Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Dislocation	By : LinguaMagus Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female Views: 2823 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not own Harry Potter or the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
- 16
Chapter 15:
For the next two days following Harry’s reconnaissance mission to Little Hangleton, he gathered with Ron, Tonks, Hermione, and Luna in the girls’ room to plan their investigation of the hidden Gaunt Shack. Ariana briefly tried to join, but decided that the magic was over her head and went to find Ginny. Her grasp of gobstones was improving significantly.
The evening of the second day, there was a knock at the front door, and Emmeline Vance arrived for dinner with Kingsley and a familiar wizard that it took Harry a few moments to place as Sturgis Podmore. There was a pang when he thought back and tried to count the days to figure out whether he had already been imperiused. He assumed there had to be a way to tell without drawing too much attention, but he didn’t have the slightest idea where to start.
He pushed it to the back of his mind and went to greet Emmeline and Kingsley. He was pleased to see Kingsley hale and healthy. Excluding a few glimpses on television, the last time he could remember seeing the big Auror in person was when he was wounded during the battle at the Ministry at the end of this year. He grasped his hand warmly and shook it so emphatically that brought a puzzled look to the usually pleasant, placid face.
“Harry, a pleasure to meet you. We are, of course, very familiar with your accomplishments.” Kingsley said with a rumble. “You know Emmeline, I’m told. Have you met Sturgis?”
The blond, square-jawed wizard hustled forward and extended a broad, calloused hand. “Sturgis Podmore, if you please. An honor to meet you, son. I knew your parents well. A better witch and wizard you’ll never find.”
Harry shook the hand politely and looked deep into his cheerful hazel eyes and tried to detect any glimpse of wrongness. A clue of any sort to let him know that the man was being controlled. No luck, however. He looked away quickly to avoid drawing suspicion, and Podmore smiled mildly at him while letting go of his hand.
“Mr. Potter, I decided to accept your invitation.” Emmeline said, stepping across and nodding curtly at him. “I think you’ll be pleased to know that things have been very quiet in Little Hangleton. Avery is still assigned the watch, and he has done nothing more interesting than steal a wheel of cheese from an old woman in the street.”
This was reassuring news and Harry thanked her for sharing. He thought that they had been discreet in their search for the shack, but you never knew what small detail an inquisitive person could pick up on. All of the planning of the last few days would be for naught if he showed up to town and there were a dozen Death Eaters waiting. He was also privately glad that Emmeline would be having dinner with them. There was something reassuring about the stern witch, and he was sure that Tonks would want to take the opportunity to bring her up to speed on everything they had discussed.
Mrs. Weasley heard the noise in the hall and came bustling out of the kitchen, patting flour from her apron in great clouds. “Oh my! Hello, Kingsley. Arthur told me to expect company for dinner, but I’m so happy to see that you brought Emmeline and Sturgis along. Is Arthur close behind?”
“Good evening, Molly. Arthur won’t be long. There was some commotion with a wizard placing permanent sticking charms on the earpieces of Muggle public telephones. He’s sorting it out, though. He just had to visit one of the Muggles at St. Mungo’s to get a statement.” Kingsley explained.
Mrs. Weasley nodded absently, proffered Kingsley a powdery hug, greeted Emmeline and Sturgis, then hurried back into the kitchen to check on dinner. Everyone made to follow her, but Harry held back. As Emmeline passed behind Kingsley, he grabbed her hand, held a finger to his lips, then gestured to a room down the hall. She stared at him flatly for a moment, then inclined her head. He ducked into a spare room and kicked aside a pile of dessicated linens that were piled next to the empty bed frame. Emmeline followed him inside, and stood patiently by the door.
“I have to ask you something, and it’s not going to make sense why yet, but I just need you to trust me. Can you do that?” Harry asked intently.
Her eyes narrowed, and she considered him for a moment. “Ask your question.”
“I need to know if there’s a way to detect if someone is under the Imperius Curse. Hopefully without letting them know that you’re checking.”
The corners of her mouth tightened and her eyebrows rose a fraction. “Do you suspect someone here to have been cursed? That’s a very dangerous situation, Harry. If you have evidence, it is imperative that you show me immediately.”
“I don’t have any evidence. I suspect someone, but the reason why wouldn’t make any sense unless I explained a bunch of other things I’m really not supposed to talk about.” Harry said uncomfortably.
Slowly, Emmeline digested this and nodded. “I think I’m starting to understand why you end up in so much trouble, Mr. Potter. Secrets can be a treacherous vice.” The barest hint of a smile pulled at her lips. “Very well. Yes. Detecting the Imperius Curse is difficult, but not impossible. Detecting it without the person being aware is probably impossible for anyone without experience under the Imperius Curse themselves.”
“Oh, well, I have actually been under the Imperius Curse before.” Harry said casually. Emmeline registered real shock for the first time. He realized too late that this required more explanation. “I guess you probably heard that Barty Crouch Jr. pretended to be Moody for an entire year? Well, the fake Moody taught our whole class how to throw off the Imperius Curse.”
“A teacher used an Unforgivable Curse on his students? And Albus allowed this?” Emmeline asked, revulsion etched on her features.
“I think he felt like it was important for us to be prepared for the worst. Obviously the fake Moody turned out to be a Death Eater, but I still don’t regret learning how to protect my mind.” While he spoke, flashes of Snape’s dungeon and the abortive attempts to learn Occlumency tried to distract him. He wasn’t comfortable with how many parallels it had to the fake Moody’s lesson, and the fact that Dumbledore had trusted them both.
“You actually succeeded, though? You were able to control your mind and overpower the curse? You’re sure of this?” Emmeline asked skeptically.
Harry nodded. “I can see what you’re getting at. No, I wasn’t left under the curse at any point. You can sort of feel the curse clouding your mind. I would have known if it stayed behind.”
“I’ll admit, I’m impressed. I’ve only heard stories of people resisting the Imperius Curse, and often with permanently damaging effects. That you are able to do so consistently is no small achievement,” said Emmeline.
“Whatever his other faults, Crouch-as-Moody was actually an amazing teacher. Maybe one of the best I’ve ever had.” Harry confessed. “I never could have done it without his help.”
“Hmm. Well, in any case, it’s a start. Have you ever used Legilimency?” Emmeline pivoted, drawing her wand.
Harry grimaced. “Only accidentally. I used a shield charm against someone using Legilimency and ended up in their mind by mistake.”
Emmeline raised a sculpted eyebrow, but did not comment. “Very well. Please attempt to use the Legilimency spell on me. Your goal is to do so without speaking the spell aloud, nor allowing me to detect your presence in my mind. If you attempt to view a memory that doesn’t come to me naturally, I will sense it and cast you out. If your presence is too heavy, I will sense it and cast you out. Do you understand?”
“Wait, what? Why am I the one practicing this?” Harry asked in shock.
“I do not have the requisite experience with the Imperius Curse, Mr. Potter. You know what it feels like. You know the sensation of having your mind suppressed and should therefore be able to detect it in others. However, when you use Legilimency against a person who has been imperiused, you are not simply trying to avoid their attention. If their consciousness detects you, the curse will follow. If you are too heavy-handed, your own mind will be consumed by the curse, and the Death Eaters will have gained a devastating advantage.” Emmeline explained in painful flatness.
Harry’s heart dropped into his stomach. “I’m not sure it should be. I don’t have any experience using Legilimency. I’ll mess it up for sure.”
“Well, presumably you are asking for my assistance because at least one of the Order members is suspected. To whom would you trust this task? Who has sufficient skill with Legilimency, and also knows what the Imperius Curse feels like?” Emmeline asked simply.
It was a devastating counter-argument. Moody came to mind, but somehow his typical ruthless, sledgehammer approach to safety and protection didn’t line up with the subtleties of Legilimency. Not only that, but if he failed, handing the Death Eaters someone like Moody would be far more damaging than if he failed. Harry was well trusted among the Order, but he didn’t have any real power or authority. The other name that he was loath to consider was Snape. There was no question that he was the most accomplished Legilimens outside of Voldemort himself, but had he ever been under the Imperius Curse? It didn’t seem likely. There was also the issue that he was himself a Death Eater and would be content to lie to them about what he found.
Harry accepted what needed to happen. He ran his hand through his hair in resignation. “It has to be me. You’re right. The risk is too great for anyone else to try it.” Emmeline gave him a thin, approving smile. “I still don’t know enough about Legilimency, though. Do you think you’ll be able to help me?”
She inclined her head slightly and folded an arm behind her back with her wand forward. “First, let us see where you are starting. Cast the spell without speaking. Penetrate my mind, and do your best to not be felt.”
Harry sighed and shrugged. He drew his wand and stood in front of her. He felt like a diver preparing for a swim in a shark tank. He found her eyes, and tried his best to see into the back of her head. Focusing on the black disks of her pupils, the rest of the room fell into a vague fog around him. Legilimens! The word echoed in his brain, and then he was speeding away from it. It disappeared into distant static behind him, and he was looking suddenly at himself. He stood like a scarecrow in the aisle of a market. There was a twinge in the memory, like a pink cloud of toothache. He touched it and again he was staring at himself. Except no, it wasn’t him at all. It was a young man who looked just like him, but details were wrong. He realized in wonder that it was his father. Emmeline must have known him years before. He was young, maybe only a year or two after the memory from Snape.
The memory started to slide away, but Harry chased it. He wanted desperately to see more of James Potter, even if it meant seeing him arrogant and bullying again. He clawed back to the memory. The face of his father swam into greater focus, and he realized that he was looking up at him. His hair hung in sweaty, dirty strands around his face, and he was pulling away something standing between them. It came away in pieces, splintering and showering the eyes below with unknown debris. The look on his face was startling. It was dark with intensity and hollow with fear. He tore at whatever the material was ferociously, opening more space for light to shine upon the memory.
Then Harry was sitting on his bottom with a headache like someone had taken a pickaxe to it. Emmeline was staring at him with an expression he couldn’t read. She didn’t seem to be angry at him, however. He grabbed the side of the bed frame and hauled himself upright. He massaged his scar fervently and squinted his eyes to try and get back to the current moment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“You did well enough, Mr. Potter. No need to apologize. You seem to have a natural gift for the more penetrative aspects of Legilimency at least. However, you became greedy. Clumsy.” She said busily, brushing down her clothes and not looking at him. “You became tempted by a memory tangent and followed it away from the front of consciousness.”
“I know. I’m sorry—,” Harry started.
Emmeline cut him off. “But you saw yourself and wanted to know more. This is one of the most common challenges in Legilimency. When we speak with people, their memories of us are often at the forefront of their minds. We are all naturally curious about others’ perceptions of us, and so we look deeper. However, the memories at one or two levels removed from those surface memories are often just connected by tangents or emotional similarities. Calling them into focus causes the subject to see what we are seeing. The more tangential the memory, the more likely they are to notice the disturbance.”
“Did you… know my father?” Harry asked carefully.
“I did. Your mother as well. We attended Hogwarts together, although James and Lily were two years ahead of me. They were both very capable and very well liked. Your mother tutored me for my Potions OWL coursework.”
“The memory I saw—,” Harry said.
“Was from a very long time ago,” Emmeline concluded. “We should try again. This time, I want you to stay on the surface. I want you to allow yourself to drift along with the direction of my thoughts and do not interfere. If you are detected, you will have to start again.”
They took up position facing each other again. Harry adjusted his wand in his hand and did his best not to think about anything other than just Emmeline’s face and her controlled gaze. He waited until his mind settled, waited until his vision tightened and closed in on her eyes. Then he cast the spell again. He was soaring on silent wings into her mind. He was again looking at himself, but this time he was welcoming Kingsley Shacklebolt, grasping his hand warmly and shaking it. The sincere joy on his face drained astonishingly quickly when he turned to Sturgis. Had he really been so transparent? Was everyone aware of his suspicions? If Sturgis himself had his guard up, this whole process would be so much harder. His fear and anxiety spilled out of him and trickled like ink across the open mind.
The memory warped and shifted. He was no longer looking at Sturgis, but an older man sleeping on a worn and ragged armchair. He was unshaven, his clothes were stained, and the bags under his eyes were heavy and dark. In the next room, a little girl was weeping. Harry looked out from eyes blurry with tears. His wand was pointed at the sleeping man’s chest. A fabric-rending snore erupted from the man’s open mouth. The room was rank with the smell of drink and body odor.
Then Harry was back in the unoccupied bedroom. He was falling, and his hands flew out to his side to grab anything he could on the way down. He caught onto the old chest of drawers, but only enough to pull a drawer out and down on top of him. He lay on the ground, covered in dust and slivers of dried out contact paper with the drawer sitting in his lap. He glanced around to find Emmeline and spotted her still standing where she had been before, but white as a sheet and tight-lipped. She was not looking at him.
“I’m really sorry. I don’t know what happened.” Harry said sorely.
“What happened, Mr. Potter, is that you let yourself be detected again. Your emotions bled over into my mind, and my mind responded by feeding you memories in line with those emotions. You must control yourself. If you cannot rein in your emotions, you will be vulnerable when you attempt to look into the mind of another.” Emmeline said. Her voice was steady, but it lacked some of its earlier iron control.
“I’m sorry. I really am trying my best. Can we try again?” Harry asked.
“I don’t believe that this is your best. You have touched a woman before, am I right?” Emmeline asked. Harry’s jaw hung slack and his eyes were hunted.
“Well, I mean… I guess I—,” He mumbled.
“When you go to touch a woman, do you just paw at her clumsily? Do you find the part you like the most and mash your hand against it like an ape?” She asked.
“Well, no. I, you know, take my time. I try to…” He trailed off.
“You try to touch her in a way that she likes, yes? You keep your touch light, and you respond to her. It is the same when you are in another’s mind. You must not focus on your wants and desires. You are a guest in someone else’s house. You must keep your touch as light as possible, and only follow where their mind takes you naturally.” She said primly.
Harry blushed, but nodded. He got to his feet and rolled the wrist of his wand hand. He stood squared off in front of her and tried to relax. He let go of the tension in his neck and shoulders, and pulled his entire awareness into the space behind his eyes. He felt like a tube of toothpaste nearing the end of its life. He called out the spell inside his mind and rushed out into Emmeline’s mind once more.
This time, he was again staring at himself, but at himself in the very room where he was standing. It was disconcerting. He wasn’t standing in quite the same position. He quieted his mind and stopped trying to understand. The other him raised his wand, and then the room fell away and he was looking up at James once more. Harry’s heart thumped in his chest, but he calmed himself and waited to see where the memory went. There was another twinge, this time fuzzy and blue. He ignored it, letting it throb at the edge of his thoughts without shifting his focus.
Sun poured over James like a waterfall of gold. It flared and he vanished. When the memory reformed, James was gone and a beautiful girl with auburn hair was setting out an array of ingredients on a table and opening a book. Harry realized with a pang that it was his mother. He wanted desperately to grab hold of the memory and see more of her, but he breathed in and steadied himself. A pair of startlingly green eyes turned back to look at him, and then he was diving into those eyes. The world became green and clear and warm as a Summer forest.
The emerald pool in which he was immersed spiraled away, and streaks of brilliant blue ran through it like veins of sapphire. As he felt himself rising, there was a pull in his stomach that he couldn’t place. It didn’t seem connected to the colors in any way he could sense. Then the colors were rushing away, and he was staring back into his own face in the empty cobble street of Little Hangleton. His face was attached to his head, which was approaching at speed. It bowled him over and bore him to the ground. His wand skittered away across the stone. Except no, his wand was still firmly in his hand. Just not the hand of his recollection. Or rather, her recollection.
He felt the pulling in his stomach again, but the duality was asserting itself in his consciousness. It wasn’t his stomach at all. He was feeling her emotion from the outside. With effort, he pushed down his own feelings, silenced his thoughts, and let the emotion creep into him. It began in his stomach, flowing over him and curling around his insides like tentacles. He had never before needed to understand an emotion. His feelings were just his feelings, and he knew them as well as he knew his hands or his face. This new sensation was unfamiliar to him, though. Without context, he was just surrendering to its pull and hoping it would communicate some meaning to him.
The feeling in his stomach spread. His heart pounded like a drum. There was an edge of something that might have been pain. Heat built in his neck, and some unfamiliar tension caused his toes to clench. There was a deep, breath-stealing ache inside and his brain was covered in wool. Something clicked. He put the pieces together and understood what he was feeling. The shock caused him to flash like lightning against the black nothingness outside of thought. He felt another pang of some unknown emotion before he was cast out.
This time, instead of being thrown to the floor, he could feel himself retreating from the mind and he was able to recover his physical presence. The vestiges of someone else’s infatuation skittered across the boundaries of his consciousness, retreating from the furnace of his own strength of feeling and thought. He glanced over to Emmeline, and saw that she was turned fully away from him. He gave himself a few cursory pats to remind himself what his own body felt like and went to her side.
She looked up at him, and there was just the briefest shimmer in her eyes before it was blinked away. Her cheeks were almost imperceptibly pink, but her jaw was still set and firm. “Very well done, Harry. I think that is enough practice for today, but you progressed remarkably. I was only able to detect you when you registered surprise at the… sensation you picked up from me. I trust you will treat your access to my thoughts and feelings with the appropriate respect?” Harry wondered if there was just a note of pleading in that question.
“Of course. I would never tell anybody about your memories. That’s not right.” He said.
She gave him a grateful half-nod. “That will do for now. Thank you, Harry. Whatever you may have experienced inside my mind, please consider it an accidental glimpse and not a confession. I would not like you to leave with an inappropriate impression of my intentions.”
Harry thought about what this meant for a moment. She doesn’t want me to think she’s coming onto me and using Legilimency to do it. He suppressed a laugh of relief. “Yeah, absolutely. We do still have one other problem, though.”
“That being?” She asked.
“I have to attempt to check the person tonight. I don’t know when I’ll get another chance, and he could end up hurt or in prison if I don’t find the truth.”
She looked at him sharply. “Tonight? Nonsense. You don’t have anything like enough practice. You’ll be overwhelmed by the curse.”
Harry sagged, but he shook his head in refusal. “No, it has to be tonight. I’ll be leaving for Hogwarts soon, and he doesn’t come around often enough for me to gamble on trying it again before I leave.”
Emmeline paused and looked at him in alarm. “Is it Sturgis or Kingsley?”
Harry scratched his head and didn’t answer for a moment. Then he decided there was no harm in telling her. “It’s Sturgis. I can’t explain how I know, but if I’m right, he’s going to try to break into the Department of Mysteries if he’s been cursed. He’ll be caught and thrown into Azkaban, and that’s if he isn’t more seriously hurt in the attempt.”
“Oh Sturgis, poor man… Well, I suppose we have no choice. I’m not thrilled about this, however. If it were someone with a less important job, I would caution patience.” Emmeline warned.
“I know. I don’t like it either, but I don’t know what choice we have.”
“One small blessing, at least. Sturgis is an uncomplicated man. His mind should not be overly erratic. As long as you maintain control and retreat as soon as you sense danger, we may have a chance yet,” said Emmeline.
“If it goes wrong, will you make sure I don’t get away? Do whatever you need to, curse me or hex me or whatever. Just don’t let me hurt anyone.” Harry requested.
“I’m afraid you don’t fully understand. If it goes wrong, I will never know. The curse will consume your mind, but from outside, all will appear normal. If you fail, we will have two compromised people within the order, and all I will have are suspicions.” Emmeline explained with just a touch of compassion.
Harry gulped. “I’ll just have to trust your instincts, then.”
She turned away once more and there was a rush of silence. When she turned back around, she had regained her steely composure and she smiled at him politely. “Shall we rejoin the party? I will endeavor to hold Sturgis’s attention for you. It is probably for the best that we get it out of the way quickly before he has the opportunity to ask anyone away to attempt to curse them as well.”
“Let’s do it.” Harry said with more confidence than he felt.
He held the door open for Emmeline, and they passed into the hall. She walked ahead of him, and he tried not to think about the emotional turmoil he had felt inside her as he stared at the back of her head. She kept a measured pace, but with Harry’s stride, he had to keep slowing down to keep from bumping into her from behind. Outside the kitchen, they could hear the rambunctious energy of the Weasleys arguing over who knows what. Emmeline stood beside the door and Harry stepped forward to hold it open for her again.
Arthur had apparently arrived home already, and he was sitting at the table across from Kingsley. They were chatting amiably about work, and Lupin was occasionally interjecting with questions about how they handled certain issues. Sirius and Tonks were entertaining Fred, George, and Ginny by transforming a salt cellar into a series of increasingly ugly monsters about three inches tall. Hermione was helping Mrs. Weasley with dinner, and Ron was playing Sturgis at chess while Ariana spectated.
Emmeline took up a spot next to Sturgis, who greeted her distractedly while studying the board intently. Harry sat down next to Ariana and kissed her on the cheek. She giggled and squeezed his hand. Looking around, everyone was so immersed in what they were doing that they had barely noticed him entering the room. He leaned against the wall and slipped his wand out of his pocket, concealing it behind his leg. He forced himself to relax and pretended that he was invested in the chess game.
He let his gaze drift up to land on the top of Sturgis’s straw-blonde head. He remembered Ron’s description of the bloke who looked like his head was thatched. It was honestly amazingly close. The thick blonde hair came out in straight lines from the center of his head and fell around his forehead and ears. It was such a silly haircut that Harry couldn’t help but like him a bit more.
With a deep breath, Harry focused his attention and tried to tune out the busy room. Zeroing in on the top of the thatched head, he stilled his mind and silently spoke the spell. Legilimens. He was leaving his own head and speeding away. Inside Sturgis’s mind, he was looking at a field of tulips. The sun beat down with an almost blinding mid-day clarity. The flowers swayed gently in the breeze, and a huge old elm tree gave the only shade for several hundred yards. Instead of finding the shade, Harry laid down in the tulips and felt the sticky heat of the day coat his skin.
Harry was slightly puzzled why Sturgis was staying so long on this particular memory, but he quieted his mind and just tried to expand his awareness to feel anything that was different or unexpected. Unlike Emmeline’s mind, there were no twinges of feeling connecting this memory to others. There was just the warmth of the sun, the blissful freshness of the smell of flowers, and the cool breeze. It was so comfortable as to be almost intoxicating. Harry relaxed and let himself feel the simple joys that the memory was evoking.
Then Harry felt it. So subtle as to be practically invisible. The tiniest hiccup when the memory tried to shift. Like someone was choosing the same song on the jukebox over and over. He let the visuals fade from his focus, let himself feel the warmth without acknowledging it. Then he found it, deep underneath. That peaceful, floating feeling. Like nothing in the world was wrong. Pure happiness, and all he had to do was whatever was asked. He recoiled from it so violently that he was sure Sturgis’s consciousness must have detected him.
Slowing everything down, Harry tried to take stock. He didn’t feel any awareness on him. He wasn’t silhouetted against the memory as something that didn’t belong. So far, he still felt like he was safe. Perfectly safe. He could just stay here as long as he needed. No. Run. The voice came from somewhere small and far away. He lay in the tulips and just felt the sun on his skin. A tendril of peaceful pleasure sprouted from the Earth and quested for him. He could see it as a tight little coil of flower root that wanted to make him part of the memory. It wanted to make him happy. To make him feel that wonderful floating. No. The voice was louder this time, but so unwelcome. Why couldn’t he just enjoy the feeling of this wonderful memory? RUN. ESCAPE. This time the voice was right inside his head.
A cloud passed in front of the sun and a chill ran down Harry’s spine. Every flower, the tree, the sky itself seemed to turn towards him and stare. It was oppressive, terrifying. RUN! He tore himself out of the reverie and could feel the curse searching for his mind. It was pressing in from all sides. He breathed slowly and let the thread going back to his body pulse its connection through his mind. The tendril growing from the soil swelled and grew dark. It moved fast as a snake, reaching for his form. Except he was already speeding away. He had no physical body here, and once he chose to leave, there was precious little it could do to contain him.
Still, as he raced back to his body, he could feel the dark magic pursuing him hungrily. It was taking shape, abandoning its facade and forming a great hand, grasping and clawed. Just as he was sure it was going to rake across his brain and leave his mind in tatters, he was free. He collapsed back into his body and drew a gasping, frenzied breath. The air rattled in him like ice chips and his eyes spun wildly as he searched for something to focus on. He found it. Sturgis Podmore was looking at him, but it was Lucius Malfoy’s eyes that stared out of him. The expression was savage and murderous. Harry’s eyes flickered to Emmeline instinctively and Sturgis smiled like a crocodile.
His hand darted under the table, but Harry was already moving before the wand made it free of Sturgis’s pocket. He pushed off of his chair in a great leap and flew across the table. A bolt of green light seared through the air right where Emmeline had been seated before Harry dragged her to the ground and lay atop her. He felt her hand shoot out under his arm, and a flash of red light spat out and stunned Sturgis where he sat. The blonde wizard sagged to the ground in a heap, and the room was silent for a beat before it erupted into chaos as Harry was dragged off of Emmeline and Ron grabbed Sturgis’s wand and pointed his own at the man’s throat.
“It appears that I owe you my life once again, Mr. Potter. I have to say, I hope that this does not become a pattern.” Emmeline said placidly, but Harry could see her pulse hammering in her throat.
Lupin had dragged Harry upright, but in deference to their relationship, he had not tried to take Harry’s wand. “Harry, I would like you to explain what has just taken place, please.”
Harry rubbed his knee ruefully where it had collided with the stone floor. “Sturgis was under the Imperius Curse. I checked for myself, but he spotted me inside his head. When it was clear that he was exposed, he tried to attack Emmeline. I didn’t have time to warn her, so I just had to get her out of the way.”
“What do you mean you checked for yourself? How would you know how to do that?” Arthur Weasley asked.
“I taught him, Arthur.” Emmeline spoke up. “That’s where we were when you arrived. Harry told me about his suspicions and I showed him how to use Legilimency to detect the curse. We determined that it should be confirmed as quickly as possible, lest Sturgis get any of us alone and curse them as well.”
“That was incredibly dangerous, Emmeline!” Mrs. Weasley shouted.
“No more dangerous than leaving an Imperiused wizard in our midst, Molly. Harry was the only one with both the experience and information necessary to accomplish the task. We weighed our options and chose the one with the greatest likelihood of success.” Emmeline countered coolly.
“But Harry sho—,” Mrs. Weasley started, but Mr. Weasley cut her off.
“That’s enough, Molly. No one was hurt, and Harry was able to identify and subdue a very dangerous threat to us. He and Emmeline deserve our thanks.” He said firmly.
“Actually, technically, Emmeline subdued him. I just kept him from cursing her before she knew what was going on.” Harry corrected. Emmeline gave him a small smile and winked.
Kingsley and Lupin grabbed Sturgis under his arms and hauled him to one of the spare rooms until they could decide how they wanted to handle the situation. There was no simple countercurse for Imperius. They could take him to St. Mungo’s, but not without drawing attention. Harry shook Ron’s hand heavily and thanked him for jumping in so quickly. Hermione and Tonks fussed over Emmeline, making sure she was okay, but now that she was vertical again, she seemed entirely unfazed.
Once everything had settled, she came to Harry and thanked him again. “You did remarkably well. More than that, you actually escaped with your mind intact. If you hadn’t reacted the way you did, we couldn’t have known. I have to say, Mr. Potter, you continue to impress me.”
Sudden inspiration flared in Harry’s mind. He rested a hand against her hip and drew her in close. He stared down into her face, which was suffused with pink heat, and turned her head to one side. He whispered in her ear, “I hope I can continue to impress you.”
She let out a very soft sound that she changed into a clearing of her throat and then nodded tightly. “I suspect you will, Harry. In fact, I’m counting on it.”
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Dislocation

Chapter 15: