Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
GOBLET OF FIRE.
IF there was one thing there was to know about the Gyneth-sized limpet on the back of Ophelia's brain, it was that she always knew it was there.
She'd simply gotten used to it over time. Flashes in doorways, movements in her peripheral, faces just in sight in reflections that peered around doorframes and open cabinets. Of course, as a small child, being haunted was terrifying and it took her more than a few years to understand that they were essentially harmless.
It was like when babies are born and air pressure on their bodies is so instant, to live without the additional force would be strange and we all just live with it. Ophelia's double nature was like that - forever present but dismissible.
This, she presumed, was the saving grace from Moody's lesson.
Moody had beckoned students one by one to be put under the Imperius Curse, insisting that Dumbledore wanted them to understand its effects, and with each student, they proceeded to do the most unbelievable acts. Even ones they would not have been able to do with their own conscious. That knowledge made Ophelia even more afraid of the curse. With no virtual limitations, a human body could be forced to contort itself beyond its actual flexibility. Piper had told her a story about a wizard influencing a Muggle to bite his own finger off over a bet.
The odd one out first was Harry, who seemed to twitch and jerk on his feet, and it was clearly not what Moody was intending for him to do. The teacher's glass eye swivelled and swivelled as Harry's face remained neutral, eyes faraway.
"Merlin," Neville had murmured, rubbing his back after having performed a stunning crab walk. "He's resisting."
Harry's knees slammed into a desk a moment later and Lia winced. That must have hurt.
"Now, that's more like it!" Moody said as the boy groaned in pain. "Potter fought it - he fought it and near damn well beat it!"
Ophelia looked away, surveying the class's slightly disgruntled reactions, some amused, some still troubled by their experience, and some looking like they wanted nothing more than to leave. She edged closer to her bookbag, hoping Moody would just leave it there.
"Levitt! You. Last one." Aw, shit. Dean snickered at the dismayed look on her face when Moody's false eye locked on her. "Up you come."
She took tentative steps to stand before him. He raised his wand and she took a slow breath, trying to hold onto her own thoughts.
"Imperio!"
The feeling of Gyneth wrenching off her mind was far more daunting than Ophelia had ever dreamed off. A slow veil of tranquillity flooded her senses and that unnerved her more than anything - to be at peace was to be in control in her mind. She was never the sole possessor of herself. Her doppelgänger self was the thing thag led her to be edgy all her years, jittery and insomnia-ridden, haunted and followed. (Gyneth had always whispered in her ear without words.)Still, she floated, dazzled by the sudden sensation of being the only one here. No one else was that important for her brain to notice.
