Everybody knows about the Killing Curse.
Avada Kedavra.
But precious few know of the Stasis Charm.
Avada Kedavra.
This charm uses the same incantation and wand movement as the Killing curse, but has a different intent.
Allow me to explain.
For every charm, spell, jinx, curse or hex you need three things for it to work. An incantation, a wand movement and intent. You have to know what you want the spell to do, clearly focus on the results, and push your intent through your wand hand and out of the wand.
Some spells even need a particular emotion to produce results. For example;
The Cruciatus curse. Crucio. The Torturing curse. To perform it, you need to want to hurt somebody. You need to feel hatred, pure, unadulterated hatred. You need to feel it in your very core.
The Patronus Charm. Expecto Patronum. The Guardian Spell. To perform it, you need to be able to conjure up a happy memory. Let it fill you. Expel it with enough force to create a force of pure good.
As it is with many spells, it is with the Avada Kedavra. To kill, you need to wish someone dead with every fibre of your being. Force pure hatred from your wand, much as you did with the Cruciatus but stronger, in an acid green jet.
If you do not feel enough hatred, are irritated or simply want someone out of your way, grass green light is expelled from your wand. And instead of killing, the curse just – pauses, so to speak. Perhaps freezes would be a better description, but without the lack of heat.
And so the stasis charm is born. It freezes the body, and has been likened to petrification. The only difference between a stasis body and a freshly dead body is a grass green reflection in the eyes of the victim, often overlooked. Mostly, nobody bothers to look.
Once identified, the stasis must be lifted for the body to become animate once more. The stasis charm has an unlimited lasting period, and a stasis body will remain in stasis for evermore if not treated with the counter curse of Evigilare Faciatis. This lifts the stasis, and the only side effect is that of dizziness for the first hour after the curse is lifted, so it is important to give time for the afflicted to recuperate after their 'death'.
Nobody except those who have studied with High Goblins has ever heard of the Stasis Charm.
Isadora McKinnon studied it intensively for four years.
She realised that it was a Stasis that Lily and James Potter had been hit with, not the Killing Curse. This was the first time Voldemort had not outright killed. That man had a seemingly unending supply of hatred.
Albus Dumbledore realised it too.
Isadora McKinnon lifted the charm immediately, and watched over her friends as they convalesced, until their minds had recovered from the Stasis state.
Albus Dumbledore planned for nobody to ever discover that the Potters had never actually died.
"Albus, what the hell were you thinking? You know as well as I do that Harry doesn't deserve to grow up without any parents! Where is your sense of moral dignity?" Sadie yelled out frantically, wanting to pace but unwilling to leave the comfort of the chintz armchair that she had conjured. Sadie congratulated herself on her magic abilities, before turning back to the matter at hand.
"It matters not about my dignity, it only matters that Harry becomes susceptible! I must have him under my control for the dark lord to be defeated!" Albus shouted with a crazed look in his eye as he shovelled lemon drops into his mouth.
"I have overlooked enough of your mistakes, Albus. I turned the other cheek when you refused to let me search for Marley, I forgot about my plan to seek out Gideon and Fabian but this time you've gone too far. To create a pawn out of a naïve little boy who lost his parents because of you? Now I know you're one knut short of a galleon. And besides, I heard that Sirius is getting a life sentence in Azkaban for betraying the Potters! That's codswallop! He would never – hang on, did I just say codswallop? I'm spending too much time with Hagrid – he would never betray Lily and James, and they told me he wasn't even the Secret Keeper! You have to do something! You have so much influence in the Wizengamot, you're Supreme Mugwump, for heaven's sake! Get him out of Azkaban, and let him live life as a free man!"
"No!" Albus cast a body bind on Sadie, not trusting her not to leave the office before his plan was complete. "Miss McKinnon, you do not understand just how delicate I must treat this situation. With Lily and James out of the way, it is only you, Sirius and Remus that stand in the way of Harry becoming my Boy Who Lived! If I help Sirius, he will want to care for Harry himself, give him a good life! I cannot allow that to happen! Convincing Remus he was a monster unfit for caring for another was easy, a simple compulsion charm took care of that, and he is no longer threatening my guardianship of Harry, and now… only you stand in my way. But I have a solution for that… oversight." He snatched up a crystal vial that was waiting on the desk and uncapped it. In one swift motion he forced her mouth open and poured the potion down her throat. Sadie coughed, attempting to spit out as much as possible before it could activate. "It is a permanent de-aging potion, made by Severus, and irreversible – hence the term permanent. Remarkable invention, don't you think? You will soon be a 10 year old, my dear. As for the brat's parents, a simple memory modification will do the trick. Not much, just his location and appearance. They will still know that they had a son called Harry, and what happened. I am not evil, Sadie."
Sadie began to shrink. "Not evil, but just twisted. This will be torture for them! Albus, I will never forgive you for this! I will have my revenge on you! You will see the error of your meddling ways!" she shrieked. "Hmm, that sounded a lot less cliché in my head," she mumbled.
The transformation was completed just as the door opened, and a confused Minerva McGonagall appeared. "Albus! Where is Isadora McKinnon?"
Dumbledore adopted a saddened appearance, eyes twinkling. "I am afraid Miss McKinnon was killed by death eaters an hour ago." McGonagall sat down heavily in shock, eyes tearing up, then realised that there was a young girl in the room. She straightened, settling back into her mask of sternness and efficiency.
"Who is this, Albus?" she asked briskly, the only indication of her grief being the more pronounced Scottish brogue with which she spoke. Dumbledore smirked, his eyes twinkling annoyingly, and internally winced at his deputy's enhanced accent.
"This is Sadie… Penny. She is a muggleborn, and her parents, Lola and Jimmy, have concerns about her attending Hogwarts next year. I invited her here to assuage her doubts." Sadie sat there in overly large clothing, fuming silently but unable to correct him due to the silencing and tongue tying curses he had discreetly shot at her as he spoke.
"I see. I hope you can attend Hogwarts next year, Miss Penny," McGonagall nodded curtly, then hurried from the room. There was an audible sniff from outside the office, but no footsteps led away from the spiral staircase.
"I shall see you next year, Miss Penny." With a mad sparkle in his eye that made Sadie vow to learn just how he did that weird twinkly thing, Dumbledore pushed her into the fire, adding a dash of floo powder and shouting out; "Seventeen, Magnolia Crescent, Little Whinging, Surrey!"
Albus sat back in his chair, satisfied. Ah, yes, everything was going exactly as planned. Soon the Greater Good would have a new pawn! And, he thought, after that irritating dark lord was defeated, he would free his lover from that blasted prison and they would rule the world, making Muggles rue the day they forced the magical world into hiding!
A maniacal laugh filled the office. The Castle, the very sentient being behind the wards, grumbled from their hiding place.
Then they smiled.
Sadie Penny was going to help them to oust Dumbledore from his place of perpetual power.
They chuckled slightly. Ah, alliteration. Such an amusing way to use figurative Language.
The castle ghosts groaned as the portraits ran for cover, dust forming a light coating on the staircases as the roof shook with the force of Castle's laughter.
"Not again!" Moaned Sir Nicholas.
"We don't care about your writing devices, you know!" The Grey Lady called, exasperated.
"Now now, settle down. Let Castle have her fun!" the Friar scolded.
"Oh shut up, you ugly old monk!" snapped the Bloody Baron irritably. "I've had about enough of your all's well that ends well attitude! We are all sick of your constant rambling about Peeves and second chances! Nobody really believes all that claptrap, you know!"
"Leave him alone!" Grey Lady came to the Friar's defence. "Just because you are too bloody sour to enjoy death, doesn't mean we cannot! You chose to become a ghost because of your own petty fear, so stop terrorizing people because of your permanent PMS!"
"Well said!" Nick nodded approvingly at the words of the ugly picture of the drunk monk.
"Indeed," he agreed, gliding away in a stately manner.