Chapter 18
Dumbledore awoke harshly, feeling the shock that went through the school's wards and instantly grabbed his wand from his nightdesk. Something had happened to the stone, he could tell that much from the wards themselves but at this point he couldn't tell what. It was still in the castle, that much he knew but a magical schockwave had just rolled over the school. The wards had absorbed the brunt of the impact and had done their job protecting the school but he had to go down there and check on the stone. It had to be safe for his plans to work.
Dumbledore wiped the troll blood of his wand with the end of his bright blue robes and waved his wand casually, the black flames ahead of him bending and contorting to his will. They fought him for a moment or two, their will to live dwarfing the old man's willpower temporarily, but eventually they conceded. The flames went out with a whoosh, throwing up ash and soot around the room that was instantly cleared away with a flick of Dumbledore's wand. The Headmaster or Hogwarts made a long sweeping motion with the Elder Wand and the wall exploded silently, bricks flying out away from him into the room ahead of him, each one smashing upon the cold hard floor and sending soot and dust flying about everywhere. He made one last sweeping motion with the wand and all the dust and soot and fragments of the newly exploded bricks disappeared, leaving behind a room with cracked glass on the floor and an empty mirror frame.
"Fuck," swore Dumbledore under his breath, marching into the room with his wand at his side. Muttering to himself again and again, he performed some long complicated movements with his wand, silently of course, and the shards that lay scattered across the floor floated up into the air and rearranged themselves into the mirror frame like they had not been broken before. Dumbledore looked at himself in the mirror for what must have been the 100th time in the last couple of weeks, but this time, unlike before when he had done so countless times, the figures did not appear. He remained alone, and he knew the Mirror of Erised was gone. It was but a simple mirror.
Turning away, he raised his wand once more and swept the room whilst whirling around, his surrounding glowing a deep blue then changing to a blood red and eventually returning to their previous colour. "Fuck," swore Dumbledore once more his grip on his wand tightening so hard that a normal wand would have splintered, but not the Elder wand. The stone was gone, taken, and someone had walked through all his defences with relative ease. It was out of the castle, otherwise he would have felt its presence through the wards that were erected for the school's protection and his own personal uses. Worse, it had been a student, or a group of students, that had bypassed everything. The magic that lingered in the room was too soft and too fragile to be that of an adult's, and there were several variations to it.
Dumbledore waved his wand and the mirror exploded into nothingness, and he was left standing with his wand in his hand. All his plans down the drain, thwarted by a group of school children. He could still make this work, he assured himself. After all, a fake stone would be all that he'd need to lure out Voldemort. He'd need to ask Quirrel for a new troll however, and Hagrid wasn't going to be happy knowing that Fluffy lay dead on the floor above him. The defenses needed to upped as well, but he could make this work. First things first, how the hell was he going to explain this to Nicholas Flamel?
"Mr Potter," said Professor McGonagall walking into the common room, drawing the attention of everyone present. She very rarely went into there, instead choosing to let her lions enjoy their free time and when she did it it was always for a good reason. "I have been asked by Professor Dumbledore to take you to his office."
"Why Professor?" asked Thomas Potter standing up from his game of Exploding Snap. Unfortunately for him, it was at this moment that the pile decided to explode, and right into his face as well. "Damn it!" he swore slapping his eyebrows to put out the left one that had caught fire.
"Langauge Mr Potter," said McGonagall dryly, still waiting for him. "If you're done, are you going to follow me?" she asked with a withering glare.
"Come on in," said Dumbledore gently right as Thomas Potter was about to knock on the door, and the heavy door swung open dramatically to reveal the Headmaster of Hogwarts and a thin wiry old man that Thomas recognised from his set of chocolate frog cards that he had accumulated over several years.
"You're Nicholas Flamel!" said Thomas, his mouth hanging agape as he walked into the room.
"I am, boy, and I would greatly appreciate it if you would shut your mouth. You catch a blibbering humdinger if you keep it open any longer," Flamel snapped grumpily making Thomas blush and snap his mouth shut.
"Now now Nicholas," began Dumbledore jovially, "be a little nicer. The boy's just surprised, that's all," he said gesturing for Thomas to take a seat. Thomas sat upon a heavily decorated plush armchair in the office, his cheeks ablaze. "Now, Thomas, we just have a few questions to ask you." Thomas nodded, letting him continue. "Firstly, have you been near the third corridor?"
Thomas's heart stopped all of a sudden- how did they know? "No, sir," he managed to squeak out.
"Do you know what currently lies in the third corridor?" Dumbledore pushed on relentlessly.
"No, sir," Thomas squeaked again, his eyes drifting to Flamel who was staring intently at him. He averted his eyes quickly, lookong into his lap.
"Are you sure about that?" asked Dumbledore, eyes cold and hard.
"No sir," Thomas repeated.
Dumbledore took a long, hard look into Thomas's eyes, which had almost involuntarily come up to meet the Headmaster. "Very well," said Dumbledore eventually. "You may go," he said and the door swung open dramatically. As Thomas left, the door swung closed but he could hear the hard voice of Nicholas Flamel yelling at Dumbledore.
"You said he knew where the stone was, you lemon-drop sucking dingbat!"
"Are you sure about it?" asked Harry, looking Neville dead in the eyes.
"Of course I'm sure. You idiot of a brother was rambling on about it so loudly in the common room that the giant squid could hear it," snapped Neville having explained to Harry about the situation with the stone Neville was the boy who was known as squib in Hogwarts but one day near the lake he had met Harry and his friends and they had got together very well Harry used to teach Neville how to perform magic and Neville used to spy in Gryffindor for Harry.
"Then what are we going to do?" Harry asked everyone in the room, pacing frantically. "If Flamel finds out it was us, we could get arrested. I'm too handsome to go to Azkaban!" Harry whined.
"We could return the stone, but you know, not say it was from us," suggested Rigel.
"That's brilliant," Harry said, his cheerfullness returning. "If things go our way, we could even get him to agree to a favour or two." He jumped up from his crouching position on his bed and pulled out a sheet of parchment and a quill. Dipping it in the pot of ink on his desk, he began to write. "Dear Nicholas Flamel..." be began aloud.
"Awww," cooed Perenelle Flamel in their manor on their extensive estate in France, letting the small, ruffled brown owl into their house. Generally the wards would have stopped the owl but this time they had detected something important in the package and had decided to let the owl through. "Nicholas dear!" she called out, taking the ltter from the owl which came with a small pouch. "There's a letter for you!"
"Coming Perenelle," replied the rough voice of Nicholas Flamel. The effects of not having the stone's elixer were already starting to show, and he had given all of their remaining stock to his wife and had taken none for himself. "How did this get through the wards?" he asked, and Perenelle simply shrugged. "Dear Lord Flamel," he began aloud.
"I write to you to let you know about the Philosopher's stone that was stolen by me and my friends. In a fit of childishness, I foolishly presumed you had no further need for the stone as you had given it to a man that employed such weak measures to protect it. Alas, it came to my attention that this was a mistake on our part and a slight misjudgement on yours, for the methods Albus Dumbledore used to protect the stone were easily bypassed by me and my friends, a group of 11 year olds. I write to you in apology, and offer you back the stone.
However, to make sure you will not reveal who we are, we have enclosed a magically binding contract. You and your wife should sign it, and as a show of trust we have enclosed a vial of the elixer with the letter. Sign the contract and send it back to us, and we will return the stone to you. If you do not sign it, we shall destroy the stone. Again, we bid you no harm but we wish to protect ourselves.
There will come a time in the future where we will call upon you for a favour, and you will answer, though the favour shall be fair. Finally, do not trust Albus Dumbledore. He is not all that he seems.
With good regards,
Your anonymous thieves and benefactors."
"Well?" asked Perenelle.
"I'm going to do as they say," admitted Nicholas. "They're a group of 11 year olds, incredibly bright and obviously wishing no harm. They could have kept the stone for themselves." He pulled out a quill and began to write.
Harry opened the letter with scrambling fingers, tearing it open as soon as the brown owl handed it off to him. He read through the letter several times as if he couldn't believe what he had just read, his friends watching him curiously and intently. "So?" Draco finally asked.
"He signed it," said Harry, smiling.
"I'll get the stone from my trunk upstairs," said Rigel and he walked out of the room.
"Daph, Tracey, help me get out the potions equipment again," said Harry excitedly.
"Why?" questioned Daphne.
"Before we give the stone back to Flamel, let's keep some elixer for ourselves. We have enough money, but the elixer of life could be very useful," Harry said with a grin. "I'll go get the unicorn hair and acromantula venom."
Dumbledore leaned back in plush armchair in his bedroom, fingers touching and in deep thought. How was he meant to get Thomas Potter's interest in the stone again? He knew Thomas suspected that the stone had been stolen, after all a little legilimency went a long way, but he still needed to keep his interest locked. Thomas needed to confront Voldemort at the end of the year, purely for Dumbledore to be sure of Thomas's allegiance and where his magical abilities stood but also to check he had his mother's protection with him.
A couple hints here and there that the stone was still in the third corridor, and perhaps a slight forgetfulness potion could work. He'd need to calculate the correct dose of course, but Severus would be willing. He wouldn't tell the potions master obviously and would just say it was a little project of his. Perhaps an overheard conversation could also help convince the young boy that someone still layed a threat to the stone.
The stone was long gone by now; Flamel had owled him saying that a mysterious benefactor had returned it and had cut off relations with him. No one else knew the stone was no longer at Hogwarts, with Dumbledore's own skill in alchemy sufficient enough to create a fake one. It would be good enough to fool Voldemort and most definitely fool Thomas.
Yes, yes, that could all work. All he had to do was make sure nothing else went wrong.
After a few months, exams were here. The rest of the school year passed without notable incident, unless of course you count the day when a prank from Fred and George misfired and turned the Gryffindors robes see thorugh for the whole day, both boys and girls. Needless to say, there were a lot of red faces, wolf whistles and a remarkable number of prank spells cast at the Weasley twins.
In the weeks leading up to the exams, everyone could be seen in a bustling huddle of quills, ink and parchment and sometimes in empty classrooms practising their spellwork. Some had had started revising way before others
They all had both practical exams and theory exams, apart from History of Magic where you couldn't take a practical exam. It was sweltering hot, especially in the large classroom where they did their written papers. They had been given special, new quills for the exams, which had been bewitched with an AntiCheating spell. All in all, theory wasn't too bad unless you counted History of Magic where it was a 1 hour grind of non-stop writing.
Thier practical exams were much more interesting, though it could be argued that they were harder. Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a pineapple tapdance across a desk. Harry managed to give his a little top hat, suit and cane in the process and made it dance so vivaciously that Flitwick compared it to Charlie Chaplin, a famous muggle dancer that was a favourite of the short man. His brother, Harry had heard through Neville, somehow managed to make the pineapple combust. How, even Flitwick wasn't too sure.
Professor McGonagall watched them turn a mouse into a snuffbox - points were given for how pretty the snuffbox was, but taken away if it had whiskers. Snape made them all nervous, breathing down their necks despite the fact they were Slytherins while they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion; the irony was alomst laughable. Harry managed to concoct a near perfect brew, the colour turning a milky white towards the end. Others hadn't been quite as lucky, with Weasley's potion blowing up in his face and Granger accidentally spilling hers onto her lap. Although Snape being extra mean towards them couldn't have helped.
At last, the only test that remained for Defense Against the Dark Arts' practical exam, and although Quirrel was an incompetent swine, Harry didn't put it past him to expect them to perfectly cast the few spells he had taught them over the course of the year.
"I can't possibly cram any more information into my brain," Daphne whined, slamming her book shut so loudly she received a withering glare from the school librarian, Madame Pince.
Harry looked up from his own book, his hair wild and messy. "You can go back to the common room you know," he remarked and lowered and eyes to read.
"How long are you going to be?" Daphne whined again, attempting to straighten out the clumps in her generally immaculate hair. All their friends had gone by now and were probably fast asleep in their comfy beds. She and Harry had opted to stay and revise for a while longer, but now even she was also tired.
"Daphne," Harry said lowering his book to fully reveal his face, "Go. I'll be fine; I just need to finish reading this chapter."
"Fine," agreed Daphne, and she stood up for the first time in 2 hours and began packing up. "Don't be long though," she added, picking up her books and placing them in her bookbag.
"I won't," Harry saved and waved her off. Unfortuantely for him, his newfound peace and quiet was going to soon be disturbed by 3 idiots.
"You know," came a high-pitched voice calling snobbishly, "you really shouldn't be going there! The third-floor corridor is off limits for a reason!" Harry immediately identified it as Granger, though she was perhaps the one first-year that was in love with rules that much.
"If you have such a problem with us going there, why you don't you go away and mind you own business!" shouted Weasley. Harry sighed- he really should have known that wherever Granger went, Weasley was bound to go there as well. He waited patiently for his brother's feeble voice to come squeaking out, trying to settle things between his 2 friends, and it did.
"Both of you," snapped Thomas, "can you just stop arguing?"
"Finally got your pet monkeys under control Thomas?" Harry asked having snuck up on the unsuspecting trio. All three of them whirled around, stumbling and nearly falling flat on their faces as they tried to do so.
"Just go away Hadrian. This is none of your business!" snapped Thomas smugly as if he thought that would be enough.
"Yeah!" agreed Weasley, "No one wants a slimy snake like you around. Now get out of here unless you wanna eat slugs!"
"I'd like to see you try, Weasley. Remember what happened last time?" retorted Harry. "I think Granger does," Harry teased, the memory of Granger eating slugs still vivid in his mind. Hermione remembered it well enough as well considering the fact that Harry saw her recoil slightly, but apart from that she gave no other inclination that hse had been fazed by that.
"You surely can't beat all of us," bragged Granger smugly bringing out her wand as well, "so face it. There's three of us and only one of you."
"Fine! Fine!" Harry admitted sneakily dropping his wand into his sleeve. "I'll go now." He raised both of his wands and slowly walked away, not at all threatened by the 3 wands pointed at him. As soon as he disappeared out of sight, the 3 Gryffindors turned away thinking Harry was gone. Harry peeked around the corner he had vanished behind and pointed his wand as his brother, murmuring under his breath. A small splodge of paint shot out of the wand and attached itself to Thomas's foot, silently. It was a prank spell that left behind a green trail where ever you went and Harry wanted to know what they were up to.
His quick thinking proved useful; a moment or two later, the 3 of them disappeared under Thomas's invisibility cloak. Realistically, the cloak should have been Harry's, with him being the eldest child, but James had given it to Thomas instead (surprise, surprise) and his Grandfather couldn't do much about it and even harry was least bothered. Harry donned his own Demiguise-hair cloak and followed, right to the third-floor corridor.
Harry wanted to cry. He had been following his brother for almost an hour now and what he had done had shocked him. They were currently inside the third-floor corridor, only 3 of them as Weasley had fallen to the chess board, staring at the bottles lined up on the table. Had Thomas forgotten the stone was no longer in Hogwarts? He had been the one shouting about it in the first place. He was so idiotic that he had probably forgotten by now, Harry reasoned.
The 3 idiots had gotten past the wild hippogriff well enough (that was new from the last time Harry had been in there) by playing some horrible ear-screeching music on a flute that looked liked it used to be a dog's chew toy, but after that it was all downhill. They were so slow in getting through the Devil's Snare that they almost got strangled, though they did fine in the end. Even Harry cringed when Granger started saying there was 'no wood.' It took them well over 15 minutes to get the flying key, by flying on the broom stick, and they almost got pecked to death in the process. And of course they left the brooms behind when they entered the chess room.
Weasley had 'heroically' taken charge and in the end sacrificed himself thinking there was no other way. Dramatic much? And then they'd reached the potions challenge. Thomas had given up in the first 10 seconds, slumping down on the ground complaining how they were going to be stuck there forever, whilst Granger had actually taken some initative and started to rub her two solitary braincells together over the problem. She'd been at for over 15 minutes now, whilst it had taken Harry barely 2 minutes to do it. He'd been following them all the way, hidden under his Demiguise-hair cloak, whilst they had emerged from his brother's invisibility cloak. He couldn't help them obviously, and he'd made sure to only follow them once they'd passed the challenge. He valued his life too much to blindly jump in there with them.
"I've got it!" Granger finally cried, her face breaking into delight like she'd managed to solve the secrets of the Universe. "It's the smallest bottle," she said excitedly hurrying over and picking up the bottle with hardly any liquid in it. Harry grudgingly gave that to her, though he knew he had done it faster.
"There's only enough there for one of us," Thomas noted and Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
"That's hardly one swallow."
They looked at each other. "Which one will get you back through the purple flames?" Hermione pointed at a rounded bottle at the right end of the line. "You drink that," said Thomas. "No, listen, get back and get Ron. Grab brooms from the flying- key room, they'll get you out of the trapdoor and past Fluffy - go straight to the owlery and send my owl, Merlin, to Dumbledore, we need him. I'll hold the slimy git off until then."
"But Thomas - what if You-Know-Who's with him?" simpered Hermione.
"Relax. I've beat him before, haven't I?" asked Thomas pointing to the V on his cheek. Harry did roll his eyes this time- only if he knew the truth- and tuned out the rest of their awkward goodbye and mushy moments. He only tuned back in when Granger had left and his brother picked up the bottle and drank as much as he could. Thomas shivered for a moment and then walked through the black flames onto the other side.
Harry dashed forward as soon as he did and picked up the bottle that lay on its side on the table, holding it up to his eye so could see. There were a couple drops of potion left inside and he hoped they would be enough. He brought the bottle to his lips and emptied it out fully, letting it fall to the floor. He shivered and took a deep breath and walked through the flames, still wearing his cloak.
The flames only tickled and he soon stepped through only to see his brother and Quirrel face to face. "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!"
"But Snape tried to kill me!" replied Thomas unbelieving
"No, no, no. No one tried to kill you! It was all an accident when instead I," Quirrel suddenly paused as if he had just heard something. "It doesn't matter anyway when after all that, I'm going to kill you tonight," he replied cheerfully. Quirrel snapped his fingers again and suddenly Thomas began moving towards him. "Down to business!" Quirrel exclaimed and turned away.
Harry could only watch in shock as the events unfurled before his eyes- he hadn't suspected anyone would be after the stone, let alone Quirrel who was afraid of his own shadow. He took several deep breaths and crept up behind Quirrel, and only then did he see the shimmering ball suspended in the air. Inside it, Harry could see a faint red outline- the stone!
"Of course Dumbledore came up with us- trust him to do exactly that. But how do I get past this master?" asked Quirrel to himself, or at least that's what Harry and Thomas both thought. To both of their horror, a dry voice answered.
"Use the boy...use the boy."
"Of course, of course!" exclaimed Quirrel. He flicked his hand and ropes released Thomas, who screeched over forcefully in front of the shimmering ball. "Tell me! Tell me how to get the stone!" asked Quirrel frantically. There was a glowing light from the ball but neither Thomas nor Quirrel noticed it- Harry saw this but didn't know what it meant, and he saw a small object sink into Thomas's trouser pocket.
"I-I don't know!" whined Thomas.
"He lies... He lies..."
"Potter, come back here!" Quirrell shouted. "Tell me the truth! What did you just see?"
The high voice spoke again. "Let me speak to him... face-to-face..." "
Master, you are not strong enough!"
"I have strength enough... for this..." Both Potters watched dumbfounded as Quirrel unfurled his turban and turned away from Thomas. On the back on his head was a greying, cracked face with slits for eyes. Voldemort. "See what I have become, Potter," the face spat and began the evil monologue...
"SEIZE HIM!" shouted the face at the end of said evil monologue, and Quirrel raised his own hand to grab Thomas. Harry sprung into action, his limbs able to move once again. He brought out his hand and murmured a spell, accidentally hitting Thomas instead of Quirrel. Thomas was thrown against the side of the chamber and was knocked out instantly and Quirrel turned to where the spell had come from. Harry dramatically pulled the cloak from his head and threw a stunner at Quirrel that missed.
"Of course the other Potter is here as well." Quirrel smiled and snapped his fingers and the same ropes that bound Thomas sprung up around Harry. "I've been trying to kill you all year, you know," said Quirrel merrily like he was discussing the weather.
"Wait what?" asked Harry struggling against the ropes. His wand lay in his hand but he couldn't move it to get out of the ropes.
"Oh yes! I was actually aiming for you at the Quidditch match when that oaf Hagrid bumped into me. It shook my aim onto you imbecile of a brother instead," explained Quirrel.
"Then why didn't you tell Thomas that?" asked Harry. "I'm sure he'd love to know that," spat Harry. He was doing his best to distract Quirrel and keep his attention on him not his hands which were furiously working to undo the ropes.
"Would he?" asked Quirrel smiling. "Yes, yes, I'm sure he would love to know all about how he's not the boy-who-lived when instead it's you." Quirrel smiled and took Harry's silence as shock, continuing on. "You're the boy-who-lived Hadrian Potter. My master aimed at you that night and his aim was true but some deep magic prevented you from dying. You were abandoned by your parents, Potter," continued Quirrel and suddenly the voice switched to a dry, raspy one.
"Join me, Potter. Join me and and take revenge on those who abandoned you thinking you were worthless." Quirrel turned away from Harry, who finally came face to face with Voldemort himself. "Help me get the stone and I will reward you beyond imagination."
"Are you sure about that? My imagination's quite active," quipped Harry, one hand finally free from the constraining ropes. "And you didn't realise one thing about me Voldy," began Harry grasping his wand tightly. "I've known I was the boy-who-lived for all these years." Harry brought his wand up to Voldemort's cracked face and yelled, "Confringo!" A jet of blue light shot out of Harry's wand and hit Voldemort right in the face. Him and Quirrel both exploded in fine dust and debris, scattering all over the room. A pale ghost flew out of the room leaving Harry alone.
Harry rushed over to Thomas and checked his pulse- he was breathing. With fumbling hands, he removed the stone from Thomas's pocket and held it curiously. He could tell it was a fake- the real stone radiated magic so intense even an 11 year old could feel it. This one didn't and must have been a trap to lure Voldemort into the chamber. Just to be safe, Harry smashed the stone onto the ground through pure force, the rock fragmenting into hundreds of tiny pieces. He had one more thing to do. He pulled out Thomas's invisibility cloak from his brother's pocket and replaced it with his own Demiguise hair one. The cloak was rightfully his and his brother was too much of an idiot to notice.
He got up and walked out of the room, stealing one last glance at his brother who lay knocked out on the floor. Dumbledore was coming to get him. Harry stepped into the black flames and to the other side.
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