The trials

Disclaimer:

Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K Rowling.

I own nothing but the original characters I make.

"Dialogue"

'Thoughts'

$Parseltongue$

Chapter 22

The trials

Christmas ended and classes started again. Not much happened in the next few weeks. Other than Hagrid having his house burned down because apparently, he thought it was a good idea to house a dragon in a wooden house.

After his first visit to the room of requirements, Harry has taken the habit of going there a few times a week to practice.

He has no new spells to learn at Hogwarts since he already knows all the spells in the school curriculum and even the forbidden section holds no secrets for him.

What he can do is improve his control over the spells he already knows, with and without a wand. With more control, spells can become more powerful while being less exhausting to cast.

After acquiring it, Harry started to use the cloak of invisibility for his visits to the room of requirement. He didn't want to risk more people finding that room, or having to explain to a teacher how he found it.

It was during one of his visits that he saw something interesting while going through the third-floor corridors.

Snape had Quirrell pinned against the wall and said.

"You don't want me as your enemy Quirrell!"

Quirrel seems very calm. "I don't know what you mean Severus" He then gave Snape a cocky smile.

Snape seemed to become more enraged "Don't think I don't know what you are doing!. You better remember where your loyalties lie." After saying those words, Snape left while muttering something.

Quirrel stood there for a moment, looking at Snape walk away. Then his eyes turned bright yellow, only for less than a second. But Harry didn't miss it.

—-

A month later Harry was leaving the Headmaster's office. Dumbledore would call him to his office once in a while to have a chat. Harry knew he had some ulterior motives, and sometimes the old man would use some mild legilicemcy on him, just to check his surface thoughts.

Of course, Harry was more than prepared for this, he was always on guard when he was called to his office.

At the end of this particular meeting, Dumbledore informed Harry that he was going away for some business in the ministry.

When Harry was leaving the office, he ran into Ron Weasley and two other first-year Gryffindors he didn't know.

Harry noticed that they seemed very distressed for some reason.

"If you are here to talk with the Headmaster, he just left for some business in the ministry," Harry informed them.

"What?. He chooses NOW of all times to leave?" Ron said, clearly exasperated.

The other Gryffindors were looking at each other and saying something like 'what do we do know?.'

"Can you tell me what happened?" Harry asked. He felt curious about what had those Gryffindors so stressed out.

Ron seems to hesitate. "I-i don't know. We shouldn't be telling this t-"

"Come on Ron. You can tell me." This time Harry used a mild compulsion on Ron to answer.

"O-ok. Look. We heard Snape threaten Quirrell. And.. well… let's just say that we found out that Professor Dumbledore has something very valuable hidden inside Hogwarts and Snape is going to steal it. Tonight!" Ron said, nervously.

"I see. You should go inform your head of the house and then go back to your rooms. Is best not to get involved in this. " Harry looked at all three and used a small compulsion on them. It was best to have them out of the way.

'It seems I have to make the move today.' Harry concluded.

—-

Ten minutes later Harry was in front of a flaming door and what seemed like a logic puzzle.

"Glacius"

The flames froze in place and he walked through the door.

'Sigh…these challenges were supposed to keep the thief out?. A dog, a plant, a giant chess set, a troll, and now a potions puzzle…Oh well, let's see what the last line of defense is.' Harry thought while feeling a bit disappointed.

Dumbledore has been subtly pushing him to investigate the mystery. Hagrid would also mention something he should not have said, once in a while. So Harry has actually been looking forward to finding out what the old man has prepared. He should have known better, those tests were obviously designed for first years.

The room that he walked into was empty, except for a very familiar mirror in the middle of it.

'He put the stone inside the mirror? That's clever, there are probably some specific conditions to get it out.'

He got in front of the mirror and the image changed. He saw himself holding the stone and smiling, but that was all, the stone remained nowhere to be seen in the real world.

He tried everything he could think of, but he could find the conditions to get the stone out.

'Knowing Dumbledore I probably have to perform some selfless heroic Gryffindor-like act to get the stone.'

His patience was running out, as well as his time to get this done. There are probably some teachers coming already.

'Well. Lets hope this works.'

He hesitated for a moment before he took his wand out and blew up the mirror. Among the fragments, there was a red stone.

Harry smiled at the success but when he was about to pick up the stone, he felt a hostile presence rushing toward the room he was in.

A few seconds later, a voice was heard from the entrance of the room.

"Ah Me. Potter. Very impressive, but I'm afraid I am going to need that stone. Right now."

Quirrell was a few meters away from him. Directly pointing his wand at Harry.