Hexad

Book one, chapter seventeen

Harry Potter And The Bleak World.

That is the name of the first book.
And this is the final chapter.

Chapter seventeen of this spectacular book-in-a-book, The Boy Who Won't Bloody Die. (@confused_moron for the chapter name!)

I do not own Harry Potter(but I totally should). This is an AU.

Part two of the daily publishing thing I was doing
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And at the center of the room, stood someone he didn't expect.

Quirrell.

"You." Harry spat, managing to sound unfazed.

"Me," Quirrell said, smiling. "I wondered whether I'd be meeting you here, Potter."

"Of course your pathetic stutter was fake. We've suspected you since the first Quidditch game. You were the one who was trying to force me off my broom, weren't you?"

"Another few seconds and I would've gotten you off your broom. I would've gotten you even earlier if Snape hadn't been muttering a counter-curse, trying to save you." Quirrell said.

"Padma was right. You are a rotten, nasty crook," Harry snarled. Quirrell snapped his fingers, and ropes sprang out of thin air and wrapped themselves tightly around Harry.

"You're too noisy to live, Potter. Scurrying around the school on Halloween like that, for all I knew, you'd seen through my distracted and caught me coming to look at what was guarding the Stone."

"You let the troll in? What am I saying, of course you did."

"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, Snape had already suspected me, went straight up 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 Snape's leg off properly. Now, wait quietly, Potter. I need to examine this interesting mirror."

It was only then that Harry realized what was standing behind Quirrell. It was the Mirror of Erised.

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

"I saw you and Snape in the forest the day of the Gryffindor Quidditch match." Harry blurted out.

"Yes," said Quirrell distractedly, walking around the mirror to look at the back. "He was onto 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 Lord Voldemort on my side.."

Quirrell came back out from behind the mirror and stared hungrily into it.

"I see the Stone.. I'm presenting it to my master... but where is it?"

Harry struggled against the ropes binding him, but they didn't give. What I wouldn't give for Hydrus to be here, he thought, thinking of Hydrus's sharp fangs. But he kept talking-- he had to keep Quirrell thinking.

"Snape seemed to hate me so much. And you were always such a coward, I wouldn't have even thought."

"Oh, he does," said Quirrell casually, pretending to ignore the coward part. "Heavens, yes. He was at Hogwarts with your father, didn't you know? They loathed each other. But he never wanted you dead."

"But I heard you a few days ago, sobbing-- I would've thought Snape had been threatening you, if it made any sense, because I knew he had just had a class. Nowhere near where you were busy crying yourself to death."