You guys didn't seem to really appreciate the mini-cliffhanger I left for you, but I really thought I needed to end the chapter there!

Anyway, I hope you liked my description of Muriel's secret room.

I know we haven't seen a lot of Michael recently, but I really couldn't find a place to slip nir in! I really meant to write more with nir, ne's a fun character to do, accidental pronoun typos notwithstanding.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Harry Potter.

My dear brother,

If you are reading this then no doubt either someone has given it to you or you have found the room which I hid at Hogwarts. I have no way of knowing if you will ever receive this, or if any will come after me, but I have left it here nonetheless.

I know you will be upset when you find the treasure of which I spoke, so let me apologize now. It was when I first came here, many years ago [though perhaps longer from where you are reading this] and I was afraid and in my fear took that which I thought might be used again for the same purposes.

I hope, in any case, you will forgive me the theft of your Horn.

I should explain further. After our brother Fell, I could not bear it. Michael seemed so strange and different, distant and far from the brother I remembered from my earliest days. I know that I never met our Father, but even he seemed farther away, and I know that you and the other two were as a group much changed after the Fall.

Well, that is understandable. Out of all of us, doubtless you knew him best.

I suppose that I hoped, by taking your Horn, that I could prevent anything like this happening again. It was a silly thought, but when I realized the true nature of my actions I dared not return and hope for lenience. If by the workings of Fate I am still alive when you read this, I hope you will not be too angry with me.

Heaven seems changed - even the voices of our brothers and sisters are quieter in my mind, and there is not as much talking nor much important news. I wish, on the occasion, that an angel might come and convince these humans who persecute the wizards of the folly of their quest, but I know unless told the truth of the nature of their powers that they are more likely to side against us.

I fear that my vessel may not last much longer. A strange sickness assails me and thought it does not seem deadly [at least to me] I fear I may have to abandon this vessel in search of a new one, which will undoubtedly kill her. Rowena has remained a thoughtful voice in the back of my mind, and I believe it would pain me to loose her so soon.

I can see not what may happen to me in the future, and I have not the power to look. But should I have stumbled into some unfortunate circumstance, do not linger long over it. I can assure you that my time here was some of my happiest.

If the other letters are still there, please give them to Michael and the others.

from your sister,

love,

Muriel

Gabriel was aware that he was leaning heavily against one of the bookshelves, but he couldn't bring himself to move. He was transfixed by the letter, staring over the written words for a long time.

So Muriel had taken his Horn.

Gabriel wasn't sure whether he was angry or not. The Horn had disappeared millenia ago, and no one had expected that an angel stole it. Gabriel had had mixed feelings even then, remembering the use to which it had been put and hoping that he would never have to do so again.

That time had been the only time Gabriel could remember that Heaven had gone to war with itself.

He carefully folded the letter again and placed it in his pocket, next to his wand. He looked back towards the desk, where the other letters lay, and reached for them too, intending to deliver them as Muriel had asked as soon as he could.

Picking them up let a third letter which had been lodged in between them fall, slipping and falling to the ground. Gabriel bent to pick it up.

The name on its front was Samael.

Gabriel froze, staring in shock at the name. It couldn't be, he thought disbelievingly. Muriel wrote him a letter as well?

Gingerly, he picked it up and stuck it with the other two. All three letters were put in his other pocket, separate from the one he had just read. Gabriel moved closer to the desk again and picked up each paper that lay on it, but there were no more letters and instead just small scribblings or notes or plan for some magical invention. There was even the very small beginnings of a map, with tiny arrows and little notes which Muriel had obviously used to find her way around.

Gabriel almost laughed at that. It seemed to have been an ongoing problem with the school - everyone kept getting lost.

As he turned away from the desk Gabriel saw a small pedestal, standing off to the side. Curious, he walked closer, and realized that this must have been where the diadem was kept. The surface of the pedestal was thick and dusty. The Ravenclaw ghost had taken it before any time had passed, really - the diadem could not have been there for long.

Gabriel thought of the diadem in the hands of a boy - a teenager who sought a treasure long-since lost, or so he thought. The idea of the Horn of Gabriel in the hands of someone like that made Gabriel almost laugh. No doubt whatever he intended to do with it had failed, and miserably. His Horn would not take kindly to anyone using but Gabriel himself - Raphael had learned that lesson once when he attempted to borrow it to muster the Host.

Gabriel put a hand absentmindedly to the unread letters in his pocket. If he ever did get a chance to deliver them, he'd have to enlist some special help - there was no way he'd be able to get into the Pit and back out again, without letting Lucifer out too or alerting every single demon currently downstairs to his presence.

An archangel tended to stand out in Hell.

Gabriel shook the thoughts from his head. He'd worry about it later - for now, he was stuck here and unable to deliver them.

He let out a long breath. "What now?"

The door ground shut again as Gabriel stepped back out into the hallway. He hadn't taken anything else from the room - it would be to difficult to explain where he'd gotten it if anyone saw him with a book that old, and if they happened to look at the title then it would probably be confiscated. Judging by the many, varied topics Muriel's collection had covered, things had been a little more lenient in the days of the founders.

The hallway was still empty. Gabriel glanced around curiously - it was incredibly lucky that no one had wandered by when he was leaving. He wondered why the castle seemed to abandoned today.

It came rushing back to him. "Oh, right." Gabriel said to himself. "We've got exams soon."

Gabriel was never quite sure how he managed to get through all the written exams when the heat bothered him so much. The loss of his Grace still affected him - the humidity of the Great Hall, where they took their exams, was so irritating that he could barely concentrate on the paper in front of him.

They had been given special quills enchanted with Anti-Cheating charms, which Gabriel thought was quite funny, and probably more effective than Muggle methods to avoid cheating. The written tests featured mainly essays, and Gabriel had a feeling that he'd made the last one [History of Magic] too long, since he'd given up on remembering anything from class and wrote from personal experience, thinking back over battles he'd seen and completely making it up. Hopefully he'd get something right.

Practicals were no better. They were called in one-by-one where the teachers assigned them tasks like turning a mouse into a snuff-box, or performing Charms satisfactorily on a pineapple. Gabriel thought that these skills were quite ridiculous, but understood the importance of learning the basics before going onto anything bigger. It was like practice for learning Transfiguration that would actually come in handy.

The last exam, History of Magic, seemed to drag on forever. When the ghost who taught the class finally told them to put their quills down, the entire class started cheering.

Now all they had to do was wait a week before they found out how badly they'd done.

Down in the Great Hall, everyone was celebrating the end of exams over dinner. Gabriel had sat down and noticed that, out of the corner of his eye, something was different. He looked up at the staff table and saw that Dumbledore was gone, his usual seat empty. Gabriel felt like that was significant, although the reason for it escaped him.

No one else seemed to comment on it, at least within Gabriel's hearing range. Michael didn't seem bothered at all, and Gabriel was tempted to ask why. Something was digging at him in the back of his mind, telling him to pay attention, that something big was going on.

Gabriel looked back up at the staff table. Everyone was there, save Dumbledore of course. McGonagall looked as severe as ever. Snape was still glaring out over the hall. Quirrel was picking at his food and barely eating anything, looking more nervous that usual.

More nervous...

Halloween rushed back to Gabriel in a clap and he remembered Quirrel's surprisingly well planned-out attempt to get past the dog. The entire student body was too happy over the end of exam season to pay attention, Dumbledore was gone...

It was the perfect time to make a go for it. Quirrel could vanish with whatever was down there, and if they couldn't find him it would probably be put down to whatever curse supposedly lay on the Defense position. He really had the best angle - no one would suspect a Professor so nervous he could barely teach his own class to go after whatever the dog was guarding.

Gabriel wondered if that nervousness was fake. He'd been distracted on Halloween, and almost never actually attended Defense class [which for some reason no one seemed bothered by] so this was the first time it had occurred to him.

So what to do? Tell someone? Gabriel almost laughed at the absurd idea of going up to a professor and explaining what had happened to them. If they actually believed him, they'd probably take about two hundred points off of Ravenclaw.

He couldn't tell Hermione or Michael - again, the angel thing was so ridiculous no one would believe him, and explaining that would be necessary once Hermione demanded to know how he'd figured it out.

No, Gabriel was very definitely on how own. He pondered when Quirrel might try for it - not now, since obviously he was here. Later today? Nighttime would be more likely - Dumbledore might not return until tomorrow, from wherever he was, and waiting any longer might risk it. Nighttime was also the only time that no one save Filch would be roaming the corridors, and even Quirrel could easily deal with him. He could just use the excuse of being a teacher to escape suspicion, if there was any at all.

Well, thought Gabriel, I suppose the only thing left to do is get there first.

The door creaked as Gabriel slipped out from behind it, the invisibility cloak dragging slightly as he walked. The hallways were empty, everyone asleep in their dorms. It had taken ages for the common room to empty fully, tired seventh-years eventually straggling up to bed from their comfortable seats. Gabriel had been sitting by the fire for ages, the invisibility cloak hidden under his robes and trying to deal with the unfamiliar sensation of being tired.

It took him a much shorter period of time to get to the third floor tonight, mainly because Gabriel actually knew his way around now and knew which hallways to avoid. He'd nearly run into Peeves, but flipping back the hood of his cloak and his best glare had sent the poltergeist rocketing across the castle to stay out of his way.

The door was already open when Gabriel got there.

Of course it is, he thought. It couldn't possibly be that easy.

He'd stuck the flute Hagrid had sent him for Christmas in his pocket, and as Gabriel slipped past the door he heard the dog sniffing madly, trying to figure out where he was. He raised it to his lips and began to play - not very well, but beggars can't be choosers - and the dog drooped, sagging to the ground dead asleep in a matter of seconds.

The trapdoor took two hands to drag open, and Gabriel had to use the levitation charm they'd been taught in the beginning of the year so that he could keep playing. He really didn't feel like fighting a three-headed dog. Once the trapdoor was open, he stopped playing and leaped in before the dog could do anything, its barks echoing after him.

The light of the open trapdoor shrunk to the size of a stamp as Gabriel fell with a thump onto some sort of plantlike material. He stood up and immediately fell over again, whatever he'd landed on twining itself around his legs and making its way to cocoon the rest of its body.

"What the hell?" Gabriel struggled out of the way, managing to draw his wand. "Let's see how well you can do that now-" He let loose a torrent of blue flames, a neat spell he'd learned from Hermione when he'd seen her carrying around a miniature fire during the winter.

The plant cringed away and wriggled off him. Gabriel stood up and stepped carefully over to a small walkway near the wall, keeping the flames going and burning parts of the plant to a crisp. When he was sure all of it that was anywhere near him was dead Gabriel turned and sprinted for a couple steps before he stopped. If he wasn't far away enough now, then that plant had probably already killed Quirrel and he was wasting his time.

The tunnel Gabriel found himself in was unlit and cool, which meant that he must be near the dungeons at this point. Gabriel walked carefully along. There was some sort of noise coming from ahead of him, like a flock of birds all flying together in close quarters. Frowning in confusion, Gabriel rounded the corner and saw a doorway with no door in front of him, revealing that it led into a much better lit room with birds as colorful and varied as a pile of gemstones.

"Great," Gabriel said aloud. It didn't seem to attract any attention. "They're probably going to attack me as soon as I set foot in the room."

Grimacing and bracing himself, Gabriel stepped into the room, wand ready and a shield charm [he might have spied on the upper years practicing spells] on his lips.

The birds made no move towards him.

Gabriel frowned and looked closer. The birds simply continued flying around the ceiling, rustling gently and...glittering?

"They're keys," Gabriel said aloud in realization. He glanced around, seeing another door on the opposite end of the room.

Striding over, he tried the handle. It was locked, of course.

"So I have to find the right key," he muttered. "Do I summon it? Do the birds fly down if I..." he trailed off as he noticed the broomsticks propped in the corner.

"Of course."

Gabriel mounted one of the brooms with as much distaste as he could muster, despite being the only one in the room. He took off, nearly crashing into the roof with the broomstick's sudden speed and veered away sharply, cursing under his breath and vowing to go back in time and ask whoever invented broomsticks what the hell he thought he was doing.

The keys had scattered when he took off, and they all avoided Gabriel as he flew. Gabriel glanced back down at the door, looking for clues as to what kind of key he needed to find.

"Old," he said to himself, eyeing the tarnished lock. "Silver, probably. And a big one." He cast about for a key that would match that description, but in the crowd of possibly thousands of them all flying and moving constantly, it was a tall order.

But not, perhaps, as tall as it must have been for Quirrel. Gabriel had sharp eyes in this vessel, and he spotted a key quickly enough. It was big, silver, old-fashioned, and one of its wings was crumpled, as thought it had already been caught. Narrowing his eyes and keeping it within sight, Gabriel drifted around on the broom, hoping to fool the enchantment into thinking he didn't see it.

Whoever had spelled them was obviously smarter than that. The old silver key never came within three feet of Gabriel - he would have to chase it. Sighing, Gabriel waited until it was about as close as it would ever get, and then whipped around abruptly on the broom, shooting sideways and pinning the key against the wall with a nasty crunch.

Gabriel landed quickly and flung the broom carelessly to the side, where it landed with a clatter on the floor. He stuffed the key into the lock and turned it sharply, and took it with him as he darted through the now-open door - no need to make things easy for anyone who might come after him. Gabriel hadn't forgotten that Snape had also come to the third floor on Halloween.

He glanced down at the key in his hand and felt a bit bad for it. Its wing was now badly mangled - it would probably be impossible for it to fly. Gabriel took the abused wing between to fingertips and leaned against the door as the dragged his fingers down the length of the tiny blue wing, feathers realigning themselves and good lord, there were even tiny metallic bones. Whoever had done this had done it properly.

Gabriel let the key go and it fluttered above his head. The door locked behind him with a click as Gabriel stopped leaning on it, and torches flared into being in front of him, giving him a good look at his surroundings.

He was standing on the edge of a giant chessboard, the black and white squares at least a foot and a half wide. The chessmen towered over Gabriel [something which he privately steamed about] and were made with painstaking detail. The knight had a full suit of armor, and even the horse had an elaborate saddle. Gabriel walked up to run a hand over the piece, and nearly jumped back when the horse moved as soon as he touched it, pawing at the ground and the knight in the saddle turning around to look at him.

"...Hell," said Gabriel after a few moments. "I'm not supposed to play my way across, am I?"

The knight nodded in answer to his question.

"Fuck."

Gabriel stared across the board, the faceless white opponents perfectly still. "You know what? Screw that." He walked confidently past the second row of the black pieces, the white doing nothing to slow his approach. Nearing the white pawns, Gabriel made to simply walk past, only to feel a sharp intrusion in his lower torso.

He looked down to see that one of the pawns had unsheathed its swords and buried one of them in his stomach.

"That," said Gabriel, "Was very rude."

The pawn almost wasn't worth the amount of Grace it took. The piece crumbled away, leaving only the sword and a pile of marble dust behind. Wincing, Gabriel reached behind himself to find the point of the sword and pushed it back through, the bloodstained blade clattering to the board.

Gabriel inhaled slowly, running a hand over his sweater to clean off the blood. "At least that's one question answered." Even in his reduced state, it seemed, the usual angel weaknesses applied. Which meant, no conjured marble sword was going to kill him.

Gabriel didn't bother to clean up any more, not knowing any cleaning spells and not wanting to waste his Grace. He simply walked past the other white pieces, which apparently learned from their fallen comrade and made no move to stop him. Gabriel reached the door unhindered [in the few seconds it took to walk three feet past the white ranks] and opened the door.

There was an absolutely awful stink in the next room. Gabriel covered his nose quickly and saw that it came from a troll, which lay out cold on the floor. He navigated around it, muttering "Thank Dad I didn't have to fight that one."

As soon as he crossed the threshold into the next chamber, flames sprung up in both doorways. The one behind Gabriel filled with purple fire, while the one in front of him flared with black. A table sat in the center, a line of glass bottles filled with various substances in the center of it.

There was a roll of parchment on one end of the table. Gabriel picked it up and read it, the material crinkling under his hands.

Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,

Two of us would help you, whichever you would find,

One among us seven will let you move ahead,

Another will transport the drinker back instead,

Two among our number hold only nettle wine,

Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.

Choose, unless you wish to stay here for evermore,

To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:

First, however slyly the poison tries to hide

You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;

Second, different are those that stand on either end,

But if you would move onwards, neither is your friend;

Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,

Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;

Fourth, the second left and the second on the right

Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.

Gabriel stared at the paper. "A logic puzzle," he said aloud. "Oh, this is good." Gabriel never thought he'd be actually engaged by something Snape had thought up - and obviously this was the man's puzzle, since who else would make a challenge with potions?

Gabriel paced up and down the line, muttering to himself over the clues which were still in his hands. "Poison always on nettle wine's left - there's always poison hidden in the wine? No, it must mean the bottle to the left, otherwise the only ones not poison would be the anti-fire potions...neither of the ones on the end will let me move forward..." Gabriel took each of the ones on the end and moved them back an inch or so, keeping their place but making it clear that neither one was the one he was seeking.

It had been a long time since Gabriel had played any sort of mental puzzle which actually challenged him, and he threw himself into the task with gusto.

"The second left and second right are 'twins once you taste them'...twins...so those are the wine," Gabriel decided, moving both of the indicated bottles back as well. "And there is always poison...to the left..." The fifth joined the four bottles already pushed away, the first having been discarded already.

"Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides...well, I've found the wine, there's only one poison one left...and so if neither the dwarf nor giant is the right one..." Gabriel looked at the largest bottle, which had already been removed due to clue number four. "Tiny bottle it is."

The smallest bottle was made of red glass, tinted pink by the potion it held, and as Gabriel uncorked it and swallowed it it felt like ice going down. He grimaced and shuddered slightly, then proceeded fearlessly through the black flames.

Quirrel was standing in the center of the room, in front of...

Oh Hell.

It was the Mirror of Erised.

Quirrel whipped around as soon as Gabriel entered. "So," He said. "You got through after all...I did wonder."

"Hello," said Gabriel calmly. "I understand you're after...whatever the hell is hidden here."

Quirrel paused. "...You don't even know what I'm after?"

"I know it's not something I want in your hands," Gabriel said amiably. "But let's be serious. I'm not here to talk to you. I'm here to talk to the thing hiding under your turban."

Quirrel seemed struck dumb. "How did you-"

"Never mind that."

A dark, raspy voice echoed form nowhere, or rather Quirrel's turban. "Let me speak to him...face to face..."

"Master, you are not strong enough!"

"I am strong enough...for this..."

Quirrel, who had paled as soon as the Voice spoke, turned so that his back was facing Gabriel. He reached up and untied the end of his turban, letting the purple cloth fall.

Gabriel very nearly took a step backwards as the back of Quirrel's head was revealed.

There was another face growing there, protruding out of the back of Quirrel's skull. It was flat and noseless, pale with red eyes that looked straight at Gabriel.

"So..." It said softly, voice still rasping. "You are Harry Potter."

"And I suppose you'd be...huh. I don't actually know your name."

The face looked furious. "I am Lord Voldemort!"

"That's nice." Gabriel wondered why he'd named himself Flight from Death in French.

"You dare..?" Voldemort hissed, and Quirrel shifted on his feet nervously, obviously worried about the spirit possessing him deciding to get violent.

"Oh, I do." Gabriel walked carelessly down the steps, avoiding looking in the mirror again and stopping before he reached the bottom. "You see, whatever you were plotting, it didn't work that night on Halloween, or the Halloween in 1988, so I'm betting...you're going to lose again."

"You are foolish," Voldemort hissed. "You do not see anything but light and dark! That is not so. There is only power...and those to weak to seek it!"

" 'Too weak'? Says the guy sticking out of someone else's head." Gabriel met the red-eyed gaze. "What did you have to do to stay alive, hm?"

"I do not answer to the likes of you," Voldemort snapped. "Quirrel!"

Quirrel whirled around and snapped his fingers. Gabriel barely had time to register the wandless and silent magic before ropes were winding their way around him, binding his arms and legs tightly together so that he was stuck in one place. Gabriel nearly fell off the stairs before righting himself.

Quirrel had turned back to the mirror, and Gabriel became engaged in a staring contest with Voldemort for all of a second before he felt the probe poking around in his mind, searching for weaknesses. He looked studiously at the floor after that, vindictively hearing the tiniest hiss of disappointment.

"I do not understand," Quirrel growled as he stared at the mirror. "I see myself finding the Stone...I am presenting it to my master...but where is it? Is it in the mirror? Should I break it?"

"Use the boy," Voldemort hissed, and as Quirrel turned around Gabriel stopped holding the ropes he'd long since cut in place and let them fall to the ground. He gave Quirrel a split second of peace to enjoy the shocked look on the man's face before he flung out his arms and shoved. Quirrel went flying backwards, hitting the mirror, which shattered under his weight and crashed to the ground. Cuts were torn in Quirrel's clothing as he landed among the shards and lay, stunned.

"You know," Gabriel said conversationally. "I think technically, you broke that mirror, so I don't get any of the bad luck, right?"

"SEIZE HIM!" Voldemort roared - or he might have if he were not shoved against the floor. As it was, the shouted command came out rather muffled.

Quirrel hauled himself up and lunged towards Gabriel, who sidestepped and seized the man around the wrist. Quirrel twisted viciously in his grip, and Gabriel shoved his hand against Voldemort's face. The shade twisted and screamed, the face contorting gruesomely.

The scrap of Voldemort that had possessed Quirrel was tiny but stubborn, and yet even it faltered under the assault of Grace. Gabriel screwed up his face, determined to get rid of it once and for all, and he was nearly tossed backwards when the shade violently ripped itself from Quirrel and out from under his hands. The grey ghostlike thing shot away as Gabriel stumbled backwards, the barest scrap of Grace left in him.

"Shit," he shouted, glaring up at where the soul shard had vanished. Now what would happen? Gabriel added another thing to his steadily-growing mental list; find soul shard and get rid of it for good.

Gabriel sighed, glancing around the room as he wiped his hand on his sweater. Quirrel was lying on the ground, cuts decorating him liberally, obviously dead. The Mirror of Erised lay shattered into pieces, the frame the only intact bit. There was a scorch mark under Quirrel's face, from the combined intensity of Voldemort leaving and Gabriel attempting what might have counted as a smiting, if he'd been at full power.

"Whoever find this mess is going to have a hell of a time explaining it."

"Harry." Shake, shake, shake. "Harry!"

Gabriel blearily dragged himself into consciousness. He'd slipped back into the dorms late last night. Luckily, he'd managed to keep his invisibility cloak with him, or he might have been discovered by the teachers which ran past as he was halfway back. He'd had to duck hurriedly into a corner as they passed him, clutching the cloak to himself.

He'd actually slept when he got back into bed, the recent expense of Grace making him more tired than usual. Gabriel remembered all this in a flash, and he looked up at Michael, who was shaking in.

"It's almost eleven," Michael explained. "I didn't think you should sleep so late. Did you stay up reading or something?"

"Or something," Gabriel agreed with a smirk.

Tada! A superlong chapter for you guys. I made a couple of edits, as I realized later that I couldn't actually kill that particular Voldemort piece if I wanted the plotline to continue.

A brief explanation on why Quirrel was not burned by Gabriel's hands:

Lily's protection, as demonstrated in the first book, affected Harry because she died for him.

Gabriel is not Harry.

Harry is long since dead.

Thus, the protection no longer exists.