Touching Quirrel's hand

[judyserenity]

No: HPFGUIDX 40913

Cindy (swimminwoman86 at a...) wrote:
> in the beginning of the book, Professor Quirrell shakes Harry's
hand, yet this has no effect at all on him. Shouldn't Harry's touch
have blistered his hand the way that it did at the end of the book?
...Maybe at the time, Voldemort was not yet living on Quirrell.< 

Right, Voldemort was not on Quirrel's head when Quirrel met Harry in
the Leaky Cauldron; that is why Quirrel can shake hands with Harry. 

Voldemort sticks himself onto the back of Quirrel's head after Quirrel
failed to steal the Stone from Gringott's. Quirrel explains this to
Harry just before they fight. 


Cindy continued:
>  Why, then would he have been wearing it when they first met at The 
> Leaky Cauldron, then? 

Do you mean Quirrel's turban?  In the book, Quirrel was not wearing
the turban at the Leaky Cauldron. (In the *movie*, Quirrel was wearing
the turban, but he didn't shake Harry's hand, and he never says
anything about how long Voldemort has been grafted onto the back of
his head.) 


> why does Quirrell seem nervous when they first 
> meet? The way Quirrell says "Who would suspect p-p-poor
st-stuttering 
> P-Professor Quirrell?", it implies to me that it was all an act.

Yep, an act.  That's what I'd say.

While we're on the topic of Quirrel's head, someone brought up the
issue of the Weasley twins bouncing snowballs off the back of
Quirrel's turban.  I noticed this, too, and my guess is that Voldemort
*will* try to punish them for it.  It's been speculated before that
one of the twins will die in book 5,6 or 7 -- not that there's any
evidence this will happen; it just seems like a real tear-wrenching
plot device.

Judy Serenity