"If you're the lord, what does that make me? The lady?"
The war is over and all seems to be going minimally well until everything comes crashing back down for Adhara to the point where she would trade her existence to fix everything that had gone wr...
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Narcissa Malfoy let the air out of her lungs as she let the book rest in her lap before it was gently snatched away by her husband's impatient hands.
"Chapter nineteen: The man with two faces," the Malfoy heir read as soon as he could as everyone in the Great Hall paid attention, watching out for little Hadrian's safety, even if they knew he was there among them. "It was Quirrell."
Some gasped in surprise, while others simply stared at the hologram, their expressions unchanged; they expected it.
"You!" Harry exclaimed in disbelief.
Quirrell smiled. His face was without a shadow of its usual twitch.
"I," he said calmly, "wondered if I was going to meet you here, Potter."
"But I thought... Snape..."
"Severus?" Quirrell sneered, and it wasn't with his usual shaky, clipped sound, but with a cold, high-pitched laugh. "Yes, Severus seemed to be the one, didn't he? It was very useful to have him hanging around like a huge bat. Next to him, who was going to suspect the poor, stammering p-professor Quirrell?"
Harry couldn't accept it. It couldn't be true, it couldn't be.
"But Snape tried to kill me!"
"No, no, no," he denied with a laugh. "I tried to kill you. Your friend, Miss Granger, accidentally ran me over when I was running to set Snape on fire at that Quidditch match. And broke the eye contact I had with you. A few more seconds and he would have knocked you off that broom. And I would have done it by now, if Snape hadn't been muttering a counter spell, trying to save you."
"Snape was trying to save me?"
"I said so," Orien mumbled, frowning.
"No one said otherwise," Haruka replied, patting his friend's shoulder.
"Of course," Quirrell said coldly. "Why do you think he wanted to referee the next game? He was trying to make sure I couldn't do it again. Funny, really... he didn't need to bother. I couldn't do anything with Dumbledore watching. All the other teachers thought Snape was trying to stop Gryffindor from winning, he's made himself very unpopular... And what a waste of time when, after all that, I'm going to kill you tonight."
Quirrell snapped his fingers. Ropes fell from the air and wrapped around Harry's body, holding him tight.
Harry was beginning to feel like a fool for doubting Professor Snape when Adhara had already told him... what had she told him?
"You're too annoying to live, Potter," Quirrell commented, making him forget the doubt that had just arisen. "Slithering around the school, like on Halloween, because you found me out when I was going to see what was guarding the Stone."
