He'd promised him power. It was the only reason that Quirinus had even allowed what was left of Tom Riddle to share his body. Power and respect was all he had ever wanted in life, and he'd hoped that when he went out and found Voldemort he would finally be given the respect that he deserved. His Hogwarts years had left him wanting and bitter. Never the best or the worst, he walked that middle line of mediocre academically. Among his peers he never stood out like Lockhart with his perfect looks, nor was he consistently bullied like Snape. He was just there.
That was going to change, he thought, upon his discovery of where Lord Voldemort was. For weeks he had been hearing whispers, murmurs of strange happenings in the forests of Albania. Within a day he had arranged passage to Albania. For someone who did not wish to be found, Quirinus found it dreadfully easy to find the Dark Lord. Just as he had done back in England, he followed the whispers and rumors of areas with strange activity. The Muggles were concerned about some sort of Satanic rituals going on in the forest because of the multitude of dead animals, snakes in particular, that were being found. Wizards, of course, thought nothing of it; they assumed it was some Muggle and entertained the matter no more.
He honestly didn't know what he had expected to do once he'd found him. Inhabiting the body of a snake, the Dark Lord had persuaded him to smuggle him back to England and hide him until he was able to take corporeal form once more, upon which he would grant Quirinus the power that he so desired. No one would ever laugh at Quirinus Quirrell again! Any witch he could possibly want would be his, his students would respect him. He would be the right hand of the Dark Lord.
Painful, sleepless nights were followed by days where he had to pretend to be a bumbling and paranoid mess. Every night he dreamt; sometimes the dreams were his own, sometimes they were of the parasite that inhabited his body. At some point the dreams started to blur and merge together to the point that he was unable to pinpoint where the Dark Lord's dreams ended and his dreams began. He was exhausted. During waking hours it was beginning to be hard to tell where he ended and the Dark Lord began; Lord Voldemort took control more and more, leaving Quirinus feeling like a passenger in his own body.
He had many regrets. He should have never sought out the Dark Lord, or what was left of him. His life hadn't been grand, it was true, but it was better than it was with Voldemort. At least then his life had been his own.
House: Gryffindor
Class: Muggle Studies
Drabble
Theme: Power
Prompt: [Negative Pairing] Quirinus Quirrell and Lord Voldemort/Tom Riddle
Word Count: 479