At Bill and Fleur's wedding, Xenophilius Lovegood wore the symbol on his clothes or something. Viktor Krum threw a fit over it to Polyjuiced Harry, telling him about how the symbol had become a fad for Durmstrang students because it was carved into a wall somewhere on school grounds, supposedly by Grindelwald himself.

Someone correct me if I'm mistaken on this, please.

 

Krum got pissed at Xeno Lovegood at Fleur and Bill's wedding for wearing a necklace with the Hallows' symbol.

Edit: ninja'd

 

Is the Imperius curse detectable in any way?

Does it have any tell-tale signs if you don't know/suspect beforehand that someone is under it?

 

No, it is not. The movies can go fuck themselves. No 'white eyes' or any bullshit like that.

Unless I'm mistaken, in which case I apologize.

 

According to the ministry brochure if someone you know is acting strangely they might be under the curse. This seems to me that if someone really is good at the curse you might not be able to detect it unless you really know the person. Like a husband wife or child.

 

The Thief's Downfall at Gringotts seemed to be able to shake the imperius cast on Bogrod. There's some extenuating circumstances there, such as Harry's unfamiliarity with casting the imperius curse or Bogrod's nonhuman characteristics, but nonetheless some manner of detection seems possible. Any detection method used by the Ministry, if such a method exists, doesn't seem to work very well though.

And if I were a dark wizard I would ensure that the imperius was cast on my person in order to undermine such a method anyway. Properly cast it does not appear to sufficiently hamper a person from doing something (no one detected the imperius on Rosmerta for months and was able to presumably perform her duties correctly. Even when Harry casts the spell on Travers in Gringotts it doesn't appear to affect his personality all that much).

 

Does the Thief's Downfall prove that the imperius curse is actually detectable, or just removable? Is there any appreciable difference in importance?

 

Completely forgot about that...why would you not have the stuff at the entrance to the Ministry if that was the case? It is mildly inconvenient, yes, but if it prevents mind control...

 

You mean does the fact that the Thief's Downfall activated at all prove it, not the fact that it was effective against the Imperius?

Because, obviously, if everyone who goes on the carts is drenched by that thing, 'just in case,' then we weren't shown it in previous books, and it becomes another plot-hole.

Assuming it only activates upon detecting 'unauthorized' magic, it would follow that it detected some kind of magic aboard that cart that was not allowed - whether that magic was the Imperius Curse was neither proved nor disproved.

So, your answer is: Maybe.

Hermione was using Polyjuice and was carrying her beaded bag.
Harry was using his cloak and had his mokeskin pouch.
Ron's features had been magically altered.
And the goblin was under the Imperius.

It didn't drench Harry the first time he was on the cart, and Bellatrix managed to deposit the Cup, so we can assume it can't detect horcruxes (nor can it disenchant ones it drenches by coincidence*).

Also, while it should go without saying that it isn't set off by the presence of a wand(!), I'll go ahead and point out that we've seen Hagrid ride the cart without incident (other than needing a stiff drink, afterward), while he had his wand.

The Philosopher's Stone also failed to set it off, and Harry didn't have his cloak yet, at that point.

A good question would be: Exactly what kind of magic isn't allowed in the bank? Griphook only says the Thief's Downfall "...washes away all enchantment, all magical concealment!"

'All enchantment' is a pretty broad category, given that wizards carry all sorts of magical objects: Snitches, remembralls... and literally anything they feel like storing in a vault (since it's canon, now, that people can and do store more than coins in the vaults). Griphook's statement also isn't terribly helpful because we already know it doesn't work on ALL enchantments, like horcruxes, the invisibility cloak, Hermione's bag, Harry's pouch, the mirror shard inside the pouch, any magical objects in Hermione's bag, nor the silencing charm that keeps Harry's brass balls from clanking every time he moves.

That rhyme out in front of the bank is all well and good, but if they don't post some detailed rules somewhere, they'll end up killing a lot of wizards and witches. We've seen magical watches, luggage, pouches, jewelry, prostheses... how many of those could set off the bank security system and send someone plunging to almost certain death?

After all, the so-called Trio have their shit together more than most of the Wizarding World... we know the average person can't do a decent shield charm, much less a timely Patronus charm; what are the odds they could magically stop themselves and their family members from becoming a stain on the ground, when the cart dumps them because one of them has a prosthetic eye? How many wizards or witches are possessed of the same combination and level of skilled and twitchy as three somewhat exceptional teens that have been fending off monsters, death eaters, and Voldemort for the past seven years?

I mean, the Thief's Downfall didn't just disenchant the Imperius, it caused the cart to experience a catastrophic failure, resulting in a potentially fatal drop into the depths of Gringotts, which could have easily killed both the 'rule breakers' and the bank's own employees!

Unless the goblins never bothered testing their security measure, one has to assume that the cart's failure was by design.

It becomes so clear, after reading the seventh book, why fan fic authors had it so very very wrong, every time they made Griphook Harry's account manager. Cart driver is an absolutely shit job that no one with any kind of seniority or power in goblin society would want to do! All it takes is one asshole wizard carrying the wrong artifact into the bank or casting the Imperius on you (or someone whose vault they want to pillage) and, suddenly, you're pavement pizza! It's blindingly obvious that being manager of the Potter and/or Black accounts** would be far beyond the reach of an employee who could be blithely murdered by the bank, at any time, without warning, just because a customer tried to pull some shit... or didn't realize their portable Foe Glass was verboten in Gringotts.

And, what if the Thief's Downfall does detect the Imperius? Here's a scenario for you: Little Suzy is getting supplies for her first year at Hogwarts. On the way into the bank, a death eater (aware of the bank's watery little security measure) hits her with the Imperius. She continues on, as though nothing is amiss, probably not even knowing something was done to her. Partway through the ride to her new vault, the Thief's Downfall activates due to the Imperius and she is dropped into the bowels of the bank, along with her parents and the goblin driver. Four innocent people die when they hit the bottom, and the death eater grins when they read about it in tomorrow's paper.

Same results if the death eater slips the wrong kind of artifact (even a slip of paper or a marble with the 'wrong' spell on it) into Suzy's pocket.

I'm beginning to think that, whether it can detect the Imperius or not, the Thief's Downfall is a plot-hole. I can't see how the Ministry would allow something like that to be placed where nearly every customer is subjected to it, unless the treaty somehow forced it upon them. There's simply too much chance for abuse. Dropped into a cell with a cushioning charm on the floor, sure... dropped a hundred feet to the rocks below? Not a chance.

Interestingly, this tells us something about Bill Weasley: He may have worked for the goblins, but he didn't know jack shit about the bank. One would think that anyone working in/for the bank would know about the Thief's Downfall, but he obviously wasn't aware of it, and neither was Fleur (who wasn't, AFAIK, working outside the bank most of the time, like Bill was).

*Although that would be an amusing element for a story. During Harry's first cart ride through to his vault, he gets drenched by the Thief's Downfall, and is nearly killed when the cart dumps everyone into the abyss... but no more horcrux.

**Ignoring that, apparently, 'having an account' with the bank seems to amount solely to, "Here's your vault, human, make it quick."

 

Weren't the goblins suspicious anyway, though? It's been a while since I've read the book, and the films aren't always reliable, but they were surprised by 'Bellatrix' showing up with her wand, weren't they? I'd always assumed that the Downfall isn't triggered automatically, or left running all the time, but was activated as extra security because there was something fishy going on.

 

That seems to possibly be a sign of the Imperius being cast in a brute force kind of manner with no care at all about subtlety or secrecy or passability, only direct control. Because otherwise it would never be a problem.

 

Or, ya know, Imperius either works or it doesn't and Krum's Imperio Blindness was just added to let people who hadn't read the books know that something was going on. Cuz the guy who cursed Krum was the same guy who initially cursed his dad and sent him off to work like nobody's business.

Crouch knew how to cast the Imperius, no reason for him fuck up the spell like that. And even if you want to use movies to argue, I don't remember the goblin in DH part 2 going white-eyed even though it was Ron's first time casting the Imperius. And Ron isn't Hermione, if you know what I mean.

TL;DR: movies like to exaggerate for the benefit of the viewers who didn't read the books.

 

Ron didn't cast the Imperius. Harry did. It was rather successful too, for a first-time casting. Unless the movies fucked that up too.

 

I think Ron cast it on the same goblin after they got soaked by Thief's Downfall. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, Ron cursed the goblin to make him open the vault. But yes, Harry cast the first spell up in the lobby. I should've been more precise.

 

Harry repeatedly casts the imperius curse in the Gringotts main hall (on Travers, a Death Eater, and on the goblin Bogrod). He then casts it again on Travers at the cart tracks, and again on Bogrod after the Downfall. Ron doesn't cast the imperius curse at all during the books — I'm fairly certain neither Ron (nor Hermione) ever casts an unforgivable curse. It might be different in the movies, though.

 

I was referring specifically to the movies, where Ron does cast the Imperius. Knoq was speculating whether Krum's Imperio Blindness in movie 4 should be taken as a sign of the spell being cast without finesse or some shit when, IIRC, in movie 8 both Harry and Ron cast the curse with no experience and there's no white-eyes effect.

The point was to prove that you should stick to books when it comes to the finer details of Potterverse.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

One would assume that the better the caster at Imperio the better the result.

A novice can make someone do what they want, but it wont be natural, they will act like a robot in a way.

A master at it will be able to have the person act so natural no one can know.

On a related point, could Imperio be used as a truth machine.

Put someone under it and command them to tell you something.

It should even beat occumency.