The Lesser Good
Chapter V
Quirinus.
The mountains were virtually indistinguishable in the heart of the night. They loomed above the ramshackled town of the outer parts of Maliq like two black portals into the nameless, as the stars flickered around their borders.
The dilapidated tavern on the mountainside made no intrusion upon the environment… the environment seemed to be claiming it for its own. Its edges were fuzzy with moss and weeds and its low ceilings were enveloped in damp and occasional stain or two which would have left many a patron wondering of its origin if they hadn't been the sort who didn't really tend to 'wonder'. You had the odd local in here who always appeared to be welded into the bar stool in which they were sitting; due to the tavern's distance from the major Albanian industrial centres, however, these were few and far between.
It was a Muggle inn. Which would explain the odd looks the man in the far corner of the bar was getting from the two regulars sitting at the idle fireplace. He had been getting ever since he set up here last week.
Quirinus had been very careful thus far in shadowing his true nature from the locals… he had packed and dressed in only Muggle clothes, and unlike many magic folk who normally possessed no concept on how to put a Muggle outfit together and pull it off without hearing distant sniggers from the very people they were trying to imitate, he did it very well. It was expected of him. He studied them. He taught his students of them… well… he used to.
Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. The poorer men around these hills dressed very differently than what Quirinus was used to, and no more had it shown than the time he walked into his place for a quiet drink and a sit down.
While consciously avoiding their gazes (and the far more agreeable one of the greatly younger barmaid… obviously a family business), the young Professor slipped an envelope out of his jacket pocket and ran his finger along the rough crease of it, pulling out it's content and folding the envelop reading: "Prof. Q. P. Quirrell, KreuI Gjarprit, Maliq, Korçë County, Albania" back into the coat. Flipping open its contents he ran through a rather brief note regarding the minutes of a start-of-term staff meeting that he had fortunately missed, and attached to that was three pages describing a few changes to the Defence Against the Dark Arts syllabus (obviously remnants of what Quirinus missed in the traditional one-to-one meeting with the Headmaster at the beginning of every year). He sighed, took a final swig of the Muggle ale, nodded politely to the pretty blonde barmaid who he only just realised was still gaping at him, and exited the inn.
It was a quarter to midnight, and he very well should have retired to his bed… but there was research to be done.
The warm August air was uncomfortably humid, even at this high latitude. As the young man began to scale the smaller mountain he swung his jacket off and around his shoulders, trailing further and further into the dark abyss of the towering trees above him. He had trailed most of the world in his one year sabbatical from Hogwarts… it was the first time he had ever done such a thing. Muggles were easier to study locally, and only his advanced seven year Muggle studies students focused on differing Muggle cultures to the one's in Britain, so there was never any need to 'explore his art' as it were.
It soon became clear to him that the course of the mountain was taking a painfully steep turn, and he thought it best to stop and sit for a while, survey his surroundings and look for any movement.
During his travels Quirinus had come into contact with many different wizarding communities… and there was a general consensus (or perhaps more accurately, a rumour, but it was a very popular rumour and therefore a rumour that deserved a thorough investigation) that lately there had been a lot of Dark activity in these far placed forests of the Korçë County in Albania. Wizards of neighbouring countries has informed him of various suspicious creatures spotted here, in the very environment in which he now sat with his notebook, scribbling down his recent observations. The rumours spoke of Vampires, Werewolves, Yeti's, to the less believable ones of Nundu's, Ukrainian Ironbelly's and even Acromantula's – these of which, as Quirinus had spent months investigating, were absolutely no where to be found in Albania. From his research within the area – he suspected it was merely a colony of excrement-stirring Ghouls.
"Lumos."
He stood with his wand ignited for a few minutes, observing the territory; after a while he noted in his book that he had been nothing to report. He moved upward.
There were stops every hour and new notes explaining that there was nothing to note were added. The odd rustling of branches served as the only excitement of the night, followed by a fall in the pit of the Professor's stomach as a random selection of marsupial or amphibian or reptile hopped/jumped/slithered out of it's branches. The oddest occasion must have happened at around two in the morning, nearing the peak of the hill, when he observed a very slow and disinhibited petite snake glide past his foot, where it promptly curled up and died about a metre from where he stood. Quirinus stood with his wand trained on the thing for a moment, feeling a tad nervous that it was about to morph into something else and getting ready to leg it… but after a few minutes of stillness he was quite certain that the thing had passed on.
He made a small note. Just in case.
"Nox."
He sighed and shook his head in disappointment, though his gut was telling him that it was probably for the best that he hadn't come across anything too nasty. He would try again tomorrow and then he would head to Scotland once more… with nothing but a few interesting stories and two happy memories of two anonymous witches he had happened across on his travels – maybe two witches and a Muggle girl if this young barmaid and her immodest staring was anything to go by…
Professor Q. P. Quirrell…
A voice? A voice! A voice that knew his name!
"Lumos!" Quirinus shouted, whipping around in all directions at once, eyes fluttering around the trees like a man committed. "Who's there?" he demanded, a slight faltering in his voice. "Show - show yourself!"
He could not see anything in this light, but the almost-nothingness he could see revealed naught to him.
Then… it could have been the mere whistle of the wind… but he heard a distant laugh - a very malicious one at that, one certainly not synonymous with amiable intentions.
A change of tactic, methinks…
"Nox." He whispered yet again. And then he ran. He ran as quietly as a man could run, but he ran. He was not a courageous man - he was a smart man.
But he didn't get very far.
There was a definite snapping noise as his head smacked against the forest floor, Quirinus fought against the several black spots that appeared in his line of vision as the pain seared through the back of his skull. He sat up as quickly as his pain tolerance would allow and made to leap into action once again, before he realised that the… voice or whatever it was hadn't tripped him… he had slipped. Quirinus breathed a refreshing sigh of relief despite the mega-migraine that he was now budding, and he also decided that he ought to continue running anyway – the voice could be gaining distance on him second by second. Quirinus leant back and pushed himself up with one hand and held his pounding head with the other, feeling something rather odd and out of place in his grounded palm as he did so. He picked the papery substance off the ground… this must've been what he slipped on… rather an odd coincidence that someone else had been up here and left a pike of rubbish in the same place that he… mind you… it felt awfully familiar…
As Quirinus almost subconsciously began scaling down the mountainside at a hurried pace once more, he tried to catch the paper in the moonlight to see what it was (he daren't use Lumos, that was for sure) – though he was speeding through the woodland so fast that light passed over the object as quickly as Muggle transport vehicles on those busy motorways that they were constricted to. He decided he could afford to stop under a streak of light for just a few seconds to see exactly what the paper read… there was no audible sign of anything giving chase to him at any rate.
By Merlin, it was a piece of parchment. An envelope, in fact… and it had been ripped at the edges and was covered in a sticky, stringy substance that he absolutely had no intention of investigating. The Hogwarts crest was stamped onto the back of it.
Quirinus's stomach turned almost simultaneously as he turned over the envelope in his hands. And it dropped to his feet when he saw the inked address on its front.
Prof. Q. P. Quirrell
KreuI Gjarprit, Maliq
Korçë County
Albania.
His personal prowler must've gotten his name from this. He must've dropped it on the way up here… far too foolish for comfort! Quirinus angrily shoved the thing back into his pocket and made a speedy walk down the rockier parts of ground that were appearing all around him; he certainly didn't wish to trip on that kind of terrain.
Professsssssor…
"LUMOS!" the light of his wand blazed angrily once again. "I- I DEMAND TO KNOW… TO KNOW WHO Y-YOU ARE AND WHY YOU ARE FOLLOWING ME!" he shouted in a failed attempt to sound intimidating.
There was a moment of eerie stillness, save for Quirinus's rapid panting and the crusty sound of leaves touching in the airstream that bustled above. "Who are you!" he cried desperately again. Oh, how he wished he had stayed in the Muggle studies department now! He didn't think it fitting for a future Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher to be standing here and have panic rip all knowledge of what he should be doing away…
A rustling in a nearby shrub compelled the petrified teacher to train his glowing wand on it… when he did so, he made an odd sound that could only be described as a cross between a yelp and a yell. A snake was twisted around the branches that loomed over the shrub it was obviously previously hiding in… it must've only been a meter and a half or so long… but the way it twisted and coiled… and the way it was… it was actually looking at him… it struck fear into the very core of his being.
There was something in its eyes that gave it away.
"Am I… am I speaking Parseltongue?" he asked the serpent, despite all bodily functions screaming at him to escape.
He would have bet a hundred Galleons that the snake had just given him a shake of the head.
You are not worthy of the ancient Tongue of Snake, Professor Q. P. Quirrell of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But you will be in the very immediate and imminent future. You will be.
It spoke as if it were living inside the chamber of his skull, it was almost as if the sound of its voice were bypassing his ears completely.
"… what?" he asked weakly, his legs about to give way. "But can I understand you…?"
I am merely a possession. My feeble body, my true form, cannot sustain itself. The snake's head danced in organised movement as if in mid-conversation. I embody the essence of these serpents, deep in this forest… I have done so for many years now. I have been waiting most patiently.
Quirinus gulped. Ice cold shivers dripped all the way down his spine. He began slowly drawing backward… though he had no idea how he could escape a voice that seemed to essentially dwell within his own brain. Maybe he needed his head checked at St. Mungo's upon his return to Britain…
But why the hesitation, Professor Quirrell of Hogwarts? The snake voice asked. I am offering you the most precious task, the most precious contribution, in Wizarding history.
"You… you are?"
Perhaps if he kept the thing talking, he could make a break for it.
But where will you run, I wonder? And how long will it take before you realise that now… you can never escape?
Quirinus had to take a split second to distinguish the snakes voice to his own thoughts, and another split second to attempt to subdue the feeling of rising panic… it was reading his mind!
He apparated away to the area just outside the inn.
But… there was no familiar feeling that usually came with this mode of transport. To Quirinus's utter horror, after he opened his eyes he was still fixed in the same place. He tried again and again and again. Apparition never came. And the creature was watching him with what could only be described as a look of extreme… amusement? Could a snake do that? Well, of course it could! If it could talk and read minds, Quirinus didn't even know why on earth he was questioning its facial expressions…
There was no other choice – he ran. He ran downward and downward, faster and faster until it felt like he was flying… and then he was flying; he flew for approximately one and a half seconds before his whole body came crashing down upon the grass, where it then proceeded to roll head over heels, flesh tearing on the pointed branches and occasional jagged rock. He did finally come to a halt when he crashed side-first into a particularly colossal stump, but he did not remain stationary for long. He could hear a distant but strong rustle of leaves behind him and knew it was giving chase, and that it was also getting closer by the second. Quirinus stood himself up and his left leg instantaneously exploded into a million fiery pinpoints of pain. He gave an inexorable deafening shriek as the inferno advanced up to his hip and forced him down onto the ground once more; his flight mechanism still unable to be quenched, he now began crawling, dragging his palpably fractured ankle behind him. It was then that the thing finally struck.
This time he gave a scream that was so ear-splitting he was positive that it would have alerted someone in the inn to his location deep within the woods. He pulled out his wand and twisted his body so that he was facing upward and looking down on the beast that had attached its fangs onto his broken and pulsating ankle, blood was pouring out around its teeth and pooling in his shoes. He gave one feeble kick at the thing with his intact foot and when he established that it was obviously futile, he shouted out as many curses as his hastily deteriorating, pain-riddled brain could recall. Beams of light and sparks hit the snake that clamped down upon him. Just as the edges of Quirinus's vision began to go black, its grip began to loosen… and after a few more beams of green light had hit its body, it has completely detached itself and fallen onto the grass beside him – still as the seabed.
"Oh…" Quirinus moaned as a throbbing chronic pain took hold of his lower half as opposed to a fiery acute one. He needed to drag himself down this hill as quickly as possible, and into the inn, and away from this possessed demon snake that lay deceased at broken ankle. Sweat pouring down his face, and pure fear the only thing preventing him from blacking out, he attempted to Apparate once more – and gave a considerably noisy bawl of frustration when the same result transpired. That the thing had been killed and still the Dark magic that surrounded this forest remained! He started to drag himself, half crawling, and half sliding, along the grassland.
He got as far as a couple of feet before he heard what sounded like swirling sand behind his ears. It was then that he knew he was about to die…
Foolish servant. You can never escape Lord Voldemort.
Quirinus turned around barely briefly enough to catch a foretaste of the whirling transparent smoke that was seeping out of what looked like the dead serpents mouth. The shimmering air hung above its body and turned slowly, as if it were surveying him. He did not have the time to scream, nor to close his eyes and brace himself, as it soared towards him, bled into the corners of his eyes and wrapped its unyielding clutch on his soul.
Thank you for all your reviews. I hope there are people still reading this... apologies for the extreme stretch of time in between these chapters!