//------------------------------//
// Chapter 54:  The Imperius Curse 
// Story: The Accidental Invasion 
// by computerneek 
//------------------------------//

Ron sighed as he sat next to Hailey, in the one class he shared with her this year- rather than zero in previous years.  “What do you think is happening this time?”
Hailey chuckled.  “Nothing good,” she told him calmly.  “As he said last time, it is legal to use the Unforgivable Curses against spiders- but something tells me he’s got, ahh, less legal plans for today’s lesson.”
“Does it have anything to do with that…”  He trailed off.  “Whatever it was session you did earlier?”
She nodded.  “Yes, that might be very important.”
Ron looked back up at Professor Moody’s desk.  The Professor hadn’t arrived yet.
The week before, Professor Moody had demonstrated all three Unforgivable Curses on some spiders- and for as much as Ron was afraid of spiders, he’d kept the corner of his eye on Hailey…  and she had watched calmly, almost amusedly.  She’d raised her eyebrow- and Ron had been surprised himself- when Moody roared the Killing Curse, instead of muttering it like he did the other two.
Then over the weekend, Hailey had ordered a meeting of all the Student Instructors in the class.  The meeting had taken nearly five hours…  but with Hailey and Morning Sun at the head, they had taught them to resist…  something.  He had no idea what they were actually learning to resist, only that the two girls had pushed until every single one of them was flawless at it.
As for her reason…  “Officially,” she’d confided to him, “I have a hunch.  Unofficially, I visited the future a couple weeks ago, and I know we’ll need it.  But don’t tell anyone, time travel like that is technically illegal both here and in Equestria.”
In short, Hailey was as inscrutable as ever.  Just as he had decided she would be back when he first met her.  He’d long since realized just how smart he really was- a realization that was reinforced by his assignment as a Student Instructor, let alone one of the vast minority that got to study directly under the Professors- but that hadn’t changed.  No matter how hard he thought about it, the best explanation for how any girl’s mind worked seemed to be ‘magic’, and in that respect, Hailey was no different from anyone else, despite having once been a boy.
But had she always been able to travel through time, and flouted the law that casually?  He was fairly sure that answer was no, but the way she had said it suggested that it was legal for her, and she just didn’t feel like explaining why to the Ministry.
If anything was confusing, that was.  He didn’t want to bother her by asking why, especially with how many students bothered her each day with questions, reports, meetings, and various other stuff.  She was already getting fed up with the ones that were trying to revere her like a goddess; he’d seen her snap at three of them already, despite hardly being a week and a half into the school year!
Then Moody walked in.  Or clunked in; for some reason, he didn’t seem too practiced with the wooden leg.
Ron watched Hailey out of the corner of his eye again; especially if she’d already seen the future and knew what was coming, her body language would be a sure barometer of exactly when- and what about- he needed to worry.
But she didn’t seem all that concerned.  As a matter of fact, when Moody announced that he’d be using the Imperius Curse on them, she showed amusement, disappointment, and anticipation, he was pretty sure.  He couldn’t see what she might be looking forward to, but he couldn’t think of anything else it might be.
Unfortunately, Ron couldn’t keep his eyes on Hailey for the entire class.  Moody called him up front to have the curse cast on him first- which put Hailey behind him, and he couldn’t exactly watch her when she was behind him, without being overt about it.
He watched Moody raise his wand, as if time had- no, wait, Hermione had called it ‘slow motion’ when he’d described it to her, and her vocabulary was irritatingly larger than his.
“Imperio!” Moody barked, so slowly that Ron counted nearly twelve seconds before he’d finished- even though his wristwatch only ticked once.
He watched the spell crawl towards him.  It seemed to slow down as it approached, and he resisted the urge to dodge it.
Finally, it hit him.
Immediately, something started trying to invade his mind.  He fought it reflexively, exactly as Hailey had trained him to- and before he’d even realized what was going on, he’d already driven it clear out of his mind.
He waited, and waited.  Finally, Moody lowered his wand, and the world seemed to speed back up again, the ticking of the second hand on his watch no longer a little gong tapping on his wrist.  It was like he’d been extremely sensitive- hyposensitive?  No, that didn’t sound right.  Hypersensitive?  Yes, yes, that one.  It was like he’d been hypersensitive while the world had been in slow motion as well.  It was a strange feeling.
“You didn’t…  notice it?” Moody asked, dumbstruck.
He blinked.  “Oh, is that what that was?  Huh.  It was easy to fight.”
As Moody called the next person up, and sent him back to his seat, he saw that Hailey was leaning back in hers, merriment in her eyes.  It was the classic look he’d come to know and dread in Fred and George’s eyes, indicating a successful prank.
As the class went on, he had to agree with Hailey.  Her prank was utterly successful- not a single person, pony or otherwise, succumbed to the Imperius Curse.
And when it was Hailey’s turn, Moody cast the spell, jumped up on his desk, and whirled on the tips of his toes, singing…
“Her eyes are as green, as a fresh-pickled toad,” he began.
There was a roar of laughter, as Ron recognized Ginny’s musical valentine to Hailey nearly two years before.
Finally, Moody crashed to the floor behind his desk, and scrambled to his feet.
“You’re a better singer than that card-carrying cupid-dwarf of Lockhart’s,” Hailey observed, “but not by much.  And you also failed the basic test of Constant Vigilance- you didn’t even try to dodge or block it when I reflected the Imperius Curse back at you.”  She smiled.  “Yes, it can be blocked, and reflected back at the caster.  I just did, after all.”
Moody stared at her, but she wasn’t done yet.
“On the other hand, there are far better ways to teach someone to resist the Imperius Curse than casting it on them, and if you’ve read the laws, you’ll know it’s illegal to cast it on another human being in any circumstance, including education.  Oh yes, and Dumbledore explicitly told you to Keep.  Things.  Legal this year, nevermind the Hogwarts Professorial Code of Conduct explicitly prohibits dark magic curses to be directed towards a student.”  She sighed.  “That’s another detention.  My office, seven thirty in the evening, tomorrow, and I’ll do you a favor and not mention it to the Ministry.”
There was a sudden wave of applause through the room.





“Alastor,” Dumbledore groaned through his fingers.  “How many times do I have to tell you to Keep.  It.  Legal!?”  He half-shouted the last three words, one at a time, in near-desperation.
Professor Moody, on the other side of his desk, flinched back from his verbal assault, but didn’t respond.
“Hailey was completely right about the Code of Conduct as well,” he told Alastor.  “This is your written warning.  And you’re lucky it’s not also your final warning for missing her detention as well!”  He actually reached a yell at the end- it was admittedly the first time he’d yelled in probably decades, and it felt…  nostalgic, somehow.  He sighed, and spoke in a low, disappointed tone.  “Like I told you last time, I won’t be able to protect you from the Ministry any longer.  Hailey is doing you a really big favor by not mentioning it to them, and you repay her by ignoring her detentions?”  He looked up.  “Or would you prefer a cell in Azkaban?  Hailey happens to be good friends with the guards.”
Moody twitched in surprise.  “Friends with the Dementors?” he asked disbelievingly.
Dumbledore smiled, and nodded.  “Yes.  She tells me they’re a delightful lot, just ill-understood.  She’s also a great friend of Amelia Bones, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement- though how she managed that in just five minutes, I have no idea.”  He sighed.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to start the preparations for our guests’ arrivals this coming week.”





Deep down in the dungeons, there was an almighty crash.
“Careful,” a strange girl with gleaming black hair admonished.  “A crash like that can kill you.”  She lifted Hermione by the armpits and set her on her feet before dusting off her shoulders, ignoring the bloodstains all over Hermione’s white shirt- and the fact that she only had one arm, the other severed again, this time just below the shoulder.
She stared at the girl, nonplussed.  The loss of the arm that had been holding her once again damaged dimensional handset also meant they were completely stranded this time; there was no way for it to be fixed, since it had been entirely lost to the Dimensional Void.  Yet, this girl had caught her from who knew how fast…  and seemed to have expected her?  “Who are you?”
“Oh, I’m just your friendly neighborhood stranger,” she answered dismissively.
“Ugh.”  She looked at the source of the sudden utterance.  It was one of her companions- the one that was conscious, and actually had a moniker.  She pulled herself out of the wall and sat up, folding her wings- no, surviving wing.  She’d lost her other wing this time, clear up to her back- and apparently it was a clean splinch this time, since she didn’t seem to feel it right away.  “Huh?” she muttered, looking around.
“Good evening, Hermione Gate,” the black-haired girl smiled, looking over.  “Sleep well?”
Gate looked at her.  “S-Sleep?” she asked, then pointed at the wall.  “You call that sleep?”
“That was a joke,” she answered dryly.  “By the way, your left wing is missing.”
“I know,” Gate hissed, her eyes narrowing.  “Who are you and why don’t I recognize you?”
The girl shrugged.  “Oh, you might recognize who I used to be,” she smiled.  “Or my best friend.  Well, one of them, at any rate.”  She chuckled.  “She looks almost exactly like you do.  Little bit older, of course- we’re in fourth year right now, not second.  And she’s so much of a spellsmith that even Hermione Impossible down there can’t compare.”  She chuckled again, gesturing down at their unconscious companion.
“Impossible?” Hermione Greeter asked, raising an eyebrow.  Perhaps this girl had a spare handset she could borrow?  Transferring the coordinates of Hermione Gate’s world from her phone would be harder without the wo-fi connection between the two, but it’d be enough for a simple out-and-back trip to retrieve her spare handset, still waiting for her on the table in Gate’s Hogwarts.
“So you’re…”  Gate glanced at Greeter, then back at the strange girl.  “One of the local Hermione’s friends?”
She smiled.  “Well no, I’m her girlfriend.  Well…”  She tilted her head playfully.  “One of them.”  She giggled softly.
“My aren’t you cheerful,” Gate grumbled.  “Can’t you see that Greeter’s missing an arm, I’m missing a wing, and our companion here is missing a leg- correction,” as she glanced down at her, “two legs.  Any thought to maybe help us?”
The girl shrugged.  “Well yeah, but the Hermy-O-Nanny employs those wonderful nanites that sealed off your wounds so fast they didn’t even manage to bleed.  No, wait, that’s probably the spells I laid in here before you got here, but the nanites would’ve done it anyways if I didn’t.”
“Are you trying to get killed?”  Gate hissed through her teeth.
The girl laughed.  “Oh I’d like to see you try,” she chuckled.  “Last time some idiot tried killing me, all he managed to do was hurt his hand.  Thing is, I tell people I’m stronger than I look, and I am- but the truth is…”  She trotted over, and bent down to pick up their unconscious companion’s hand.  “I’m completely and utterly indestructible,” she finished, and gave the hand a sharp yank, pulling their companion upright- straight through the wall.
Their companion- whom the strange girl had called ‘Hermione Impossible’- let out a scream of fright and lashed out with her other hand.  As if to prove her point, the strange girl caught it casually in her free hand, with a sharp slap that echoed through the room…  but didn’t seem to phase her at all.  Then she released both arms, and Hermione Impossible stumbled away from her on ghostly legs.
“Who are-!”  She paused, and looked down.  “What the-?”
“Telefragged,” the strange girl told her.  “By a sabotaged Dimensional Jump Handset, no less.  But don’t worry, the Hermy-O-Nanny can fix you up in just a few short hours.  And you can call me Hailey, by the way.”
Impossible looked up at her.  “Hailey,” she repeated.  “Granger?”
She shook her head.  “Potter.”
“Ahh.”  She looked at Greeter.  “That…  er, device?”
She shook her head.  “Gone.”
“I can fix it,” she reminded.
“Not when it’s been lost to the Interdimensional Void rather than just damaged,” Hailey mused.  “No matter how many laws you break, Reparo can only fix what’s in front of you.”
“Or behind me,” she smiled.
She nodded.  “Or behind you,” she agreed.  “But there’s still the basic requirement that you be able to point at it in some manner or another- ergo, it must be in the same universe.  As you no doubt know, wand magic doesn’t cross the worldwall.”
Impossible sighed.  “I do know,” she groaned, and finally turned to Greeter.  “Any spares?”
Greeter shook her head.
“How long for a rescue party?”
“Probably a very long time,” Hailey muttered.
“Why?” Greeter asked, looking at her.  “Hermione’s, Inc. traces all jumps with our handsets, and launches daily rescue missions to those which fail, like that one.  We’d usually only have to hang tight for a couple days at most.”
Hailey smiled.  “That’s just it:  Daily.  There’s about six hours before the next wave- but this world still has tons of destiny energy, so by then, you’ll be already dead…  or already saved.”
“But…  But it’s been too long for that.  We’d never last more than thirty seconds with very much destiny energy about, without proper preparations.  And even then, sometimes.”
Hailey shrugged.  “Yeah, well, I’ve been watching the clock.”
“What clock?” Gate promptly asked.
“That clock,” Hailey answered, pointing past her.
They all looked.  Where there most certainly hadn’t been a clock before, there was now a comically large digital display, taking up the entire blackboard and counting down milliseconds as if they were full seconds.
“That clock is way slow,” Gate observed.
“It’s actually dead on,” Hailey informed her.  “I’m…  bending the rules a little, so to speak.”
Impossible looked at her.  “Compressing time by a thousand times is only bending them a little?”
She shrugged.  “Yeah.  A little, compared to what I’ve done in the past.  Anyways, let’s get you girls back to the Hermy-O-Nanny.”  She held out her hand.  “We’ll need physical contact.”
Greeter sighed, and stepped forward to rest her hand on Hailey’s.  Gate was next, then Impossible.
Finally, Hailey stuck her other hand into her hair and, with an almost wildly mischievous grin, she pulled a dimensional handset out of it and pushed a button.
There was a sudden scream.  Greeter glanced up- Hailey had, true to her word, gotten them clear to the Hermy-O-Nanny.
Hailey turned around, and handed her handset to someone that looked exactly identical.  “Don’t forget about Crouch in five minutes, past self,” she told her.
“Neither you, future self,” the other girl smiled, tapping a couple keys on the handset.  “Have fun issuing him detention!”  She tapped the jump key, and disappeared.
Hailey turned back right about at the same time as the nurse-Hermiones reached them.  “Was-  Were you just crossing your own timeline?” she asked.
Hailey smiled, and nodded.  “Yup!  And giving my past self the jump set that my future self gave me a few seconds ago.”
“...  What.”
She shrugged.  “I’m not sure where it originally came from either.  Anyways, I’d best go catch Crouch putting Harry’s name in the Goblet of Fire.  So long!”  She waved and, without any handset at all, vanished into thin air.
“I hope that girl’s Hermione joins Hermione’s Inc,” Greeter mumbled, allowing one of the nurses to guide her back towards the regeneration chambers.
“Oh, and before I forget.”  It was Hailey again, very suddenly in front of her.  “Here’s your spare.”  She handed Greeter a jump handset…  which she recognized as the spare she’d left on Gate’s table.  “I’ve preprogrammed it with Impossible’s coordinates.  She’s also fresh out of destiny energy.”  She vanished again.
“Did that girl just perform a dimensional jump without a dimensional jump device?” one of the nurses asked.