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voldemort - Why could Quirrell tolerate Harry's touch at the beginning of Philosopher's Stone?


In the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry meets Professor Quirrell in The Leaky Cauldron for the first time, and the two shake hands with no problem:



A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching.

‘Professor Quirrell!’ said Hagrid. ‘Harry, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts.’

‘P-P-Potter,’ stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry’s hand, ‘c-can’t t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you.’

Philosopher's Stone - page 55 - Bloomsbury - chapter 5, Diagon Alley




And, as we know, by the end of Philosopher's Stone, Harry's touch is enough to kill Quirrell.



Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse, but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell’s face –

‘AAAARGH!’

Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering too, and then Harry knew: Quirrell couldn’t touch his bare skin, not without suffering terrible pain – his only chance was to keep hold of Quirrell, keep him in enough pain to stop him doing a curse.

Philosopher's Stone - pages 213-214 - Bloomsbury - chapter 17, The Man with Two Faces



Why could Quirrell touch Harry at the beginning of Philosopher's Stone without pain, but by the end of the story Harry's touch was lethal to Quirrell? Had Voldemort not taken possession of Quirrell's body by the time of Quirrell and Harry's meeting at The Leaky Cauldron?



Answer



Quirrell was not yet possessed by Voldemort at the time when he shook Harry's hand in the Leaky Cauldron.



Quirrell spent the 1991-1992 school year – Harry’s first at Hogwarts – working on an attempt to steal the Philosopher’s Stone, and thus bring Voldemort back to life. His first attempt to steal it, from Gringotts, was thwarted when Hagrid took it from the vault first (PS8) and it was after this that Voldemort decided to possess him (PS17). As Voldemort’s face was sticking out the back of his head, Quirrell had to wear a purple turban the entire school year to hide him (PS7).




-- from the HP Lexicon


Harry met Quirrell on his birthday, before the break in:



"...that Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday!"



Quirrell tells Harry about his failure to steal the stone, and that that was when Voldemort decided to keep a closer watch:



"He does not forgive mistakes easily. When I failed to steal the stone from Gringotts, he was most displeased. He punished me... decided he would have to keep a closer watch on me...."



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