Jane Fizzle and the Philosophers Stone

Chapter 18

It is Isabella.

"You!" Jane gasps.

Isabella smiles. Her face isn't twitching at all. "Me," she says calmly. "I wondered whether I'd be meeting you here, Fizzle."

"But I thought — Randolph —"

"Ian?" Isabella laughs, and it isn't her usual, quivering treble, either, but cold and sharp. "Yes, Ian does seem the type, doesn't he? So useful to have him swooping around like an overgrown bat. Next to him, who would suspect p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Isabella?"

Jane can't take it in. This can't be true, it couldn't.

"But Randolph tried to kill me!"

"No, no, no. I tried to kill you. Your friend Mr. Woods accidentally knocked me over as he rushed to set fire to Randolph at that Quidditch match. He broke my eye contact with you. Another few seconds and I'd have got you off that broom. I'd have managed it before then if Randolph hadn't been muttering a countercurse, trying to save you."

"Randolph was trying to save me?"

"Of course," Isabella says coolly. "Why do you think he wanted to referee your next match? He was trying to make sure I didn't do it again. Funny, really... he needn't have bothered. I couldn't do anything with Harrington watching. All the other teachers thought Randolph was rating his own house to make them fail, making himself unpopular by doing so... and what a waste of time, when after all that, I'm going to kill you tonight."

Isabella snaps her fingers. Ropes spring out of thin air and wrap themselves tightly around Jane.

"You're too nosy to live, Fizzle. Scurrying around the school on Halloween like that, for all I knew you'd seen me coming to look at what was guarding the Stone."

"You let the troll in?"

"Certainly. I have a special gift with trolls — you must have seen what I did to the one in the chamber back there? Unfortunately, while everyone else was running around looking for it, Randolph and Bruno, who already suspected me, went straight to the third floor to head me off — and not only did my troll fail to beat you to death, that three-headed dog didn't even manage to bite Randolph's leg off properly.

"Now, wait quietly, Fizzle. I need to examine this interesting mirror."

It's only then that Jane realizes what is standing behind Isabella. It's the Mirror of Erised.

"This mirror is the key to finding the Stone," Isabella murmurs, tapping her way around the frame. "Trust Harrington to come up with something like this... but he's in London... I'll be far away by the time he gets back..."

All Jane can think of doing is to keep Randolph talking and to stop her from concentrating on the mirror. "I saw you and Randolph in the forest —" she blurts out.

"Yes," Isabella says idly, walking around the mirror to look at the back. "He was on to me by that time, trying to find out how far I'd got. He suspected me all along. Tried to frighten me — as though he could, when I had Lady Shego on my side..." Isabella comes back out from behind the mirror and stares hungrily into it. "I see the Stone... I'm presenting it to my master... but where is it?"

Jane struggles against the ropes binding her, but they don't give up. She has to keep Isabella from giving her whole attention to the mirror.

"But Randolph always seemed to hate me so much."

"Oh, he does," Isabella says casually, "heavens, yes. He was at Hogwarts with your father, didn't you know? They loathed each other. But he never wanted you dead."