Imperius Curse: Pure Mechanics or Maintained Mindlink?

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 93362

Erin:
Neri posed the chilling idea of the "Imperius virus", a devious plot
in which any Death Eater can simply go out into the street, Imperio a
hapless bystander wizard, and give him three simple commands.
<snip>
And this was scary. So scary that I (Erin) had to come up with some
quick objections just so I could go to sleep at night. ;-)

Neri:
Erin, I see now what you are saying, and I agree. This is indeed 
ambiguous and you can interpret the canon either as Imperius 
requiring a continuous mind control, or as verbal programming of an 
autonomous robot. If the first option makes you sleep better I have 
no objection 8-) I've already acknowledged that JKR is not likely to 
use my virus scenario whether it is possible or not.
 
<snip>
Erin:
Neri, who has tirelessly responded to every single response to this
thread (for which she has my sincere admiration) 

Neri:
Ahm, actually my chromosomes are XY. Not that I have any problems 
with XX persons, and it is one of the advantages of this forum that 
what we are writing is much more important than our chromosomes, age, 
nationality, etc.   

<snip>

Erin:
Noooo, it's true that Crouch Sr. wasn't at home, and probably most of
his attention was focused on his job while at work, BUT he had Winky
there to guard Crouch Jr. 24/7 for him. I don't think Winky would
have been nessacery if Crouch could have just given one command in
the morning and been confident of it sticking all day long while his
attention was elsewhere.

Neri:
Here there is one point we should be clear about: Winky was not 
reinforcing an Unforgivable curse. Such a possibility would be 
unthinkable for both a wizard and a house-elf.

Erin:
Also I'd like to say that I don't believe LV was Crouch Sr.'s
controller. Wormtail was. When Crouch escapes, Voldemort calls it
Wormtail's blunder. So even if the mindlink had required constant
close-up supervision, Wormtail could have been in Crouch's pocket in
rat form to do it.

Neri:
What a beautiful and chilling possibility! Do you realize that any 
person that Harry meets, including any of his close friends, could be 
imperio'd with Wormtail in his pocket? Do you sleep soundly with this 
thought in your mind?
8-)

Neri