Don't own the characters.
Been working on Adam's Story alot, apologies for neglecting you all!
This is it, the part you have all been waiting for...? (Well, one of them I hope)
On we go!
-YDHP-
"Yes, me." Vlad's presence behind him reminded Harry of his friends suspicions about their teacher, though he also sort of supported Harry's suspicions of Snape. Standing in front of the mirror Harry had seen his family in, though he now had his back turned to it, was Professor Quirrell. A moments confusion hit Harry - he could see Quirrells reflection, why couldn't he see Vlad's before? That stopped being important when Harry realised just how much danger they were in. He couldn't feel Vlad behind him anymore, so Harry forced himself to look straight ahead, not giving away anything by looking for his friend. Taking a few steps down the staircase before his shaking knees gave way beneath him and pitched him down to the ground, Harry could feel his heart racing. Why was the mirror here? What was Quirrell doing here? How on earth were they going to get out alive?
As soon as his feet reached the bottom of the staircase, Quirrell clicked his fingers and Harry fell to the ground, arms and legs tightly wrapped together with thick ropes. "Now, stay there Potter. Yes, I can see the surprise in your eyes. You thought it was Snape didn't you? No no, the man was trying to save you, I'd have pitched you off your broom in no time if he hadn't been muttering his little counter curse. Even then, if his cloak hadn't caught fire and got me knocked out of my seat, I would have succeeded." "Snape was trying to save me?" The ropes around his chest made it hard to breathe but Harry gasped out the words anyway. "Didn't you wonder why he suddenly had a desire to referee the next match? After the troll incident at Halloween, he went to the third floor to try and head me off. Slowed me down, naturally. He never trusted me again, followed me everywhere. And now here's a frightened little boy, bound and waiting for death at my feet." Quirrell turned back to the mirror, looking for what, Harry didn't know. "I see what I desire. I see myself holding the stone. But how do I get it? Do I break it?"
Wherever Vlad was, Harry sincerely hoped it wasn't passed out with fear like he felt dangerously close to doing as the ropes grew tighter. He felt cold dread crawl down his spine when a disembodied voice that was definitely not Vlad hissed, cold and deadly, into the room. "Use the boy." The ropes around Harry's lower body fell away, his upper arms still bound so he couldn't lift them to punch Quirrell in the face and run like hell. "What do you see in the mirror Potter?" The DADA teacher dragged Harry upright, pushing him in front of the mirror and stepping away. For a second Harry saw his family again, longing pulsing in his chest. Then they faded away, and it was all Harry could do not to cry out in dismay. The ropes weren't around him in the reflection, and Harry's mirror self raised his arm. Remembering Vlad had said it was an hour to dawn back with Hermione, Harry figured playing for time was their best bet. The raised arm cupped his hand, and a flash of red lit his reflection. Hoping it hadn't shown in his glasses or something, Harry looked closer. The flash of red faded to reveal a stone, barely the size of an egg and bright red.
The mirror-Harry grasped the stone and pushed it into his pocket. Harry didn't look down, but he felt a weight settle next to the potion bottle he'd picked up earlier. "Well, what do you see?" "I see my parents. What else do I want?" Quirrell shoved him aside and Harry stumbled, but he felt a brush of cool fingers over his palm. Vlad was nearby then. He felt the tremor in Vlad as he did himself when the cold voice returned. "He lies. Let me speak to him." "Master, you are not strong enough." Harry looked around while trying not to give in to the urge to bolt, wondering who the hell Quirrell was actually talking to. "I have strength enough for this." The voice trailed off into a hiss, and Harry felt his heart stop for a second as Quirrell turned around. The mans hands came up and started unwrapping the purple turban many people had questioned, but Harry was prepared to bet all the gold in Gringotts this had never crossed their minds.
As the fabric fell away, instead of the back of a head, there was another face. It was pale, even paler than Vlad and almost... snakelike. There was no nose, merely slits for nostrils and the eyes were thin slits of black surrounded by crimson. "Voldemort?" The cold, hissing voice came from his mouth then as the face answered. "Yes. See what I have become? A parasite, living off another. Unicorn blood can sustain me, as you saw in the Forest that night when that infernal cat got in my way." In any other situation, such a sentence from the darkest wizard to ever walk the earth might have been funny. "The unicorn blood cannot give me a body of my own, but there is something that can. Something I think conveniently enough is lying in your pocket." Harry felt two things happen very fast. Vlad's hand in his pocket, pulling both the stone and potion bottle out and the ropes around him fell away as he heard Vlad mumble behind him.
"What is this? I didn't say release him!" "I didn't Master! I swear!" "Kill him!" Harry stepped back, barely going three steps before Quirrell was literally flying towards him, hand outstretched. They crashed to the floor, a grown mans weight worse than the ropes as he pinned Harry to the ground and reached for his pockets. "Master it's not here!" Vlad pulled the cloak off then, flicking his hand at Quirrell and the man shot off Harry, rolling a few feet away. "Harry, hold him down!" Harry didn't stop to think of how bad an idea that was, kneeling on the mans body, thankfully not Voldemort side up as Vlad forced his mouth open. "What the hell are you doing?" "I think our professor is stressed, could do with a nap!" The Dreamless Sleep Harry had picked up before was in Vlad's hand, but Quirrell was starting to fight back. Harry moved to hold his head in place, and he could see the skin beneath his hands redden and split. Vlad poured the potion into the open mouth, clamping his hands over so he couldn't spit it out and Harry held tighter.
They were still only two eleven year old boys, thrown off easily enough when they let their guard down for a second as the potion kicked in. The marks on Quirrells neck were in perfect shapes of Harry's hands, blackening as Quirrell tried to stand again. Vlad pulled Harry to his feet, checking he was alright and Harry felt a blinding pain in his scar, dropping to his knees all over again. Fairly certain the professor was dead as his body crumpled to the ground and stopped moving, the dark stain on his throat spreading. "Harry, what's wrong?" Harry couldn't answer, couldn't think. All he could do was feel the pain splitting his head open.
Harry dropped barely a minute after Vlad pulled him to his feet, hoping the potion was enough to knock out the professor for a few moments. Vlad was starting to panic as he realised he had no idea what the correct dosage was, and how the Professor was no longer moving. There was a shadow on his throat where Harry had held him, and Vlad had no idea what that was but it was spreading. Remembering Harry had said it helped when Vlad touched his scar before in the Forest, Vlad brushed his fingers over the reddening lightening bolt. Harry relaxed a little, but the relief was short lived as he looked over to Quirrell again. Whatever that... thing in his head had been, whatever was possessing him, it was clearly ditching the dead host and looking for a new one. Vlad was fairly certain it wouldn't take him, it needed a living body but that left only Harry. The thick white smoke rose, the shadow of the terrible face there.
"Vlad!" Vlad had never been so happy to hear his tutors voice, Bertrand dashing down to them both and lifting them like they weighed nothing. "We are having serious words when you're both alive and safe." Clutching the stone in his pocket, Vlad turned his eyes to where the smoke had been. It was fading, but there was an awful screaming sound as it whispered away from sight. Feeling it rattle in his bones, Vlad clung to Bertrand and Harry as they were flitted out. Vlad didn't look to see how Bertrand got around all the obstacles, he didn't care as long as they got out alive. Fluffy growled as they shot past her, but that was all of a second and then they were outside the door, Vlad hurriedly waving his hand to lock it as Bertrand set them down on the ground. Harry was whimpering in pain, clutching his head still. Resuming the brush of fingers over his scar, Vlad felt Harry relax. "You couldn't have thought of a better system than sending that pesky familiar to dance around my room until dawn?" Chuckling slightly, adrenaline still racing through him, Vlad smiled at his tutor. "In fairness, we told her to go to you or McGonogall, whoever she could find first."
"That's Professor McGonogall to you Mr Dracula." Vlad turned from his spot on the ground to see Professors McGonogall and Dumbledore, and more surprisingly Ingrid. Leaping up to hug his sister, Vlad felt shaky relief. "Where's Hermione?" "Safe, in the hospital wing awaiting you two idiots." "Love you too sis." Ingrid hugged him back for a minute, the only outward sign she'd show that she was worried Vlad wouldn't return alive. "Thank you Mr du Fortunesa, going down the trap door was truly above and beyond the call of duty of a tutor." Bertrand bowed his head to the headmaster, promising to come and explain everything later but he needed to feed before the school children woke and flitted off. "So, hospital wing then? Looks like Harry could do with a headache potion." Checking nobody else was around, Vlad downed a vial of Replenisher and felt energized, turning to lift Harry into the air. "Mr Dracula, kindly stop showing off." Vlad pulled his wand from his pocket, holding it as though it was lifting Harry and heading off to the hospital wing without orders, still high on adrenaline and thrilled to have escaped alive.
The teachers and Ingrid followed, though Ingrid left almost the second Vlad was declared exhausted but otherwise unharmed. "Thanks for checking up on me Ingrid." He received a flick to the ear for that, but the affectionate smile Ingrid bestowed on him for a moment was worth it. Phantom decided this was the perfect moment to bound up onto Vlad's bed, licking his face and mewling happily. "Thanks for getting us rescued Phantom." Hermione appeared then, practically leaping on Vlad to hug him, then slap him. "You're alright! You idiots!" Chuckling, Vlad turned to see Harry coming around. "So, would you be so kind as to tell us what went on down there before we decide whether or not to expel you for breaking every rule possible?"
Ducking his head, Vlad nodded. "Oh, wait. I think this belongs to a friend of yours Professor." Pulling the stone from his pocket, he handed it over. "Harry got it out the mirror, but I was under the cloak... Which is still down there and I'm not supposed to mention. Oops." Professor McGonogall waved her wand around the room, thankfully empty but for the Gryffindor trio, the two professors and Madam Pomfrey. "There, the room is silenced, nobody else will hear a word you say until it's lifted. Go on." So Vlad talked, said how they'd found out about the Stone and Fluffy and overheard the conversation in the Forest. How they'd almost been attacked and saved by Phantom, though the teachers knew that already, and how they'd worked out there'd be other enchantments. "The end of the exams was the first chance since Halloween where everyone would be distracted, relaxed and the teachers not needed in their rooms. So it had to be then. We got under the cloak, and we went." "Three eleven year olds, defeating powerful enchantments and tests like it was nothing. How did you stop Vol... Quirrell?"
"That's Professor Quirrell to you ma'am. You have Professor Snape to thank for that I suppose, and Harry. He recognised the Dreamless Sleep on the table in that elemental room, thanks for that by the way, and for whatever reason pocketed it. When I got the Stone away before Quirrell could, I found that and thought fast." Madam Pomfrey appeared then, saying the kids needed their sleep and insisting they come back later. Hermione was ushered into a bed alongside Harry and Vlad, and they were all given a vial of Dreamless Sleep and glared into submission. "Madam Pomfrey" Vlad managed to speak before the potion hit him "how many doses of this would kill someone?" She looked at him sadly, holding up the potion bottle she dispensed from. "This would kill three adults." Feeling a tear rise at the idea he'd been responsible for a death, Vlad nodded. "I worried that would be the case." "Sleep now, you can worry about that later." The potion took Vlad to sleep then, blissful and indeed dreamless.
-YDHP-
So, there's maybe two chapters left to Chosen Two - Year One and you guys still haven't told me whether to split off or stay here for Year Two. Come on guys, don't leave me hanging.