Chapter Title: Philosophy.
Character(s): Quirinius Quirrell.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I don't even own my sister who looks like him.

Recommended Listening: "The Unanswered Question" by Charles Ives. This is a modern-y (erm . . . bizarre?) piece that fits with Quirrell's slightly modern-y (erm . . . bizarre? Lol . . . ) mindset. It is peace in his philosophy, with the gnawing discordance of not knowing the answer and the impossible search for it.

I was born to question.

I am a scholar, you might say. More than that, I am a philosopher. I do not wish to merely know; I wish to understand.

Understanding came, for me, through books. Where else does one have access to such knowledge? I could find out about the eating habits of Hokkaido Kappa without ever setting a foot in Japan, or research the causes and effects of the Goblin Rebellion of 1612 without ever having so much as looked at a goblin—or coming near to living through the year 1612 and its centuries spanning beyond it.

Surprisingly, I was not a Ravenclaw.

"You do not appreciate knowledge for knowledge's sake," the Hat told me. "You are filled with great ambition. You long for fame and glory attached to your knowledge. You wish to know to possess power."

I did not regret my placement in Slytherin.

Hufflepuffs were negligible. I came to laugh at the Ravenclaws, with their studying without aim and their knowledge without purpose. I came to utterly hate Gryffindors.

It is an undeniable fact that Gryffindors judge. Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws treat everyone equally, whether in skepticism or in trust, but the Gryffindors define good and evil and treat everyone accordingly. Their decisions are arbitrary. "Nobility" shall be good, they say. "Justice" and "bravery" shall be good. Self-interest, ambition, cleverness– they are bad. Those who possess them are evil, or to be suspected of such. It is amusing, indeed, that they should be so against the intolerance of the Slytherins. To bias against impure blood is the same as to bias against those lacking courage or nobility. Slytherins have no need for lofty ideals of good and evil. Don't believe for an instant that any Slytherin believes he is evil; he will only joke of it. Slytherins do not even see the line between good and evil.

In fact, there is no line.

I came to conclude this long ago. Morals were something inflicted upon men for social control. Even Albus Dumbledore, I concluded, was an old fool who was biased towards his own House and longed to keep things that way. Gryffindor's glory was all due in part to its own enforcement that its values were most respected in society.

Luckily, they never won over Slytherin society.

Slytherin society was something older, something primal, something deeper rooted in the art of survival. While Gryffindors indulged in man-made morals, Slytherins understood their true human instincts. A Slytherin did not give up something unless an exchange was required. Recompensation was demanded. It was a barter rooted in ancient needs to survive. Gryffindors were foolish, making sacrifices with no wish of exchange, merely the "nobility" attached to it. Nobility did not save lives. Slytherin lines, henceforth, were the most long-lasting. Their peoples were not fools.

Surviving in Slytherin society was easy. One did what he could. It was not inhumane; everyone existed with the knowledge that everyone else was equally out for his own. Individuals were distant, but not cruel. It was only when a Gryffindor came in, giving nobly, that the cultures came into shock with one another—that the Slytherins became "cruel" and "selfish." Slytherins did not give. Slytherins exchanged, Slytherins took, or Slytherins expected to be taken from and made means to protect themselves. It was expected all were prepared for this. A lack of consciousness about one's possessions and family was not an excuse to complain about their potential loss.

Slytherins protected their families, as well as themselves and their possessions. Bloodline and its preservation was as important as individual lives, a means of immortality—living immortality that defeated remembrance of a "noble deed" any day.

I decided this for myself. I had found some wisdom in human nature. There were those who accepted what was (the Slytherins) and those who deluded themselves into thinking there was more. I sought to find what was.

So I began my journeys.

I learned depths of human nature many would refuse to admit. Through my reading, I learned that those wisest and most powerful—and those in most ruling positions— had given up in the prospect that there was something more to survival. Through my experiences, I saw the darkest of the dark, the poorest of the poor, the most bereft of the bereft. I saw families driven to cannibalism by hunger, vampires and werewolves given to kidnapping to feed their desires for blood and human flesh, as their societies outlawed their practices and yet gave them nothing to assuage their ailments. I learned to take care of myself and trust no one; I wore strands of garlic about my neck and kept amulets and charms about me at all times. Most importantly, I learned never to trust—and never to love.

For love, I knew, would be the demise of all men. Love was an illusion like good and evil, but even more powerful in its deceit. Love made men sacrifice themselves even more foolishly than Gryffindors did for nobility, even Slytherin men.

Then he found me. He knew the world in ways that even I had not yet found. His words were milk to my thirsty soul; he was the religion to my emptiness, the philosophy to my meaninglessness. I would need to question no longer.

. . . so I let him become part of me.

It was not love, of course. It was more than love. It was dual existence, even more one than two people in love. Yet with it came its price.

Following his orders, I realized that even I did not know all of the answers. I could not always obey his demands. I became weak, trying to know, and yet trying to not know—to obey blissfully without question.

Yet I was born to question.

He punished me. I tried hard to become nothing but minion, but my thoughts—even shared by him—rebelled at this torment. I could not help but analyze all that he said, even though it was always correct. It was rebellion, to question.

Then as I fell, tormented, broken, destroyed by the power of love itself—that illusion which turned out to be not only true in abstract, but true tangibly. My hands burned and fell to ashes at the touch of the boy touched by sacrificial human love. It was not demise after all; it was the demise of those who did not believe in it.

He had taught me lies. I had taught myself lies.

I did not understand after all.

Author's Note: Yeah, short but sweet—but to the point! Definitely read for class a few chapters of "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" by John Mearshimer and realized he thought the same thing that Quirrell did: "There is no good and evil; there is only power, and those too weak to seek it." Heh, does it make you all feel wonderful to know that this—the idea that there are not "good" and "bad" states, only more powerful states— is actual a political theory called Realism and has been followed by most first-world governments since the end of WWII? Our leaders believe the same thing that Lord Voldemort does!

I also apologize for that being so short. Quirrel's not that interesting. The others should be better-- they're on their way.