To Kill a Unicorn

"...What?"

"Pay attention, Quirrell," A high-pitched, icy voice half whispered, half growled from beneath his turban. "I do not wish to repeat myself any more than necessary."

"N-no...I heard you...it's just that..."

"What is it now?" Voldemort sounded bored. "What I said was perfectly clear. Even a fool such as yourself should be perfectly capable of understanding so simple a command."

Quirrell swallowed. "You're serious."

"When have I ever given you an order in jest? If that is all you have to say, stop wasting my time. Your class is beginning soon. Get to it."

Quirrell made no effort to move away from the empty classroom he was in. "That's a bit...much, isn't it?"

"No, it is simply a necessity. Move."

But Quirrell didn't move. It wasn't that he was trying to actively defy the voice ordering him around. He was simply still in shock of the exact implications of Voldemort's latest order.

He couldn't be serious. He wouldn't really ask him to... robbery and other crimes were one thing, but to commit a sin as grave as...

A chill ran down his spine as realisation finally dawned to him.

He really is serious.

"I can't."

"What was that?"

"I can't!" Quirrell all but yelled, too beside himself to fear Voldemort's retribution. "There's no way I could possibly...No!"

"Insubordination? Even now, after all this time?" Voldemort's cold voice became positively arctic. "I'm not asking whether you can do it or not, I'm telling you do it!"

"B-but..." Quirrell looked around the classroom, desperately searching for something, anything, that would help him form a cogent argument against Voldemort's newest plan. "The sin..."

The icy silence was answer enough.

He tried again. "The curse..."

"What do I care of the curse? My life is already a half-life. The curse is meaningless to me."

"But..." Failing to come up with another argument, Quirrell looked at the door. There was no-one to be seen.

It had finally occurred Quirrell why he did this: why he risked talking to the parasite leeching off his body outside his own quarters, in the middle of the day, louder than he actually needed to. Voldemort could hear him whisper — he could read his thoughts when he wanted to — there was no practical reason to speaking out loud and risk being caught doing so.

Voldemort scoffed. "Do you fear the curse, Quirrell? You don't have a choice. Do you think I haven't noticed you grow weaker? You need the blood as much as I do."

It was because deep down, unbeknownst even to himself until now, he had wanted to be caught. He had wanted someone to find out and alert Dumbledore, to confront him with this, for Voldemort to be stopped. And yet at the same time, he had feared it so, perhaps even more than he feared Voldemort and what he did to him.

Until now, at least.

"B-but-" he said, quieter now, swallowing the word twice before actually saying it. At first, faking a stutter had been a challenge, but once he figured out the trick it was as if it had always been a part of him: all he had to do was imagine he was talking to Voldemort.

Before he managed to finish the sentence, or even to come up with how to finish it, Voldemort interrupted him.

"There are no buts. I still need you for the time being, and to that end I need more strength than you can provide by yourself. I need time, and unicorn blood is the easiest way to gain it. It is as simple as that. Now, go!"

Quirrell bowed his head, trying his hardest not to show his fear. He had to come up with something else, if for no other reason than to keep Voldemort talking. The longer he could draw this out, the greater the chance they would be discovered.

Problem was, now that the thought had emerged in his conscious mind, Voldemort would find out. Voldemort could read his mind with the same ease he could hear him speak, and while it was more than likely Voldemort didn't read his mind at all times, Quirrell could never know when he was safe — and Voldemort always seemed to discover his most unfortunate thoughts no matter how deep he tried to bury them.

Voldemort sighed. The sound was was barely different from a snake's hiss.

"What is it now?" he still sounded rather more bored than angry. "I grow tired of your inane resistance, Quirrell. We both know how this is going to end. Either you'll do as I say, or you will suffer and then do as say."

"I know," Quirrell replied, louder than necessary, trying to keep his eyes away from the door. Since Voldemort seemed to still be either unaware or uninterested in his plan to get caught, he ought to at least give it all he got while he still could. God knew how long he still had the chance.

"And to think you've been following my orders almost admirably since that fiasco on Hallowe'en. Why this stubbornness? Is this because of the filthy mudblood blood coursing in your veins?"

"There is nothing wrong with my blood," Quirrell replied loudly, then closed his eyes and tuned Voldemort's voice out the best he could as Voldemort sneered at his half-blooded parentage. Being able to ignore Voldemort was another thing he hadn't been able to do until recently, and in his mind it was a clear sign of Voldemort growing weaker. Voldemort still had a firm grip on him — after all, one could hardly get away from Voldemort with Voldemort literally on the back of one's head at all times — but being able to drown him out even for moments at a time was still a blessing.

Now, with Voldemort preoccupied for the time being, he allowed himself to think, hoping he had enough time to come up with a real plan. Being caught was no doubt the easiest solution, but at what cost? A life-long sentence in Azkaban? Being declared insane and getting locked up in St. Mungo's? Neither option sounded very appealing, but the real question was, out of all the bad options offered to him, which one was the least painful to face? The one in which he kept obeying Voldemort, or the one in which he might live, but a half-life at best?

It's going to be a half-life either way if I have to drink unicorn blood.

He knew what his choice had to be. Now, was there anything he could do to actually choose it? Considering there hadn't been anything he could do to ward Voldemort away since the fateful encounter in the dark forest in Albania, why would it be any different now? Still, he kept pondering. There had to be something, some solution he had failed to see before, some way he could release himself from Voldemort's thrall before he would have to commit the unforgivable sin ahead of him.

He suddenly became painfully aware of the fact Voldemort had fallen silent as a sharp jolt of pain made its way through his body like an electric current. He bit his lip. Naturally, Voldemort had once again read every single thought of his.

"Don't waste my time, Quirrell," Voldemort said. "You're going to be late for your class. Hurry up."

Quirrell hesitated once more.

"Quirrell," Voldemort hissed. "Do you really want to waste more of your energy by being stubborn? You know that me taking direct control of this body will drain it even faster."

"I know that," Quirrell said, again far more loudly than necessary.

It was just then that Voldemort decided to make his day even worse: "Do you really believe someone overhearing us is going to matter?" Even if someone does hear you, all they're going to think is that your pathetic nerves have finally collapsed for good. And if they did suspect something more, what of it? You're too weak, too much of a coward to tell anyone the truth outright, and how else are they ever going to find out? Go."

Quirrell said nothing.

"I said GO!" The pain returned, and Quirrell took a resigned step forward.

He walked into the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, paying no attention to his surroundings, feeling nauseous and drained. The class, comprising second-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, was making a racket as always, barely noticing him. He walked to the front desk with his head bowed.

"C-class," he began blandly, all but ignored by the students, "today w-we're going to discuss c-c-counter-jinxes."

A few heads in the class turned towards him, and some of the more studious children even reached out for their quills, but the rest kept chattering and throwing balls of parchment at each other. Quirrell sighed and began droning on about counter-jinxes and their uses, holding his notes like they were a shield, feigning shakiness. He barely knew what words came out of his mouth. His mind wasn't on the lesson or on keeping up a façade of harmlessness, but rather on his dwindling options.

If he couldn't get anyone to find out about his predicament indirectly...well, it had been a fool's hope in the first place. Alerting someone directly wouldn't work...Voldemort was right, he was too much of a coward. Perhaps he could have done so earlier, when he had first returned from Albania, before Voldemort had sapped away all his strength. But now, he doubted he could get the words out of his mouth before Voldemort would shut him down.

Perhaps if he managed to surprise him? Voldemort was growing weak, too, and there was always a delay on those rare occasions when Voldemort decided to assume direct control of his body. If he managed to seize the opportunity—

"Quirrell..." Voldemort whispered warningly, sounding disgusted.

Quirrell cringed as another brief surge of pain hit him. Fortunately, the class either failed to notice or thought he had completely lost his nerve again. He kept going, consoled by the knowledge Voldemort could do nothing worse to him until the end of the class; even he couldn't risk being found out in front of so many people, not in his current state. Especially not now that he was growing even weaker.

"Not for much longer..."

The class came to an end almost as soon as it had begun. The students scurried away towards the Great Hall, laughing and skipping, unwittingly leaving Quirrell to his doom.

Voldemort didn't even wait until the last students had left the classroom.

"Tonight," he said.

"Tonight?" Quirrell swallowed.

"Tonight. I see no point in waiting."

Quirrell had no answer to that.

"I know what you were thinking," Voldemort continued, sounding much like Quirrell imagined a cat toying with a mouse would sound like. "You spent the whole lesson trying to find a cowardly way to wiggle out of it. I'm glad even you finally understand there are no other options. Now," his voice grew colder once more. "Obey me like a servant should."

Quirrell hesitated. He might as well point it out loud: the one alternative he had only lightly touched upon until now, the one he had feared even more than Voldemort up to this day, until he had found out about the path paved ahead for him.

"There is still one thing I can do, Master."

There was no sign, no warning: there was nothing he could have done in preparation for the immediate and awful retribution his words earned him. He last thing he was aware of was his knees slamming onto the classroom floor before the world around him became nothing but blinding, searing pain.

Of course, Voldemort had punished him countless times before, but never like this: it was as if every inch of his skull was hammered full of white-hot nails, piercing his brain, ripping his mind apart...and even when he thought he had reached his limit, when the agony was such he thought it would kill him, it still wouldn't go away and only kept boring deeper into his skull.

This time, Voldemort was truly angry.

"If you think you can..." Voldemort was no longer composed; his voice was filled with cold fury. "If you think death is the easier solution...your foolishness truly knows no bounds, Quirrell."

Quirrell opened his mouth to scream as Voldemort's fury kept ravaging his mind. No sound came out.

"I have had it with your disobedience, Quirrell. From now on, you shall do exactly as I say at all times."

"P-please..." Quirrell scrunched up his eyes up in a fruitless attempt to keep the tears of agony inside. Voldemort responded by increasing the pressure even further.

"I know you, Quirrell. You may believe you can just throw yourself out of one of the towers and be done with it, but I know for a fact you will never succeed." Voldemort kept pushing deeper into his mind. "Do you think I have grown so weak that you of all people could stand up against me? You thought you could divert my attention, that you could defy me, that perhaps you could outsmart me? You underestimated me for the last time..."

Quirrell couldn't respond.

"Try. I dare you to try. You will fail. Even if you somehow manage in your infinite foolishness to convince yourself to jump, you will next find yourself unharmed in the Forbidden Forest. I have more than enough strength in me to deal with the likes of you."

He wanted to apologise, to beg for mercy. Anything, anything to make it stop.

"Once we have succeeded, you can go ahead and die any way you wish. I'll give you your death personally if that is what you desire. But now, while I still need you, you're going to live!"

With one last push from Voldemort, the pain finally reached a critical threshold, and Quirrell felt himself sinking into merciful unconsciousness.

"Get up."

After what could have been anything from half a minute to half an hour, Quirrell opened his eyes to find himself lying on the classroom floor, breathing heavily, covered in cold swear. The worst of the pain was gone, but the after-effects of the attack still burned his mind.

"I said get up!"

Shaking, Quirrell crawled to the nearest wall and got on his feet, half expecting his knees to buckle beneath him. The wall was covered in colourful spots, and a tentative attempt at blinking did nothing to dispel them.

"Never disobey me again. Do you understand?"

Quirrell swallowed. "Yes."

"Good." Voldemort fell silent for a moment. Quirrell took the opportunity to close his eyes and take a deep breath, hoping it would ease the throbbing pain in his head and make the spots disappear. "Go to the Great Hall. No point in letting Dumbledore notice you're late."

Quirrell took a tentative step forward. Despite the shakiness. he could walk just fine.

"And tonight, you will go to the Forbidden Forest and hunt down a unicorn. No more delays."

A chill ran down Quirrell's spine. As he hesitated, the pressure on his head increased once more.

Where could he run, where could he hide, when he wasn't even safe inside his own mind?

He bowed his head. "How am I even supposed to do it?"

"I will instruct you once the time comes. Now, go."

"Y-yes."

"And while you're at it, address me as a servant should."

"...Yes, Master."