During the war, there were a lot of people on the wrong side who loved the Cruciatus Curse. They liked the way that their cruelty masqueraded as strength of will when their chosen victim screamed, and they liked the way that it didn't leave marks.

But the Carrows had always favored discipline that drew blood.

Alecto had always had her wand out. She pointed with it. She gestured with it. She mimed casting curses as she talked about "those filthy Mudbloods" (or just "vermin" - she'd liked that even more, because it made her feel clever as well as cruel). Sometimes she cast spells while she did so, and whoever was in her path would feel a sudden sting on their shoulders or calves (or face, especially if you were both pretty and a half-blood). Sometimes she didn't. It was impossible to tell until someone sucked in a gasp.

It was never clear whether an audible reaction irritated her or thrilled her. Sometimes, it seemed like it was both. You were damned if you were stoic, and you were damned if you cried out.

There was really only so much any of us could do to control our reactions, anyway. It hurt. Reacting to that wasn't voluntary.

I was lucky I was pureblood, I suppose, and that my parents were blood traitor sympathizers rather than Weasleys or Longbottoms. One of the girls I shared the fifth year Ravenclaw girls' dormitory with wasn't so lucky. They didn't actually kill her, but she'll probably never leave St. Mungo's.

Of course, she's in good company. Apparently they're expanding the long-term care wing again. There are too many people who still aren't in any position to leave.

I hadn't walked away unscathed, of course. I've never been good at keeping my mouth shut, and they had a tendency to throw comments about my blood traitor brother around when they thought I needed to be intimidated. Since I love my brother, it didn't have quite the effect they were looking for.

And so I ended up on the receiving end of Alecto Carrow's curses more often than most purebloods would have. I learned early that if I hugged my arms around myself, just as a rule, I'd be more likely to avoid having my shirt shredded, and if she ruined your clothes, she made you just... sit there. Even if it was cold. Even if you were a girl.

There are still ugly red scars criss-crossing the outside of my arms, but at least I never had the experience of shivering in that ice-cold classroom with my chest on full display to everyone who cared to look.

The scars are worth it.

And I'd always said that the scars were enough, and that I wouldn't add to them like some of the people I knew in school had started doing. The Carrows had already tortured me. Why would I do it to myself?

After going through another cluster of nightmares, though, I'd decided that digging my nails into my arms wasn't much different than taking a knife to them.

I was wrong. It was different. It was just different in the wrong direction, and that had made it much harder to stop.

It's not that what I was doing was causing me serious injury. I'd had much worse. They were just scratches. It's just that when you've gotten to the point where you're scraping layer by layer of your own skin off and feeling that strange, undefinable, toxic sense of relief as it starts to sting and the thing red line of blood becomes more pronounced...

I mean, you're really not in a good place.

And that was a line I'd said I'd never cross, and now I kept crossing it, and that should still mean something.

So I sat with myself for a little while, rehearsed my request in front of the mirror, and then trudged up the stairs that led from my little flat to my brother's kitchen. Thankfully, he was alone at the table, adding sugar to his coffee. Judging from the lack of footsteps overhead, I suspected that my sister-in-law had already left with their son and daughter for the day.

That was really just as well. I didn't need witnesses for this.

"I want you to teach me how to throw off the Imperius Curse," I told him without preamble.

Brendon's eyes went from his coffee cup to me, and he put the sugar down. "Good morning to you, too."

I crossed my arms. He didn't ask me to repeat myself - he never did. I knew he'd heard me.

"Why now?" he asked after a very long pause. Something in his delivery made me hesitate, and he sighed. "Sit down," he told me, jerking his head toward the chair across from him.

I tried to read his face as I settled into the chair. It was carefully neutral - his eyebrows were drawn together just enough to convey polite interest without suggesting significant concern, even though I'd just asked for something fairly outlandish.

He took a sip of coffee, and I realized that he wasn't going to say anything else until I gave him an answer. I'd been rehearsing an answer to "why?" in the mirror for the past day; it hadn't occurred to me that he'd want to know about the timing rather than the principle.

"My nightmares aren't getting any better," I said after a moment. "And I think - I think it'll help if I know that nobody can control me like that."

He put his cup down, pushed his messy blond hair back from his face, and studied me. "I agree," he said after a moment. "But I don't know that I'm the right person to teach you."

I hadn't expected that, either.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't think that having me curse you - even to teach you - is the best way to get rid of your demons."

Realization hit me like a ton of bricks. "You know." I had a sudden urge to flee back to the relative safety of my flat, even though I knew that that wouldn't solve anything - the last thing I'd wanted was him knowing that I'd been too weak to resist the Imperius Curse when it had mattered so, so much.

He sighed. "Astoria, this is what I do, and I know you. Of course I know."

Now I was replaying that awful, awful night in my head again. My sister and I had never really been close, but I'd never been afraid of her until she'd cornered me after the evacuation order had been given. I still remembered how cold her voice had been when she'd realized that I wanted to stay and fight, how certain she'd sounded when she said that our brother was on the wrong side.

And then she'd raised her wand.

I'd realized that something was wrong by then, of course, but I didn't get my wand before she brought hers down. I'd been too trusting. I'd been a fool.

I've changed since then. I don't trust people anymore. Anyone can be a liar.

My wand is never in my pocket, either. I always have it strapped to my forearm in a sheath. If I release a catch or flick my hand in a certain way, it slides into my hand. I've practiced over and over, until I was sure I could do it right. I've practiced laying down, I've practiced standing up, and I've practiced while brushing my hair. I've even trained myself to use utensils with my other hand, and I've mostly stopped eating meat so I don't have to use both hands when I cut it.

The war was never over. Not for me.

"Why didn't you say anything?" I asked.

He leaned back in his chair. "I assumed that if you weren't telling me, it was because you weren't ready. There's no timeline on charging someone for using an Unforgivable."

I didn't point out that I had no proof that she'd done it - that the word of a damaged girl barely out of Hogwarts wouldn't convince anyone, and memories were never really reliable. People had learned that the only way you could really trust a memory was if you already trusted the person - memories can be manipulated, and once one person figures out how to do it right, how to do it convincingly, the knowledge spreads like wildfire. It's easier to learn than to invent. Most of the would-be Death Eaters at school had been shit at inventing things, but they'd been quick learners... and even though we'd been better at inventing, all the creativity in the world couldn't stop them from sometimes making us want to die because there was no way out.

I didn't point that out because if I did, he'd point out that he'd seen it, too, and his word was proof enough. My brother was knee-deep in a lot of Ministry secrets. People liked him.

And more importantly, they trusted him.

"I'm sorry," I said instead. "I - I should have been stronger."

He shook his head. "Astoria, you were fifteen. There aren't a lot of fifteen year olds who can resist the Imperius Curse."

"You could," I spat out. It was an old hurt; I'd long since lost count of how many times I'd played out the scenario in my head, imagining what he could have done in my shoes, even if he'd been fifteen. He could tell, too - there was something resembling pity in his eyes, and it hurt almost as much as the memories did.

"Maybe," he said after a moment. "Yeah. But Tori - this is what I do, and I didn't have the same psychological bullshit wearing me down for a year. There was a reason so many witches and wizards were clamoring for the Carrows to face the dementor's kiss."

I looked away from him. "Still."

He sighed. "Daphne isn't going to come bother you again, if that's what you're afraid of."

"What do you mean?"

He didn't answer right away, so I sneaked a peek at him. He was smiling, but it wasn't the pleasant smile I was used to seeing on his face. It was the smile of a predator. I didn't usually see my brother in that light; it was disconcerting, though not necessarily in a bad way.

"Let's just say we had words," he said after a moment. "And she saw the error of her ways."

"You blackmailed her, you mean."

He didn't respond to that directly, which more than anything told me that it was true. I felt like it probably shouldn't please me as much as it did, but I had limited investment in the moral high ground these days, at least when it came to Death Eater sympathizers. "I really don't know that I'm the right person to teach you," he said. "I meant that. I can talk to someone at the Ministry -"

"No!" His eyebrows shot up. "No. I - it has to be you. I don't trust other people."

He studied my face for a moment and sighed. "I'll think about it."

In the grand scheme of things, he really didn't think for very long, but when you're waiting on something that's so emotionally charged and intimidating, waiting any amount of time can drive you to madness. Consequently, I was jumping out of my skin when he knocked on my door a couple nights later and said without preamble when he reached the bottom of the stairs, "Okay. I'll teach you."

Before we started, I had to sign an affidavit that I was okay with it. The Ministry was apparently very strict about that now - they recognized the validity in teaching people how to resist the curse, but they wanted to keep very close tabs on who was using it - and how often. I had my doubts about how useful it really was - wouldn't dark wizards just not report it? - but Brendon insisted, because he had to "set a good example."

So I signed the paper.

I'd expected having the Imperius Curse cast on me to trigger flashbacks or give me panic attacks. After all, just about everything else that reminded me of Hogwarts did, at least some of the time. To my surprise, though, neither of those things happened. It was just something that was happening.

Maybe it was different because it was my brother. Maybe I was in denial and would pay the price for this eventually. Whatever was really going on in the back of my mind, though, it wasn't bothering me right now, and that's what really mattered.

Especially since actually resisting the Imperius Curse was not going well.

I've heard from other people that it can be a pleasant sort of sensation in the moment, at least until you're released from it. Then the memories of all the terrible things you were forced to do and how you lost touch of everything that made you who you were come flooding back, and you're never really the same.

I hadn't been forced to do the terrible things others under the effect of the Imperius Curse did, but even so, there'd been no part of the experience that was pleasant. There's nothing soothing about cowardice, and as the fog had permeated my limbs and made me follow my sister through the passageway, I'd been trapped inside my mind, hammering on the metaphorical walls to try and find a way out.

I hadn't been able to.

"I don't get it," I said, flopping down to sit on my couch after my fourth failed attempt. "I don't. I'm so angry, and it just isn't working."

Brendon sighed and sat down next to me. "If you're angry, that's probably the problem." I twisted around to stare at him, and he shook his head. "Tori, the easiest thing in the world to do is redirect anger. That's how people get turned into mobs - it's how genocidal maniacs rise to power. It's easy to take someone's anger and twist it to your own devices. You don't beat the Imperius Curse by being angry."

"Oh." I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my head on them. "So how do you beat it, then?"

He considered that. The room was so still that I could hear the clock ticking. "Be the immovable object rather than the unstoppable force," he said after a minute. "Beating the Imperius Curse isn't about knocking the other person down. They have the power, and you can't take it from them - you can just make it disappear. It's about planting your feet and deciding that they can't make you move. Does that make sense?"

"I think so." I bounced to my feet. "Let's try again."

I promptly forgot about his advice as soon as he waved his wand, and I tried to fight the compulsion to sit down as I'd fought the Death Eaters and the acromantulas that night, after Brendon had rescued me. As my legs bent beneath me, I tried to imagine myself as wildfire raging through a forest, burning down anything in my path. I was lightning in a thunderstorm, striking out against anyone who thought that they could control me.

I ended up on the floor, anyway.

Brendon lowered his wand. "Immovable object, Astoria," he called. "Stop trying to beat me."

I scrambled to my feet. "Immovable object," I muttered to myself. "Right." This time, when the compulsion hit me, I tried to stop myself from fighting back. Instead, I dug in my heels and tried not to move. When he told me to sit down, I didn't howl my frustration - I just tried to focus on the compulsion itself. No, I said to myself. I felt my legs start to buckle again, and I lost my composure. "No!" I shrieked as Brendon lifted the spell again.

"Do you want to stop for the day?" he asked.

"No!" I shoved myself back to my feet. "Again!"

He crossed his arms. "Remember: immovable object, not unstoppable force. Take a minute. You're too angry right now."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. He wasn't wrong about me being angry, but I'd never been good at meditating. When I'd managed some semblance of calm, I nodded to him. Don't tell me what to do, I thought to myself as he lifted his wand.

This time, when the spell hit me, my no did break through. I didn't try to push back - I put every ounce of energy I had into letting it roll off me and dissipate like smoke.

And this time, it worked.

I didn't fight off the curse perfectly, of course. After less than a minute, I wobbled and ended up falling onto my hands and knees.

But I fought it off well enough to not sit down, and that was enough. I'd practice until I got it right, but now I knew I could.

I wouldn't describe my feeling there as happy, not really. It went deeper than that. I knew deep in my bones that no one would ever be able to control me like my sister had ever again. I was satisfied. I was proud.

And that was better than happy.