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Chapter - 65 : Near the Mirror

Garlic!

This place smelled awfully like garlic. She instantly thought of their Defence Against the Dark Arts class and then worse and faster than the speed of light, she felt her mind jump to the conclusion she realised she'd known all along.

Harry was about to scream.

She covered his mouth and pulled him to one side.

"Shut up and listen to me," she whispered to him as he was about to launch into a stuttering spree the man in the room himself wouldn't have been able to accomplish - Quirrell.

"Harry, one of us has to wait here, as a surprise attack or to help the other if something happens!"

"Then I'm going to him," he said at once.

"Are you an idiot?"

"Well, I'm not going to risk your life! Plus what if he can hear thoughts? Then he'd find out I'm hiding here. If I'm with him, he won't pay attention to you!" He justified.

"Well - I - I can't just let you go and sacrifice yourself!"

"I can't let you go either. Play to the plan, okay?" He briefly hugged her. Ava stood their almost petrified.

But Harry moved into the light and put on a performance worthy of every award.

"You!" he gasped.

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

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

"But I thought - Snape -"

His confusion was true. He wanted answers from Quirrell.

"Severus?" Quirrell laughed and it wasn't his usual quivering treble, either, it was 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 suspect p-p-poor st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell?"

Harry didn't need to act any longer. His reactions were completely natural.

"But Snape tried to kill me!"

"No, no, no. I tried to kill you. Your friend Miss Granger accidentally knocked me over as she as she set fire to Snape at the 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 sooner had it not been for Snape muttering a counter-curse, trying to save you."

"Snape was trying to save me?"

After all that Quirrell had told him so far about him trying to kill Harry, Harry found the fact that Snape was trying to save him the most amusing.

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

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

"You're too nosey to live, Potter. 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?" Harry mortified.

"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's 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."

"Now, wait quietly, Potter. I need to examine this interesting mirror. The mirror is the key to finding the Stone. 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," Quirrell muttered.

The mirror he spoke about was none other than the Mirror of Erised!

Harry on the other hand was thinking the exact same thing Ava was - Quirrell had to keep talking and not concentrate on the mirror.

Harry took care of the conversion while Ava began think of what she could do. Ava had never felt so helpless. She felt no help would come to her. But most importantly - no help would come to Harry.

She decided that she would attack Quirrell when he least expected it.

But she was snapped out of her thoughts by a cold, high voice that rang through the chamber, "Use the boy... use the boy...."

Quirrell did as he was asked. He let go of the ropes binding Harry and pulled him towards the mirror.

"Look in the mirror and tell me what you see." Quirrell barked at him.

"I must lie, I must look and lie about what I see, that's all," Harry thought to himself.

"Yes! Yes, you must, Harry." Ava thought.

"Ava? How can I hear your thoughts?"

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Ana