Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Flame of the West: the Philosopher's Stone
Flame of the West: The Philosopher's Stone
Chapter 6: Masters
14th February 2006
"You!" Hermione gasped, "But you're a professor! How..."
Quirrel only laughed at her, "Really, Ms Granger, you need to be more observant. Even Ms Patil over there noticed that there was something wrong with the way I was so scared of so many things." Hermione looked affronted at being called inobservant.
Harry sighed, "That's enough, we know what exactly you're here to steal, so perhaps you'll back off?" Quirrel smiled, an unearthly sight, "Never. I have this chance to do something great for my master, and I'm not letting some school children stop me."
Su Li drew out with a ki claw, "Then we'll have to destroy you!" lashing out with her hand, a cresent blade of pearl white streaked towards Quirrel, who dodged and suddenly screamed, "Fool, you should have killed them!" the voice was high and cold, definitely not Quirrel's, and Harry snarled, "Voldemort." Su lashed out again, and Voldemort let Quirrel's body take the slash full force before a dark aura over took him and he drew his last breath. The fog-like darkness cleared with a swish from Padma's wand, "Dispello." And there stood Voldemort, as he'd probably have been soon after finishing at Hogwarts, and he hissed, "So, you have knowledge too. Excellent, then you shall be my first victims before I secure the Philosopher's Stone and return myself to my true power."
Padma frowned, "How did you survive?" Voldemort smiled cruelly, "Ah, something you and the rest of the world wish to know I'm sure. But I haven't gone further down the path to immortality than any other only to divulge my secrets now." He flicked his wand and a burst of dark red light sprang forth towards them, deflected by a timely, "Lentitudo!" from Su Li. Voldemort snapped his fingers and snake-like cords erupted from the ground around them, binding them tightly. Voldemort stalked up to Su Li and glared at her, "So, they survived my purge then? I'm impressed, and those who impress me don't live long. Avada Kedavra!" Harry had started moving the moment the ropes materialized, summoning his katana to his hand and slashing through the bindings, flinging a bolt of fire into the path of the curse, dispelling it just in time.
Voldemort turned to him, "So Potter, going to play the hero again?" Harry didn't answer, instead twirling the katana round, slicing through the bindings on Hermione and Padma before deflecting another two quick curses. Voldemort grinned, "Hiding behind girls' skirts? If nothing else, at least I can't fault your taste. They are exquisite, after all." Harry snarled and charged, drawing the Potter blade as he went, and slashed at Voldemort quickly in passing, nicking Su Li's bindings at the same time. She jumped away, distracting Voldemort as Padma and Hermione opened fire, "Immobilus! Stupefy! Premaculeus! Alarae Exumae! Expelliarmus! Surculus Calamus!" they did little more than annoy Voldemort, who cast a large shield charm and deflected them, but the arrows forced him to dodge, placing him just right for Su Li to open up his defenses like a can opener and begin her own barrage, "Haku Dato Shin Sho!" Voldemort cried out at the pain of having jets of energy forced through his body, but overcame her quickly, "Everte Statum!" and she crumbled against a wall, unconscious.
Harry frowned and got into an even stance, ready for Voldemort's next attack. He wasn't prepared for a passive strike, with Voldemort swishing his hands and drawing a ring of fire around the combatants. Scowling, Harry sheathed his blades and pulled out his staff, "Fulmen!" a jet of lightning flew from the tip, striking the dark lord in the shoulder as he dodged, and twisted back into Harry's two handed grasp, erecting a shield to halt the oncoming Sectumsempra curse, which Harry frowned at. He himself hadn't seen any mention of it before, and filed it away for further research, responding with, "Lorada!" and a streak of flame erupted from his wand, catching Voldemort's retreating form. Hermione and Padma were still firing, but they just couldn't do significant damage to him, but Harry knew without them he'd soon be over powered.
Thankfully, Su Li groaned and rose to her feet, anger evident in her eyes. Growling she slashed with her wand, muttering various choice Chinese curses, bombarding Voldemort with a rainbow of marron, purple, and gold. Frowning the dark lord sent a black energy ball at them, absorbing the spells and destroying part of the wall behind her when Su jumped to avoid them. She jumped back in, deploying the full extent of her Neko-ken, and Voldemort was forced onto the defensive, finally spotting an opening and taking full advantage of it with a "Calva Lecero!", crumbling part of her rib cage before spinning and sending a volley of brown curses at Harry. Following Harry's retreat, Voldemort swished his wand sideways and up, firing a volley of glass shards before following with a loud cry of, "CRUCIO!"
Snarling Harry twirled away from the pain curse, trying all the while to block out Su Li's whimpers, replying with a "Tarantallegra!" before having to jump away and erect his most powerful shield to stop a veritable wall of oncoming curses, "Theur Vaarn!"
Under cover of his shield, Harry waved his hand, conjuring several dozen small blades, sending them at Voldemort with another wave of his hand. The dark lord erected another shield to stop them, but it gave Harry the chance he needed. Drawing his Katana, he fed his ki and magic, supported by his fire, and leapt into the air, "Flames of Destiny!" bringing it down on Voldemort's head. For a moment nothing happened, then Voldemort erupted in flames, screaming as for the second time ever, his spirit was ripped from a body, leaving him to wander the world alone again.
Harry staggered over to the mirror and gazed at it, chuckling to himself, "Brilliant. He couldn't find it because he wanted to use it." Sighing to himself, he collapsed backwards, "At least it's safe."
.........
Darkness, it was endless! Where was he anyway? A chuckle? Someone's laughing at me? But I can't sense them, guess that'd have to be the case, if I could I'd kill him. Wait, it sounds like a feminine, so I'll kill her.
The laugh came again, "Are you so sure you'd kill me, Harry? I mean, I thought I meant a good bit to you." Harry placed the voice almost instantly, "Aurora! Where are we?" Aurora chuckled, "Well, if you'd only turn the lights on, you'd find out pretty quickly wouldn't you?" Harry sighed, damned birds and mysterious answers. Still, with nothing to be lost by doing so, Harry closed his eyes and focused on lights coming on, hoping this was what Aurora meant.
Then his head began to hurt and he opened his eyes, only to rediscover his firewall, occlumency shields, and his mind back as last he checked. Grinning he found Aurora and Reiketsu, "Well, I guess I fell unconscious eh? Better out cold than dead though, what's been happening?" the bright blue phoenix chuckled, "Well, for a while you were asleep, then one thing led to another, and now you're in the hospital wing, with Hermione, Padma, and Su Li. Tokiya got Su Li done up pretty fast but Poppy insisted on having all of them down. Padma was pretty exhausted and is still out, I guess there wasn't a warning about those spells eh? I mean, you're probably only able to use all those high powered spells and still fight because of Aurora and I."
Harry sighed, "Well, guess I won't be doing that again soon then? I mean, I think my core will have grown a good bit by September?" Aurora nodded, "Yep, you're in your exponential growth stage, but still, I doubt you'll go too high, or at least you won't reach even close to Dumbledore's power till you're past half a century." Harry shrugged, "I highly doubt Dumbledore could wield a sword like me." Fawks made his entrance then, "Again, I seem to have caught the tail end of that conversation. For your information, Albus is in fact schooled in the art of the sword. I'd have liked to call him a master of it, but he's just not quite the same anymore with it. Old age, I'm sure you understand?"
Harry nodded, "Well then, I'll just go back to trying to wake up then, shall I?" He floated over to his nerve centers and focused on pushing power into them, carefully monitoring in case something happened. In a flash, he was up in bed, laughing at a rather pained Albus Dumbledore who was clutching his head and groaning. He stretched his stiffened muscles and rubbed his eyes, shaking the fuzz from his mind and grinned at the headmaster, "Professor Dumbledore, it's rather strange to peer so closely at one so very asleep, is it not?" Dumbledore chuckled, "Indeed, Harry, but your scar intrigued me. See, when I first saw it, there was nothing truly special about it. But now a decade later, it has gained a blue-green tinge to it with a smattering of gold. Anything I should know about?"
Harry chuckled, "Probably part of my occlumency shields really, I haven't anything else that could effect such a change." Dumbledore nodded and seemed to accept his answer, though a quizzical gleam remained in his eye, "Well then, Ms. Granger and Ms. Li have awoken and I've spoken variously to them, but it seems you're the only one to survive the ordeal in one piece. Perhaps you could recall for me what happened?" Harry frowned and reached into his subspace pocket, reassuring himself that the stone was still there and safe before answering, "Well, as I'm sure you know already, something happened to attract our attention and we eventually got on the trail of the Philosopher's Stone which Voldemort was after as well.
"I'm equally sure you already know, but the professors put in extra protections on my advice through Professor Flitwick." Albus nodded at that and Harry continued, "Apparently Quirrel had secured a way through already because the protections were intact. Various other protections were basically blown apart, and others were circumvented, and we made our way through those. Quirrel's body was taken by Voldemort and mutilated to accommodate his power levels, and we dueled. Hermione and Padma gave me great cover fire, and Su got up in time to give me a hand, and I basically killed him." Dumbledore nodded amiably, "That much is not new to me in its entirety, but you still haven't explained how you defeated Voldemort?" Harry sighed and closed his eyes, "I cut him in half right down the middle. Is it that hard to understand?"
Dumbledore shook his head, "That much I also knew. No, what I meant was how did you get the opportunity to strike? I found some powerful magic which was unidentifiable to me there. No it wasn't Voldemort, I'm fairly familiar with his magic and this was no wizarding magic." Harry sighed, "Surely its conceivable that our magics mixed in the crossfire and came up with something incalculable?" Seeing Dumbledore's disbelieving look, Harry relented, "It's an Elven shield, works best against curses and only something like a spirit breaking curse of Voldemort's level could collapse it. It's major weakness, funnily enough, are basic charms and transfiguration. So if Voldemort had tried to transfigure it into a needle or anything of similar complexity it would have disappeared. Same if he'd tried to levitate it with a simple Wingardium Leviosa." Albus looked astounded and another voice cut into the opening, "Simple solutions to complicated problems. Taking down even a temporary ward of its variation would take all his servants with powerful curses and hexes."
Harry grinned, "I knew you'd be here." Tokiya snorted, "so maybe I should have come anyway? That Troll sure looked like it could use a cold if it weren't dead." Harry sighed, "and why didn't you come beyond that? I know you'd have tried to kill Voldemort on sight." His teacher shrugged, "Fuko called, you know what she's like." Harry shuddered, his various encounters with her had matured him at an early age, "I'm sure glad I'm not part of that pact." Dumbledore, realizing he was not only out of his depth, but didn't want to know, excused himself, "I shall see you at the feast then, Harry, take care. Tokiya."
.........
And before they knew it, they were on their way through the gates of Hogwarts and boarding the trains, and finding their own compartment after bidding their goodbyes to Hagrid, "Well, guess I'll see you in September then, Hagrid?" the large man smiled, "yep, and get ready fer another thumpin gud year. Yer take care now right?" Harry grinned back, "You bet. See you!"
"So Harry, where are you going?" Harry grinned at Hermione, "I dunno, Tokiya'll tell me soon I guess. For now, maybe Aurora'll flame us to Japan, or Germany, or wherever takes her fancy, they it's another few months on the road for me, and we'll play it by ear." He grinned at their dumbfounded looks, it was going to be a great summer.
Chapter 6: Masters
14th February 2006
"You!" Hermione gasped, "But you're a professor! How..."
Quirrel only laughed at her, "Really, Ms Granger, you need to be more observant. Even Ms Patil over there noticed that there was something wrong with the way I was so scared of so many things." Hermione looked affronted at being called inobservant.
Harry sighed, "That's enough, we know what exactly you're here to steal, so perhaps you'll back off?" Quirrel smiled, an unearthly sight, "Never. I have this chance to do something great for my master, and I'm not letting some school children stop me."
Su Li drew out with a ki claw, "Then we'll have to destroy you!" lashing out with her hand, a cresent blade of pearl white streaked towards Quirrel, who dodged and suddenly screamed, "Fool, you should have killed them!" the voice was high and cold, definitely not Quirrel's, and Harry snarled, "Voldemort." Su lashed out again, and Voldemort let Quirrel's body take the slash full force before a dark aura over took him and he drew his last breath. The fog-like darkness cleared with a swish from Padma's wand, "Dispello." And there stood Voldemort, as he'd probably have been soon after finishing at Hogwarts, and he hissed, "So, you have knowledge too. Excellent, then you shall be my first victims before I secure the Philosopher's Stone and return myself to my true power."
Padma frowned, "How did you survive?" Voldemort smiled cruelly, "Ah, something you and the rest of the world wish to know I'm sure. But I haven't gone further down the path to immortality than any other only to divulge my secrets now." He flicked his wand and a burst of dark red light sprang forth towards them, deflected by a timely, "Lentitudo!" from Su Li. Voldemort snapped his fingers and snake-like cords erupted from the ground around them, binding them tightly. Voldemort stalked up to Su Li and glared at her, "So, they survived my purge then? I'm impressed, and those who impress me don't live long. Avada Kedavra!" Harry had started moving the moment the ropes materialized, summoning his katana to his hand and slashing through the bindings, flinging a bolt of fire into the path of the curse, dispelling it just in time.
Voldemort turned to him, "So Potter, going to play the hero again?" Harry didn't answer, instead twirling the katana round, slicing through the bindings on Hermione and Padma before deflecting another two quick curses. Voldemort grinned, "Hiding behind girls' skirts? If nothing else, at least I can't fault your taste. They are exquisite, after all." Harry snarled and charged, drawing the Potter blade as he went, and slashed at Voldemort quickly in passing, nicking Su Li's bindings at the same time. She jumped away, distracting Voldemort as Padma and Hermione opened fire, "Immobilus! Stupefy! Premaculeus! Alarae Exumae! Expelliarmus! Surculus Calamus!" they did little more than annoy Voldemort, who cast a large shield charm and deflected them, but the arrows forced him to dodge, placing him just right for Su Li to open up his defenses like a can opener and begin her own barrage, "Haku Dato Shin Sho!" Voldemort cried out at the pain of having jets of energy forced through his body, but overcame her quickly, "Everte Statum!" and she crumbled against a wall, unconscious.
Harry frowned and got into an even stance, ready for Voldemort's next attack. He wasn't prepared for a passive strike, with Voldemort swishing his hands and drawing a ring of fire around the combatants. Scowling, Harry sheathed his blades and pulled out his staff, "Fulmen!" a jet of lightning flew from the tip, striking the dark lord in the shoulder as he dodged, and twisted back into Harry's two handed grasp, erecting a shield to halt the oncoming Sectumsempra curse, which Harry frowned at. He himself hadn't seen any mention of it before, and filed it away for further research, responding with, "Lorada!" and a streak of flame erupted from his wand, catching Voldemort's retreating form. Hermione and Padma were still firing, but they just couldn't do significant damage to him, but Harry knew without them he'd soon be over powered.
Thankfully, Su Li groaned and rose to her feet, anger evident in her eyes. Growling she slashed with her wand, muttering various choice Chinese curses, bombarding Voldemort with a rainbow of marron, purple, and gold. Frowning the dark lord sent a black energy ball at them, absorbing the spells and destroying part of the wall behind her when Su jumped to avoid them. She jumped back in, deploying the full extent of her Neko-ken, and Voldemort was forced onto the defensive, finally spotting an opening and taking full advantage of it with a "Calva Lecero!", crumbling part of her rib cage before spinning and sending a volley of brown curses at Harry. Following Harry's retreat, Voldemort swished his wand sideways and up, firing a volley of glass shards before following with a loud cry of, "CRUCIO!"
Snarling Harry twirled away from the pain curse, trying all the while to block out Su Li's whimpers, replying with a "Tarantallegra!" before having to jump away and erect his most powerful shield to stop a veritable wall of oncoming curses, "Theur Vaarn!"
Under cover of his shield, Harry waved his hand, conjuring several dozen small blades, sending them at Voldemort with another wave of his hand. The dark lord erected another shield to stop them, but it gave Harry the chance he needed. Drawing his Katana, he fed his ki and magic, supported by his fire, and leapt into the air, "Flames of Destiny!" bringing it down on Voldemort's head. For a moment nothing happened, then Voldemort erupted in flames, screaming as for the second time ever, his spirit was ripped from a body, leaving him to wander the world alone again.
Harry staggered over to the mirror and gazed at it, chuckling to himself, "Brilliant. He couldn't find it because he wanted to use it." Sighing to himself, he collapsed backwards, "At least it's safe."
.........
Darkness, it was endless! Where was he anyway? A chuckle? Someone's laughing at me? But I can't sense them, guess that'd have to be the case, if I could I'd kill him. Wait, it sounds like a feminine, so I'll kill her.
The laugh came again, "Are you so sure you'd kill me, Harry? I mean, I thought I meant a good bit to you." Harry placed the voice almost instantly, "Aurora! Where are we?" Aurora chuckled, "Well, if you'd only turn the lights on, you'd find out pretty quickly wouldn't you?" Harry sighed, damned birds and mysterious answers. Still, with nothing to be lost by doing so, Harry closed his eyes and focused on lights coming on, hoping this was what Aurora meant.
Then his head began to hurt and he opened his eyes, only to rediscover his firewall, occlumency shields, and his mind back as last he checked. Grinning he found Aurora and Reiketsu, "Well, I guess I fell unconscious eh? Better out cold than dead though, what's been happening?" the bright blue phoenix chuckled, "Well, for a while you were asleep, then one thing led to another, and now you're in the hospital wing, with Hermione, Padma, and Su Li. Tokiya got Su Li done up pretty fast but Poppy insisted on having all of them down. Padma was pretty exhausted and is still out, I guess there wasn't a warning about those spells eh? I mean, you're probably only able to use all those high powered spells and still fight because of Aurora and I."
Harry sighed, "Well, guess I won't be doing that again soon then? I mean, I think my core will have grown a good bit by September?" Aurora nodded, "Yep, you're in your exponential growth stage, but still, I doubt you'll go too high, or at least you won't reach even close to Dumbledore's power till you're past half a century." Harry shrugged, "I highly doubt Dumbledore could wield a sword like me." Fawks made his entrance then, "Again, I seem to have caught the tail end of that conversation. For your information, Albus is in fact schooled in the art of the sword. I'd have liked to call him a master of it, but he's just not quite the same anymore with it. Old age, I'm sure you understand?"
Harry nodded, "Well then, I'll just go back to trying to wake up then, shall I?" He floated over to his nerve centers and focused on pushing power into them, carefully monitoring in case something happened. In a flash, he was up in bed, laughing at a rather pained Albus Dumbledore who was clutching his head and groaning. He stretched his stiffened muscles and rubbed his eyes, shaking the fuzz from his mind and grinned at the headmaster, "Professor Dumbledore, it's rather strange to peer so closely at one so very asleep, is it not?" Dumbledore chuckled, "Indeed, Harry, but your scar intrigued me. See, when I first saw it, there was nothing truly special about it. But now a decade later, it has gained a blue-green tinge to it with a smattering of gold. Anything I should know about?"
Harry chuckled, "Probably part of my occlumency shields really, I haven't anything else that could effect such a change." Dumbledore nodded and seemed to accept his answer, though a quizzical gleam remained in his eye, "Well then, Ms. Granger and Ms. Li have awoken and I've spoken variously to them, but it seems you're the only one to survive the ordeal in one piece. Perhaps you could recall for me what happened?" Harry frowned and reached into his subspace pocket, reassuring himself that the stone was still there and safe before answering, "Well, as I'm sure you know already, something happened to attract our attention and we eventually got on the trail of the Philosopher's Stone which Voldemort was after as well.
"I'm equally sure you already know, but the professors put in extra protections on my advice through Professor Flitwick." Albus nodded at that and Harry continued, "Apparently Quirrel had secured a way through already because the protections were intact. Various other protections were basically blown apart, and others were circumvented, and we made our way through those. Quirrel's body was taken by Voldemort and mutilated to accommodate his power levels, and we dueled. Hermione and Padma gave me great cover fire, and Su got up in time to give me a hand, and I basically killed him." Dumbledore nodded amiably, "That much is not new to me in its entirety, but you still haven't explained how you defeated Voldemort?" Harry sighed and closed his eyes, "I cut him in half right down the middle. Is it that hard to understand?"
Dumbledore shook his head, "That much I also knew. No, what I meant was how did you get the opportunity to strike? I found some powerful magic which was unidentifiable to me there. No it wasn't Voldemort, I'm fairly familiar with his magic and this was no wizarding magic." Harry sighed, "Surely its conceivable that our magics mixed in the crossfire and came up with something incalculable?" Seeing Dumbledore's disbelieving look, Harry relented, "It's an Elven shield, works best against curses and only something like a spirit breaking curse of Voldemort's level could collapse it. It's major weakness, funnily enough, are basic charms and transfiguration. So if Voldemort had tried to transfigure it into a needle or anything of similar complexity it would have disappeared. Same if he'd tried to levitate it with a simple Wingardium Leviosa." Albus looked astounded and another voice cut into the opening, "Simple solutions to complicated problems. Taking down even a temporary ward of its variation would take all his servants with powerful curses and hexes."
Harry grinned, "I knew you'd be here." Tokiya snorted, "so maybe I should have come anyway? That Troll sure looked like it could use a cold if it weren't dead." Harry sighed, "and why didn't you come beyond that? I know you'd have tried to kill Voldemort on sight." His teacher shrugged, "Fuko called, you know what she's like." Harry shuddered, his various encounters with her had matured him at an early age, "I'm sure glad I'm not part of that pact." Dumbledore, realizing he was not only out of his depth, but didn't want to know, excused himself, "I shall see you at the feast then, Harry, take care. Tokiya."
.........
And before they knew it, they were on their way through the gates of Hogwarts and boarding the trains, and finding their own compartment after bidding their goodbyes to Hagrid, "Well, guess I'll see you in September then, Hagrid?" the large man smiled, "yep, and get ready fer another thumpin gud year. Yer take care now right?" Harry grinned back, "You bet. See you!"
"So Harry, where are you going?" Harry grinned at Hermione, "I dunno, Tokiya'll tell me soon I guess. For now, maybe Aurora'll flame us to Japan, or Germany, or wherever takes her fancy, they it's another few months on the road for me, and we'll play it by ear." He grinned at their dumbfounded looks, it was going to be a great summer.
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