[Harry] braced himself, saw the black flames licking his body, but couldn’t feel them – for a moment he could see nothing but dark fire – then he was on the other side, in the last chamber.
There was already someone there – but it wasn’t Snape. It wasn’t even Voldemort.
[chapter ends… page turn…]
It was Quirrell.
Bet you didn’t see that one coming!
Well, you did if you’ve read this blog for any amount of time… and I write assuming you’ve already read the entire series at least once! But I bet you didn’t see it coming before you read (or saw) PS/SS!
Or did you?
If you didn’t get sucked in by the Snape red herring, I’d love to hear from you in the Comments. But of course, I’d love to hear from you in the Comments regardless.
For most readers, going into the final chamber and encountering Quirrellmort and the Mirror of Erised is kind of like going through the looking glass. Everything Harry (and the reader) thinks is a known fact gets turned inside out and upside down.
What’s fun about the first part of this chapter is that it’s Quirrell himself who disabuses Harry of all his false notions of who his friends, enemies, and protectors are. Harry had thought that Quirrell was a poor, weak, stuttering fool who didn’t stand a chance against the unmentionable Snape. Now, he’s confronted with the reality:
“You!” gasped Harry.
Quirrell smiled. His face wasn’t twitching at all.
“Me,” he said calmly.
The man doesn’t even stutter!
It’s significant that here, Quirrell’s face isn’t twitching… because his face always twitches. It is significant that he speaks to Harry calmly… because his speech is never calm. It was all an act – the hyper-nervousness, the stuttering, everything. Quirrell even mocks his own carefully-staged persona, noting that…
“Next to [Snape], who would suspect p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell?”
Harry couldn’t take it in. This couldn’t be true, it couldn’t.
And therein lies one of the biggest problems still plaguing HP fandom today. Harry is not the only one who can’t take it in that the bad guy isn’t Snape. Harry has so much trouble believing the truth that he starts arguing with Quirrell.
Let’s paraphrase Harry’s objections:
It has to be Snape! Snape tried to kill me! What do you mean he was trying to save me? I saw you with him in the Forest! But he always seemed to hate me so much, and anyway, I thought that it was him threatening you in the classroom!
Now let’s paraphrase Quirrell’s explanations:
No, it’s me. I’m the one who tried to kill you. Snape was trying to save you. In the Forest, Snape was trying to frighten me because he suspected me of trying to steal the Stone. Oh, he does hate you, but that doesn’t mean he was trying to kill you. That was my master, not Snape, threatening me in the classroom. Oh, and btw, I’m the one who let the troll in at Halloween.
To nearly every one of Quirrell’s explanations, Harry offers a new objection. It’s rather like certain fans who continue arguing with Rowling that she could not possibly have meant that Snape didn’t remain a loyal Death Eater after he turned to Dumbledore. After all, he was such a nasty git to Harry!
Well, to his great credit at least, Harry eventually gets over it. Let’s hope the same for those poor, sad fans who never do.
But for now, let’s focus on one of Harry’s key objections. In it, Harry actually tells us one of his reasons for suspecting Snape:
“But Snape always seemed to hate me so much.”
11-year-old Harry confuses attitude with action. Snape apparently hates him (attitude); therefore, Snape is trying to kill him (action). This has got to be some sort of unnamed logical fallacy!
Any suggestions on what to call it?
Learning the truth at the end of PS/SS is Harry’s first big adventure into separating appearance from reality, but it is only the first. In CoS, a seemingly friendly voice in a diary is actually the voice of 16-year-old Tom Riddle/Voldemort. In PoA, the psychotic murderer who is supposedly out to kill him is actually a loving godfather who was framed for his “crimes.” In GoF, the DADA professor who inspires his career choice is actually a Death Eater trying to feed him to Voldemort. etc.,etc.,etc.
It is no wonder that when Harry emerges from the Pensieve in DH after witnessing one final reversal in perception, he believes what he’s seen immediately, without question… despite having thought only an hour before that Snape was a murderer and a traitor. By the end of DH, Harry has been well trained by experience to know that appearances can be misleading. And that experience begins right here, at the end of PS/SS.
Expecto Patronum! 
This chapter is Rowlings at her very best. It is real edge of the seat stuff with a great twist, an amazing escape for Harry and some thought-provoking material as well.
Yet it leaves quite a few ends not tied up. The biggest is the absence of Snape. With Dumbledore away from the school it is Snape who is in charge. If Dumbledore can discover (as he does on his return) that something is wrong and come to the rescue, then Snape could have done the same and been there a bit quicker. Snape’s non-action makes it that little bit easier in subsequent books to see him as the bad guy.
We get an odd, throw-away comment from Quirrell – that he wondered whether he would see Harry. Why should he wonder this? That Harry should get through the obstacles is remarkable and to do so just when Quirrell is trying to steal the stone is quite a coincidence.
This chapter also gives us Quirrell’s death. Yet this is presented without any emotion, simply as a fact. Quirrell is more fool than villain, and the attack on Harry forced by Voldemort. We are never going to like Quirrell, but there should be a hint of sadness at a death, the first in the series.
Hi Graeme! Good to see you over here! And welcome to the blog! Interesting comment on ends not tied up.
On Quirrell re: whether or not he’d see Harry… it seems from the passage that he’s pretty aware of the amount of energy Harry (and friends) have been putting in to thwarting the theft of the Stone – to the point that he’s not at all surprised that Harry saw him in the Forest with Snape. He seems to have been observing the Trio closely and seeing how they work together. Also, it’s uncertain whether this is Quirrell’s perception alone or Voldemort’s additional perception. If Voldemort’s, he’s not perceiving Harry as merely a boy but as THE boy who thwarted him at Godric’s Hollow while only an infant. So he might think that Harry would find some way of getting through the obstacles. Just speculation here. :)
On Quirrell’s death… I think it’s couched mainly in terms of Dumbledore’s disgust with Riddle leaving Quirrell to die – which also serves as foreshadowing for what Voldemort does to Snape. One of my big shocks in the series was seeing Voldemort kill a man (in one of the most brutal ways imaginable) that he honestly thought was a loyal servant… only because it was expedient for him to do so. Dumbledore’s comment wrt Quirrell gives us the heads-up on what is to come from this man:
I’ll have to look over it more closely, though, when I get to that point in the chapter to see how the whole section reads. I’ll keep an eye on this.
Regarding Snape… I’m not sure how you mean that he’s in charge since McGonnagall is the Deputy Headmistress. Do you mean he’s in charge of protecting Harry?
BTW, I think that Dumbledore is able to put the pieces together because he’s the one who got the owl leading him away from the school. Showing up unexpected in London is what I think helped him understand that there was a problem at Hogwarts. I’m not sure Snape (or McGonnagall) had reason to think something was amiss.
But at any rate, we’re just on the first post on this chapter. There’s still more to come. :)
And welcome again!
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After all the things Harry’s been wrong about, I was quite surprised to learn that Draco WAS up to something in HBP. XD
I agree for the most part, but I have some OT thoughts on the last paragraph. I’m not sure how to put this into words, and it’s probably going to become one big tangent, but here goes: While I believe being wrong often did help Harry in a lot of ways, I think that Harry’s acceptance of the Prince’s Tale memories specifically is meant to be strongly connected to his acceptance of Dumbledore, rather than the constant sequence of plot twists Harry had to face over the years. Harry battles all DH with the knowledge that DD had a dark past, and he tries hard the whole time to reconcile this knowledge (which becomes tied in with the plot itself) with what he knows of the man. There are so many connections made between these two characters, and both dump a ton of information into Harry’s lap almost one after the other. JKR herself has said that both Snape and Dumbledore laid the foundation of the story, so I think it’s no accident that both TPT and King’s Cross seem to become two pieces of the same puzzle. Nor, do I think, is Al’s name, which places both names next to one another, purely coincidence.
So yeah, this became a huge tangent and has nothing to do with PS…sorry, I get all excited when I can talk about two of my favorite characters. >_<
Hi Iggy!
:lol: re: Draco being up to something. I know what you mean!
As for going into OT thoughts and off on tangents… this blog is not CoS or LS. ;) The re-read is all about looking at what’s in front of us and finding hints of things to come… and if you challenge what I’m seeing in hints of things to come, go right ahead – even if it leads you into a DH tangent!
(Plus, I never tire of talking about DH).
As for your comments on what Harry learns of Dumbledore vs. what Harry learns from the experience of plot twists… I’m thinking that perhaps these are not contradictory. This is all part of Harry’s experience – his disillusionment with Dumbledore but ultimate decision to trust him, and also his experience of discovering the difference between appearance and reality.
In fact, it could be argued that what he learns about Dumbledore is the ultimate lesson in appearance vs. reality. Now, I’m not saying that there’s no truth in what we see of Dumbledore Books I-6 by any means. But what we learn in DH is that the kindly, brilliant, powerful Headmaster is only part of who Dumbledore is. He is also a man with a dark past, a man who can be utterly ruthless in the context of war, a chessmaster and a spymaster and a master strategist.
Harry has already learned a lot about Dumbledore during the past year. But in TPT, he learns nearly as much about Dumbledore as he does of Snape. So the two, I think, are definitely intertwined. And when Harry emerges from the Pensieve, he initially thinks of Dumbledore’s “betrayal” – but recognizes that sacrifice is the only way.
Harry gets over that feeling of betrayal as a result of King’s Cross. And I totally agree that TPT and King’s Cross are two pieces of the same puzzle and that the naming of Albus Severus is completely intentional. But I don’t really think that what you are saying is all that contradictory to what I wrote. I think they are more complementary than contradictory. :)
I honestly did not think that Snape was the bad guy in this situation. (Did I think it was Quirrell? No – he was quite an actor.) I have a great talent of liking the “bad guys” that turn out to be good guys. I liked Snape, so I assumed he was being framed somehow. Think me a liar if you must, but really and truly, those were my thoughts. I never thought Snape innocent again, but that’s a different book. :)
I always wondered why Harry, knowing Snape hated him, somehow translated this into Snape always being the problem. He seems to think anyone against him is against the good of the world and the end of Voldemort. :/
As for what to call Harry’s confusion, how about “sens perdu”? It’s French for lost meaning, and I thought it applied nicely to the situation. :)
Well, JKR ‘got’ me on this one – mostly because I was expecting a very simple ‘kids’ book, I was reading bks1-3 before giving them to my niece for Christmas (so she would have someone to get excited with over them)
When it turned out to be Quirrel instead of Snape, I practically jumped up and danced! I thought – what a wonderful lesson to teach kids – I hate the stereotype of looks revealing a persons’ inner being!
And I just LOVED that it was Quirrel! He really is a foretaste of ‘apparently’ no-talent Peter
Hi Hwyla!
That’s a great story about how you came to the Harry Potter series. I know a lot of adults who got there as a result of kids in their lives. Did your niece stick with the series to the extent that you did?
I think I was assuming a fairly simple, kid-level, black/white view of the world too when I first approached HP. But I also knew that I had adult friends (very intelligent adult friends) who were completely enamored of the series. That stereotype of looks revealing a person’s inner being goes way back btw – you even see it in Renaissance allegories like The Faerie Queene. I like the fact that Rowling turns it on its head – just as she turns more modern myths on their head as well. I’m thinking Fleur, in which she overturns the idea that a beautiful woman must be a superficial airhead only concerned with appearance.
Good point about Quirrell being a foretaste of Peter. Yes, Peter had them all fooled… just as Quirrell did. Do you think that your experience of reading Books 1-3 in close sequence helped you hone in on that connection? I never actually put it together before. (I read them in close sequence… but I was reading the entire series, and didn’t have much time to process 1-3 in particular).
Hi Mad!
Oh, I don’t think you’re a liar! I just find it interesting to see how people’s minds work. :) It’s interesting that you got to the truth about Snape in PS/SS through your emotional reaction to the character.
I saw the movie first, and I thought it was Snape… until I saw Quirrell. And actually, I saw the movie years apart without remembering the reveal and got suckered in a second time! But after that, I read the series, and I never believed Snape guilty again. After it’s revealed in GoF that he’s a former Death Eater and after he shows the Mark to Cornelius Fudge, I was absolutely convinced that he was going to have a redemption arc. So I never wavered. I agree that Harry translates Snape’s seeming antipathy into thinking that Snape must be against all good.
BTW, do you know some Latin for “sens perdu”? (I assume “sans” something). To properly name a logical fallacy, we’ll need some Latin here. ;)
Ah…love your mild, mild sarcasm there… :)
Reblogged this on quirrellsrevenge and commented:
Interesting insight to Harry’s psyche… includes a mention of your’s truly!