What was known about Quirrell's death and Tom's status in PS?

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Lynn_waterfall, in an exchange we were having below in the spork of GoF 36, assumed that Fudge thought that Harry had said, back at the end of book one, that Voldemort was dead but somehow not completely dead.

But what Harry actually knew was that Voldemort, riding the back of Quirrell's head, said that he was, "Mere shadow and vapor... I have form only when I can share another's body... but there have have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds.... Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks... and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own."

Now, we readers, being logical, might infer that the once-a-normal-living-human Voldemort, who is now "shadow and vapor... [without] a body of [his] own" might be legally classed as "dead but not as gone as we might wish."

A) Did Harry ever work that out? and

B) Did he ever communicate that to others? To anyone?

WE all know that Harry faced a dead Voldemort possessing his living servant Quirrell in an attempt to secure the Philosopher's Stone and kill Harry.

And we know that everyone in Hogwarts (and therefore, all their relatives at the Ministry) know that SOMETHING happened down there. See the congratulatory sweets by Harry's bedside.

But as oryx points out, in OotP only Neville seemed quite sure that the incident involved "the Sorcerous Stone".

What was "known" by the rest of the WW?

The only facts we know Twinkles probably could not have hidden were: Quirrell's death (or at least disappearance), and the destruction/disappearance of the Philosopher's Stone, leading eventually to the Flamel's deaths of old age.

Does everyone/anyone but US even know these two incidents were connected? That Quirrel died in attempting to steal the Stone? And is it generally known that Quirrell was the Dark Lord's agent in that attempt (Severus's alibi to Bellatrix--which presumably is the same as he gave Riddle--was that Snape had never known that), much less physically possessed by him?

And among those who know that Quirrell was physically possessed--would they have any reason to assume that the Dark Lord had been discorporate himself when he took Quirrel over?

Tom had previously possessed animals/humans while retaining control of his own body--was this known?


Final question: when Tommy abandoned Quirinus's dying body, did Quirrell's head restore itself to normal? Or did Albus show everyone a corpse with Lord V on the back or his head?

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

Very good questions! Quirrell's death could probably have been passed off as one of Voldemort's casualties during the break-in, since he was one of the teachers assigned to create a trap for the stone (might have seen something funny and gone to investigate, or just been patrolling the corridors on the wrong night, and alas! with his poor broken nerves, he was no match even for the weakened Voldemort). Or he was nervous all year because Voldemort was still threatening enough that Quirrell had to help sneak him bodily onto the grounds and was unable to tell anyone. Or, as you say, an embodied Voldemort still managed to possess him, which if it was known to be one of Voldemort's core skills (and wouldn't that have made VoldWarI so much more terrifying? not only do you have to worry about Imperius, but possession by You-Know-Who himself! which would make the events of CoS that much more terrifying for the elder Weasleys, who would remember that horror), might seem possible even for a weakened Voldemort. Hm. Even if the Ministry knew or suspected Voldemort was involved, though, it must not have been shared with many people if Snape could plausibly deny he had been told. And maybe they thought Quirrell alone was the dark wizard responsible, and... one of the traps killed him? Harry is a dark wizard disintegrater?

All I can guess is that Fudge and maybe other top Ministry officials knew that some dark wizard tried to steal the stone and Quirrell somehow got killed in the process, perhaps as random collateral damage and perhaps as the culprit or accomplice of... someone. Fudge doesn't mention the stone in PoA when he worries about how quickly Voldemort might rise again if he had a loyal servant, and you'd think that "remember the recent close call with the stone! ack, not again!" would be on his mind if he knew. But maybe it was too top secret to discuss in a pub with Rosmerta there, while the story of Sirius was already well known.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Back to the original discussion: So you think people in general knew Voldemort was at the school somehow? Of course Dobby knows Harry managed to escape from Voldemort again. Is that what the students thought Harry got his points for?

[sunnyskywalker]

I really don't know. I think they knew some dark wizard was involved, and given recent history might have suspected a former DE at the very least. Probably it wasn't generally known that Voldemort was involved, or you'd think we'd have heard more about it (someone trying to defend Harry in CoS by bringing it up, say). Of course people in this series tend to have conveniently selective memories, so who knows. But maybe (some of?) the faculty and Ministry higher-ups knew or suspected.

Unless Dumbledore told them (or implied in that convenient "I'm not technically lying, it's true from a certain point of view" way) all that Quirrell alone was responsible. Which is entirely possible. Although even then some people might suspect otherwise, if they're all so sure that Voldemort is out there waiting to rise again.

Voldemort's known interests

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

As far as we know, Tom had made no attempts in his earlier (living) life to steal the stone. (I know, absence of evidence....) Dumbledore postulated that tom wouldn't have wanted to be dependent on a single item outside himself which could (demonstrably) be lost, stolen, or destroyed.

Tom himself told Harry that "once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a [new] body of my own...."

I.e., that what he accomplished 3 years later in Gof with a Dark ritual involving significant bone, flesh, blood, and Baby!mort, could have been done quickly, easily, and without a "seed body," had he had only had the Elixir of Life.

But reconstituting a body only became a concern once Tom was bodiless; before then he chugged along in his own preferred body, protected from true death by the Horcruxes.

So maybe it's well known (among those who follow such things) that Lord Voldemort's quest for immortality had, in the past, somehow displayed an utter indifference to the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

I have no idea, sorry, I never know what anyone else knows or should know but are kept from knowing for plot convenience.

But it does make me eyeroll at Harry's tantrum with Seamus (?) and the general contempt for everyone who denies Voldy's back- if the boy wonder hadn't interfered where he wasn't needed, Dumbles would've had his proof that Voldy was still around in some form as early as PS/SS and they would've had to take his claims and Harry's seriously later on.

did Albus show everyone a corpse with Lord V on the back or his head?

I thought Quirrel crumbled to bitty bits? Or is that movie canon rattling about in my brain? Or maybe I'm mixing it up with Bellatrix. IDEK.

Poor Quirrel. Everyone remembers him as a villain, but we don't know for sure he ever wanted to serve Voldy.

[sunnyskywalker]

He did say he had "ridiculous ideas about good and evil" before he ran into Voldemort, which suggests that he wouldn't have wanted to help Voldemort. Voldemort just says he was overconfident and easy to control, right? And surely Voldemort would have noticed if Quirrell was a hate-filled person ambitious to join Team Evil, and gloated to Harry about how many people were still Voldemort supporters even after all these years. So yes, poor Quirrell :(

Dumbledore said he had "toxic" amounts of "hatred, greed, and ambition," but we can probably take this as "the truth from a certain point of view." Probably he was just ambitious and greedy for the DADA position to the extent anyone who really wanted a certain job would be, and hated vacations where the hotels don't have prefects'-bathroom-sized jetted tubs. (I heard Pottermore claims Quirrell thought he would go find and control the weakened Voldy so people would take him seriously, but hunting for a pet mass murderer to impress people doesn't sound like something a person with "ridiculous" ideas about good and evil would do.)

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

Submitted for your consideration ... (cue Twilight Zone music)

Pottermore spoilers on Quirrell (http://pottermorespoilers.tumblr.com/post/9724321272/quirrells-backstory-full) and this (http://pottermorespoilers.tumblr.com/post/9000455534/quirrells-backstory): sounds of a type with Severus, eager to prove himself = EVIL! Also, his birthday is coming up.

Pottermore spoilers on Flamel (http://pottermorespoilers.tumblr.com/post/9907710856/jos-notes-nicholas-flamel): not much here.

Canon?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Yay! Quirrell was a Ravenclaw as I suspected for a while. She doesn't make them all Slytherins. She gives his birthday but not his age. Did Quirrell know about Severus and James' mutual hatred from his own experience or was this something Voldie told him?

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

I guessed that he was a Ravenclaw, too. I just wrote a whole story with him as a character before I saw this. I'll have to incorporate pressed flowers into it (luckily, I have just the place).

For what it's worth, I wrote him as older and not really aware of others, more of an airy intellectual. (Also, wasn't Severus supposed to be really young for a teacher?)

The entry says Quirrell was "turned into a temporary Horcrux by Voldemort." How does this even work, and how many did he create all told?

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Severus was born in 1960, so he would have been 21 when he began teaching in 1981. Far younger than most of the other staff.

I can't recall if this is fanon or suggested by the books, but my understanding was that Quirrell was younger than Severus by a few years, but was at Hogwarts by the time of SWM.

[oryx_leucoryx]

What we know about his age is that he appears young to Harry, whereas 30 year-old Severus doesn't. But one can argue that Severus aged faster than he should have due to his experiences.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

I'll have to incorporate pressed flowers into it (luckily, I have just the place).

Hmmm. He works all day and likes to press wildflowers. I wonder if he also skips, jumps, and likes to dress in women's clothing and hang around in bars? :D

[sunnyskywalker]

He's a DADA professor and he's okay.

[sunnyskywalker]

Go, Ravenclaw! Now all we need is a confirmed Hufflepuff who went bad (voluntarily or not). Zacharias doesn't count.

Quirrell trying to find Voldemort to defeat him once and for all to prove himself I could probably see, but wanting to learn magic from him? When he supposedly still believed in evil and so probably thought Voldemort was an evil person doing evil magic? There's better ways to learn advanced magic to impress people, so I'm not sold on that (unless someone can come up with a convincing explanation). From what he says it sounds like he was NOT looking for power with no regard for morality (at least, not in the sense of learning special Voldemortian dark magic - more like "fame and influence" instead) when he went to Albania, since he had to "learn" Voldemort's viewpoint.

Very unsatisfactory Flamel entry. If you're going to fill in some details for readers, why not at least hint at important things like "what was Flamel doing for the whole 20th century?"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"Quirrell trying to find Voldemort to defeat him once and for all to prove himself I could probably see, but wanting to learn magic from him? When he supposedly still believed in evil and so probably thought Voldemort was an evil person doing evil magic? There's better ways to learn advanced magic to impress people, so I'm not sold on that (unless someone can come up with a convincing explanation)."

Going to look for Voldemort to learn magic would indeed be an odd thing for someone who believes in good and evil to do (sort of like looking for Hitler to get tips on running a country, if such a thing were still possible) -- *if* he knew that it were Voldemort. But if whatever rumours he'd heard just mentioned a strange and powerful spirit in the forest, without indicating its real identity, then it's possible that an intellectually curious person eager to become more powerful might go and seek it out.

(On a side note, there seems to be a surprising amount happening in Albania is these books. Helena originally fled there a thousand years ago, IIRC, her diadem was hidden there, and Tom stayed there while he was incorporeal. Any idea what's up with that?)

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Albania's tourist board has more influence than Albus and Voldemort combined. They were puppeteering Grindelwald in a grand plan to make Albania the cultural centre of the magical world.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

ROFL! You win an internet.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

swythyv here on LJ did an excellent presentation on this at Aeternitas in April. I only caught the end, but apparently some sites in Albania have long, long associations with powerful magic and such. I'd ask her if you really want good material on this.

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

Re Hufflepuff: Where was Stan Shunpike sorted?

Re Quirrell: I can see an emotionally-detached but intellectually-hungry moth attracted to a Dark flame. What I don't get is the implication that Quirrell is quite young, when I thought she said in an interview that he was the Muggle Studies teacher before he took time off to go to a part of Europe that's viewed as a joke or dark or whatever Albanophobic stereotype some Europeans want to use.

Re Flamel: Wow, it must be nice to have millions of people with whom one can share wholly irrelevant dreams. :-)

These notes are probably going to drive me nuts, like the interviews did. At least Rowling's consistent about vulnerable young men directing their ambition into being "important" and mistakenly hitching their stars to the biggest bully of them all -- it seems to be a thing for her.

As for the original post about what the Wizarding World knew, I'm sure Dumbledore kept as much of the truth to himself as possible, so Harry could grow and test his strength, you know. Congratulatory sweets, though -- that seems in poor taste.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

At least Rowling's consistent about vulnerable young men directing their ambition into being "important" and mistakenly hitching their stars to the biggest bully of them all -- it seems to be a thing for her.

I know. It's so sad how James, Sirius, and Remus turned out.

What do you mean that's not what you meant? ; )

[oryx_leucoryx]

[quote]What I don't get is the implication that Quirrell is quite young, when I thought she said in an interview that he was the Muggle Studies teacher before he took time off to go to a part of Europe that's viewed as a joke or dark or whatever Albanophobic stereotype some Europeans want to use.[/quote]

In PS Harry sees Quirrell, but not Severus, as young looking. That's what canon has to say about his age. Also, it is canon he taught *something* before going on his journey. In 1991 Severus was 31. Even if we assume that under 'normal' conditions teachers were at least 24 when hired (so as not to have to teach anyone who knew them as students) Quirrell could have had time to teach a few years, go on his journey and still be younger than Severus.

A big question is how long did Albus have those mysterious 'sources' that reported to him where Tom was lurking. Because if they predate Quirrell's travels then they must have reported to him that Tom had moved from his hiding place in 1991.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"I thought Quirrel crumbled to bitty bits? Or is that movie canon rattling about in my brain?"

In the book he just scorches Quirrel's skin, I think. The whole crumbling into dust thing was added for the movies.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's right. The movies made more of an effort to make him look heroic. In the book, it's ambiguous what happens to Quirrell- I think Dumbles says he arrives in time to pull Quirrell off Harry, so...er, then what? Did he kill Quirrell? O.o

[oryx_leucoryx]

I thought Quirrell died from the injuries he suffered from the moment he touched Harry until Tom left him (at which time the Lily-effect should have stopped) - he was already dying when Albus pulled him off. But the only other alternative is that Albus killed him.

[detritius.livejournal.com]

While making Harry more heroic might have been one of the reasons the moviemakers made the change (and Harry certainly does need the help), I think they also may have done it to keep the rating down. Having a villain turn to stone is acceptably cartoony, and probably a lot more appropriate for the younger audience the earlier films were marketed to than showing Harry burning Quirrel's face and hands (I believe the book describes his skin blistering from the heat). Depictions of more realistic injuries tend to cause visceral negative reactions, especially for kids, so that may be part of the reason they chose to have him crumble to dust rather than sticking more closely to the book.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Oh, interesting theory. I do think you've hit the nail on the head. It is a lot easier for little kids to roll with villains turning to stone and crumbling than yeah, showing graphic images of his skin being scorched and developing blisters and all. *wince*

I do wonder why they went that route with Voldy and Bella, though- the cartoony 'deaths' were a bit ridic. And at that stage, they showed people dying and being tortured, so hmm.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Probably because it was the "good guys" doing it - if they left bodies behind, the fact that they were killing people would feel a lot more real.

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

I think Voldemort abandoned his body and so Quirrell couldn't survive after that. Although it is fun to think that Dumbledore murdered him and covered it up. He probably arranged for Crouch jr to be desouled too, and told the centaurs where to find Umbridge.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

You know I'm starting to get the idea you don't like Dumbledore.

:)

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

To me, the question is, what did Dumbledore have against Lupin and Moody? (I know what he had against Snape - he was disgusted by him.) Each year, he welcomed a new DADA teacher while suspecting the position was cursed. Did he divulge the curse's existence to each year's fresh recruit? I'm sure he didn't think he was culpable for their downfalls, since the curse seemed to act on an aspect of the victim's personality or experience and was originally cast by Voldemort. Still, if I sell you a car I know will break down in a year, even if the mechanism of breakdown isn't the result of my direct actions, I might be found responsible for your damages, at least partially. If I knowingly take advantage of your character flaw to get you to do my bidding, against your own interests, I am probably guilty of some kind of fraud.

Or maybe, per Harry, the DADA teachers included those Dumbledore only killed because he had to -- serially, at that.

Dumbledore says of Quirrell that he was full of "hatred, greed and ambition" at the end of his life. Well, that's OK, then! He deserved a horrible death! (Not that Harry deserved to die, either, but still... what's this about Dumbledore seeing the best in people?) I didn't see a lot of hatred, greed and ambition in Quirrell as depicted, actually. In the end, I mostly saw arrogance mixed with a great deal of fear.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

To me, the question is, what did Dumbledore have against Lupin and Moody? Or maybe, per Harry, the DADA teachers included those Dumbledore only killed because he had to -- serially, at that.

Has anybody else noticed Dumbledore likes to take out any wizard strong enough to offer him competition for the title of "Biggest Badass in Britain"? (No mere witch can compete, of course, so they don't have to be killed or disabled.) I'm convinced the reason he set Severus up to die with the Elder Wand was because he knew that with Voldemort dead, Snape would be the most powerful wizard in the country. Worse yet, he had decent morals! He believed in sick things like keeping promises and protecting vulnerable kids rather than shoving them into the front lines. If Snape had lived long enough, he might have given St. Albus's reputation a run for its money. We can't have that!

I love the idea of Dumbledore the serial killer.

I know what he had against Snape - he was disgusted by him. Dumbledore says of Quirrell that he was full of "hatred, greed and ambition" at the end of his life. Well, that's OK, then! He deserved a horrible death! (Not that Harry deserved to die, either, but still... what's this about Dumbledore seeing the best in people?)

I think what he really sees is a reflection of himself. No one is more disgusting, hateful, greedy, or ambitious than Scumbledore. In the true fashion of narcissists and psychopaths, the entire rest of the world is nothing but a reflection of his own internal world.

I didn't see a lot of hatred, greed and ambition in Quirrell as depicted, actually. In the end, I mostly saw arrogance mixed with a great deal of fear.

And since he was possessed by Voldemort, we don't even know how much of that was Quirrell himself, and how much was his evil conjoined twin. If Harry's bad behavior can be excused by saying, "It's not his fault. It's the Voldiechip in his head," surely Quirrell deserves to use that excuse even more.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Now, we readers, being logical, might infer that the once-a-normal-living-human Voldemort, who is now "shadow and vapor... [without] a body of [his] own" might be legally classed as "dead but not as gone as we might wish."

A) Did Harry ever work that out?

In the hospital wing Albus tells him that Voldemort is not quite alive, which is why he can't be killed. I have no idea what Harry made of it then. He does tell diary!Tom that he saw the real Voldemort and he was a wreck.