Harry Potter discussion

Hi, I'm new here, but there is one question that has been nagging me for a while and I have never seen it properly explained: throughout the series we have Lord Voldermort as the ruthless übervillain, doing everything within his power to kill our noble hero… and yet in the Sorcerer's Stone he squandered what was the most obvious chance he had to get rid of the brat once and for all by being, out of all things, too freaking decent.

What I mean is that when Harry and Hermione come to Snape’s challenge they are confronted with a number of flasks, each containing a different potion. One of these allows you to go forward, one allows you to go back, two are harmless and three are downright deadly… so why didn’t Quirrell just rearrange the bottles so that by solving the riddle Harry and Hermione would just have ended up poisoning themselves? In fact, even if he didn't want to take them out, why did Snape provide enough potion for two people to move forward? Any ideas?

More likely it's a case of Quirrell/Voldemort being annoyingly arrogant, not decent. Quirrell seems rather pleased to see Harry in the chamber with the Mirror of Erised. He doesn't see Harry as so dangerous that he needs to prevent him from moving through the obstacles and obviously doesn’t have any doubts about being able to finish him off at the end. He probably welcomes the chance to prove himself to Voldemort by personally killing him. I actually think Quirrell deliberately leaves the bit of potion that allows Harry to reach the final chamber. I can’t think of a very good explanation as to why Snape provided as much potion as he did. Maybe he just assumed that one person would want to drink the whole thing, just to be safe? It was a very small bottle. But that doesn’t make much sense….so I’m just going to go with “the story demanded it” on this occasion. :)

Quirrel/Voldemort didn't anticipate anybody coming after them, and also he was too eager to get to the Stone to take the time to mess up somebody behind him. He might've thought that the Stone was just on a pedestal in the last room, Quirrel was very frustrated by the time Harry joined him because he didn't get the stone as easily as he thought he would've. As for the extra potion, Quirrel might've thought he drank it all, or he might've thought that only one sip was necessary.

I don't know. Personally I think that if you are in a hurry you are more likely to gulp the whole thing down than to take a tiny little sip hoping that it will be enough, not to mention that you are unlikely to return the flask to its previous place in such a way that it appears to be undisturbed. You either put it down wherever you are or --more likely-- you don't bother to put it down at all and take it with you.

Yes, Voldemort and Quirrel have proven that they are extremely arrogant, so I don't think that they just didn't do anything because they didn't realize it.