"Yeah - so yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it, I'll tell yeh that. Never mess with goblins, Harry. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe - 'cept maybe Hogwarts."
"An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest as he spoke to the bank teller. "It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."
Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault, Harry was sure, and he leaned forward eagerly - but he shouldn't be seeing this. He shouldn't be expecting to see fabulous jewels or the like when he knew what it was.
Harry looked up and saw himself looking down as Hagrid picked it up a grubby little package wrapped in brown paper from the floor and tuck it deep inside his coat. It looked like he was watching a movie. What had happened next?
"Hagrid!" Harry said excitedly, sitting in Hagrid's hut holding a newspaper clipping. "That Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!"
Hagrid didn't meet Harry's eyes as he tried to find something else to do.
Focus.
"-He was most displeased," Quirrell said. "He punished me… decided he would have to keep a closer watch on me…"
"Illuminating, but please no more distractions," Barchoke said. "Get to the Stone."
Quirrell rounded on Harry.
"Yes - Potter - come here." He clapped his hands once, and the ropes binding the other Harry fell away and he got to his feet.
"Come here," Quirrell repeated. "Look in the mirror and tell me what you see."
Harry watched himself walk toward the man and look into the mirror.
He saw his reflection, pale and scared-looking at first. But a moment later, the reflection smiled at him. It put its hand into its pocket and pulled out a blood-red stone. It winked and put the Stone back in its pocket - and as it did so, Harry felt something heavy drop into his real pocket - he somehow saw it too. Incredibly, he'd gotten the Stone .
"How did you survive?" the human voice asked and in a blur Harry found himself standing further from Quirrell than a moment before.
"Let me speak to him… face-to-face…" came the voice from Quirrell's turban.
"Master, you are not strong enough!"
"I have strength enough… for this…"
Harry felt as if Devil's Snare was rooting him to the spot. He couldn't move a muscle. Petrified, he watched as Quirrell reached up and began to unwrap his turban. What was going on? Wait - he knew what was going on. He had to focus.
The turban fell away. Quirrell's head looked strangely small without it as he turned on the spot to reveal the most terrible face Harry had ever seen where there should have been the back of the man's head. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake.
"Harry Potter…" it whispered. "See what I have become? Mere shadow and vapor… I have form only when I can share another's body… but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds… Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks-"
There was an urge to see a snow white form on the dark forest floor. Harry quickly discarded it; it wasn't important.
"-You saw faithful Quirrell drinking it for me in the forest… and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own… Now… why don't you give me that Stone in your pocket?"
With a blur Harry sprang toward the flame door, Voldemort screaming "SEIZE HIM!" The next second he felt Quirrell's hand close on his wrist. There was no pain as the Harry he saw reacted as if his head were about to split in two; he yelled and struggled with all his might, but he knew the battle was already won. Quirrell let go of him, hunching in pain as his fingers blistered before his eyes.
"Seize him! SEIZE HIM!" shrieked Voldemort again, and Quirrell lunged, knocking the Harry he saw clean off his feet, landing on top of him, both hands around his neck - before Quirrell howled in agony.
The Stone had tumbled out of his pocket. Harry hadn't noticed that before, it didn't seem Quirrell had either.
"Master, I cannot hold him - my hands - my hands!" the man whimpered.
"Then kill him, fool, and be done!" screeched Voldemort.
Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry reached up and grabbed Quirrell's face-
"AAAARGH!"
Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too, and Harry remembered: Quirrell couldn't touch his bare skin, not without suffering terrible pain - why was that?
In the hospital wing, a kind Dumbledore had the answer.
"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign… to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin."
Harry jumped to his feet, grabbed Quirrell's arm, and hung on as tight as he could. Quirrell screamed and tried to throw him off - the memory started to become hazy - he couldn't see - he could only hear Quirrell's terrible shrieks and Voldemort's yells of, "KILL HIM! KILL HIM!" and other voices crying, "Harry! Harry!" before it all ended.
"Where's the Stone?" the harsh goblin from earlier demanded.
"-the effort involved nearly killed you," Dumbledore said to the younger Harry beside him. "For one terrible moment there, I was afraid it had. As for the Stone, it has been destroyed."
"Destroyed?" said Harry blankly. "But your friend - Nicholas Flamel-"
"He lived in this tower in the Hebrides, of all places," Molly said, sitting at her dinner table, "with goblin guards of all things."
"I said it was like going to the North Pole to see a very odd Father Christmas," Mr. Weasley added.
"I called him Saint Nick, because that was his name," Molly joked.
Focus.
"Oh, you know about Nicholas?" Dumbledore asked, sounding quite delighted. "You did do the thing properly, didn't you? Well, Nicholas and I have had a little chat," he said as if to a child half Harry's age, "and agreed it's all for the best."
"But that means he and his wife will die, won't they?" the younger Harry asked.
"They have enough Elixir stored to set their affairs in order and then, yes, they will die."
The movie stopped again and Harry found himself strapped to an odd chair with a head full of cobwebs and a mouth full of cotton. After a moment the bindings were loosened and his funny hat removed, leaving him free to stand - just not able to without the room spinning.
"I have the question," an oddly accented goblin asked from above. "This girl at the end, who-who is this being?"
Harry clutched the chair for support and quickly found a gnarled hand on his shoulder.
"Don't-buy-me?" he said curiously before shaking the cobwebs out.
"That was Mr. and Mrs. Weasley," Lichfield explained for him, "Harry is renting a room from them."
"It is the Weasley you said?" the mustachioed goblin asked excitedly. "Then how did she know the Flamel?"
Lichfield looked at him curiously; Harry could tell he was curious too.
.....
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