Chapter 57

When those inside of the mirror showed no signs of having heard him, Harry began pounding on the mirror's surface in the hopes that the sound would draw their attention. A pained whine issued forth from Harry's lips and tears sprang to his eyes as his self-claimed father and friends continued to ignore him; his heart breaking into a million pieces as they seemingly preferred the company of what he now imagined was a fake copy of himself. He had no idea how long he'd been standing there pounding on the glass and bawling his eyes out when a voice cut through the room and caught him off guard.

"Well isn't this a pleasant surprise, I never would have suspected Dumbledore's little pet experiment to be the one to have cleared the traps for me so that I could just breeze right on through and take what rightfully belongs to my master."

Harry jerked around and nearly tripped over his feet as he watched his Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, Professor Quirrell, step out of the dancing shadows created by the flames near the entrance. Confusion filled Harry as he wasn't certain what the man was talking about and all he really wanted to do was find a way to join his family inside the mirror.

"I don't understand… are you here to try and stop me from completing the Dungeon? Do you know where the Boss Monster is waiting? I need to find it quickly… they don't know that the me with them is a fake, so I have to hurry up and clear the Dungeon so that I can warn them; maybe then they will hear me calling them and the mirror will let me through."

"There is no monster, Potter; just you and me and the Stone that is hidden somewhere in this room."

"Stone? What stone?" Harry demanded as he instinctively backed away from the man as he walked closer; not wanting him to get close enough to transport him out of the room before he'd finished the Dungeon.

"The Philosopher's Stone, of course, why do you think I am here? Did you think the traps placed in the other rooms were nothing more than a game for you to play? No, they were meant to protect the Stone from me but they failed thanks to your efforts. With the Stone in his hand, my master will rise again from the ashes even greater than he was before."

Understanding lit in Harry's eyes in that moment; Quirrell was the Dungeon's Boss and if he wanted to reach his friends in the mirror, then he'd have to defeat Quirrell (though he didn't think he'd need to kill the man; only capture him, like the NPCs had captured Pettigrew on Christmas Day). Harry didn't hesitate to send Hedwig up to hide in the rafters where she would be safe before he attacked Quirrell while the man's attention was focused on the mirror that had so entranced Harry earlier. The man had not expected the attack and Harry managed to set the man's robes alight with a fire spell and stick his feet to the floor with a freezing charm before he had collected himself and fought back.

Once Quirrell started actively trying to kill him, Harry quickly lost ground in the fight and was forced to use his shield to fend off the same acid green spells that the creature in the forest had tried to hit him with. As he deflected and dodged spell after spell and tried to use various net and snare traps to trip up his opponent, Quirrell tried to goad him into growing careless. After about twenty minutes, another voice spoke up and Harry soon learned about the face on the back of Quirrell's head. Any reservations Harry might have had about killing an NPC (and therefore turning his cursor orange) vanished in an instant over the discovery that Quirrell was more monster than man.

It was at that point that Harry learned the face on the back of his professor's head belonged to Voldemort; the evil wizard that had supposedly killed his parents (according to the game plot). Following the logic in most role playing games, Harry surmised that in order to win the game; he'd have to kill Voldemort. The eleven year old was trying to come up with a way to do just that when the Voldemort-Quirrell monster hybrid fired yet another green spell at him and this time when the spell bounced off of Harry's shield, it slammed into the mirror that had been sitting in the middle of the room; causing it to explode.

"No!" Harry screamed in shock as he saw his chance of finding the others vanishing like smoke as shards of glass sliced through the room; cutting both wizards.

Harry let out a second scream of rage and called forth the lightning spell he'd mastered in SAO and blasted Quirrell's body across the room. Twice more, Harry called the lightning down upon the man as his grief and rage spiraled out of control. The only reason why he'd not used the spell earlier was because it always left him severely drained and he'd been trying to avoid using the majority of his SAO Magic Skills in order to increase his MaM Skills. Harry didn't care right that moment though; he was far too angry about losing what he feared was his only chance at finding the others.

Quirrell's body shattered at that point and a scream filled the room as a black cloud of smoke appeared from the vanishing crystal shards. The cloud then roared in anger as the face from the back of Quirrell's head formed in the smoke before it vanished through the ceiling and Harry knew that somehow Voldemort had escaped but he didn't really care at that moment. The stunted eleven year old dropped onto his knees and wept as he frantically tried to collect the shattered pieces of the mirror so he could fix it; for once not bothering to read the battle summary and therefore never noticed that he'd picked up the four Items that had been dropped at the end of the battle (the Philosopher's Stone, Quirrell's Wand, Quirrell's Turban, and a Mirror Shard).

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