The Boy Who Couldn't See: Year 1

The Man With Two Faces

"I wondered whether I'd be meeting you here, Potter."

"Quirrell? But... I thought... Snape --"

"Severus?" he laughs and Harry flinches. "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, if he hadn't been so shocked and feeling so utterly betrayed, might've laughed at the image of Snape looking like a bat. He can't believe it. They had been so sure -- there's so much evidence pointing at Snape, he doesn't understand.

"Snape tried to kill me!" Harry refuses to believe it. They had been comforting this man.

"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."

Save him? God damn it! How could they have been so wrong?

"He was trying to save me?" Harry mumbles, trying to process the information.

"Of course," Quirrell answer the question that Harry really didn't want answered. "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."

Harry hears him snap his fingers and then feels ropes wrap around his limbs. He focuses on steadying his breathing. He's not going to freak out or have -- what did Hagrid call it? A panic attack. He's not having a panic attack in front of this joke of a human.

"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."

Harry blinks, panic momentarily forgotten as a shocked laugh leaves him, "Forgot I was blind, Quirrell? No wonder we never suspected you -- quite the idiotic move there."

He think that was quite the idiotic move. Smart-mouthing the guy who has you tied up and is planning to kill you? Real smart, Potter.

Quirrell scoffs and instead of saying anything about that, just says, "Wait quietly, Potter. I need to examine this interesting mirror."

Harry furrows his eyebrows. Mirror?

"This mirror is the key to finding the Stone," Quirrell murmurs. "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..."

So, this is Dumbledore's room, but why is it just a mirror? It must be a distraction or something. Harry wonders where the Stone actually is and if he can perhaps find it without Quirrell noticing. The mirror has to be a distraction, and a damn good one if Quirrell thinks it's the key to finding the Stone, and since Harry can't see the mirror or his reflection, he assumes it might be easier for him to work out where the Stone might be.

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

Wait... what?

See the stone? What the hell is this mirror? Okay, maybe it isn't a distraction but if not, how is it the key to finding the Stone? Does it show you where it is? No, because Quirrell would've found it by now.