Chapter 42: Cause I've got to be free

9th September, 1994

"How close are you?"

Lysander had come to dread hearing those words. He usually had nothing more to show Tom than a minor improvement, but today – today he'd had a breakthrough.

Nariyah had been more helpful than he had perhaps allowed her to know before she had left for Hogwarts. Her careful deconstruction of his step-by-step process had allowed him to develop a new strategy. She had been correct when she'd guessed that using magic to summon the animals had led to transmuting the extra energy into the body. He didn't know why, or how, but it worked, and that was all that mattered.

So, Lysander began his experiments on magical creatures. Kneazles, trained post owls, familiars. And sure enough, their imbued magic meant that when he transferred their souls over to a standard animal, they lasted fifteen minutes before dying.

So, it stood to reason that if he transferred the soul of one magical animal into another…they would be safer.

And they were. The animals lasted for half a day before they died. From five minutes to half a day of life – the animals still died, but it was progress!

"The only problem is that every time it happens, something is lost between transfers," Lysander said. The spell was finished, and in the second circle was a small owl, stolen mid transit from Diagon Alley when he had taken Theo to collect his supplies.

The owl was scared, quiet and shivering, but he had cast the spell over an hour ago, and it was still alive. Lysander felt hope blossoming in his chest. For the first time in what must have been months, he saw the end of the tunnel.

"They only live for a maximum of eight hours," Tom said.

"Yes, but I believe that is a product of not having enough magic. If a greater source of magic is used at either end – which would be the case for a human being – then there may be enough to protect the soul," Lysander said with excitement.

"Explain," Tom ordered.

"The animal receiving the soul seems to need the same amount of ambient magic for them to stay alive. If possible, the more magic, the better. I'm unsure why this is – it would need more research – but every time I've placed an animal with 'less magic' together with one with more, they die faster."

"So excess magic keeps the soul safe in transience?" Tom asked.

Lysander nodded enthusiastically. "Yes."

"I assume protection spells and runes haven't worked," he said.

"No," Lysander responded. Spells and runes needed more to hold onto. When cast on animals, spells only worked sometimes. Runes and wards had the potential to offer more protection, but if they weren't working in the alchemic circles, then he doubted they would work on the animals at all.

"As I said," Lysander continued, "animals do not have enough of their own generated magic. And something is always lost. Perhaps sight, movement, hearing – something."

"What did this one lose? Tom asked, curiously.

"A moment, please." He never knew until he ran a diagnostic charm. "It seems…nothing has been lost."

That had never occurred before. It was always something.

"Keep experimenting. It's unlikely nothing has been lost if the pattern has been so consistent." Tom turned to him with a smile. "Well done, Lysander. It's a step in the right direction. Now, if you can have this done by Christmas, that would be grand."

Lysander felt light headed as the blood drained from his head. It had taken months to get to this stage already. But there was no use in arguing.

Lysander nodded. "Of course, my Lord."

"Good. Perhaps it's time to move onto bigger, more magically generating beings. House Elves might be good, since you're so opposed to murder."

He nodded again.

It didn't take long for the bile churning in his gut to move upwards and out of his mouth when Tom left. He didn't want to kill – not any more than he already had to. But a house elf was better than a human, and he wouldn't be able to use Muggles anymore. If they had no magic, it would be pointless bloodshed to try.

He cleared up the mess and took out the bottle of firewhiskey he'd started keeping in a drawer. Unscrewing the bottle, he took a long gulp, letting the taste burn away the acid on his tongue. It wasn't a good idea, but it was the only way he could prepare himself for what he would need to do.

The owl hooted quietly.

Lysander's eyes focused on it, and for a moment he felt pure rage. Why had it worked? Why was this little creature sitting there, alive and well, and not burned from the inside out like all the others?!

If it hadn't worked, Lysander wouldn't need to move on to something else.

"Fuck you!" he yelled. He threw the bottle at the owl, expecting it to fly away. But it didn't. The bird flapped its wings in time to have moved off, but it didn't move. The bottle hit the outstretched wing instead, and broke it.

Lysander moved closer, trying to see it clearly. He hadn't wanted that to happen. He hadn't wanted to do that.

Once he'd healed the break, he picked the bird up gently and brought it to the window. "The least I can do is let you go," he said.

But the owl just stood there. It flapped its wings a few times, but didn't leave. Lysander moved forwards suddenly, to startle it, and the owl hopped forwards, falling off the window sill.

Lysander looked out of the window in confusion. The owl couldn't fly.

10th September 1994

Halley hurried to her seat later than she would have liked. Professor Moody hadn't started the class yet, but he was at the front and her arrival had everyone - Gryffindors and Slytherins alike - looking at her. Including Moody, with his horrid, rolling glass eye.

"Where were you?" Parkinson asked.

There wasn't time to answer.

"You can put those away," Professor Moody growled, sitting down at his desk. "You won't be needing those books."

Collectively, the class closed their copies of The Dark Forces; A Guide to Self Protection and waited anxiously. This was their first class with Moody, and the buzz about him had been as strong as the excitement over the Triwizard schools coming next week.

Moody took out a register, shook his long, fried hair out of his scarred face, and began taking names. While his normal eye moved down the list steadily, his magical eye swivelled around his head, fixing on the students as they answered their name. It left a queasy feeling in Halley's stomach.

When he was finished, he slammed the book shut. "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about your class. You've covered enough about dark creatures, but you're behind on dealing with curses," he said.

The class murmured a collective 'yes' quietly.

"I'm here to bring you up to scratch on what wizards can do to each other. I've got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark -"

"Aren't you staying?" Weasley blurted out.

Halley looked at him. It was the first time she'd really noticed Weasley - any of them for that matter. He looked so angry that Moody wasn't staying. Like it was some personal betrayal of his.

Moody looked at Weasley for a long minute, and then smiled. It was the first time Halley had seen him smile in all the time he'd been there, but it wasn't pleasant to look at. It made the scarred face contort into something nightmarish - pulling at skin that already looked too stretched as it was.

"Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" he said. "Your father got me out of a very tight corner a few years ago. I heard what happened to your sister. I'm sorry for your loss."

Weasley went red, and if possible, looked even angrier. Halley could see him practically shaking in his seat, his hands clenched so white she wondered if any blood was getting to them at all. And she knew that, if she was in his line of sight, Weasley would attack her.

They all still believed she was why their sister had died. Why the twins were now being held a year back. Why their family was filled with despair.

Some of it was true. Some of it was her fault. But not anymore than theirs.

"Yeah," Moody said. "I'm staying just the one year. A special favour to Dumbledore…then back to my retirement." He laughed, harshly, and then clapped his stubby hands together. "So - straight into it. Curses. According to your Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you counter curses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year. You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then.

"But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves. He reckons you can cope, and I say the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you isn't going to tell you what he's about to do. He's not going to do it nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, when I'm talking."

Brown jumped from the shock. Apparently, Moody's eye could see through the wood of the desk, as well as from the back of his head.

"So, which of you know the curses that are most heavily punished by law?" he asked, his eye sill fixed on Brown, who now was appropriately abashed in her seat.

Halley kept her head down, not wanting to be called on. From beside her, Parkinson raised her hand to answer. A lot of people did.

Moody pointed to Weasley.

"The Imperious curse," he said firmly.

"Good. The Ministry had a lot of trouble with that one at one time. Years back, a lot of witches and wizards said they were being controlled by the Imperious Curse. It was some bob for the Ministry trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own accord."

It wasn't hard to guess that Moody was talking about Voldemort's rise to power. Halley wondered if there would be an influx of people claiming the same thing if they were caught from the Quidditch World Cup.

"What does it do?" Moody asked Weasley. As he asked, he got up onto his feet heavily, and opened his desk drawer and took out a glass jar.

Three large spiders were locked into the jar, scuttling over each other. Halley tensed, immediately, feeling herself get cold as she saw them.

"They -" Weasley swallowed. "It - it makes the person under have no control over themselves," he said.

"Total control," Moody said, reaching into the jar. He caught a spider and held it in the palm of his hand so they could all see it visibly. The spider tried to scuttle out of his hand, but Moody pointed his wand at it and spoke the spell so quickly, Halley barely heard it. "Imperio."

It sounded familiar to her.

The spider froze, and then leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a backflip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance. Everyone laughed. Except Moody.

He was looking at the spider with interest, watching it dance and jive to the beat of his command. Then, Halley blinked, and it was like he snapped out of it.

"Do you think that's funny?" he growled. "What if I did that to you?"

The laughter cut off, leaving an echo in its wake.

"I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats," he said, quietly. The spider rolled up into a ball, rolling backwards and forwards. "It can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, next lesson. But it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Everyone jumped. But Halley had a question.

"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"

The Cruciatus Curse came next. Longbottom answered that, and Moody gave a visceral demonstration as to what happened under the curse. It was cruel, and painful, and Halley couldn't help but be thankful that the Dursleys weren't wizards for the first time ever. Because if they were, and they still hated her, she had no doubts that they would use it on her.

He didn't stop until Granger begged him to.

The final one was Avada Kedavra.

The blinding green light flashed. In that blink, Halley remembered her mother dying. The prostitute dying. And the mirror.

Casually as anything, Halley watched Moody sweep the dead spider off the desk and onto the floor. "Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no counter curse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it."

Halley sat there, looking at the dead spider. It was a reminder of her moniker - of everything that she hated. The Girl Who Lived. She should have just died that night.

True to his word, at their next lesson, Moody told them all he would be putting them under the Imperius Curse so that they could see its power, and feel its effects. "Better to know what you're up against than go in blind."

"But - but you said it's illegal, Professor," Granger stuttered out. "You said - to use it against another human -"

"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," Moody said. His magical eye swivelled onto Granger and fixed her with an eerie, unblinking stare. "If you'd rather learn the hard way - when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely - fine by me. You're excused. Off you go."

Halley wondered if she would leave. She had caught Granger staring towards the door more than once in the previous lesson - or maybe it was more accurate to say that Granger was staring at her .

It wasn't like she would forget that Halley had robbed her of the time turner off her neck - even if Halley had tried to do it as gently as possible. Granger had woken up, and Halley was forced to bind her to keep her still.

Granger went red, but stayed put in her seat. Even with her morals, she knew it was an important lesson. Perhaps even more so for her. People were not kind to Muggleborns.

One by one, Moody beckoned them forwards in turn. There was no other way to really have them learn, but it still felt…humiliating. Halley watched as the class did extraordinary things under the influence of the spell: Thomas hopped around the room, singing the Muggle national anthem. Brown imitated a squirrel. Longbottom performed a gymnastics routine that he couldn't have done under any other situation.

The Slytherins weren't left out of the humiliation either. Malfoy sang the Hogwarts song. Bulstrode began cleaning the gum from under desks, and Davis - much to Halley's great amusement - launched herself up and down, ribbbiting like a frog.

None of them were able to fight it off. They only recovered when Moody removed the spell.

"Potter - you next."

The class went silent as Halley moved into the middle of the space Moody had cleared. They watched, waiting to see what she would do. Halley had the distinct impression that they were waiting for something big to happen, and she couldn't blame them. Last year had been a disaster.

She flinched slightly as he raised his wand and pointed it at her. Despite the sheer anxiety and terror being locked away, Halley was still incredibly cautious of people pointing a wand in her directions. Nothing good tended to come from that.

"Imperio!"

Haley felt a haze come over her, and it was wonderful. She was floating as every thought and worry washed away into the far corners of her mind, leaving nothing but happiness. She was relaxed, and only somewhat aware that everyone was watching her.

She heard a voice again - soothing and lulling. A voice she could listen to for hours if she were allowed.

Jump on the desk … Jump on the desk.

She bent her knees, getting ready to jump like the voice said. But something made her pause and ask, why? This voice was different to the last one. Somehow, she felt like she didn't want to listen to it as much.

And really, jumping on the desk was stupid. It was too high for her to jump.

Jump on the desk.

She didn't want to. The other voice hadn't forced her to do anything. It made sense. This one didn't.

Jump! NOW!

Halley startled out of the blissful haze she'd been in because of the pain. Somehow, she had tried to, and stopped herself, from jumping onto the desk, which had resulted in her banging her head on it.

"That's more like it!" Moody growled. "Potter fought - and damn near beat it. We'll try that again and the rest of you, pay attention - watch her eyes, that's where you see it - very good, Potter, very good indeed! They'll have trouble controlling you!"

Halley was too busy realising that she'd felt the exact thing all summer after the Chamber. She was too busy realising that Riddle had placed the Imperius curse on her.

Why had he done that when he was just going to make her Vow the same thing? It didn't make any sense.

The question she'd had in the previous lesson was burning in her mind now, and she decided that she needed to answer it. It didn't matter if it raised suspicion at the moment - she could say she was curious. But she needed an answer.

She waited till after the lesson had ended, not wanting to draw any more attention to herself.

"Well done, Potter. A natural." Moody spoke gruffly, but there was a grin tugging at his misshapen face. "If you practice at it, you'd be able to throw it off in no time."

She shook her head, claiming that between her lessons with Dumbledore and the stuff she needed to make up from last year, she wouldn't have the time. Moody looked disappointed at that, taking a swig from the metal flask he kept at his hip. "Shame."

And then Halley asked the question she'd been holding onto. "Sir? Why would someone use the Imperius Curse if it doesn't hold under extreme circumstances? Why that and not…an Unbreakable Vow?"

Moody looked at her carefully. "Been reading ahead Potter?" he asked, but didn't let her answer. "It's a good question. But you need three people for a Vow. And people can worm their way around it - if they're clever enough."

"But would the Imperious let someone go against something they really didn't want to do?" she asked. "Like - jump off the Astronomy tower, or murder a loved one."

Moody paused, thinking. "No - it's about willpower. If someone has enough of it, they can shake it off."

"So why that, and not the Vow instead? If you want someone to do something - and make sure it's done - then wouldn't putting them at risk of death be better?" she asked.

"The most common answer would be because - for the Unbreakable Vow to work, both the Caster, and the Recipient need to agree to doing it. You don't need permission for the Imperius - even if there's the potential for it to be shaken off."

With abrupt clarity, Halley found his words made sense. And she was suddenly very angry.

Tom wasn't surprised when Potter called him into her dream.

He'd been feeling what he was now sure were Potter's emotions on a semi-frequent basis. Mostly, they were only intense feelings that washed over him like an afterthought. He could taste them more than feel them, but by now, he'd established that they weren't his. And while Tom wasn't sure why it was happening, he did suspect it had something to do with the stone amplifying their odd connection.

She was annoyed. Intensely annoyed with a suffocating tinge of confusion lying underneath it. And when she pulled him into the dream space - the girls' dorms in Slytherin if the green bed sheets were any indication - he learned that those feelings were directed at him.

"You placed me under the Imperius Curse," she said.

He could feel that wasn't why she was angry, but he stayed quiet. If she wanted to be a big girl and try to challenge him, then she could do it of her own accord. Without any prompting from him.

"The Unbreakable Vow has to be done willingly," she added.

"And it was," he said. "You willingly gave me your hand."

"Under duress," she said. "You made it seem like I had to." In the corner of the dorm, a crack formed.

Tom rolled his eyes at the dramatics. Whether or not she was consciously aware of it or not, Potter was holding the mental shields he'd placed in her mind at ransom. But she wouldn't break them - she found them too useful. She'd tasted control and she wouldn't jeopardise that.

"Did you expect something more from me?" he asked. "You were an unknown. Something I needed to keep locked down in case you went blabbering to Dumbledore." He wasn't going to be destroyed or imprisoned so soon after being released.

"I wouldn't have," she said.

But they both knew that wasn't true. Tom walked towards her. There was a resistance between them - tense, like a dense fog he needed to wade through - but she was still letting him in. Tom needed to remember that he wanted her to trust him. It was the better outcome for all of them - and slowly it was happening. He could see it in the way that she wasn't so jittery around him anymore.

But he wouldn't do so by catering to her every whim.

"I can feel the betrayal, Halley," he said, softly. "And the confusion."

When he reached her, standing next to the bookshelf, he stood in front of her and looked down into her green eyes. She stared at him, doe-like but not backing down. "I understand why, but I would do it again, if need be. You still can't control yourself."

"I'm learning!" she said.

"Not fast enough. Not if you want from me what you truly seem to." He reached out, and stroked her hair away from her face. "So vulnerable still," he said, more to himself than to her.

Her green eyes hardened. The promise of proving him wrong hung in the air. "Use the dreams. Teach me here."

"But you get tired," he teased.

"I'll adapt." It was a promise. And she was falling right into the palm of his hand.

AN: Hey all, I know I've been sporadic and MIA with these updates. A lot of life stuff has happened so I'm dealing with a lot of emotional and logistical stuff. I have chapter 43 sent to my betas, so I'll likely post that in a couple of weeks, but I might take a break after that to give myself some space to process everything.

I'll let you guys know in a couple of weeks if that changes or not. Otherwise, have a good weekend and I hope you enjoy the chapter :)