Reading Maddie Potter and Percy Jackson

Reading Chapter 17: The Man With Two Faces

It was Quirrell.

"Holy shit!" was heard throughout the room.

"You!" gasped Maddie.

Quirrell smiled. His face wasn't twitching at all.

"He was a fake!" Clarisse and Thalia both yelled.

"Me," he said calmly. "I wondered whether I'd be meeting you here, Potter."

"But I thought -- Snape--"

"Severus?" Quirrell laughed, and it wasn't his usual quivering treble, either, but cold and sharp. "Yes, Severus does seem the type, doesn't he? So useful to have him swooping around like an overgrown bat. Next to him, who would suspect p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell?"

Everyone in the room was silent. No one knew what to say. No one knew how to react to this.

Maddie couldn't take it in. This couldn't be true, it couldn't.

"But Snape tried to kill me!"

"No, no, no. I tried to kill you. Your friend Miss Granger accidentally knocked me over as she rushed to set fire to Snape at that Quidditch match. She broke my eye contact with you. Another few seconds and I'd have got you off that broom. I'd have managed it before then if Snape hadn't been muttering a countercurse, trying to save you."

"Snape was trying to save me?"

Sirius, Remus, and Artemis all stiffened. While Remus and Sirius (albeit hesitantly) nodded a stiff thanks to Snape who returned the gesture, Artemis didn't even spare the potions master a glance. Both Remus and Sirius had already thanked him, besides, she was still mad at him for treating not only her daughter the way he did, but also so many other children who didn't deserve it.

"Of course," said Quirrell coolly. "Why do you think he wanted to referee your next match? He was trying to make sure I didn't do it again. Funny, really... he needn't have bothered. I couldn't do anything with Dumbledore watching. All the other teachers thought Snape was trying to stop Gryffindor from winning, he did make himself unpopular... and what a waste of time, when after all that, I'm going to kill you tonight."

"He better be thanking the gods that you didn't have any training yet!" Artemis said, growling.

Quirrell snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of thin air and wrapped themselves tightly around Maddie.

"Kinky," Leo muttered. There was an uproar from all the teenagers in the room.

"Dude what the actual fuck?" Jason asked.

"What is the matter with you?!" Thalia yelled at him.

Clarisse, Travis, Connor, Nico II, James, Fred, and George were all cackling. Nico I, Harry, and Ty were groaning. Maddie's hand was on her mouth and she was glaring at Leo. Percy was trying not to laugh but struggling. Lily and Luna II were shaking their heads in disappointment. Hazel, Frank, and Piper were all glaring at Leo with "why-did-you-just-say-that?" looks.

All the adults in the room just rolled their eyes at the teenagers (except Hermes, Apollo, and Sirius who were all laughing as well) and the reading continued on.

"You're too nosy to live, Potter. Scurrying around the school on Halloween like that, for all I knew you'd seen me coming to look at what was guarding the Stone."

"You let the troll in?"

"Certainly. I have a special gift with trolls -- you must have seen what I did to the one in the chamber back there? Unfortunately, while everyone else was running around looking for it, Snape, who already suspected me, went straight to the third floor to head me off -- and not only did my troll fail to beat you to death, that three-headed dog didn't even manage to bite Snape's leg off properly.