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Chapter 46: A Different Kind of Shield
🕑 Added 2025-09-07 08:03:43 +0000 UTCHarry and Ron stared at the unlocked door, their minds still struggling to process the sheer, casual efficiency with which Hermione had just broken through three legendary magical trials.
“Hurry up,” she called back, her voice echoing from the next chamber, laced with an impatient weariness. “The Dark Lord is waiting. Let’s get this over with so I can go to bed. I’m sleepy.”
The two boys scrambled after her, entering a vast, dark chamber with a floor made of a colossal wizard’s chessboard. On the far side, a set of giant, stone chess pieces stood guard, their forms silent and menacing.
“It’s a chess set,” Ron breathed, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and awe. “We’ll have to play our way across.”
“No, I’ll have to play our way across,” Hermione corrected, already striding toward the board. “You two are a liability.” She leaped onto the back of a stone knight. “Just do exactly what I say and try not to die.”
What followed was not so much a game of chess as it was a high-speed, strategic massacre. Hermione barked out coordinates with the cold, rapid-fire precision of a supercomputer.
“Knight to D5!” The stone horse clattered across the board. The opposing queen, a towering, merciless figure, glided forward and brought her stone sword down, shattering a Gryffindor pawn.
“Bishop to E6! Castle to C3! Queen takes pawn!”
The stone pieces crashed and exploded around them, a thunderous, violent symphony of destruction. Hermione played with a ruthless, sacrificial logic, treating her own pieces—and the squares her friends were occupying—as completely expendable assets in the pursuit of the fastest possible victory. Finally, after a terrifying series of moves that left both Harry and Ron pale and trembling, she shouted the final command.
“Checkmate!”
Her stone king slid across the board, and the opposing king was brutally chopped into a pile of rubble. The way was clear.
As they ran through the now-open door, Harry turned to Ron. “That was brilliant! But what about the potions riddle? I’m terrible at logic…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Hermione said, her face grim. She pointed her wand at Ron. “Stupefy!”
A jet of red light hit Ron square in the chest, and he collapsed, unconscious.
“Hermione, what are you doing?!” Harry yelled, horrified.
“There’s going to be a fight,” she said calmly, levitating Ron’s limp body. “His magical skill is, to be frank, abysmal. He would be a hindrance.” With a flick of her wand, Ron’s unconscious form floated back the way they came, a ghostly, self-piloting delivery service. “He’s safer this way.”
Harry stared at her, a new, cold fear in his heart. Her logic is flawless, he thought. But I’m not much better than Ron. Am I next?
It was too late to turn back now. He gritted his teeth and followed her into the final chamber.
Inside, a single, huge, ornate mirror stood in the center of the room. It was the Mirror of Erised. And standing before it, his back to them, was not Snape. It was the timid, stuttering, turban-wearing Professor Quirrell.
“You!” Harry gasped, his mind reeling. “It was you all along?”
The prejudice in the human heart, Hermione thought, hiding near the doorway, truly is a mountain.
Quirrell turned slowly, a strange, triumphant, and utterly insane smile on his face. He began to explain his evil plan, the classic villain monologue, detailing his servitude to his great master, Lord Voldemort. He had been thwarted at every turn, by Snape’s meddling and Dumbledore’s protections. But now, the final prize was within his grasp.
Dumbledore had enchanted the mirror. Only a person who wanted to find the Stone, but not use it, could retrieve it.
“Now, Potter,” Quirrell hissed. “Come here. Look in the mirror and tell me what you see.”
Harry, forced by Quirrell’s wand, stood before the mirror. He looked into the glass, and to his utter astonishment, his reflection smiled, pulled a blood-red stone from its pocket, and then placed it into Harry’s real-life pocket. He could feel the weight of it. He had the Stone.
“What do you see?” Quirrell demanded.
Harry, in a desperate attempt to stall for time, began to talk. And talk. And talk. He talked about his Quidditch prospects. He asked Quirrell if he’d had a nice day. The conversation was so absurdly, painfully mundane that Quirrell’s patience finally snapped.
A cold, high, hissing voice that seemed to come from nowhere echoed in the room. “He lies… Let me speak to him… face to face…”
Quirrell, his face a mask of terror, began to unwrap his purple turban. As the last of the fabric fell away, Harry saw it. On the back of Quirrell’s head, where a face should not be, was another face. It was chalk-white, with red, glowing, snake-like eyes and slits for nostrils. It was the face that had haunted his nightmares for ten years.
The sight of it sent a searing, white-hot agony through the scar on Harry’s forehead. He cried out and collapsed, unconscious.
“The Stone is in the boy’s pocket, Quirinus,” the face hissed. “Get it.”
Just as Quirrell’s hand reached for Harry’s pocket, a calm, almost cheerful voice came from the doorway.
“Recovering well from our little chat in the forest, are we, Professor?”
Hermione stepped into the room, a lazy, confident smile on her face.
“You!” Quirrell shrieked, recognizing her instantly. This was the girl with the strange, fire-spitting metal stick! The Quidditch maniac! A deep, burning hatred filled his eyes. “You’ll pay for that!” He raised his wand.
“Stand down, Quirinus!” Voldemort’s voice commanded. Quirrell trembled, a look of pain on his face. The face on the back of his head turned its red eyes to Hermione. “A girl of such talent… Join me. Serve me. And I will give you power beyond your wildest dreams.”
“Alright, alright,” Hermione said, waving a dismissive hand. “You’re barely a parasite clinging to the back of a failed academic. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. And I want the Philosopher’s Stone. Are you going to give it to me?”
Voldemort’s snake-like face twisted in a silent snarl. “Kill her, Quirinus! And get me the Stone!”
“Bombarda!” Quirrell roared, but Hermione’s Shield Charm deflected the blast with ease. She shook her head. The possession had clearly drained Quirrell of what little magical strength he had. He was pathetic. This, she realized, would be boring.
“If this is all the great Lord Voldemort can muster,” she said with a disappointed sigh, “then perhaps you should just stay dead.”
The insult, so casual and so profound, was too much for the Dark Lord to bear. “Master, no!” Quirrell suddenly screamed, his body convulsing. “I am loyal… AHHHHHH!”
A dark, shadowy energy seemed to flow out of Quirrell’s body and into the face on the back of his head. The face began to shift, to move, sliding around his skull until it grotesquely overlaid and consumed Quirrell’s own. He now had one body, and one face: Lord Voldemort’s.
“It is his honor to give his life for me,” Voldemort hissed, his voice cold and powerful. He had sacrificed his host, draining the last of his life force to temporarily regain a fraction of his own power. He raised his wand. “Now, girl, you will die. Avada…”
“Wingardium Leviosa!” Hermione incanted, her spell a fraction of a second faster.
She didn't aim at Voldemort’s wand. She aimed at the unconscious, limp body of Harry Potter lying on the floor.
Harry’s body lifted into the air like a doll. And with a furious, overhand flick of her wand, she hurled him directly at the Dark Lord.
It was the single most brilliant, insane, and utterly disrespectful tactical maneuver in the history of wizarding duels. A “Harry Missile.”
Voldemort, stunned by the sheer, unpredictable absurdity of the attack, reached out to shove the flying boy aside.
The moment his hand touched Harry’s skin, he screamed. A high, piercing shriek of pure, unadulterated agony. Smoke and blisters erupted from his fingertips, as if he had touched a white-hot iron. He stumbled back, staring at his burning hand. He had forgotten. He had forgotten about the mother’s love, the ancient, sacrificial magic that still protected the boy.
“NOOOO!” he howled, as the burning sensation spread through his body. He touched Harry again, and this time, his entire arm began to smolder and turn to ash. The host body could not withstand the power of the protection.
With a final, agonized scream, Quirrell’s body crumbled into a pile of fine, gray dust. A black, wraith-like mist rose from the ashes, swirled in the air for a moment, and then shrieked through the stone wall, fleeing the scene. It gave Hermione one last, parting glare of pure, undiluted hatred.
Hermione just glared back. Yeah, you’d better run.
She stepped forward to pick up the gleaming, blood-red Philosopher’s Stone from the pile of dust. As she did, her grimoire buzzed, a flood of new, ancient knowledge pouring into her mind.
[Ancient Magic]
Sacrificial Protection (Lv. 1) (Copied/Learned)
Sacrifice a life, fueled by love, to create an absolute magical protection against a specific source. Causes severe backlash to the source upon physical contact.
