Tresodor Sulphangel
"What I found is more than I had expected," said Roy, turning a small leather pouch upside down, from which a round dozen tiny booklets, each barely bigger than a cough sweet, fell onto the table. "However, I don't know what they are good for yet. We have to read them first."
The other Incorruptibles, sitting together in their secret room, stared at the books that looked as if they belonged to the furnishings of a doll's house, then at Roy.
"Are you sure they are readable?" asked Orpheus.
Roy looked around a little pityingly.
"Did you expect me to read them all in the library or to drag half a shelf with me? I first duplicated them with Geminio without taking them off the shelf. That way I bypassed Pince's protection enchantment."
The aged Madam Pince was still Hogwarts' librarian and known for defending her books, especially those in the Restricted Section, like a lioness would defend her cubs.
"Then I shrinked the duplicates with Reducio and took them with me. The original volumes are still untouched on the shelf."
He drew his wand and touched each of the books, whispering "Engorgio" each time. Twelve books now lay on the table in the secret Room, a few of which were more or less big volumes, whereas others were rather unimpressive to unsightly. Some were visibly old and had been read often, despite the fact that it was hard to get access to books from the Forbidden Section, others seemed untouched.
They inspected the books: "Imperius" by Thomas Barning, a tome, at least a hundred years old, but still the standard work on the subject. "Control Spells. A Practical Guide" covered almost every type of manipulation spell up to love potions. The others were "Introduction to Dark Magic", "Manual of Auror Training, Volume IV, Soul Control Spells and Protective Measures", "Advanced Occlumency", "New Methods of Control and Manipulation", "Beyond the Imperius Curse", "Soul Control", "The Dark Arts in a New Light", "Hostile Takeover", "Soul Parasites and How to Protect Yourself from Them" and finally "The Dark Lord's Secret: A New Control Spell".
"Everyone takes two or three books to read across first to see if they find anything interesting," Roy suggested. "Then you switch with each other so that each book is examined by at least four eyes. We're looking for spells that someone else might have cast at Hermie as well as for any kind of Magic we ourselves could use to control her."
They kept reading for two hours. Most of the books taught pretty much exactly what Aurel Mercey had told Harry a few hours earlier. They themselves couldn't use such spells, if only because they were humans of flesh and blood. On the other hand, finding a counter-curse against the potential spell of a non-corporeal being, whatever this might be, turned out to be impossible. Roy read across like the others and then swapped the books with Ares.
"The Dark Lord's Secret: A New Control Spell" was the last book he flipped open. It seemed to be the newest one, apparently no one had borrowed it at all, and it looked the least promising: an unimpressive paperback, a brochure rather than a book, with barely sixty pages and of poor print quality. There was no bibliography, as Roy noted disappointedly, for he liked to exploit such bibliographies, especially in newly published books, for further research. There were not even any publishing details, no place or year of publication. Apparently self-published by the author. "By Tresodor Sulphangel" was written on the cover. And on the first inside page a printed dedication: "For my grandson".
"Good Madam Pince must have been desperately looking for ways to spend her purchasing budget," Roy grumbled. "Does anyone know the name Tresodor Sulp-hangel?" he asked his friends, who looked up puzzled and shook their heads. "Me neither," he muttered and began to read the introduction:
Since the Dark Lord has died, his defeaters have indulged in a thoughtless sense of triumph. It is true that hardly a day goes by without high-ranking representatives of the wizarding world declaring that they will learn from history and that there must not and will never be another Voldemort. If this intention could be taken seriously, nothing would suggest itself more than the need to study this man's methods, and in particular to examine how he was able to find thousands of supporters ready to die for him. However, to the Ministers for Magic who have succeeded each other since, the problem seemed to be limited to fighting 'Death Eaters ideas'. A fanatic and Death Eater is something you become by reading the wrong books, such is the crude logic behind this approach.
In fact, the Dark Lord used sophisticated magical methods to subdue the minds and souls of each and every one of his supporters, and these methods can, in principle, be used by any rulers or criminals, regardless of the ideological ideas or pretexts to which they may publicly refer. They are all the more dangerous the less they are known and therefore the less they are expected to be used.
I myself was one of Voldemort's followers, belonged to the leading inner circle of the Death Eaters and have been living underground since the Dark Lord's death. Under these circumstances, I hope the interested reader will forgive me that I cannot tell him my real name, but nonetheless have to ask him to trust me. I myself was subjected to the Dark Lord's manipulation techniques and loyally carried out all his orders. His control of my mind and will ended only with his death, but even then it took me several years to see through the techniques he had used to dominate me, and even longer to understand the flaws he had exploited. To a greater or lesser degree, these flaws are present in the soul of every human being, and this is why they are so dangerous.
With this book, I would like to make a small contribution to raising awareness and arming those people who distrust the Ministry's ideological tranquillisers as much as they distrust the Ministry itself.
Tresodor Sulphangel, July 2010
It was the last sentence that particularly appealed to Roy: With his special speed-reading technique, he quickly skimmed the narrow volume.