Whom did Voldy possess before Quirrell?

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "nkafkafi" <nkafkafi at y...> wrote:
> 
> Whom did Voldy possess before Quirrell?
> 
> Here's a sentence that Quirrell!Mort says in the end of SS/PS, which
> has some interesting implications I failed to notice before:
> 
> SS/PS, Ch. 17 p. 293 US:
> "See what I have become?" the face said. "Mere shadow and vapour... I
> have form only when I can share another's body... but there have
> always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds...
> 
> "Willing"? Hearts and minds"? This doesn't sound like some small
> animals and snakes. So whom did Voldy possess before Quirrell and was
> that before or during the time he was vapor? Note the "those" and
> "always". We're likely talking here about several people during a long
> time. Reminds you of "they, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to
> guard myself against mortal death?" (GoF, Ch. 33, p.648 US).  It's the
> DEs that Voldy is talking about here. 
> 
> The other interesting implication of this SS/PS sentence is that maybe
> Voldy can't possess anyone just like that. He needs the person to be
> "willing" to let him in. Remember this myth about vampires and demons?
> They can't enter a house for the first time unless they are invited.
> Quirrell had to be convinced that he was "a foolish young man, full of
> ridiculous ideas about good and evil". It seems Voldemort had to show
> him first that "there is no good and evil, there is only power, and
> those too weak to seek it" before he could actually take control.
> Ginny had to share her fears and secrets, steal the diary and hide her
> suspicions about what she was doing and couldn't remember. And Harry?
> Harry had already had a connection with Voldy, and he was angry at DD
> the whole year, and just before he was actually possessed he had tried
> to perform an Unforgivable curse. 
> 
> Any thoughts?


Ah, Neri.
Do you realise that you've provided another opportunity for Kneasy to
bang on about Possession Theory? Foolish lad. You might regret this.

"... willing to let me into their hearts and minds" could be no more than the
acceptance of his political/philosophical stance,  but it could also be an
indication of much more. Let me briefly expand on that.

"Voldy says.." But what is Voldy?
Tom - a changed Tom - and to PT fans that change was caused by an
outside  factor -  the  Salazar spirit, essence, what you will, entering
his mind. Tom was the one before Quirrell.

Tom accepts Sally willingly, Sally has much more power than Tom could
ever scrape together and Tom craves sufficient power to wreak his revenge
on all those he sees as having slighted him. Sally is the senior partner, 
Tom his means to his ends, the voice that speaks is Sally's. Tom is a 
convenience, little more.

And there's a possibility that Tom hasn't been the only one down the 
ages to enter into a Faustian pact with Sally. Sally's spirit maybe damned 
near eternal, but his body wasn't. So down the ages he may have possessed
many while he searched for *corporate* immortality, slipping out of his lair
in the Chamber, infecting the susceptible, hoping to crack his body problem.
And if he does succeed, watch out, there'll be no hope for anyone. 

As I see it, this is Harry's task - to isolate the essence of evil that is Sally, 
(Sally in Vapour!Mort mode is much more constrained than Sally in possession
of a body, Voldy admits this) and if he can't destroy it at least lock it up out 
of harms way. Of course he might have to go with it....

Assuming that GH was a possession attempt, with Sally up to his old tricks,
then the only real difference between Tom and Harry is that Harry did not/
has not willingly accepted the intrusion, mostly because of the emplaced
protection. He wasn't *offered* a choice. But with the Voldy construct
swanning round his mind in OoP and the possibility that it may get worse
in HBP, that choice may be presented. And yes, it is worrying the way his
attitudes deteriorated once Voldy got in there. The next step could be the
'Temptation' that I was whittering on about a year or more ago. Can't have
an heroic epic without a temptation you know, t'ain't right, against the rules
or something. And it usually occurs at just about the stage we're at now,
right when everything is coming to the boil.

If you're  a fan of this line of thinking then there could have been an earlier
offer, or the precursor to one - the Sorting Hat. "Slytherin can help you on
the way to greatness, no doubt about that." Slytherin House - or, as I think,
Salazar Slytherin?

Interestingly, I see the Ginny episode as Tom in pre-take-over phase; he
himself has been, or is about to be offered the choice, but the pact is not
yet concluded. Hence he calls on Slytherin "the greatest of the Hogwarts four"
to squelch the Potter pest. If SS had already subsumed him he wouldn't need 
to do that.

As an allegory tale with the concept of evil as an actual entity and the dangers
of making a pact with, well, the devil, or a reasonable fascimile thereof, seems
neat and tidy to me.

Kneasy