Professor McGonagall's office was a place of stern order and academic rigor. Tonight, it was the backdrop for chaos. Harry, his face flushed with a mixture of terror and righteous conviction, was pacing back and forth, laying out his case with frantic energy.
"…and Hagrid told him! He told the stranger how to get past Fluffy! It's a bit of music! And now Dumbledore's gone, and Snape's going to go down there tonight, I know it!" Harry finished, his voice cracking with urgency.
Ron nodded vigorously beside him. "He's been acting suspicious all year! It all adds up!"
Professor McGonagall sat behind her desk, her lips pressed into a thin, severe line. She looked from Harry's impassioned face to Ron's earnest one, and her expression was one of profound, weary skepticism. "Potter, Weasley, I appreciate your… concern. But you are making wild, unsubstantiated accusations against a fellow professor. The idea that Professor Snape would attempt to steal anything from Albus Dumbledore is preposterous. Now, I suggest you both return to your dormitory before you lose any more points for Gryffindor."
"But Professor, you don't understand!" Harry pleaded, desperation creeping into his voice.
"I understand perfectly," she retorted crisply. "I understand that you have let your imaginations run away with you."
It was at that moment that Ariana, who had been standing silently by the door with Hermione, spoke. Her voice was not loud, but it cut through the frantic energy in the room like a cold, clean blade.
"Professor," she said. "They are correct that there is a threat. They have simply misidentified the perpetrator."
All eyes turned to her. McGonagall's eyebrows rose to a perilous height. "Miss Dumbledore?"
"It is not Professor Snape who is after the Stone," Ariana stated, her voice a calm declaration of fact. "It is Professor Quirrell."
A stunned silence filled the office. Harry and Ron stared at her, their mouths agape. McGonagall looked as though she had been struck by a mild jolt of lightning.
"Quirrell?" she finally managed, her voice laced with disbelief. "The stammering, trembling man who is frightened of his own students? That is your accusation?"
"Professor," Ariana replied, stepping forward calmly. "I will not waste your time by attempting to explain the myriad data points that have led me to this conclusion. I will only state the logical imperative of the situation." She met McGonagall's sharp gaze without flinching. "Even if you believe there is only a one percent chance that I am correct, the potential cost of inaction is the Philosopher's Stone falling into the hands of Lord Voldemort's servant. With the Headmaster away, you are the ranking authority in this castle. Is the risk of being wrong about Professor Quirrell's character a risk you are truly willing to take with the fate of the wizarding world?"
Her logic was a steel trap, cold, impeccable, and impossible to escape. She wasn't asking
McGonagall to believe a fantastic story. She was asking her to perform a risk assessment.
McGonagall stared at her, the skepticism in her eyes warring with the undeniable truth of Ariana's argument. The girl was right. The stakes were too high to dismiss even the most outlandish claim without verification.
"And what, precisely, do you propose I do, Miss Dumbledore?" she asked, her tone dangerously soft.
"We," Ariana corrected gently, "will go down to the third-floor corridor. We will investigate. If we find nothing, then Harry, Ron, and I will accept a month of detention for wasting your time. But if there is a threat… we will face it." Her gaze hardened. "But we will face it together."
McGonagall was silent for a long, tense moment. Finally, she stood up, a fire igniting in her eyes. It was the fire of a Gryffindor, a protector who would not, could not, stand idly by. "Very well," she said, her voice like steel. "The five of us will go. And pray for all your sakes, children, that you are wrong. Because if you are right, this will be a night none of us will ever forget."
The journey to the third-floor corridor was a silent, tense affair. McGonagall led the way, her wand held at the ready. When they reached the slumbering form of Fluffy, she didn't bother with a flute.
A single, powerful, non-verbal Sleeping Charm descended upon the three-headed beast, causing it to slump into a magically induced stupor so deep its snores shook the floor.
She dispatched the Devil's Snare with a burst of brilliant bluebell flames that incinerated the tendrils without harming the children. The room of flying keys was solved in seconds; a complex locating charm made the correct, silver key with the broken wing glow with an intense golden light, and a powerful Summoning Charm brought it directly to her hand.
When they reached the giant wizard's chessboard, Ron began to explain the rules, but McGonagall held up a hand. "I do not have time for games." With a wave of her wand, she transfigured the entire set of opposing white pieces into a flock of terrified, bleating sheep, which scrambled out of their way. She simply walked across the board.
They arrived at the final chamber to find a scene that proved Ariana's terrifying assertion correct. Professor Quirrell stood before the Mirror of Erised, his back to them. And he was not stammering. "You are too late, Minerva," he said, his voice cold, sharp, and utterly sane. He turned, and his face was pale with a triumphant malice. The turban was still on his head. "The Headmaster is gone. The Stone will be mine."
"Quirrell!" McGonagall gasped, her face a mask of horrified realization. "How?"
"My master has taught me much," Quirrell sneered, raising his wand.
The duel was a blur of terrifying power. McGonagall was magnificent, a whirlwind of precise, potent spell-casting. Jets of red and green light slammed against shimmering shields. Transfigured daggers flew through the air. But Quirrell, fueled by a dark, desperate power that was not his own, was a formidable opponent. He fought with a reckless, vicious abandon. In a desperate exchange, he conjured a swarm of venomous serpents. As McGonagall vaporized them with a jet of fire, he sent a dark, crackling curse that caught her unprepared. It struck her in the shoulder, and she cried out, stumbling back against the wall, her wand arm dropping to her side.
Quirrell laughed, a high, chilling sound, and turned his wand on the fallen professor for the killing blow.
"Protego Maxima!" The voice was Ariana's, clear and commanding. A dome of solid, crystalline blue light erupted around McGonagall, intercepting a jet of sickly green light that would have ended her life. The shield groaned under the impact but held firm, intricate runic patterns flaring across its surface.
Quirrell whirled on Ariana, his face contorted with rage. "A first-year brat dares to challenge me?"
He unleashed a furious onslaught of spells, bolts of dark magic slamming into Ariana's shield. Each impact sent shudders through the air, but the shield held, Ariana standing behind it, her face a mask of serene concentration, her Elder wand held steady.
Enraged by her defiance, Quirrell gathered all his power, all his master's power, into a single, devastating beam of pure, malevolent energy. Ariana met it with a beam of her own, a torrent of pure, silver-white magic from her wand.
The two spells met in mid-air with a deafening shriek. The spells connected by the tips of their wands lock and began to vibrate violently. They were locked in a battle of pure will.
This was the moment. Harry, watching from the side, saw his chance. He was not thinking of prophecies or destiny. He was thinking of the injured Professor McGonagall, of Hermione and Ron cowering behind a pillar, of the serene, powerful friend who was holding back the darkness on her own. Fueled by a surge of pure, protective instinct, he did the one thing the magical duel could not account for.
He charged.
He sprinted across the room and physically tackled Quirrell from the side. The moment his hands made contact with Quirrell's flesh, a horrifying scream tore through the room. It was not a scream of pain, but of utter, absolute corruption. Smoke poured from where Harry touched him. Blisters rose on Quirrell's skin as if he had been plunged into acid.
"Master!" Quirrell shrieked, his voice contorting. "I cannot hold him! The boy—his touch—it burns!"
The lock between the wands shattered. Harry scrambled back as Quirrell began to crumble, his body turning to ash and dust before their horrified eyes, his robes falling into a pile on the floor. A dark, vaporous shape, like a scream made manifest, rose from the pile, shrieked, and flew straight through Harry before vanishing through the far wall.
The pain in Harry's scar was an explosion of pure agony, and the world went black.