"You?" Harry's voice echoed, shocked.
Harry recoiled.
Quirrell's back was to him now, his head bowed. And then—horribly, impossibly—he turned. Not his whole body. Just his head. The back of his skull.
Where a second face had opened its eyes.
Sickly pale, stretched over bone, with slitted red pupils like burning coals. A nose like slits. Thin, colorless lips pulled into something like a smile.
Harry's breath hitched. His insides shrank. The face blinked.
"Yes... me," said the horrifying face.
He was looking straight at Harry from the back of Quirrell's head.
Harry froze.
That wasn't Quirrell. That was something else. Something older.
His gasp slipped out before he could stop it. "You're Voldemort?!"
Then came another voice—bright, chaotic, and maddeningly familiar—from the other side of the black flames.
"Gross, man! You really need to cover that up. You look like a cursed raisin that fell behind a radiator and developed sentience. Put a hat on, for the sake of society."
There was a pause. Voldemort's rage practically vibrated through the air.
"WHO SAID THAT!?" the Dark Lord bellowed.
Harry stared at the flames. He could almost see them ripple.
The voice laughed. "Your conscience. He may be beaten down, but even he couldn't stand your mug! You look like a burnt prune got cursed by a boggart and lost a duel to an unwashed sock!"
Harry was at a loss for words.
What the hell was happening?
Voldemort snarled. A blast of green light shot from Quirrell's wand, tearing through the flames—but Sky's mocking laughter only echoed louder.
"Oh come on, is that all you've got? I've seen first-years duel with more menace than this."
Harry blinked again. That was Sky.
Quirrell spun to face the flames. Voldemort's red eyes narrowed.
"You!" Quirrell shouted, nearly frothing.
"Honestly," Sky replied, calm as a summer breeze, "you look like a rejected stage magician with a skin condition."
"THE BOY MOCKS ME," Voldemort growled.
Harry's heart pounded in his ears. "Sky?"
Sky responded sweetly, "You say that like it's difficult."
Quirrell snapped back toward Harry and raised his wand. His lips curled in fury.
Harry scrambled backward. No cover. No escape. Magic crackled at Quirrell's fingertips.
A burst of magic fired—
—and something exploded through the black flames.
Not a spell.
A pillow.
Flaming. Fast.
It struck Quirrell in the chest like a meteor.
He stumbled.
Then came another. And another. A storm of flaming pillows blasted through the fire like cannonballs. They came fast and hard, but Quirrell—despite his fraying sanity—was still a professor. He dropped into a roll and batted two aside with a conjured shield charm. One pillow ignited the shield in a brilliant burst of fire and feathers, but Quirrell kept moving.
He was muttering rapidly under his breath. His wand hand weaved in tight arcs, deflecting the barrage. The first few caught him in the arms and legs, but after that, he started predicting the trajectory. He began dodging.
"Oh, you're nimble now," Sky muttered, clearly annoyed. "Fine. Plan B."
The next object that soared through the fire was not a pillow. It was a nightstand.
Quirrell blocked it—barely. The wood cracked against his shield like a battering ram.
Then came a chair. A coat rack. A bed frame with the mattress still attached.
Quirrell screamed, "What IS THIS NONSENSE?!"
"Creative improvisation," Sky called out. "And a very cluttered storage system."
A toaster spun through the air, clanging into Quirrell's knee.
Then: a floating lamp. A full-length mirror. A mounted deer head with wobbly antlers.
The mirror hit Quirrell in the chest and knocked him backward into a column. He slumped, trying to crawl away. His shield flickered.
"Let's try IKEA!" Sky shouted.
A flat-packed shelving unit—still in its cardboard box—shot through the fire and smacked Quirrell square in the back.
Then came the individual pieces: labeled wooden slats, instruction booklet, and a bag of screws that burst open like shrapnel.
Harry ducked. One of the slats whizzed past his ear and embedded in the wall.
"Do you have furniture in your coat?!" Harry shouted, eyes wide.
"I have everything in my coat!" Sky replied cheerfully. "Including vengeance!"
Quirrell tried to crawl away, coughing, but Sky wasn't done.
A candelabra spun into the chamber, ignited mid-flight. Quirrell's robe caught fire. He screamed and tried to roll it out.
Harry stepped forward, horrified. "Should we—are we stopping him?"
"No," Voldemort said.
And for a second, everyone froze.
Even Sky.
The Dark Lord began to separate from Quirrell, as if even he couldn't take the humiliation.
Sky muttered, "About time."
Quirrell collapsed. The shadow peeled free. Then came the scream.
Harry took the moment to grab Quirrell's fallen wand but hesitated. The very air in the room began to shift.
Voldemort rose.
A shape of smoke and hatred peeled itself from Quirrell's frail body and surged—
Not at Harry.
At the flames.
Toward Sky.
"NO!" Harry shouted, trying to move, but the force of the rising presence rooted him.
Voldemort passed through the fire like a blade.
And screamed.
"WHAT—NO—LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! WHAT ARE YOU?!"
The very stones shuddered. The flames bent away as if in fear. Something cracked. The air went still.
Then silence.
Voldemort fled. A ripple of shadow retreating in panic.
Harry could barely breathe. He stared at the fire, waiting. Hoping.
Then footsteps. Slow. Purposeful.
A familiar scent—lemon and parchment.
Dumbledore.
The Headmaster arrived, robes flowing like thunderclouds, wand raised. He stopped only when he saw Sky through the dissipating fire.
Sky stood there, surrounded by scorched stone, feathers, and the scent of victory and singed fabric. He dusted off his coat sleeve.
"Oh. Hi, Professor. How long were you standing there?"
Dumbledore's eyes flicked across the scorched floor. Quirrell's unconscious form. The burst pillows still smoldering.
He didn't answer Sky. Instead, he said, "Fawkes."
In a burst of radiant light, the phoenix descended.
Harry felt claws wrap around his shoulder. He wanted to stay. He wanted to understand.
But in a blink, the room vanished.
Quirrell, too.
Sky remained.
Dumbledore stepped forward into the chamber. The fire died.
They were alone.
And finally, Sky's smile slipped.