Was Quirrell a victim?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 84503

"Jennifer" wrote:
> After reading the first book...again...I started to think about if 
> Quirrell was a victim or a knowledgable co-conspiritor?  Did LV take 
> him over because he was going to be the DADA the first year that HP 
> was going to be at Hogwarts and knew that HP could easily be killed 
> or was Quirrell a DE and let his master take over him so he could do 
> the same?  It all depends if Quirrell was a DE or some poor guy in 
> the wrong place at the wrong time.  
<snip>


I don't think that Quirrell was a Death Eater. Voldemort says in GoF
that he found Quirrell wandering in a forest in Albania three or four
years earlier and describes him as "young, foolish, and gullible. . .
easy to bend to my will" (GOF p. 654, American edition). He wasn't yet
evil, only weak, and he remains weak, begging his "master" to have
mercy in SS, allowing Voldemort to take possession of his head (ugh).
He seems to have retained some sense of his separateness from
Voldemort, more so than he would under an Imperius curse, for example,
and I for one think that the stuttering is an act that he came up with
more or less on his own, along with the vampire story and garlic
inside the turban. In other words, he is Voldemort's servant rather
than his slave. He is acting at least partly of his own volition. At
the end, though, he seems to have become wholly evil. Possibly he
thinks that the sorceror's stone will give him as well as Voldemort
immortality. He certainly has no inkling of what's coming to him.

  
Jen again: 
> But who did suspect him?  Snape, a past death eater.  Snape could
have known about Quirrell and his history as a DE, that is why he kept
his watch and knew to check the Stone while everyone was after the
troll.  
<snip>
> 
> jen


I think Snape suspects Quirrell because he knows how Dark Wizards
think and he sees through Quirrell's explanations for the newly
acquired timidity (encounter with a vampire) and turban (a garlic
holder) in part because of his skill at Legilimency and in part through
natural shrewdness and a keen intellect. In any case, I would guess
that Quirrell taught at Hogwarts the previous year and that Snape
would already have had his eye on him simply because he was the DADA
teacher, a post that he resents Quirrell for holding. He would have
been instantly suspicious of anything suggesting disguise or concealment. 

As an aside, I predict that in the seventh book Snape will prove his
loyalty to Hogwarts and Dumbledore so convincingly that not even Harry
can doubt him and will be rewarded with the DADA class at long last.

I just realized that I haven't answered the question about whether
Quirrell is a victim or a knowledgeable co-conspirator. I think he's
both. A victim, after all, isn't necessarily innocent. In this case,
Quirrell begins as a weak and gullible prospective victim who didn't
practice constant vigilance. I would guess that Barty Crouch Jr. and
Regulus Black began their DE careers in much the same way, and that
Quirrell was reserved for a different fate only because he was still a
child when LV was recruiting his Death Eaters.

Carol