𝐎, 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃 ⎥ "He wants a fight with
a God? I'll give him one."
﹙ from stardust we came, to stardust we return ﹚
Prisoner of Azkaban - Deathly Hollows
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OVER THE NEXT DAYS, ELARA WAS IN A TERRIBLE MOOD. her dreams were worse than ever, with green flashes of light, screaming like someone was being tortured, a graveyard, a boy hitting the ground because he'd been killed, and an overwhelming feeling of darkness. elara told hermione, who wanted elara to go to dumbledore, but elara refused. she also made hermione swear not to tell harry or ron, because harry was already stressed about sirius, and ron can't and won't keep a secret.
to their surprise, though, 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, ron, and elara 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. elara 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.
harry almost fought the curse off, but he ended up doing a weird jump that sort of resembled a salmon jumping up a waterfall and hit his head against the desk. elara thought it was hilarious, but at the same time she was concerned.
"lestrange," moddy beckoned her forward after he finished praising potter.
elara moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that moody had cleared of desks. moody raised his wand, pointed it at elara, and said, "imperio!"
it was the most wonderful feeling. elara felt a floating sensation as every thought and worry in her head was wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. she stood there feeling immensely relaxed, only dimly aware of everyone watching her. although it was very therapeutic, elara felt very off-put by the feeling.
