Jinx Not-So-Malfoy and the Triwizard Tournament

Chapter 12

MERRY CHRISTMAS GUYS!

"That was a lie, Harry," said Hermione sharply over breakfast, when he told her and Ron and I that he lied to Sirius in a letter about his scar hurting. "You didn't imagine your scar hurting and you know it."

Lying bastard.

"So what?" said Harry. "He's not going back to Azkaban because of me."

"Drop it," said Ron sharply to Hermione as she opened her mouth to argue some more, and for once, Hermione heeded him, and fell silent.

Harry did his best not to worry about Sirius over the next couple of weeks.

He failed miserably.

Our lessons were becoming more difficult and demanding than ever before, particularly Moody's Defense Against the Dark Arts.

To our surprise, Professor Moody had announced that he would be putting the Imperius Curse on each of us in turn, to demonstrate its power and to see whether we 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 swiveling 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 I grinned at each other. We 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 us. I watched as, one by one, my 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 ended up having both jumped and tried to prevent himself from jumping onto Moody's desk - the result was that he'd smashed headlong into the desk knocking it over, and, fracturing both his kneecaps.

Laugh out loud.

Hey, if you abbreviate that, you get LOL.

That'll never catch on.

"Now, that's more like it!" growled Moody's voice, and suddenly, Harry felt the empty, echoing feeling in his head disappear. He remembered exactly what was happening, and the pain in his knees seemed to double.

"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!"

"The way he talks," Harry muttered as he hobbled out of the Defense 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."