St. Mungo's smelled like antiseptic and lavender.
Sirius lay propped against white pillows, thinner than I'd ever seen a man, but no longer the ghost I'd met at trial.
His hair was cut, his face clean shaven, and his eyes though still tired shone with a restless spark.
"You look less like you crawled out of a grave," I said, setting down the basket of Chocolate Frogs I'd smuggled in.
Dumbledore ushered me forward. "A short visit, Harry. Healers are strict about rest."
Sirius broke into a crooked grin. "Short's fine. I just wanted to see if you were real."
I smirked. "Same. You looked like a haunted scarecrow last time. Big improvement."
He barked a laugh, rough but alive. "Merlin, you've got James's cheek. And Lily's bite."
We talked a little. He promised he'd fight to get better, and I promised he wasn't alone.
Before I left, he caught my wrist. "Harry… don't waste your youth carrying my ghosts. Live."
I nodded. Didn't tell him I was already grinding magic like a maniac.
Two weeks later, the DMLE transferred him to Grimmauld Place.
Wards were renewed, healers came twice a week, and Sirius had space to breathe again. I wrote to him every few days, about Quidditch, about classes, about the Weasley twins nearly blowing up a corridor.
His replies were shorter but always ended with the same line: "Keep flying, kid. Don't let the ground catch you."
Amelia Bones stopped by during one visit, clipboard in hand. "Black, you'll be awarded compensation, Hundred thousand galleons for false imprisonment, plus a stipend while your health recovers. Your vault's been unfrozen."
Sirius raised a brow at me once she left. "Hundred thousand, eh? I should buy a motorbike."
"You already had one."
He blinked, then grinned wolfishly. "Right. Maybe two, then."
-----------------------------------------
The Gryffindor common room was chaos before the final. Oliver Wood was pacing like a man about to storm Normandy.
"This is it!" he declared. "Gryffindor versus Slytherin. If we win, the Cup is ours!"
Fred muttered, "And if we lose, Wood throws himself into the Black Lake."
George added, "And the giant squid refuses to save him out of spite."
I leaned back in my chair. "Relax. We've got this. I'll catch the Snitch before Slytherin even blinks."
Wood glared. "Don't jinx it, Potter!"
The stands thundered. Slytherin's team lined up across from us, led by Higgs, their Seeker.
Flint scowled like he wanted to eat his broom.
Madam Hooch blew the whistle. We shot into the air.
Katie Bell scored the first goal. Gryffindor roared. Flint retaliated, but Wood blocked like his life depended on it.
Fred and George battered Bludgers out of my path, shouting insults at the Slytherin Beaters that had the crowd cackling.
And then gold flicker. The Snitch.
I dove, Nimbus 2000 humming beneath me like a living thing. Higgs tried to cut me off. I pulled a Wronski Feint, the crowd screaming as I barrel rolled past him.
Wind ripped my face. Fingers stretched then closed around the Snitch.
Whistle. Game over.
"GRYFFINDOR WINS THE CUP!" Lee Jordan's voice shook the stands.
The team swarmed me midair, Wood shouting incoherently.
The Cup gleamed as we lifted it high, red and gold banners flooding the stadium.
That night, the celebration in the common room burned long into the morning. Songs, Butterbeer, Percy actually cracking a smile. For a while, I let myself forget the darker games being played in the shadows.
For tonight, I was just Harry Potter. Seeker. Champion.
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The weeks after the Quidditch Cup were almost… normal.
Classes, pranks, late nights in the common room. Hermione drilled us with revision sheets like she was leading a military campaign.
Ron beat me three times in chess, which he gloated about for an entire day.
Fred and George filled a corridor with canary feathers, Filch looked like he was moulting for a week.
But beneath it all, I felt it. The tension. The pull toward something inevitable.
And every time I crossed paths with Professor Quirrell, I gave him that look.
The "I know it was you, but I can't prove it" look. Straight out of a crime drama. Eyes narrowed. Half smirk. Just enough to let him know I wasn't buying the stammering, twitchy act.
He'd flinch, adjust his turban, and scuttle away.
Hermione noticed once. "Harry, why do you keep staring at Professor Quirrell like that?"
I leaned back, deadpan. "Because it's fun watching him sweat."
Ron snorted pumpkin juice all over his toast.
The castle felt different. Teachers moved in hushed whispers. Dumbledore seemed… watchful, his eyes lingering on me longer.
Even Snape, usually brimming with venom, looked distracted, as if waiting for something.
At night, in the common room, I'd catch myself staring into the fire. My mindscape was steady now, an infinite castle of my own design, but even there… shadows slithered.
I knew Quirrell was the key. I just didn't know when he'd strike.
Until the night he did.
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The day started like any other, parchment, ink stains, Hermione muttering about exam prep, Ron doodling broomsticks instead of notes.
The Great Hall buzzed with the lazy rhythm of late spring.
Then came the whisper: "Dumbledore's gone. Ministry business."
And later: "McGonagall left too. Urgent Floo call from St. Mungo's."
Two of the strongest pillars of Hogwarts… gone.
That night, the air in the common room felt too still. I sat with Ron and Hermione by the fire, my senses prickling.
Something was wrong.
"Harry?" Hermione asked softly. "You're staring again."
"Yeah," Ron added, forcing a laugh. "You look like you're about to duel the wallpaper."
I opened my mouth, but the words never came. The flames flickered, shadows bent, and suddenly, he was there.
Professor Quirrell.
Except this wasn't the bumbling coward in a turban. His wand was steady, his stutter gone, his eyes like cold steel.
"Come quietly," he said, voice low and sharp. "Or your friends bleed."
His wand flicked, ropes snapped into existence, binding Ron and Hermione before they could even scream.
Hermione's eyes widened, fury and fear warring on her face. Ron struggled, but the ropes held tight.
"Harry—don't!" Hermione shouted.
"Yeah, mate—don't do anything stupid!" Ron added, though his voice shook.
Quirrell's smirk was thin. "They'll live, Potter. If you come with me."
I rose slowly, hands loose at my sides. My heart hammered, but my mind was cold, sharp. Finally.
The mask drops.
"I know it's you," I said quietly. "I can't prove it to anyone else, but I know."
Quirrell's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Then let's see how far that knowledge takes you."
The shadows swallowed us as he forced me down the dark corridors, Ron and Hermione dragged in tow.
The third floor corridor loomed ahead, the forbidden door yawning open like a mouth waiting to swallow us whole.
The game had begun.
-----------------------------------------
The chamber was cold, empty but for the great mirror gleaming in the torchlight.
Quirrell shoved me forward, his wand never shaking. Ron and Hermione were bound against the far wall, their eyes wide, struggling against ropes.
"Stand before it," he ordered, voice smooth now, his fake stutter discarded like a mask. "Tell me how it works."
I tilted my head. "All year, acting like a nervous wreck… just for this moment. Honestly, Oscar-worthy."
His eyes narrowed. "You mock what you fear."
"No," I smirked, "I mock because you're pathetic."
Rage flared in his face. His wand slashed, hurling curses faster than most duelists I'd seen. Bolts of light shattered across the floor.
One skimmed past my cheek, heat singing my skin.
I raised my hand. Scutum Resonare. My shield shimmered, humming like a drum. His spell rebounded and smacked his wand clean out of his hand.
Quirrell's eyes went wide. "Impossible—"
"You're a professor of Defense," I cut him off, stepping closer, "and you can't even defend yourself from a first year."
Then a new voice crawled out of the air. Cold. Ancient. Whispering from everywhere and nowhere.
"Enough."
My stomach twisted. Quirrell turned slowly, trembling, hands clutching his turban. Then he unwound it.
And there he was. Voldemort. Pale, stretched across the back of Quirrell's skull, crimson eyes boring into me.
Ron gagged. Hermione whimpered. I just stared, pulse hammering.
"So," Voldemort hissed, "this is the boy who lived."
"Yeah," I said, voice steady, "and this is the parasite who hides behind other men."
The red eyes flared with fury. "Arrogant child! You will help me find the Stone!"
"You mean the Stone you don't understand, in the Mirror you can't unlock?" I asked. "Newsflash, power's useless if you can't even read the instructions."
Quirrell lunged, Voldemort screaming in his ear, spells flying wild. I dropped into my magic, shields blooming, air thrumming around me.
My counterspell snapped his wand in half, sparks exploding in his hands.
He screamed, clutching the pieces. Voldemort shrieked through him. "Fool! Kill him with your hands if you must!"
Quirrell staggered toward me. I raised my wand and hand, and slammed him down with raw force, the stone floor cracking beneath him. He writhed, Voldemort's voice screeching in rage.
But as Quirrell faltered, Voldemort tore free. A wraith, black smoke and red eyes ripping from the professor's body. Quirrell collapsed, broken, his body still.
The spirit shrieked once, then shot past me in a rush of icy wind, vanishing into the night.
Silence.
Hermione and Ron were trembling, staring at me like they'd seen a ghost.
I exhaled slowly. "Well. That happened."
Ron croaked, "You just… roasted Voldemort."
The chamber echoed with silence after Voldemort's wraith vanished.
Quirrell's body lay still on the stone floor.
I ran to Ron and Hermione, snapping the ropes with a flick of my wand. "You two okay?"
Ron rubbed his wrists, still pale. "I think so. My legs feel like jelly, though."
Hermione's voice shook. "Harry… what was that?"
I hesitated. Then sighed. "Voldemort. Or what's left of him. And before you panic, he wasn't here for me. He was here for the Stone."
"The Philosopher's Stone?" Hermione whispered. So she figured it out, expected.
"The very one," I said, turning back to the Mirror of Erised. Its surface shimmered as I stepped closer.
My reflection moved differently this time. It reached into its pocket and pulled out a blood red stone, glinting like fire.
A moment later, something heavy dropped into my real pocket.
I pulled it free. The Stone.
Ron's eyes bugged out. "Blimey… so what's so special about it?"
"Two things," I said, holding it up. "Immortality and unlimited gold. Which means the two worst things you could hand Voldemort on a silver platter."
Hermione frowned. "Then why could you get it?"
I shrugged. "Because I didn't want to use it. I just wanted to stop him. Mirror seems to like intent."
They exchanged glances. Ron muttered, "That's mental."
I half smiled. "More like he rage quit."
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