Harry Potter and the Girl Who Never Died

Chapter Thirty-Five: Professor Quirrell

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." Quirrell completely ignored the rest, along with Camellia who was standing in front of Harry protectively like she had done in their crib all those years ago.

"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?"

Camellia growled. 

''Don't insult my uncle.'' Quirrell shivered as she delivered each syllable passively.

''U-uncle?''

''Uncle Severus. Brother to my father you idiot.'' She said in the same tone. 

''Then he's the brother of, T-tom, R-ri-d-dle??'' His stutter came back. 

''Yeah. Met him during Christmas at Riddle Manor.'' Draco inserted. 

Harry couldn't take it in. This couldn't be true, it couldn't.

"But Snape tried to kill you!" Camellia glared at him.

"No, no, no. I tried to kill her. Your friend Miss Granger knocked me over and set fire to me at that Quidditch match. She broke my eye contact with her. Another few seconds and I'd have got you off that broom. I would have given her a detention or expulsion for setting fire to a teacher, if I were able to do so without revealing myself of course... I'd have managed to kill her before then if Snape hadn't been muttering a counter curse, trying to save you."

"Snape was trying to save her?" Camellia sent Quirrell another harsh glare at Harry's question.

"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, this time to you. 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 both tonight." 

Quirrell snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of thin air and wrapped themselves tightly around Harry and Camellia. She sighed, and flames began to burn through the ropes. She turned to Harry as Quirrell tried to understand what just happened. 

''Severus isn't the man you think of him to be Harry. He's kind and loving, who smiles a lot when he's not around students who're always whispering shadows about him.'' 

This time, Quirrell snatched Camellia's wand away from her. Casting the same rope-binding spell on her. Draco and Ron ran forward, though they were knocked out almost instantly. Hermione and Neville tried to attack strategically, but Quirrel raised his wand, knocking those two unconscious as well. 

"You're too nosy to live, Riddle, 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?"

''Of course you did.'' She groaned.

"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.''