Chapter 23

The rest of the school year passed quickly for Harry, as he continued his routine of studying with his friends, practising magic and physical exercises using weights and other agility and flexibility exercises in the Room of Requirements.

Harry had to stop his practise duels with Tonks as her exams were coming up but Harry had progressed to the point where he won every one in five duels with Tonks, which was amazing for a first year, the constant extensive practise with his magic hd increased in a significant increase in his magical reserves as well as his control over his magic and his accuracy and his on the spot thinking and creativity in a duel as he had to be creative in order to defeat Tonks as he didn't possess her raw power yet, like the time he used the Scourgify to clean her mouth with soap and thus making her unable to cast a spell verbally and also the sputtering dur to the soap bubbles disturbed her concentration this allowing Harry to disarm her and win the duel. Harry had managed to complete his mental defenses and was working on accessing his magical core but it was taking a lot of time and he had not had much progress.

Another event that occured during these months was Harry convincing Hagrid to let go of the female Norwegian Ridgeback he had hatched and named Norberta and successfully smuggling it out of Hogwarts with the help of the Weasley twins he was quite friendly with as they contacted their brother Charlie who was a dragon keeper in Romania. Harry had also severely wounded Quirrel when he was hunting a unicorn by attacking him with a barrage of reducto curese from his broom while wrapping himself in his invisibility cloak, this saving the innocent and pure noble creatures.

As Harry completed his end of the year exams he decided to destroy the Sorcerer's stone as he was not going to bet on Neville ' the jerk ' Longbottom

stopping Voldemort and so as soon as the final exam which was History of Magic was finished Harry headed back to his dormitory and retrieved his invisibility cloak and a few potions he could use and went to the third floor corridor and opened the door with a flick of his wand and immediately banished a very potent sleeping potion he was carrying with him into the mouth of Fluffy ( Hagrid's Cerberus) and levitated himself down into the trapdoor and immediately cast a lumos solem spell and overpowering it and watched as the powerful sunrays burnt the Devils snare to ashes and Harry easily plucked the correct key from the bunch of flying keys which chased him using his broom which he had shrunk and brought with him and the Chess match was easy enough to win for him, the troll proved to be a challenge as it was much bigger than the one he faced on Halloween but he had prepared extensively for this and so Harry peppered it with stinging hexes making it open it's mouth wide to roar in agony and Harry seized his chance and banished five doses of the sleeping draught he had with him making it collapse on the spot. The Potions riddle by Snape didn't prove to be much of a challenge and he easily obtained the stone from the Mirror Of the Erised as he had no intention of using it, he only wanted to destroy it and he was about to destroy it with an overpowered reducto but thought better of it and instead decided to return it to the Flamels but he destroyed the Mirror as it was a dangerous artifact and it would make Voldemort think that the stone was destroyed, he decided againat destroying the stone as he would be condemning them to death if he destroyed it, so he placed it in his pocket and quickly made it back to his dorm and placed it in his library compartment in his trunk deciding to give it to Dumbledore after the feast at the end of the year.

As soon as he could he rushed to tell McGonagall about Longbottom and his Psycophants which unfortunately included Hermione planning to go into the third floor corridor. He gently knocked on the door of her office and entered.

McGonagall was startled to see a student asking for entry to her office at this time and immediately opened the door to find Harry looking nervous. Smiling at her favorite student she gently asked, " Harry, what happened? "

Harry replied, " Professor, I was returning a few books I had borrowed from the library, when I heard Longbottom and his friends talk about going down the third floor corridor tonight and so I rushed to inform you as soon as I could ".

McGonagall was furious but she gently sent Harry back to bed after promising to look into it and just like Harry said she found Neville, Ron, Hermione and Seamus trying to get down the third floor corridor and immediately caught them and took them to her office and called Dumbledore who had just returned from a trip to the Ministry and she deducted 50 points from each of them and sent them to bed while Dumbledore immediately rushed to stop Quirrel from getting the stone as he realized that he had been duped by a fake letter from the ministry but on arriving in the room holding the stone all he found was Quirrel in a fury destroying everything as it seemed like he had not been able to retrieve the stone from the mirror and in his anger had smashed it to powder. Dumbledore immediately attacked Quirrel who he saw was hosting Voldemort's spirit. Albus quickly overpowered Quirrel and broke all his limbs when Voldemort abandoned his follower's body and escaped through Hogwart's walls as a disembodied spirit and Quirrel died shortly thereafter.