Quirinus Quirrell slowly made his way toward the Quidditch stadium. His robe fluttered in the cold November wind, and the other teachers greeted him politely, but his mind was elsewhere. Behind his proud, dark gaze lay another intention.
From the upper stands, he watched the crowd stir with excitement. Green and silver flags waved on one side, while Gryffindor's red and gold vibrated at the other end of the stadium. The chants of both houses competed to dominate the air.
His attention, however, was not on the clamor of the students, but on the Slytherin players. They were all riding shiny broomsticks, identical in design and power: the Noxum, the model developed by his son's company, GauntCorp. They were faster and more stable than any broomstick in the world, and seeing them lined up in formation gave Slytherin an undeniable advantage.
"That boy... always one step ahead of the rest. Even in something as trivial as a children's sport, his influence is beginning to grow," he thought about his son.
Quirrell, or rather Voldemort inside him, looked away toward the student stands. There, he recognized the boy who had marked everything: Harry Potter. The boy seemed restless, rocking in his seat, surrounded by his new friends.
As the players rose into the air, Quirrell stood motionless, arms crossed. The crowd roared as the whistle blew. The ball was thrown and the game began amid cheers. His eyes, however, did not follow the bludgers or the quaffle, but rather Gryffindor's seeker: Harry Potter, riding a Nimbus 2000.
Voldemort sensed the tension in every play, but what interested him most was the power he felt in the air. Harry, despite being only a child, radiated a spark of latent magic that had not yet developed. A dangerous spark, though still very disordered.
The game progressed, the cheers deafening the air, and Harry Potter flew nimbly on his Nimbus, gliding through the gusts of wind as if he had been born on a broomstick. The crowd cheered him on with a fervor that burned inside Quirinus Quirrell.
Behind his eyes, the shadow of Voldemort throbbed with deep hatred.
"Everyone hails him as a prodigy... as the chosen one. But he's just a child, a glorified accident. The power they attribute to him should be mine. Mine!"
Frustration built up in his hands, and with a subtle movement of his fingers under his robe, he began to whisper an incantation. He didn't need a wand for something so "simple." He cast a control spell on Potter's broom, weakening its stability enchantments. Within seconds, the Nimbus began to vibrate and shake violently.
The crowd screamed, some in panic, others laughing, thinking it was part of the game. Harry clung to the broomstick, struggling to maintain his balance, while his friends in the stands stood up in alarm.
A crooked smile spread across Quirrell's face. "That's how it should be, falling. A symbol brought down before everyone."
But just as he was increasing the spell, a shadow intervened. A swift hand pushed him aside abruptly, a clenched fist striking him squarely in the face. Quirrell staggered backward, stunned. The crowd didn't notice, absorbed in the game, but he looked up and met the icy gaze of Severus Snape.
Quirrell restrained himself, bringing his hand to his face, burning with rage. He couldn't reveal anything there, not in front of the teachers or the eyes around him. He bit his own tongue and looked away toward the field as if nothing had happened. But inside, Voldemort roared.
"Snape... always with his ambiguous loyalty. What's stopping him? Is he protecting the boy on Dumbledore's orders?"
His gaze, averted from Harry, ended up resting on another section of the stands. There, sitting with his characteristic distant calm, was Aurelian Gaunt, with the Carrow sisters on either side of him, clinging to him as if they were his shadows.
Voldemort's dark heart beat faster. He recognized those surnames, the Carrows... Amycus, Alaric and Alecto had been loyal followers, willing to commit acts of cruelty without limit, devoted to his cause until the end. He noticed how the Carrow sisters were watching his son.
It was then that another memory emerged from the shadows of his mind. A high-pitched, almost hysterical laugh, feverish eyes that looked at him with absolute adoration.
Bellatrix Lestrange.
The fanatic who had loved him to the point of madness. A possessive devotion, dangerous even to him.
That obsession... he saw it as useful, but it was also a chain. Could it be that those Carrow girls show the same look toward my son? That unwavering devotion?
The idea shook him. For the first time, he wasn't sure whether to see it as an advantage... or a threat.
Meanwhile, on the field, the game was reaching its climax. Harry, despite attempts at sabotage, dove down and caught the Golden Snitch. The crowd exploded in cheers. Gryffindor celebrated, and Harry Potter's name was chanted throughout the stadium.
Quirrell clenched his fists under his robe, swallowing the humiliation of his failed attempt.
"One day, you will fall for real, boy, and on that day, no one will be able to come to your rescue."
The roar of the crowd still echoed in the air as Quirrell left the stands with stiff steps. The echo of Snape's blow still throbbed on his face, but that was not what disturbed him most. It was the feeling... the growing weakness of his host.
Every time Quirrell tried to walk normally, a spasm shook him. His hands trembled, his muscles tensed awkwardly, a symptom of the constant struggle between soul and flesh.
Voldemort knew it.
He was not Quirrell. He couldn't be. His soul didn't quite fit into that fragile human body. It was like pouring lava into a clay vessel: sooner or later, it would crack.
He stopped in front of a mirror hanging in the hallway. The skin reflected back at him looked withered, with purple shadows under his eyes. He was not the young Quirrell he had possessed months ago, but a shell that was consuming itself faster than expected.
"You fail me..." he muttered in a low voice, though he was talking to himself.
The body shuddered, as if Quirrell's residual consciousness was trying to resist, and a weak moan escaped his lips. Voldemort stifled it with his will.
"Silence. You are nothing more than a vessel. An instrument."
Even so, deep down, he understood the truth: he couldn't hold on like this much longer. Sooner or later, the body would collapse.
His mind wandered to what he had lost. His true body, the absolute power of his magic flowing without restriction, without this constant feeling of being tied to a body that wasn't his own. The helplessness gnawed at him.
Almost involuntarily, his thoughts turned to Aurelian.
"My son... He was strong. Stronger than he should be at his age. He didn't seem to need praise or the acclaim of the crowds, which made him different. Could he be the key? Could he be the bridge to my return?"
The idea was tempting, but at the same time impossible to accept. He couldn't show weakness in front of him. He couldn't ask, let alone depend on him. But something inside him, something he had never experienced before, made him hesitate to use his son for his own ends.
The echo of laughter in the stadium still rang in his ears, but Voldemort was no longer thinking about Harry Potter, or even Severus' humiliation. He was thinking about his dying body... and what he would have to do to secure his future.
The shadow of a plan was weaving itself in his mind, dark and twisted. A future where he would not have to settle for a borrowed vessel.
Quirrell reached his chambers, closing the door with a sharp snap of his fingers. The air there was heavy, saturated with a metallic stench emanating from jars and half-prepared potions.
He collapsed in front of a larger mirror, cracked in one corner, and gazed at the face that barely held his will. His lips were dry, his skin pale, blue veins seeming to crawl beneath his flesh. His body was giving way.
"No..." the voice escaped with a growl. His hands trembled as he gripped the edge of the table. "Not yet!"
Quirrell's wand vibrated in his hand as Voldemort invoked ancient spells of preservation, dark magic he had used in his experiments. The energy coursed through his body, tightening his muscles, strengthening his bones, forcing his weak heart to beat harder.
For a moment, it seemed to work.
But then, an unbearable burning sensation coursed through his arms, and the magic dissipated with a flash that singed the wood of the table. His body hunched over, gasping for breath.
This vessel is crumbling, Voldemort thought with contained anger. No matter how many spells I use, it cannot hold me much longer.
He rose unsteadily, leaning against the wall, his eyes burning with fury.
And that was when his mind latched onto a single word.
The Philosopher's Stone.
Nicholas Flamel had achieved with her what all his studies had failed to give him. An extension of life, a perfect anchor against the degradation of the flesh. It was not a definitive solution, not like the body he had lost, but it would be enough to restore him... at least until he found a way to recover his body.
The thought intoxicated him. It was no longer just a matter of surviving in the shadows, hidden behind the facade of a professor. It was the promise of being able to feel magic flow through his own body again, not a borrowed one.
His fingers closed tightly in the air, as if they were already holding the red crystal.
"The Stone... the stone will be mine."
The reflection in the mirror returned a twisted, almost deathly smile that belonged neither entirely to Quirrell nor to him, but to the monstrous fusion of the two. But in those reddened eyes there was fire, a determination that no physical weakness could extinguish.
Somewhere in Hogwarts, protected by spells and secrets, lay the key to his resurrection. And Voldemort had no intention of failing.
Quirrell's body trembled under the weight of possession. Voldemort breathed heavily, each inhalation a reminder that time was running out.
He walked over to an iron chest in the corner of the room. He opened it with a whisper in Parseltongue, revealing a silver chalice stained with blood inside. There were still traces of a thick liquid inside, glistening in the dim candlelight: unicorn blood.
The metallic stench hit him, along with the memory of the forbidden forest, the silvery flash of those pure creatures, and the broken cries as they fell beneath his wand.
"Forgive me..." Quirrell murmured, like a faint echo in the back of his mind.
"Silence." Voldemort's voice crushed any remaining trace of the real Quirrell.
He raised the chalice with both hands. The silvery liquid glistened, as if resisting being consumed by someone unworthy. Voldemort brought it to his host's shared lips and drank eagerly.
The blood flowed like liquid fire, spreading through his veins, reviving every fiber of withered flesh. The sickly pallor faded slightly, his muscles regained some vigor, the tremors subsided. An unnatural glow lit up his eyes.
The price, he knew, was terrible.
The curse of that blood was clear. It condemned whoever drank it to a cursed existence, halfway between life and death. But for him, who was already in that abyss, it was not a curse, but a temporary salvation.
He rose with renewed strength, the echo of dark power vibrating within him. Quirrell's body was unstable, but the blood had given him a respite. More time.
He rested a hand against the cracked mirror, contemplating the face of his host. The candles flickered, as if the room itself feared what was to come.
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