A/N: If any French, Bulgarian, and Russian speakers are willing to serve as a language consultant/beta reader, please message me! With the Triwizard tournament, I'm afraid I need a lot of help to make sure to accurately portray native speakers, and any readers who are up for helping would be greatly, greatly appreciated! :)


The class stared at Professor Moody in shock.

"I'm sorry," Theo said, shaking his head. "What?"

"I'll be putting the Imperius Curse on each of you," Moody repeated, "so you can feel its power personally and whether you can fight it off of not."

"Absolutely not," Draco said immediately. "I refuse."

"Then you'll fail," Moody said calmly.

"But—but you said that it's illegal, Professor," Hermione said uncertainly as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of his wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room. "You said—to use it against another human was—"

"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," said Moody, his magical eye swiveling onto Hermione and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking state. "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."

He pointed one gnarled finger toward the door. Hermione fought the urge to flinch.

"I believe she was just concerned about the legalities of this exercise, professor," Blaise said smoothly. "Even you must admit that this is fairly unusual."

"I'll say!" Pansy's voice was shrill. "I signed up for a class, not Auror training!"

"You think Dark wizards will care that you're still a kid?" Moody growled. "That they only use Unforgivables on adults?"

Pansy fell silent, her eyes glowering at her teacher, and Moody began to beckon students forward in turn to put the Imperius Curse on them.

Similarly to how the boggart exercise had gone a year ago, the Slytherin class was perfectly happy to let the Ravenclaws go first, watching as they did the most extraordinary things under the curse's influence. Terry Boot hopped around the room on one foot, reciting the uses of dragon's blood. Mandy Brocklehurst imitated a mouse. Anthony Goldstein performed an Italian aria that he certainly would not have been capable of in his normal state. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed it.

After all of the Ravenclaw students had gone, Moody turned to the Slytherins.

"Who's next?" he growled.

Stifling a sigh, Hermione grimly stepped forward.

There was an odd feeling of tension as she stood in the middle of the classroom in the center of the space that Moody had cleared of all the desks, facing down her professor. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Hermione, and said, "Imperio!"

Immediately, Hermione was dropped into a land of fire, a familiar river of lava and flame surging up in front of her. Across the river, she could hear a voice echoing a command in the caverns.

Jump on the desk… Jump onto the desk…

Hermione froze, rapidly considering what to do.

She was in her mindscape, which meant that her Occlumency Ritual also protected against the Imperius Curse. But she was able to hear the command, which meant if she wanted to, she could still obey it and stay under the radar.

Jump onto the desk…

But the others wouldn't have that protection, Hermione realized – she only had access to her own mindscape because Draco had messed up the Occlumency ritual so badly. Otherwise, it would be a person's partner who heard the command. If it wasn't possible for her friends to pretend to be affected by the curse as well, Hermione would at least lead the pack of rebels.

Jump! NOW!

"No," Hermione said firmly, folding her arms. "I don't want to jump." She looked at Moody. "So I don't think I will."

Moody stared at her for a long moment, then let out a cackling laugh.

"I've seen fully-trained Aurors who can't resist this curse, and you did entirely!" he said, his bright blue eye fixing itself on her. "Look at that, you lot – Granger threw it off first try! Very good, Granger, very good indeed. They'll have trouble controlling you!"

Hermione stepped back into the group. As she did, she fingered her pendant, and she saw Draco's and Tracey's eyes widen.

"Alright. Who's next?"

Daphne stepped forward, where she was made to perform an interpretive dance of a tree growing up and sprouting flowers. There was no indication that she could fight it off, and she flushed a bright pink when Moody removed the curse, hastily hiding herself at the back of the group.

Millie came forward next, and Moody took aim. "Imperio!"

Millie stood there for a long moment, looking around quizzically, while Tracey stiffened at Hermione's side, clutching a desk. Millie looked at Hermione curiously, before looking back to Moody.

"Err," she said. "Is something supposed to happen?"

Slowly, Moody lowered his wand, and Tracey relaxed at Hermione's side, breathing normally again.

"You didn't hear anything?" he growled. "Couldn't hear my commands?"

"Um," Millie said, now aware that she had missed something. "No."

Moody stared at her, before gesturing for her to scamper back to the side of the room. Millie moved quickly, only for Moody to bark out, "No!"

Millie looked back in alarm, but Moody's twisted face was glaring at someone else.

"Go stand next to Granger," he said. "Let's see how many of you there are."

Millie moved to stand next to Hermione, and Hermione squeezed her hand reassuringly.

"Next!"

Both Crabbe and Goyle fell to the curse, one pirouetting across the floor while the other performed astonishing feats of gymnastics. Blaise and Tracey both shook off the curse effortlessly, and Hermione hoped Luna wouldn't feel too alarmed at being plunged into Blaise's mindscape in the middle of class.

Theo fell, as did Pansy, while Draco shook off the curse as well. At the end of class, there was a group of five of them who hadn't been affected by the curse. Moody stared at them all, his blue eye examining them.

"Look at this," he growled. "Five fourth-year students, all able to shrug off the Imperius Curse like it was nothing. It's almost as if…" He stepped closer, looming threateningly near them. "…you've had training."

Draco cowered next to her, and Hermione sighed.

"Professor Moody, none of us have ever been put under the Imperius Curse before," she told him. "It's the result of a ritual."

Moody turned to look at her, his magical eye swiveling to stay fixed on Draco. "A ritual, you say?"

"After second year, when Rhamnaceae got possessed, a group of us got worried," Hermione said, inventing a story. "We didn't want anyone to be able to prowl around in our minds and possess us, so we did a ritual. We didn't know until just now that it would also protect from the Imperius Curse."

Moody's eyes narrowed.

"Ritual magic is dodgy, Dark stuff," he growled. "Figures a bunch of Slytherins would use Dark magic to fight off Dark magic…"

"Harry Potter and Susan Bones did it too," Hermione said, shrugging. "And it wasn't Dark."

Moody gave them all a long look, before he suddenly grinned.

"Ten points to Slytherin for each of you, then," he said. "Good job."

They were all startled by this unexpected change of heart until Moody's grin turned wicked, his eyes glinting.

"I'll be sure to report to Dumbledore of your skill," he said, magical eye fixing on Draco once more. "On how effortlessly you can throw off the Imperius Curse. I'm sure he'd like to know."


"He wants to make sure there's a record of us," Tracey said after class, bouncing down the stairs. "He wants to make sure it's written down somewhere that we can deflect the Imperius Curse, in case any of us ever tries to claim it as a defense."

"I get that," Draco complained. "But it's not like we'll ever need that as a defense, will we? We're not joining the Dark Lord's side."

"No, but he doesn't know that," Millie said, giving Draco a pointed look. "And we'd rather he not know what side we are on at all, right?"

"When can Pansy and I do that ritual?" Theo asked Hermione. "If he's going to keep at this, we want it done as soon as possible."

"A new moon or a full moon," Hermione said. "I think we've always done it on full moons in the past, so we should probably hold off and repeat it exactly how everyone else has done it."

"Next full moon is next week," Draco said. "I'm still getting more components. I'm buying them in bulk this time – I figure you'll be needing to do this more often."

"Moody was seriously thrown," Blaise said thoughtfully. "I wonder how hard it actually is to resist."

"Impossible," Theo said, just as Pansy snorted and said, "Incredibly." Blaise gave a sheepish grin at them both, and Pansy rolled her eyes.

"I just wish I'd been warned that this would happen," Hermione said. "If I'd had an idea that this would have protected from more than just Legilimency, we could have prepared—"

"Wait, what?" Tracey interrupted. She gave her a strange look. "You knew your ritual protected your from more than just Legilimency."

"No, I didn't," Hermione said, puzzled.

"Yes, you did," Tracey insisted. "Second year, remember? You and I went to Lockhart for Obliviation lessons, and he couldn't wipe your mind."

Hermione's eyes grew large.

"…what?" she breathed.

"He thought you were a natural Occlumens," Tracey went on. "Remember? But it was the same as when Dumbledore tried to read your mind, you said. That's how you knew it was the ritual."

Hermione met Blaise's horrified gaze behind Tracey's head, both of their eyes huge.

"I can't wait to have my mind protected," Pansy said fiercely, stomping down the stairs. "I despise the idea of Dumbledore peering into my head."

The others continued down the staircase, discussing the lesson, while Hermione and Blaise hung behind, staring at each other.

"You said the ritual didn't protect from Obliviate!" Blaise hissed.

"I thought it didn't!" Hermione shot back. "I forgot about messing around with it with Lockhart!"

Blaise groaned, rubbing his temples.

"If that's true, then we weren't Memory-Charmed," he said. "And while that's good…"

"…what bond did we start and never finish?" Hermione finished. "One we don't remember?"

They exchanged a bleak look as they headed after their friends down the cold, stone halls.