As if he could possibly have been thinking about sex at a moment like this, when he was still reeling from the revelation that his wife had been carrying on transfiguration studies in secret for a year or more. The idea hadn't even occurred to him, and even if it had, it would only have been as a way to reassert his dominance in this relationship after being so thoroughly caught off guard by her triumph in this respect. Was it even possible to inflict enough pain or humiliation to cow her now, with her eyes gleaming victoriously and her chin held high? He didn't even want to try, not really — he just wanted her gone, which of course would be the last thing on her mind. She'd come to seek him out, after all; she intended to lord this over him and bask in her success as long as possible, and he wasn't sure what he could actually do about it. He was so off balance at the moment that he didn't even feel master of his own study, let alone his house, and felt that if he commanded her out of the room she would do little but laugh in his face.

He ought to conjure up a cage out in the courtyard and lock her up in it, like a bloody zoo animal, he thought bitterly. If she wanted to flaunt the fact that she could now turn in to some sort of glorified house cat, he could treat her like the animal she apparently wanted to be. Perhaps he could have the servants stop feeding her and force her to go hunt mice around the grounds. Not that he seriously believed anything he could do to her at the moment would effectively deflate her spirits — not when she could become an animal at will, and he couldn't, and they both knew it.

That was not a problem that he was going to be able to fix standing here in the study with her an arm's length away from the tip of his wand, however; for the moment, he needed to focus on how to get her to leave. "If you don't—" he started, but stopped short. He'd already threatened her, to very little effect; continuing to do so would hardly work any better than the first time, and would just make it painfully obvious that he had no intention of actually following through on any of it. He needed to try something else, but he didn't know what else was left to try. She wouldn't just walk out if he asked her nicely.

"Damn you," he mumbled, feeling increasingly trapped although she was making no move towards him. This was his study, the one place in the world where he could be unreserved and unguarded, but she'd invaded it and now it felt as though the walls were closing in. "Damn you to hell. I — Imperio," he sputtered at last. He needed to regain control of the situation, before it spun any farther out of control.