DH reread CH 30

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 187452

Alla wrote:
> 
> I am going to ask a question, which I suspect belongs to the "I missed something really obvious" type, but hey, I will ask it anyway.
> 
> When one says "Imperio" it causes the subject to do anything caster wants, right? But doesn't caster also need to speak this specific order as well? I really am annoyed that I cannot check my GoF now, but doesn't Harry when Fake!Moody teaches them Imperio hears the voice in his head saying Jump? And he tries to resist it, etc?
> 
> Or are we to assume that Minerva casted nonverbal specific command? On the other hand Harry in the Gringott also does not say specific command, just Imperio? Is magic which forms this spell just adjusts itself to make sure the subject does whatever caster wants without speaking the specific command? Does the magic just know?

Carol responds:
I'm not sure, but I think that the voice Harry hears in his head is what Fake!Moody wants him to do. I don't think that Fake!Moody tells him out loud to jump onto the desk--in contrast to Voldemort, who speaks his commands out loud so that the DEs will hear them (and is, of course, unpleasantly surprised and furious when Harry casts off the Imperius).

I think that the *wand* understands the will of the spellcaster, much as the Room of Requirement does, and makes the victim do whatever the spellcaster wants him to do, whether that's to force a Goblin take him to a vault in Gringotts and run his fingernail down the door to open it (shiver!) or hide (Travers) or lie down like a good boy so he can be tied up. (It's more complex when the Imperius is long-term; how Voldemort controls Crouch Sr. for a whole year, I don't know, especially when Crouch is fighting the curse. Maybe, since Voldie and Wormtail seem to be living with Crouch in his "deserted" house, he repeatedly reapplies the Curse, with Wormtail forcing Crouch to hide under the Invisibility Cloak while he writes those letters to Percy--and Wormy and LV somehow conceal themselves????)

Anyway, I think it's the wand sensing the will of the spellcaster and forcing the victim to do whatever the spellcaster wants him to do without the spellcaster having to specifically state that action in words aloud or silently. Maybe he pictures the action in his mind much as Dumbledore must picture a chair before he conjures one (which is why his conjured chairs are comfortable and McG's are stiff-backed and severe, like her--they have a different mental image of a chair).

In contrast, the Confundus spell merely confuses the victim rather than forcing him to perform a specific action, which makes it odd that Snape used it rather than Imperius on Mundungus but explains, possibly, why he had to state exactly what he wanted Mundungus to do in detail. Must have been a strong, long-lasting Confundus spell to work that way.

As a sidenote, JKR's spells don't work consistently. I just noticed in OoP that Ginny uses Scourgify to vanish the Stink Sap rather than Evanesco, the usual Vanishing spell. Later in the book, Scourgify produces soap bubbles in Severus's mouth. So I think a particular spell does whatever JKR wants it to do at a particular moment. Consistency is not one of her virtues as a writer, gifted though she is in other respects.
>
> Alla:
> 
> How does Harry know what Minerva is casting here? That he expects that Snape must crumble, unconscious? Is it just due to what sort of wand movements he sees (slashing equals attack?) or something else?
> 
> I just was under impression that not only he knew that she was attacking, but he also figured specific charm or curse, maybe I was wrong.
> 
Carol responds:
I think that Harry simply expects her to cast a Stunning Spell, which seems to be the chief offensive spell used by the good guys (as opposed to Avada Kedavra). No need to, say, transfigure him into a toad when all she needs to do is knock him out. At any rate, it's the spell that Harry himself would have cast under those circumstances (Snape hasn't done anything except reveal his presence, after all).

Snape, however, probably knows exactly what McGonagall is going to do and knows that a Protego is his best defense.

Alla:
> 
> Flitwick strengthens the Hogwarts protective charms here, yes? Why is the remark that he could barely see? How is it important for him to see? I mean it is not like target of his incantation is portrayed somewhere?
>
Carol responds:

I think it's just an offhand remark about Flitwick's tiny size. He probably has to stand on tiptoe to see onto the grounds and point his wand out the window. I think the target of his incantation is the grounds themselves.

What *I* don't understand is why he would need to provide additional spells when Hogwarts is protected, according to Snape, by all sorts of ancient spells (which have, till now, prevented any deaths in Hogwarts or its grounds other than Moaning Myrtle's). Surely, the protections on Hogwarts wouldn't have ended with Dumbledore's death, just as those ancient protections (such as the anti-Apparition spell) didn't end with the deaths of the Founders. (DD himself removed his own anti-flying spell, but the other protections would remain--unless Snape removed the locks on the gates so that he, Draco, and the DEs could get off the grounds.)

In any case, Flitwick's new spell--probably something like the protective spells that Hermione cast around the tent earlier in the book--doesn't seem to have done much good against the combined power of LV, the DEs, and the Imperio'd Minister for Magic, Pius Thicknesse.

Carol, wondering what Snape would have done to McGonagall if he'd really been a DE and not merely defending himself (probably Sectumsempra)