Unspeakable archive

Article no: 1284-AK, Hx

Author: Unspeakable no 000 (Harry James Potter)

The killing curse is one of the most powerful curses available, capable of passing through any and all shields because of one simple reason. It is not technically a curse, in other words it's not a piece of regular magic. It is in very simple terms, a piece of the soul of the caster, typically averaging about seven percent of the original. No magical shield is designed to stop a fragment of soul. The soul is the conduit for magic. The killing curse striking at any living being, on any part of the body will simply push out the soul. Once the connection to the body is broken, the soul disintegrates almost completely. This is the sole reason why a person once dead cannot be brought to life. The echo of a once complete soul is what necromancers try to call back and is less than a ghost which is a conscious imprint that the soul creates before disintegrating in an attempt to hold on to life. A ghost contains all the memories of the soul and part of the original being.

The resurrection stone, one of the famed deathly hallows is the greatest creation of any necromancer. Using the wearer's ties to that person, it calls to this echo. The echo is NOT the exact soul of the person called back. It varies depending on the caller's connection to the dead person. This is the reason why calling back a soul by necromancy to prove the innocence or guilt of a person accused of murder is not a valid legal option. The echo's response will most likely vary depending on its caller.

Breaking up a soul to power the killing curse is no simple task. To do so requires an intimate understanding of the soul or a very powerful emotive force. In simpler terms, emotion strong enough to overcome and rip apart a piece of the very fabric of ones being. True hate of another is the only emotion that one can harness in an effort to do such a deed.

Once cast out, the piece of soul will immediately return to the caster. This ripping of the soul is what causes nausea, fatigue and the feeling of loss that every first time user of the kiliing curse experiences. It has been well documented that they feel they have changed something that made them what they are.

This feeling of change will persist for varying lengths of time depending on the person. The soul, given a sufficiently long enough time, anything varying from two to five years starting immediately from the moment of return, will reintegrate with the rest of it.

This variation in time is due to the individuals acceptance of the deed. Someone who feels repulsed by his actions will take longer to accept back the fragment. But repeated use of the killing curse before this recuperating duration will cast out this same piece. In this case repenting the crime is not the way to heal. One needs to accept what was done.

This is the reason why the avada kedavra becomes easier with repeated casting. Research has shown that after casting the curse more than seven times within one year, the fragment takes an exponential increase in time to reintegrate. In other words, it's easier to cast again.

Of course there are methods available to truly skilled wizards to destroy a soul in ways that even the echo is completely dismantled and disintegrated to pure magic leaving behind in this world no evidence of the existence of that person. To an ordinary wizard the killing curse is the surest way to end a life with no possibility of recovery.

While the working of the killing curse has been understood for over two centuries by researchers on soul magics, it has never been published to the general public.

The reason for this is the possibility that people might realize that it is an option, with sufficient preparations using a certain set of rituals, one can after casting the curse prevent it from returning to the original. In the approximately 15 seconds that the fragment would survive before completely loosing connection to the main piece, one could use a well prepared container to store it creating what has come to be called, a horcrux.

As the connection to the original piece still persists, even if the body is destroyed the soul is capable of retaining its existence without the possibility of naturally disintegrating.

What of the vacuum created in the original? It cannot remain. This will be filled by the energy that the wizarding community calls magic. The capacity of the individual, whose soul is missing a piece to channel magic, increases. The more pieces cut out the more the metaphysical area for contact with magic increases. A simpler way to understand this process can be got by imagining a solid sphere. It has a specific surface are. Now slice it by half and separate the pieces by some distance. The cut area is exposed. This implies an extra surface area equal to the areas of the two cut sides.

The optimum number of pieces removed from the soul is six. Once the first seven percent is removed, ninety three percent remains. The next soul fragment would contain only six point five one of the original. In this way removing six fragments would remove 35.5 percent of the original leaving 64.5 percent intact. According to magical theorists this would mean an increase of Magical Channeling Capacity (MCC) by nearly 49 percent. The MCC of the strongest to the weakest magic user does not vary more than 21 percent. If a person in the upper range creates six horcruxes he would most definitely be more magically stronger by half than the average magical Joe.

A highly focused stunner cast at half power by such a person would easily pass through any regular magical shield cast by the average person.

NOTE: There are very rare cases of people (Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Tom Marvolo Riddle, Sirius Orion Black, Harry James Potter) being born with MCC 30 percent higher than the average magical Joe. Their data has not been included in the above analysis. The occurrence of people with such high MCC seems to occur once every generation for a magical population of 49,000 (This is the average magical population of magical Britain in the past 300 years).

This was my first fanfic. Please review and let me know how it was.