Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Chapter 17

That night, we decided that we would stay in the common room until everyone went to bed. It took a while for the room to clear, but when it did, we waited a few minutes longer, just to make sure.

"You should probably go get the cloak now," Ron said as he stood up.

We all stood at the door leading to the dormitories waiting for Harry to return with the cloak. When he came back down, he pulled out a flute.

"We'll use this to get him to sleep so-" Harry explained, but was interrupted.

"What are you all doing?" a voice came from the corner of the room.

Neville stood up from an armchair, holding Trevor in his hands, and looked as us.

"Nothing, Neville, nothing!" Harry lied.

Then he noticed the cloak that Harry had hidden behind his back.

"You're going out again, aren't you?" Neville said.

"No, of course not," Hermione lied. "Why don't you just go on up to bed?"

"No, I won't let you go," he said, looking nervous. "You'll get Gryffindor into more trouble!"

"Neville, please, this is important!" I said, noticing how much time that we were wasting.

"Just move, Neville! We have to go!" Ron said.

"I won't let you go, I-I'll fight you," he said desperately.

Then Hermione pulled her wand out and pointed it at Neville.

"I'm sorry about this, Neville," she said. "Petrificus Totalus!"

Suddenly his whole body went rigid and he fell to the ground. I ran over to Neville and saw that the only things that could move were his eyes.

"What did you do to him?" I asked Hermione.

"It's a fully body bind," she said. "Oh, I'm so sorry Neville!"

"We'll explain later, I promise," I told him.

Then we all got underneath the cloak, made sure that our feet didn't show, and left the room. We managed to make it to the third floor without running into anyone, but Peeves. Ron, thinking fast, made his voice sound like the Bloody Baron and managed to make him get out of our way.

Finally, we made it to the room that Fluffy was in. When we opened the door, the dog started to growl and Harry pulled out his flute. As soon as the music started, the dog fell right to sleep. Beside the dog's foot, there was a harp. Someone else was already through the trapdoor.

"Snape must have gotten here first," Ron whispered, which I tried to ignore.

Then we walked further into the room and closer to the dog.

"What now?" Ron asked Hermione and me.

I looked at the trapdoor that we had to go in and saw that it was being blocked by the dog's large paw.

"I guess we're going to have to move it," I whispered, then to Harry I said, "Keep playing, we'll try to move it…"

All three of us went over to the dog and after a few pushes, we managed to get the paw away from the door and we opened it up. It was completely dark.

"Okay, who goes first?" Hermione asked nervously.

"I'll go first," I said.

Ron gave me an encouraging smile as I prepared to jump. I jumped through the trapdoor and landed onto something that was rather soft. It almost felt like a plant.

"Are you okay?" Ron called down to me.

"Yeah," I called back up. "It's a soft landing, you can jump!"

Within minutes the others were down in the dark room with me. The only noise that we heard from the dog was when Harry stopped playing the music and jumped down into the room.

"What is this stuff?" Harry asked.

When my eyes finally adjusted to the dark, I saw the plant for the first time. Then I heard Hermione scream. The plant was now winding its way around each of us, trapping us there.

"What's happening?" Ron said, trying to break free from the plant.

All of us were squirming around, trying to get away from the plant. Then, I suddenly remembered something.

"Everyone!" I shouted. "Stop moving - this is Devil's Snare, the more you move the more difficult it is to escape!"

"Well, that's comforting!" Ron yelled and struggled more.

"Do you remember how to get rid of it?" Hermione said, trying to stay still.

I tried to think, Neville had told me all about this stuff. He mentioned that there was one thing that could destroy it, but I couldn't remember what exactly.

"Wait, I remember this from Herbology!" Hermione yelled. "Devil's Snare can't stand light!"

"That's it!" I yelled.

Then Hermione pulled out her wand and said something that made blue fire out of her wand causing the plant to unravel itself from us all. When the plant cleared, we ran into a nearby passageway to make sure that it couldn't get us again.

"Lucky you two pay attention in class…" Harry said as we walked through the passageway.

After we walked a little further, we could hear some something. It was a rustling noise coming from a distant room.

"What is that?" Ron asked.

"It sounds like…wings," Harry answered him.

When we walked into the room, I glanced up at the ceiling and saw something that looked a little bit like birds, but I didn't pay too much attention to them because I noticed a door in front of us.

"It's locked…" Hermione said moving the handle.

"Well, those birds have to be here for something," Ron said looking up.

Then I looked closer at them and realized that they weren't birds at all.

"Those are…keys…" I said looking up at them.

Further ahead of us stood a single broom. We would have to catch the key.

"Which one do you think it is?" Harry asked us.

"It's probably going to be an older one," I said looking at the handle.

"Like that one?" Ron said pointing to an old, silver key that was flying around.

"I think this one is up to you, Harry" I said. "You're the Seeker…"

He nodded and went to grab the broom, but right when he took off, all of the keys scattered around. It looked to be impossible, but someone had already gotten past here before us, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem for the Gryffindor Seeker.

Harry flew around the ceiling while being somehow attacked by the many keys that flew around him. Somehow, in all of that confusion, he managed to find it.

"There it is!" Harry yelled. "I'll throw it to you and you all will have to open the door so I can get through all of these keys!"

When he tossed the key to us, we quickly unlocked the door and ran in. Within seconds, Harry, followed by the many keys, came flying through. Luckily, I managed to slam the door shut before any of them got through.

"Now what?" Hermione asked looking ahead.

The room that was pitch black before them, suddenly filled with light. In front of them stood what I recognized to be a giant chessboard.

"What are we supposed to do here?" I asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Ron said. "We'll have to play our way across."

"And how do we do that?" Hermione asked eyeing the chessmen.

"We'll have to join the game…" Harry said. "We have to take the places of some of the pieces."

We all turned to Ron, knowing that he was the best chess player out of all of us. He would have to lead us.

"Okay…" Ron said looking at the board. "Harry, you take the place of the bishop…Hermione, the castle…Emily, you can be other castle…"

"What about you?" Harry asked.

"I'll be a knight," Ron walked over to take his place and the rest of us did the same.

Then the game began. Many of our pieces were smashed, but we managed to get some of theirs too.

"I'm going to have to be taken," Ron said towards the end of the game.

"NO!" we all yelled at him.

"It has to be done," he told us. "When I move forward, Harry you'll be able to checkmate the king."

"But-" Harry said.

"Do you want to get to that Stone or not?" he asked.

Then he moved forward a single space and the queen moved to take him. When the queen struck him, she smashed him into the ground and Hermione screamed.

"Checkmate!" Harry said as he moved to his new space.

The king took his crown off his head and threw it to the ground. The game was over and we had won. We all ran over to Ron to see if he was okay. He was knocked out.

"Hermione, try to wake Ron up," Harry said. "When he does, you two use the brooms from the key-room to get out and when you do, go straight to the Owlery and send Dumbledore a letter."

She nodded and said, "Good luck."

The two of us ran on and ended up in front of a set of potions. There were seven of them lined up together, each a different shape and color.

We continued to walk forward because there was nothing in our way, but as soon as we moved forward, two fires shot up. One fire, which was black, stood in front of us and a purple fire that was behind us.

"Look," Harry pointed over to a scroll that sat nearby.

I walked over and picked it up.

"Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind, Two of us will help you, which ever you will find, One among us seven will let you move ahead, Another will transport the drinker back instead, Two among our number only holds nettle wand, Three of us are killers, waiting bidden in line. Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore, To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four: First, however slyly the poison tries to hide You will always find some nettle wine's left side; Second, different are those who stand at either end, But if you would move onward, neither is your friend; Third, as you see clearly, all are different size, Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides; Fourth, the second left and second on right Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight," I read aloud.

"So…what?" Harry said confused.

"Give me a second," I said.

I read through the riddle several times, trying to understand every word.

"Okay," I said after a few minutes. "The smallest bottle gets you through the black fire and the round bottle gets you through the purple fire."

"Are you sure?" my brother asked.

"Positive."

We took the smallest bottle and both took a drink from it and began to walk through the black flames and into the next room. Inside of this room stood another person. I had been right all along: it wasn't Snape. It wasn't even Voldemort.

It was Quirrell.

"You!" Harry said.

"Yes," the man in the turban said. "I knew that the two of you would follow me here."

"I thought that - wasn't Snape-" Harry started, but was interrupted by Quirrell's laughter.

"Severus?" he laughed. "I guess it is quiet reasonable. Next to him, no one would suspect p-poor s-stuttering Quirrell? I guess I fooled everyone then, especially the two of you, everyone suspected Snape, just as planned."

"Not exactly," I said. "I never believed that it was him."

"Oh, really?" Quirrell sneered. "I guess it was a dead giveaway that it wasn't him when he stopped me from trying to kill you just before Christmas."

"That's right," I told him. "I trusted Snape from the very beginning."

"How touching," he mocked me.

"But, he tried to kill me!" Harry said.

"That would be me, Potter! I would have succeeded too if it wasn't for your friend Miss ranger knocking me over when she set Snape on fire. If I would have had a little more time, I would have had you off your broom if it wasn't for Snape muttering the counter curse."

"He was trying to save me?" Harry asked.

At that moment I had to resist the urge to yell I told you so right into his face.

"Of course he was, why do you think he refereed the next match? Pity that the man had to waste his time with both of you, being as I'm going to be killing both of you tonight."

He waved his wand and suddenly we were tied up in a rope.

"You've ruined everything for me, the two of you have. I could have had the Stone months ago! You two just had to go after that troll I set out on Halloween, not that it mattered, Snape had already known what I was up to by then-"

"That's because Snape was smart enough to see right through you, you sneaky little bastar-" I spat.

"Enough!" Quirrell yelled and turned to a mirror that sat behind him, the Mirror of Erised.

Why had Dumbledore moved the mirror here? Maybe he didn't think that anyone would come down here…it was miles underneath the school.

"I see the Stone…I'm presenting it to him…where is it?" Quirrell said, obviously frustrated.

Quirrell began to pace in front of the mirror and kept glancing sideways at it as he whispered to himself.

"But…I thought that Snape hated me," Harry said.

"He does hate you," he said. "Your father went to school with him and they hated each other. I sometimes wonder why he doesn't treat you the same way, Emily…"

Quirrell's voice drifted off and Harry looked sideways at me.

"But…the other day I saw you come out of your room and you were crying…I thought that Snape was threatening you again," Harry said.

"My master sometimes demands too much of me…he has to punish me."

"You mean that he was with you?" I asked.

"He is always with me," Quirrell said, still looking in the mirror.

At that moment, I realized something that I wanted more than anything. It was the Stone, just so Quirrell couldn't use it.

"How does this mirror work, Master?" Quirrell said.

"Use the boy…use the girl…" a voice said that seemed to come from Quirrell himself.

"Of course," Quirrell said. "Come over here, both of you, tell me what you see."

The rope holding us still suddenly disappeared and we were able to move again. When we did, we walked over to the mirror.

"What do you two see?" Quirrell asked desperately as we stood in front of the mirror.

When I looked in the mirror I saw myself and my brother, both smiling. I held the Stone in my hand and gave it to Harry who put it into his pocket. I looked over and saw Harry's eyes widen and look down into his pocket. I could slightly see a small, ruby stone sticking out of his pocket. It was the Philosopher's Stone!

"What is it?" Quirrell asked.

"I…just won the Quidditch Cup…I'm shaking hands with Dumbledore…" Harry said.

"What about you?" Quirrell said desperately. "Do you see something?"

I thought quickly, what was something that I wanted?

"I see…Professor Snape…kicking your sorry ass-" I snarled in his direction.

Quirrell cursed at me and threw us off to the side.

"They are lying!" the voice said again. "Let me speak to them!"

"Master, are you sure?" he asked.

"Just do it, Quirrell!" the voice yelled.

Then, for the first time, Quirrell unraveled the turban that sat on his head. When he turned around, something terrible sat on the back of his head. It was a face and I tried not to scream.

"Harry and Emily Potter…" Voldemort whispered to us.

I hope you like it! The next chapter is going to be the last one in this book, but don't worry-I'm going to make the Chamber of Secrets also. In your reviews, I ask that you make any last minute suggestions for this story and maybe some for the following book that I'm going on to. Please review!