Chapter 25 The Man with Two Faces
"For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist."
-Marcus Tullius Cicero-
\|/\|/\|/
"Professor Quirrell?" Harry asked as he recognized the man standing in the center of the circular room. He looked around warily, his wand up, but he saw no sign of Snape.
"Hello, Harry—you don't mind if I call you Harry, do you?" Quirrell asked with no trace of his stutter. "I rather wondered if I would bee seeing you down here."
Since when did Quirrell use his first name? Harry wondered, but his attention was diverted by the still form of Tonks. "Did you stop Snape?" He asked as he moved over to his fallen friend.
"Snape?" Quirrell asked.
Something in the way he asked that made Harry pause as he bent toward Tonks, and take in the room again. It was circular, made of fitted stone, and rather low compared to the soaring ceilings in most of Hogwarts. Iron brackets on the walls held torches that burned brightly but didn't give off any heat or smoke. The only door seemed to be the one he'd come through.
In the center of the room Quirrell stood before the Mirror of Erised.
"It wasn't him, was it?" Harry asked slowly as he straightened from his half-crouch. "It was you."
Quirrell laughed. It wasn't his usual quivering treble, but cold and high and sharp and vaguely sinister. "Me," he said with a wide smile before bowing slightly. "Severus does play the part rather well," he said. "So useful to have him swooping around like an over-sized bat and terrifying all the first years. Next to him, who would ever suspect p-poor, st-st-stuttering P-Professor Q-Quirrell?"
"You tried to kill me," Harry said, thinking out-loud so he'd only half-heard Quirrell's response, as he tried to come to terms with the latest revelation.
"Indeed," Quirrell said dismissively as he turned back to the Mirror. "The Quidditch game," he continued over his shoulder, "a jinx, unfortunate that Severus was whispering a counter-jinx that was potent enough to delay me long enough for the other players to come to your aid. As for Ms. Blackthorn's duel, very sloppy of Flitwick to let the entire staff in on what he had come up with. He just had to prove how smart he was, and how capable he was of obtaining rare magical items. It was none-too-hard to distract him long enough to obtain chips of each of the feystone rods."
"Which you used to destroy the real rods using thaumaturgy," Harry said.
"You did do a thorough job of it," Quirrell said, sounding vaguely approving as he examined the Mirror. "Thaumaturgy is only barely mentioned in passing in N.E.W.T.-level Charms."
"But if Snape wasn't trying to kill me, why did he referee one of my games?" Harry asked.
"He was trying to save you," Quirrell muttered distractedly as he examined the mirror. "Funny—he needn't have bothered. My first attempt had roused Dumbledore's suspicion. I couldn't try that again without drawing his attention upon myself and I couldn't have had that. All the other teachers thought Snape was trying to influence the game to favor his house in the Quidditch finals, he did make himself unpopular…
"Now, if you will pardon me, Mr. Potter, I have an artifact to retrieve. Do not attempt to delay me further, it won't work and it will irritate me."
"You tried to kill me before, why should I think you won't try again?"
"Oh, I have no intention of allowing you to live," Quirrell said, looking up at Harry from the Mirror where one spidery-hand—no longer the damp, limp thing from when they had met in the Leaky Cauldron—was splayed against its glass. "However, the more you irritate me the more painful your demise shall be."
Quirrell snapped his fingers and ropes shot out of thin air and tied themselves tightly around Harry who dropped his wand. "You are far too nosy to let live, Mister Potter," he said. "All that scurrying running around on Halloween, for all I knew you'd seen me going to retrieve the Stone. Unfortunately, while everyone else was chasing that troll around the corridors, Snape, who already suspected me, went straight to the third floor to head me off—and not only did my troll fail to beat you to death, that damn three-headed dog of Hagrid's didn't even manage to bite Snape's leg off properly.
"Now wait quietly, Potter, I want to examine this interesting mirror. I shall not warn you again." Quirrell turned back to the mirror and began to tap around its frame with his wand. "The mirror is the key to the Stone," he murmured. "Trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this…but he's in London…I shall be long gone by the time he returns."
The amulet was hot under Harry's robes where he had tucked it before passing through Snape's enchanted flames, but he had no way to get to it bound as he was. Tonks moved slightly on the ground. She wasn't bound like he was. It wasn't much of a plan, but if he could delay Quirrell… If he could buy time for Tonks to regain consciousness, buy time for Ron's letter to Dumbledore, or for Justin and Ernie to get Professor Sprout, Allie, anyone who'd come…
"You attacked Padma."
"Padma?" Quirrell asked distractedly. "Oh, yes, now I remember, the Ravenclaw bint. You can blame Dumbledore for that. If he hadn't put in a magic-null zone I would have blasted that damn three-headed dog out of the way and have been long-since done with this. She would have never known I was even there if not for Dumbledore deciding to be clever. And since we're making a complete record of things, I was the one who let Malfoy know about the Dragon. The Master was most displeased by the presence of those people from the Ministry, but I would have gotten past them had you not ruined another perfectly good opportunity by drawing those prefects to this corridor. With Dumbledore monitoring magic-use in the corridors I could not both dispatch them and have time enough to retrieve the Stone."
"You were seen talking with Snape in the forest," Harry said.
"I rather suspected I was, but then I thought it was that interfering old man," Quirrell said idly as he walked behind the mirror. "Snape was on to me by then, wondering how far I'd come in piercing the defenses guarding the Stone.
"As though there was anything to discover," he scoffed. "The other Professors were far too eager to talk about the complex pieces of magic they performed to protect the Stone. A three-headed dog, a magical weed that is better known for being unknown than its lethality… Any first-year could be expected to get by devil's snare, but the plant is so utterly worthless for anything—"
"It can crush people, strangle them," Harry said.
"Certainly, if they were crippled," Quirrell said scornfully. "Muggles could escape from it. All those remarkable tools they have for producing light since they cannot summon their own. No, Mr. Potter, the only surprises were Severus' little word-games, this Mirror, and that charming little maze. I rather suspect that Dumbledore added that one, but no matter."
He paused. "Although, reflecting on it, I think Snape may well have suspected me all along. Tried to frighten me—as though he could, when I had The Master on my side…
"And that Thorne twat, praying to a seditionist two millennia dead that muggles think is some sort of all-powerful deity…really quite amusing. I might have laughed if you had not turned out all the centaurs to hunt me. No matter. Stored unicorn's blood is not as potent as it is fresh, but there is sufficient quantity to last until I am able to present the Philosopher's Stone to The Master."
Quirrell came back out from behind the Mirror and stared hungrily into it. Harry saw the moonshine-flash that he could not possibly forget as the Mirror of Erised activated and he could see Quirrell's disturbingly avaricious expression reflected in its pool-like depths.
"I see the Stone…I'm presenting it to The Master…but where is it?"
Harry struggled against the ropes binding him, but they didn't give. Tonks moaned slightly and he felt a moment of panic as Quirrell moved. He held his breath, but Quirrell didn't turn and look at them, instead tilting his head to look at the mirror from a slightly different angle.
"But Snape always seemed to hate me so much," Harry said, desperate to keep Quirrell's attention on anything but the Mirror.
"Oh, he does," Quirrell said casually, "Merlin, yes. He was at Hogwarts with your father, didn't you know? They absolutely loathed each other. But he never wanted you dead."
"But I heard you a few days ago, sobbing—I thought Snape was threatening you…"
For the first time a spasm of fear flitted across Quirrell's face.
"Sometimes," he said, his voice almost a whisper. "Sometimes I find it hard to follow The Master's instructions—He is a great wizard and I am weak—"
"At last, Quirrell, you sniveling wretch of a wizard, you realize the truth."
The black flame warding the door guttered and a figure enshrouded in black robes stepped through.
Quirrell paused and turned. "Hello, Severus," he said in a suddenly level voice that Harry found very disturbing—both for how it sounded, and how quickly it had appeared. "We were just talking about you."
"You are finished, Quirrell," Snape said. "You would have done well to go groveling to Dumbledore. His brand of mercy is much more…forgiving than mine."
"What are you doing here?" Harry demanded.
"Saving your worthless life, Potter," Snape sneered. "Again."
"Do you think I fear you, Severus?" Quirrell laughed. "I have never feared you. The Master is with me. There is no power more potent than His. Even as you arrogantly believed that p-poor st-stuttering Quirrell could not possibly slip the childish little safeguards on the Philosopher's Stone. Yet here I stand, and soon The Master—"
"You mean he was there in the classroom with you?" Harry blurted.
Snape glared at him, but whatever Quirrell was about to say died a silent death as the Defense professor turned to Harry and the hard look he had given Snape melted away.
"The Master is with me wherever I go," Quirrell said softly. "I met Him when I traveled the world. A foolish young man I was then, filled with ridiculous ideas about good and evil. Lord Voldemort came to me one night and He opened my eyes and showed my how wrong I was. There is no good or evil. There is power, and those that are too weak to seek it… Since then, I have followed Him most faithfully, although I have let Him down many times. He has had to be very hard on me. Lord Voldemort does not forgive mistakes easily. When I failed to steal the stone from Gringotts, He was most displeased. He punished me…decided He would have to keep a closer watch on me…"
"Potter may believe the sob-story you are peddling, Quirrell," Snape said contemptuously. "Puffs believe anything they are told and are suckers for tears, but you should know better than to try telling that story to me. The Dark Lord would never accept a weak, sniveling little wretch of a wizard like you into his service."
"Severus." The solitary word was spoken with a cold, high voice, very unlike the surprising level baritone that Quirrell had been using.
As Harry watched, Snape's pale skin took on a sickly, pasty hue and he actually took a half-step back, nearly tripping over his robes as he did so.
"M-My Lord?" Snape asked. His voice was so tight with surprise that he had to pause after the first word and wet his lips before repeating himself.
"Lord Voldemort admits himself…disappointed, Severus, oh yes he does," the not-Quirrell's-voice said. Quirrell's lips, Harry noted, weren't even moving. "Lord Voldemort trusted you, Severus Tobias Snape."
There was a sudden weight in the chamber as the voice spoke the name, as though the air had suddenly grown thick and heavy. Snape's expression didn't even flicker, Harry noticed. Whatever it was that the Not-Quirrell—Voldemort, had been trying to do, it hadn't worked.
A Naming ritual of some kind, Harry realized, remembering Allie's warning back in the summer about the danger of using a full name to introduce one's self. Only it had been too long since Voldemort had gotten Snape's Name. There may have been power in it, but the Name was no longer perfect. Close, but not close enough to control or compel or whatever it was that had been Voldemort's intent.
"Lord Voldemort trusted you above all of His Death Eaters. Trust that you have repaid with treachery…"
"My Lord—"
"My Lord?" Harry blurted. "So you are with him!"
"Stay out of this, Potter!" Snape shouted, "It is no concern of yours."
"On the contrary, Severus, since Lord Voldemort plans on killing the boy tonight it is as much Mr. Potter's concern as it is anyone's."
"My Lord, I—"
"I—what, Severus?" the voice cut him off. "All year you have thwarted Lord Voldemort. Voldemort is most disappointed with you."
"My Lord, I did not know. I thought it was the weak, craven Quirrell. I thought he was after the Philosopher's Stone for himself. I did not know he intended it for you!"
"And Potter?" the voice asked.
"I thought it my responsibility as a teacher to protect the students at Hogwarts," Snape said quickly.
"Not from me!" the voice shrieked.
"Forgive me, Master," Snape said quickly. "I meant that I did it only not to arouse Dumbledore's suspicions and to further his trust in me. I was only endeavoring to further the last orders I knew were from you!"
"Enough!" the voice cried. For a moment silence reigned, then the voice said in a soft hiss: "Let me see, Quirrell."
"Master, no, you are not strong enough!" Quirrell cried.
"I have strength enough for this," the voice said. "Let me see, or experience the full strength of my wrath upon yourself!"
Quirrell flinched, but reached up and slowly unwound his turban. He was bald under it, and his head appeared strangely small without it. He let it fall away, purple cloth slipping between his fingers to pool on the floor as all expression left his face. Slowly he turned in place until his back was facing them.
Harry was frozen, even without the ropes he didn't think he could have moved. He would have screamed, wanted to scream, but he could no more make a sound than he could move. He wanted to look away, but the same horror that makes people stand around murder scenes as the bodies are wheeled out or stare at traffic accidents, held him transfixed.
Snape likewise seemed trapped in the horror before them.
On the back of Quirrell's bald head was a second face. It was whiter than the ghastly pale color that Snape's normally pasty face had turned. It had a lipless mouth filled with sharp teeth. Thin slits, slightly slanted, served as a nose. Its eyes were red. Not bloodshot, but red.
Snape made an inarticulate sound and his wand quivered. Somehow that made him feel a little better, but Snape admitting that he would have helped if Voldemort had asked quickly quashed it.
"Harry James Potter…" The voice hissed his name, adding sibilants where there were none, in such a way that was almost tender and wondering…if it wasn't so malicious. There was weight in those words, the voice had spoken them much the same way it had spoken Snape's name, but they were even less effective. The corners of its mouth rose slightly. "Look, Harry Potter. Behold…what Lord Voldemort has been reduced to because of you..."
Harry's scar exploded into burning pain. He reeled, his head swimming in agony that robbed him of his sense of balance and sent him crashing to the stone floor. It felt like someone was pouring molten lead into it while shoving white hot-pokers into his forehead from the inside.
"Reduced to less than a shadow of my former glory….wisps of nightmares and muttered terrors, fearful glimpses and memory-darkened corners. Capable of form only when possessing another's body. And yet, there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds," said the face with the kind of seraphic smile that Satan must have worn as it watched the first woman walk away with a freshly picked piece of fruit.
"Turn, Quirrell, so that I may look upon your brother."
Quirrell did as he was told, leaving the face pointed towards Snape.
"Sseveruss..." It hissed slowly, eyes narrowing. "You have been a constant thorn in our side. You have tried to halt our progress in attaining the Stone. Were it not for your meddling I would have returned to my body and the full strength of my power at the end of October. Through your meddling alone I failed to be reborn on the most potent night for such magic.
"Explain yourself!"
"I had no idea, my Lord," Snape said quickly. "I thought only that craven, Quirrell—"
"Silence!" Hissed the face again. "Quirrell. Since Severus wishes to pretend he is still in school, instruct him in the price for his perfidy."
"Yes, Master," Quirrell said, spinning around and raising his wand at Snape once more, a satisfied smirk on his face. "Crucio!"
Harry didn't know what the spell was, but Snape didn't even try to protect himself from it.
It struck the Potion Master in the chest. Snape gave a sharp, explosive gasp and was driven to his knees by the force of the spell. His hands convulsed in tight fists and his feet drummed a soft tattoo on the stone floor as the strain of whatever the spell was doing to him caused every line in his head and neck to stand out in bold relief.
"You never did scream," the face of Voldemort said, sounding rather disappointed. "Again," he said, without the anger of the previous command.
"Crucio!" Quirrell cried again.
This time the spell drew an involuntary cry from Snape as he collapsed to his hands and knees. Greasy black hair hung lank, hiding his face, and his wand made a soft skittering sound as it rolled across the stones when Snape dropped it. Then the room was silent except for the Potion Master's ragged breathing.
"Again," the face said, now sounding bored with the whole thing.
"CRUCIO!"
The third curse was too much for Snape. He crumpled to the stone floor and curled into a fetal position.
The pain that had threatened to overwhelm him had cleared. With Snape's collapse the horrific fascination that had ensnared Harry and kept him from moving while Snape was tortured, vanished. Still bound in Quirrell's conjured ropes, he lunged for his wand. It was doubtful that even without the ropes he could have done anything to stop Quirrell, but he had to at least try.
He lunged again, pushing off the stone floor as hard as he could with his unbound legs. His wand was close, he could see it right in front of him.
Harry lunged again and Quirrell's booted foot came down on top of it.
He looked down at Harry with a smile of amused contempt, then casually kicked the wand across the room and returned to the Mirror.
"Damn Dumbledore," Quirrell said. "The clever bastard just had to show off." He touched the Mirror again. Abruptly he whirled back to face Harry.
"What does this mirror do? How does it work?" He asked, almost breathed, in a soft voice.
"I don't know," Harry said, struggling until he was sitting up on the stone floor. "I'm just a first year. Sorry."
"'Just a first year,'" Quirrell repeated. "How did you get this far if you were 'just a first year'?"
"You removed most of the major obstacles," Harry said. "Fluffy, the keys, chessboard, I only had to follow the damage to get through the maze."
Quirrell twirled his wand between his fingers, his expression a mix of frustration at the Mirror and annoyance at Harry. "And Severus'?" he asked coolly.
"Did you really think Snape would leave enough…whatever that was, for more than one person?" Harry asked. Then, hoping to buy Dumbledore a few more seconds, forced his voice to maintain a calm, casual tone as he asked: "Why? How long did it take you to work through his little word-game?"
"Crucio."
Pain.
It was worse than Harry had ever experienced, had ever thought it was possible to experience. It was burning worse than the time he had splattered hot bacon grease on his arm and raised a huge blister, and yet it was a razor-edged plunging cold as though he were being stabbed with daggers made of ice. Shocks ran through his body a million times worse that Dudley's electric flyswatter had been before Dudley had eventually broken it like he had all of his other toys.
When Quirrell finally removed the spell Harry thought that it had only been held on him for a moment. He wasn't certain. The pain had seemed as endless as the sky, as deep as the ocean. It threatened to go on until it overwhelmed him and dragged him down.
Then, just as suddenly as the pain had come, it was gone.
That did not mean, of course, that it didn't hurt anymore.
Harry's entire body hurt. His muscles felt like they were on fire, his bones ached, and his skin was so sensitive that his clothes felt like they were rubbing against an open wound. He felt tears bead in his eyes and her roughly blinked them away. There were certain things one learned in Hufflepuff, such as not to cry in front of Slytherins. In the sett was one thing, but as sharks smelling blood, Slytherins like Malfoy could smell weakness.
"There now, that was unpleasant," Quirrell said not unkindly. "A little less insolence from you now, Harry, or you'll find your impending demise even more so."
He turned back to the Mirror, giving Harry a good look at the dark wizard protruding from the back of his head. Voldemort grinned at him malevolently.
"I know this blasted mirror is the key to finding the Stone, but I cannot make it work!"
Voldemort's smirk turned into an irritated glower at his servant's cry of frustration. "Use him," he snarled at the professor. "Use the boy!"
Quirrell turned around again. "Come here, Potter. Look in this mirror and tell me what you see!" Quirrell growled, turning his wand on Harry again.
Harry wheezed as magic picked him up by the neck of his robes and floated him across the room to where Quirrell was, before dumping him unceremoniously to the floor.
"Get up!"
Before Harry could say, much less do, anything, magic jerked him to his feet.
Despite the positive mien he had put on for the twins, Harry knew he was completely outclassed. That he had been since before he entered the chamber. Snape was still twitching on the ground and making soft whimpering noises, and Tonks appeared to still be unconscious, and without support he had zero chance against him…them? Harry dismissed the question as irrelevant.
He did, however, have two advantages that they could not possibly know about, and one they had overlooked. First, he knew how the Mirror worked. Such knowledge wouldn't help him to defeat them, but possibly—and it was only a possibility, he knew—he would be able to deceive the both of them. It was a longshot, the kind of plan only a Gryffindor like Ron—no, scratch that—the kind of plan only a Gryffindor like Hermione would think of. It was the kind of plan that would probably get him killed when, not if, it was discovered. And, ultimately, it relied on delaying Quirrell/Voldemort long enough for Dumbledore to get there to rescue him…which had been the plan from the very beginning, only Harry was starting to see some glaring weaknesses in it.
His second advantage was his wandless ability with fire. True, he had told his friends about it, but even the idea that he could do any wandless magic at all had somehow never made it into Hogwarts' rumor mill. And unlike Hermione, who never managed to do more than light candles, and Ron who dismissed it as 'impossible', he had kept practicing. In a fair fight he would be woefully outclassed, but if it came as a complete surprise he might have a chance of distracting Quirrell long enough to run for it.
And finally there was the phoenix pendant. It was hot even through the robes he wore, but Quirrell hadn't taken it from him. He didn't know why. Certainly after the encounters in the blizzard and the Forbidden Forest, Quirrell and Voldemort had to have known about it. For whatever reason, however, they hadn't even glanced at it.
Between those three little things he had the beginning of a plan. Not much of a plan, admittedly. A last-minute, desperate, all-or-nothing plan. The kind that Thrace would have savagely torn apart if he'd bothered to suggest it during a team planning session.
To call it a long-shot would be to take understatement to new lows. It would, in all likelihood, get him killed, especially if he was found out early. At the very least it might buy a few more minutes, though if anyone other than Snape were coming they should have already been there.
Harry bent his legs as Quirrell's magic once more released him, but even so the landing came with such a shock that he staggered and would have fallen if he hadn't run into the Mirror.
It didn't break, but then he hadn't expected it to.
Harry stepped up in front of the Mirror, uncomfortably aware of Quirrell watching on in interest from somewhere behind him and to the side. He began to concentrate on the ropes, mentally calling up fire. A small one, less than a match would produce. Hidden, burning in the center of the thick knots of the ropes binding him, safely out of eyesight.
After a moment of silence the Defense Professor asked impatiently: "Well? What do you see?"
Harry licked his lips, partially because they were dry, but also to give himself a chance to think because the last thing he could tell Quirrell would be the truth.
He had expected to see a lot of things when he looked into the Mirror. Part of him had expected to see his parents again. Another part had wanted to see his friends, or Dumbledore coming to his rescue, or the insane wizard next to him dying of a sudden stroke. Instead what he saw was his reflection grinning back at him. It produced a sizable red stone from somewhere behind his body, tossed it from one hand to the other, gave the real Harry a quick wink, and dropped the stone into one of his pockets. As his reflection did this, Harry felt something heavy fall into his own pocket. He had somehow managed to get ahold of the Stone.
No. The last thing he could tell Quirrell was that he had completed his quest. He'd been found worthy—though probably in a lesser way than the Alchemist who'd succeeded in making it—of discovering the Philosopher's Stone for himself. Which meant that his only recourse was to tell a lie.
Lying had never been a particularly strong suit of Harry's, but he knew enough that there were five simple rules that all effective lies were based on, of which he had control of only four. Keep it simple, make it likely, be consistent, and keep it as true as possible. The fifth was that the person being lied to had to be prepared to accept it. There wasn't anything Harry could do for that, but he figured Quirrell would be pretty accepting…he hoped.
"I see myself eating breakfast with my friends," he said quickly.
"What?" Quirrell said.
Harry repeated himself, and went on. "Parvati has the Daily Prophet, I can see the date, it's tomorrow morning."
Quirrell's hand on the back of his robes spun him around and slammed him against the Mirror in apparent disregard for tis well-being. "You mean to say that you saw yourself having breakfast?" the wizard asked in a low, calm, and utterly malevolent, tone while brandishing his wand so its tip was only just below Harry's right eye.
"The Mirror, it shows us what we most want to see," Harry said quickly. "It says so at the top. It's mirror-writing with bad spacing. You've already told me you're going to kill me. Right now I really want to be able to have breakfast with my friends."
Quirrell made a growling sound and shoved Harry aside. Harry fell hard to the floor, his bound arms giving him no chance to protect himself.
He must have blacked out for a moment because he couldn't remember hitting his head. Flashes of light that had nothing to do with magic were going off behind his eyes, accompanied by sharp jolts of pain and blurry vision, in time with his heartbeat. He knew about the timing because there was a slight but agonizingly acute flood of pain that washed from his neck through his head at the same time so that the hammering in his ears was almost an afterthought.
Harry moaned softly, something sharp was jabbing into his hip. It didn't distract from the pain in his head, but it did give him something else to focus on.
"Potter!"
Something gave him a terrific shake.
Harry moaned again. "Wha' iz't?" he managed to slur.
"What was that sound?"
Sound? Harry blinked up at Quirrell, but either he'd lost his glasses or his vision was foggy from hitting the ground. Likely both he thought.
"My head?" he asked, confused whether he should be asking if it was the right answer or if the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor would take it as merely acceptable. Why was Professor Quirrell asking about his head? For that matter, where were they?
Quirrell tsked at him. "The other sound, Potter."
Oh, Harry thought to himself. That's why Quirrell is asking…
"Uh…it was my wand."
Not his best, he judged, but not bad for impro—
"He lies!" Voldemort's face hissed. "HE LIES! SEIZE HIM!"
Harry rolled. The last thing he wanted was for Quirrell/Voldemort to get his—their?—hands on him. The ropes binding him suddenly parted with the sweet tang of burning hemp and he reached out a hand.
His wand, entirely unbidden but fervently wished for, suddenly flew across the remaining feet and slapped into his palm. Harry twisted onto his back, kicking against the floor to skid away from Quirrell as he turned his wand on the Professor and the Dark Lord.
Quirrell was quicker.
Harry cried out as his wand was ripped from his hand, leaving him feeling like his arm had been ripped away with it.
"Stay still, Potter, so I can curse you again," Quirrell growled.
He didn't actually expect that to happen, Harry told himself, suddenly and inexplicably frightened by the deranged command.
"Crucio!"
Harry could see the spell coming for him. There was a cry, indistinct as though from somewhere far away yet it had an ode crystalline clarity to it. There was anger in that cry, and hope, it was a terrible glorious thing.
The spell fizzled in mid-air.
Quirrell swore and tucked his wand away before charging Harry.
This was it.
It didn't feel like his thought but he knew it was. He felt detached, as though observing what was happening to someone else rather than having it happen to him. For example, he knew that Dumbledore was too late, that the delaying and stalling had come to nothing, and that the boy on the floor was about to die. Quirrell, with Voldemort's face sticking out of the back of his head, was going to kill him and steal the Stone. But somehow that the boy in question was himself didn't seem to register though he recognized at least abstractly that that was the case.
Quirrell kicked him and detachment left Harry as quickly as it had come. He felt something in his chest give as air exploded from his lungs. Quirrell kicked him again and all Harry could manage was a sort of wheeze as Quirrell bent to grasp him.
Harry tried to fight him off, but he was an eleven year-old boy with an arm that felt like it had to be broken, and Quirrell was a grown man with much longer limbs. He tried to curl away from Quirrell, but the Professor's hands reached out and grabbed hold of Harry's throat, squeezing as tightly as he could. Harry grabbed at Quirrell's arms with his hands and trying to kick the man with his feet.
He got a toe between the man's legs and Quirrell's eyes went glassy as his fingers convulsed around Harry's throat.
Crack.
For a moment time seemed to stand still, then Harry realized that he must have broken Quirrell's wand. The same thought must have occurred to Quirrell for he hissed, tightening his fingers still more. "You will pay for that," he promised.
There was a faintly sizzling sound that was slowly growing louder, and Harry could smell bacon burning.
I'm dying, a corner of his mind began to monolog. Quirrell has cut off my air and I am starting to hallucinate breakfast.
Quirrell was muttering something very fast and Harry strained to hear it.
"Not again, not again, I won't The Master again—" Quirrell was muttering with maniacal speed and a zealot's gleam in his eyes.
Grey spots filled Harry's vision, which was already edged with black, and the smell of Quirrell's burning hands filled his noise.
Then the Phoenix Amulet exploded.
Blinding white-hot fire filled the room and the pressure on Harry's chest and neck eased.
He coughed, then his lungs remembered how to breathe again which provoked another cough.
"What are you doing?" Voldemort was shrieking. "What is happening? SEIZE HIM!"
The Phoenix Amulet was blazing like a magnesium flare with small green fires where its ease would be. That beautiful/terrible sound from moments before was back though Harry couldn't think of what it was supposed to mean.
"Master! My hands...!" Quirrell whimpered.
Harry looked, then wished he hadn't. Quirrell's palms were a red, glistening mess. Skin had blistered, burned, small fires had started where fat deposits were ignited causing the skin to crack and peel and burn part way up his arms. The remaining flesh had a nasty look, like they had been partially cooked, then grated. The robes covering his arms also seemed to have taken damage, as they had been burned through most of the way. The fabric was still smoking slightly.
"KILLhim, then!" Voldemort howled. "Kill him and be done with it! We can take the Stone from his corpse!"
Quirrell grabbed painfully at his wand.
But Harry hadn't spent the entire time gaping at Quirrell's injuries—he'd already gotten to his knees and was searching about for his own wand. It wasn't in easy reach so what was the point? If he made a play for it he would be killed before he got to it.
Harry's mind raced, trying to work out what had caused Quirrell's injuries. His hands and robes had been fine before he grabbed Harry's throat and before Harry had grabbed his arms, well, his robes, when he was trying to pull Quirrell off of him.
He shook his head, trying to figure out what the point his oxygen-starved brain was trying to call to his attention. And then it came to him. For whatever reason—obviously magic, though he couldn't think of why it should be so—Quirrell couldn't touch him!
He shifted his attention to Quirrell, but Voldemort's minion had already moved away to pick up Snape's wand.
A flicker of movement caught his attention a moment before a spell slammed into Quirrel's side. Snape's wand flicked out and Tonks gave a cry as she was lifted off the floor and blasted across the chamber to smash into the far wall.
Quirrell turned his attention to her and Harry saw his chance. He could run, hope to get through the flames warding the entrance, he could steal the potions to get through the flames, trapping Voldemort until Dumbledore arrived…but to do that he'd have to leave Tonks and he couldn't do that.
And his wand was still too far away.
Quirrell raised his purloined wand again.
Harry looked down at the Phoenix Amulet, still burning brightly but no longer white-hot. He held out his hands, imaging the flames falling from the Amulet to fill them, calling forth fire and for the first time, just holding it in the air rather than calling it for some use. Then, in desperation as the wand came up, he forced the flame outward.
A gout of red-orange flame arched across the room, reaching for Quirrel.
"Behind you!"
Harry grimaced, having momentarily forgotten about Voldemort, but poured still more effort into throwing the fire he'd called up and now covered his arms half-way up to his elbows.
Quirrell stepped to one side before the flame had gone halfway, turned, and threw up some kind of shielding spell that the fire broke upon. The flames clung to it, continuing to burn in mid-air until the magic fueling them dissipated. But Harry was pouring on more flames faster than they disappeared.
"You can't do this forever, Potter!" Quirrell said.
"I can do it long enough!" Harry retorted. He wiped angrily at his forehead with the shoulder of his robes. The flames were magical, but the fire was still hot.
"Can you?" Quirrell asked. "You aren't using a wand, Potter. How long can you really hold that magic before it burns you?"
He cackled as though he had just made a joke.
Harry shook his head, then found himself on his knees with no recollection of how as he continued to send fire at Quirrell. "Just the heat," he told himself as his palms started to tingle. "Just the he—"
He gasped, eyes watering as the tingle became a burning sensation. What felt like Dudley forcing him to press his hands against Uncle Vernon's new car after it had been sitting out in the sun all day grew worse. Having to reposition new logs in the outdoor fireplace Uncle Vernon had brought home the year before…Aunt Petunia making him wash dishes in a sink filled with scalding water…touching a cauldron that hadn't been taken off the fire…
The fire cut off, but Harry felt his arms continued to burn. Now he was plunging them into boiling water…now he was stepping into a bonfire… Heat raced down his lungs and he felt them sear and close. He couldn't breathe again. Lava had replaced blood in his veins…
Over it all he heard Quirrell laugh.
"Good bye, Harry Potter. Avada Kedavra—"
There was a flash of green, and Voldemort shrieked.
"NOT THAT SPELL YOU FO—