Quirrell
By Joe di Martino
Disclaimer: None of the Harry Potter books, characters, or other assorted paraphernalia associated with Harry Potter belongs to me.
A/N: Please bear with me here, this is my first ever fanfic. Please review and tell me what to fix and how to fix it. This was beta-read by my friend Kraeg001, of fanfiction.net fame.
Bloody hell, thought Quirrell as he sat in his office, writing a letter with his favorite color ink (yellow), I am actually going to do this.
It had taken weeks for him to learn how to emulate Fudge’s handwriting. (The evil overlord living on the back of his head had used these sessions to deride Quirrell, with such admonishments as “It would’ve taken me a half-hour to forge the accursed letter, Quirrell!” or “Merlin, your penmanship is horrendous.” or “I should’ve possessed a chimpanzee. They have more brain capacity in birth than you can ever hope on having. And they’d make a more respected teacher.”) He could only practice when he was alone, and only when he had free time, which was a lot less often than one would think. The wretched Dumbledore kept giving him errands, and stamping 100’s on everyone’s exams and homework was such a long and daily chore that he could swear that his wrist muscles were deteriorating.
But finally, today was the day of action. Today was the day that he, (Insert first name here) Quirrell would fetch the Sorcerer’s Stone and become the most powerful being on the planet; He had no intention of helping the filthy ingrate grafted to the back of his head- the immense wealth and immortality would be all his.
Finally, Quirrell finished his letter, despite the dark mutterings of the back of his head (like “Quirrell, if you get that ‘f’ wrong one more time, I will personally murder you ten times over!”). He was just standing back to admire the work that took copious hours to complete...
Dear Dumbledore,
The Ministry’s in trouble and needs you right now!
Sincerely, Cornelius Oswald Fudge
...when he heard a rapping at his chamber door.
Quickly, Quirrell stuffed the letter into his mahogany desk drawer, careful even in his fret to magically conceal the words on the parchment, and rushed to open the door.
“Why, hello, P-p-professor Snape, what brings you h-here?” asked a flustered yet courteous Quirrell, luckily remembering to employ the fake stutter that so effectively hid his distaste for the man.
“Shut up, Quirrell.” said Snape, his spit splattering all over Quirrell’s face and his eyebrows furrowed in menace. “You know perfectly well why I’m here- to see whether you’re up to something.”
“I d-don’t know w-why you insist on checking m-my office every other d-day, P-p-professor,” replied Quirrell innocently. Snape’s visits had been another thing that strained his schedule greatly- he could do no plotting when the hook-nosed old bat was constantly looking over his shoulder. Then again, after what he had seen that day Quirrell let the troll in to the dungeons, he had reasons to monitor his activities.
“Didn’t I tell you to stop speaking, Quirrell?” snarled Snape, already hurriedly sifting through some of the files on Quirrell’s desk. The Potions Master continued to scan the office for any suspicious items or documents, searching every shelf and bookcase. Finally, after the search yielded no results, he turned to leave, but not before saying “I’m watching you, Quirrell. Something funny’s going on, that much I know. I have consulted the Headmaster, and keep in mind that it’s extremely difficult to fool him. Especially for you.”
“I wouldn’t d-dream of d-doing anything l-like that, sir.” replied Quirrell, anxious for Snape to leave.
“When did I tell you that you could talk, Quirrell?”
And with that, Snape slammed the door closed.
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Stage one of the operation went comparably smoothly for Quirrell (mostly because stage one was simply sending out an owl and lugging a Disillusioned harp to the forbidden third floor corridor), except for the fact that he forgot the harp the first trip down. “Quirrell, you imbecile, no wonder you were walking so fast!” the back of his head at hissed vehemently when he realized he had left the harp. “If I could see more than the back of this turban, I’d...” When he had gotten the harp and went downstairs with it again, the students just thought someone had put a Crippling Curse on him (which wasn’t uncommon), for the heavy harp he carried was invisible.
Tentatively, he unlocked the third floor corridor door and entered the room, where he immediately set to work on enchanting the harp. As he had expected, he heard the cacophony of growls coming from the three titanic heads of Fluffy and saw it unmistakably guarding the wooden trapdoor. The instrument finally started to play when the gargantuan canine was in mid-pounce- it fell instantly into a sleeping heap on the floor. Quirrell then proceeded to edge his way to the trapdoor, his wand hand held in front of him in case the music stopped playing for some reason. When he got to it, he had to gently move the dog’s tail out of the way before opening it and looking down.
Gulp.
He could see only about a meter and a half in to the chute, the rest was covered in pitch-black shadow. Who knew how far down it was to jump? There wasn’t any other means of getting down there, as far as he could tell...
“Quirrell,” screeched the back of his head, sensing his hesitation, “you must jump. An alarm must have gone off in Dumbledore’s office by now. If the owl you sent out made the old Muggle-loving fool leave then there’s no need to rush, but what if it hasn’t? Time is of the essence. Jump!”
Still Quirrell stood there, paralyzed with fear. Then Voldemort sneezed because of the smell of garlic in his turban and Quirrell fell into the hole, just as heard the harp stop and three people enter the room with Fluffy.
It took a whole fifteen seconds of falling through the chute for him to land something. Quirrell thanked the almighty Scion of Darkness it was so nice and soft and comfy and... leafy?
As though waiting for the advent of mortifying realization, the vicious plant’s tendril-vines coiled around his arms and legs, barring any escape. Quirrell subsequently let out a girlie scream and struggled against the vine now threatening to bind his throat with all his might.
“Quick, set it on fire! I’m suffocating!” yelled the back of his head. “It’s Devil’s Snare, I’ve had to use cuttings of its leaves for countless potions!”
But Quirrell was too busy screaming and struggling to listen. In his panic, Quirrell dropped his wand, and it got stuck in the thick, undulating and grassy undergrowth of the overgrown plant. The wand caught fire due to the friction of the rapid rubbing of the grass against it. Immediately, the plant rescinded its vice grip on the almost-dead Quirrell in writhing agony. He landed hard on the floor, which snapped him out of his shock, got up and staggered to the door at the end of corridor. As he opened the door, he could distinctly hear the regrowth of the Devil’s Snare from the very stone-flagged floor.
Quirrell took a deep breath before closing the door behind him and looking at his surroundings. He spotted a pile of broomsticks at once, lying on the wall to his left. What did he have to do- swat a fly? Then, while he was wondering whether he had to clean the dungeon, he looked up on a whim. What he saw made his eyes bulge. There were at least seventy winged keys, flittering about at incredible speeds and wholly indistinguishable from each other at this distance. He then understood- he had to fly via broom to retrieve the correct key and advance.
“What are you waiting for, Quirrell? Ascend!” commanded a muffled voice in his turban, breaking the silence. The Dark Lord was clearly impatient in his venture to grab the Elixir of Life.
“Um, I kind of... you see I never learned how to... I can’t fly.” said Quirrell quietly, whose head hung in shame.
Voldemort was utterly livid; he could feel the anger permeate through the entwined minds.
“WHAT? YOU’VE LOST OUR WAND AND YOU CAN’T FLY? YOU PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A PUREBLOOD, YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE A MUGGLE RIGHT NOW!”
“Well, I can jump really high...” said Quirrell in a small voice.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Now, you know what we must do. You have to let me control.”
“No!” exclaimed Quirrell at once. He knew how mind-crushingly painful complete possession was- he had read it in one of his Defense Against the Dark Arts books.
“You’ve no choice, Quirrell! Do it!”
Quirrell opened his mind to him in resignation, and Voldemort eagerly filled the void. His second face disappeared as his pupils became catlike slits and his voice became high and cold. Although only Quirrell felt the pain, he knew he could not assume control for too long- that much pain for a prolonged period of time would surely kill him, and he desperately needed a host body.
Voldemort didn’t need a wand to summon a broom. “Accio,” he said almost lazily, and a broom shot at him with lightning speed. He grabbed it, mounted it, and set off in hot pursuit of the key (he could sense which one was the correct one). Once he caught the key, he descended and jammed the key into the door. He quite liked having a body of his own, but to accomplish that he needed the Stone, which by now had to be close. No doubt Quirrell would give him the Stone once they found it.
As he closed the door behind him, he reluctantly let Quirrell assume control again. Immediately, his face returned to normal and the back of his head once again housed the essence of the Dark Lord. Quirrell took a moment to catch his breath, and then looked around him. He seemed to be in a statue room with a checkered floor; the room was fully square. Each statue depicted a medieval figure, weapons and armor intact, and were identical to at least one other statue except for color. It took him a while to realize it was a giant chess board (he had never played before), but once he did, he knew what he had to do- he had to play his way across the board to the next door.
It was easier said than done. He made all moves according to the orders the back of his head barked at him. Finally, it came down to the last move.
“Say ‘check’.”
Quirrell cleared his throat. “Ahem. Check.”
The cowering King dropped its sword and braced for impact, a weeping mess.
“Now say ‘rook takes the king’.” instructed the familiar voice behind his face.
“Rook takes the king.”
Nothing happened. The King looked up, now seemingly a little bemused.
“Ahem. Rook takes the king.” said Quirrell again, loudly and clearly.
Still, nothing happened. For four minutes Quirrell kept saying, “Rook takes the king! Rook takes the king!” until he finally thought to say something else.
“Pawn takes the King?”
The King stopped filing his nails and looked up in terror as the rabid pawn meteor-smashed it and pilfered its pewter crown, dancing in exultation. Quirrell wondered why he had to say “pawn” that time around as he walked over the shattered remains of the fallen pieces that littered the battlefield. Just as soon as he finished closing the door to the next chamber behind him, he heard the shifting of the chess pieces as they reassembled one another.
Quirrell smiled when he saw what was in this room. It was his obstacle. The towering mountain troll roared as it saw Quirrell advance towards it. He only smiled wider. He had always loved trolls- they reminded him of himself. The smelly monster proceeded to charge at him with its rough club raised high in the air, wholly absorbed in its bestial fury. Quirrell could hardly blame the poor creature- being stuck in a dungeon for months without food or drink would make him a little grumpy too. Nevertheless, he had to kill it, for he loved the Sorcerer’s Stone more than any troll. Luckily he knew how to slay the beasts, especially ones blinded in rage such as this one. The trick was to use its own great stupidity against it. Quickly, Quirrell picked up a small piece of uprooted floor (obviously the troll’s doing) and threw it at the spot of the wall closest to the rampaging brute. The troll changed direction to the nearest sound, which its tiny mind comprehended as a new enemy, and ran smack-dab into wall and fainted. Flushed with his victory over the primal giant, Quirrell strode to the next door more quickly than ever- he was getting close; there couldn’t be that many other obstacles now...
As soon as Quirrell closed the door of the next room behind him, flames erupted around it and the other door. Quirrell jumped to the side, startled. Realizing that this meant he could neither forwards to the next room nor backwards to the room previous, Quirrell started to panic- how was he going to get out of here? Quirrell stopped hyperventilating when he saw a small table of potion bottles at the center of the room. He spotted the parchment on the table and began to read it...
Severus Snape wrote riddles!? Quirrell didn’t know what sickened him more: the fact that he had to solve Snape’s poem, or that Snape even wrote poetry to begin with.
“Hmm... okay... carry the seven... subtract it by the length of the second hypotenuse... divide by the circumference and times it by its atomic number... three plus five is eight, not thirty-five, I keep forgetting... add it to the quotient of the present participle and the birthday of the Indonesian Minister of Magic...Aha! I’ve got it! It’s the brown potion!”
“Quirrell, you insufferable moron, there is no brown potion!” echoed the back of his head.
“But... my calculations!” argued Quirrell, pointing animatedly at the back of the parchment of the riddle he had used as scrap paper.
“It is obviously the smallest potion, by the terms of the riddle.” Voldemort then grumbled, “No wonder you flunked Arithmancy...”
Quirrell started to scratch his head in puzzlement (which wasn’t smart, for his large turban rendered any head-scratching impossible), disbelieving him. Eventually, after Voldemort told him to drink it for about the fiftieth time, Quirrell threw caution to the winds and downed the smallest potion. In his haste proceed to the next room, Quirrell accidentally left a little potion in the bottle.
The next room (and seemingly final room, for there were no other doors) had- there were no other words to describe it- an enchantingly powerful artifact at its center. Quirrell paced his way to it, as though afraid he would disturb it if he walked too loudly, and realized that it was a mirror. But it wasn’t just any mirror- it was the most beautiful mirror he had ever seen in his life. It had the ancient grace of the great-lost civilizations of man and the eloquent embroidery of mere centuries past. Quirrell was entirely captivated by the mirror, entranced by its wondrous elegance and splendor. He read the engraving at the top of the relic aloud- “The Mirror of Erised”. The magnificent mirror had almost lured him to its brilliant, crystalline glass and pushed any thoughts of the Sorcerer’s Stone from his mind. Until, that is, an image started forming in the mirror.
Quirrell backed away, startled by the sudden change of his reflection. Light and color swirled in the glistening glass, forming a picture that showed him... he was holding something... he was holding the Stone!
Quirrell’s mind reeled as a hundred thoughts (much more than his average of ten thoughts per hour) flitted in and out of it. What did this image mean? Did it show the future? Quirrell quickly concluded that it must- this was the last room of the dungeon! The stone had to be here somewhere, figured Quirrell, and he would soon grasp its supreme power. But where was it? Quirrell looked around wildly, almost dislodging his turban, but couldn’t see it anywhere. Was the stone invisible? Should he feel around for it? Perhaps it was underground- perhaps he had to dig. Maybe it was inside the mirror- yes, the mirror has to have something to do with this. Should he break it?
After a long time of idle thought, Quirrell was becoming maddened by the wretched mirror’s tantalizing and empty promise. In his frustration, Quirrell yelled, “WHERE IS THE STONE?” as though hoping it would magically appear out of thin air (which actually might have worked, but didn’t). The Mirror of Erised, however, seemed either ignorant of his plight or perfectly content in stubbornly continuing to broadcast the image of him using the Stone anyway. It was driving him to the brink of his sanity.
Then, quite unexpectedly, someone entered the room. Quirrell looked around and saw a boy... a black-haired boy with glasses...
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Quirrell lay there, and suddenly his consciousness returned. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was blistering skin and lethal pain...
Was this death? If so, it wasn’t that bad after all... he felt a kind of floaty, windy sensation, unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He almost felt as if he were one with the universe. Quirrell raised his spirit a bit, hoping to ascend and see where he was. However, he soon found out that he was bound to his dead body as though by eerie astral chains, especially at the joints of his arms and legs.
He then abruptly knew what he had to do, what the universe was asking him to do- choose what to do next. Should he become a ghost and linger on the earth, in a feeble form of semi-life? Or should he go on into the afterlife, and risk oblivion or bliss? He also knew immediately which selection was the best to opt for.
A brief rift in space-time above him opened, visible only to his spirit. Inside the planar portal, he could see the pulsing core of the universe; the generator, originator and purveyor of magic throughout the infinity of space. Eagerly, Quirrell’s newly unshackled spirit entered the mystery of the unknown afterlife through the cosmic gateway.
Fin
A/N: I think I did pretty well for my first fic, don’t you? Review and let me know!