A/N: Quirrell's first name is given in canon (arguably) as Quirinus, and he was the Muggle Studies professor before being the DADA prof. Also, this fic's writing style was inspired by Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." That is, the writing style is supposed to reflect the age of the character speaking. (Hence why the writing style starts out very simple and then becomes more advanced.)

There is No Need for Such a Word

or

Five Times Quirinus Quirrell Said 'Why' (And One Time He Didn't)

"Why?"

When Quirinus moves his mouth like that there's a funny sort of feeling in his throat, and it's a funny sort of feeling so he does it again and he hiccups bubbles of laughter and does it again and then Mummy comes over oh look she's smiling. He likes when Mummy smiles because it means lots of hugs and kisses and then he can't feel the crib underneath him and the air is kind of cold and ticklish. But Mummy is holding him so he doesn't cry. Otherwise he would be scared but instead Mummy is soon holding him and she's warm and soft and his hands wrap around her. He's bouncing up and down. That means that she's going somewhere because whenever she walks somewhere he bounces up and down and it's kind of a nice feeling and he snuggles against the warmth again.

"Did you hear that?" Mummy says. "His first word! Say the word for Daddy, Quirinus. Say the word," she smiles and tickles his chin and he smiles back.

"Hih," he impressively breathes and there's the funny vibrating feeling in his throat again and he giggles and says it again.

"That's not a word. That's a sound." That's Daddy's voice. He knows what Daddy's voice sounds like because it's low and rumbly.

"No, that was definitely a word. Did you hear it? The exhalation coupled with the movement of the lips, the long 'i' sound. He was saying 'why'! Our baby's going to grow up to be a philosopher, I just know it."

Daddy shakes his head and whispers real quiet, "Don't worry, I'll wait for your actual first word." Mummy swats his shoulder but she's smiling and gives him a kiss afterwards so that means she wasn't actually mad.

"Why is the sky blue?"

Quirinus is digging with one of Daddy's old quills through the moist earth of the river bank. The mud feels sort of sticky and cold, like it's trying to suck his fingers into the earth. The mud is sliding all slippery over his fingers, too, but he keeps digging because he wants to know where the grass roots end. With a grunt and another push against the mud his feet are suddenly no longer touching earth and with a painful thump, he lands on his back. A clawing feel scratches the back of his throat and his eyes scrunch up in preparation for tears. But then he opens his eyes and he feels like he's swimming.

The sky's such a pretty blue and the clouds are fluffy, like pillows or cotton candy or stuffed animals. He wants to reach up to hug them but his arms are too short and instead when he holds them up it looks more like he's swimming so holds them up and moves them back and forth like a fish, but the blue of the sky doesn't seem to notice. It really is a pretty blue.

"Mummy!" His voice sounds high-pitched and loud to his own ears. He almost thinks it might break the sky, but the sky doesn't seem to notice. "Mummy!" he yells again.

Mummy comes walking from their house, and after a second she smiles as she kneels by him. "What is it Quirinus?"

"Why is the sky blue?" Mummy looks up and doesn't say anything, so he repeats his question. "Why is the sky blue?"

"I heard you Quirinus," she smiles and runs her hand through his hair. "Always so full of questions. I don't know. Maybe someday you'll find out and then you can tell me. How's that sound, sweetie?"

"Okay, Mummy." He looks at the sky and dreams of swimming across it like a fish.

"Why can't we make objects that have vanished reappear?"

"Professor Flitwick." He gives a nervous little cough to get the man's attention, while fidgeting with the quill buried at the bottom of his book bag and shuffling his feet. "Erm, Professor Flitwick?"

"Oh, Mr. Quirrell, I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Come in, come in," the professor enthusiastically gestures him into the office. "Young Quirinus Quirrell, with all of the questions! Another one, I'm guessing?"

"Uh, yes, sir. I had a question about vanishing charms. And, uh, conjuring charms too, I guess. I mean, it's only one question, but they're related," he haltingly explains. He decides that speaking with ease in front of professors must be something that comes with age because the older students, the fifth, sixth and seventh year boys, the boys who look more like adults and professors than like students, what with their broad shoulders and mature jawlines, don't stutter or ever appear anything but completely relaxed. He imagines that someday he will be that old, but for now he is only short and scrawny and sometimes he feels more like a child than a Hogwarts student.

"Vanishing and conjuring charms are rather advanced magic, but I'll be happy to answer your question if I can," Professor Flitwick says.

"Why—" he pauses and think of how to best phrase his question. "Why can't we make objects that have vanished reappear?"

"You can conjure new versions of the vanished objects," the professor thoughtfully starts, "But, no, you're right, never the original object. Vanished objects go into nonbeing. To call them back from nonbeing, that's just not possible."

"But I thought nonbeing is everything. So why…?" he trails off, worried that he repeating his question may make him seem rude.

"Well, yes, you're right. Nonbeing is everything," Professor Flitwick looks intently into thin air and pulls at his beard. "I don't know. I'll have to look it up and get back to you."

"Okay. Thank you, sir." He leaves the office and pulls out his notebook. Who else was it that he needed to talk to you? Ah, yes, Professor McGonagall and 'Why can't objects be transfigured into food?'

"Why do Muggles use brooms to sweep?"

"Professor." The accompanying knock is timid in a way the student is not, and after a single knock, the door abruptly swings open. "Professor," the student states again, in the sort of impatient tone teenagers are wont to adopt when deigning to do something they would rather not.

He is tempted to obliviously continue grading essays, perhaps subtly bringing the student's to the top of the pile with the aid of a bottle of red ink, but instead he looks up and says in a forcibly amicable voice, "Miss Tweddell. What can I do for you?"

"I have a question, Professor Quirrell. It's about last Friday's lecture." She plops into the chair opposite his desk and, slouching into a position makes his spine hurt just looking at her, drags out a notebook and a quill from the depths of a rather ravaged book bag.

"You mean the lecture which I'm going to be testing the class on tomorrow?"

"Uh, yeah, that one. I didn't get it all. Like, hm, oh here it is," Tweddell says, salvaging a crumpled piece of smeared parchment from her textbook. "Why do Muggles use brooms to sweep?"

"Why do Muggles use brooms to sweep?" he disbelievingly repeats.

"Yeah. Why don't they use 'em to fly? That'd be a lot faster method of transport than those cars they use."

He bites his lip to avoid giving an exasperated sigh, and replies in a tone admirably dry of sarcasm or other unprofessor-ly behavior, "Muggles' brooms don't have flying charms cast on them. Manufacturers have to charm racing brooms before they can be used for Quidditch or transportation."

"So…" Tweddell meaningfully starts, as though he will take the cue to finish her sentence. When he doesn't leap with a fully formed answer, she continues speaking with a mildly annoyed expression, "So why do they use them to sweep? Why don't they use a Sweeping Charm? Or use a broom that's been enchanted with a Sweeping Charm?"

"Muggle brooms don't have Sweeping Charms on them, either. They – "

"So why don't they go buy brooms with Sweeping Charms, then?"

Unable to contain an exasperated sigh any longer, he sharply exhales and allows a frown to grace his brow as he continues patiently answering, "Miss Tweddell, do you have any Muggle relatives?"

"Yeah. My mom's grandparents. What's it to you?" she bristles.

"Try talking to them sometime. You'll find that they don't have access to magical objects, except through your mother. Even if they did, it wouldn't surprise me if they would still decide to sweep manually with an uncharmed broom."

The expression which forms on Tweddell's face is one of disbelieving surprise. "Why on earth would they do that?"

"Because even if Muggles have a connection to the magical world it's often an issue of identity - they identify as Muggle and don't want to completely lose their identity by relying on magic for simple chores."

The student gives a snort at his methodical explanation. " 'Identity?' That's would keep them from using a charmed broom if someone handed them one? I don't think so."

"Miss Tweddell, my mother is a Muggle and I can assure you that she always sweeps by hand."

"Well your mother is an idiot, then. No offense, but I bet my grandparents would use a charmed broom if I gave them one."

He grits his teeth and squeezes the bridge of nose between his index finger and his thumb - what he would give to have the presence of a professor like Snape or McGonagall. McGonagall would remove House Points at the very least, and Snape, like the venomous snake he so reminded Quirinus of, would have most likely swallowed the student whole by now. But Quirinus is Quirinus, more adept at asking questions than disciplining students, more adept at asking questions than answering them, and thus his response is rather weaker, "Miss Tweddell, why don't you go do research on Muggle identity and broomsticks and let me know what you find?"

"So you're not going to help me with the subject you're teaching. Thanks," she indignantly exclaims, before throwing her book bag over her shoulder and stomping out of the office like an offended Hippogriff.

"Why am I living my life like this?"

The flitting of the student's movements has an air of illegality and ill-intent, a toxic fungus that crawls through the class's atmosphere, slicing away at any chance for a uniformly attentive group of students. A flash of a mothy cream-color confirms Quirinus's suspicions that the student is passing notes, but the knowledge that it is Badgley holding the note, surreptitiously sliding the point of his quill across its' surface, makes him hesitate. Badgley will argue back, will be disobedient and disrespectful and only further the destruction of any semblance of class productivity. Another tick of the clock passes, the hesitation forming palpable words on his tongue, because even if he would prefer not to, he knows that confronting a disruptive student is the right thing to do.

"Badgley, may I ask what you are doing that is so interesting?"

"Nothing." The student innocently looks up while continuing the furtive scritch-scratch of his quill on parchment.

"Badgley, give me the note that you're writing."

"What, this one?" The innocent expression is unfazed as he holds up the small scrap of folded parchment. With a mockingly serious, thoughtful expression he looks between Quirinus and the note. "No."

He can feel his face flush, as he tries to speak his next words in as controlled a voice as possible. "G-Give me the note, or else I will summon the head of your house."

"Sprout? You think of I'm scared of Sprout?" A single, dry bark of a laugh accompanies Badgley's words. "Tell you what, I'll give you the note, but I have to let you know something." With a conspiring gesture he leans in closer, but his falsely secretive whisper is loud enough for the entire class to hear his words: "You're embarrassing yourself."

The students erupt into a cruel laughter that echoes off the walls of the classroom, a pike being driven through his skull. The note itself looks as though it has been written by numerous hands, each quill having contributed one word before being seized by his own hands:

Quixotic Quirinus Quirrell quivers quantities of quills, quitting

It's gibberish, he tells himself, but the malignant intent is as venomous as the class's disobedience, and he crumples the note a bit more violently than necessary, the creamy ink of the parchment gaining smudges of ink and chalk as he throws it in the rubbish bin. By the time the day's classes are finally over, the image of the note – the alternatively loopy, blocky, hurried, lazy handwriting - has become a parasite worming its way through the folds of his brain, a veritable tumor expanding against the confines of his skull. Wondering why he tortures himself like this, he delicately salvages the note from among the broken quills and empty ink wells populating the rubbish bin. The note has obtained a large circular ink splotch for his trouble, and as he smoothes it out on the palm of his hand the ink smears across his pale skin.

"Quiver isn't even a transitive verb," he mutters aloud to himself, setting the note on his desk and regarding it with his chin in his hands. He compares the note to a car wreck (or perhaps that is his career), because it demands attention in a way that cannot be refused; a few moments later the thought falls into his mind that he should probably be thinking in terms of Wizarding metaphors and not Muggle ones, but he is otherwise unperturbed because his half-blood is bound to show itself in one way or another.

It is his status as a Half-Blood – growing up among quills and pencils, Grimm's Fairy Tales and Tales of Beedle the Bard, summers with his Muggle mother and years at Hogwarts – that made him dream of better Wizard-Muggle relations, not merely a grudging tolerance on Wizards' part but instead an appreciation, a respect for the Muggles. But the rising generation seems to be less concerned with the societal implications of Wizard-Muggle relations than obtaining a shiny 'O' to show their parents, and his glorious plan to improve Muggle-Wizard relations is starting to seem like the foolish fantasy of a naïve man. "Why am I living my life like this?" he whispers to himself, the scrap of parchment bent between his fingers.

When he next sees the Headmaster, he cautiously starts in a manner far too familiar for his taste, "I'm thinking of taking a year off. Traveling a bit."

Dumbledore raises his eyebrows and a concerned look appears to his blue eyes, "Something not going well?"

"I just — I think it'd be nice to step back for a while."

"You understand I can't keep the Muggle Studies post vacant for an entire year," the Headmaster morosely informs him.

"I understand, Headmaster," Quirinus gives a resigned breath. "Maybe there'll be another position I can apply for when I come back; the Defense Against the Dark Arts position seems to have a lot of openings — perhaps I'll apply for that when I return."

A certain unidentifiable sadness appears on Dumbledore's face and after a moment's silence he quietly replies, "I suppose you could."

"There is no more need for such a word."

When he meets the Dark Lord, it is the taste of blood and steel dancing through his tendons.

It is the taste of rebirth.

Service to the Dark Lord gives him the sort of unfettered freedom present only in the chains of unquestioning devotion, and for the first time since his birth he eradicates the word 'why' from his vocabulary. There is no more need for such a word.

…

A/N: While Quirrell's blood status isn't officially known, the fact that he was a Muggle Studies professor made me think that he probably isn't a pureblood. As Voldemort doesn't seem to mind half-blood servants (e.g. Snape), I don't think that would influence Quirrell's working for Voldemort. Also, this was written for 'The Letter Challenge' on the HPFC, where my prompts were 'questions' and 'quill'. After writing it, I also realized it fell perfectly under 'The Five Things Challenge', hence why I added the alternative title. Also, while I like writing Quirrell I had Writer's Block, style-wise, for the later sections, so constructive criticism is always appreciated.