"Someone got into the castle! That has to be it! Someone swapped out the troll!"
Quirrell kept muttering, his face going paler by the second. He was certain he'd released a troll in the dungeon classroom, and yet somehow it had turned into this... thing. Something he couldn't even put a name to.
Someone had swapped it. There was no other explanation.
But why would anyone do that?
"Merlin's beard! We need to check on the Stone! That has to be what they're after!"
The realization hit him like a jolt.
Whoever was behind this wanted chaos, wanted Dumbledore and the others staring straight at him, wanted him tied down and blamed while they slipped off with the Stone, unseen and unsuspected.
It had to be the same people who'd raided Snape's private stores.
They'd struck again.
"The Stone is safe."
Snape's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. The moment the chaos broke out, he'd gone straight up to the fourth floor, and sure enough, someone had tried to slip into the chamber under cover of it. But the shape he'd glimpsed in the dark, he was fairly certain, had been Quirrell's.
For his trouble, he'd taken a bite from that wretched three-headed dog.
He studied Quirrell now, something dangerous glinting in his eyes.
"Your stammer seems to have cleared up, Professor Quirrell."
"Wh-what? I... I was just... overwrought, that's all."
Quirrell's stomach dropped, and he slid back into his old halting rhythm.
"The St-Stone... it's f-fine... well, that's... that's good, then."
Dumbledore said nothing. He believed Quirrell wasn't lying, not about this. Which meant there really was another rat hiding somewhere in the castle, one that had nothing to do with him at all.
Were they connected to Voldemort?
And Quirrell, then. What was he?
Dumbledore couldn't quite work it out. He gave the man one long look, then turned to Snape.
"Leave it for now. It seems we have an enemy we don't yet understand, hiding somewhere out of sight. I'll go and see Newt, and then pay a visit to the Ministry. Keep a close watch on the school."
"Understood."
Snape gave a short nod, robes snapping behind him as he turned and strode off.
Quirrell watched him go, and for just a moment something bitter flickered behind his eyes. Then it was gone.
"Headmaster Dumbledore, I'll... head back, then?"
He turned to face him.
Dumbledore had just said he was leaving Hogwarts?
Was that true, or was he only trying to put him at ease?
If Dumbledore really did leave, it would be the perfect chance to act. Snape would still be underfoot, though. And then there were whoever else was lurking in the shadows.
He still had no idea what they wanted.
But he was starting to think he couldn't afford to wait much longer.
If anything happened to the Stone, the Dark Lord would never forgive him for it.
"Yes, go and rest, Professor Quirrell. None of this was your doing..."
Dumbledore's expression hadn't shifted at all, warm and grandfatherly as ever, so much so that Quirrell felt an odd, unwelcome flicker of comfort standing in front of him.
"Rest well. Don't dwell on it too much. The school still needs you, and so do the students."
"Th-thank you... Headmaster..."
Quirrell, looking genuinely moved, turned and shuffled off.
Dumbledore stood over William's body for a long while without speaking. Then his gaze drifted toward the Forbidden Forest, as if it could cut straight through the trees and see all the way into its heart.
"Knockturn Alley ransacked. Snape's private stores robbed. Something rotting deep in the Forbidden Forest. A spider no one can name. Tonight's troll, of all things. Missing potion ingredients. The Philosopher's Stone. The Elixir of Life... Tom, is this you, coming back?"
He turned his gaze southwest and sighed.
"Or is it you?"
"How unsettling."
He drew an enchanted sack from inside his robes. A flick of his wand, and William's body rose into the air and settled neatly inside it.
He wiped at a forehead that had no sweat on it and gave a small chuckle.
"Heavier than it looks. This thing must weigh as much as three trolls..."
With a crack, he was gone.
...
Altair drew his gaze back from the Ithil-stone and let out a slow breath.
"A troll's child's play for Dumbledore. Should've pulled a Balrog. Or Smaug..."
"Speaking of which, where's poor Mr. Sméagol got to?"
He turned back to the crystal. The image inside it shifted, resolving at last into a dark, cramped cellar.
In the corner, Gollum sat curled around his own knees, muttering under his breath.
"My precious, my precious..."
"It was Baggins! It was him!!"
"We doesn't know! Gollum's just a poor thing, stop asking! Precious isn't here, not with us!"
"It's the Ring! Hahaha! The Ring, life everlasting! The power of the One!! Mine! My precious!!"
Whatever had happened to Gollum in Azkaban, it clearly hadn't left him all there.
He wasn't in Azkaban now, though. Altair studied the surroundings; this looked like one of the Ministry's holding cells below ground. No telling what Gollum had already let slip to whoever had been questioning him.
Still, from the scraps he'd caught, it seemed the Ministry already knew something about the One Ring.
Whether they knew about Sauron was another question entirely.
Altair wasn't worried about word of the Ring getting out. No one would ever trace it back to him, not with it sitting safely in his own hands, and if it stirred up the wizards of this world's curiosity about the Ring, so much the better. It might even help ease Middle-earth's people into this one.
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