Quirinus Quirrell is the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts during Harry's first year and secretly a follower of Voldemort. Prior to his employment at Hogwarts, he is said by Hagrid to have had a "brilliant mind", and was a fine teacher while studying from books; some time before Harry's arrival at Hogwarts, "he took a year off to get some first-hand experience". Rowling stated in a live web chat on 30 July 2007 that Quirrell had worked at Hogwarts as Muggle Studies teacher for a certain length of time, before taking the cursed Defence Against the Dark Arts position in the same year that Harry joined. There were rumours that he encountered vampires in the Black Forest and one in Romania, and he apparently had "a nasty bit of trouble with a hag". After that, he was 'never the same' – upon his return, he appears perpetually nervous and has developed a stutter and nervous tics and Hagrid was able to say even before the beginning of the autumn term that he was "scared of the students, scared of his own subject". Quirrell's attire includes a new purple turban which he claims to have received as a reward from an African prince for getting rid of a troublesome zombie. Fred and George constantly joke that the turban was full of garlic to ward away vampires and in one part they even enchant snowballs to hit it.