A/N: I do not own Harry Potter or any character thereof. Only the story line is mine so please don't sue! I don't own anything!

A/N: This story will stick mostly to canon of the Sorcerer's Stone book, and some quotes are from the book directly. However, every once in a while, a scene or two from the movie may sneak in. (All that of course aside from the fact that a lot of scenes from my own mind are sneaking in as well - evil cackle!)

Chapter 34
Something gold was glinting just above him. The Snitch! He tried to catch it, but his arms were heavy.

He blinked. It wasn't the Snitch at all. It was a pair of glasses. How strange.

He blinked again. The smiling face of Albus Dumbledore swam into view above him.

"Good afternoon, Harry," said Dumbledore, as he handed Harry his glasses.

Harry stared at him for a minute then everything rushed back to him. "Sir! The Stone! It was Quirrell! You need to check Professor Snape too, he said he hurt him! Hurry -"

"Calm yourself, dear boy, you are a little behind the times," said Dumbledore. His eyes showed slight pride that one of the first things out of his mouth had been to check on Severus. "Quirrell does not have the stone."

Harry was puzzled. "Then who does? Sir, I -"

"Harry, please relax or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out."

It was then that he took a look around at his surroundings. He realized that he was in the hospital wing.

Albus saw Harry's gaze fall on the pile of candy at the foot of his bed on the bedside table.

"Tokens from your friends and admirers," said Dumbledore, beaming. "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows."

He chuckled when he heard Harry groan.

"I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat. No doubt they thought it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey, however, felt it might not be very hygienic, and confiscated it."

"How long have I been in here?"

"Three days. Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Granger will be most relieved you have come round. They have been extremely worried."

"Ron? Hermione? Are they okay? Are you sure Professor Snape is okay? Is Quirrell okay? The stone -"

"Harry, calm down. I'll answer what questions I can for you and if I can't, I'll tell you so, but I will not lie."

Harry nodded.

"First, yes, your friends are safe and unharmed, as is Professor Snape. As for Quirrell, when Voldemort left his body, he died." He saw Harry's eyes go downcast. "That just goes to show you that he treats his followers just as ruthlessly as his enemies. As for the stone, it has been destroyed."

"But won't your friend Nicolas Flamel die?"

Albus eyes twinkled. "Oh, you know about Nicolas? You did do the thing properly didn't you? But to answer your question, yes, he and his wife will die."

They talked for nearly an hour. Harry told the Headmaster all that had happened.

"Sir, did you get Hedwig? Is that how you knew to come back?"

Dumbledore nodded. "She's a brilliant owl, Harry. It normally takes something extraordinary to make one fly with such speed. If she had been a minute or two later, I feared that I wouldn't have gotten to you. As it was, I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you -"

"It was you!"

"I feared I might have been too late."

"You nearly were. I couldn't have kept him off the Stone much longer -"

"Not the Stone, boy, you - the effort involved nearly killed you. For one moment, I thought it had."

They talked for another few minutes then as Dumbledore stood to leave, Harry felt a surge of his Gryffindor's courage flow through him.

"Sir, I was wondering if it would be possible for me to stay here at Hogwarts over the summer? I would even be willing to help Mr. Filch clean the castle. I'll do a good job and I'll behave. I promise."

Dumbledore narrowed his eyes slightly and stroked his beard. He knew that the boy never returned home for any of the holidays.

"Surely your aunt and uncle miss you. You've not seen them for 10 months."

"I doubt it sir."

His eyes narrowed even more. "I'm sorry Harry. Students aren't allowed to stay at Hogwarts during the summer."

"Oh, okay." He then thought about his owl's safety. "Would it be alright if Hedwig remained here during the summer? My ... er ... aunt doesn't like birds. If not, I'll see if Ron or Hermione can watch her for me."

He pondered that question. "It would be alright for her to stay here. You would be unable to send messages to your friends unless your owl would happen to fly by to check up on you."

"I understand sir. Thank you very much." He smiled at the headmaster.

As he left, Ron and Hermione came in and he, yet again, recounted his adventure to them.

Albus wandered absent mindedly through the hallways. Before he realized where his feet had led him, he was at Severus' office.

"Come in."

Albus conjured up a cushy arm chair after he locked the door. "Mr. Potter woke up this afternoon."

"Oh?" Severus raised his eyebrow as he looked up from what he was doing.

"Yes. And would you know that one of the first things out of his mouth was him asking about your welfare?"

"I beg your pardon?" Severus sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

"It seems Quirrell told Harry that he had done something to you and he wanted to make sure you were alright."

"Marvelous. The boy-who-lived is concerned about me." His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

Albus chuckled. They discussed Harry's account of what happened.

"How did I miss the possession Severus?"

"The same way I did, I gather. I just assumed he was working for the Dark Lord, not possessed by him. That certainly makes everything we've said around him shine in a new perspective. Quirrell must have had some control though because otherwise the Dark Lord would have wanted all the help he could get and I was summarily stunned because Quirrell wanted the credit for himself."

Albus nodded in agreement with his Potions Master.

The feast had just ended and everyone would be leaving after breakfast tomorrow morning, so almost all of the students headed towards their dorms to pack. Harry, however, excused himself from Ron and Hermione and headed down to Professor Snape's office.

He started to knock on the door but then froze. 'You're a Gryffindor, you can do this,' he thought. He then knocked before he could back out of the venture.

"Enter."

Harry slowly opened the door, stepped in, closed it, then stood very still while waiting to be recognized. He knew that the professor would be in here. Most of the teachers had left before dinner was over.

Severus looked up and was surprised to see Potter standing before him. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Can I help you? Did you come to gloat over your win?"

"No sir, nothing like that. I'm sorry to bother you, but I wanted to apologize to you."

"For what?" Severus quickly thought back and tried to figure out what the brat was about to apologize for.

"For thinking it was you going after the Stone. I also wanted to thank you for saving my life while I was on the broom. I could feel two pulls of magic while I was hanging on. At the time, I never really thought about it, but after Quirrell told me one was him and that you were performing a counter curse, I realized that it was you who kept me on the broom." Harry noticed he was babbling so he quickly closed his mouth.

Of all the things he expected to come out of Potter's mouth, it had not been that. "You could feel both pulls of magic Mr. Potter?"

"Yes sir. I apologize and thank you again Professor Snape. I'm also glad Quirrell didn't hurt you. Have a good summer."

And with that, Harry slipped out of the door and headed towards the owlery. He needed to talk to Hedwig about staying at Hogwarts over the summer.

About two hours after dinner, Severus wandered into the staff room and handed Albus everyone's grades, then placed himself gracefully in a chair. Surprisingly, Filius was late.

"Sorry about that, was distracted," he commented in an off handed manner.

After the meeting, Severus approached Albus. "I thought you might like to know that your Golden Boy came and apologized to me after dinner tonight for believing that I was after the stone and thanked me for saving his life during that Quidditch match."

"Did he now?" Albus twinkled at him quite merrily.

"I also thought you'd be interested to know that he confessed to me that during the broom episode, he actually felt both pulls of magic."

Albus coughed. "He did?"

Severus smirked. He had caught the Headmaster off guard again. He believed that he could get used to doing that. "Yes, he did. He seemed unconcerned by it too. I gathered that he thought that it was normal to be able to feel such things."

"Dear Merlin ..."

"Naturally, I didn't correct him. After all, we wouldn't want his head to become any more swelled than it already is."

With that said, Severus stalked off back to his quarters, effectively leaving Albus to his musings and to sort everyone's grades - magically, of course.

At breakfast the next morning, grades were handed out. Harry warily opened the envelope with his name on it.

He slowly perused the paper.

Astronomy - A

Charms - E

Defense Against the Dark Arts - O

Herbology - E

History of Magic - A

Potions - E

Transfiguration - A

Harry simply stared at his potions grade and wondered how that had happened. He had a sneaking suspicion Dumbledore had something to do with it and was not sure how he felt about that.

"How did you do Harry? I got an Outstanding in everything."

"What? Oh, congrats. I passed everything." Harry folded his letter up and placed it in his robe. He didn't want to show anyone his grades.

As he made his way down to the station in Hogsmeade, he briefly wondered about his defense grade but shrugged it off.

"Harry!"

Harry turned and saw Hagrid coming his way.

"Just wanted ter give this to yah. I spent this pas' week workin' on it. 'Course I shoulda been sacked."

Harry took the book and when he opened it, he saw pictures of his mom and dad.

"I knew yeh didn' have any pictures so I sent an owl off ter all yer parents' friends."

Harry hugged Hagrid extremely tight. "Thank you Hagrid. This is wonderful!"

Hagrid shooed him onto the train.

Once in a carriage with Ron and Hermione, he slowly flipped through the book and grinned.

Hedwig was currently hooting in her open cage. She was going to fly back to the castle once they got to the platform.

Halfway there, Harry put his cousins baggy clothes on and stored his wizarding stuff in his trunk. (He missed the looks of surprise that Ron and Hermione gave him at how big his clothes were.) He made sure he placed the envelope with his grades in it inside of a book. It also listed his summer homework on the back of the parchment.

It was a decent amount.

They eventually arrived at Kings Cross.

As they exited through the wall, Ron said, "You have to come stay this summer - both of you. I'll send you an owl."

"Thanks," said Harry. "I'll need something to look forward to."

As people were walking past them, they kept saying bye to Harry.

"Still famous," said Ron, grinning at him.

"Not where I'm going, I promise you," said Harry.

"Ready are you?"

Harry repressed a shudder. Turning he saw his Uncle looming over head while his aunt and cousin hovered nearby.

"You must be Harry's family!" said Mrs. Weasley.

Vernon eyed the red haired woman and chose to ignore her. "Hurry up, boy, we haven't got all day."

Harry sighed. "Coming Uncle Vernon."

"Where's your bloody pigeon?"

"My owl is staying at the school over the summer."

"Very well. Let's go. Dudder's is hungry."

Harry turned to wave at his friends and saw concern on everyone's face. "Have a good summer guys. I know I'm going too."

Hermione looked at him questioningly.

"They don't know that I'm not allowed to do magic over the summer. I'm going to have some fun with Dudley these next two months."

As he left, he heard the twins laughing.

A/N: I've actually finished hand writing all the way through Prisoner of Azkaban and I've gotten most of the Chamber of Secret's typed up so hopefully I'll be able to update more soon. As it is, I am uploading one more chapter before I go off and start my day's work ... not to mention find some note's that I've made in this mess of paperwork. hehe