Hi everyone! Thanks for all the reviews, and your thoughts on why the Mirror of Erised was moved from the classroom to the Third corridor. I happen to agree that Dumbledore was definitely testing Harry to see what his strengths would be, and also on who he could get to go with him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE DRAGON
For the next two weeks, the trio plotted and schemed, trying to come up with ways to force Professor Quirrell to get rid of his turban in a public area. The subject of fire was quickly abandoned, though it was perhaps the easiest. The suggestion of stink bombs was also denied, as the turban already smelled strongly of garlic, and it was possible that Quirrell's olfactory senses had been burned away already.
Most of the spells that they were capable of performing would only give them the most basic of responses. Changing the colour of the turban, while entertaining, would not give them any results.
They had also come to the decision that they would only have one chance at this. If they failed, Professor Quirrell was likely to become extremely paranoid, wondering if people had discovered the secret of what he was hiding beneath the turban.
"I still like fire," Harrison said.
"No!" Hermione and Neville replied, exasperated.
Harrison sulked momentarily. There was a moment of silence as they each tried to think of new ways to de-turban the professor.
"Itching powder," Harrison suggested.
Neville looked up thoughtfully. "That's not bad."
"But how would you put it in his turban?" Hermione asked.
The boys deflated.
"We could break into his room again," Neville suggested.
"Too risky," Harrison said. "Once was more than enough."
"Should we tell Professor Snape about this?" Hermione mused.
The boys looked at her, eyebrows raised. "And say what?" Harrison asked. "'We think Voldemort's hiding under Quirrell's turban, can you find out for us?' He'd laugh us out of his office."
Hermione sighed. "That's true."
"We could make a potion that would dissolve anything it touches," Neville suggested. "But we'd still have to get it near his turban. And if we're right about this, then...well, Voldemort!"
"That is slightly problematic," Hermione agreed. "We could be killed. Or worse, expelled."
Neville stared at her incredulously. "Tell me you're joking."
Hermione shook her head. "No. Dead, we won't know the difference...I couldn't stand to be expelled."
Harrison was laughing silently, holding a hand over his mouth and trying to keep his body from rocking. There were times that he truly loved his best friend. This was definitely one of them. He wondered if Hermione had nightmares about the coming quest that involved a de-turbaned Quirrell/Voldemort telling her she was expelled.
His laughter finally died down, and he went back to contemplating the notion of getting close enough to Quirrell and dispensing a spell without hi noticing. Or without him seeing them. He felt a mental light bulb flare to life.
"Hey, what about the invisibility cloak?" Harrison asked. "We can get up close without him ever seeing us."
"In front of a whole lot of people? It's risky. What if it falls off? Everyone would see us," Hermione said.
"Well, we'd only need one of us to be under it. You, Nev and I would be somewhere really obvious, then you announce you're going to the library, you have the cloak in your bag, and you disappear. All of a sudden, Quirrell's turban starts disintegrating or whatever, and no one would even think to suspect you," Harrison said.
Hermione looked extremely apprehensive, but Neville was nodding supportively.
"I don't know Harrison," Hermione said. "If we're wrong about this, I could get expelled."
"That's why we're all going to be equally involved in making the potion. That way, we're all equally to blame. If one of us gets caught, we all go down," Harrison said.
Hermione still looked less than convinced, but Harrison just grabbed hold of her hand. "We have to do this. He has to be stopped. Dumbledore's not going to do anything about it. And I don't know about you, but I don't feel safe when I'm around Quirrell."
She took a deep breath and finally nodded. "Alright. But, we still have a lot of work to do."
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The 'mission' was planned down to the last micro second, and when Harrison had jokingly suggested synchronising their watches, Hermione had jumped on the idea. It had taken nearly six weeks to perfect their plans for 'Operation: Quirrelmort' as they'd taken to calling it.
Neville had scoured through Potions textbooks until he'd found a potion that would suit their needs. It was in a fourth year textbook however, and required ingredients that weren't available to first years.
They'd recruited the Weasley twins to get as many of the ingredients from the list as they could manage, with the promise of a great pay-off prank at the end of their troubles. Unfortunately, the twins were only third years, and the more dangerous ingredients were restricted for upper years.
Hermione had finessed some of the ingredients away from Professor Sprout with a request to study certain plants and their properties for an extra credit assignment. She'd handed in the essay, but kept the seedlings.
The potion itself took a week to brew, and was time sensitive. They had set up a roster to ensure that the brewing went perfectly. They had a handful of excuses to be released from class at the right times. Neville was getting quite good at pretending to faint, though he'd gained a reputation as a bit of a wuss. (Some of the muggle-borns took to calling him the Cowardly Lion.)
They'd set up a cauldron in the abandoned classroom that had once housed the Mirror of Erised. Now that the mirror was gone, there was nothing there but desks and tables. They'd cordoned off a corner and brought in a spare cauldron they'd acquired from one of the upper years who had dropped Potions classes halfway through the term.
Using the invisibility cloak to hide the brewing cauldron and to disguise the smoke from the safely lit fire, the plan was slowly coming to fruition.
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"It has to be after exams," Hermione argued.
"What are you talking about?" Harrison asked. Hermione's statement had come quite literally out of nowhere. He had been laying on his back, using his satchel bag as a pillow, the invisibility cloak inside it acting as a comfortable layer of padding. An afternoon of cloud-gazing by the edge of the lake had been a relaxing break from the copious amounts of studying for exams that he'd been doing. Hermione and Neville had gone to check on the potion, as it was finally nearing completion.
Hermione sat beside him, and gave him a look that spoke volumes. "The unveiling. The potion's ready." She took out a medium-sized vial and held it up for Harrison to see.
Harrison took the vial and stared at the precious liquid. He was surprised at the fact that his heart rate had increased, and his hands had begun shaking slightly. He handed it back carefully and sat on his hands to hide his uneasiness. It was one thing to make plans about sabotaging a Hogwart's Professors clothes, and another entirely to begin proper preparations. He wanted this gone, though. He wanted to be able to sit in a DADA class and not wince every time Quirrell turned his back on the class. He wanted to eat a meal and not feel himself twitch every time Quirrell looked his way.
The sooner this was over, the better.
"Why wait until after exams?"
"We can't disrupt exams," Hermione replied, exasperated. "Fifth and seventh years especially. Can you image the panic if we exposed the DADA Professor to be possessed right before their OWL's and NEWT's. There'd be a riot."
Harrison rolled his eyes. Trust Hermione to think of the practicalities of when to reveal Quirrell's duplicitous nature.
"What if he tries for the stone before then?" Neville asked.
Hermione bit her lip.
"He won't do anything while Dumbledore's here," she replied confidently.
Harrison gaped at her. "You're kidding! He's already tried for it at least once that we know of. Not to mention, he tried to kill me! Who knows how much further he's gone through the traps. He could already have made it past six of them."
"Professor Snape was really confident about the last trap," Hermione said.
"It's probably his," Harrison replied. "So, of course he's going to be confident about it. The other professors probably thought their traps were pretty fool-proof too."
Hermione frowned. She hadn't considered that angle before. When Professor Snape had reassured them of the safety of the stone, she'd taken him at his word. She'd never considered that the Potions Master might have been a little biased towards his own trap.
"Maybe the last one is Dumbledore's," Neville said. "I mean, he is the greatest wizard since Merlin."
"That's true," Hermione and Harrison conceded.
"Alright...unless we find out that he's trying for the Stone before exams, we wait until after. We can't cause any disruption until then," Hermione said. "Agreed?"
Harrison and Neville nodded.
"Agreed."
"Well exams are next week, so it's hardly a long wait," Hermione said.
"Personally I could use a bit of a distraction," Harrison said. "All this studying isn't good for me."
Hermione stared at him incredulously.
"Honestly!"
Neville snickered, and Harrison hid his grin, marking a mental tally of six for this week.
"The exams are one of the most important ways to discover where your strengths and weaknesses in any subject are. Without them-"
"Society would crumble, and the world would end," Harrison teased.
Hermione glared. "Very funny."
"Too bad Quidditch is over for the year," Neville offered up the neutral topic, in hopes of staving off the potential argument.
"Gryffindor!" Harrison cheered loudly.
Hermione smiled indulgently. The game between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff had lasted under ten minutes, with Harrison catching the Snitch before either team had scored more than two goals apiece. It had been one of the shortest games in Hogwarts history. (The shortest being from 1747, which lasted for two and a half minutes. Hermione had read about it, in Hogwarts: A History.)
Ravenclaw had beaten Slytherin and Hufflepuff, and had then lost to Gryffindor with a score of 140 to Gryffindor's 290. It had been an extremely close match, but Harrison had been the faster seeker.
Before anything more could be said, the sound of dozens of teenagers screaming could be heard from the east side of the lake. Every single student on the lawns stopped where they were and turned to see what had caused such a commotion.
"What's going on?" Hermione demanded.
"I can't see," Neville replied.
Harrison knelt down beside Hermione and patted his shoulders, as he'd done at King's Cross station at Christmas. "Hop on."
Hermione hesitated, but was too curious to refuse. She clambered onto Harrison's shoulders and was lifted into the air. Harrison wobbles for a moment before finding his balance. Hermione strained to see, and then gasped, gripping tightly to Harrison's head.
"What?" the boys asked.
"It...it looks like a dragon!"
Another round of screaming came, this time closer as students ran to get away from the large creature that seemed to be on the rampage. Billowing smoke came from further down the hill.
"I can smell fire," Neville said nervously.
Teachers and students alike were running frantically. The students were scrambling to get away from the creature, and the teachers were running towards it. Even Professor Dumbledore was hurriedly heading towards the fire-breathing creature.
The dragon was moving quickly, half-running, half-flying as it made its way towards the castle. The students were racing to get inside, to relative safety.
Harrison, Hermione and Neville followed the crowd, but rather than going inside, the boys stopped at the stairs leading into the Entrance Hall, and stood at the top, trying to get a better look.
"Where did it come from?" Neville asked nervously.
"Who knows," Harrison replied. He was mesmerised by the magnificent creature.
Now that the bulk of the students were inside, he could see it far better. About the size of a large horse, the winged-creature looked exactly like the pictures in all the story books he'd ever read as a child. In his time at Hogwarts, he hadn't really taken in the fact that dragons actually existed. Hermione had told him, of course, but it had never really connected for him. He couldn't wait to tell Dudley!
As the professors shot spells at it, a loud and booming voice could be heard over all the others. "Don't hurt 'im! No, Norbert! Stop, all of you!"
"Is that...the groundskeeper?" Hermione asked.
Harrison nodded. "Hag- something."
"Hagrid," Neville supplied. "Who's Norbert, do you think?"
"One of the professor, maybe," Hermione suggested.
Harrison grinned. "Norbert Snape."
Neville laughed loudly. "Norbert Quirrell."
"No! Bad Norbert! Very bad!" Hagrid yelled.
Hermione paused thoughtfully. Hagrid's tone suggested that he wasn't talking to a person, but rather to a pet.
"I think Norbert's the dragon," she said.
"Who the hell calls a dragon Norbert?" Harrison asked.
The dragon roared, and shot a jet of flame at the professors, who all backed off instantly. The trio watched as Dumbledore communicated something to the other professors, and moments later, the dragon was on the ground, seemingly asleep.
Hagrid was kneeling beside the creature, wailing loudly.
"What a strange man," Hermione commented.
"Let's get a closer look," Harrison suggested.
Neville was eager, and Hermione a little reluctant, but unwilling to be left behind. They made their way closer, and began overhearing snippets of the argument between Hagrid and Professor McGonagall.
"How could you have been so careless?" McGonagall demanded. "It could have killed someone!"
"He would never!" Hagrid argued. "He's the gentlest pet I ever raised."
"It burned down your hut," Snape reminded the groundskeeper.
"Accidentally," Hagrid replied.
"It bit a student!" McGonagall cried.
"He musta been startled! Norbert wouldn't never hurt anyone. He was just scared of everyone screaming at him like that," Hagrid said.
McGonagall shook her head. "Well, that's the least of your problems now. You're extremely lucky that this creature didn't kill anyone. Hagrid, you know it's illegal to breed dragons."
"Where did you even get it?" Snape asked.
"I won 'im," Hagrid said proudly. "When he was still just an egg."
"You won a Norwegian Ridgeback?" Snape repeated incredulously.
"From a bloke down at the pub. Had to talk 'im into it, but after I told 'im about Fluffy, well...if you can handle a three-headed dog, you can handle anything."
The trio exchanged glances. The three-headed dog that Quirrell had discovered fell asleep to music. Hermione grabbed each of the boys by an arm and began dragging them back inside.
Hermione remembered one of Quirrell's research topics had been about the incubation period of dragon eggs. Specifically the Norwegian Ridgeback. This was no coincidence. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that Quirrell had been the one to give Hargid the dragon's egg, no doubt after finessing the information about the Cerberus out of the hapless Groundskeeper.
"Where's Quirrell?" Hermione asked hurriedly.
"He wasn't outside," Neville replied, turning his memory to the teachers who had congregated to corral the dragon.
"A distraction," Hermione murmured.
"What is?"
"The dragon," Hermione replied. "The dragon's a distraction. Just like the troll at Halloween. Quirrell gave Hagrid the egg, knowing that eventually the dragon would run amok on Hogwarts grounds. Everyone's attention is focussed out here. So, where's Quirrell?"
Harrison felt his heart drop. They weren't prepared for the fulfilment of teir mission. They'd been preparing for an incident that they would have control over. They'd been certain that they would be able to choose the time and place to expose Quirrell for what he truly was.
Now, though, there was little doubt that all their planning had been for nought.
Harrison went extremely pale. "He's going after the stone."
"We have to stop him," Neville said.
"Let's get up to the third floor corridor. That's where he'll be," Harrison deduced.
"We'll have to hurry," Hermione said. "He's got quite a head start."
The trio manoeuvred around the throng of students who were congregating in the Entrance Hall, trying to work out what was going on with the dragon outside. By the time they'd broken free of the crowd, they were certain that Quirrell had quite a good head start on them.
"What happens if we don't get there in time?" Neville asked.
"We have to," Hermione said. "There's no other way to stop him."
Harrison grimaced. "We could go after him."
Hermione turned to stare at him. "You're joking."
Harrison shook his head, his mouth set in determination. "We have to stop him."
"What, and hope we can get past the traps laid by several very competent Hogwarts professors?" Hermione asked. "The traps that Quirrell couldn't manage to get past, despite him being more than twice our age and far more experienced. We'd be killed."
Harrison hated that she was right. There was no way they'd be able to make it past the traps that the Professors had set. Quirrell had done months of research in order to make it through the traps. A trio of First Years wouldn't even make it past the first obstacle.
"Let's just hope that we're not too late," Neville said pragmatically.
"He won't get the Stone," Harrison said. "Over my dead body."
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A/N: Thanks for reading. So, we're on the home stretch now. Two chapters to go. Thanks to everyone for leaving such great reviews, and the theories on the mirror. Got a couple of PM's about Mirror theories, which were very interesting, so thanks for them!
Also, to the lovely reviewer who asked if I was just lazy because I'm following the plot of the book...well, it's not like anything really changed just because Harry's changed his name and has made different friends. Dumbles still has the Stone in the school, Hagrid still has a dragon, but no one to send it to Romania with Charlie Weasley. Quirrell's still got Voldemort living on the back of his head. The idea of this story wasn't to change the premise. It was to change the way people reacted by changing their relationships with each other.
Harrison's not inclined to be forgiving of Dumbledore. He believes Snape wouldn't hurt him, because Snape was friends with his mother. He doesn't think much of Ron, because Ron made Hermione cry. He's not as invested in finding out about the Stone as he was in canon. The only reason for his quest in this fic is because Quirrell tried to kill him. He wanted to understand why, and it led him to try and solve a problem that none of the adults seemed to want to solve.
In canon, Harry becomes obsessed with finding out everything he can about the Stone. There's no real impetus for discovery either. He finds out Gringotts was broken into, he tries to finagle info out of Hagrid, and his curiousity is piqued. What I don't get is why. He's eleven, he's in a freakin' magic school; shouldn't he have better things to do with his time than worry about some crazy stone that may be hidden in the third floor corridor. Anyway...that's all I have to say about that.
Also, the next time you call me lazy, sign in so I can read what you've written and give you feedback.