The Life that Never Lived ? (Philosopher's Stone)

THE MAN WITH TWO FACES

Remus took a deep, shaky breath, and stalling a bit said, "there's not too much of this left. Your first year should be almost over."

"I sure hope so," Lily muttered, "I can't take too many more heart attacks."

Harry just smiled at them, but warned, "I can tell you now, you're probably not going to like this chapter. I can't remember what all Quirrell says, but I know it made me angry."

"Great," Sirius rolled his eyes, "something else to look forward to."

"He's not stuttering," James asked in surprise.

Harry shook his head sadly, feeling like he should pop himself in the head and saying, "No, he was faking it, I should have remembered that."

All three boys couldn't help but snort at the description Quirrell gave Snape, how many times had they called him a bat as well?

Lily muttered something incomprehensible, she felt like an idiot for not noticing Hermione had knocked into Quirrell as well in her made rush through the stands to save Harry when the book had mentioned it.

Quirrell going on to explain Hermione's attempts to stop Snape saving Harry would be wasted.

"Bless my soul," James breathed, looking like someone had just punched him in the gut.

"You've got to be joking," Sirius demanded.

Remus was just sitting there, staring blankly down at the page.

Then Lily suddenly let out a whoop of joy, saying smugly, "You see, I told you he..." then she trailed off, looking suddenly confused as the others.

"If Snape was trying to save you, if he didn't hate you like we thought he hated James, then what was all that crap all year?" Sirius demanded.

"Oh he hates me," Harry disagreed, "but not enough to want me dead."

"That, actually made me feel better," James said, blinking spastically in surprise.

"I can hardly believe it," Remus agreed.

Sirius snorted, but even he couldn't think of anything to say just then. Severus Snape had actually tried to save Harry Potter's life? What was this world coming to?

Lily looked like she was about to start crying all over again, but they were tears of joy this time.

Shaking off the last visages of shock he had, Remus now read on quickly.

They had all listened to the revelation fully from Quirrell in stunned silence, but at this last statement about killing their Harry made any happy feelings tossed out of the room, to be replaced by protective anger.

"You throw one curse at him, and no cell in Azkaban will stop me killing you," Sirius vowed.

"That's being kind," James snorted, a manic look gleaming in his eyes, "I can think of much worse things to do to him rather than killing."

"Sign me up for that," Remus and Lily agreed.

"Dammit," Lily snarled, "he's actually competent?"

"That's beyond a normal magical level," Remus said, voice edging into panic. "Wandless magic like that, the only wizard I can think of with that kind of ability is Dumbledore."

"Or Dumbledore's opposite," James breathed.

Sirius whipped his head around and looked at James like he'd grown a second head. "What do you mean by that? Harry would have noticed if Voldemort was there."

Harry groaned suddenly, pressing a fist to his temple, but quickly shook it off, sitting back up and saying, "I think he is there, but I can't remember, he's hiding or someone," he trailed off again, losing color by the second.