“As you say,” said Professor Quirrell, who was beginning to frown at Harry’s frowning.
“Well, on the first Thursday of this year, the mad Headmaster Dumbledore, who I’d just seen incinerate a chicken, told me that I had no chance whatsoever of getting into his forbidden corridor, since I didn’t know the spell Alohomora.”
“I see,” said Professor Quirrell. “Oh, dear. I wish you had thought to mention this to me a good deal earlier.”
Neither of them needed to state aloud the obvious, that this bit of reverse reverse psychology had successfully ensured that Harry would stay the heck away from Dumbledore’s forbidden corridor.
Harry was still concentrating. “Do you think Dumbledore suspects that I am, in his terms, a horcrux of Lord Voldemort, or more generally, that some aspects of my personality were copied off Lord Voldemort?” Even as Harry asked this aloud, he realized what a dumb question it was, and how much completely blatant evidence he’d already seen that—
“Dumbledore cannot possibly have missed it,” said Professor Quirrell. “It is not exactly subtle. What else is Dumbledore to think, that you are an actor in a play whose stupid author has never met a real eleven-yearold? Only a gibbering dullard would believe that—ah, never mind.” The two of them stared at the Mirror in silence.
Finally Professor Quirrell sighed. “I have outwitted myself, I fear. Neither you nor I dare be reflected in this Mirror. I suppose I must command Professor Sprout to undo my Obliviations of Mr. Nott and Miss Greengrass… You see, the other great difficulty of the Mirror is that the rule by which it treats those reflected will disregard external forces, such as False Memories or a Confundus Charm. The Mirror reflects only those forces arising from within the person themselves, the states of mind they arrive at through their own choices; so it is said in several places. That is why I had Mr. Nott and Miss Greengrass, believing different stories about why the Stone’s extraction was necessary, ready to appear before this Mirror.” Professor Quirrell rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “I constructed other stories for other students, ready for me to set into motion with the chosen trigger… but as this day approached, I began to feel pessimistic about the project. Such as Nott and Greengrass still seem worth trying, if we cannot think of something better. But I wonder if Dumbledore has tried to construct this puzzle to specifically resist Voldemort’s cunning. I wonder if he might have succeeded. If you devise an alternative plan which I approve enough to try, I promisse that whatever pawn I ssend forth sshall not be harmed by me, then or ever; nor do I expect to break that promisse. And I remind you again of the hostages I hold to my failure, both Miss Granger and all the others.”
Again they stared at the mirror in silence, the elder Tom Riddle and the younger.
“I suspect, Professor,” Harry said after a time, “that your entire class of hypotheses about somebody needing to want the Stone for good or honest purposes is mistaken. The Headmaster wouldn’t set a retrieval rule like that.”
“Why?”
“Because Dumbledore knows how easy it is to end up believing that you’re doing the right thing when you’re actually not. It’d be the first possibility he imagined.”
“Iss it truth or trickery that I hear?” “Am being honesst,” Harry said.
Professor Quirrell nodded. “Then your point is well taken.”
“I’m not sure why you think this puzzle is solvable,” Harry said. “Just set a rule like, your left hand must hold a small blue pyramid and two large red pyramids, and your right hand must be squeezing mayonnaise onto a hamster—”
“No,” Professor Quirrell said. “No, I think not. The legends are unclear on what rules can be given, but I think it must have something to do with the Mirror’s original intended use—it must have something to do with the deep desires and wishes arising from within the person. Squeezing mayonnaise onto a hamster will not qualify as that, for most people.” “Huh,” Harry said. “Maybe the rule is that the person has to not want to use the Stone at all—no, that’s too easy, the story you gave Mr. Nott solves it.”
“In some ways you may understand Dumbledore better than I,” said Professor Quirrell. “So now I ask you this: how would Dumbledore use his notion of the acceptance of death to guard this Stone? For that above all he thinks I cannot comprehend, and he is not far wrong.”
Harry thought about this for a while, considering several ideas and discarding them. And then, having thought of something, Harry considered remaining silent… before mapping out the obvious part of the future conversation where Professor Quirrell asked him to say in Parseltongue if he’d thought of something.
Reluctantly, Harry spoke. “Would Dumbledore think that this Mirror could reach the afterlife? Could he put the Stone into something that he thinks is an afterlife, so that only people who believe in an afterlife can see it?”
“Hm…” Professor Quirrell said. “Possibly… yes, there is a certain plausibility to it. Using this setting of the Mirror to show people their heart’s desires… Albus Dumbledore would see himself reunited with his family. He would see himself united with them in death, wanting to die himself rather than wishing for them to be returned to life. His brother Aberforth, his sister Ariana, his parents Kendra and Percival… it would be Aberforth to whom Dumbledore gave the Stone, I think. Would the Mirror recognize that Aberforth particularly had been given the Stone? Or will any person’s dead relative do, if that person believes their relative’s spirit would give them back the Stone?” Professor Quirrell was pacing in a short circle, keeping well away from Harry and the Mirror as he moved. “But all this is only one idea. Let us devise another.”
Harry began to tap his cheek, then stopped abruptly as he realized where he’d picked up that gesture. “What if Perenelle is the one who put the Stone in here? Maybe she keyed the Mirror to give the Stone only to the person who put it in originally.”
“Perenelle has lived this long by knowing her limitations,” said Professor Quirrell. “She does not overestimate her own intellect, she is not prideful, if that were so she would have lost the Stone long ago. Perenelle will not try to think of a good Mirror-rule herself, not when Master Flamel can leave the matter in Dumbledore’s wiser hands… but the rule of only returning the Stone to the one who remembers placing it, also works if Dumbledore himself has placed the Stone. It would be a hard rule to bypass, since I cannot simply Confund someone into believing that they put in the Stone… I would have to create a false Stone, and a false Mirror, and arrange the drama…” Professor Quirrell was frowning, now. “But it is still something that Dumbledore would imagine Voldemort being able to arrange, given time. If at all possible, Dumbledore will want to make the key to the Mirror a state of mind he thinks I cannot arrange in a pawn— or a rule that Dumbledore thinks Voldemort can never comprehend, such as a rule involving the acceptance of one’s own death. That is why I considered your previous idea plausible.” Then Harry had an idea.
He was not sure if it was a good idea.
…it wasn’t like Harry had a lot of choice here.
“Arguendo,” Harry said. “We’re not sure what’s necessary to retrieve the Stone. But a sufficient condition should involve Albus Dumbledore, or maybe someone else, in a state of mind where they believe that the Dark Lord has been defeated, that the threat is over, and that it is time to take out the Stone and give it back to Nicholas Flamel. We aren’t sure which part of that person’s state of mind, let’s say Dumbledore’s, will be the necessary part that he thinks Lord Voldemort can’t understand or duplicate; but under those conditions Dumbledore’s entire state of mind will be sufficient.”