Hermione, let's start a revolution from Hogwarts!

Others cannot see what other people are seeing; Harry learned of this during the Christmas holidays.

"What did you see?" Quirrell asked impatiently.

"I saw myself shaking hands with Dumbledore..."

"Lies!" Voldemort cursed. "The Philosopher's Stone is on him. Take it!"

Voldemort controlled Quirrell to turn around, revealing his true face to Harry Potter.

The wrinkled snake face on the back of his head almost made the boy vomit. Looking at Voldemort, who was attached to his scalp, a chill crept up his spine.

But at that moment, the chains binding Harry suddenly came off. In fact, Quirrell himself canceled the summoning and transfiguration spells, intending for Harry to leave with the Philosopher's Stone and give it to Nietzsche.

Only when Nietzsche got his hands on the item could he face death in peace.

"He's getting away! You piece of trash!!" Voldemort urged Quirrell's body to retreat and chase after him.

Quirrell scoffed inwardly: Voldemort couldn't use magic in his body; he was nothing but a remnant soul.

“Master…I…I couldn’t maintain control of the spell.” He deflected the blame and said with a wronged expression, “It might be a side effect of the Crucifixion. I blocked Holmes’s Unforgivable Curse for you.”

Harry stared at Voldemort, who was suddenly closing in. With a heavy heart, he grabbed his sword and swung it around, slashing a scar across Voldemort's face.

"Ah!" Quirrell screamed in pain from the back of his head.

This enraged Voldemort even more. He ignored the danger—since it was Quirrell who was injured—and simply grabbed Harry's wrist, still holding the blade. But then, a burning sensation spread from his arm.

This time, it wasn't Quirrell who screamed.

Harry wasn't in much better shape. The pain in his forehead made him feel as if his head had been torn in two. The intense pain prevented him from falling to the ground or taking another step.

"You go...you deal with him!" Voldemort's voice weakened as he relinquished control of his body to Quirrell.

Quirrell looked at his wrist; the skin was dry and red, with even cracks, but not a drop of blood flowed from the wound.

His fingers trembled and twisted from the excruciating pain, yet he still managed to hook his little finger around the wand that had fallen to the ground.

Pain can sometimes make people more clear-headed, and Quirrell suddenly understood the significance of Harry Potter's arrival. This 'boy who survived' was the deadly weapon, one that even Voldemort had to retreat from.

"Kill him! Retrieve the Philosopher's Stone!!" Voldemort seemed to sense Quirrell's hesitation and screamed.

Quirrell stared at the gate blocked by purple flames, a cold smile on his lips that sent chills down Harry's spine.

“Of course, Master… I will certainly—catch—Potter…” He calmed himself down, lunged at Harry, and pressed his knee against the other’s chest.

"No, no, no, what are you doing?!" Voldemort's fear and anger instantly turned into pleading. "Quirinus, I don't need you to capture him... we just need the Philosopher's Stone!"

Quirrell ignored Voldemort's roar and instead of using his most effective silent, wandless spell, he hooked his wand with his twitching little finger and aimed it at Harry Potter on the ground.

Not only that, he also deliberately recited a deadly spell... How deadly?

"Avada..."

With a splitting headache, Harry instinctively grabbed Quirrell's arm with one hand and raised his sword with the other.

'If the opponent has no defensive magic, it will be your helper to escape. Remember, you only have one chance.' Nietzsche had considered every possibility.

"Get away from him!" Voldemort felt his soul burning. "I command you..."

Quirrell, however, grabbed Harry's hand and held it even tighter.

He stared at the 9mm diameter tube, not looking away, but instead revealing a sly smile. Sure enough, he was right, so he neither avoided it nor showed any fear to alert Voldemort.

"Bang!" A crisp sound echoed in the basement.

"I've endured so much pain, do you think I'm afraid of this last time?" Quirrell's voice was so calm that even Voldemort was puzzled.

"You fool! The Philosopher's Stone is in his pocket!" Voldemort roared viciously. "Look what you've done! Dumbledore isn't worth your life. There's no such thing as good or evil in this world..."

In the end, he really did believe that Quirrell had always been that naive young man with a simplistic sense of right and wrong.

"No, you're right. There are only power and incompetent people who can't obtain power, but no one can control my destiny. I always have a choice... And you can't fool me."

Quirrell looked at Potter, who had fallen into a coma, and burst into laughter.

At the same time, Voldemort noticed that Quirrell's life force was constantly draining away with the blood in his chest, so he simply abandoned this 'vessel' and completely disregarded Quirrell's life or death.

But he was so unwilling to accept it; the Philosopher's Stone was right in front of him, in Potter's pocket...

"Why?" Voldemort became a cloud of mist after he detached from the container.

“No one can control me, not even purebloods... Voldemort, and neither can you.” Quirrell uttered his name for the first time.

Quirrell released his grip. Half of his body was now covered in cracks, and he could barely open his other eye, which was still relatively intact, with all his might. After removing himself from Harry, he stared at the shapeless Voldemort.

How wonderful it is to see resentment and hatred in the other person's eyes.

"From today onward, whenever you find a rat hiding in the sewer and think about how close you were to success, you will think of me... a weakling you looked down upon who killed you."

At that moment, footsteps echoed once more in the corridor leading to the basement, and Voldemort left through the sewers, filled with humiliation.

Just as Quirrell said, he would never forget this day.

But it wasn't Headmaster Dumbledore who entered the basement again; it was Nietzsche and Professor Snape who had been waiting at the door. They rushed to Quirrell and Harry, each carrying one of them on their backs.

Nietzsche, on the other hand, first used a freezing spell to stop the blood flowing continuously from Quirrell's chest, in order to prevent him from dying from excessive blood loss.

"Why are you giving things to Potter?" Headmaster Snape asked, placing Harry on his back.

“This is just a backup, not enough to be immediately fatal…” Nietzsche fumbled in the boy’s pocket for a while before pulling out the bright red gem. “I need to take all the circumstances into account, especially the unsuspecting Harry.”

Seeing the professor's miserable state, it was clear that if they continued any further, he would surely die.

This is the spell that Headmaster Dumbledore mentioned, and it's a spell specifically designed to protect Harry and fight Voldemort.

Snape didn't say anything, but simply poured a bottle of black potion into Harry's mouth, then turned and walked out. In truth, he was somewhat skeptical of Nietzsche's level of control over the matter.

They even took precautions to prevent Harry from accidentally killing Quirrell.

“Where is that well-behaved Miss Granger?” Nietzsche shuddered as he crawled through the flames.

"In the Headmaster's office, they are preparing alchemical materials with Dumbledore."

Chapter Seventy-Four: Quirrell's Rebirth

(PS: The Quirinus Quirrell character list is taken from "Hogwarts Short Stories: Power, Politics and the Prankster")

What Voldemort could never control was Quirrell's spirit.

No matter how the Dark Lord tried to influence the Professor's subconscious, he would always find a way to deliberately attract attention, including from Headmaster Dumbledore and Nietzsche...

The latter simply places greater emphasis on the importance of choice.

"How is Harry?" Dumbledore immediately stood up when he saw them return to his office.

“I’m afraid Madam Pomfrey needs to work overtime. She was just taken to the school infirmary by Snape. She just looks a little tired…” Nietzsche didn’t care and placed the weak Quirrell on the headmaster’s desk.

Hermione was horrified—because half of Professor Quirrell's body was broken apart, like a piece of porcelain about to shatter.

But she didn't just stand there doing nothing. Instead, she swallowed hard, recalling the medical knowledge in her parents' study, and quickly unbuttoned the professor's shirt, revealing the withered skin beneath...

Indeed, 'withered' is the only word Hermione can use to describe her.

The skin was wrinkled, and when squeezed, it drooped limply, lifeless.

“Very good method...at least you don’t have to worry about the patient losing too much blood.” Headmistress Delis leaned over the frame and winked at Hermione. “Child, take me down...yes, put me higher.”

Delis de Winter was once the head healer of St. Mungo's, and healers must achieve 'good' grades in all compulsory subjects of NEWT (the ultimate wizarding exam).

So she had Hermione take down the portrait of the headmaster and float it in the air, ideally so that she could see Quirrell's entire body.

“I’ve experimented with Mercury before and found that the Freezing Curse can stop the movement of everything… so I temporarily stopped Quirrell’s physiological functions and the blood flow to his wounds.” Nietzsche said, pulling a small bottle filled with powder from his pocket.

This contains unused white safflower flavoring.

Hermione tore off a piece of Nietzsche's sleeve in annoyance, transformed it into a mask, and put it on her face.

He then lit the wand, handed it to Nietzsche, and opened a toolbox that Nietzsche had never seen before. He took out a pair of pliers and, with Dumbledore's help, shrunk it to half its original size.

"Is this for pulling teeth?" Nietzsche instinctively covered his mouth.

"This is a Christmas present from my parents, too bad you're not the first to use it." Hermione didn't even bother to look at him, and said fiercely, "I hope you don't brush your teeth after eating the candy... Get your wand closer!"

Dumbledore glanced at the pliers and silently took a step closer to Nietzsche.

How horrible! But Hermione reminded him that he'll have to ask Professor Snape for some anti-cavity potion next year.

“Um… Mr. Holmes, first use the Cutting Charm to make an incision in Miss Granger’s wound…” Headmistress Delis directed the two, “This person has already had a lot of life drained by dark magic, and won’t live much longer.”

"So we brought this." Dumbledore didn't sit still either, crushing the bright red Philosopher's Stone and putting it into a steaming alchemical gadget.

The fragments of the Philosopher's Stone were making a rustling sound inside. It seemed to be being ground.

"The Philosopher's Stone?" Delis asked incredulously. "Nico Flamel actually made this thing?"

"It's nothing special, just a magic stone."

Dumbledore was initially unsure of Quirrell's condition, but after piecing together the clues Nietzsche had gathered, he realized just how tragic the situation of that somewhat neurotic child had been.

And that's the key point for Dumbledore—that he was willing to give up the Philosopher's Stone just to save a poor guy being threatened by Voldemort.

“In fact, Nick and I had reached an agreement to destroy this thing long ago,” Dumbledore said with a smile. “Making immortality a second life is why Nick agreed to this.”

Delis looked at the alchemical equipment with a complicated expression.

No one can truly refuse a chance at immortality; even wise men like them consider immortality a punishment... but when faced with the choice, it's not as simple as just talking about it.

Hermione removed several metal fragments from the wound, and under the light, she could see the blood that had not yet congealed but had stopped flowing.

Some blood droplets still clung to the flesh, not falling off, but being brought out by her pliers and bullet fragments. It seemed that the blood around them had become a semi-fluid state where movement was restricted.

After Hermione slumped stiffly into the chair, Nietzsche immediately wrapped the professor's chest with gauze soaked in the potion, and only then did he remove the freezing spell.

The nerves begin to activate again, and the person awakens from paralysis.

"What kind of spell is this?" Hermione asked nervously after covering Quirrell with a blanket. "I mean... why would Harry Potter carry such a dangerous spell?"

Come to think of it, she shook hands with Potter a few times.

Dumbledore did not choose to hide it, but more accurately, he could no longer hide it, so he decided to tell part of the truth.

"It's a powerful, ancient bloodline magic. You've probably heard about what happened in 1981, but on that day, Harry's mother gave her life to protect her son... Yes, that's 'love'."

"A wizard's emotions can certainly affect spells. Just think about it, what could surpass a mother's love for her son? Voldemort's greedy ambition?"