The Stand

Year One's End

Harry was chatting with his fellow Ravenclaws when he saw Quirrel.

Christmas vacation had ended quite recently. Ron was surprisingly quiet, deciding to avoid humiliation by avoiding Harry. Classes were a cakewalk, as usual. Despite his magical prowess, Snape was the only teacher to offer extra lessons though Flitwick had asked if Harry was available in the summer. Instead, Harry took to disguising his advanced textbooks as normal textbooks during lectures. And History of Magic was just a study hall.

Back onto Quirrel. The trio leaving potions when Quirrel bumped into them rather rudely. He didn't stop to apologize, he just kept on going.

Hermione bristled "That was quite rude." While everyone acknowledged their agreement, Harry was watching Quirrel. Harry knew where he was going: The 3rd floor.

Harry had figured out rather quickly what was going on. Dumbledore told everyone to leave some small hints but in reality, they gave the entire thing away.

The first was Hagrid inviting Harry for tea. Since Harry never met Hagrid, that was suspicious in itself. But, Hagrid covered that up with some excuse about wanting to see the child of Lily and James again. There was also the newspapers spread out over the floor which demanded his attention. He read them of course.

Then, there was the reported unicorn death. Harry heard from Parvati, who was already becoming the 1st year gossip queen, that some students found a dead unicorn. Harry knew the properties of unicorn blood. And that all lead Harry to the one conclusion, that Albus Dumbledore wasn't just the Supreme Mugwump. He was also the Supreme Idiot for putting an extremely valuable object inside a school full of children.

And for why Quirrel's motives were also pretty easy to deduce. Harry felt a pain from his scar whenever he went near Quirrel. Harry only had that pain after nightmares of that Halloween. That gave Harry the idea that Quirrel and Voldemort were bonded in some way. That would also mean Quirrel worked for Voldemort so if Quirrel wanted it, Voldemort must need it.

The only issue, was what to do. Dumbledore was probably hoping for Harry to charge in and fight Quirrel himself. And Harry thought that would be suicide. He knew that his friends would help him. Even still, the chance of them beating Quirrel was very low. That left telling a teacher or some adult. Dumbledore left the school, most likely to give Harry the feeling that Harry himself had to do something. Harry only trusted Flitwick and Snape and since he didn't know Flitwick as well, he decided on Snape.

Waving his friends goodbye, Harry went back to Snape's classroom. Snape was confused at Harry's entry "Class is over Harry. Is something wrong?"

Harry nodded furiously "Quirrel is going after the stone."

Snape's eyes widened "How do you... Never mind that, come on."

The pair began heading up to the third floor though Harry was concerned "Uncle Severus, Quirrel could already be there."

Snape shook his head "We have one advantage, Quirrel needs to attend a meeting first with the Board of Governors. We all have end of year conferences with them. That buys us a little over a hour."

Snape took Harry up the stairs and into the corridor. And with a simple Alormoha the duo was in. Hearing the sounds of people, Fluffy emerged from the shadows of them and growled at the unfamiliar people. Before Fluffy could do anything, Snape conjured a rock into a music box and put Fluffy to sleep. At Harry's questioning glance, Snape told him "All the teachers know how to get to the stone. Luckily, Dumbledore's mistake is our benefit."

After Harry gave Snape another confused look, Snape elaborated "Dumbledore wants you and Voldemort to meet. He didn't think of any other student trying to enter. Because of this, he didn't put an anti-apparition line at any point of the puzzle."