𓏲 . THE BOY WHO LIVED . .៹♡
                                                    CHAPTER THIRTEEN
─── THROUGH THE TRAPDOOR & THE MAN WITH TWO FACES

As night fell over Hogwarts, the two Slytherins stroked their owls with palpable nervousness as they anxiously waited for the right moment to leave the common room as planned and meet their three Gryffindor friends outside.

Slowly, the room emptied as people drifted off to bed. When Adrian and Matthew finally made their way up the stairs to their dark dormitory with a friendly wave to Charlus and Alistair, the light brown-haired boy and the black-haired boy stood up and climbed out of the barrel hole and out of the Slytherin common room.

As of right on cue, Harry, Ron and Hermione appeared in the middle of the room when Harry pulled the invisibility cloak off of them and they let out a shaky sigh. "Ready?" "Ready!" Harry confirmed as Charlus and Alistair walked over and took their place between Ron and Hermione.

"Okay, before you two find out, Hermione cursed Neville." Ron said while he raised his hands in surrender, as if to proclaim his innocence. "Ron!" she gasped angrily, and sounded deeply betrayed, as if Ron had revealed a deeply guarded secret.

Alistair and Charlus turned to the bushy haired girl with raised eyebrows, obviously curious about the explanation. She began to stutter to explain what she had done, " He was going to get a professor and he caught us sneaking out. It was just the full-body bind. I... I didn't have a choice."

Charlus couldn't help but grin proudly at her. "You really are amazing, Mione." he said softly, and Hermione felt her cheeks turn red with pride and embarrassment as she heard the compliment of him. She lowered her eyes and mumbled out a grateful "Thank you,Char." before she turned back to the group.

"Let's go." Alistair said, and then Harry threw the invisibility cloak over them before they started to make their way to the third-floor corridor. When they were walking on the corridor, Ron accidentally stepped on Hermione's foot. "Ouch! You stepped on my foot!" she whisper-shouted and looked angrily at him, who took a step back while he apologized to her.

As they made it to the door, Hermione pulled out her wand and pointed at the lock. "Alohomora." she whispered, and the door opened slightly with a small creak before they went in.

Ron shut the door behind them as they entered the room with the dog. As they were now in the clear, Harry pulled the invisibility cloak off of them.

In the room, they could hear the small and delicate sound of a harp that was playing all by itself in the corner. Thanks to the music, Fluffy was fast asleep, snoring loudly.

"Snape's already been here. " Charlus said before he shook his head, upset that he had beat them to it. "Look, he put a spell on the harp to keep it playing."

"Ugh." Ron said in disgust and scrunched his nose as the five of them walked closer to Fluffy who kept snored at their faces. "It's got horrible breath."

Then they noticed that his paw had blocked the trapdoor beneath him. "We have to move his paw." Harry said to them, to which Ron looked at him with wide eyes. "What?!" he asked in disbelief. Alistair looked at his ginger haired friend. "Come on." he urged in a determined voice. "We have no other choice if we want to get ahead."

As the other three didn't have time to argue, they helped Harry and Alistair move Fluffy's paw. When the five of them had managed to remove the dog's paw from the door, they all sighed with relief.

Hermione opened the trapdoor and the five of them looked down with a frown. "Sure is dark." Alistair commented, while Charlus looked at his brother and friends. "Harry and I will go first." he declared. "Don't follow until we give you a sign. If something bad happens, get yourselves out."

Ron,Harry and Hermione nodded reluctantly. Alistair, on the other hand, seemed to be the only one who noticed that the music had stopped abruptly. "I don't want to panic, but I just wanted to say that the harp has stopped playing and a rather large eye is watching us right now." he said, and pointed to one of the heads. At that moment, a large lump of drool fell from Fluffy onto Ron's shoulder. "Ah!" he groaned in disgust. "Disgusting!"

Then the other four looked in the direction in which Alistair was pointing to see the three-headed dog glaring angrily at them. Charlus didn't dare make any sudden movements, but yelled, "Jump!"

Knowing there was no other option, one by one they jumped into the trapdoor, with Ron barely able to escape being bitten by the dog. What they hadn't considered, however, was that they would fall into a plant-like substance.

"Luckily this plant-thing is here, really." the ginger haired boy said while he breathed out with relief, but he had probably rejoiced too soon, because suddenly it quickly wrapped around each of them and began to tighten slowly but surely. Each of them tried to free themselves from the plant, but the harder they tried, it only made things worse. The vines were only wrapped around them even faster.

"Stop moving, all four of you!" Hermione yelled from the other side of the room from Charlus and Harry. "This is Devil's Snare. You have to relax. If you don't, it will only kill you faster." "Kill us faster?" Ron yelled hysterically. "Oh yeah, now I can relax!"

Hermione gave Ron an annoyed look before she slipped under the vines. Charlus couldn't help but worry at the sight of her. "Hermione!" he called out, but then he remembered her words and began to relax, and then he slipped underneath the vines just as Hermione did only moments earlier.

The green eyed boy fell to the ground with soft thud, but he felt someone grab his arm to help pull him up. He looked up to be met with Hermione's brown eyes. "Are you alright?" she asked him. Charlus nodded and smiled at her before he wiped the dust off his pants. Then he looked up at the others.

"Charlus is also gone! Now what do we do?!" Harry yelled in panic. "Just relax!" they both said from a location that the other three boys couldn't see. "Hermione? Charlus? Where the bloody hell are you both?" Alistair asked.

"Do what we say!" Hermione urged them. "Trust us." "If you don't trust her, at least trust me." Charlus added, which earned him a playful punch to the arm from the girl.

Alistair and Harry obliged instantly, and slipped underneath the vines. Ron, on the other hand, just screamed louder as he watched his other two friends disappear. They both fell to the ground and Charlus went over to them to help them up while Hermione rubbed her wrist. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Harry answered her while Alistair just nodded. "Where is Ron?" he asked then. As if on cue, the four of them heard the boy's distant cries for help above them.

"He's not relaxing, is he?" Hermione asked and looked visibly frustrated. "Apparently not." Charlus and Harry said at the same time. "What should we do?" Alistair asked and turned to his three friends to see if they had any ideas.

"I remember reading something in Herbology." Hermione began to say. "Devils Snare! Devils Snare! It's deadly fun... but will sulk in the sun! That's it! It hates sunlight."

Charlus pulled out his wand as he remembered the spell and pointed it at the devil's snare above them before he shouted, "Lumus Solem!" And with that, a bright light shot out of the top of his wand and soon enough, Ron fell on the ground beside them.

The boy quickly got up and dusted himself off. "Phew! Lucky we didn't panic." he said as he tried to look cool, to which Charlus couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Luckily Hermione pays attention in Herbology and I pays attention in Charms."

The five of them turned at the sound of flapping wings. They followed the sound and it led them to a room filled of small, jewel-bright keys with wings that fluttered and tumbled all over the room, and a rusty old broomstick which was waiting to be used. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy wooden door. How peculiar.

"How curious, I've never seen birds like these before!" Hermione commented. "They're not birds!" Harry said suddenly. "They're keys!" "I bet one of those keys happens to fit that door." Charlus said as he pointed to the door.

"What's this all about?" Hermione asked. "I don't know." Harry said while Ron walked to the door, and shook the doorknob, in a failed attempt to open it. He tried the Alohomora spell too, but it didn't work either. "Well, it was worth the try." he said to the girl.

"Ugh, what do we do now?" Alistair asked in frustration. "We can't just go checking every single key, there must be over a thousand up there."

"We're looking for a big old fashioned one. " Ron informed them as he inspected the keyhole on the old door. "Probably rustly, like the handle!" "There! I see it!" Harry yelled and pointed at an old-looking key that flied with trouble. "That one there with the broken wing."

"Brilliant!" Charlus said with a smile to his brother before he inspected the rusty old broom which was waiting to be used until his smile faded. "Doesn't this seem too simple?"

"Well of course it does. " Alistair said bluntly. "But might as well give it a try. If Snape could catch it on that old broomstick, you can. You're a great seeker! Probably the best one in a century!"

Ron, Harry and Hermione nodded in agreement, which gave Charlus the courage to grab the broom. As soon as he did, the keys started moving even more rapidly around him. He had trouble getting rid of the keys, but managed to get on the broom before he flew up.

Not for nothing, though, was Charlus the youngest Slytherin Seeker in a century. After a minute of trying to get the keys away from, he grabbed the old and broken key and and threw it down to Hermione so she could unlock the door.

Charlus flew down and dismounted before he followed his brother and friends into the next room. The quiet and dark room was full of giant chess pieces. The five of them walked slowly before Hermione said from beside of Charlus, "I don't like this. I don't like this at all."

"Where are we?" Alistair asked as they stopped walking. "A graveyard." Harry answered. "This is no graveyard." Charlus said and shook his head as he recognized that the room was set up like a giant chessboard before he turned to his brother and friends. "It's a chessboard. "

Suddenly, the torches around the room ignited, which had illuminated the room immensely. It was revealed that the chessboard was completely set up with giant chess pieces. "There's the door." Harry said as he saw the door on the other side of the room.

The kids made a start towards it. However, their path was blocked when the chess pieces came to life, moved and pulled out swords to block the way. They backed up and the chess pieces put their swords back in their places.

"What do we do now?" Harry asked. "It's obvious, isn't it?" Ron said with a smile as he admired the giant chessboard. "We have to play our way across the room."

"How are we meant to do that?" Hermione asked, nervously. "I think we're going to have to be chessmen." Ron explained to them. "Harry, you go be the bishop's square. Hermione, you'll be the Queen's side-castle, Charlus,you'll take the King's place, and Alistair, you'll be the Pawn."

"And what about you?" Alistair asked him. "I'm going to be a knight, so I can order the pieces around." Ron told them. "Simply because, and don't be offended or anything, but none of you are really good at chess. I think I'm our best bet."

"We're not offended. " Hermione,Alistair and Harry said at the same time. Charlus let out an annoyed snort. "I am offended! I beat you once!" he exclaimed angrily, his voice full of indignation. Ron couldn't help but chuckle. "We can discuss that later. " he said with a wide grin. "Now come on, let's play chess."

The chessmen seemed to have been listening, because at these words a knight, a bishop, the king,a pawn and a castle turned their backs on the white pieces and walked off the board, leaving five empty squares that Charlus, Alistair, Harry, Ron, and Hermione took.

"What happens now?" Alistair asked. "Well, white always plays first in chess." Ron said, and looked over the board as across the board, a white pawn moved two squares forward. "Ron, you don't suppose this is going to be like real wizards chess, do you?" Hermione asked, fear in her voice.

Ron frowned for a moment before pointing at a pawn. "You there, D-5!" he called to it, and the pawn next to Alistair moved forwards, now diagonal to the white pawn. The white pawn pulled out its swords and quickly slashed the black pawn into pieces before he put its swords back into place. Ron's eyes widened. "Yes, Hermione." he said, after he recovered his breath. "I think this is gonna be exactly like wizard's chess."

The game continued, and every time one of their men was lost, the white pieces showed no mercy. Soon there was a huddle of limp black players slumped along the wall,except for the horse Ron was on. Twice, Ron only just noticed in time that Charlus,Harry, Alistair and Hermione were in danger. He himself darted around the board, taking almost as many white pieces as they had lost black ones.

Charlus looked at the white queen, who had turned her expressionless face towards Ron. Almost as if she was taunting him with his ultimate fate. Then he realized something. "Wait a minute."

"You understand right, Charlus?" Ron said and the others turned to look at him. "Once I make my move, the queen will take me. Then Harry's free to check the king." "No. Ron, No!" Alistair exclaimed and shook his head violently, knowing enough about chess to know what was going on.

Hermione and Harry's heads snapped towards him. "What's the problem?" Harry asked. "He's going to sacrifice himself!" Charlus shouted back. At this, Hermione turned towards Ron. "No, you can't!" she yelled in panic. "There's got to be another way!"

"Do you wanna stop Snape from getting that Stone or not?" Ron snapped back before he turned to the twins. "Charlus, Harry, it's you two who has to go on. I know it. Not me. Not Hermione. Not Alistair. It's you two."

Harry and Charlus sighed and then reluctantly nodded, and Ron smiled before he looked ahead of him at the white chess pieces once again. He took a big breath in and then exhaled to prepare himself. "Knight to H-3."

With that, the horse moved one space forward. "Check." he brought out and now the white queen pounced on him. She struck him hard across the head with her stone arm, and he crashed to the floor. She then dragged Ron to one side. He looked as if he'd been knocked out.

"Ron!" Alistair and Charlus screamed in horror, , but stayed on their squares. Hermione, on the other hand, started to run towards him, but Harry stopped her. "Don't move! Don't forget, we're still playing."

Harry walked up to the king without a word and said with a very serious tone, "Checkmate." And with that, the white king dropped his sword and it landed on the floor in front of Harry. They had won. With one last look at the white king, Harry rant over to Ron, followed by his brother and friends.

"Take care of Ron." Harry told his friends after he had checked that Ron was alright. "Go to the owlery and send an owl to Dumbledore. Ron's right, Charlus and I have to go on."

"Yoo both will be okay,Charlus, Harry. " Hermione assured them with a small smile. "You're great wizards. You really are." "Not as good as you." Charlus said a little embarrassed while he shrugged his shoulders.

"Me?" Hermione said and laughed a little. "Books! And cleverness! There are more important things-friendship and bravery and-oh Charlus, Harry-just be careful!"

Harry and Charlus nodded quickly. Hermione nodded satisfied but still worried, and now they stood up. Alistair patted the Potter twins amicably on the shoulders. "And don't forget..." he added with a wide grin. "..give Snape a nice old curse from me. Promise?"

Harry and Charlus returned his grin and nodded eagerly. "Promise." they said at the same time. "Good." Alistair replied before he helped Ron stand up and put the redhead's arm over his shoulder while Harry and Charlus slowly made their way to the door. "Ready?" "Ready!"

With that, Charlus opened the door. They both walked down a pile of stairs that lead to the next room. As they got closer, their scars suddenly began to hurt, which caused them to hiss in pain and rub them.

When they entered the large room, they saw the Mirror of Erised with a person standing in front of it. But it wasn't Snape, as they had expected. It wasn't even Voldemort. It was Quirrel.

"You?" Charlus exclaimed in shock as Professor Quirrell turned around and looked at them with a smile. His face wasn't twitching at all. "No, it can't be." Harry continued, and tried to understand what was going on. "Snape, he... he was the one..."

"Yes, he does seem the type, doesn't he?" Quirrell replied, and the twins noticed that his voice no longer had the usual quivering tremble, but was cold and sharp. "Next to him, who would suspect p-p-poor, s-stuttering Professor Quirrell?"

"But that day, during the Quidditch match, Snape tried to kill us." Harry then said as he and Charlus continued walking down. Quirrell only smiled at this before he started to explain, "No, dear boy. I tried to kill you both! And trust me, if Snape's cloak hadn't caught fire and broken my eye contact, I would have succeeded. Even with Snape muttering his little counter-curse."

Charlus' eyes widened in astonishment and confusion at this. He could hardly believe what he had just heard. "Snape was trying to save us?" he asked in disbelief. "I knew you both were a danger to me right from the off, especially after Halloween." the professor continued.

It was in that moment that everything seemed to click in Charlus' head. Him at the Quidditch game, the troll in the girls' bathroom, Snape and Quirrell in the hallway. "Then you let the troll in." he remarked,slightly angry at the fact that Hermione had almost been killed by the troll because of Quirrell.

Quirrell smirked at him before he started to explain, "Very good, Potter. Snape, unfortunately, wasn't fooled. While everyone else was running to the dungeons, he went to the third floor to catch me. He, of course, never trusted me again. He rarely left me alone. But he doesn't understand. I'm never alone. Never. "

Quirrell turned back to the mirror, and then suddenly their scars started to hurt for some reason. For once, Charlus didn't reach for it, but only winced slightly at the pain while Harry started to rub it to ease the pain. "Now,...what does this mirror do?" the professor asked and stared hungrily into the mirror. "I see what I desire. I see myself holding the stone. But how do I get it?"

And to Charlus and Harry's horror, an evil and low voice answered, and the voice seemed to come from Quirrell himself, "Use the boys."

Quirrell turned around slowly and pointed at the two boys. "Come here, Potters! Now!"he commanded with an authoritative gesture. Harry and Charlus looked at each other before they obeyed him and walked slowly and hesitantly towards him.

We must lie, they thought desperately. We must look and lie about what we see, that's all.

Quirrell stepped aside a little. Harry and Charlus breathed in the funny smell that seemed to come from Quirrell's turban. They closed their eyes, stepped in front of the mirror, and opened them again.

They saw their reflections, pale and scared looking at first. But a moment later, the reflections smiled at them. The reflection of Harry put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a blood red stone. He winked and put the Stone in the pocket of the reflection of Charlus-and as it did so, Charlus felt something heavy drop into his real pocket. Somehow-incredibly-he'd gotten the Stone.

"What is it?" Quirrell asked impatiently. " What do you see?" Harry screwed up his courage. "I-I'm shaking hands with Dumbledore." he began to lie. "I-I've won the house cup for Gryffindor. " "No, I'm shaking hands with Dumbledore. I've won the house cup for Slytherin." Charlus argued, and rolled his eyes to make the whole thing believable.

A high voice spoke, though Quirrell wasn't moving his lips,"They lies." "Tell me the truth!" Quirrell shouted at the brothers. "What do you see?!" The high voice spoke again, "Let me speak to them . . . face-to-face . . ." Charlus and Harry packed away as Quirrell started to speak to the voice,"Master, you are not strong enough!" "I have strength enough . . . for this. . . ."

Charlus felt as if Devil's Snare was rooting him and Harry to the spot. They couldn't move a muscle. Petrified, they both watched as Quirrell reached up and began to unwrap his turban. What was going on? The turban fell away. Quirrell's head looked strangely small without it. Charlus and Harry then looked in the mirror.

Harry would have screamed, but he couldn't make a sound. Where there should have been a back to Quirrell's head, there was a face, the most terrible face they had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake. It started to look at the twins through the reflection.

"Harry and Charlus Potter . . ." it whispered. "We meet again." "Voldemort." Charlus whispered in shock while he grabbed Harry and tried to take a step backward but his legs wouldn't move.

" Yes. You see what I've become?" the face asked with a hiss in his voice.. "See what I must do to survive? Live off another. A mere parasite. Unicorn blood can sustain me, but it cannot give a body of my own. But there is something that can, something...that conveniently lies in your pocket,Charlus."

So he knew. The feeling suddenly surged back into Charlus' legs. He turned around and began to run up the stairs, followed by his brother. They hadn't even taken five steps when Voldemort spoke again,"Stop them!"

They heard as Quirrell snapped his finger, and suddenly fire emerged around the room and in front of the twins, which prevented them from exiting and trapped them in the room. They looked for another exit, but they couldn't see one, so they ended up standing in front of the man with the two faces.

"Don't be fools." the face of Voldemort snarled at them. "Why suffer a horrific death, when you can join me and live?" Harry and Charlus immediately shook their heads. "NEVER!" they shouted angrily.

Quirrell walked towards them so that they could still see Voldemort in the mirror. The evil face was smiling now. "Bravery. . . ." it hissed at them. "Your parents had it, too. Tell me, Harry, Charlus, would you like to see your mother and father again? Together, we can bring them back."

Charlus then turned his gaze further to the right and looked in the mirror. There he saw his mother and father smiling lovingly at him. "All I ask is something in return." Voldemort finished his sentence.

Charlus put his hand in his jacket, looking to feel for the blood red stone to make sure it was there, and sure enough it was. Slowly, he pulled the stone out of his pocket and held it in front of him while he examined it carefully.

"That's it,Charlus." Voldemort said with a broad grin when he saw the precious object in the hand of the oldest Potter. "There is no good and evil. There is only power and those too weak to seek it. Together, we will do extraordinary things. Just give me the stone!"

James and Lily Potter faded away from the mirror as Harry looked to Charlus, since he was still holding the blood red stone. In a mere instant, he put the stone back in his pocket before he put his arm in front of Harry in a protective manner. "YOU LIAR!" he shouted, filled with anger.

"KILL THEM!" Voldemort shouted furiously. With this order, Quirrel shot himself in the air towards Charlus and Harry and before they could react, he pushed them on the stone hard stairs and started to strangle them.

Charlus struggled desperately for breath, his fingers groping uncoordinatedly for the blood red stone that had fallen out of his pocket when he fell and was now lying a few steps away on the cold marble floor. He could see it, but the pressure around his neck kept increasing.

Charlus then grabbed Quirrell's hand to try and loosen his grip around his neck , and suddenly it began to smoke. Harry saw what his brother was doing and proceeded to do the same. Quirrell's hands not only loosened their grip, but they began to harden before they began to crumble.

"Ahh! AAH!" Quirrell screamed in pain and backed away from them. Charlus gasped for air and looked down at his hands in amazement , as did Harry, before they looked back up at Quirrell and saw that his hands began to disintegrate from their combined touch. "What is this magic!?" he shouted. "Fool!" Voldemort shouted at him. "Get the Stone!"

Charlus quickly looked at the blood red stone before he got up. An idea popped into his head, and as Quirrell raised his hands and started to walk to the twins, Charlus got in front of him and touched his face with his hands. Harry saw what his brother was doing before he got up as well and proceeded to do the same. Quirrell's face began to smoke and break into pieces, and he started to scream in pain while Voldemort winced.

He backed away from them and touched his face, which was now burned. Harry and Charlus looked at their hands in shock before they looked at each other. Then they turned back to Quirrell and saw that his whole body was now burned and started crumble down. He started to walk towards them and reached out his hand before his body fell to the ground and turned into a dust pile right in front of them. The only thing left was his clothes.

"How....?" Charlus asked while he looked at his hands in disbelief. "How did we do that?" "I ... I don't know." Harry replied, and was just as speechless as he looked at his own hands.

The twins walked over to the blood red stone and Charlus picked up the stone, which he held victoriously in his hand. They examined it carefully before they smiled at each other, but they didn't notice that the smoke from Quirrell's crumbled body started to rise behind them.

It was only when they heard a hiss from behind them that they turned around and saw that the cloud of dust had taken on a form of its own. It shot towards the brothers, with Voldemort's face screaming at them.

Charlus got in front of Harry to shield him, but the cloud of dust flew through both of them like a huge gust of wind, and the impact caused the twins to fall backwards on the floor.

Charlus could feel himself holding the blood red stone. The last thing he heard was someone screaming his name and his brother's name before suddenly everything went black.

━━ AUTHORS NOTE

Hope you enjoyed! One last chapter left of the Philosopher's Stone!

If you enjoyed, be sure to vote, comment, and share! I'd really appreciate it!

Until next time, much love to you all!