Gryffindor Princess and The Philosophers Stone (Harry Potter Fanfiction)

Chapter Seventeen: The Philosophers Stone

"You!", Hope gasped.

Harry appeared beside her through the fire.

"Me", Quirrell said, calmly, "I wondered whether I'd be meeting you two here tonight."

"But", Harry stammered, "we thought Snape -"

"Severus?", Quirrell laughed, he didn't sound like himself at all. His stutter and usual tremble were gone, "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?"

Hope's head was spinning. Was Quirrell really behind all of this?

"But Snape tried to kill me!", Harry said.

"No, no, no. I tried to kill you. You 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."

Hope couldn't believe it. She'd seen Hermione knock Quirrell over at the quidditch match, how could she not have noticed that he was the one cursing the broom.

"Snape was trying to help?", Hope asked.

"Of course", said Quirrell, "why do you think he wanted to referee the 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, Potter."

Quirrell Snapped his fingers and ropes sprang out of thin air and bound themselves around both children.

"Your too nosy to live, Potter. As for you Dumbledore, my master wants you alive, though I cannot fathom what use you would be to him. Your both too much of a nuisance for my liking, scurrying around school, like that, on Halloween, for all I knew you'd seen me coming to look at what was guarding the Stone."

"You let the Troll in?", Harry asked.

"Why?"

"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 - 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."

"But-" Hopes tried to say

"Quiet! I need to examine this interesting mirror."

Hope hadn't even noticed the mirror until then. She recognized it instantly, it was the Mirror of Erised. She tried to look at Harry but realized the ropes were so tight she couldn't move her head.

"The mirror is the key to finding the Stone", Quirrell was muttering, "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, his daughter gone with me."

They had to keep Quirrell away from that Mirror, before he figured out how to get the Stone.

"I saw you and Snape in the forest", Harry said beside her.

"Yes, "said Quirrell looking around the back of the Mirror, "he was on to me by that time, trying to figure out how far I'd got. He suspected me all along. Tried to frighten me into giving up. As if he could scare me, when I had Lord Voldemort on my side."