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THE MAN WITH TWO FACES |
It was Quirrell. |
"You!" gasped Harry. |
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 --" |
"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?" |
Harry 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?" |
"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." |
Quirrell snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of thin air and wrapped |
themselves tightly around Harry. |
"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. |
"Now, wait quietly, Potter. I need to examine this interesting mirror. |
It was only then that Harry realized 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 |
from 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." |
"Oh, he does," said Quirrell casually, "heavens, yes. He was at Hogwarts |
with your father, didn't you know? They loathed each other. But he never |
wanted you dead." |
"But I heard you a few days ago, sobbing -- I thought Snape was |
threatening you...." |
For the first time, a spasm of fear flitted across Quirrell's face. |
"Sometimes," he said, "I find it hard to follow my master's instructions |
-- he is a great wizard and I am weak --" |
"You mean he was there in the classroom with you?" Harry gasped. |
"He is with me wherever I go," said Quirrell quietly. "I met him when I |
traveled around the world. A foolish young man I was then, full of |
ridiculous ideas about good and evil. Lord Voldemort showed me how wrong |
I was. There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too |
weak to seek it.... Since then, I have served him faithfully, although I |
have let him down many times. He has had to be very hard on me." |
Quirrell shivered suddenly. "He does not forgive mistakes easily. When I |
failed to steal the stone from Gringotts, he was most displeased. He |
punished me... decided he would have to keep a closer watch on me...." |
Quirrell's voice trailed away. Harry was remembering his trip to Diagon |
Alley -how could he have been so stupid? He'd seen Quirrell there that |
very day, shaken hands with him in the Leaky Cauldron. |
Quirrell cursed under his breath. |
"I don't understand... is the Stone inside the mirror? Should I break |
it?" |
Harry's mind was racing. |
What I want more than anything else in the world at the moment, he |
thought, is to find the Stone before Quirrell does. So if I look in the |
mirror, I should see myseff finding it -- which means I'll see where |
it's hidden! But how can I look without Quirrell realizing what I'm up |
to? |
He tried to edge to the left, to get in front of the glass without |
Quirrell noticing, but the ropes around his ankles were too tight: he |
tripped and fell over. Quirrell ignored him. He was still talking to |
himself. "What does this mirror do? How does it work? Help me, Master!" |
And to Harry's horror, a voice answered, and the voice seemed to come |
from Quirrell himself |
"Use the boy... Use the boy..." |
Quirrell rounded on Harry. |
"Yes -- Potter -- come here." |
He clapped his hands once, and the ropes binding Harry fell off. Harry |
got slowly to his feet. |
"Come here," Quirrell repeated. "Look in the mirror and tell me what you |