monster. It took control of him. It was wrong.
On the other hand, he had never understood why Dash and Paulina hated him so much.
"I…" he croaked. He still felt small. He didn't know what to do, didn't have any more plans for saving himself. "The mirror?" he asked instead.
He hadn't intended it as agreement, but Quirrell stepped away, exposing the mirror to him.
There was a flash of – of his family, smiling happy, Tuck and Paulina and Valerie, Sam, Hermione, Harry, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Ron, even Theo, all grouped around him, smiling and laughing – then, then it was just him, Danny alone, trussed in ropes staring back at himself in the mirror. His mirror self slowly grinned, the ropes becoming unbound, his hand going to his pocket and revealing a bright red stone.
Danny's pocket suddenly felt heavier.
"C-can you, let me go?" Danny asked, mouth feeling dry, uncertainty and panic sending his thoughts abuzz. Too much was happening. Too much that he didn't understand. "From the rope. I don't…"
"Of course." Quirrell muttered the countercharm, and the ropes sprung away from Danny to lie limp on the floor around him. Feeling even shakier than when he had first arrived to this room, he stumbled to his feet. He looked around, then at Quirrell.
His vision doubled. He felt like he was looking at Dash again, the larger boy looming above him, taunting him. He stepped back, wrapping his arms around himself, folding them over his chest. He had to get his thoughts in order.
Quirrell had made a mistake in bringing up his childhood bullies. For now, when Danny looked at the man, all he could see was a monster, for all the nice claims he made. Danny thought it was all a lie. Quirrell didn't care about him.
"W-what do you want the Stone for?" he asked. "F-for V-Voldemort?"
Quirrell's eyes narrowed. His demeanor abruptly turned sharp, like brittle knives whose edges had been whetted beyond health and onto obsession.
"What makes you ask that?" the turbaned man asked, his voice a picture of calm, idle curiosity.
Danny's thoughts swirled. He wasn't supposed to know that, was he? He was being careless. Hermione would rag on him for that mistake.
If she ever got a chance to again, he realized, his stomach dropping as he again realized the gravity of his situation. He took a step backwards, away from the man. Someone who would hurt him.
"Danny," the man said sharply, throwing out any pretense, advancing forward. "Where is the Stone?"
Danny backed up, his chest tight with fear. Take control, take control… He clung to the mantra, trying to quiet the pounding of his heart.
"What do you need it for?" he asked again, thrusting his chin out defiantly.
"You wouldn't understand," Quirrell hissed. "Trust me. Not yet."
"T-try me," Danny said, abruptly stumbling into a wall behind him. Oh no.
He gulped as Quirrell approached rapidly, his wand pointed threateningly at Danny.
"Im – "
Danny leapt to the side. The chamber floor was hard, and cold, and he gasped with the shock of it. Then he was running again, just grateful to not have been hit by whatever that was.
"Danny," Quirrell cried after him. "Get back here. I swear – I will not harm you. Just tell me where the Stone is."
Danny had years of experience of running away. He wasn't going to stop now.
He leapt behind column to column, running up the chamber's shallow stairs, then down again, always dashing side to side, narrowly missing being hit by bright, colorful bolts of magic.
Finally, he came to a doorway, covered in black flames. He could see a room behind it. He knew this was the way out.
His hesitation almost cost him the game, but he leapt to the side just in time to avoid a red blast.
Fire, fire, he thought desperately. During the witch trials, there was this one flame-tickling charm that rendered the flames useless –
If Hermione were here, he was sure she would know just the spell. But she wasn't, and it was only because of her that he knew the history at all. He of course didn't know the spell.
He stumbled to his feet again, but slipped.
No – no, this couldn't be happening –
"Incarcerous," Quirrell said, and once again ropes bound Danny. He collapsed to the floor, his heart beating a rapid tattoo. No. This can't be it.
This can't be.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Control, control, shit shit. What part of this situation can I control?
Footsteps approached from behind him.
"Enough," a voice said sharply, and Danny's eyes popped open in surprise, because it wasn't Quirrell who spoke. He jerked himself around to look, but no one else was there. "No more… sssilly gamess."
A headache pierced Danny's skull. The voice sounded strangely familiar.
"We have… losst too… much… time," the snake-like voice said. "Sssearch him."
"Yes, master," Quirrell said, voice muted and subservient. He approached Danny.
"W-who –" Danny croaked, before a silencio stopped him once again. Quirrell dug into his pockets, and with a face of triumph, pulled out the gleaming red Sorcerer's Stone.
"Here it is, master," he whispered. Then he looked at Danny. "What about the boy?"
"Kill… him," said the voice.
... Kill?
Quirrell looked stricken.
"But – I –" The professor composed himself. "But the contract. We cannot renegade on that."
"You… dare defy… me, Quirrell?"
"No – no, master, of course not. I only –"
Kill me?
"Enough ssimpering," the voice said harshly. "Your idiocy… will get usss killed. Ssstupefy him and leave. Usse… the ghost… to.. essscape…"
Quirrell looked hesitant. "Are you sure, master? With the werewolf, the ghost will only…"
"Do it," the voice snapped.
"I… yes, of course," Quirrell said. For a second, his expression looked positively mutinous, before it smoothed into utter neutrality. "Ghost," he whispered, waving his wand in a complicated pattern.
Danny would have recognized it as the summoning he had cast back in his office, if he had not been so utterly frozen with fear and pain. The moment that voice had spoken "Kill him", with such coldness, his heart had turned to ice, his breath quickened with panic, and his mind was numbed to nothingness.
All rational thought fled.
Danny had felt scared before, when he first woke up in an unfamiliar room with Quirrell. He had thought he was going to be hurt. He was afraid of pain. Of what might happen to him.
Now, it might all be over.
Now, he was terrified.
Physical sensation became acute, magnified. He was hyperaware of the rope digging into his skin, the freezing marble of the chamber floor pressed against his cheek, the freezing cold of the air pervading his entire body. He wanted to live.
There was nothing he could do. He was trapped. He stretched against his bonds like a wild animal, but they wouldn't give. He was trapped.
Oh god, this is really it. I'm really going to die.
He was too young to die. He had barely done anything. He had gone to Hogwarts, sure, learned some magic, but – but where were his memories? Where were the glowing moments of happiness of his life? Where were all the things he was supposed to look back on with happiness and fondness in the moments before he died?
Where were all his friends? Where were the professors? Where was Remus? Wasn't he supposed to save him if something like this happened?
All he had wanted to do was become an astronaut. Do something to help people, lay the foundations of the future. Drift out amongst the stars. Have family and friends who loved him.
The ghost came, summoned just as much by his errant emotion as Quirrell's command.
yOU CaLLed, it said, sounding delighted.
No, Danny thought, not this. Not like this.
"Yes," Quirrell said. "We must… leave the castle. Immediately. Fly us out of here."
The ghost dithered, hovering near Danny. A flood of terror washed over him, but abruptly, he remembered his words to Dumbledore.
"I want to… I want to fight the ghost and win. I want to stop running away."
Fight it and win. The thought echoed in his mind.
He had to try.
He felt his heart firm amidst all his shaky fear, his head cool, and suddenly, though his body was still trembling, a cold, comforting certainty rose within him.
He would not fall prey to this thing again.
wHY? the ghost asked Quirrell.
"The contract," the professor responded, firmly. "There is your boy. We will return him to you… after our escape. In a year's time since then. And during our master's rule, of course… all the fear that you desire."
i Do NOt sEE yOU LiVIng uP tO YouR pRoMIsES, the ghost said.
Quirrell blinked in shock. "Abstract understanding…" he muttered to himself, before addressing the ghost again. "We can promise more immediate rewards, of course, but I assure you, our word is good. A wizarding oath –"
Quirrell froze. From not too far, the sound of a giant collision, and a long, three-chorded howl, traveled through the stone walls.
Danny felt a thread of hope.
"They're coming," he whispered, face becoming pale. "Ghost. Now. What will it take to get your assistance?"
A strange, keening, humming pierced the air. It was coming from the ghost, and Danny knew that the ghost – in it's strange, sightless way – was studying him. Though the ghost didn't have eyes, not really, he could feel its gaze. Long, greasy, lingering.
Danny bared his teeth, letting his defiance and anger show. He would not let it happen again. He shook, and trembled, and was terrified out of his wits, but he would not let it happen again.
The ghost looked away.
nOtHInG, the ghost said finally, sounding disappointed. It swiveled, drifted, hesitated, then drifted slowly away into a wall.
Quirrell, and Danny, stared after it in shock.
I… won? he thought, dumbly.
Another crash. Distant sounds of yelling made it to their ears.
And rescue might be coming.
"You insolent… fool…," the strange, snake-like voice said, interrupting the brief silence. "Could never… do… anything… right…"
Quirrell positively snarled.
"This is all your fault," he said. "If you had listened to me – I knew the ghost would only draw their attention –"
Danny stared blankly at the man, at the two voices snapping back and forth at each other.
I might really get out of here alive.
"Silence!" the voice snapped, and Quirrell cried out, clutching his head as if he were in pain. The Sorcerer's Stone gleamed a bright red. "I am… the master here."
Another crash. Closer this time.
They're really coming for me.
The two kidnappers were silent for a long moment. Danny saw his victory in the drawn, resigned look written in Quirrell's face.
Then, the voice hissed, "You… were… a usssselesss... ssservant. May you… forever… rot in hell, Quirrell."
A plume of blackness sprung from Quirrell's body. The man gasped, and the smoke revealed itself as a specter, a terrible, hissing face in its midst. Screaming, the specter ran into and through the walls of Hogwarts and disappeared from sight. And Quirrell, Quirrell collapsed to the floor, a cry of agony piercing the air, back arched as he writhed against the floor in pain.
Danny, hope turned to horror, made to reach out, make some effort to soothe the man's pain, but he was still wrapped in rope and couldn't speak. Quirrell saw, however, and, with one hand clawing his own heart, managed to shakily wave his wand and release Danny.
His eyes burned like coal. Danny couldn't look away.
"That," Quirrell spat, and even as he writhed in agony, his voice was filled with nothing but terrible vengeance and hatred, "was Lord Voldemort."
Then he died. His body turned limp. The red stone clattered from his hand. A foul stench filled the air, and Quirrell's robes darkened. The body twitched, and then went still.
Danny backed away in horror, trying not to breathe. He clutched at his own chest, feeling tight and not right and in shock.
He found that he couldn't breathe. The room glazed over.
Quirrell just died. A cloud of smoke had just… just burst out of him and now the man was dead. Voldemort had burst out of the man and killed him.
And I'm still alive.
It was too much. He started laughing, hysterical, because he didn't know what else to do and wanted it all to be just some sick joke and then he just couldn't stop and the laughs were not laughs but wretched, ragged sobs, so heavy and so wrenching that he couldn't breathe and his head felt dizzyingly light.
Then the relief crashed into him. I'm alive, I'm alive, and then he was laugh-sobbing again as he was filled with relief and gratitude and happiness at still being here, only for nausea to fill him the next moment as he remembered why he was here and what had happened and couldn't tear his eyes away from Quirrell's body.
That was how the search and rescue party found him, just moments later.