Hermione's birthday dawned with a sort of grim determination, as if the sun didn't really want to come up and have a day all over again, but it'd be damned before it let the moon get everything. There was a similar feeling over the Slytherins that morning at breakfast table. Hermione and Pansy had gone ahead, leaving Tracey and Daphne to help Millie get ready.
"Are we sure we don't have time to see Snape before classes?" Draco pleaded. "He's right there."
"Even if we did, which we don't," Hermione said sharply, "an exorcism is bound to take more than five minutes. And anyone missing classes will raise suspicion on us for sure."
"Millie acting weird for a day can be chalked up to a curse or spell or prank," Theo said patiently. "If anyone misses classes, the teachers will investigate."
"I'm surprised you're not more excited about this, Malfoy," Blaise remarked, smirking. "You don't want to see the Dark Lord take Moody down?"
Draco paused.
"…do you think that might happen?" he asked.
"It had better not," Hermione snapped.
Voldemillie arrived at the breakfast table with an entourage – not just with Tracey and Millie at her sides, but with Goyle and Crabbe trailing as well.
"Eggs! Excellent," she said, sitting down with satisfaction. "Excellent source of protein to start off the day. Eggs are one of the most nutritiously-complete foods found in nature, you know."
Crabbe stared at her. "They are?"
"Oh, yes," Voldemillie said, helping herself to a few rashers of bacon. "Consider what an egg is – it's designed to provide all the nutrients necessary for a baby chick to grow and hatch, which means it has to contain…"
"Never knew the Dark Lord was a swot," Blaise said in an undertone, a wicked gleam in his eye.
Theo groaned. "We're doomed."
"You can put your books away," Moody growled as he stumped his way to the front of the class. "We'll be practicing resisting the Imperius Curse again." He picked up the chalk, writing STRENGTH OF WILL on the board in big letters. "You need to work on your strength of will – it's your Will that will resist you being controlled, and if you're too weak, you'll be little more than a puppet for a Dark wizard to use as they please."
Voldemillie turned to look at Hermione incredulously.
"They teach this now?" he hissed. "Imperius Curse resistance training? In Hogwarts?"
"This professor's an ex-Auror," Hermione said in an undertone. "He's a bit different."
"But just resisting?" Voldemille clarified in an undertone. "Not how to resist?"
"Problem, Miss Bulstrode?" Moody growled, still facing the board. Hermione stiffened, knowing Moody's magical eye must have been watching through the back of his head, but Millie didn't flinch.
"Just a question, sir," she said. "If some people are still struggling with throwing off the curse, surely we should go over it in more detail to help them instead of just attempting it again and again?"
There was a surprised murmur from around the room, and Moody turned around to look at Millie with both eyes.
"We did go over it," he growled. "I told you what it does, I demonstrated on the spiders, and now it's your turn to practice and learn to resist."
"You told us what it does, but not how it works, sir," Millie countered, her tone still polite. "It might help to have a little more insight."
Everyone was staring at Millie, who met Moody's gaze without flinching.
"What do you mean, how it works?" Moody said finally.
"Like the details of the curse," Millie elaborated. "Why it can't be seen, what part of the mind it acts on, how to recognize if one might be under the Imperius – that sort of thing."
Moody stared at her.
"You come teach the class, then, if you know so much," he said, snarling, and to everyone's astonishment, Millie stood up, eyes glinting.
"Thank you, sir," she said, taking the chalk from him. "I'll endeavor to live up to your example."
Hermione and the other Shadows watched in horror as Millie wiped the chalkboard clean and began writing on it.
"The Imperius works on a very different wavelength than most spells," Voldemillie said, drawing a squiggly line on the board. It started very spread out, then gradually grew more tightly packed with squiggles. "Most spells work in the visible light spectrum, making them easy to see. The Imperius Curse, however, works down here—" he drew an arrow to part of the squiggle, "—in the area we call 'radio waves'. This is the same type of radio wave that the Wizarding Wireless receives."
All of the class watched in astonishment as Voldemillie broke down how the Imperius Curse was able to directly penetrate the brain and affect the frontal lobe of the brain, complete with diagram of the brain. Hermione took frantic notes, abjectly fascinated by this sudden exploration into decomposing the parts of a curse. Tom had said he once wanted to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and it showed; Voldemillie was confident in the front of the classroom, like he'd rehearsed mental lessons a thousand times. Moody watched the entire thing in silence, a calculating look in his eye.
Hermione found herself raising her hand to ask a question, unable to stifle her desire for knowledge.
"Does this mean animals that don't have a frontal lobe can't be controlled with the Imperius Curse?" she asked. Voldemillie looked startled, then pleased.
"Yes, exactly," he said, nodding. "Spiders possess enough of one to be able to control. Fish, however, do not – you can't Imperius a fish into swimming into your net."
Voldemillie went on to explain how, if one's ego (or "will" as Moody called it) was not strong enough to overcome the will of the caster, redirecting your energy to other lobes of your brain would help distract you enough to help make the compulsion weaker.
"The strongest resistance is one that distracts from thinking and refocuses your mind on your physical body and its instincts," Voldemillie explained. "It's easier to throw off the Imperius Curse if you're hungry, for example, or if you have to go to the bathroom. Your body's instinctual urges help your attention break free of the curse controlling your frontal lobe."
"Of course, we can't go around always having to pee or starving, so we need another way to defend ourselves," Voldemillie went on. "The classic resistance is triggering the occipital and temporal lobes to override one's sense of judgement. Specifically – imaginative fantasies from your occipital lobe that trigger your baser instincts in your temporal lobe will help override the hijacking of your frontal lobe."
"We cannot always be aware of the hijacking of our frontal lobes, of course," Voldemillie finished, putting the chalk down. "Out in the world, we are much more likely to be caught off-guard by the Imperius. The best way to become aware of such things is to take a leaf from Mahōtokoro's book, and practice mindfulness and meditation regularly. If you are in the habit of examining your emotions and how they are manifesting in your body, you are more likely to realize when they suddenly don't match up."
Michael Corner raised his hand. Voldemillie called on him.
"So, to get this straight," he said, his face incredulous, "we're supposed to think of something sexy that will turn us on, and that will help us beat the Imperius Curse?"
There was a snickering around the room, but Millie didn't flinch.
"A bit crude, but yes, essentially," Voldemillie said, smirking. "If that's the best imaginative fantasy to trigger a base desire for you. Any other questions?"
Hermione felt like she had a million – how had he discovered the wavelength of different spells? What wavelength did the other Unforgivables work on? How did the Cruciatus affect the brain? Did Avada Kedavra work by frying the brain stem? All of her questions, though, would have to wait – it was already very apparent from Moody's expression that Millie was under enough suspicion, and asking more detailed questions about very illegal curses was hardly likely to help.
To her astonishment, after Millie returned to her seat and sat down primly, Moody shrugged and picked class up right where he'd left off.
"Line up," he growled. "Let's see if you all can't get it this time."
Hermione and her crew threw the curse off effortlessly as usual. Once it was Daphne's turn, however, Hermione was astonished to see her face turn bright red, like she was about to explode, but she didn't move.
"Well done, Greengrass," Moody said approvingly. "Step aside."
"Wonder what she was thinking about," Anthony Goldstein murmured from the back of the line, and Daphne blushed as she hurried to the side.
Theo was able to throw off the curse this way, though Pansy was not. Michael still failed, but Hermione was pleased to see Anthony manage to fight off the curse as well, though he was sweating by the end of it.
"Your advice is actually helping!" Tracey said, clapping her hands in excitement as they all watched Terry Boot try to fight off the curse. "That's incredible, Millie!"
Hermione turned to give Tracey an incredulous look, and Tracey abruptly turned red.
"Right," she muttered. "Of course."
Millie, to her credit, only smirked.
Voldemillie was disgusted to learn she had to attend Care of Magical Creatures as an elective but unexpectedly delighted to see the Blast-Ended Skrewts. She spent the entire class interrogating Hagrid about how he'd made them, utterly ignoring the assignment of taking them for a walk.
"You're expecting them to grow chiton, right?" she said. "What age do you think that'll happen? What are you adding to their diet to help facilitate their armor?"
Hagrid, to his credit, happily told Voldemillie all about how he'd managed to crossbreed a Manticore and a Fire Crab, as well as all his failed attempts over the summer. Voldemillie listened avidly, and Hermione wondered if Voldemort, while possessing Millie, was subject to the impulsivity and curiosity of a teenager. He seemed to fall right back in to being a student effortlessly – was it because even though the horcrux was a soul shard from when Voldemort had been an adult, the horcrux was still only working with a teenager's brain?
Hermione kept her thoughts to herself. There really wasn't any way to know.
Tracey and Daphne were on Millie duty for Divination, while Hermione got the break of Arithmancy to relax for a bit. Professor Vector had tasked them with predicting the odds of a fatality during the Triwizard tournament, reminding them to account for new factors in addition to historical data points. Hermione kept getting a result that she didn't fully understand, but she was admittedly fairly distracted while setting her equations off to run.
Tom Riddle had told her he'd always wanted to be a teacher at Hogwarts. If that hadn't changed… Voldemillie was just Tom aged a few decades, with a much wider breadth of knowledge and experience at his fingertips. If having Tom absorb and integrate with Voldemillie was possible, would Tom then retain all the knowledge Voldemillie had?
Hermione desperately hoped so. She had so many questions and things she wanted to know.
After dinner, the Shadows split up. Harry, Susan, and Luna took Theo and Pansy outside to do the Occlumency Ritual in the light of the full moon. With the continued Imperius Curse training and constant threat of Legilimency, it was a top priority, and they'd decided regardless of what else was happening, that ritual couldn't be delayed.
Hermione and the remaining Shadow Slytherins all went down to Snape's office. They'd told Voldemillie that Snape was in on their plan, and that they needed to coordinate the attack on Dumbledore with him, so there was no resistance from her as Hermione, Draco, Tracey, Blaise, and Millie all went down together.
Snape answered the knock on his office door with a raised eyebrow.
"My my my," he murmured. "What a group. And I must see you all at the same time?"
"Perhaps the classroom might fit us all better, sir," Hermione suggested.
Snape's eyes swept over their assembled group, before he left his office, closing it and locking it behind him, and led them a short way down the hall to the classroom, which he unlocked with a large iron key.
"In, then," he commanded them, and they scrambled inside.
Once everyone was inside and Snape had closed and locked the door, the Slytherins leapt into action – Millie was stunned from three different angles, Tracey quickly casting a cushioning charm on the floor for her to collapse onto, and Hermione standing in front of Snape to head him off as he reacted to the sudden flurry of spellfire, jerking forward with alarm.
"What are you fools—"
"We need your help, sir," Hermione begged. "Millie's possessed."
Snape stopped dead in his tracks.
"I'm sorry," he said pleasantly. "Did you say possessed?"
"Yes." Hermione bit her lip. "Um. A couple years ago, you said you'd tested me for possession. When I was, um, spiraling out of control. We were hoping that you knew how to exorcise someone from possession and could help us."
The expression on Snape's face was a sight to behold. A combination of irritation, disbelief and stress warred with anger and worry, with resigned frustration winning out, claiming the tenseness in his jaw and the wrinkles on his face. One hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose tightly, before Snape gave Hermione a flat look. "Miss Granger, I am not an exorcist."
Hermione felt like she'd been slapped.
"But—you said—" Hermione fought the panic building in her at Snape's words. "You said you'd tested me—"
"I tested you for possession," Snape said. He raised an eyebrow. "I never claimed to know how to cure it."
Tracey blanched. Hermione swallowed hard. Draco and Blaise weren't looking at each other, and everyone tried to stay calm while they ignored their unconscious classmate on the floor of the classroom.
"What's the backup plan, then?" Blaise asked finally. "Crafting a ritual?"
"I don't know what else would work," Hermione said weakly. She sighed, despairing. "Some birthday this is."
"Don't you have any experience with people being possessed?" Draco pleaded with Snape. "Didn't the Dark Lord possess people?"
Snape gave Draco a sharp look, his eyes warning him.
"Maybe we'd be better off if you first defined what you mean by possession," Snape said finally, pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh.
Hermione exchanged a heavy look with Blaise.
"Um," she said delicately, trying to dance around the limits of the secrecy oath. "There's a spirit inside Millie. We need it to leave and go back into the—the cursed headband she's wearing. But we don't know how to make it leave her body."
"I presume asking nicely hasn't worked?" Snape drawled.
"This is serious, sir!" Tracey sounded near tears. "Please. Help us."
With a sigh, Snape stood and knelt next to Millie. He examined the hairband she wore, hovering his hand over it. Hermione wondered if he was feeling the Dark magic on it, if he could recognize what it was.
"Firstly, Miss Bulstrode is cursed," he said. "A cursed object affecting a person is not the same thing as possession."
"It's more than cursed," Draco muttered. "It's sentient."
Snape gave Draco a scathing look.
"If it is the object causing this… affliction," he said, his lip curling. "Then it is the object you need trouble yourselves with. Not your friend." He looked over sideways at Hermione. "How sentient is the curse?" he asked.
"Fairly," Hermione admitted. "If we threatened the object, it would probably react?"
"How do we threaten it?" Draco asked, uncertain. "We don't have Hermione's sword…"
"Hermione has a way," Blaise said. "Though, doing it in a classroom with lots of people probably wouldn't be the best idea…"
Snape was frowning at hairband. He seemed skeptical, almost confused, before finally withdrawing his wand and tapping it on the hairband.
"Finite Incantantem."
The hairband morphed back into a patinaed tiara in Millie's hair, sapphires smudged and silver dirty. Snape looked puzzled for a moment, before his eyes grew wide. He whirled around to look at Hermione, who winced.
"We found the lost diadem of Ravenclaw," she said. She offered a tentative smile, wincing. "Surprise?"
"How?" Snape breathed. "People have searched for centuries…"
"Birthday present for Hermione," Blaise quipped, his smile wry. "Are you planning on coming along, sir? We're going to need a bigger location if we're going to go to Plan B."