I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good: The Imperius Curse

So it's past time I wrote about the third of the Cardinal Curses. The Imperius Curse. Of all the Cardinal Curses I think it's probably the one someone is MOST likely to cast, because frankly it's pretty useful and you don't have to be an utterly evil git like Carrow to be able to think of reasonable uses. For instance, one time when Draco was really little he'd climbed up somewhere that he was in danger of falling, and he froze. Mr Malfoy cast Imperius on him and then climbed him down as if he were a puppet. Draco wound up with some really bad bruises on his hands, because his father had him holding on so tightly at each hand-hold (because he was terrified Draco would fall and die), but those healed up quickly.

Anyway. One of the books we read for Dark Arts talks about the ethical question of whether the ends justifies the means. The book says yes, of course it does, because the ends are really what count. Only of course the real answer is 'sometimes' and 'it depends on what the ends are and the means are,' because while killing every student at Hogwarts would nicely solve the problem of mud getting tracked in I don't imagine anyone would consider that a justifiable solution. And although there are people who are morally opposed to the Cardinal Curses under all circumstances, saying that Percy shouldn't have used the Imperius Curse to stop Amycus Carrow from killing anyone else after Hannah is just ridiculous. It would have been far better if he could have used the Imperius EARLIER and then Hannah would still be alive.

So, alright. On to what I know about the curse. OF COURSE, it was developed by a Ravenclaw. This one was trying to turn the Cruciatus curse inside out. Cruciatus works by turning on the bit of your brain that feels pain. The woman who invented Imperius was trying to work out how to do the opposite, and turn on the part of your brain that feels good. She was a teacher and she wanted to try to tie it to getting a correct answer, to see if that helped students learn. It didn't quite work out the way she'd imagined it. But, a really strong Imperius will feel REALLY GOOD when it's cast on you. A less-strong version, it's more that you'll find yourself doing things without quite knowing why (unless you know it was cast on you, then you'll know WHY, at least).

It takes a much stronger spell to make someone do something that's really against their nature, like to make Ron hurt Neville. If someone did that sort of Imperius, probably Ron would barely even know what he was doing, he'd be up on a cloud of bliss. If someone just wanted to make Ron start a fight with Seamus that would be quite a bit easier, he might later not even realise he'd been cursed, he'd look back and say 'I don't know what I was thinking!' but he might not realise it wasn't really him at all.

There are two really important things to know. One is how to cast it, and the other is how to resist it.

To cast it, you point your wand at the person you're cursing and you say 'imperio' and you think intently about what it is you want them to do. The 'primaries' for Imperius are Contempt and Superiority. Strong secondaries include self-righteousness and the belief that your wishes are paramount (which is sort of like Superiority but a little more specific) and additional secondaries can include protectiveness (even 'paternalism' which is almost a parental feeling) and disgust, and tertiaries include both love and hate, which is sort of funny. Mostly you need the conviction that you know best. Which is not hard to summon up, or maybe it is for other people? but I find this one pretty easy, at least in class, where mostly we practise on animals.

With the weakest successful version you have to follow the person around telling them exactly what to do each moment and it'll wear off as soon as you're really distracted. With a stronger version you have to keep your wand on them and sort of direct them where to go, like a puppet. If you're really good at it you can just give them general directions and they'll keep following them for weeks.

If you want someone to do something small but irritating, like end every sentence with the word 'master,' and you want them to keep doing this for a while without you having to follow them around, you need at least a middling strength curse.

The fact that Draco had Hermione end EVERY sentence that way (and not just when she's talking to Harry) could mean he's not very good at it, because it lacks finesse. Or possibly he was being sloppy. But -- Hermione, it does mean that if you want you can practise resisting Imperius, because you shouldn't do that sort of practice with Harry but you could certainly do it on the lock, or with me, if you want to meet in person after the common room's cleared out.

It's possible to resist the curse. You focus really hard on NOT doing whatever it is you're being forced to do, and if you work at it, and practise, you'll be able to throw off the curse entirely. It's really difficult, I've never been able to do it (we've worked a little with Imperius in Dark Arts class) although part of the problem is that while I'd like to be able to throw off Imperius, I'd really rather Miss Professor Carrow NOT know that I can (not to mention everyone else in Dark Arts). If people want to practise together, we could do that. You'll have to learn to cast it, too, though, or you'll just be practising resisting it and I'll just be practising casting it and honestly that would be sort of awful.

(The other thing about resisting it that's hard -- if you're practising in a class you KNOW it's been cast on you and you're paying attention to what it's making you do. In the real world you might not even notice, especially if the person isn't trying to get you to do something vile or shocking. Let's say you want some Ministry official who signs things all day and you want him to sign something without paying close attention to what he's signing, with Imperius you could PROBABLY have his name on your papers in two seconds and he'll never even know he was cursed, because you're just trying to get him to do something he does all day a little more efficiently. On the other hand, if you get caught at it you'll be in HUGE trouble. ANYWAY if you've learnt how to throw it off when you know it's been cast on you it's easier to resist when someone casts it on you and you're not expecting it.)

It's illegal to cast on a fellow wizard or witch without a licence, unless you're in a Dark Arts class or have special permission. Percy could have got in all sorts of trouble for casting it on Carrow. I heard they gave him a retroactive licence. Of course people with the licence can still get into trouble if they cast it on the wrong person or for the wrong reason (and get caught).