Can someone explain to me how the Imperius Curse works?

Like, as you cast it do you give them a specific order?

Or, when you have someone under the imperius curse you have some sort of connection with them, where you can keep telling them what to do and see from their perspective or something?

For example: when Barty Crouch had Krum under the imperius curse in the maze; did he just tell Krum his order when he placed him on the imperius curse, or keep giving him new orders while the task was going on.

It would make sense for him to be able to keep giving Krum orders, since he can see exactly what is happening with his magical eye, but what about other wizards? They wouldn't have an idea what their victim sees, so how would they keep commanding them?

 

Read book 7, Harry uses it well.

 

It definitely seems to be a continual connection, not just instructions at the time of casting.

The interesting question is the effect of distance. Can you still issue new instructions if you're far away? Maybe this is something that can be done, but takes more skill - which would explain Death Eaters being called specialists with the Imperius, for example.

 

And what if your thrall was unable to complete the action even though you gave explicit orders to complete it? Head asplosion?

 

How are brooms (or any object enchanted to fly) controlled? I get changing directions but what about speeding up and slowing down?

 

I don't have my copy of PS at the moment, but I believe some detail is given during the broomstick riding lesson -- something about kicking off the ground, hovering (presumably not moving) and then leaning forward to touch down again. Don't remember for sure, though.

 

Brooms has some sort of mental aspect If I remember right.

Brooms wouldn't jump to their hands if you are afraid maybe speed has similar way of working.

 

Another question about Priori Incantatem.

It's apparently a "rare effect", occurring when two wands with cores from the same magical creature duel each other. Considering Ollivander only uses three different types of cores, and pretty much all English wizards only buy from there, shouldn't this happen all the time?

Even if there are tons of unicorns and phoenixes we don't see, it doesn't sound like you could harvest heartstring from a live dragon, and it doesn't seem right that you only get one wand per dead dragon.

So... shouldn't you be seeing Priori Incantatem all over the place in dueling club? You'd think the best wands would be made from your pet/familiar or family heirlooms, especially since once Priori Incantatem occurs it apparently screws you up every time you try and duel each other afterwards (though I'm not entirely sure if that interpretation of what happened with the wands during Seven Potters is correct, I think the Elder Wand might have come into it somewhere)...

 

Priori Incantatem occurs when two wands have a core from the same animal - not the same species, the same animal. Harry and Voldemort both have wands with feathers from Fawkes as a core, hence the clash. If you had a wand with a unicorn hair in though, and you duelled someone who also had a unicorn hair core, nothing would happen unless, again, it was from the same animal.

 

Most unicorn, or dragon, or phoenix might give maybe two or three cores each. That's two or three amongst the thousands of wands around. The chances of two people with the same core then, not only meeting, but trying to kill each other is rather slim.

Since when did people have dragons and unicorns as pets?

 

Not only that, people used to make wands out of animals/plants they felt a special connection to, then Ollivander turned up, said 'you're doing it wrong, bitches', and proceeded to greatly improve the quality of wands.

To quote Pottermore,

 

Nocturnesthesia, what happened in the seven potters had nothing to do with the elder wand - remember, Draco was the master of the wand at the time of that scene and the wand itself was in Dumbledore's tomb

Dumbledore gave a kick-ass guess (read explanation) of the effect in the end of the book - full of awesomeness. Read it again, seriously it's cool.

Here I quote an extract

“I believe that your wand imbibed some of the power and qualities of Voldemort’s wand that night, which is to say that it contained a little of Voldemort himself. So your wand recognized him when he pursued you, recognized a man who was both kin and mortal enemy, and it regurgitated some of his own magic against him, magic much more powerful than anything Lucius’s wand had ever performed. Your wand now contained the power of your enormous courage and of Voldemort’s own deadly skill: What chance did that poor stick of Lucius Malfoy’s stand?”

Man I love Dumbledore

Also, priori Incantatem only occurs if both wizards fire spells at the same time - Voldemort was able to put Harry under the cruciatus curse in the graveyard scene of book 4, if you recall.

And yeah as said above wand cores from the same magical animal are not as common as you would think.

 

If by awesome you mean another arbitrary and annoying watering down of the innate powers of wizards in favour of wandlore, then sure.

 

On the contrary the explanation was awesome because Dumbledore talks about how Lucius' wand was no match for Voldemort's power and Harry's courage - that's what I was talking about when I said the scene was cool.

And yeah, someone like Ron Weasley with the Elder wand would still be Ron with a wand.

(chances are he would have ended up breaking it)

 

Thanks, that was kind of what I wondered about (can't be arsed to do the Pottermore thing). I also tend to picture Magical Britain as being far more populous than it actually is, but I googled the actual numbers and it makes more sense.

 

Isn't taking only one or a few heartstrings out of each dragon heart a waste of the organ?

Making gloves, clothes, etc. out of their skin I understand, since they're huge and you can probably get a lot of material out of each dragon.

And don't they live on reserves? I don't think wizards can afford to go around killing many of them, or can they?

 

I would presume that, similar to the wood, not all heartstrings are suitable. They might not all work as a core, or maybe they are the wrong size or shape.

And Dragons live on reserves to keep them away from the muggles, not because they are endangered. I imagine it would sometimes be necessary to kill a few in order to keep the population numbers under control.

 

So does this quote from Pottermore mean there is some merit to the retarded indie Harry scenes where he uses the feather/fang/poison/fur/organ from his 'familiar'?

I mean, if past wizards were able to get decent (perhaps even amazing, from looking at Hogwarts) results from their pet kneazles fur, does that mean that a unicorn hair you have a connection with through knowing the unicorn would be better than one you have no connection with?

 

No, it proves that cliché wrong. It says that using your pet kneazles fur wouldn't work as well as one of Ollivander's wands. The important thing is having a connection with the wand, not with the animal or tree that the materials for the wand came from.

 

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I'm not suggesting a kneazle hair would be a good wand core, regardless of whether you have a strong connection with it or not.

What I'm saying is - if in the past, people made functional wands with inferior cores work because they had a special connection with them, would a wand core made of superior, Ollivander quality materials that you also have a strong connection with be better than one you don't have a connection with?

As an example, would Harry have a better connection with his wand than Voldemort due to the relationship he has with Fawkes that Voldemort doesn't?