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Harry watched Fluffy warily until Hermione had her wand pointed at the harp and focused her magic. Other than Hermione, no one else in their year could possibly sustain a transfiguration that large and complex. He turned to help Ron with the professor-
Harry went cross-eyed with the tip Quirrel's wand hovering a mere inch from his face.
"Stupefy"

Voldemort hurried along the trail of destruction behind the arrogant McGonagall. The stupid and dumb woman was dismantling all the traps in her way in her haste to catch up with the stealthy Snape. Just like her to bring along three little kids to chase a dangerous wizard after the stone. Not even Voldemort would do that, what the woman thought they could do was beyond him. If it was an actual dark wizard after the stone and not Voldemort weaker than he had ever been.
The first year had put up a surprisingly hard fight for a little girl, he had had to use far more magic than he expected. This body was fading rapidly under his possession, Voldemort really should have let the man go with the unicorn blood to shore up his power but the opportunity of Dumbledore stuck at the ICW was too great to ignore. Plus the unicorn blood would cloud his thinking and dull his senses in exchange for restoring his life and magic.
Still, he had enough magic in him to defeat a transfiguration professor. Whatever traps or obstacles might exist would not be something that required much magic to solve, the crazy old wizard wouldn't want to hurt any of his little charges who wandered down here, right? Even the dog outside would only maul you a little, not that the Cerberus had lived after eating a blasting curse for interrupting.
He caught up to her right as she was disabling the fire zones of Snape's potions room.
"What-" was all the professor got out before a beam of light nearly set her on fire.
Her icy hail into the empty troll room was batted into the wall with a wave of his hand, and then the battle really began.

A few minutes later, Voldemort spat out a glob of sweat and saliva, cursing his temporary body's weakness. Quirrel wasn't a strong person in the first place and the possession had taken its toll. Voldemort forcing his magic through Quirrel in an extended drawn out battle didn't help.
He glared at the transfiguration professor's statute, with one arm raised and a wide-eyed desperate expression. Zhonya's Defence. McGonagall's last ditch defence turned herself into a time locked statute, something that she couldn't reverse by herself, obviously. Only the very best of transfiguration masters could attempt this and not kill themselves from temporal shear.
Her statute was impervious to all attacks and magic, except for the killing curse. Something that he really couldn't spare the magic for. She would take a day or so to thaw out naturally, more than enough time for Dumbledore to come to her rescue.
In fact, the doddering old fool was probably on his way, McGonagall had already sent her message minutes ago after all.
Voldemort stumbled through the wrecked potions room, an Assyrian ice curse parted Snape's fire wall.
And there, in front of him, lay his prize. The culmination of all his efforts!
The little red stone, small enough to fit into his fist. A seven fold sealing diagram? Pah, was that the best Dumbledore could create?
Voldemort examined the lines, looking for the inevitable weaknesses of this particular sealing technique. It was more suited to internal defence and the trapping of dangerous creatures than to keep others out. Dumbledore might be a genius at magic but not even he could invert the technique perfectly.
And there it was, Voldemort jabbed his wand into a corner while prodding the second edge clockwise with a pair of fingers laced with magic. He hummed a short series of very exact notes and the outermost layer crumbled with not a sound. Six layers left and not much time to do it in.
Breaking through the remaining layers, each more fiendishly designed than the last, was an exercise in tediousness. Voldemort at his height could smash his way through, but now he was reduced to this! His learning journey over the years had given him some cursebreaking knowledge but he shouldn't have to scrabble about on the ground like some common wizard! He was Voldemort and magic should bow to his dominion!
With a snarl, Voldemort snatched up the Stone from the broken warding array. That seal had delayed him for as much as time as it took to defeat McGonagall.
Luckily, Voldemort had planned ahead for his inevitable success by preparing the ingredients for Elixir of Life before attempting the corridor. With a simple plop, the Stone dropped into the vial and an enchanted music box to perform the melody-modified ritual chant for him, a few seconds was all it took for the Elixir to be completed.
"Heh. Hahaha... Muhahahaha!" the Dark Lord cackled as he downed the potion in a single swig.
The last drop went down his throat right as phoenix fire arrived out of thin air on a clarion call of battle.

"Energy drain?" Shurelia looked up from the dinner, interrupting Leard from his report on Metafalss politics.
No. There had been a short spike in the Tower's broadcast field, as if someone or something had requested a huge amount of energy before the authentication system kicked it out.
That was troubling, she had expected that the locals would eventually realize the presence of the Tower's energy broadcast field. But not this soon, even the locals who had H-wave abilities shouldn't be able to reverse engineer Sound Science in just two months!
The drain this time was small and undirected though, whatever that was wasn't specifically meant to tap into the Tower, possibly a generic symphonic power collector. Shurelia shook her head, it was impossible to tell without the device in front of her.
Still, perhaps a mission to wherever that was would be good. The embassy effort could pull double duty to assess the locals' progress in Sound Science perhaps?
"Leard, do we have a map of this world?"

Harry jerked awake at the crashing of stone and the wail of tortured magic. Before he had even thought about the situation, Harry grabbed his fallen wand lying next to him and rolled to his feet.
Quirrel- The train of thought crashed to a halt as what was Fluffy's room exploded around him. Dimly, he stepped in front of Hermione's fallen form -she's burnt, her face and arms- and the chips of flying stone pattered off his school uniform.
Fluffy's room didn't look like Fluffy's room anymore. The giant dog was missing a head and blood was everywhere on the walls. What was left of the walls.
Instead, one entire side of the room -thank goodness it wasn't their side- was just missing, the damage going through the empty classroom and the next wall to open into the empty air over the school's outer grounds. The floor of said classroom and half of Fluffy's room was also gone, exposing a surprisingly undamaged broom closet below.
The calm afternoon sun outside shone down on Professor Quirrel floating in mid-air, surrounding the sneering man with a golden glow. The sneer and the sheer confidence in his posture made Quirrel look like a completely different man. Not to mention his turban was missing and his hair looked to have grown back into a short buzzcut. No, it slowly growing back as Harry watched, getting longer visibly.
In the shadow of the castle in front of Harry and his friends, was Dumbledore. The Headmaster's countenance looked scarier than Harry had ever seen him look before, not even when the twins had exploded an actual toilet like they had threatened their mum with on the platform. The cold anger on the Headmaster's face was totally at odds with his fun and almost foolish behaviour.
Harry realized that his Headmaster might be a bit more complex than he had thought. That he appeared to be a doting grandparent to let the Hogwarts students not be scared of him even when Dumbledore, Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump, was really a very powerful wizard who could do anything he liked to them.
The very alarming circumstances Harry found himself in might be worth screaming just about now but somehow Harry did not feel like screaming. Even if the tension between Dumbledore and Quirrel looked hard enough to grind the castle to dust. Even if Hermione was gravely injured and Professor McGonagall was missing and Harry himself had just woken up and holy ****, Hermione was half burnt and needed to get to hospital wing and safety right now and not in that order.
No, Harry felt as if time was passing very slowly or his thoughts were just racing really fast.
The Headmaster was staring down a very dangerous and cunning dark wizard in the form of Quirrel. The Headmaster did not need little children distracting him or needing to be protected. He remembered how that went in stories and how he was always irritated at the dumb kid who was so dumb he didn't run. And Hermione was injured and maybe dying!
"I'll get Hermione and Ron out of here," Harry said softly, getting only a single nod from the Headmaster who didn't take his eyes off the floating former-Professor of Defence.
Wingardium Leviosa. "I wonder how long you can defend those children? Maybe I'll tear down this castle stone by stone as you exhaust yourself?"
"You have come to the wrong place, Tom. "
"Ah, I knew you would recognize me. No matter, I have already won, for you see, I have the Stone. "
No no, ignore the ominous taunting. Dumbledore didn't deign to give a response, only the sensation of risen magic prickling on Harry's skin like a wave of goosebumps. Then Fluffy's door, hanging half off it's hinges, was lit up by flashes of colour and a horrible sparkcrashbang came from behind Harry.
He pushed Ron through the door with his foot, taking more care not to bump the floating Hermione against the frame and ignoring how he was straining to even keep her off the ground...