Grindelwald's Burden (Books 1-7)

54. The Goblet of Fire

It was the next morning and the four were sat in the Great Hall eating breakfast as Harry told them he had sent a letter to Sirius that morning telling him that 'There's no point coming back, everything's fine here. Don't worry about me, my head feels completely normal.'

"That was a lie, Harry." said Hermione sharply over breakfast, when he told her, Y/n and Ron what he had done. "You didn't imagine your scar hurting and you know it."

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

"Sirius is not foolish enough to believe that Harry." Y/n told him.

"Drop it." said Ron sharply to Y/n and Hermione and for once, They heeded him, and fell silent.

Harry did his best not to worry about Sirius over the next couple of weeks. True, he could not stop himself from looking anxiously around every morning when the post owls arrived, nor, late at night before he went to sleep, prevent himself from seeing horrible visions of Sirius, cornered by dementors down some dark London street, but between times he tried to keep his mind off his godfather. He wished he still had Quidditch to distract him, nothing worked so well on a troubled mind as a good, hard training session. On the other hand, their lessons were becoming more difficult and demanding than ever before, particularly Moody's Defense 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 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 and Ron grinned at each other. They knew Hermione would rather eat bubotuber pus than miss such an important lesson. Y/n however was eager to start, combatting curses was a lesson he thought to be a vital skill.

Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them. Y/n watched as, one by one, his 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're 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!"

Y/n watched as Harry seemed to be fighting with some sort of internal struggle and very soon he had both jumped and tried to prevent himself from jumping, the result was that he'd smashed headlong into the desk knocking it over, and, by the feeling in his legs, fractured both his kneecaps.

"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! Very good indeed! They'll have trouble controlling you! Rest a moment then we'll try you again."