Strange Likenesses

---------------------------------------------

Chapter 2

---------------------------------------------

Harry Potter, of number four, Privet Drive, grew up with the vague idea that something was wrong with him. His family told him that often enough, and even when he was old enough to stop paying much attention to their opinions, the way odd things happened around him when he was upset was harder to dismiss. The tingle in his scar and the back of his mind also bothered him, but his teachers said he couldn't really feel his brain itch and his cousin Dudley only laughed at him, so Harry mostly stopped worrying about that.

He tried very hard to be normal and not to upset his aunt and uncle. He hated missing meals, hated being locked in his cupboard, and hated the way the tingle prickled like thorns and made his eyes water when he was absolutely furious at the world. But he couldn't help being different. And when the strange letters began arriving just before his eleventh birthday, part of him wasn't surprised at all.

Still, Harry had no idea what the letters actually said, and he had no way to resist Uncle Vernon when he dragged the family off on a mad quest to escape the mysterious letters, ending in a miserable hut on a rock in the ocean, in the middle of a storm.

Somehow, though, the letters would get through. Harry was oddly certain of that.

* * *

He felt, later, that he ought to have realized. He'd had all the clues.

"See, there was this wizard who went... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..."

"Voldemort," whispered Harry. "His name was Voldemort."

"Don' say that!" Hagrid shuddered. "How'd yeh know that, Harry? Yeh didn' know yer a wizard, but yeh know about You-Know-Who?"

"I must have heard someone say it," Harry said hastily. "I think I used to see wizards sometimes -- people in funny robes and hats? -- and one of them must have mentioned it."

"Righ'. Anyway, this -- this wizard, about twenty years ago..."

There was the incident at Ollivanders.

Harry took the wand, feeling a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised it above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air, and streams of sparks -- green and silver, red and gold -- shot from the end like fireworks, throwing dancing spots of light onto the walls. Hagrid whooped and clapped.

Mr. Ollivander, however, fixed his pale, shimmering eyes onto Harry. "Curious," he said. "How very curious."

Harry handed over his new wand to be packaged. "Sorry, but what's curious?"

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter," said Mr. Ollivander. "Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand gave one other feather. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother -- why, its brother gave you that scar.

"Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things -- terrible, yes, but great."

There was the Sorting Hat.

"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Interesting, very interesting. Plenty of courage, I see, and loyalty to your friends. Not a bad mind, either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes -- and a nice thirst to prove yourself. And something underneath, something hidden... I wonder what secrets you're guarding, Mr. Potter?

"I think I should put you in--"

"Not Slytherin, not Slytherin," Harry thought fiercely.

"Really? Are you sure? You could be great, you know -- it's all here in your head -- and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that. And that house deals best with hidden depths... no? Well, if you're that determined, better be GRYFFINDOR!"

And the Mirror of Erised.

"One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore as he and Harry walked away from the mirror. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."

As he turned to close the door, Harry stole a last look at the mirror, wanting one final glimpse of his family. They smiled and waved sadly, wishing him well -- but a strange green light shone around them and a misty figure seemed to stand beside Harry's reflection, their hands intertwined -- as if he had a shadowy twin.

"Harry?" Dumbledore asked gently.

"Sorry, sir." Harry shut the door and tried to put the reflection out of his mind.

Those clues, and his old dreams of the snake and the vampire ghost, should have told him, Harry felt. His dreams of green light and flying motorcycles had been true. The snake dreams felt real in the same way.

He should have realized. He should have known.

* * *

Harry drank the potion in one swallow, feeling as though liquid ice were flooding his body, and walked forward. The black flames licked his body but he couldn't feel them. For a moment he saw nothing but dark fire -- then he was on the other side, in the last chamber.

There was already someone there. But it wasn't Snape. It wasn't even any of the dark wizards Hermione had looked up.

It was Quirrell.

He stood before the Mirror of Erised, hair disheveled, clothes smudged, and eyes glazed as he ran his fingers over the glass. "Find the Stone -- the Stone is in the Mirror -- find the Stone -- the Stone is in the Mirror..." His voice was even more slurred than it had been all year.

Harry gasped.

Quirrell spun around, surprise jolting his face out of slackness. "Potter! How did you get in here?" Then he shook his head abruptly and his eyes glazed again. "That's not important. The Stone is in the Mirror. I must find the Stone, but I can't use the Mirror. You -- face the Mirror and find the Stone."

"No!" Harry backed away, mind working frantically. It must have been Quirrell all along -- Hermione had said that she'd accidentally knocked Quirrell over when she set fire to Snape at the Quidditch match -- he must have been the one hexing Harry's broom. Quirrell was the Dark Arts professor -- he must have let the troll in at Halloween.

But why did he look like he was half-asleep? He'd been tired and distracted all year long, but now he almost seemed to be sleepwalking.

Quirrell snapped his fingers and ropes sprang out of thin air to surround Harry, binding his arms to his sides. "Come here, Potter. Look in the Mirror. Find the Stone." He grabbed Harry's shoulders and hauled him in front of the Mirror. "Find the Stone. Tell me how to find the Stone."

He had to lie, Harry decided. He didn't know what he wanted most right now -- to find the Stone and get it away from Quirrell, to be somewhere else, to have Dumbledore appear and rescue him -- but if he saw anything useful he had to lie. He couldn't let Quirrell get the Philosopher's Stone.

Quirrell shoved Harry forward, nearly sending him crashing into the glass. He stared blankly into the Mirror of Erised. Help me, he thought. Work for me. Give me the Stone and I'll smash it to pieces so Quirrell can't use it. That's what I want more than anything else in the world. He pushed aside the constant tingle in his mind and focused his will on that thought.

For a moment his reflection held a blood-red stone and smiled at Harry, starting to slip it into his reflected pocket, but then the tingle rose up the way it sometimes did when he was working magic, and the image split. One Harry frowned and let the stone vanish from its hand, while the other held the stone to its scar, releasing a formless ghost from its head. The ghost plunged into a sparkling potion and a man rose from the cauldron, laughing.

Harry stumbled back, head spinning. Where was the Stone? What did the second reflection mean?

"What did you see? What did you see?"

"Nothing," Harry choked out through suddenly numb lips. He felt disconnected from his body; the tingle scratched and prickled against the inside of his head, pressing for release.

"You're lying. You have to be lying. Find me the Stone!" Quirrell lunged forward, fingers clawing for Harry's face, and a strange spark of light, red and green intertwined, leapt from his scar to wreath around Quirrell's fingers. Quirrell howled, clutching his burned hand to his chest, and then all of a sudden slumped forward, panting.

"Oh God, Merlin, Founders, help me," he muttered. "What have I done?"

Harry blinked. Quirrell wasn't slurring his words.

When the Dark Arts teacher looked up again his eyes were clear and sharp, though nervous, and the strange slackness was gone from his face. "Potter, step away from the mirror and we'll wait for Dumbledore to come. Our presence here has triggered alarms that will call him back from London."

"You tried to kill me! And you were stealing the Philosopher's Stone."

"Yes, and I'm sorry about that, but I wasn't in control of my own actions," said Quirrell. "Over the summer, someone kidnapped me and put me under the Imperius Curse -- it's one of the Unforgiveables, a spell that takes away your free will and forces you to obey the caster's orders. Somebody wanted the Stone and needed a person inside Hogwarts to steal it."

Harry glared, trying to ignore his increasing lightheadedness. "I don't believe you. You tried to kill me. And aren't you supposed to be the Defense professor?" Why was he listening to Quirrell? He should run or try to take Quirrell's wand. Harry pressed a hand to his head, wishing the tingle would stop and let him think.

"Believe what you like, Potter, but very few people can resist Imperius and my specialty is Dark creatures, not curses. In any case I think I remember who did this to me, and Dumbledore will sort everything out." Quirrell's voice was getting fainter. In fact, everything was getting fainter, fuzzing out like a television with static, and the tingling pressure was sweeping over his body like a wave. Dimly, he saw a red-robed figure rush through the flames -- Dumbledore was here!

"Professor -- the Stone --"

He couldn't feel his body. Rushing water filled his ears.

"Quirrell, Harry, what happened here? Is the Stone -- my goodness, Harry, are you all right? Harry? Harry!"

Harry fell into blackness.

---------------------------------------------

End of Chapter 2