Quirrell and the dungeon - long (was: Slytherins and Werewolves)

[Constance Vigilance]

No: HPFGUIDX 170526

> Goddlefrood:
> 
> He certainly left these mortal coils, anyway, or perhaps you 
> have a theory on his survival? ;)
> 

CV: Sigh. Quirrell may well be dead, but it is highly unlikely that he 
died in the dungeon.

Let's review. Here's what happened in the dungeon:

------

Quirrell raised his hand to preform a deadly curse, but Harry, by 
instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell's face -

"AAAARGH!"

Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering, too, and then Harry knew: 
Quirrell couldn't touch his bare skin, not without suffering terrible 
pain.

Harry jumped to his feet, caught Quirrell by the arm, and hung on as 
tight as he could. Quirrell screamed and tried to throw Harry off - the 
pain in Harry's head was building - he couldn't see - he could only 
hear Quirrell's terrible shrieks and Voldemort's yells of "KILL HIM! 
KILL HIM!" and other voices, maybe in Harry's onw head, crying "Harry! 
Harry!"

----

First, Harry may have touched Quirrell's face, but at the time 
Voldemort leaves, Harry only has ahold of Quirrell's *arm*. 
Furthermore, Quirrell is *alive* when Harry loses consciousness. 
Quirrell is shrieking when the rescuers are arriving. And notice, it's 
*rescuers* - plural. Harry hears *other voices*.

Secondly, just after Harry grabs Quirrell, Harry is blinded. This is 
the last thing that Harry is to see for the next three days. One might 
question what JKR doesn't want Harry (or us) to see?

Then there is a gap of three days before the narrative resumes with 
Harry waking up in the hospital wing. If you listen closely to 
Dumbledore's speech to Harry, he clearly makes the case that Quirrell 
did not die in the dungeon. Let's review:


"Professor Quirrell did not manage to take [the stone] from you. I 
arrived in time to prevent that, although you were doing very well on 
your own, I must say."

"I arrived in time to pull Quirrell off you."


Quirrell must have still been alive when Harry was blacking out. 
Dumbledore had to pull Quirrell off him.

And what does Dumbledore say about the end of Quirrell?

"[Voldemort] left Quirrell to die; he shows just as little mercy to his 
followers as his enemies."

Notice the "left to die" phrasing. It is clear that when Voldemort 
left, Quirrell was not yet dead.

What else does Dumbledore say about Quirrell?

"[T]o have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loves us is 
gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. 
Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with 
Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a 
person marked by something so good."

Dumbledore says it was "agony" for Quirrell to touch Harry, not that it 
was fatal. 

And then, there's the unicorn blood. 

------

"[I]t is a monstrous thing to slay a unicorn," said Firenze. "The blood 
of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, 
but at a terrible price ...."

"But who'd be that desperate?" [Harry] wondered aloud. "If you're going 
to be cursed forever, death's better, isn't it?"

"It is," Firenze agreed, "unless all you need is to stay alive long 
enough to drink something else -- something that will bring you back to 
full strength and power -- something that will mean you can never die."

-----

Something whose prime ingredient is right there in the room with them 
along with a wizard who knows how to make it?

But didn't he die when Voldemort left? Um - not likely. Let's see what 
Voldy has to say:

-----

"Only one power remained to me. I could possess the bodies of others. I 
sometimes inhabited animals – snakes, of course, being my preference –
but their bodies were ill adapted to perform magic 
 and my possession 
of them shortened their lives; none of them lasted long 
"

...

"The servant died when I left his body, and I was left as weak as ever 
I had been 
"

-----

There is no doubt that Voldemort thinks that Quirrell died when he left 
his body. But we have Dumbledore's evidence that contridicts that. ("I 
arrived in time to pull Quirrell off you.")

Voldemort is assuming that leaving a possessed body causes the host to 
die because that always happened with the animals. But note – the 
animals died because their bodies were ill adapted to perform magic. 
The animals died because they weren't wizards. And it's a good thing 
that wizards can survive a possession because Harry is possessed in the 
battle at the Ministry of Magic. There is no reason to assume that 
Quirrell would have died because of the possession by Voldemort.

At worst, Quirrell has a blistered face, a sore arm and a cursed half 
life.

The only way that Quirrell could have died in that dungeon would be if 
Dumbledore killed him himself.

I know what everybody is thinking. The movie couldn't have been that 
wrong. Doesn't JKR have script approval?

Now? Yes. But then? Not so much.

"I have been allowed to make my views felt. You know, that's not to say 
they're going to take my views on board, but the conscience rests easy, 
if you like, knowing that I was able to sit in the meeting and say what 
I would not be comfortable with. But it's not my call. .. All I can 
really say on that is that I've, I've been allowed to say what I would 
be happy with, whether that happens or not, it's not in my control." – 
Ballard, Nigel. Interview, BBC Bristol, 12 November, 2001

And how about this:

Jeff Jensen: "Do you have kind of control over what Warner Bros. does 
with Harry Potter?"

JKR: "Can I prevent it in terms of what's in my contract? No. But they 
have been very gracious in allowing my input; and I have been asked a 
lot of questions I never expected to be asked." Interview with 
Entertainment Weekly, Aug 4, 2000, "Rowling Thunder"

See? She never saw the script beforehand and only was there to respond 
to questions put to her.

The conclusion is that there is absolutely NO canonical proof that 
Quirrell died there in the dungeon, movie notwithstanding, and there is 
plenty of suggestive evidence that he did not die there.

~ CV, fandom's Quirrell expert.