Legilimency
It was almost eleven when he knocked on the door. He waited.
"Who are you?" called a female voice from inside.
"It's me – Gracchus!" Harry called out. His voice was similar to Barclay's. Through a closed door, she would not perceive the difference. "Sorry to bother you so late, but it's important."
A moment later Richardson stood in front of him in her dressing-gown with the wand in her hand. "Hello?" she asked, confused, as she saw nobody.
"Expelliarmus!" whispered Harry under his cloak. Meredith was thrown off her feet, dropping her wand that rolled across the floor.
"Silencio!", he said before she could scream, and "Impedimenta!", immobilised her. Harry dragged the teacher into her flat, closed the door behind her and laid her on the sofa.
First, he lifted the Impediment Jinx and immediately commanded: "Imperio!"
Harry hated the Imperius Curse. The Imperius belonged to Dark Magic, a type of magic that hurts the soul of its user. The feeling of power associated with it can be addictive like a drug. Whoever falls prey to it will gradually lose his soul to the Evil. This was the reason why Harry had refused to teach the Incorruptibles the Imperius. As an Auror, he had sometimes had to use it or to order its use, but Aurors had been intensively trained to close their souls against its seductive intoxication. Nevertheless, Harry had always been careful not to let the same Auror practise it twice in a row. Today, however, he had no choice. He first had to find out whether Richardson was under the Curse.
If two Imperius curses are cast on the same person, the first remains active, while the second has no effect. The procedure for Aurors to find out if someone is under the Imperius is therefore to first cast a second Imperius on them. If this fails, the person is almost certainly already under the curse.
"Who are you? Where are you? How dare you?" said Richardson indignantly while she struggled to her feet.
"Do ten squats!" ordered Harry.
"I'll be blowed if I'll do it," cried Richardson, looking around for her wand.
"Impedimenta!" commanded Harry, and the teacher slumped back on the sofa, paralysed.
He now knew the most important thing: that Richardson was indeed under the Imperius Curse. The other two questions were who had bewitched her and whether she was the person who had attacked the Muggle-born students.
He bent over the teacher who was still stiffly lying on her sofa and looked in her eyes in order to penetrate her mind and memories. Legilimency is a particularly degrading method for the victim, and it was one of the disciplines he had always had a healthy aversion to. In the ministry, some called him a softie – though a successful one – because he always tried to reach his goals with the softest means possible. But if it was necessary – like today – Harry, too, could act brutally. He wasn't particularly skilled in Legilimency, but it would do for Richardson, who had never been trained in the defensive counter-technique of Occlumency.
He let her memories of the last few months pass him by like a fast-forwarding film: her arrival at Hogwarts, the feast, the lessons, the trouble with Roy, the recurring daily routines ... Suddenly he stopped, stepped back for a moment. Richardson is sitting at breakfast, the owls bring the mail, suddenly the memories become blurred, then quite clear again. That moment had been wiped by a Memory Charm. Harry let the memory film run on a little slower: At lunchtime, Richardson is leaving the school grounds – and again, the film is interrupted. About an hour of her memories are missing. Then she is back in front of the Hogwarts front door, walking inside.
Harry followed her memories day by day. There! Richardson makes herself invisible, roams the corridors, a student turns up, Harry hears her say "Petrificus totalus!", and when the student is falling over, she goes back to her flat to make herself visible again. The same happens two more times, each time a few days apart. Again a few days later, it must be evening: Once again Richardson is invisible, a student is walking through one of the Hogwarts corridors, Harry is perceiving a flash of red light, coming from Richardson – that's the Stunning Spell. Harry is watching the teacher checking wands with her colleagues. When she has finished, she gets up to leave the school grounds, and Apparates to the editorial office of the Daily Prophet...
Harry had seen enough. The one-hour gap had to contain the wiped memory of how the Imperius Curse was cast. And this curse couldn't have come from Cesar Anderson. An expert like Cesar wouldn't only have wiped the moment of the Imperius curse with a Memory Charm, but would have replaced it with an alternative memory and also ensured that all memories of acts committed under the Imperius would have been immediately wiped when anyone attempted to read her memory. Hermione – she was the only person who could have practically done it – had handled the Imperius Curse and the Memory Charm virtuously enough that nothing could be proven against her, but she couldn't know the trick with the conditioned memory wiping; which was one of the tricks of the Aurors and their smartest adversaries. It was interesting that she had not asked Cesar to do it. Not even he enjoyed her unconditional trust ...
"Antimperi!" he now spoke the anti-Imperius formula, which he used to lift Hermione's Imperius curse, and then again immediately afterwards:
"Imperio! You will behave quietly now when I am lifting the Impediment Jinx.
He waved his wand, Richardson sat up.
"This Imperius Curse is valid for six months from now, then it ends automatically. If you are summoned to the Ministry, go there. If the Minister for Magic or Cesar Anderson give you new orders without casting a new Imperius Curse, you will pretend to obey them in their presence, but otherwise ignore the orders. You will report to Roy MacAllister what they ordered you to do and who ordered it. Afterwards, you forget that you reported it and to whom. If the Minister or Anderson try to put a new Imperius Curse on you, you will not obey them and you will not pretend to, but you will keep pretending to obey the old. Do you understand me?" Richardson nodded. "Were you already in bed when I knocked on your door?"
"Yes I were," said Richardson.
"OK," said Harry. "With the following Amnesia Charm, everything that has happened disappears from your memory, starting from the moment when you went to sleep earlier until you wake up tomorrow morning. When I have cast this spell, go back to sleep."
Richardson nodded, still dazed.
"Amnesia!"
Like in a trance, Richardson got up and went into her bedroom. Harry heard her bed creak as she laid down. He looked at the Marauder's Map to make sure he could safely leave. Still under the Invisibility Cloak, he left the teacher's flat.
While walking to the secret room of the Incorruptibles to Disapparate with Ginny, he breathed a sigh of relief. Tomorrow he would tell the Incorruptibles that Richardson was no longer a threat, but still recommend that they support Barclay's security measures in case another Ministry agent was around.
Everything had gone like clockwork. Barclay wouldn't notice any change in Meredith Richardson's behaviour, so he wouldn't suspect him of having done exactly what he had dismissed as a mere theoretical possibility just an hour ago. Hermione would not find out that the Imperius Curse Richardson was now under was no longer her own. If she issued new orders, she would not immediately realise that they had not been carried out. It would take her a while to notice that her puppet no longer worked, at least two months ...