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

[terri_testing]

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

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

[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]

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]

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

[the_bitter_word]

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

Pottermore spoilers on Quirrell and this: sounds of a type with Severus, eager to prove himself = EVIL! Also, his birthday is coming up.

Pottermore spoilers on 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?

[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.