Future use of Imperius (was Ron's prejudices)

[davewitley]

No: HPFGUIDX 38287

Susanne wrote:

> I don't understand why Ron's inability to fight the
> Imperious curse gets used as an argument against him.
> 
> The way I understood it, Harry was the *only* one who was
> successful with that.
> So everyone else, including Hermione would then be weak.
> 
This is intriguing.  Could Ron's inability be misdirection?  So in a 
future book, odd stuff happens which can only be explained (by the 
reader) as one of the main characters being under Imperius.  We all 
think it must be Ron, and in chapter last-minus-one, *Hermione* 
suddenly tries to AK Harry (and we are all left wandering why she 
waited until then to do it...).

She does have a slight tendency to Poirot-like concealment of her 
thoughts (why didn't she say 'Basilisk' or 'Beetle Animagus' before 
rushing off to the library?  In the former case it would have spoilt 
the plot but saved Harry, Ron and Lockhart no little difficulty).  
That could mean that Imperius-induced oddness would be tolerated on 
the grounds that she has come up trumps in the past.

Of course, we have already effectively had the 'villain is a good guy 
under Imperius' twist in Ginny in COS. (I am not saying that Riddle 
used Imperius as such.  But in plot terms it's the same.)  And come 
to think of it, GOF could have been almost exactly the same if 
Crouch/Moody had been the real Moody under Imperius - all you need is 
a hiding place for Crouch to stay - for example, Moody's trunk - 
while exercising Imperius.

So in a way, I hope it doesn't happen, or JKR introduces some 
limitation on the possibility of an Imperius free-for-all, like a 
diagnostic counter-curse that a third party can use on a suspected 
victim. (In which case why wasn't it used in the seventies?)  I think 
without something like that, the WW would have ended up as 95% 
zombies controlled by a few strong individuals centuries earlier.

David