The Sorcerer's Stone in the Pocket, The Man in the Mirror

"Professor Quirrell, what are you doing here?"

Harry stared in disbelief at the person before him. Although the other person looked rather pitiful, Harry still recognized him—wasn't this the always harmless Professor Quirrell?

Professor Quirrell, despite his stutter, terrible teaching skills, and persistent unpleasant garlic odor...

Putting aside these shortcomings, in Harry's opinion, Quirrell is a good person.

Even though he was disliked by his students, Professor Quirrell always performed diligently, attending classes on time and leaving on time, never going overtime.

Harry thought about how he had previously witnessed Quirrell being threatened by Snape, and compared to that, Snape seemed like the real bad guy.

If I had to choose, shouldn't it be Snape's here?

"You... you don't mean to steal the Sorcerer's Stone, do you?"

Harry stared at Quirrell in disbelief, unable to reconcile the stuttering professor with the mastermind behind the plot to seize the Sorcerer's Stone.

Quirrell no longer wanted to answer that question.

After seeing his reflection in the mirror, he would sometimes dream of that "future."

Will those things come true?

"Haha, Severus certainly doesn't look like a good person. He flies around like a giant bat, his presence is a distraction..."

Who would care about a stuttering, cowardly Quirrell?

A sharp, piercing sound rang in Harry's ears, but he clearly saw that Quirrell did not open his mouth.

"What a pity. That Quidditch Match without Dumbledore had a chance to kill you. Tsk, in the end, it was still that old geezer..."

Harry stared at Quirrell in shock; it turned out he was the culprit!

Harry was also puzzled, because Quirrell kept his mouth shut, yet his words still reached his ears.

At the same time, Harry felt the scar on his forehead getting more and more painful.

As the sound continued, the burning sensation became almost tangible.

"Let me see him, let me see this boy who survived such a terrible ordeal~~"

The words were spoken slowly and deliberately, filled with disdain and hatred, but deep down there seemed to be a hint of fear.

Quirrell obeyed and turned around, his back to Harry, as he slowly untied his purple headscarf.

As he lowered the strip of cloth, he gazed into the mirror and saw once again the peaceful and serene scene before him, a healthy and elegant version of himself flipping through a book in the study.

Harry's pupils constricted little by little, and with Quirrell's movements, the sharp pain emanating from his scar made him clench his fists.

When the headscarf fell to the ground, what should have been the back of the head was instead a face as pale as Chalk.

The face looked like it had been burned; the features were blurred, distorted like wax, bizarre and disgusting.

The whites of his eyes were almost completely bloodshot, a deep red, and below them were long, thin nostrils resembling those of a snake.

"Harry Potter..."

Without the hood obstructing his view, the voice whispered softly against Harry's ear.

The last time we met, you were just a baby.

"Oh, you were so little back then, so very little..."

"Your father and mother, well, their brave but feeble resistance."

Harry covered his forehead with one hand, and tears, whether from sadness or pain, dripped down his face.

"Voldemort?!"

"Yes, yes, praise my great name!"

Hahahaha...

"Give me the Sorcerer's Stone!"

A maniacal, unrestrained laugh erupted from Voldemort's mouth, agonizing Harry's eardrums.

"Go, my child, Quirinus, that boy surely knows where the Sorcerer's Stone is."

Quirrell snapped his fingers.

Harry was bound tightly by ropes that appeared out of nowhere.

Quirrell gazed longingly at the image reflected in his glasses, let out a barely perceptible sigh, and turned to look at Harry.

"Harry, resistance is futile..."

Quirrell was about to lift his leg and walk up to Harry, ready to ask him where the Sorcerer's Stone was.

"Etc!"

A sharp shout stopped Quirrell's movements; the voice belonged to Voldemort.

Voldemort's bloodshot eyes widened as he fixed his gaze on the mirror.

What did he see?

In the mirror, a figure stands with its back to him.

The figure was wearing a school uniform, with dark golden hair casually draped over her shoulders.

Standing in front of the workbench, her hands flew, chopping and grinding various potion ingredients before methodically tossing them into a cauldron.

The color of the flames was also unusual, constantly changing and occasionally displaying mixed colors, enveloping the bottom of the crucible.

Looking at the figure from behind, Voldemort didn't think he had seen it before, but it also felt somewhat familiar.

Just as Voldemort began to ponder, he noticed that the figure suddenly stopped moving.

Then, with a wave of his hand, the flame instantly returned to the orange-yellow color of an ordinary flame.

On that fair palm, there was now a gem, a translucent red gem.

Voldemort's pupils suddenly contracted, and his face twitched.

"Sorcerer's Stone!"

Manipulating Quirrell's body to retreat, Voldemort's face quickly drew closer to the mirror, albeit awkwardly.

His eyes were filled with greed and longing as he stared intently at the gem.

The figure in the mirror casually stuffed the Sorcerer's Stone into its pocket, as if it were just an ordinary little object.

As Quirrell lay sprawled in front of the Mirror of Erised in an eerie pose, Harry struggled to free himself from the ropes.

But the rope was too tight, and he fell directly onto the hard ground.

Ignoring the pain, Harry shuffled around, determined never to bow down to Voldemort!

He needs to find a way to get the Sorcerer's Stone first and stop Voldemort's plot!

He wanted to stall for time, to hold out until Headmaster Dumbledore returned, and to witness Voldemort's defeat with his own eyes!

Just as Harry moved, he suddenly looked at Quirrell as if by some strange impulse and caught a glimpse of a corner of the mirror.

In the mirror, he was also lying on the ground, his whole body bound.

But soon, the ropes dissolved on their own, and he quickly stood up.

The expression on his face was no longer one of fear and anxiety, but rather a smile.

Harry in the mirror reached into his pocket and pulled out a translucent red stone.

He winked at Harry on the ground, then put the stone back in his pocket.

In an instant, Harry felt a heavy weight in his pocket.

The sensation coming from my thigh, combined with the scene I had just witnessed.

An idea flashed through Harry's mind:

I actually got the Sorcerer's Stone!

Harry, trying to calm himself down, quickly figured things out.

What he needs to do now is hide.

Voldemort certainly didn't know that the Sorcerer's Stone would suddenly appear in his pocket, so as long as he was patient and hid the Sorcerer's Stone, he could hold out until Dumbledore came to his rescue!

Harry gently adjusted his posture, pressing the bag containing the Sorcerer's Stone beneath him.

Just as Harry felt the Sorcerer's Stone appear in his pocket.

A soft laugh came from the Mirror of Erised.

The sound seemed to come from a great distance; only Voldemort and Quirrell, who were pressed against the mirror, could hear it.

Voldemort saw the reflection in the mirror extinguish the flames and slowly poured the potion from the cauldron into a small crystal vial.

Good evening, Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts.

The figure finally turned around, his dark green eyes looking at Voldemort, a handsome and charming smile playing on his lips.

In that instant, Voldemort finally realized who that sense of familiarity came from.

Lucien Grafton!