"This is not a good year," said Enrico when Al and Scorpius told him and Vern about what had happened. "Your parents must be going crazy with an injury in the family every month."

"Do you think there's something wrong with so many injuries? I mean, there have always been plenty at Hogwarts," Al asked.

Enrico shrugged. "I just say it's strange that there are so many within your family."

Al looked at Scorpius and Vern questioningly. "He's right," said the Malfoy heir, "it's odd that your family gets hurt so often. We should look into it." Knowing Scorpius he was not going to give up before he knew whether there was anybody to blame for Rose's injury.

"Look into it?" echoed Vern. "Don't you think we should tell Professor Slope if we have a suspicion?"

"We have a mere feeling that something could be amiss," Scorpius scrambled under his blanket, "that's not enough to go to Professor Slope."

The boys spent the next weeks making a list who had been injured, when, where and who had been present. There was no pattern behind the accidents they could see. It was nearly Easter when Al told the boys about Dad's injury. (He still didn't feel good about telling them the ministry's head auror had been injured by one of his children.)

"You held that information back?" cried Scorpius. "Are you mad?"

"I don't think it's that important," Al said defensively. They were sitting near the lake, watching the squid play with a ball somebody had thrown into the water.

"Not that important?" Scorpius gaped at him as if he had sprouted an extra nose. "With one piece of information you got our number of suspects down to two! Whoever is behind the attacks, it's either you or James!"

"I know it's not me and I really don't think James would injure anybody on purpose," Al defended his brother.

"Not on purpose!" agreed Scorpius. "What if one of you is under Imperius or something?"

Enrico looked up from the book he was reading; he was still catching up in some subjects. "But Al and Scorpius were both hurt!"

"They could have hurt themselves to look unsuspicious. Al, we need to find out how to detect Imperius!"

Al snorted. "Yes," he said sarcastically, "why don't we go to the library and tell Madam Pince that we want to study unforgivables? I'm going to meet Circe." He got up and set out for the castle.

"Oh yes, go and snog Circe when we need your help," cried Scorpius.

"Leave him be," said Vern. "If he's under Imperius, he may have order not to help finding out about it."

Scorpius had to admit that this made sense.

-x-

It's needless to point out that the boys had not the slightest chance of getting any book on the unforgivable curses from the school library. When they tried to even find out where they were kept, Madam Pince looked at Scorpius suspiciously and asked "How do you know there are Unforgivables?" She said 'you' in the same tone people usually use to describe their kitchen garbage or to tell how they stepped into dog muck wearing their favourite shoes.

Scorpius blushed crimson. It was hard to be reminded that Malfoys still were not trusted, especially since he himself had never given Madame Pince a reason to think but the best of him. He was a diligent and hard working student!

"My father told me about them. He's an auror," Al came to his friend's aid.

"Of course he would know," smiled Madame Pince. "I'm sorry, dears, the books you are asking for are out of bounds for all students under the age of 15."

"Thank you, Madame," said Al and led Scorpius away by his elbow. The blond was seething with anger. "Did you hear that!" he cried when the door had closed on them. "She treats me like a criminal and you are 'dear' when you ask the same!"

"I heard her," Al acknowledged, "and I know it is unjust, but I'm afraid we won't be able to change it now. Better try and think what we can do! Shall we ask Bertram?"

"I'd rather not," Scorpius shook his head as he lead the way back down to the dungeons. "What if you're really under Imperius? Everybody would mistrust you!"

"You're right," sighed Al. "So what can we do?"

"I'm sure the Malfoy library holds plenty of texts on, ah, spells." Scorpius ducked as if he expected Al to lash out at him for admitting it.

"I can ask Dad," offered Al.

"We have to be careful," said Scorpius. "What if Vern is right and you are under Imperius to not find out about being under Imperius?"

"I feel like myself," Al pointed out stubbornly.

The blond shrugged. "I don't know whether a victim of Imperius would know being under the spell. You know what? I ask Father about how to recognize Imperius and you ask yours about how the victim feels."

They did as Scorpius had suggested over the Easter holidays. Dad glared at Al suspiciously. "Who told you about Imperius?" he asked.

"Uhm, some older students were discussing their defence homework in the common room. They seemed to know quite a bit about it, but they did not know whether the victim realised they were under a spell. The NEWT students ended up quarrelling," lied Al. He was certainly not going to tell the head auror that practically every Slytherin knew about the Unforgivables from a young age. Many Slytherin students had deatheater relatives and, according to Scorpius, you could not discuss the past without mentioning the most terrible curses wizardkind knew.

"I see," said Dad. "Well, I was under Imperius repeatedly when we had that deatheater professor," (Al gasped), "and I always knew that I was under a spell. But then I was the only one who could throw the curse off. You'd have to ask Uncle Ron or Auntie Mione."

Al did so at Gran Molly's Easter party and was told off for bringing up such a dark topic at a merry family gathering by Auntie Mione and informed that, no, you could not tell you were under a spell by Uncle Ron.

"What is this about?" asked James as he stepped beside his younger brother. Auntie Mione was slapping Uncle Ron pseudo-playfully. She tried to make it look like harmless bickering, but Al could tell she wanted to hex Uncle Ron. "Yes," echoed Rose. "What has Dad done now?" She watched her father hide behind Uncle Charlie. The dragon tamer laughed and stepped aside to let Auntie Mione get her victim.

"Did he steal the cake?" Hugo sounded worried.

"No," Al smiled at his younger cousin. "He told me about magic she thinks I'm too young for."

"What magic?" Hugo asked curiously.

Al snickered. "I'm a Slytherin! Do you really think I'd tell you? If she thinks I'm too young, she certainly doesn't want you to know! She'd have my hide if I told you!"

James laughed good-naturedly. "Were you in Gryffindor, you couldn't wait to tell us."

Al shrugged. "Were I in Gryffindor, I probably hadn't found out a thing from Uncle Ron and there'd be nothing to tell." He grinned cheekily at his brother.

"Are you saying we're dumb?" roared James.

Al laughed and ran. The children chased each other around the orchard until Gran Molly called them to the meal.

-x-

"Dad would not let me take the book to school," growled Scorpius right after he had sat down beside Al on the Hogwarts Express.

"He let you look at it?" asked Al.

Scorpius nodded. "I tried a Duplication charm. It set an alarm off. Dad nearly ripped my head off, but," he grinned, "I think he was quite proud I could do that charm. Grandfather showed me how to do it properly, but by that time, Dad had spelled half the library so that I could not even touch the books."

"But you looked at it? What do you remember?" Al insisted eagerly.

Scorpius pulled a small booklet out of his pocket. It was bound in bluish leather and a delicate silver pattern covered the spine. It looked very expensive. "Grandfather's Easter present. He says eggs are for the plebs." The blond blushed when he realised that Al had probably got tons of Easter eggs. "He's a bit snobbish," he added in a small voice.

"I'm sure they have your grandfather's picture beside 'snobbish' in the dictionary," agreed Al. "What did you find out?"

"Actually his picture is beside 'pureblood'," snorted Scorpius and Al was not sure whether the blond was joking. "Here!" Al noticed that the blond had to press his index finger on one of the small silver circles on the book's spine before the pages would fall open. Scorpius had covered several pages in his neat, small handwriting. The colour of the ink matched the leather.

Al gasped. Scorpius had noted down not only the incantations for all three Unforgivables, but also the wand movement, or rather the fact that there was no particular one. All you had to do, was point your wand, speak the words and really mean them. Any idiot, the boy realised, could cast an Unforgivable as long as he was hateful enough.

The booklet was snapped closed when the compartement door slid open. Vern and Enrico came in with the girls in tow. Scorpius stuffed it back into his pocket and nudged Al gently to make room beside him for Rose. Al didn't need to be told. He rather wanted to sit with Circe than with Scorpius anyway.

It would have been nice to reacquaint themselves with the girls properly, but the compartment was simply too public. So all Al got was a peck on his lips as a greeting and then all he was allowed was hold Circe's hand. Vern left shortly after the train had left London to find Juliet and Enrico left not much later, muttering something about being an odd man; Al didn't really listen.

When the train arrived at Hogsmeade Enrico was spotted with Vern and Juliet, holding a blonde Ravenclaw girl's hand.

-x-

The teachers were putting the students through their paces after Easter. The exams were drawing nearer and every teacher seemed to think they had to excel in his or her particular subject. It was May before Al and Scorpius found time to study the bluish booklet again. There was a lot of information in it, but it didn't tell how to recognise whether a person was under Imperius.

"We need somebody who knows about Unforgivables and doesn't care that we are too young to study them," said Scorpius.

Al rested his chin on his hand. "I don't know who we could ask. We'd need somebody ruthless. In my family they are all noble Gryffindors."

Scorpius nodded. "I know." Suddenly he smiled. He pointed at Al's chest. "You know one Slytherin! An ex-deatheater!"

First Al didn't understand, but then he grinned as well. "Severus!"

-x-

Al called ('Vocate!') his namesake the next evening. Scorpius kept Vern and Enrico occupied at the Common Room to make sure Al could interview the former headmaster undisturbed. Severus Snape appeared at once.

"Al," he said kindly. "What have you been up to? I haven't heard from you for a while."

Al smiled. "You could have come to me whenever you want," he reminded the portrait in his silver locket. "I wore the locket all the time."

Tiny Snape made a dismissive gesture. "You're a young boy. You don't need a murky painting pestering you."

"I like our conversations!" protested Al. "And you are not murky!"

Snape snickered. "I've been called worse and most of the time they were right. Why did you call me?"

Al explained their problem. He tried not to sound too interested.

"You think your brother is under Imperius?" asked Snape when Al had finished his explanation. "Why didn't you go to a teacher?"

Al looked at the portrait from under his lashes. "We, uhm, we were not sure whether it wasn't I who was under Imperius. If you know a spell or something, Scorpius will try it on me first."

"You should go to your Head of House!" insisted Snape. "And there is no spell. That's why so many deatheaters claimed they had been imperiussed after the first war, because there is no way to prove that they were or were not."

"Is there any other way than a spell?"

"Hm, I never tried it, but I guess Legilimency could tell. It's not a very common ability though," mused Snape. "And it would take you years to master it even if you had the aptitude. – And if it runs in the blood there's no way that you have any talent for mind magic."

"Are you insulting Dad again?" snapped Al. Snape and Dad got along better since Snape's portrait had spent some time with the Potters, but the truce was rather fragile.

"I'm sorry if it sounded insulting," the portrait said earnestly. "I only wanted to point out that your father has many talents, but mind magic is not one of them."

"So we cannot find out whether any of us is under Imperius," Al mused, resigned.

"Not that, but you may be able to find out whether you are not," said Snape. "There is a spell to prove that you were not touched by mind magic. You can't prove that your suspicion is right, but you can prove if it's wrong."

The spell was complicated. It was not the incantation (Voluntatem revelatum!), but the wand movement was certainly the most complicated Al had ever tried. The spell didn't distinguish between mind spells, it only showed whether a person had been subjected to any, be it Imperius, Obliviate or Amnesia; and, Snape warned him, it made no difference between spells used yesterday or ten years ago. It just told whether your mind had been touched by magic.

Al had to practice for two weeks and to call Snape thrice more. The former headmaster agreed that Scorpius learned the spell, too, in order to enable him to test Al. The boys worked hard on the new spell although they had lots of regular work to do. After two weeks, they finally succeeded to test each other. Al called Snape immediately. They performed the spell again and the portrait confirmed they had done it correctly. A soft green halo appeared around both boys and Snape explained that that meant their minds were untouched by magic. If it were different, the halo would be lavender.

-x-

Al could hardly wait to cast the spell on James. He hated suspecting his brother of hurting the family. It would be a relief to finally know for sure, no matter what the result. Nevertheless the boys didn't hurry. They had to get James alone, or everybody else would be in danger if James was under a spell that ordered him to fight if he was found out.

The opportunity arose only during the last week of the school year. James was sitting near Hagrid's hut, resting against a rock with a huge tome open in his lap.

"I'll go to him and cast the spell, you stay behind as backup," said Scorpius.

Al shook his head. "I'll do it. I'm his brother, he trusts me. I'm not sure what he'll do if you point a wand at him."

Scorpius nodded. "You're right. I'll be the backup."

Al waited until Scorpius had gone a small way to the side so that he was no longer in James's plain view before he made his presence known to his brother.

"James," he cried with fake merriment. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" James sounded a little irritated. "I have to revise Herbology! I think I mixed up tulip leaves and hellabore in Potions! Mum will kill me if I don't get decent marks. It's my OWL year next year!"

"Tulip leaves and hellabore? Now, that's bad luck!" Not that that had ever happened to Al. The two plants were different enough in their shape, smell and properties. "I guess you were distracted? What happened?" Al sat beside James.

"I had a row with Annabelle the other day."

"Annabelle? I thought you haven't been seeing her since your first year?"

James glared at Al angrily. "Thanks to you, Lily knows about Annabelle and she gossiped about it at the common room! Annabelle didn't find it funny! She thought I had bragged!"

"I'm sorry to hear that. I thought Lily'd know better than go and gossip family secrets," Al replied earnestly.

James snorted. "It's not exactly a family secret."

"But it is!" protested the younger Potter brother. "She shouldn't have told! There's a difference whether I tease you or make you the laughing stock of your house! – Did she tell about the part where you were caught?"

"Of course. Nobody knew until then who had lost those points. What are you doing out here, little brother? Don't you have to study? What exam is your next?"

"History of Magic; and if I have to remember one more goblin name, my head will explode," Al grinned lopsidedly. "I found a new spell. May I show you?"

James nodded and closed the book. "Woah! Wait a minute!" he cried when Al pointed his wand at him. "What does it do?"

"It gives everybody a glowing aura," lied Al. He'd have to cast the spell on a larger area or James would be suspicious, but then maybe this was a good idea. That way James would never learn what Al had actually done if it turned out that James was innocent. Al waved his wand.

James glowed the same green as Al.

"That's nice," said the older Potter. He admired his arms. "Though a bit complicated for that little effect, don't you think?"

"That's what I was thinking," agreed Al. He could have danced with happiness. James was not the one who had hurt the family! His brother had not been made the tool of some crazy evil-doer.

"Oh look!" continued James. "It's different for girls!"

Al turned around and paled. Lily was approaching them. And she was glowing lavender.