Warnings: Sexual content, possession, dark-ish themes
People who have never actually sampled the life force of a unicorn share covert second-hand tales in hushed voices about curses and half-lives, as though such simple descriptors can even begin to measure up to the reality. They know nothing. This kind of wisdom comes only with experience.
The silvery blood feels like it's boiling a hole through the lining of Quirrell's stomach, a prelude to the way it will invariably set his own blood on fire just as soon as it's absorbed. The pain, already nearly unbearable in its intensity, will continue to escalate for days or even weeks. He'll barely be able to make it through classes without his students and, more importantly, his fellow staff noticing. Just when his torment eventually begins to abate – when the effects (both beneficial and unbearable) finally pass from his system and his body starts to slowly die all over again from the onslaught of playing host to such an encompassing power – the Dark Lord will inform him that he must once again sneak out into the forest and replenish them both. Refusal is unthinkable; the pain he knows now would be nothing at all compared to how the Dark Lord's wrath would be meted out inside his own skull. When the suffering resumes, Quirrell doesn't even have the sanctuary of pretending the blame for this doesn't rest firmly on his own shoulders. He accepted this burden voluntarily, and continues to do so even now that he properly understands precisely what he's agreed to.
It's a cycle Quirrell has been trapped in for so many months that he feels as though his sanity is beginning to slide into the dark and depthless abyss of constant agony. He finds himself dwelling far longer than he should on insane plans to launch himself past Hagrid's dog, even knowing that he'll probably be torn at least half to shreds before he can reach his goal. The thought of a death that quick worries him less and less every passing day.
Most of the time he wonders whether what he goes through each time he voluntarily lowers his mouth to another glowing white creature's dripping wound is worth it.
Most of the time.
Sometimes, though, he's allowed moments like this, when he can't believe that he ever questioned that the Dark Lord is worth every dark moment.
His Lord's voice, for once unimpeded by the turban, commands Quirrell's hands into action as surely as if he were actively taking control of Quirrell's mind and body instead of simply riding him like a welcome parasite. Quirrell forces himself to muffle a groan as he grasps his cock, firming his strokes only when he's given verbal permission to do so. As all his feelings do, these sensations flow through him into his Lord through their connection. His Lord immediately rejects anything as weak and human as physical pleasure, pushing it straight back at Quirrell so forcefully that it is somehow intensified. As a result, the sensations reverberate over and over within him, like an echo that grows progressively stronger instead of receding, a thrum inside his mind and his blood and, most importantly, his prick.
This, at least, is a cycle that Quirrell's more than willing to be caught in indefinitely. If, as with the unicorn blood, overexposure might lead to insanity, then it would be a kind of madness that Quirrell wouldn't even try to hold himself back from, embracing it gladly and without reservation.
Knowing that his Lord can so easily grant this sort of unparalleled pleasure, nothing even close to which could ever be experienced with any mere mortal man, Quirrell wonders briefly why the whole wizarding world didn't give themselves over to him long ago. Though it's hard to recall how he could really have thought so when these feelings have faded into memory, replaced once again by the pain, Quirrell can't deny that in these moments he's convinced that the nearly unendurable stretches of time in between are worth it.
Anything would be worth it, he thinks. Obedience, or even outright slavery for those who don't fit into his Lord's plans, would certainly be a low enough price to pay. If only they all could see what he does, they'd stop fighting. Stop denying themselves.
Quirrell is allowed to quicken his movements, and he gasps out his heartfelt thanks before he can stop himself.
But his Lord is merciful (sometimes at least; rarely), and so Quirrell isn't punished for the presumption.
"Yes... let me hear you," the Dark Lord's high voice commands, allowing Quirrell to finally loose the noises that have been dying to burst out all along. And then a further demand: "Come."
An echo of the ever-present pain – overshadowed for the moment, though never driven away entirely – mingles with the influx of far more desirable sensations until everything intertwines and blurs, becoming all too intense. Quirrell's grip squeezes upwards, his thumb circles, and everything seems to explode at half speed. The drawn-out relief of it is like the ending of every Cruciatus Curse Quirrell has ever experienced – and there have been far more of those than he would have liked over the past year alone – compacted into one long moment. His vision goes white, the pleasure-pain overload searing.
Quirrell has no idea what he says at that moment, if anything. He's too far-gone to tell. He only knows that afterwards his Lord laughs coldly as if he's learned something important about his servant to be filed away for later use.
He can't bring himself to worry about that. Not just now. These times are always few and far between, and are lost to memory too soon, but on this occasion in particular it's important that he savours it for other reasons as well. Quirrell basks now in his satisfaction over finally prying from Hagrid the means to get past that accursed dog; the success that has earned him this reward in the first place. The end of the Dark Lord's possession of him – and his Lord's imprisonment in a lesser form – is surely within sight now. This is what they've been working towards.
But it is a bittersweet victory.
For all that the Dark Lord's rise and the end of Quirrell's pain are both long sought-after, Quirrell can't help but remember that he may never experience this again either.
No one has ever been as connected to his Lord as Quirrell is. He thinks no one ever will be again, either, for his Lord is never one for dependence where he can help it, and the Stone will certainly eliminate any need for it. Even Quirrell himself, favoured servant though he's certain to be, will be pushed away.
When Quirrell imagines finally gripping the Stone tight in his hand, it's with a sense of dread as much as relief.
When he is free and whole once more, he wonders whether he'll mourn.