star-crossed

The Man with Two Faces

It was Quirrell.

"You?!" Harry gasped.

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

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

"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?"

Elowen shook her head. "Wait, but no, Snape tried to kill Harry!"

"No, no, no. I tried to kill him. 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 counter-curse, trying to save you."

"Snape was trying to save me?" Harry couldn't wrap his head around it. The only thing he could think of at the moment was that Draco had been right, all those months ago when he'd insisted that Snape was not trying to kill Harry or steal anything. They should have listened.

"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 winning, he did make himself unpopular... and what a waste of time, when after all that, I'm going to kill you tonight."

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

"You're too nosy to live, Potters. Scurrying around the school at 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," Elowen realized, struggling against the ropes. It was no use — the ropes themselves were magical and there were no knots that she could find to try and untie.

"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." He turned away from them dismissively. "Now, wait quietly, Potters. I need to examine this interesting mirror."

It was only then that they realised what was standing behind Quirrell. It was the Mirror of Erised.

"This mirror is the key to finding the Stone," Quirrell murmured, tapping his way around the frame. "Trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this... but he's in London... I'll be far away by the time he gets back."

All Harry could think of doing was to keep Quirrell talking and stop him concentrating on the Mirror.

"I saw you and Snape in the Forest," he blurted out.

"Yes," said Quirrell idly, walking around the Mirror to look at the back. "He was on to me by that time, trying to find out how far I'd got. He suspected me all along. Tried to frighten me – as though he could, when I had Lord Voldemort on my side..." Quirrell came back out from behind the Mirror and stared hungrily into it. "I see the Stone... I'm presenting it to my master, but where is it?"

Harry struggled against the ropes binding him, but they didn't give. He had to keep Quirrell from giving his whole attention to the Mirror.

"But Snape always seemed to hate me so much."