Chapter 28
When Harry returned from the Forbidden Forest and told Ron and Hermione everything he had overheard,
"You're saying you saw Snape threatening Professor Quirrell — and telling him to consider very carefully who he was serving?" Hermione asked, eyes wide.
"It looks like the evidence is conclusive," she added with a sigh of regret. "Snape really has gone back to You-Know-Who. What a pity Gabin wasn't there to see it."
"At least now all three of us have caught Snape red-handed," Ron said heavily. "The only problem is getting anyone else to believe us."
"Snape also asked Quirrell if he knew how to get past Fluffy," Harry continued, piecing together the fragments he had heard. "And he said he was looking forward to Quirrell's 'little secret trick'."
"I reckon there must be more than just Fluffy guarding the Stone," Harry said. "Probably one obstacle set by each professor."
Hermione nodded slowly. "But the other teachers' protections would have been easy for Snape to crack. They've been colleagues for years — they wouldn't suspect him. They might even have told him the countermeasures themselves, thinking he was just being curious."
"That leaves only Professor Quirrell," she concluded. "He's new, an outsider teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts. He doesn't know Snape well, so he's wary. He never told Snape how to get past his challenge — which is why Snape had to threaten him."
"I never thought the Stone's safety would come down to Quirrell of all people," Ron muttered, picturing the man's pallid face, twitching eye, and perpetual stammer. It did nothing to reassure him.
"I give it a week at most before Snape nicks the Stone," Ron added gloomily.
But Quirrell proved braver — or at least more stubborn — than any of them expected. Over the following weeks, though he looked closer to death with every passing day, he kept going. Each time they saw him he seemed one breath away from collapse, yet he endured.
Gradually the trio began to revise their opinion of him. His lessons were still dreadful, but the man was quite literally risking his life to protect the Philosopher's Stone.
Hermione told Gabin about it all — including Quirrell's unexpected resolve. Gabin merely offered a small, helpless smile and said nothing more.
At the same time, Hermione drew up revision timetables. There were only ten weeks left until exams.
Harry and Ron groaned loudly at every mention of study schedules, but they had no real defence against her determination.
When Hermione tried to include Gabin in the revision rota, however, she realised something unsettling: two full weeks had passed since she last spoke to him about Quirrell. In all that time she hadn't exchanged a single word with him — he hadn't even appeared in the library.
The Room of Requirement.
Today the room looked rather different from usual. Besides the usual straw dummies serving as fixed targets and the mechanical device that flung clay discs, the space was filled with porcelain.
Vases, teacups, teapots, urns — every variety imaginable.
Gabin stood in the midst of it all, expression calm, wand moving with quiet precision.
Dozens of vases rose into the air and floated gently up toward the high ceiling.
Then he released the Levitation Charm.
Gravity took hold. The vases plummeted and shattered on the stone floor with a glorious crash.
Gabin didn't so much as blink. He watched the porcelain turn to jagged fragments, then raised his wand again.
Another wave — this time teacups — lifted, hovered, and fell. The pieces were larger than before; the drop had been shorter.
Next came teapots. This time he guided them only as high as his own head before letting them drop. They broke into fewer, bigger chunks — some merely chipped at the rim.
Gabin surveyed the glittering wreckage that covered the floor. He drew a deep, steady breath. Then he swept his wand in a firm, deliberate arc.
Magic surged from within him in a powerful rush, pouring down the wand and out toward the debris.
*Reparo!*
The force washed over the fragments. They stirred — almost as though waking. Shards lifted themselves, quested blindly across the floor, searching for their missing pieces.
One by one the porcelain reassembled itself. Cracks sealed, edges fused, colours bled back into perfect alignment. Moments later, a collection of pristine vases, teacups, and teapots stood before him once more — exactly as they had been before the fall.
Gabin watched the entire process without blinking. Only when the last crack vanished did he exhale, long and slow.
He found a clear patch of floor, sat down heavily, and rubbed his temples, looking faintly irritated.
The Mending Charm was one of the most everyday spells in the wizarding world. Most children learned it as their very first piece of practical magic — fixing a broken toy, a cracked plate, a snapped quill. It appeared in *The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)*, though Professor Flitwick had devoted barely ten minutes to it: a quick demonstration, a casual explanation, a short round of practice. Almost everyone had picked it up without difficulty.
Gabin, however, had been wrestling with it for two solid weeks.
The problem was simple and maddening: he could not see its magical circuitry.
He had learned the charm the same way most people learned silent casting — by concentrating fiercely on the desired effect in his mind, channelling magic through his wand, and letting instinct do the rest. It had taken him less than half a day.
After that he had set it aside, almost forgotten it. It was too basic, too ordinary.
But as his magical reserves grew stronger day by day, and as his magical sight became sharper, revealing ever more of the hidden structure of spells… the Mending Charm began to trouble him.
He levitated a clay urn over with a casual flick, caught it in his hand, and deliberately dropped it.
*Crack.*
Fragments scattered.
He pointed his wand at the mess. Magic flowed.
The pieces began to move. The urn reassembled itself flawlessly.
Yet through his magical sight, where every other spell showed clean, luminous circuits, the fragments were covered in… nothing comprehensible. A chaotic snowstorm of static. Every colour at once and none at all. A visual noise that refused to resolve into pattern or pathway. Only when the urn stood whole again did the interference vanish.
He could not understand it.
He could not control it.
It was not so much a spell as a *phenomenon* — something his sight could witness but not parse.
For the first time Gabin truly grasped how much of the wizarding world still lay beyond him.
He had thought — arrogantly, perhaps — that once he could see the magical circuits clearly, very little would remain secret. Difficulty of learning, yes; mystery, no.
But here was an utterly commonplace household charm that defied every rule he thought he knew.
And then there was the Flame-Freezing Charm, which he still hadn't mastered.
These two spells alone had claimed most of his waking hours.
Small wonder he had no interest in joining the trio's amateur detective games and treasure hunts.
Of course… the final exam of the school year — the series of obstacles guarding the Philosopher's Stone — that did intrigue him. A chance to test himself properly.
But not yet.
There were still things he needed to prepare.
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