A longer chapter for you guys. By "Longer" I mean it reaches my old minimum of 2,000.
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(Word Count: 2,039)
With the news from his snakes, Harry flew faster. It was night time now, but with the crow's vision, it wasn't a problem. The night sky, as was often the case here in the highlands, was overcast so there weren't any stars out. The forest beneath him was a sea of black spikes, occasionally broken up with an island of oak, or the rare clearing.
"$Attack him! Don't let him get anywhere near the unicorns!$" Harry sent the command. At once, all 20 of his young horned serpents converged onto Quirrell. From the distance, Harry could see flashes of spell fire as they began fighting.
He pulled up the two quests that he would be dealing with tonight.
[Magic Quest: Save The Unicorns!
Unicorns are precious symbols of purity and magic. Unfortunately, there aren't many Unicorns left in Magical Britain. Yet, in this first year, Tom Riddle and Quirrell kill several of them! This travesty must not be allowed to happen.
You are hereby tasked with saving them. Do not allow Tom Riddle to kill any of these unicorns.
Reward: Perk: Purify]
[Fate Quest: Something in the Woods
Harry meets Voldemort for the first time in the forbidden forest during his detention. He catches Voldemort as he drinks from the blood from a dead unicorn. So your job is:
Go with canon!: Get detention and be sent out to find the cause of unicorn deaths. Catch your first glimpse of Voldemort.
Reward: +1 Curses, +1 Class point
Get there first!: Why wait until detention? Sneak out before all the unicorn deaths and confront Voldemort!
Reward: +1 Class Point
Defeat Quirrell!: Why keep this as only your first encounter? Put a stop to Voldemort's plans here and now.
Reward: +1 Curses
Do Nothing!: Don't go to the forbidden forest, and miss this fateful encounter!
Reward: Nothing! Don't be boring! I don't reward laziness.]
There was also the Fate quest for the Philosopher's Stone, to prevent Voldemort from getting the stone, but he didn't want to assume that it would be completed tonight, given how things turned out with the troll.
As he approached, Harry could hear the commotion, as well as a low musical note hanging in the air, giving the entire scene an ominous feeling. This was the horned serpents' way of signalling danger.
Harry didn't want to allow Voldemort to know he was an Animagus, so he dove down behind a tree a decent ways away out of sight to transform back, and ran the rest of the way.
By the time he arrived, wand drawn, most of his summons were already dead. Quirrell was there in ragged black robes, but with a quick glance around, there were no unicorns nearby. The snakes had done their job. From the way Harry was approaching, Quirrell was facing away from him. Unfortunately, Quirrell's hood was down already and he wasn't wearing his turban, exposing the face of Voldemort.
In the dark, Voldemort's red eyes seemed to glow.
'So this is the… monster… that killed my parents,' Harry thought grimly, but with a bit of satisfaction. Though he knew what was beneath Quirrell's turban this whole year, it was different to see it first hand. And now, it felt like, well, fate, to finally confront him here. Despite that strange feeling, this two-faced possession was far more disgusting to see in person rather than on a screen. It was like Voldemort's face was pushing out of Quirrell's skin.
Voldemort noticed his approach and alerted Quirrell. "Behind you, you fool!" Voldemort hissed.
"Vipera Evanesca!" Quirrell waved his wand in front of him and the remaining snakes vanished into ash.
"Percutio!" Harry fired a piercing hex at him.
"Dodge!" Voldemort yelled, and Quirrell threw himself to the side. He rolled and popped back up facing Harry. He stood there, breathing hard. Taking the time to properly get a read on him, Harry realized that fighting his snakes must have taken a lot out of the already weak Quirrell.
Quirrell sized him up in turn. He had glared at him in rage initially, but when he realized who attacked him, he became confused, though he masked it with an air of confidence. He lowered his wand slightly. "Harry? Is that you?" Quirrell asked breathlessly. It was still very dark, so it took him a little while to recognize him. "Lumos!" Several balls of light appeared in the air above them, and the entire area around them lit up, the trees casting long shadows.
"H-h-harry! I-it is you! W-why are y-you attacking m-m-me?" Quirrell demanded in his fake stuttering voice.
"Drop the act, Professor!" Harry said sharply, a sudden anger rising up in him. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice the face of my parents' killer? I know you're possessed by Voldemort!"
Quirrell stiffened, a flash of guilt and panic crossing his face, before he calmed himself. He was about to speak when a low chuckle began. "Turn around, Quirinus, so that I may face him," The voice of Voldemort demanded. The voice was strained, as if it took a great effort to speak.
"But, my lord! You're not strong enough!" Quirrell spoke thoughtlessly, and immediately a spike of pain shot through him as punishment.
"Do as I say!" Voldemort commanded.
"Listen to your master, Quirrell. You're a dead man walking anyway. I don't want to waste my time talking to you," Harry said.
Weakly, Quirrell turned around, standing stiffly. Voldemort's face craned against Quirrell's skull to get a better look at Harry. "Ah… so you are Harry Potter!" He whispered hoarsely, eyes flashing red with a not-so-hidden anger. "You're quite perceptive for a young boy, well done. But I am curious: what gave me away? Could it be that those rumors of you being a seer have some merit?"
Harry glared at him for a moment, before silently summoning a small garden snake in his hand. He lifted it up as it curled around his fingers, not taking his eyes off of Voldemort. "$There is little you can hide from a determined snake,$" Harry said in parseltongue.
Voldemort's eyes widened, and then turned smug. "$Ah, yes… So you can speak the noble tongue as well… that does explain it. I wasn't… expecting us to share a lineage… Harry. Why are you fighting me? … We're practically family after all. You should join me… why die a pointless death?$"
Harry's grip on his wand tightened in anger. "What part of 'my parents' killer' did you not understand?"
"Don't be a fool!" Voldemort snarled. "Yes, I killed your parents… and they died needlessly… trying to protect you. But you see what I have become? Reduced to mere shadow and vapor… with no form of my own … there are always those that would let me in… to their hearts and mind… but is this not punishment enough? Especially when I can so easily bring them back? Join me, and I can bring them back."
"You lie," Harry said. He didn't need his truth detection perk to know that. Death here was very stringent on resurrection. He would never allow it.
"I'm not…. Do you know what lies inside this very castle?... The Philosopher's Stone! With it, I can recreate my body…. With it… I can bring back your mother and father! I just need the strength… unicorn's blood will give me… and I can get it. So join me… and you can have your family back!" Voldemort rasped eagerly.
"Confringo!" In answer, Harry sent a blasting curse at him. He didn't really know why he bothered talking to him. It just… felt like fate, like this moment demanded some back and forth between them. But this was as much as Harry could stomach.
Quirrell must have been waiting for it, because before Harry could even finish the spell, he was already dodging.
The blasting curse exploded, sended dirt raining down everywhere.
Harry continued firing spells at him, another piercing hex, a cutting curse, and another blasting curse.
Quirrell kept on the move, dodging the first few, and batting aside the last blasting curse with the spell-catch technique.
The spells shot past and hit the trees beyond him. Harry had put enough power into each of them that the piercing hex punched a hole halfway through the entire trunk. The cutting curse sliced through several low hanging branches before it hit a tree head on, leaving a large gash in the side. The blasting curse was redirected upwards, and it exploded in the canopy.
Large branches and wood chunks crashed down around them and, because Confringo is largely an incendiary explosion, the chunks were smoldering with glowing orange embers. Luckily it was pretty wet here, so a full on forest fire wasn't likely.
"You're a fool if you think you can win, Potter!" Quirrell snarled, but he was breathing heavily, still exhausted from fighting his snakes. "Avada Kedavra!"
A bolt of green shot towards him, forcing him to dodge out of the way. Harry rolled to the side, and sent another blasting curse back.
This time, Quirrell levitated a rock into the path of the curse, causing the rock to explode into shrapnel. The shrapnel froze in mid-air, then shot back towards Harry.
Protego wasn't the best to defend against physical attacks, so he transfigured the ground in front of him into a thick wall to block. The shrapnel clattered against it uselessly.
Using the wall as a cover, Harry conjured up two more Horned Serpents. This time, since he didn't want to cover a lot of ground and just scout, these snakes were fully grown and 8 meters long.
'$Go invisible and attack!$' He commanded silently through their familiar bond.
Without a word, the two serpents did as told. They vanished.
"Bombarda Maxima!" Quirrell roared.
'Crap!' Harry apparated away to the other side of Quirrell just in time as the wall was blown apart. He appeared with a sharp crack—he hadn't quite figured out how to quiet it yet—which was masked by the explosion.
He peaked around the thick tree.
"Snakes!" Voldemort hissed in warning. "Invisible!"
Immediately, gouts of flame fanned through the air around Quirrell. The heat of the fire rippled the air and revealed the invisible form of one of the serpents. They writhed in pain, falling to the ground with a heavy crash.
"Reducto!" Harry shouted loudly, this time intentionally to draw Quirrell's attention away from the last snake.
Quirrell whirled around to face him, and batted the spell aside at the last moment.
"Dodge!" Voldemort warned again, and Quirrell threw himself to the ground in an attempt to dodge, but was yanked into the air by his arm.
The remaining serpent had managed to bite him.
"Aaaagh!" Quirrell cried out pitifully. At that moment, Quirrell's floating lights winked out and the surrounding forest was now dark, save for a few glowing embers from the fallen debris of their fight.
"Nooo!" Voldemort roared furiously, and a wave of magic erupted from him, disintegrating the snake and sending Harry flying back into a tree with a painful thud.
"Oof!" Harry fell down to the ground.
Quirrell staggered to his feet, clutching his bleeding arm in pain. Voldemort was audibly gasping, that wave of magic seemed to have drained him entirely. "Kill… him… end… this… now!" Voldemort rasped, his voice barely audible.
Harry got up, holding his left side, bracing his back against the tree. 'I think one of my ribs is broken. Or two,' Harry groaned.
Still, Quirrell was far worse off. He looked like he was hanging on by a thread.
"Potter!" Quirrell seethed, voice shaky. "I'll kill you!"
They raised their wands again, ready for the next round, when all of a sudden two voices cried out in unison, "Stupify!" and two red bolts streaked out from the nearby brush, both aimed at Quirrell.
However, because it was pitch black, the spells went wide.
From the source of the spells, two figures stepped out of the brush. Fred and George.
"Think we got him, Fred?" George asked.
"I don't know, I can't see!" Fred said.
"Lumos!" Both Fred and George waved their wands and several floating lights lit the area back up, to find themselves right in between Harry and Quirrell.