Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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Harriet had told Ron and Hermione the truth about her bad dreams that had started after the winter recess.
With endless questions and odd clues swirling around in her mind, Harriet's nightmares worsened after Hermione found the scrap of newspaper that fell from their suspicious professor's pocket.
A flash of green.
A sting of pain in her scar.
The horrible vengeance in a huge snake's unfeeling eyes.....
Harriet woke with a shout and a violent shake, drenched in sweat as she whimpered.
She rose from her bed, changed her clothes, and lay back down to sleep, but she knew she would not find any peace.
Each night had become a new terror.
Harriet's bad dreams gradually worsened as the end of the school year approached.
She tossed and turned so restlessly in bed after each horrible vision that most nights, she found herself unable to get much sleep at all.
Severus noticed the dark circles under his daughter's eyes as she sat in Potions class each day while the final weeks of the semester droned on.
It was Severus who eventually sent Harriet to the Hospital Wing, where Madam Pomfrey gave her a bottle filled with Sleeping Draught for her to take each night.
Harriet swallowed her prescribed medicine, but the magical mixture did nothing to stop the terrors that tormented her after she closed her eyes.
As she lay in a fitful sleep one evening, she could see it as clearly as if it happened right in front of her.......
In her dream, she followed Professor Quirrell as he walked down the stone corridor to a distant part of the castle.
Harriet watched as he opened a hidden passage and made his way down a stone staircase into a strange room illuminated by flaming torches.
She grit her teeth in her sleep as she saw her father standing in the room, waiting for Quirrell.
The two men snarled in fits of rage as they each raised their wands to point at the other.......
Quirrel pulled back with a great shout and sent a curse flying directly towards her father.
Before Harriet could see what happened next, she woke from her sleep as she sat bolt upright in bed as a dry gasp escaped her throat.
She didn't bother to wake her roommates or send for Professor McGonagall.
Instead, she leapt from her bed, grabbed her night robe, and hurriedly pulled it on as she rushed out of her dormitory.
Filch and Mrs. Norris became the least of Harriet's concerns as she raced through the castle to retrace the path she had watched her evil teacher take.
As Harriet opened the door to the hidden passage that her dream had revealed, her heart thumped in her chest.
She hoped she wouldn't be too late to stop the entirety of her latest nightmare from coming true.
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Whether by some ability she had inherited from Voldemort or by her own magical competency, Harriet had indeed witnessed a partially true event in her dreams that night.
Quirinus Quirrell stood in that secret room as he prepared to summon Voldemort to his side with the Philosopher's Stone in his pocket and the truth he had recently uncovered dancing in his mind.
He unfastened his sleeve, rolled it up past his Dark Mark tattoo, and removed his wand from his robes as a grin of anticipatory excitement curled his lips.
Quirrell pressed the tip of his wand to his Dark Mark and opened his mouth, but a low, familiar voice spoke first.
"-Pardon me, Professor Quirrell, but the duty you're about to perform lies with me, not you."
Quirrell scowled as he whirled around to face Severus, who walked down the stone steps that opened into the secret room with his black robes billowing elegantly alongside his tall, imposing frame.
"HA!" Quirrell laughed as he took his wand away from his Dark Mark, "Plans change all the time, Snape, but not this one, not tonight....Do you think I'm a fool?!"
Severus held his usual, unreadable expression of stoic calm on his face as Quirrell glowered and asked, "Or perhaps......it is our Dark Lord himself who has become the real fool? His blind trust in you would have led to his ruin, but I will not stand idly by and watch such a thing happen!"
Severus's heart secretly fluttered in nervous tension as he steadily replied, "May I ask......of what you speak?"
"I know the truth, Severus......The great lie you've somehow convinced everyone to believe." Quirrell scoffed.
"Clearly, you must have fallen and hit your head again, Professor, just as you did on All Hallow's Eve when your lack of courage sent you colliding with.....the unforgiving stone floor." Severus quipped.
"I know about your daughter, Severus Snape!" Quirrell bellowed.
Severus paused as he silently stood in front of his enemy.
"I know the truth!" Quirrell insisted as he raged on, "I know where your loyalties lie! Not in the hands of our Dark Lord, but in the heart of-"
Severus rushed towards Quirrell in one frighteningly smooth motion.
His long, black robes flowed behind him like great, streaming trails of jet-black ink as he seized Quirrell by his collar and pushed him backwards until his spine slammed against the heavy column of an ancient pillar in the room.
"Perhaps it's you instead....Quirrell....who should be contemplating....where your true...loyalties....lie." Severus hissed as he hovered in front of his enemy's face.
Quirrell sucked in a breath as he gaped at Severus.
"You don't want me as your enemy......" Severus growled warningly.
Droplets of his saliva landed on Quirrell's face as he spoke, but Quirrell blinked the moisture away as he smiled wickedly at Severus and replied, ".......My enemy, Severus? Has my silence not proven that we can be friends?"
Severus sneered as he narrowed his dark eyes while Quirrell went on, "I've been kind enough to not yet reveal your greatest secret of all to the Dark Lord. I'd say that's an amiable gesture in itself, wouldn't you?"
Severus kept Quirrell in his grasp as his enemy laughed and explained, "I know the girl is not your daughter.....The girl's real father is-"
Footsteps interrupted their conversation.
Quirrell's gaze traveled past Severus, which caused him to whirl around and find Harriet standing on the stone steps that led into the room.
"Dad......?" Harriet asked.
Severus's dark eyes widened as he stared at Harriet and demanded, "How much have you heard?!"
"I haven't heard anything." Harriet blinked, "I only walked in and saw-"
Quirrell seized his opportunity.
He broke free of Severus's grasp as he slipped his wand from his pockets and sent a burst of light hurtling from its tip to crash into Severus with a great cry.
"AAAGGHH!" Severus roared as he flew across the room and landed roughly on the merciless stone floor.
"DAD!" Harriet shouted as she dashed towards her father.
Quirrell's evil laughter rang out as he walked over to Severus with slow, deliberate steps.
He held no empathy at all in his expression as he gazed down in malicious amusement at the sight of Severus Snape writhing on the cold floor beneath him while Harriet knelt at his side.
"Dad...." She whispered as her hands hovered over Severus.
He groaned as he tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his head.
His wand......
He had to reach for his wand......
Startled and unsure, Harriet watched her father's arm begin to move towards his pocket.
Unfortunately, Quirrell took notice too.
"CRUCIO!" He shouted as he pointed the tip of his own wand at Severus again.
The cry of pure agony that left Severus's throat caused Harriet to shriek in response.
"AAAAAAAAGGGHHH!"
"STOP! STOP IT!"
Her emerald eyes widened in horror as she watched Quirrell hold his wand over her father while Severus's pale face twisted in misery.
His body convulsed with incomprehensible agony as his mouth fell wide open even after he lost the ability to scream.
A gurgling gasp bubbled from his throat and seemed to shake Harriet out of her stupefied trance as she narrowed her eyes at Quirrell and commanded again, "STOP IT!"
Quirrell glanced over at her just in time to see her pull her wand out, only then did Severus gain a momentary reprieve.
"EXPELLIARMUS!" Quirrell shouted after he ended his curse and pointed his wand at Harriet.
A single bolt of light crashed into her chest, knocked her wand out of her hand, and sent her sailing across the room to smash into the stone wall.
Harriet gasped involuntarily as the impact knocked the air from her lungs.
She groaned as she sank to the floor and struggled to keep her eyes open.
Through her blinking eyelids, she saw Quirrell turn back to Severus.
No........
She watched him raise his wand towards her father again.
No.........
She clenched her jaw as Quirrell smiled maniacally while he happily cried once more, "CRUCIO!"
A burst of hideous, red light rushed from the tip of his wand and slammed into Severus as the torture curse once again drew a scream of unmitigated suffering from his lips.
"AAAAGGHHHH!"
Harriet used Severus's scream as a way to gather her courage and center her heart.
She heaved for breath as she slowly, shakily stood to her feet.
Wandless, but determined to defend her father, she charged across the room towards his assailant.
Quirrell had become so engrossed in his torment of Severus that he hadn't even considered the possibility of his youngest victim quickly recovering.
By the time he realized that footsteps pounded towards him, it was already too late....
Quirrell turned on his heel.
His eyes bulged in his head as he watched Harriet launch herself at him.
She ignored the frightening notion that she had no idea what to do after she landed, but her instinct advised her to knock his wand from his hand first.
As Harriet collided with Quirrell, she reached out and grabbed his fist, intent on wrestling his wand away.
The results of her attack were far superior than she had imagined.
"AAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH!"
Quirrell shrieked wildly as soon as Harriet touched his skin.
It started as an intolerable burning sensation, then pain came from his splintering, dissolving bones.
Harriet's mouth fell open after she bounced off of Quirrell while she watched his wand fall to the floor as the flesh of his hand turned grey, cracked, and crumbled into chunks of dust.
"W-What.....What have you done to me?!" Quirrell snarled at Harriet in furious terror.
Harriet was too stunned to speak as she gawked at her wounded professor in horrified awe.
Before she had a chance to think, Quirrell stepped towards her with a hateful sneer.
He hissed as he reached out to grab her, "You little brat! I'm going to rip you limb from-"
Seeing no other way to protect herself and her father, Harriet relied on her inexplicable ability to achieve success.
Once Quirrell came close enough, she grit her teeth and pressed both of her hands to his face.
The bloodcurdling scream that erupted from his throat sickened her to hear, but he staggered backwards instantly.
"Professor.....!" Harriet shouted as Quirrell put his only hand to his head.
His eyes turned a sickly shade of green as his pale face went grey.
He tried in vain to comfort himself as he pressed his handless arm against his cracking cheek before his body itself splintered like crushed marble and tumbled to the floor in chalky hunks, not of blood and bone, but of stone and dust.
Harriet sank to her knees in shock.
Her heart pounded in her ears as a wave of urgent nausea overcame her while the room began to spin.
The scar on her forehead throbbed with pain as she glanced around frantically.
She looked at Quirrell's....corpse....then at the Philosopher's Stone that stuck out of his pocket.
Finally, she glanced across the room at Severus, who lay unconscious, with his face still twisted in anguish.
"Dad!" Harriet choked as she hunched forward and reached towards him.
The corners of her vision started to fade as she cried again, ".........Dad!"
Harriet wanted to take him to the Hospital Wing and let Madam Pomfrey reassure her that he would be alright, but she couldn't.
Harriet couldn't do anything at all as she lost her own battle to maintain consciousness and fell face first into the dusty floor.
As she and Severus lay next to what remained of Quirinus Quirrell, the torches in that odd, hidden room burned brightly.
Hours later, elegant, velvet robes brushed over the stone tiles as Hogwarts' headmaster frowned at the disturbing scene.