Is It True?

"So is it true?"

Quirinus looked up from his lunch. "Is what true?"

Rita Skeeter dropped her Charms textbook on the table and sat down next to him. "What everyone's saying." She reached across the table to select an apple from the platter in the center of the table. "Did you do it?"

"Did I do what?"

Rita bit into her apple. "Don't play dumb, Quirrell."

"I'm not."

Rita swallowed. "Oh, so you really are dumb?" She smirked and took another bite. "How'd you make it into Ravenclaw, then?"

Quirinus began to gather his bag.

"Oh, come on, Quirrell, don't leave," Rita said with an eye roll.

"If you're only going to tease me - "

Rita's hand shot out and wrapped around his wrist before he could stand. "The mirror, Quirrell. Did you trap a first-year in the bathroom mirror this morning?"

Quirinus turned bright red. "I don't know what you're - "

"You did!" Abandoning her apple, Rita jumped to her feet. A grin spread across her face. "Quirinus Quirrell, I'm impressed!"

Quirinus sighed. "He was making fun of me," he said, eyes on the ground. "Because my dad's a muggle. He was making fun, and I lost control and just sort of shoved him through." He bit his lip. "I didn't know how to bring him back after that, so I just sort of . . . left him there." He hoisted his bag up over his shoulder and began to walk away, but she followed him out of the Great Hall.

"Who is it?" she asked. "Which first-year?"

"A Slytherin," Quirinus said. "Lucius Malfoy."

"Lucius Malfoy. That git." Rita shook her head. "Good for you. He deserves it."

"I s'pose." Quirinus shrugged. "He's going to be angry when he gets out."

"He'll probably kill you," Rita said cheerfully.

"He's only a first-year." Quirinus picked up his pace, but Rita didn't fall behind.

"He's from a powerful family, though," Rita said. "If the Malfoys want you gone, you disappear." She was still smiling. "They make a sport out of it. I heard they used to go muggle-hunting, back when it was legal. I don't envy you one bit, Quirrell."

Quirinus was beginning to feel sick. "I'm going this way," he said, pointing toward the library - Rita was banned from the library, she could never seem to keep quiet enough to satisfy Madam Pince. "I'll see you in Charms."

"If you live that long," Rita said seriously, putting her hand on his shoulder. "If you don't, well, it was a pleasure sharing a common room with you for three years."

Quirinus rolled his eyes. "Bye, Rita."

"Try to avoid mirrors," she said as he walked away. "Don't want to accidentally trap someone even worse than Malfoy!"

"Is it true?"

Quirinus looked into his father's eyes and smiled. "It's true," he whispered to the dying muggle - dying because of the illness, dying because there wasn't a cure, dying because he, Quirinus, couldn't save him. . . .

"I could not be more proud," his father said in a voice that cracked and creaked like an old rocking chair. "My son: a professor. Following in my footsteps. It's like looking in a mirror."

"I've been hired as the Muggle Studies professor," Quirinus said. "I'm going to teach witches and wizards about the non-magical world."

His father let out a laugh. "Do wizards even care about the non-magical world?"

"No, some of them don't. There's a bit of a prejudice." Quirinus took his father's hand. "But I'm going to teach them how to care. I'm going to change their minds. I'm going to change their entire world." He blinked back tears. "I wish you could be there to see it happen."

His father said nothing.

Quirinus swallowed. "Father, I'm sorry there isn't a spell, or a potion - "

" - because wizards don't worry about cancer," his father said, and he was losing strength fast but he still managed to pour bitterness into the words. "Because wizards don't get cancer. So why would they bother to cure it? Why would they bother to care about things that only affect the muggles?"

"That's not true." The tears were about to overflow. "It's just that wizards have their own world to look after, and they don't have time to - "

"Son." His father's eyes had slipped shut. "Become a professor. Teach them anything you want. But don't make the mistake of thinking you can change them. Nobody is powerful enough for that."

Quirinus stayed next to his father for a long time, staring at the floor and turning the word powerful over and over in his mind.

"Professor Quirrell, is it true?"

Quirinus looked up. "Is what true, Mr. Weasley?"

Charlie Weasley, who had only signed up for Muggle Studies because he'd heard there would be frequent field trips to the cinema, moved to stand in front of Quirinus' desk. "You're retiring at the end of this year?" he asked as the rest of his classmates filed out of the classroom and headed down for lunch.

Quirinus fished an apple out of his desk drawer. "Just taking a little leave of absence."

"But - why?"

"I haven't taken a holiday in five years," he said, rubbing the apple against his sleeve until it was shiny enough to reflect his face back at him. "I've always wanted to see Albania."

"Who's going to take over?" Charlie asked.

"I'm not sure."

"Professor, you can't go."

It wasn't what he'd expected to hear. "Why not?"

Because you take us to the cinema and pretend not to see me snogging Nymphadora Tonks the whole time, Charlie wanted to say, but instead: "I'll miss your classes."

Quirinus put down his apple. "You enjoy Muggle Studies?"

"Yeah. Especially all the films."

The professor offered his student a small smile. "Oh. Well. I'm glad I could help you open your mind to the non-magical way of life!"

"Er, yeah!" Charlie glanced toward the door, where his friends were waiting impatiently for him to join them. "I mean, not really, because my dad's liked muggle stuff for years, so I already knew everything you taught us this year."

"Charlie," one of his friends hissed. "We're hungry!"

"You already knew?" Quirinus repeated.

"Yeah, Dad's got our garage filled up with muggle things. I don't know why anyone would want all that junk. Muggle-lovers are a bit daft, don't you think?"

The professor's smile disappeared.

"But yeah, I liked your class," Charlie continued. "I liked getting away from the castle for awhile. Make sure your replacement takes us on field trips. And have a nice holiday in Albania!" He turned and bolted for the door.

Appetite gone, Quirinus swept his apple off his desk and into the bin.

"Is it true?" Quirinus asked the child on the ground, and he felt terrified and intrigued and hungry all at the same time. "You can offer me everything?"

"I do not lie," the child rasped.

"You can offer me everything?"

"Glory," the child whispered. "Fame. Power."

It was early afternoon, but the canopy of trees in this Albanian forest blocked the light, and to Quirinus it felt like midnight. He could barely see the figure talking to him; all he made out was the shape of a skinny young boy who seemed to be made of nothing more than skin and bone and tantalizing promises.

"I want to change the world," Quirinus said. "All my life I've been teased and pushed around, just because my father's a muggle."

The child took a shuddery breath. "Your father is a muggle?"

"Was," Quirinus corrected. "He died."

"So did mine," the child said, and Quirinus felt a surge of pity.

"I want to change the world," he said again. "I want people to know who I am. I want them to respect me. People think I'm weak - my own father thought I was weak. My students think I'm daft."

"I can fix it," the child soothed. "I can help you make them all pay for thinking you're weak."

Quirinus said nothing for a moment. "And you say all I have to do is pick you up?"

The child moaned and nodded. "Pick me up," he urged. "Invite me into your arms. I am broken and fragile. I cannot stand on my own."

The adult hung back. "Who are you?" he asked.

The child drew a ragged breath. "I was once a great man," he whispered. "But I was destroyed. Someone ripped me apart. I should have died."

"Why didn't you?"

The child laughed once. "Because, Quirinus Quirrell, I am more powerful than death." He began to wheeze. "Let me share my power with you."

Quirinus took a step closer to the child on the ground. "What is your name?"

"Tom," the child said. "But I have another name, too."

Quirinus waited. "Well?"

Trembling, the child stretched his arms out toward the adult. "I want to whisper it in your ear."

Quirinus bent to pick him up.

So it's true.

"So what's true?" Quirinus asked, unwrapping the turban from his skull. He positioned himself between the two mirrors in his office - that was how they talked to one another, each looking at the other's reflection. "What's true, my Lord?"

Potter. Voldemort's eyes bored into Quirinus' through the mirror. He's here. He lived.

"He got lucky," Quirinus said. "It won't happen twice. You're more powerful than he is."

I'm going to kill him. As soon as you find the Stone, as soon as I've got a proper body, I'm going to kill him.

"And then we'll be the most powerful men to ever walk the world," Quirinus said, and his gaze shifted from his master's red eyes to his own brown ones - he wasn't worthless, like Lucius Malfoy had once dared to think, and he wasn't daft like Weasley, and he was not weak, no matter what his father had implied with his dying breath.

"And then I'll have power," he said softly, and at the Dark Lord's request he wound the turban back around his head and set out for the forbidden third floor.

Quidditch League, Round 7

Position: Keeper

Word Count: 1,624

Prompt: Write about the fragment of Voldemort's soul that survived the backfired Killing Curse and was restored in Goblet of Fire