Chapter Nine of 'Casualties of Politics'- A Spirited Attempt

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Nine—A Spirited Attempt

“Hi, ah. I thought we could go for a walk in Hogsmeade today.”

Harry tilted his head and blinked at Sirius Black. He stood in front of Harry, rubbing his mouth with one hand and looking almost helpless. Harry suspected it was because he was uncomfortable, but he had no idea what he had done specifically to make Sirius uncomfortable.

“I thought we weren’t allowed,” Harry said. “I thought only third-years and up could go to Hogsmeade.

Sirius gave him a smile. Well, sort of a smile. It was turned-up and crumpled at the corners like the smiles that Aunt Petunia had given Harry in public when she thought she had to. “Well, that’s true, but Albus gave his permission. And you’re the brother to the Boy-Who-Lived! A Gryffindor! You should get used to breaking rules!”

This is probably just some way to try and make me use wanded magic again, or make sure that I don’t spend all my time with Slytherins, Harry thought, but he wasn’t offended. Sirius was just another of the Gryffindors he needed to lie to.

“He really said we could go?”

“Yeah, he sure did.” Sirius was relaxing, maybe because Harry wasn’t cackling like an evil Dark wizard in front of him. “And I got you a gift. Remember, I said I would?”

Harry managed a smile that he hoped landed on the right side of shy. “What is it?”

“That would be telling! Come on, you can open it on the walk to Hogsmeade.”

Harry glanced over his shoulder, but no one else had come out of the castle after them. It was early on Saturday morning, and most of the kids were probably still asleep. Harry had only been awake because Professor Dumbledore had asked him to come to his office and meet Sirius there.

“All right,” he said. He could spare a few hours from his research into ways to get Theo away from the Figgs, especially since it wasn’t going that well. “Come on, then.”

*

He looks pretty normal like this, Sirius had to admit to himself as he and Harry walked down the Hogsmeade path.

But he knew what he had seen that night, the one that had been seared into his mind so deeply that just thinking the words that night recalled it perfectly. He knew that he had seen the Dark magic shining through Harry’s skin as if he was just a hollow candle-holder. And he knew that it had got worse when Harry had moved closer to Felix.

Harry had been a normal baby before that night.

And no wonder, Sirius thought, swallowed hysterical laughter. When he was—he was so little. Not what he became afterwards. Just a happy baby…

“What’s the present that you have for me?”

Sirius shook himself and returned to the path and the boy in front of him, who was staring expectantly upwards. Sirius smiled wanly as he took the package, wrapped in red and gold paper, out of his pocket. Albus had warned him that Harry was far from normal, but his eyes still lit up when Sirius held the gift out, and that was enough for him.

Even if Harry had to rip the paper open with his hands instead of swipes of his wand. Even if that part of all this made Sirius’s heart ache.

Harry opened the paper, and then turned the book over, and smiled. He glanced up at Sirius and smiled more broadly.

“Thank you. This ought to come in useful when I’m trying to prank Felix.”

Sirius smiled back, glad that Harry liked the book of charm and prank spells. “I know that you can’t cast all of them yet, with your wand, but—”

“I’ve got pretty good at Charms and Defense,” Harry murmured, shyly, his head bowed. “It’s just Transfiguration that’s giving me trouble, really.”

Sirius relaxed some more. Maybe Albus had exaggerated in his concern. Yes, Harry had grown up in the Muggle world, and yes, he had been a little concentrated ball of Dark magic that night, but…he was just a kid. He had been just a baby. Maybe he wasn’t using Dark Arts the way Albus was afraid of after all. Maybe he was just a kid who needed more help with his wandwork.

“Do you want me to try and help you with the Transfiguration? While we go to the Three Broomsticks and drink butterbeer?” Lily and James would kill him if they knew he was giving their son butterbeer, but it wasn’t like Sirius was going to tell them.

Harry nodded, his cheeks flushing. “Yeah. Yeah, Sirius. I’d like that.”

“You can call me Padfoot, if you want to,” Sirius said, and then he reached out and ruffled Harry’s hair, mostly to see what would happen.

Harry ducked his head a little, and he flushed harder, but he was smiling. Sirius was sure of it.

And if he could be the one to keep Harry on the path that a normal Potter and a normal Gryffindor and a normal kid should walk, all the better. Sirius did have ten years of godfathering to make up for.

*

Harry looked through the book that Sirius had got him one more time on his way to the library to meet Theo and Zabini, and shook his head. Some of these spells might be funny, if you used them with someone else’s knowledge and didn’t do them too hard. But others reminded him of things Dudley would have done if he’d had magic.

Were they all bullies, too? Sirius and James and that traitor who died?

Harry decided that he didn’t care that much. He would keep the book, and he would write to Sirius, and he would call him Padfoot, and he would blush around him and act happy to get to spend some time with the man. It was fooling Sirius with not much more effort than he’d used to fool the other Gryffindors.

“Potter.”

Harry turned and put his back to the wall behind him. Zabini was waiting outside the library, and his face was tense and taut.

“What?” Harry asked quietly.

“Did you know about the letter Theo got this morning?”

“What about it?” Harry had seen the owl land at the table, but he’d only darted in the way he often did when owls were in the Great Hall, to get some toast and sausages and leave, so he hadn’t seen more than that.

“It was cursed.”

Harry felt his eyes widen, and his magic woke up around him, snapping into being with a buzz and a shiver. Harry wasn’t entirely certain that Zabini could feel it, but he did take a step back and watch Harry with cautious eyes.

“What was the curse?” Harry whispered. “Who sent it?”

“I don’t know exactly what the curse was, but Theo can’t even get up from the bed. And it was the Figgs.”

Harry felt as though something was breaking in his head, although it was so glassy and crystalline and fractured that he didn’t know for sure. He just knew that Zabini was leaning away from him, and that Harry nodded and turned towards the dungeons.

“Potter? Where are you going?” Zabini was trotting beside him, eyeing him sideways.

“To see Theo. You’re going to get me into the common room.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

Zabini wavered for a second, then said, “We aren’t supposed to bring people from other Houses into the common room. Especially not Gryffindor. Professor Snape is worried that you’ll come back and prank us.”

“Look, the Hat wanted me in Slytherin,” Harry snapped, feeling a pang that he was parting with one of his secrets. But it was the least damaging one, and Zabini’s dropped jaw was worth it. “I held the brim shut with my magic and made it say Gryffindor. But you might have noticed the way it struggled during the Sorting? Yeah. It wanted me in your House. So it’s like you’re bringing an honorary Slytherin along, all right?”

Zabini blinked a few times. Harry was pretty sure he hadn’t noticed the Hat struggling with Harry during the Sorting, but Harry could also almost see the way that Zabini was realigning the pieces in his head and thinking about the past differently, to pretend he had noticed.

“You’re sure that’s true? Theo would tell me the same thing?”

Harry nodded. “Ask him after I get rid of the curse, if you don’t believe me.”

“I will. And how are you going to get rid of the curse?”

Harry glanced sideways, and Zabini must have seen the intention in his face, because he shut up.

Harry marched on, not sure himself what would happen once he saw Theo, or how he would get rid of the curse. But he had got rid of the spell that Quirrell would have used to murder Felix. That meant he had to be able to get rid of something that wasn’t as bad.

And then, he thought, I’m going to find some way to get rid of the Figgs.

*

Theo curled around his stomach, his arm wrapped around it, his eyes shut. He had screamed at Malfoy when the idiot had tried to open the curtains around his bed, and at least he could be sure that he would be left to suffer in solitude until the curse wore off.

He had never seen anything like this before. It had flickered to life the minute he touched the parchment and curled around his arms, then dived into his body. It felt like the worst stomachache he had ever had, and overlapping waves of pain flooded through him, from his gut but also from his head.

The parchment had said only, This is for trying to corrupt a Gryffindor.

Someone must have told them about his friendship with Harry.

Even as he lay there and vomited without having anything left that could come up, Theo clung to his grim, stubborn determination. He would remain friends with Harry. They couldn’t tell him what to do. He would get better, and he would get his revenge someday.

His curtains went flying back. Theo snapped his eyes open with a snarl, hearing outraged shouts from the direction of the bedroom door and wondering why someone would drag half of Slytherin here to witness his humiliation.

Harry.

Harry knelt on the bed and reached out to Theo with his magic.

Theo had a moment to decide if he trusted Harry, but in the end, there was really no choice. He rolled over and held out his hand, which was curved into a claw with the pain, and Harry seized hold of it with his magic before his fingers got there.

A different kind of pain, clean and fiery, darted through Theo’s body. And then he slumped back, the churning nausea and the pressure in his gut and the pounding in his head just gone.

“Are you all right?” Harry whispered, hovering over him. His face was open and murderous. But Theo knew the anger wasn’t against him. It was about him.

Theo took a moment to simply bask in that, that someone other than his father would want to hurt people for him, and then he sat up slowly. “Yes. The curse is gone.” He watched Harry from beneath his eyelashes, aware of Blaise at the edge of the curtains, and ignoring him. “How did you do that?”

“My magic can rip spells apart,” Harry said softly, likewise ignoring Blaise, although from the way his shoulders hunched, Theo knew Harry was absolutely aware of the other boy. “I saw it when I tore apart that spell that came flying at Felix. I thought I might be able to do it with the curse once Zabini told me about it.” He took a deep breath and touched Theo’s forehead for a second, as if Theo was the one with a scar there. “You’re really all right?”

“Yes.” Theo turned so that his hand was clasping Harry’s for a second, squeezing hard, and then let go. The babble of angry voices from beyond the door was getting louder. They had to deal with it.

“Zabini!” shouted someone who sounded like Montague. “What are you doing, bringing that Gryffindor in here?”

“How would you prefer that I handle this?” Harry asked Theo quietly.

“In whatever way you need to to make sure that we stay safe,” Theo answered. He half-hoped that would mean Harry revealing his elemental magic, but he doubted it would. Harry would figure something out, though.

Harry nodded and turned around. Blaise tried to step around him, but Harry held him back with one hand. Then he turned towards the door into the first-year boys’ bedroom and concentrated with his eyelids half-lowered.

There came a loud shriek a moment later. Then other people began shrieking, and Theo heard them beating a hasty retreat back into the common room. Harry relaxed and shook his head.

“What did you do?” Blaise whispered.

Harry glanced at him, and Blaise shied away, although Theo saw no open threat on his face. “I concentrated on making them feel afraid,” Harry said.

“Won’t they just ask me questions later? Take it out on me?”

Harry grinned, a sight so unexpected that Theo found himself smiling back before he thought about it. “If they do, Zabini, come and tell me. Then I’ll make them feel it again. And make it worse. Just remind them about how they ran away gibbering like idiots if they get upset with you.”

“You’d protect me? But I’m not your friend the way Theo is.”

“But you brought me to him, at my own request. You shouldn’t have to suffer for that.”

Theo could see the moment when Blaise made his decision, the decision Theo had been half-hoping for since they’d begun working together in the library, but had thought would take a few more months at least. He nodded at Harry. “Call me Blaise.”

Harry blinked, lost in what seemed to be wonder. Then he said, “All right, Blaise. Call me Harry.” He turned back to Theo and stared at him as intently as a mediwitch would have. “You’re really all right?”

“Yes,” Theo whispered. He struggled against his impulse to say something else, something that might have been too revealing in front of Blaise, and finally said, “Thank you.”

Harry gave him a single, fierce smile, then turned around and walked back out of the room. No one tried to oppose him, from the sound of it.

“What the fuck is he?” Blaise blurted, turning around to stare at Theo.

“Himself,” Theo said, because he wasn’t ready to share with Blaise yet that he was probably their future lord. And my friend.

*

Harry shoved the last book away with a growl under his breath. Everything he’d found about how to get away from abusive guardians in the magical world said that they had to tell adults about the abuse and get them exposed and tried.

Theo wouldn’t want to tell anyone adult about what the Figgs were doing to him, and Harry doubted that Dumbledore or Snape would do anything even if Theo did.

“Harry.”

Harry looked up and blinked. Theo was standing in front of the library table, and his smile was faint but present, the way it had been for the week since Harry had healed him from the curse. “Hi, Theo. Where’s Blaise?”

“He wanted to do some studying with Malfoy. Something about building bridges to other people.” Theo sat down on the far side of the table and stared at the books. “Magical law. You want to become a politician?”

Harry shuddered. He couldn’t imagine a worse fate, even given that it was something he would have to pretend to go along with for a while because it was what Dumbledore and his parents wanted. “Ugh, no. I was—” He would have to say it now, because he was out of solutions on the book front “—trying to find a way to get you away from the Figgs and back to your father.”

Theo’s eyes widened. Most of the time now, Harry could tell what he was feeling, but he sat perfectly still with his face a mask of shadow and didn’t move at all.

“Theo?” Harry asked warily. He had assumed Theo would want the help, but maybe that had been stupid of him. He was pants at guessing what people wanted—

“Harry,” Theo said, and swallowed. “No one else would have done that much for me.”

Harry blinked, reminded suddenly that even if he was low on friends and not that popular because of the problems with his magic, it had to be worse for Theo, who didn’t have a popular, famous brother to kind of prop him up. Harry reached out and squeezed Theo’s hand for a second, then sat back on the other side of the table.

“I assume that you don’t want to tell anyone about the Figgs,” Harry said. “So that sort of leaves us out of legal options.”

“No,” Theo said quietly. “They wouldn’t listen to me, most likely. They were the ones who put me with the Figgs in the first place, after all. And if they did take me away, they probably wouldn’t put me back with my father, just with some other family who’s convinced they need to redeem Death Eaters’ children.” His voice was corrosive.

Harry nodded and thought about it. “So we need to make the Figgs give you up, and we have to make sure that you specifically go back to your father.”

“I think Dumbledore would only put me there if the Figgs themselves recommended it.”

Harry half-smiled. “All right. So we blackmail them.”

Theo’s eyes widened some more. “How, though? They would probably just tell people the truth if we tried to blackmail them with what I suffered, and even if Dumbledore disapproved, like I said, they would take me away and shove me into some other good family’s embrace. He might not even disapprove.”

Harry nodded grimly, thinking about what he had gone through with the Dursleys, which Dumbledore seemed to think was perfectly okay. “Then we need to find a way to control them.”

Theo stared at him again. “There isn’t a way to do that. I mean, if we can’t blackmail them, then we can’t control them, either. I tried to find out some of their secrets, but I don’t think they have any,” he added with disgust. “They spend their time reading books of magical law and debating each other, or coming up with battle tactics for what could happen when the Dark Lord returns. Or torturing me.”

“I didn’t mean like that. I meant magically. The Imperius Curse.”

Theo choked. Harry waited patiently until the fit went past. Theo leaned towards Harry and lowered his voice, looking around for a second as if he thought someone would break into their little alcove past the books. “Are you insane? Neither of us can cast that.”

Harry lifted a hand, and flame sprang into being around his fingers. “Are you sure about that, Theo?”

Theo fidgeted for a second. “It’s still a really strong spell. And someone could find out. The signs of the Imperius Curse aren’t easy to recognize, but Dumbledore probably knows how to look for them.”

Harry nodded. “So we figure out how to make it undetectable.”

“Harry.” Theo seemed to be controlling his voice with an effort. “No one has ever done that.”

“But I’m going to.”

“Why, Harry? Why are you putting so much effort into this?”

“Because you’re my friend,” Harry said. “And I won’t abandon you. Now, can you recommend any books that I can read which have the Imperius Curse in them but aren’t going to make Madam Pince suspicious?”

*

Theo was still a little dazed when he went back to the common room after giving Harry the titles of some innocent-looking books, which was probably why he didn’t see the boring Potter until he almost jumped out of an alcove and grabbed Theo’s arm.

Theo’s wand snapped up, and he whirled to the side, facing Potter and driving him back so that his head almost hit the stones. Potter’s eyes widened. He didn’t look much like Harry when you were close to him, Theo thought, all the potentially interesting edges smoothed over by vulnerable softness.

“Hey! What are you doing, Nott?”

“What were you doing, Potter, grabbing me like that?” Theo took a step back, since there didn’t seem to be any Gryffindors following Boring Potter around, but didn’t lower his wand.

“I want to know why you spend so much time with my brother.”

“There’s this strange thing you might not have heard of, Potter. It’s called being friends.”

“Come off it!” Felix crossed his arms and glared at Theo. “Harry comes straight from being raised by Muggles and runs into you of all people and you act as though you can understand him?”

“Unlike you, I’m not nearly as prone to snap judgments.” Theo slid his wand back into its holster as he heard other people’s footsteps coming near. None of the professors or Gryffindors would act sympathetic if they found Theo holding a wand on the hero of the magical world, no matter how much they might secretly feel the same way. “Why would I despise Harry for being raised by Muggles? He’s so much more than that.”

“Oh.” Potter nodded. “So you want to use him for his power. You should know that he’s sick, Nott, and he won’t get better if you keep encouraging him to use his magic for things other than practicing Transfiguration or whatever you’re doing.”

Theo sneered back, but kept quiet as the footsteps came around the corner and turned out to be Ron Weasley and another Gryffindor whose name Theo hadn’t bothered to memorize. Thomas, maybe. “What’s Nott doing, Felix?” Weasley asked, taking a step forwards and turning a little as if to shield Potter from any spells Theo might throw at him.

“Having a conversation with me about Harry.” Potter leaned around Weasley to give Theo a dark, weighted gaze that might have impressed him if he were a totally different person and also delusional. “I think we understand each other.”

“As much as you can ever understand a Slytherin,” Weasley muttered, glaring at Theo. Then he and Thomas turned and almost herded Potter away, as if they thought he would catch something by being near Theo.

Theo shook his head and resumed the walk to the dungeons, letting his mind return to the dazzling thing that had had taken up so much of his attention that Potter had been able to sneak up on him.

Harry really wants to help me. He would do anything to help me. He’s my friend.

The world was still full of pain, and Theo wanted desperately to be back with his father, especially with Christmas coming up, but it was full of unexpected brightness, too.

*

“Imperio!”

It turned out that Harry didn’t even have to taunt Quirrell into casting the spell on him. Quirrell tried it the instant Harry opened the door of his office for their next lesson.

Harry stood still and felt the slippery sensation in his mind. It was like being drenched in a wave of fish. He pushed back against it, and it pushed back against him, and he could hear what seemed to be a voice from very far away murmuring about how he wanted to trust Quirrell and obey him.

But I don’t, though, Harry thought back.

The voice recoiled, or went another direction, and then came back talking about how good it would feel for him to simply bow his head and obey and not tell anyone about these lessons and trust Quirrell to treat him well—

Harry thought of the times that he had tried to obey the Dursleys so they would treat him well, and laughed aloud.

Quirrell stared at him. There was no smile on his face now, and it was the first time Harry thought he was completely without one, even when Harry had burned his book. He moved his wand and probably cast the spell again, although he didn’t speak it, and a wave of fresh fish, cold and wet and slippery, hit Harry.

I am the one who is looking out for you, the only adult you can trust, you want to tell me every word that you’ve exchanged with Dumbledore, you want to tell me your secrets, you want to distrust your brother—

Harry pushed, and found the end of the slippery thing. It was like a coil in his mind, but it did have an end, like a snake’s tail. Harry grabbed hold of the Imperius and pulled on it, and it unraveled.

“Mr. Potter.”

Harry opened his eyes. He hadn’t even been aware that he was closing them to focus on the Unforgivable Curse more closely. And Quirrell was standing right in front of him with one hand spread out and his fingers clenching, like he wanted to drag the invisible coil from Harry’s brain and back into his own magic.

“What?” Harry asked quietly. He knew he was smiling. He knew it was probably a mean smile, but Quirrell was pretty mean himself, so it wasn’t like he would go running off to Dumbledore to report him.

“How did you resist it?”

No sly smile at all, no. Harry had done something that Quirrell hadn’t expected, but he had done that when he’d attacked him with elemental magic, too, and Quirrell had still sounded as though perhaps he saw the funny side of it then.

Not now.

I’ve scared him, Harry thought, and the thrill of power that trembled through him was wonderful.

“I heard a voice telling me that I wanted to obey and trust you,” Harry said. “I don’t obey and trust adults. I’ve tried it, and it never worked out. That’s probably going to keep me safe from any Imperius Curse an adult could cast,” he added thoughtfully. That was fun. And interesting.

Quirrell pursed his lips and blew out air, turning away to pace the floor. Harry watched him.

“And yet,” Quirrell said, turning around suddenly with a dramatic snap of his robes that Snape did better, “you are not afraid of me.”

“No.”

“Not running out of here to tell Dumbledore.”

“No.”

“The oaths that we swore—”

“Frankly, I don’t think of this as an attack because it didn’t work,” Harry said, and met Quirrell’s eyes. There was some other emotion hiding there now, something that wasn’t fear, but that Harry couldn’t make out. It probably didn’t matter. “And I was already thinking about how to taunt you into casting the Imperius on me.”

“Why?” Quirrell asked, slowly and coldly, his hand dropping to his wand.

“Because I want to learn it.”

“Whom do you want to curse?”

“Not you.”

“And you do not expect me to ask for more details?”

“No. Why would you? This hasn’t been a normal professor-student interaction from the very beginning, sir. You would have encouraged me to tell my parents about my elemental magic if it was, or told Dumbledore the first time I said something that made you think I was warped.”

Quirrell blinked several times. His hand rose away from his wand, and he studied Harry in silence. Harry just waited. He had been less than confident about his ability to get Quirrell to cast the Imperius, but he didn’t think he had to worry now.

“Warped,” Quirrell finally repeated, his voice a little more lively, but still not like he was going to smile any second.

“Freakish. Dark-Arts-using. Cold. Abnormal. I don’t know what word you really want to use for it.” Harry shrugged. It was kind of nice to have someone other than Theo he could be himself with. Yes, Quirrell had also tried to cast the Imperius Curse on him and kill Felix, but Harry had resisted the curse and saved Felix’s life, so it wasn’t like he had succeeded.

And Quirrell hadn’t done the worst thing of all. He hadn’t dumped Harry at the Dursleys’ and gone nattering on about how it was a necessary and worthwhile sacrifice.

“What are you going to do with the Imperius Curse once you learn it?”

“Use it to make people do what I want.”

Quirrell finally smiled, an expression Harry had seen only a few times before, one that seemed to be about baring his teeth as much as anything else. “You would have done well in Slytherin.”

Harry half-shrugged. He had no objection to Slytherin as it existed. He just didn’t want his parents to treat him like a pariah for going there, or lose his relationship with Felix, or chance that maybe his Parseltongue would come out if he looked at a snake and found himself speaking in that language instead of English. It was a fine House for other people, just not him. “Can you teach it to me?”

“Your magic other than your elemental magic is extremely chaotic. Undisciplined. You cannot even imitate first-year Transfiguration effects. How do you think you can imitate the Imperius?”

“By recreating the pattern that it creates in my brain. The snake-like one?” Harry added when Quirrell stared at him and Harry reckoned he hadn’t been specific enough. “It felt like a coil with a tail on it. I pulled on the tail, and it unraveled. I’m going to make sure that I can create that in someone’s brain, and, well, most people can’t resist it, so I don’t think they’ll find the tail to pull on.”

“Tell me, Mr. Potter,” Quirrell breathed, “is there any specific reason that you thought of a snake?”

“That’s what the pattern was like.”

Quirrell stared at him, and Harry stared back, and his magic manifested on his shoulder and rattled sharp, invisible wings. And then Quirrell tossed back his head and laughed. Harry stared at him stubbornly, even though the laughter, cold and high-pitched, made part of his stomach squirm in discomfort.

“You are a child I would have been delighted to mentor, at one time,” Quirrell said, when his laughter trailed off. “If things were different.”

“Does that mean that you’ll teach me the curse, sir?”

“Cease the respectful language, Harry, it does not become you. Yes. I will teach you. As long as you are willing to swear another oath not to tell anyone, including your Mr. Nott or your brother, who is teaching you.”

Harry accepted that easily. He certainly wasn’t going to tell Felix, and he could easily hint to Theo. Since Theo knew that Harry was still having lessons with Professor Quirrell regularly, he could probably guess anyway. It wasn’t like McGonagall was about to teach him that kind of thing.

“You realize,” Quirrell said softly, when Harry had sworn the oath that would bind him to silence concerning the casting of the Imperius Curse, “that I will be practicing on you, and that if you happen to slip in your resistance…”

“Yes, I know.” Harry stared at Quirrell. “Although I can’t imagine I’ll ever want to subject myself to a rain of fish on a regular basis, so I probably won’t slip.”

“A rain of fish?”

“That’s what the curse feels like to me,” Harry said, and shrugged.

“Interesting,” Quirrell breathed. “To many people, it feels like the most pleasant sensation they can imagine, like being bathed in pleasure…”

“Well, I haven’t had a whole lot of that in my life, so maybe that helps.”

“Maybe.” Quirrell nodded, still staring at him, and then lifted his wand. “Well, Harry, to begin. Imperio.”

Harry reached out and ignored the sensation of cold, slippery bodies falling around him to grasp the pattern of the curse, and watch as it uncoiled in his mind, tail sticking straight up and more visible this time. But he waited before unraveling it, watching it intently, determined to hammer it into his brain until he could understand and grasp it entirely.

And then apply it to the Figgs.

I am going to help Theo. I won’t fail because I don’t want to fail.

And whatever suffering the Figgs felt under the curse—Harry didn’t know how much that would be, if it felt like the most pleasant sensation in the world to lots of people—they deserved it for what they’d done to Theo.

Harry was pleased with how neatly that worked out.