CHAPTER 16:
ARE YOU MY NEMESIS?
Harry was worried. It had little to do with the fact that his great-aunt had tasked him with trapping this ghost (a squat, acne-ridden girl with dark hair and glasses by the name of 'Moaning' Myrtle Warren), and more to do with the fact that Dumbledore had left the castle earlier today to head to the Ministry, according to Flitwick. Harry couldn't help but shake the feeling that Dumbledore had been lured out, and that Quirrell, or whoever was after the Stone, was about to make their move.
He didn't show these worries. Instead, he listened to Myrtle as she described how she died. That was rather odd, really. She had been hiding in this toilet after being bullied, only to hear a boy come in and speak in a strange, hissing way. She left to rebuke him, only to die upon seeing some glowing yellow eyes, large ones. When she finished, she said, "So…your great-aunt wants to bring me to this laboratory of hers? Leave my toilet?"
"Yes."
After a moment, Myrtle said, "Okay. Can you do it now?"
Harry blinked. "Umm, yes. Why?"
"Do you know how boring it is to be confined to a single castle?" Myrtle asked. "I can't even leave Hogwarts, and while I haven't been everywhere in this place, I've been everywhere that I want to be! And everyone just views me as Moaning Myrtle! I want a change of scenery!"
Harry looked at her in astonishment. Not because of her impassioned words: he could understand that. No, it was the fact that he was sure she was going to eat her words once she found out everything about Aperture. After a moment, he said, "Okay. Now, you'll be in this for a few hours. I'll have to attach this to a Portkey, and then you'll be sent back to Aperture. Okay?"
"All right. I'm used to tight spaces. I haunt toilets, after all," she said with a disturbingly flirtatious smile. She looked about two or three years his senior after all, and he already knew more about sex than kids his age normally did. When GLaDOS taught him biology, it was thorough and up to a high school level at least.
He took one of the traps, activated it, and slid it under Myrtle, who vanished into a swirling vortex of light with a disturbingly cheerful "WHEEEE!" Then, the trap closed up.
As he left the bathroom, under the Invisibility Cloak, Harry saw the familiar figure of Quirrell go by. Harry, for a moment, wondered what he should do. Then, a ghost passed by, that of the Grey Lady. Harry quietly got her attention, taking off his Cloak. "Harry?" the Ravenclaw ghost asked. "What are you doing out after curfew?"
"Never mind about that. Please, I need you to tell Professor Flitwick, or any other Head of House, that Quirrell is headed up to try and steal the Philosopher's Stone. Can you tell them that?"
The Grey Lady nodded. Harry had had some discussions with her and Hermione about various types of magic. He also had a sneaking suspicion he knew her true identity: she resembled portraits and statues of Rowena Ravenclaw. Not enough to be her, but to be a relation. Harry never spoke of his suspicions: the Grey Lady was, when you got to know her, a good conversationalist, and he didn't want to jeopardise that. "I'll do that. Go to bed, Harry. You've won us many points, I don't want you jeopardising that."
Harry nodded, and put the Cloak back over himself. But as the Grey Lady left, Harry made a resolution to himself. The sooner Quirrell was intercepted, the better, and Harry, while he knew he couldn't actually beat Quirrell in combat, knew that he could try to prevent him from taking the Stone if he took him by surprise. He had the Portal Gun and the Gels, plus the spare ghost trap (though he wasn't sure what good that'd be).
And more than anything else, he had a mind that had been honed by years as the favourite test subject of his great-aunt.
He caught up with Quirrell just as the man finished with Fluffy. He had charmed a harp to play a tune that had lulled the Cerberus to sleep. He watched as Quirrell opened the trapdoor the Cerberus was guarding, before he gently dropped through. Harry followed as soon as he saw light flare. He dropped down, and found himself amongst Devil's Snare, thankfully subdued by Quirrell's light spell. He got himself out and followed, sneaking after the man. His bearing had changed, becoming more confident than he used to be. Harry cursed his impulsiveness, but he didn't feel right doing nothing.
The next room was filled with flying keys, almost like scintillating jewelled birds. Quirrell, with an annoyed snarl, mounted a broomstick after unsuccessfully attempting to summon the right key for the next door with a spell. Harry watched as he searched the room's roof, and then snatched one of the keys out of the air viciously. He then followed Quirrell as he opened the door into the next chamber.
The next chamber was blocked by a massive chess set, enchanted. Harry carefully took out the Portal Gun, and painted the walls of the room with the sensor, and grinned when he found a wall that could conduct a portal just beyond the chess set. He waited until Quirrell was engrossed in his game before using the Portal Gun to bypass it. Quirrell didn't notice the Portals, and Harry cancelled them after he made his way through.
Shortly afterwards (it was a surprisingly quick game), Quirrell went into the next chamber. A troll, a big lump of a creature, roared at Quirrell, only for Quirrell to summon the club, and use magic to smash the creature into unconsciousness. Harry all but gagged at the smell of the creature, like unwashed toilets and mouldy socks. He followed Quirrell to the next chamber, only to find the way forward and back barred by magical fire. Purple flames behind, and black flames ahead. A table nearby had a scroll, and a series of bottles in a line.
Quirrell perused the scroll, before sneering. Without stuttering, he murmured, "Severus, this would stop fools and idiots without any brains. You forgot that I am a Ravenclaw." And with that, he chose the smallest bottle, and drank it.
And then, Harry heard a high, thin voice, rasping through the chamber. "Hurry, Quirrell. Hurry…" It seemed to be coming from within Quirrell's turban.
"Yes, master," Quirrell said, before walking through the flames.
Harry dashed over to the bottle Quirrell drank from. He peered into it, and noted it gradually refilled itself. How, he didn't know. As he waited for it to refill, he looked at the scroll. He nearly laughed. It was a logic puzzle, and judging by the handwriting, not to mention the potions, it was Snape who made it! He'd do well designing test chambers at Aperture, Harry reckoned. He had the right sort of mind for it.
Soon, the bottle was refilled enough for Harry to risk drinking it (it felt like he had drunk liquid nitrogen, only without the vitrification and the damage to one's stomach from the liquid gas expanding and other horrid things that happened when one drank liquid nitrogen), and then he plunged through the flames. He came into a large chamber, with an all-too-familiar artifact in the middle…the Mirror of Erised.
And Quirrell was standing in front of it.
Harry silently brought out the Portal Gun, and began scanning the walls and the floor. They all seemed to be able to conduct portals. And he didn't want to kill Quirrell, just distract him long enough for the teachers to arrive, or else knock him out. So he needed to find a way to use the portals to distract him, or else keep him away from the Mirror. Using an infinite loop of portals was out of the question: that could kill someone without Long-Fall Boots.
After a moment's thought, he activated a portal on the wall, just at the edge of Quirrell's vision. Quirrell blinked when he saw the orange circle of shimmering light appear, one half of an as yet unlinked portal. "Master? What is that?"
"…Let me see through your eyes." After a moment, the high voice hissed, "I have not seen a spell like that before. Be cautious."
Harry then shot a blue portal underneath Quirrell's feet, and with an undignified yelp of surprise, he shot through, tumbling to a halt on the ground. He looked around wildly, before Harry opened up a new blue portal under his feet. "Who dares?!" Quirrell snarled.
Harry opened up another portal, but this time, Quirrell, although he still went through, had managed to spot the faint energy bolt that projected the portal, and flung out a hand. "ACCIO!" he roared. Harry felt himself being snatched by a giant hand, and pulled towards Quirrell, yelping as he did so. He collided with the treacherous teacher, bearing him to the ground, but in the process, Harry was winded when Quirrell's flailing arm caught him in the stomach.
Snarling, Quirrell managed to pull the Invisibility Cloak off Harry, his turban falling off his head. "Harry Evans-Potter," Quirrell hissed. But as he hauled the boy to his feet, he grabbed at Harry's arms, only to scream in pain.
As Harry struggled to get his diaphragm to stop spasming, he heard the other voice scream, "What is it, you fool?"
"Master, his touch, it burns!" Quirrell whimpered. Harry stared at Quirrell's hands, which were blistering, as if Harry's skin was red-hot. As Harry watched, the skin was flaking away, revealing the raw meat underneath.
"Kill him with a curse, you fool!" the other voice screamed, but Harry lunged forward and grabbed the man's face. Quirrell screamed in agony, and shoved him away, but even as he turned away, smoke rising from his body, Harry saw what looked like a second face growing from the back of Quirrell's skull, with red eyes, and snake-like nostrils. The face glared at him, before giving a vicious smile. "Harry Potter…so we meet again…"
"Harry Evans, actually. So who are you, anyway?" Harry asked, the snarkier qualities of his aunt coming back to the fore as Quirrell writhed and whimpered. He didn't think he could do much for Quirrell now, and as Quirrell had tried to kill him…he wasn't sure he cared, for the moment, anyway. And fear made him also snarky. "I mean, aside from the ugliest and liveliest tumour I have ever seen?"
"You…insolent…BRAT!" Suddenly, the face dissolved into smoke that tore itself away from Quirrell, Quirrell screaming all the while, until the back of his head was a gory ruin. The treacherous teacher stilled, and the smoke, which had the same face as before, snarled, "I AM LORD VOLDEMORT!"
Lord Voldemort…the very man who had tried to murder him, who had murdered his parents, and so many others. Now reduced to a spectre, a shade…
A ghost.
As the shade of Voldemort lunged towards him with a roar, Harry took the second ghost trap from his robes, activated it, and flung it under the shade. He didn't know whether this would work, but at this point, he was willing to try anything. Especially as he didn't know what Voldemort could do, and, for once, he wasn't willing to do so, even in the interests of scientific enquiry.
A scintillating vortex sprang from the ghost trap, and Voldemort froze within it. "What the hell have you done?!" he snarled.
"Honestly? I have no idea, though I think I just caught you like a Pokémon. That's Aperture for you: throwing science at the wall and seeing what sticks," Harry said, panting. He then waved. "Bye-bye!"
Voldemort screamed as he was sucked right into the ghost-trap. Harry laughed, albeit a cracked, braying thing, as he picked it up and put it into his robes. He then saw the corpse of Quirrell, the back of his head a meaty ruin, oozing brain matter and blood, and Harry stopped laughing. Instead, after a few seconds of staring in horror, he lost his dinner.
He was staring at the corpse of Quirrell for some time, he didn't even hear anyone come in, or even know that they were there, until a wrinkled hand placed itself on his shoulder. He leapt up with a yelp of fright, only to find Dumbledore there. "It's all right, Harry. It's all right…"
Dumbledore had escorted Harry to his office, and sat him down. Fawkes trilled a soothing song as Harry entered. It did a little to raise Harry's spirits. Dumbledore offered him a lemon sherbet, which Harry took.
After a moment, Dumbledore said quietly, "Harry, dear boy, you have been somewhat reckless. I am glad you are all right, though. I had just arrived when Flitwick was telling the others. You see, the letter asking me to come to the Ministry had a subtle but strong Compulsion Charm on it. The Floo network of Britain has been taken down due to problems with the network, problems I believe Quirrell may have engineered, and the Compulsion Charm caused my ability to Apparate to be disrupted, so even when I realised what had happened, I couldn't Apparate back. Instead, I needed to use my broom. Now, Harry, let's hear it."
Harry, hesitantly, told his story. He reluctantly admitted that he had ghost traps, though he emphasised that Myrtle wanted to come to Aperture. He described what he did, and what happened to Quirrell.
After a moment, Dumbledore nodded solemnly. "In a way, it is good that you felt that way after Quirrell died. I had feared that your great-aunt's amorality may have rubbed off on you. And perhaps trapping Voldemort this way…well, I will impress upon GLaDOS the necessity for keeping him trapped. I detest caging even the wildest beast, but if it is a difference between that, and letting him roam the world freely…"
"But why did Quirrell die from touching me?" Harry asked.
"I examined the body briefly. What you did injured him, albeit badly, but not necessarily fatally. He could have had a chance at recovery…but Voldemort abandoned him. As for what happened…remember what I told you and GLaDOS when we first met? That is was your mother's love for you, along with some arcane ritual, that saved you that night? I believe that very protection, targeted towards Voldemort, saved your life once more tonight. For Voldemort was possessing Quirrell, and Quirrell's body was tainted by Voldemort's spirit. Your mother's protection burned Quirrell because, possessed by Voldemort, he effectively was Voldemort. And one thing Voldemort cannot truly understand is love."
Harry was quiet at that. Eventually, he asked, "Professor…why did he target me in the first place?"
For a time, Dumbledore was silent, apparently debating whether to tell Harry or not. Eventually, he admitted, "A prophecy was made, one that Voldemort believed. In brief, it stated that one with the power to defeat Voldemort would be born at about the time you were, to those who have, and I quote, 'thrice defied him'. There was another born at that time who fit the prophecy, but Voldemort chose to attack you and your family. I do not normally put much stock into prophecy, even if it is true, as prophecies that are hated have a tendency to fulfil themselves, no matter what you try. Whether I believe it or not is irrelevant, Harry, as is whether you believe it or not. Voldemort believed it, he still believes it, and being defeated by you is something he would never countenance. His first attempt at killing you was to pre-empt a possible enemy. I am only telling you this much because I believe you to be capable of knowing some hard truths. Truth is, after all, a beautiful and terrible thing, to be treated with caution."
"And for that, he murdered my parents."
"They had fought Voldemort before. The prophecy was just more reason for him to track your family down and kill them," Dumbledore said quietly.
Changing the subject, Harry asked, "And the Stone? Where was it?"
"In the Mirror. I set it up so that only someone who wanted the Stone, but not use it, could obtain it. The Stone is within the Mirror, you see. The Mirror you saw that night was a facsimile of the real thing I brought to test you, and to prepare you, in case you did do what you did tonight. Or in case Quirrell took you to the Mirror himself: that possibility occurred to me," Dumbledore admitted.
"What's going to happen to the Philosopher's Stone?"
"Nicholas has asked me to destroy it," Dumbledore said quietly. "I know GLaDOS wishes to study it, but Nicholas is an old friend of mine, and I will honour his wishes. That being said, Nicholas has agreed to discuss something of what he knows of alchemy and other subjects with GLaDOS. He and Perenelle have decided it's time for them to pass on. They've been like that for some time. You may think this extraordinary, but even immortality palls after a time. They have both lived for over six centuries. You'd think that having more life and more money would be truly great, but humans have a knack of choosing the very things that can be bad for them. They have enough Elixir of Life to set their affairs in order, as well as visit GLaDOS, albeit in neutral territory, and then…they will pass on. To a well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure." Dumbledore then smiled. "I think it's time I got you back to Ravenclaw Tower. I will ask that, in light of helping stop Quirrell, any points loss you may have incurred for being out after curfew be waived. Professor Flitwick is proud of you, but Professor Snape is somewhat irritated about you acting like a Gryffindor."
Harry smiled back, a little shakily. "With respect to Professor Snape, he hasn't been to Aperture. And thank you, Professor."
With that, Harry was escorted back to Ravenclaw Tower, having had a rather adventurous night. And any night which ended with one's mortal enemy trapped was a good one…
CHAPTER 16 ANNOTATIONS:
Just one chapter to go, now! Hope you enjoyed this. Quite frankly, I was at a bit of a loss at how to defeat Voldemort in a way that would be more or less permanent (Horcruxes like the diary aside), and yet in keeping with Aperture Science's ability to make the impossible merely improbable. That's why I was inspired to write in GLaDOS creating Ghostbusters-style ghost traps. That being said, I made sure that this was something made for something else, and it was sheer luck that Harry had one for Voldemort. I hope what I have planned for Voldemort will have you forgiving me for that, though, as you'll probably laugh.
Over a thousand favourites! Yay!
Review-answering time! NexusRider161: Fair enough, though I'm sure she has fans. Somewhere.
Achronus: Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Specifically with the next chapter. One day, I will do a sequel.
ArtofthePlate: Well, I don't mind if this is called a crack fic. To my knowledge, crack fics are those which are funny. And there are plenty of fics with crack in it that are still dramatic and enjoyable for dramatic reasons: Bobmin356's Saying No is a case in point.
No numbered annotations this time.