Ethereal

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The Goblet of Fire

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Over the next couple of weeks, Sadie could tell Harry was doing his best not to worry about Sirius over the next couple of weeks. On the other hand, their lessons were becoming more difficult and demanding than ever before, particularly Moody's Defence Against the Dark Arts.

To their surprise, Professor Moody had announced that he would be putting the Imperius Curse on each of them in turn, to demonstrate its power and to see whether they could resist its effects.

"But, but you said it's illegal, Professor," said Hermione 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 swivelling onto Hermione and fixing 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."

He pointed one gnarled finger toward the door. Hermione went very pink and muttered something about not meaning that she wanted to leave. Harry, Ron and Sadie grinned at each other. They knew Hermione would rather eat bubotuber pus than miss such an important lesson.

Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them. Sadie watched as, one by one, her classmates did the most extraordinary things under its influence. Dean Thomas hopped three times around the room, singing the national anthem. Lavender Brown imitated a squirrel. Neville performed a series of quite astonishing gymnastics he would certainly 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.

"Potter," Moody growled, "you next."

Harry moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Harry, and said, "Imperio!"

Harry bent his knees obediently, preparing to spring, but Sadie jumped feet when Harry had both jumped and tried to prevent himself from jumping, the result was that he'd smashed headlong into the desk knocking it over.

"Now, that's more like it!" growled Moody's voice. "Look at that, you lot, Potter fought! He fought it, and he damn near beat it! We'll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you, pay attention, watch his eyes, that's where you see it, very good, Potter, very good indeed! They'll have trouble controlling you!"

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"The way he talks," Harry muttered as he hobbled out of the Defence Against the Dark Arts class an hour later (Moody had insisted on putting Harry through his paces four times in a row, until Harry could throw off the curse entirely), "you'd think we were all going to be attacked any second."

"Yeah, I know," said Ron, who was skipping on every alternate step. He had had much more difficulty with the curse than Harry, though Moody assured him the effects would wear off by lunchtime. "Talk about paranoid. . . ." Ron glanced nervously over his shoulder to check that Moody was definitely out of earshot and went on. "No wonder they were glad to get shot of him at the Ministry. Did you hear him telling Seamus what he did to that witch who shouted 'Boo' behind him on April Fools' Day? And when are we supposed to read up on resisting the Imperius Curse with everything else we've got to do?"

All the fourth years had noticed a definite increase in the amount of work they were required to do this term. Professor McGonagall explained why, when the class gave a particularly loud groan at the amount of Transfiguration homework she had assigned.