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[ philosopher's stone ]
IT WAS QUIRRELL. He stared at the two first years expectantly, a cold glint in his eye as Maya's breath went rigid, her eyes completely wide as Harry bellowed a, "you?!"
Quirrell smiled. His face wasn't twitching at all.
"Me," he said calmly. "I wondered whether I'd be meeting you here, Potter." He then turned toward Maya, who tensed at his piercing gaze. "And you bring the Shaan girl with you ━━ hasn't Christmas been?"
Maya saw Harry was a blubbering mess. "But I thought ━━ Snape━"
"Severus?" Quirrell laughed, and it wasn't his usual quivering treble, either, but cold and sharp. "Yes, Severus 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 Quirrell?"
Harry looked disbelieved. "But Snape tried to kill me!"
"No, no, no. I tried to kill you. Your friend Miss Granger accidentally knocked me over as she rushed to set fire to Snape at that Quidditch match. She 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 Snape hadn't been muttering a countercurse, trying to save you."
"Snape was trying to save me?"
"Of course," Quirrell said 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 Dumbledore watching. All the other teachers thought Snape was trying to stop Gryffindor from winning, he did make himself unpopular. . . and what a waste of time, when after all that, I'm going to kill you tonight."
Quirrell snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of thin air and wrapped themselves tightly around Harry.
"Harry!" Maya cried, but another snap sounded and Maya's limbs were bound tightly. She wriggled in the hold, only to be gripped harder that she let out a pained whine.
"You're too nosy to live, Potter. 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, Snape, 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 Snape's leg off properly."
