The Greedy Frog
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HP: The Salazar's Heir Chapter 41
🕑 Added 2024-02-26 16:58:30 +0000 UTCChapter 41: The Man With No Faces
Quirinus, the man with two faces, Quirrell, was now left with only half the faces he had.
“PoTtE–”
“AhhhahAhh!”
Half on both sides.
“How are they alive?” Ron gasped, seeing the horrendous sight in front of him. “They don’t even have half their faces!”
Quirrell had his face ripped from the explosion and was wriggling on the ground in agonizing pain.
“Ahhhh!”
Hermione’s face morphed into a look of sheer disgust as she saw Quirrell’s right side of the face melted and his skull semi-visible.
“By Merlin…” Ron scowled, “He is alive.”
It was a miracle that he was not dead, as even Sebastian shuddered when he saw the condition the man was in.
However, he also noticed something concerning going on with his other face—namely Voldemort.
“Harry!” Sebastian yelled, “Grab him, don’t let him recover!”
Why did he say that? Because the damaged face of Voldemort was trying to recover.
“PoTtAhhh!”
Sebastian readied his wand, prepared to strike the evil professor down again if needed. However, the moment Harry reached near the wriggling worm of a man—something unexpected happened.
Something that none of them had anticipated.
Quirrell, the man who was at death's door, gripped Harry’s foot. His only healthy eye stared furiously at Harry, and with the utmost venom and pain in his voice, he groaned, “I will kill you, Pot–”
However, it was at that point that they all experienced something unbelievable.
“AhhhhHh!”
Bursting out in another horrendous and blood-wrenching screech was Quirrell, and this time—the fate he suffered was worse.
The hand that he gripped Harry with started to break out in blisters and burn off. Raw, red flesh dripped down from the bone of his hand as the professor cried out.
“How?!” Hermione gasped, but she understood what happened.
And so did the rest.
“Grab his head, Harry!” Ron yelled.
“Now!” followed Sebastian’s shout.
None of them knew how it worked, but they noticed that the moment the man touched Harry, he suffered.
‘Why did that happen?’ Sebastian wondered, ‘Protection charm? But Harry never–”
Then it clicked.
‘That time!’ The time when he was coming back from the ministry, Dumbledore told him about the sacrificial protective charm that Harry’s late mother cast on him. ‘Is that it?’
It didn’t matter.
What mattered was getting rid of Quirrell. And while Sebastian did notice Harry acting a bit weak after Quirrell touched him, he didn’t pay much attention.
“Harry!” What he did was shout at Harry to prevent Voldemort from possibly healing Quirrell or escaping away.
Harry, the spectacled boy of miracles, jumped on top of the half-burnt man, and while he was feeling weak –he still gripped the skull of the two-faced man with his utmost strength.
Not letting go of the man despite his screams or jerks.
“It's working!”
It was.
As Harry grabbed onto the man’s head, the entire pale face of the bald man started to form boils and blisters, expanding and blowing up like balloons.
“Don’t let go!” Ron yelled, noticing that it was working.
However, what they failed to notice was that the longer Harry kept holding onto the man, the weaker his grip got and so did his body.
Sebastian noticed this and thus immediately rushed towards Harry.
“This is for the Quidditch match!” Harry yelled, and in that instance, the boils on the face of the man exploded, and his entire body began to burn and crumble down.
“Harry!”
Before turning into dust, and causing a weakened Harry to fall down—drained and exhausted.
“Harry…” Sebastian barely got on time to grab the boy from falling and possibly hitting his head.
However, as they all focused on Harry, letting the professor crumble to dust—a certain dark smoke exploded around them, screaming in fury.
“HaRrY PoTtEr!” The voice was none other than Voldemort’s, “AnD SlYtHeRiN! YoU sHaLl PaY!”
Quirrell lay dead, his body turned to dust, and Voldemort managed to escape in his smoky form while Sebastian stood holding onto the unconscious Harry.
‘I don’t have any soul-targeting spells…’ Sebastian gnashed his teeth, frustrated at being unable to do anything about the escaping smoke of a man.
“Harry!” Ron and Hermione rushed to their friend's aide, disregarding the escaping threat.
“He lost consciousness,” Sebastian explained. “Possibly a result of whatever magic was protecting him from Quirrell.”
He carefully let Ron hold the unconscious boy while he dusted off his clothes.
“W-Will he be alright?” Ron asked, deeply worried about his friend.
“He seems fine, just… exhausted,” Sebastian said. “We all are.”
Saying this, he stood a bit away from them, allowing them to tend to Harry.
‘It’s over, huh?’ He finally took a relieved breath, still filled with the stench of dust, smoke, and burnt flesh. But even then, he felt at peace.
After all the trouble, there was one thing that satisfied him—a certain smile he had been hiding, along with a certain realization.
“Sebastian?” Hermione called, and the boy looked at her.
“Yeah?”
This time, both Ron and Hermione showed Sebastian a kind smile. “Thank you,” they said. “Thank you for helping us and protecting Harry.”
Sebastian broke out in a smile of his own. “That is not something you should be thanking me for. We all were in this together, and I am glad I was able to find the culprit behind the recent incidents.”
This made the pair feel embarrassed for doubting Sebastian in the past.
“We are sorry for doubting you,” they apologized sincerely.
“It’s fine,” Sebastian shook his head. “Anyone would have thought the same. But I am glad I have been able to clear up the misunderstanding.”
After all, there was no point in making unnecessary enemies.
“But you should take him to the healer for now,” Sebastian suggested. “He seems fine, but he still needs to be looked after for a bit.”
“And you?” Hermione inquired, wondering what the boy was up to.
“I will look around the place; there might be something that Quirrell might have hidden,” he explained. “Since he was responsible for letting the troll inside and all the other things. I need to check if he left behind anything that might cause trouble.”
“Do you need help?” Ron offered, but Sebastian declined.
“No, you focus on Harry. And I won’t be doing much either; I will just look around and if I find something, I will let the headmaster know,” Sebastian assured them.
“Oh, but be safe,” Hermione said, concerned. “If you notice something weird, come out immediately.”
“I will.”
That was the last thing he said before Hermione and Ron carried Harry out of the trap room, leaving Sebastian behind.
The boy stood alone, realizing that now there was no one else in that chamber.
“Let's look into this magical mirror first,” he thought as he took a step forward, then paused. “Or maybe not.”
He recalled Harry having a hard time trying to get out of the hallucinations caused by it.
“It's better to focus on the major thing.”
The major thing, the thing that led them all there.
“The Philosopher’s Stone.”
Taking out the stone from his inventory, he stared at the beautiful gemstone.
Red as blood and hard as a diamond.
“It doesn’t feel anything special,” he mused, noticing that the only striking feature about the stone was the enormous amount of magical energy stored inside.
“What if I put my magic inside it?” A dangerous thought, but one that he was willing to bet on. “Worth a try, I believe.”
Maybe it was a bad idea, but he was known for being too curious—a trait he inherited from his grandfather.
“Let’s see…”
And with that, he poured quite an enormous amount of magical energy into the stone, which for a solid few seconds did nothing.
But after what felt like a few minutes, the stone started to glow a bright yet dark shade of crimson.
“Huh?”
But was that enough to surprise Sebastian?
Of course not.
“I knew that this stone had some relation to Hogwarts…”
The glow of the stone wasn’t enough.
But the corner of the room, that glowed a similar shade of crimson… was enough.
“Grandfather was right,” he smiled. “Exploration in Hogwarts… never ends.”
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[[A/N: I mean… Considering Nicolas Flamel and Dumbledore were kind of good friends, it is not an impossible task to create something that mixes both Hogwarts and The Philosopher’s Stone.
P.S. As for how Quirrell looked after the explosion, it was something like this (Gus scene from Breaking Bad)
]]
