The Imperius Curse felt exactly like it had when the fake Moody casted it on him. There was that odd weightlessness, a sense of detachment from reality, and last but not least a profound sense of pleasure. It was so different from the Cruciatus, yet just as dastardly. Because as good as the Imperius could feel, while under its effects you could be compelled to kill, torture, or assault anyone, and you'd be helpless to resist.
Unless you could break the curse's effects.
Harry's mind sharpened like a knife. The attack happened so fast that at first he was still feeling embarrassment, an emotion that wasn't conducive to battling for control of yourself at all. Even with a disadvantage, Harry couldn't be contained. He once threw off the curse of Voldemort's second strongest follower while he was only a fourth year. Although Harry could tell Pius wasn't a weak wizard, he just couldn't compare to that. Harry brought all his might, both magical and mental, to bear.
The curse broke like a blade of grass clutched between his fingers.
Harry was moving the second he disrupted the spell. Aberforth's lessons had been helpful for improving his dueling abilities, but there was another benefit that was much more immediately useful: he'd been taught how to think in a real fight.
At the Department of Mysteries, Harry and his friends did much better than they had any right to, but at the end of the day most of that had been down to luck and enthusiasm. If the Death Eaters had been out to kill him instead of trying to take him alive, his friends would've been wiped out much faster. At the Little Hangleton Graveyard, only the Priori Incantatem saved him from being Voldemort's plaything. The end of his third year was just a mess, and in his second year, it had been blind bravery and Fawkes's help that allowed him to triumph. Quirrel, meanwhile, had fallen prey to his mother's blood protections, the last of her sacrifice saving his life yet again.
The point was, for all his adventures, Harry hadn't ever been in a dangerous duel where he was on even slightly even terms and had to rely on his own wits to protect him. He wouldn't have known what he was doing… if it wasn't for good old Aberforth.
Tracey's honorary adoptive grandfather fought Harry like an enemy each and every time Harry stepped into the Hog's Head. The only part missing was Harry actually getting badly injured, but the man came at him with the complete intent to overwhelm his defenses. It was a brutal experience that, over time, honed Harry's mind.
Now, an adult wizard had just used an Unforgivable on him. Harry had to fight back. So his brain immediately locked in, allowing him to act with frightening decisiveness.
Thicknesse's wand hadn't completely lowered yet when Harry beamed him with a weak bludgeoning curse to the stomach. It would knock the wind out of him and maybe break a rib or two, but it wouldn't kill the man outright. Harry needed to disable him to learn why he was doing this. But if he fought back, Harry might have to up the ante.
Instead, Thicknesse didn't even raise a shield. He just stood there and took it, doubling over and wheezing when Harry's spell hit him. Confused but not about to complain, Harry stunned him.
He tried to move to investigate the man, but Savage was still holding onto his hips with grim determination. She hadn't reacted to her boss's use of an Unforgivable, his subsequent defeat to a teenager, or even her half nude state. Without trying to cover her breasts at all, she physically fought Harry to hold him still as if that was her entire purpose in life.
That had only been enough to stop Harry when he didn't expect it. Now that he knew she was trying to hold him down, he easily pushed her off by planting his foot on her stomach and pushing. She fell back on the floor, bumping her head, before immediately scrambling toward him like a spider to grab on again. Harry stunned her before she could get close.
He caught his breath then, allowing his pounding heart to slowly calm down. The scene around him looked like a complete mess. He hastily pulled his pants up and fixed Savage's clothing. He considered running into the hall for help… but he didn't know how deep this went. The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement just hit him with one of the most illegal curses known to man. Harry had no assurance that there weren't more accomplices waiting just outside. A sudden idea came to him.
"Expecto Patronum!" he said, summoning his happiest thoughts.
A silvery stag burst from the end of his wand. It disappeared down the hall, galloping off. Harry wasn't sure if this would work at all; he'd pictured Tonks while casting it, hoping his patronus would fetch her and lead her here. In the meantime, he flipped the meeting table over and used it as cover, cutting off his line of sight to the door and fingering his wand. Harry waited. His own breath sounded loud. The dueling part of his brain wasn't as inactive as he'd thought. Waiting felt like torture, until he heard footsteps.
"Bloody hell!" said Tonks. "Harry? Harry!?"
He stood up.
"I'm here, Tonks," he said. "But something's really wrong."
Tonks was gaping, her hair changing back and forth from pink to purple.
"You're telling me!" she said. "My boss's boss is out cold on the floor!"
"And I'm the one who did it," Harry said.
"Why!?"
Harry's eyes were grim.
"Because he tried using an Unforgivable on me," he said.
LINE BREAK
Soon, Aurors were swarming all over the place. Harry was asked questions, but once they checked Thicknesse's wand and discovered that Harry wasn't lying they all became a bit too disoriented to keep track of him. Ordinarily, an official being cursed in this way would be the business of the head of the DMLE, which made it difficult when that was the official who was compromised. Even worse, they found that he'd cast the Imperius Curse three times. Once on Harry, which Harry threw off. The second one had been used on Ava Savage, getting her to lure Harry into that trap. But they had no idea who the third had been used on.
Harry suspected that the department head was a victim himself. The man was a former Auror and a wizard Scrimgeour trusted to follow in Amelia Bones's footsteps. The fact that Harry disabled him so easily was a sign that Thicknesse was being controlled and hadn't been given instructions to actually fight Harry. It was the only explanation for why he fell so easily.
Tonks and a few other Aurors took Harry away soon after. They planned to take him to the medical room on the same floor in order to be checked out, but Harry broke away from the group and insisted on returning to his room. It was clear that right now, he couldn't trust those around him. They could get an independent healer from St. Mungos to visit if they wanted to have him checked out. Right now, he wasn't going to be spending any time around Ministry officials that he didn't know.
Only Tonks accompanied Harry back to his quarters, and she volunteered to stand guard outside when they reached the door. He knew she was safe because her behavior that day had been completely ordinary, and because if she was compromised then the Order of the Phoenix would've already suffered greater losses. Barely five minutes after Harry got back and collapsed on his couch, the door opened.
It wasn't Minister Scrimgeour. Harry was sure that the man would be visiting him after everything that transpired, but he was still one of the busiest men in Britain, and it would take some time for news to reach him properly. Instead, it was Alicia who stood in the doorway.
"Hey," Harry said. "Weren't you supposed to have the day off—"
Alicia jumped on him.
She kissed him, leaving Harry too shocked by the sudden move to really react. Her tongue slipped into his mouth greedily, and perhaps a little bit desperately. Alicia kissed him deeper than he'd ever been kissed before. When she pulled back Harry was almost in a trance.
Alicia slid down his body, yanking open his pants. She didn't have the assets that Savage used to pleasure him… but she also wasn't keeping him occupied so that someone could hit him with an Unforgivable. Probably.
Alicia opened her mouth and shoved her head down. She gagged loudly as his cockhead crashed into the back of her throat. She rammed her throat against him three more times before she took a calming breath through her nostrils. She finally relaxed her throat the way Harry was used to, taking him quite deep. Her head bobbed quicker than he'd ever seen it, her golden hair pulled back in a bun.
Harry felt himself begin to melt into her touch. He'd been so tense, for understandable reasons. Alicia's frenetic loving washed over him like a fresh rain, helping him relax incredibly quickly.
He wasn't the only one relaxing. Alicia started out her blowjob with an uncharacteristic kind of desperation. Even when she was trying to entice him to take Scrimgeour's offer, she'd carried herself as a seductive older girl. Just like when she'd been a leader for him on the Gryffindor quidditch team, she'd always tried to be at least a little suave (except for that one time she and Tonks got under each other's skin).
This time, she was so worked up that she had temporarily forgotten how to give a proper blowjob. Harry couldn't deny that it was hot watching her gag on his tip over and over, but he liked it better like she was now, smoothly sliding him into her throat, using her fingers to pleasure the parts of him her lips couldn't reach.
The longer she went the more Alicia returned to normal, and the more Harry relaxed. He began to groan, then groaned louder and more often. He squeezed the upholstery of the sofa with both hands, pressing his head back as allowed himself sweet release.
Alicia's head was halfway down his shaft when Harry came. She puffed her cheeks out to accommodate the load, almost leaking a bit before making sure to swallow properly. She pulled her mouth off of Harry, looking at him sternly.
"This is the best job I've ever had," she said. "I get to work with someone I genuinely like, I know I'm making a difference, and the benefits…"
She trailed off, relishing the taste of Harry's cum still left in her mouth.
"The point is, you can't die, okay?" she demanded. "You have to be alright. Not just for me, but for all the girls, and the rest of the wizarding world too."
"Amen!" came Tonks's voice from outside the door.
Harry smiled. He stroked Alicia's cheek. She was so worked up that she didn't even complain about the somewhat embarrassing gesture, even leaning into his touch.
"I'm not going anywhere," he promised. "Whatever happens, we'll make it work."
It warmed his heart to see how worried Alicia was about him. She'd rushed to his side the instant she heard the news, eager—and even desperate—to help him however she could. Harry was immensely grateful. If there was anything that today had taught him, it was that the Ministry was too large a force to be completely trusted. There were too many moving parts that could be compromised, exposing him to danger. Starting now, Harry needed to construct a shield around himself.
Placing Rita under his command had been a move that would surely pay off in the long run. He needed to do more of that. He had to surround himself with people like Tonks who would fight with him, people like Alicia and Fleur who he knew would have his back, and others with necessary skills. Today reminded him, even tucked away in the Ministry like he was, that there was a real war on, one where death and even worse fates were entirely on the table. To make it through this, he had to call on every meaningful connection that he had, and forge more than a few new ones while he was at it.
Scrimgeour wanted a poster boy for public morale. The Minister promised that his Ministry would do the real fighting. But from what Harry had experienced, if they were left alone, the Ministry was going to lose.
He was the Chosen One. At some point, it came time for him to step up and show it, and Harry was deciding that that time was NOW.
.
Check the link in my profile to find more of my work.