Deep down, Harry had held onto a slight suspicion that it might be Snape instead of Quirrell. After all, Snape was the obvious suspect, and he'd never really understood Steven's faith in Snape. Quirrell had seemed so...harmless.

Quirrell stood waiting for them, standing before the mirror of Erised.

He smiled, looking oddly pink through Steven's bubble. "I should have known you'd bring him."

He'd dropped all pretense of having a stutter, and now the way he was moving was more predatory, like the thing they'd seen in the forest. All vestiges of the harmless professor had dropped away, leaving his true self behind.

"I would have thought it would have taken longer."

"We're not letting you get the Stone," Harry said.

"You'll have to drop the bubble to stop me," Quirrell said. "And when you do, I'll stop you."

Harry glanced at Steven, who looked back at him uncomfortably. While Steven had done well against Quirrell the first time they'd met, he'd surprised him. The older wizard knew what to expect now, and he would undoubtedly have any number of spells that would be able to take Steven down.

If it was just Harry against Quirrell, he'd be dead.

"We don't have to beat you," Harry said. "Just keep you here long enough for Dumbledore to show up."

Quirrell scowled. He muttered a curse and it flew toward them. Harry flinched, but it bounced off, carving a deep gash in the stone.

He cast again, muttering another spell Harry hadn't had time to even learn the name of. Again the bubble held.

"How long can you keep this up?" he asked Steven, leaning toward him to whisper in his ear.

Steven shrugged. "I've never really used it against wizard magic before, except for a few tests by the Aurors at the ministry."

Quirrell glared at them for a moment, then glanced back at the mirror. "Is it inside the mirror? Should I break it?"

Harry pulled at Steven's arm, hoping to move the bubble so it would be in view of the mirror. What he wanted most in the world currently was to keep the stone from Quirrell. Maybe if he could see himself doing it in the mirror he'd be able to figure out how it was done.

To his horror, he heard another voice speak.

"Use him...the boy, not the abomination."

It was the voice from his nightmares, the one he heard just before seeing the green light that had killed his mother.

Quirrell said, "He seems protected, master."

"Kill the abomination, and the shell will drop," the voice hissed. The voice almost seemed as though it was coming from under Quirrell's turban.

Quirrell nodded. He turned and pointed his wand at Steven.

"Avada Ked..." he began.

Harry shoved Steven to the floor, even as a sickly green light pierced the shell where his head had been. The shell vanished from around them, and Steven rolled out of the way.

"Abomination!" the voice screamed from beneath the turban. "Worse than even mudbloods."

Quirrell blasted at Steven again with a blast of green light, but Steven was far quicker than his size would indicate. Neville would have been dead from the first blast, but Steven dodged again and again.

It was only a matter of time, though. Harry could see that Steven was already tiring; while he had superhuman strength, he hadn't exactly been practicing athletics at school.

The only thing that was keeping Quirrell from being able to hit him was the distance between them. Harry could see on Steven's face that he would like to get closer to Quirrell, to hit him like he had before. The closer they got, though, the less time Steven had to dodge.

Harry glanced at the mirror; where he saw his reflection smile and drop a blood red stone in his pocket.

It hardly seemed helpful at the moment. He couldn't risk distracting Steven, and there was no way they'd be able to get out of the room without Quirrell at least blasting Steven in the back.

He seemed to think he still needed Harry, though, which meant he probably wouldn't try to kill him, at least not yet.

Harry grimaced. He doubted that his magic was good enough to get an experienced duelist like Quirrell, but Wizards were less used to physical attacks.

He moved carefully toward the mirror, then as Quirrell passed him, he turned and jumped on his back.

Harry put his hands over Quirrell's eyes and he heard Quirrell scream. He smelled something burning under his hands. Quirrell scrabbled at Harry's hands, his skin blistering whenever he touched them.

The turban slipped and fell, and not an inch away from Harry's face he could see a horrible, hideous face staring out at him from the back of Quirrell's head.

Harry screamed, letting go of Quirrell and falling backward onto the floor.

The face stared at him with a malevolent expression.

"Kill them all!" it screamed. "We will shrink the mirror and take it with us."

Quirrell turned and pointed his wand at Harry, who was still lying on the ground.

His face was blistered, and his eyes were swelling. It seemed almost impossible that he would even be able to see, but somehow he could.

There was a cold expression on his face as he pointed the wand down at Harry.

Steven was lunging at him from behind, but the face screamed a warning. Steven had summoned up some kind of shield.

According to him, this was the shield that had weathered everything his mother's people's technology had been able to come up with. When the enemy had released a doomsday weapon that had killed thousands of gems and had corrupted even more, this was the shield that had kept his mother and a few of her closest followers safe.

It was the closest thing his people had to an impenetrable object.

Quirrell swiveled his hips and said, "Avada Kedavra."

The green light lashed out. For a moment Harry hoped that Steven would somehow dodge, but he was too tired and now too close to avoid the beam.

It cut through the shield like it wasn't even there, and Steven dropped like a stone.

The shield winked out, and Steven lay horribly still.

Harry lay still, unable to move, horrified. It was over. He tried to get to his feet, to lunge out at Quirrell with whatever it was that had burned his skin, but the man stepped calmly back.

A scream of anguish and rage came from somewhere behind the wall of fire. Before Quirrell could respond, the first of the watermelon Steven's stepped through the flames.

They were on fire, but this wasn't their most horrible transformation. Their mouths opened in horrifying maws, looking like the most horrifying jack o lantern mouths Harry had sometimes seen from the bus in October before Halloween. He'd always spent the holiday in his cupboard, but he'd sometimes thought about those pumpkins, horribly mutilated.

These were worse than those, and they were burning.

The first of them reached Quirrell, and it jumped on top of him, it's watermelon mouth lunging for his throat.

While it couldn't burn him like Harry had, it was still on fire in a conventional way. As more and more of the watermelon Stevens lunged through the wall of fire, Harry found himself scrabbling backwards toward the wall.

Quirrell's robes caught fire, and he began screaming horribly.

Mercifully, the screaming only seemed to go on for a couple of minutes. A moment after that, something seemed to rise from the pile of burning watermelons and human flesh. For a moment he wondered if it was Quirrell's ghost, as it turned and stared at him malevolently before dissipating.

By the time Dumbledore arrived, the smell of burning watermelon and pork had made Harry retch. He doubted he'd ever be able to eat either one again.

Dumbledore took a grim look at the scene, and turned to look at Harry.

"Are you all right my boy?"

Harry stared sightlessly off into the distance. "He killed Steven."

Dumbledore was silent.

After a moment, Harry sighed. He pulled the stone out of his pocket and handed it to Dumbledore. "It doesn't seem worth it."

Glancing back at the body of his friend, he said, "We should keep a watch over his body. Steven thinks...he thought that his mother might come back if he ever died."

Dumbledore nodded. "I'm well aware of what he's said about his people's life cycle."

"He'd want one of his friends to be there to tell her..." Harry sighed and closed his eyes, suddenly as exhausted as he'd ever been in his life.

"What spell did Quirrell use," Dumbledore asked, rising and going over to Steven's body.

"Avada Kedavra," Harry said. "There's no coming back from that."

Dumbledore gave him a strange look. "You did."

"Well, I guess I'm just different from other people."

"From what he told me, young Mr. Universe here was different from anyone in two universes," Dumbledore said quietly.

He froze, and then a moment later pulled out his wand.

A couple of muttered incantations, and a moment later Steven's body was levitating.

"What's going on?"

"He's still alive," Dumbledore said. He muttered something under his breath. "With a little luck we can keep him that way."