Apologies to J.K. Rowling, George Lucas, and the many other writers and filmmakers I have shamelessly ripped off.
IMPERIO
Harry Potter looked up from his breakfast of sausages, toast, and orange juice to behold a student he had never seen before passing by the Gryffindor table. She had straight black hair that fell to her shoulders and bangs that looked like they had been cut simply to facilitate her vision. Her eyes were almond-shaped, the color indeterminate from this distance, but circled by what looked like gallons of black eyeliner. She looks like a whore, thought Harry. Around her neck she wore a thick silver cord from which hung a little pewter charm shaped like a skull, with glittering red stones for eyes. As she walked away he noticed that under her Hogwarts robes she wore shiny black high-heeled boots. He found her both fascinating and repellant
Suddenly something flesh-colored and with the faint aroma of cucumber and melon fluttered in front of his face. He heard Hermione say his name and realized the fleshy perfumed distraction was her hand which she had waved in front of his face in order to get his attention. He blinked. "What?"
"Harry, why are you staring at Eris Nightshade?" asked Hermione with mild concern in her voice.
The name didn't ring a bell with him. "She reminds me of someone," he blurted out, and with surprise realized that it was true.
"Who?" asked Hermione.
"I'm not sure," said Harry. "She seems so familiar, yet I'm sure I never noticed her until today. How do you know her?"
"She's in my Ancient Runes class," explained Hermione. "She's a Slytherin seventh year. She doesn't say much in class, but…she seems a bit odd to me."
"What do you mean, 'odd'?"
"Well…I guess creepy would actually be a better word. I can't put my finger on it, Harry, but she just makes me nervous."
Harry hazarded a glance at the Slytherin table, where Eris was now poring over a large dusty book with brittle yellow pages. She looked up and caught his eye and a crafty smile flickered across her lips. With a shiver he turned his attention back to his sausages. "I know what you mean, Hermione," he said. "I know what you mean."
"I heard you the first time, Harry," said Hermione. "I heard you the first time."
Ron turned his attention from the discussion he, Dean and Seamus had been having about the Weird Sisters. "What are you two rabbiting on about?" he asked.
"Nothing, Ron," said Hermione.
"Nothing," Harry agreed.
†††
All that day during classes Harry felt uneasy. He was preoccupied at Quidditch practice, causing Katie Bell to give him a stern lecture before sending him to the showers, and Ron to give him a concerned look and ask, "Everything all right, Harry?"
"Peachy," Harry replied. He didn't want to tell Ron he was preoccupiedwith a girl. Ron would take it entirely the wrong way.
Ron didn't press the issue. Harry had noticed a certain…hesitancy in Ron's demeanor toward him, ever since the end of last year when they had gone to the Ministry of Magic in the doomed attempt to rescue Sirius from Voldemort in the Department of Mysteries. He felt a brief pang for the happy carefree days of their friendship, back when they were first years and keen on adventure. Then his mind resumed its brooding over Eris Nightshade and the odd sense of unease she had stirred within him, while his stomach began contemplating what might be for dinner.
That night at dinner Harry purposely sat himself with his back to the Slytherin table so he would not be tempted to look over at Eris. Instead of brooding, he tried to force himself to concentrate on the conversations going on around him.
Soon, however, it became difficult for him to concentrate on anything. He felt light-headed and woozy; his eyes would barely focus.
Ron and Hermione looked up from snogging and saw that he wasn't eating. "Are you feeling okay, Harry?" asked Hermione.
"You look even worse off than usual," added Ron with his customary tact.
"Overdid it a bit at practice, I think," Harry mumbled. "Think I'd better…lie down."
"Maybe you should see Madam Pomfrey," suggested Hermione.
"Nah…just need…rest…" Harry got up unsteadily from the table.
"I'll come with you," said Ron.
"No…stay…be fine," mumbled Harry. He grabbed his bag and staggered toward the door.
As he stumbled up the stairs, his head felt heavier. When he reached the portrait hole and slurred out the password (miraculously the Fat Lady understood him) he felt as though he were wading across a lake of lime Jell-o. He dragged himself up the stairs to his dormitory and collapsed, unconscious, six feet from his bed.
†††
"Stupid stubborn brooding twit," said Hermione back in the Great Hall. "Sometimes I wonder why we put up with him."
"I know," said Ron. "Let's follow him and make sure he's okay."
Hermione nodded, and they got up from the table and left the Great Hall. But just as they reached the stairway a mysterious figure pointed its wand at them from the shadows in which it was concealed. "Petrificus Totalus," it mumbled. The spell went whistling soundlessly down the corridor and hit Hermione squarely in the back. Hermione fell across the bottom steps. Ron, whose reflexes were not as sharpened by playing Quidditch as one might expect, spun around to face the attacker, but hardly had his wand raised before he was hit with the same spell and sprawled on top of Hermione.
"All too easy," the mysterious figure chuckled as it dragged their helpless bodies into the nearest broom cupboard.
†††
When Harry regained consciousness, he couldn't see anything but a shimmering silver light just to his left. All he could hear was a strange wheezing sound which, as his faculties slowly returned to him, he recognized as sobbing.
"Bad enough you've got a new girlfriend, you didn't have to bring her down here to show her off."
Harry recognized the lugubrious voice instantly. "Myrtle?" he asked. "What are you doing here?" Come to think of it, where exactly IS here? he thought, as his eyes scanned his surroundings, trying to adjust to the dark.
"I LIVE here, you insensitive clod!" moaned Moaning Myrtle. Harry could just make out the sinks on one side of the room, the stalls on the other, and realized that he was in the girls' room where he, Hermione, and Ron had brewed the Polyjuice Potion during their second year. "Well, of course," Myrtle continued, "I don't actually LIVE here, and thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you're at it, why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?"
"Because you have no flesh," said Harry thoughtlessly. His head was pounding, and he tried to cradle his aching temples in his hands, but when he tried to move them he saw that they were bound to his sides with magical rope.
"DON'T REMIND ME!" Myrtle wailed, and broke into a fresh batch of sobs. But before she could begin gnashing her teeth an incantation came from the corner of the room.
"Ectoplasmus Vamuso!" said the shadowy figure that Harry could barely discern, and Moaning Myrtle was flung through the door of the nearest stall and, with a splash, plunged into the toilet, where she continued her trademark moaning in the U-bend.
"That's better," said the mysterious figure. "That pathetic ghost was giving me a headache. How about you, Potter? How's your head?" The figure stepped into the feeble light that the waning moon shed through the miniscule window, and Harry recognized his attacker.
"Eris Nightshade!" he gasped.
"I'll take that to mean, 'my head is feeling much better, thank you Eris,'" she said with a grin. She took another step towards him and another eerie light struck the red eyes of the skull she wore around her neck and the eyes of Eris herself. Both sets of eyes sparkled with malice. At this close quarter Harry could finally see what color her eyes were, though he couldn't identify what that color was. Had he been forced to describe it, he would have described it as a "reddish green."
He tore his eyes away from those of Eris and looked to the floor to see what was casting the light. He saw a cauldron simmering over red coals. He couldn't see what was in the cauldron, only that it was bubbling.
"What do you want with me?" he asked.
Eris laughed. "Don't waste any time, do you, Potter?" she said. "What do I want with you…such a simple question with such a complicated answer." She moved closer to him, out of the light of the coals, so that her reddish green eyes became only pinpricks of light. He could feel her breath on his skin, and it gave him goosebumps.
"To begin with," she said, "you must know my background. I am the daughter of Lord Voldemort."
"What?" said Harry. "That can't be true. It's impossible!"
Eris slapped him, "Don't interrupt me! I'm telling the truth, so shut up and listen."
She closed her eyes for a moment and sighed deeply. "Now where was I? Oh yes." She opened her eyes and continued in a soothing, recitative cadence. "Yes," she said, "The Dark Lord is my father. One night, after a long day of terrorizing the populace, he came upon a filthy Muggle prostitute on the street. He had his way with her, and then left her in a dumpster. That whore was my mother. When I was born she left me on the steps of a Muggle orphanage…the same Muggle orphanage, in fact, where my father had grown up."
"Wait a second," Harry interrupted. "Isn't that a little too ironic? Don't you think?"
Eris gave him a dirty look. "Anyway--"
"And another thing," Harry interrupted again. "Even if the bit about Voldemort being your father were true, how could you possibly know all that if your mother just left you on the steps of that orphanage? And how would your mother even know that her attacker was Voldemort?"
"Shut up!" Eris slapped him again. "This is MY story and--"
"Bollocks," said Harry, "I think you're making the whole thing up."
"Crucio!" said Eris, pointing her wand at Harry, and instantly he was doubled over with pain, his scar burning.
"I can't explain how I know these things, Potter," said Eris as she lowered her wand. "Somehow, I've always known. At any rate, I always knew I was greater than any of the pathetic orphans I grew up with. I knew I was destined for power…"
She certainly has Voldemort's ego, Harry thought.
"When I came to Hogwarts, I made friends with the children of former Death Eaters. Got invited to their houses. Stayed up late reading in their libraries and learned all the Dark Arts I could. Now, Potter, I'm about to leave Hogwarts and poised to become the greatest Dark wizard of them all, greater even than my father!" She raised her arms into the air, and Harry thought he could feel a crackle of static electricity. She lowered her arms and looked at him. "But I need you, Potter."
"Let me guess," said Harry. "You're going to kill me and bring my body to your father, who will then welcome you with open arms, and--"
"No," Eris interrupted. "What kind of stupid idea is that? I, Eris Nightshade, curry favor from the fiend who let me be raised in that Muggle orphanage? Never! Voldemort killed his father, and I intend to kill him, or rather, let you do it for me. And then I, the new Heir—or rather, Heiress--ofSlytherin, shall pick up where he left off, and before long all the world will be mine!" She laughed maniacally for several seconds.
"What do you mean, 'let me do it for you'?" Harry asked. "I don't intend to kill Voldemort for you."
"But you must kill him someday," said Eris. "You're destined to do it."
"How do you know that?" Harry gasped. Since Dumbledore had told him about the prophecy he had told no one that he was destined to kill or be killed by Voldemort…not even Ron and Hermione.
"Oh please, Potter, it's OBVIOUS," said Eris, rolling her eyes. "Why else would the Dark Lord have tried to kill you when you were a baby?"
"He didn't," Harry bluffed. "He came to kill my parents and just decided to kill me too--"
"I think you're bluffing. If that were true, you wouldn't be alive to tell it," said Eris. "One of your parents sacrificed themselves to save you. You see, Potter, unlike my father I think it's important to understand more than just the Dark Arts, for it's important to know one's enemies. People say that Dumbledore is the only wizard that Voldemort ever feared, but they're wrong. He feared you, Harry Potter, or he wouldn't have tried to destroy you when you were weak and helpless."
"You still haven't explained what, exactly, you want from me," Harry pointed out.
"Nothing gets past you, does it, Potter?" smiled Eris. "Harry…once you defeat the Dark Lord, the Death Eaters will no longer have a leader. Some of them, scared, confused, not too bright, eager for guidance, will turn to you in hopes that you will be their new leader. When that happens, Harry Potter, you must lead them to me, Voldemort's only offspring, the new Heir of Slytherin. Join me, Harry Potter, and we will rule the world together as--"
"Hold on," Harry interrupted yet again. "Assuming that you are Voldemort's child, how do you know that you're the only one? How do you know that he didn't go on a dozen drunken rampages--"
"I just know!" Eris made as if to slap him again, but stopped herself and instead caressed his cheek with a very good impression of tenderness. "Think of it, Harry. You and I will be the most powerful wizards in the world. We will squash anyone who dares oppose us. Anything in the world you want, Harry, I can give you--"
Harry jerked his head out of her grip. "I'll never join you," he said. "I will not give in to this. I will not be swayed by your sweet words of temptation."
Eris shook her head. "You will, Potter," she said. "I had hoped it would be voluntarily, but one way or another you will join me." She turned back to the cauldron and began stirring it. "You don't know what this is, do you?" she asked.
"A…potion?"
"This is Aztec Fidelity Formula. The priests used to give it to their temple slaves to insure their loyalty." She looked up at him. "Since you refuse to join me voluntarily I must force you, but it will most likely be another year before you meet Voldemort again. I can't keep you under the Imperius Curse for so long. When you take this potion, you will be my willing slave and bend to my every wish…forever."
"And how," said Harry, trying to ignore the panic rising in his throat, "do you expect to get me to take it?"
"Silly Harry," said Eris, shaking her head. "I said I couldn't keep you under the Imperius Curse for any length of time!" She raised her wand. "Imperio!"
Instantly Harry felt the total relaxation that comes from being under the Imperius Curse. Through the mists that filled his mind he heard Eris' voice saying, "Drink the potion." Harry made to reach out his hand and take the cup she offered.
Wait! said another voice inside his head.
"Who's that?" thought Harry.
Who could it be? It's me! said the voice in his head urgently.
"Are you…are you my conscience?" Harry thought.
Sure, yes, good a name as any, said the voice. Now listen to me, Harry; Princess Vader over there wants you to—
"Drink the potion," came Eris' voice again, a little more insistently.
Yes, said the voice. Thus rendering you her helpless slave for all eternity.
"N--" thought Harry.
Good, I'm glad we agree, the voice interrupted. But Harry, in case you haven't noticed, you don't have your wand. Indeed, Harry remembered that he had left his wand in his bag, which was presumably still up in his dormitory. But, the voice continued, she doesn't know that you can throw off the Imperius Curse, which gives us the advantage. She also doesn't seem to notice that she hasn't untied you, making it impossible for you to reach out and take the cup. And, like most arrogant wizards, she's extremely reluctant to do anything without magic. If she'd had any sense at all, she would have bodily forced you to swallow the potion. Since she's unwilling to use physical force on you, she won't expect you to use it on her. Quickly now, once she unties you, make as if you are going to take the cup, then knock it out of her hands, grab her by the hair and throw her headfirst into Moaning Myrtle's toilet. Unless I miss my guess, she's put an imprisonment charm on it to keep Myrtle from interrupting—
"Stand up, Potter," Eris' voice broke in.
Go ahead, said the voice. Try, anyway. She'll untie you in a second. You understand what you have to do?
"Yes," thought Harry.
Good, said the voice. At that moment Eris made Harry's bindings disappear. Steady now, said the voice. Don't let her know you're on to her…aaaaand…NOW!
With speed that would put his Firebolt to shame, Harry reached out, knocked the cup out of her hand, and grabbed her by the hair. With a shriek that ended in a gurgle, Eris found her head trapped in a toilet. Harry quickly grabbed her wand out of her right hand and tossed it away. Flailing, screaming, and kicking her legs Eris attempted to extricate herself, but to no avail. Moaning Myrtle piped up from the U-bend and added her wails to the cacophony.
Just as Harry was wondering what would happen to him if somebody came along and saw him standing over Eris like this, the light came on. Harry turned around and saw Dumbledore, McGonagall, and of course Snape, standing in the doorway, in their pajamas, looking properly aghast.
"Potter!" said McGonagall. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Yes, Potter," sneered Snape with his specially patented Snape sneer. "Why have you wantonly attacked one of my students?"
"She attacked me," Harry explained hurriedly. "She tried to make me drink that potion and turn me into her slave, so I threw her into the toilet--"
"Stop gibbering, Potter--" said Snape, but Dumbledore interrupted.
"That will do, Severus," he said, "that will do. Minerva, kindly extricate Miss Nightshade from the toilet before she drowns. Severus, perhaps you would be so kind as to analyze the contents of this cauldron."
Snape knelt down and stuck his wand into the potion. "Litmus," he muttered. Harry could see no change in the potion, but Snape stood up, put his wand away, and said, "It is indeed Aztec Fidelity Formula," he said sourly, "but how do we know that Potter was not attempting to use it on Nightshade?"
"We don't," said Dumbledore, "at least not yet. However, it is difficult to force someone to drink a potion when their head is imprisoned in a toilet." Snape fell silent.
"Minerva," continued Dumbledore, "keep Miss Nightshade unconscious and bring her to my office," (for the lack of oxygen had caused her to pass out). "Severus, bring me some Veritaserum," Snape, whose mother never warned him that if he kept sneering too long his face would freeze like that, swept as best he could in pajamas out of the room. "Harry," said Dumbledore, "I suggest you go to bed. There will be plenty of time for a denouement in the morning."
†††
"It was certainly a well-laid plan," said Dumbledore to Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who were seated on squashy chintz armchairs in his office. "Eris put the Imperius Curse on Neville and forced him to tell her the password to the Gryffindor common room."
"It's remarkable she got the right one, then," said Ron. Hermione gave him a sharp look and he added, "Everyone's thinking it; I'm just saying it."
Dumbledore smiled one of his patented twinkly-smiles at Ron before continuing, "She then went to the kitchens and threatened one of the house elves with clothes in order to coerce him to put sleeping potion in Harry's cup."
Hermione opened her mouth, no doubt to make a righteous speech about the ill-treatment of house elves, but Dumbledore held up a hand and said, "Now is not the time, Miss Granger. We can discuss it later.
"As I've said, Eris had done her homework," he continued. "She'd been observing you three for quite some time and knew that you two would follow Harry to make sure he was all right, so she lay in wait for you, hit you both with the Full-Body Bind, and stashed you in the nearest broom cupboard. Since no one else was back from dinner yet it was easy for her to sneak into the Gryffindor dormitories and take Harry into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom…unobserved!"
"What will happen to Eris now?" asked Hermione.
"She is of age," said Dumbledore, "so she will go to Azkaban."
"Good riddance," said Ron. "Pity the dementors aren't there anymore." Dumbledore gave Ron a stern look, but said nothing, and Ron said nothing more.
"Professor, there's still one thing I don't understand," said Harry.
"One thing?" Dumbledore asked with a smile.
"Was Eris really Voldemort's daughter?"
Dumbledore sighed. "Harry, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Eris honestly believes that Voldemort is her father, so it is true for her. Whether it is true in fact, we may never know."
"But sir," Harry continued, "even if her story were true, how could she possibly know about it?"
"As you know, Harry," said Dumbledore, "a witch or wizard can be gifted with Sight. It is a rare gift, but it does occur. The Sight allows some to See into the future, but others can See into the past. Eris may be one such Seer."
"But Professor," Harry said, "you once told me that Voldemort was the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin. Well, first you told me he was the last remaining ancestor, but that didn't make sense, so--"
"Harry," said Dumbledore with a sigh, "I am old. I am wise…ish. But I'm not always right."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another in dismay. They were old enough and had experienced enough during their time at Hogwarts to know that nobody, not even Dumbledore, was all-knowing or immune to making mistakes. But they were still young enough to feel disappointed and slightly betrayed when someone they looked up to, like Dumbledore, revealed his human limitations.
Hermione leaned back in her armchair and sighed melodramatically. "We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life."
†††