Thus Harry was fully rested, and his pouch contained almost everything which he owned and might conceivably need. Harry had, in fact, run into the volume limitation on the pouch; and keeping in mind that he would need to store a large snake, and might need to store who-knew-what-else, he had removed some of the bulkier items, like the car battery. He was up to the point now where he could Transfigure something the size of a car battery in four minutes flat, so it wasn't much of a loss.
Harry
Mary's Place.
After the waitress had taken their order and bowed to them and left the room, Professor Quirrell had performed only four Charms, and then they'd talked about nothing of any vast consequence, just Professor Quirrell's complex thesis about how the Dark Lord's curse on the Defense position had led to the decline of dueling and how this had changed social customs in magical Britain. Harry listened and nodded and said intelligent things, while he tried to control the pounding of his heart.
Then the waitress came in again bearing their food, and this time, a minute after the waitress had departed, Professor Quirrell gestured for the door to close and lock, and began to speak twenty-nine security Charms, one of the ones in Mr. Bester's sequence being left out this time, which somewhat puzzled Harry.
Professor Quirrell finished his Charms -
- stood up from his chair -
- blurred into a green snake, banded in blue and white -
- hissed, "
Harry's eyes were a bit wide, but he hissed, "
The snake watched him for a moment, with those flat eyes, and then hissed, "
"
"
Harry dropped his gaze from the snake's flat eyes, and looked back down at his sauce-coated noodles, and ate another bite, then another, while he thought.
The Defense Professor... was an ambiguous figure, to put it mildly; Harry thought he had unraveled some of his goals, but others remained mysterious.
But Professor Quirrell had knocked down two hundred girls to stop the ones summoning Harry. Professor Quirrell had deduced that the Dementor was draining Harry through his wand. The Defense Professor had saved Harry's life, twice, in a two-week period.
Which could mean that the Defense Professor was just saving Harry
And if there was sometimes a cold atmosphere about the Defense Professor, bitterness in his voice or emptiness in his gaze, then Harry was the only one who Professor Quirrell allowed to see it.
Harry didn't quite know how to describe in words the sense of kinship he felt with Professor Quirrell, except to say that the Defense Professor was the only
"
And the snake explained the first stage of the plan.
Harry took a final forkful of noodles, chewed. Beside him, Professor Quirrell, now in human form again, was eating his soup placidly, as though nothing of special interest were occurring.
Then Harry swallowed, and in the same moment stood up from his chair, already feeling his heart start to hammer hard in his chest. The security precautions they were taking were literally the most stringent possible...
"Are you ready to test it, Mr. Potter?" Professor Quirrell said calmly.
It
"Yep," Harry said as casually as he could.
Harry said "Cloak" to his pouch, drew forth the Cloak of Invisibility, and then unstuck the pouch from his belt and threw it toward the other side of the table.
The Defense Professor stood up from his own seat, drew his wand, bent down, and touched his wand to the pouch, murmuring a quiet incantation. The new enchantments would ensure that Professor Quirrell could enter the pouch on his own in snakeform, and leave it on his own, and hear what went on outside while he was in the pouch.