Oh, Tommy! I feel so happy to go back to school again. Being holed up in that small little house with my parents is so boring, you know? But here, I can finally get away from my mum, who is so annoying and bossy, and my dad, who is so dumb and stupid! He just sits there and nods and doesn't say anything back to my mum! I've tried arguing with her, tried getting her to see my way, but she just doesn't listen, and my dad doesn't even back me up! He might as well have been mute.

How inconsiderate of him.

I know. At least pick a side. I'm not asking him to agree with me on everything but at least say something. Ugh! He's so dumb. But sometimes I do feel a bit bad for him. I know we're supposed to be nice, as Hufflepuffs. But I'm allowed to be mean sometimes, right?

Everyone has bad days and good days. I have had many bad days myself.

Well, that makes me feel better. I'm not the only one. There's some Hufflepuffs I know that are nice all the time, and I don't understand how they do it. I mean, I have to work hard at being nice.

(By the end of their session, both parties wanted to throw up.)


The next day

"This is gross…" Draco muttered.

Herbology was slowly becoming Artemis' least favorite class. They were working on extracting bubotuber pus today. Already, Marie Chevalier had been sent to the hospital wing, due to the pus leaking through a small hole in her glove. At least Artemis was somewhat coordinated when it came to dissection.

As he did the work, he vaguely listened to the gossip going on around him. (To his great satisfaction – or not – Eloise Midgen had attempted to curse her acne off and removed her nose by accident in the process.)

"That was awful. Today can't get any worse." Draco complained as they left the class. Of all four of them, Draco was the most verbal when it came to expressing his disgust.

Some things never changed.


Unfortunately, the next class was Care of Magical Creatures. Hagrid had brought out several large crates, from which a powerful smell of rotting fish emanated, along with the odd bang and spark. When he opened it…

"Eurgh!" Lavender Brown squeaked.

"Blast-Ended Skrewts!" Hagrid said proudly.

Skrewts? What type of name was "skrewt?"

There were about one hundred of them in each box. They looked like horribly pale, deformed, slimy, headless, six-inch lobsters. "Only jus' hatched. Though' we'd make a project of it – so yeh can raise 'em yerselves."

"Why?" Draco asked, wincing.

"Wha'?"

"Why would we want to raise them? What do they do?" he repeated.

Hagrid looked stumped. "Tha's nex' lesson, Malfoy."

Most of the Slytherins, Artemis included, hung back and let the Gryffindors attempt to feed them. Apparently, Hagrid didn't even know what they ate. After ten minutes, one of them exploded on Dean Thomas (they were "Blast-Ended Skrewts", after all) and Lavender Brown nearly fainted at the sight of their stingers.

"At least they're small," Blaise said, looking slightly seasick.

"Yeah, but they'll probably end up the size of a dragon. This is Hagrid we're talking about," Artemis muttered.

"They won't end up the size of a dragon, but by the end of the year they'll be over ten feet in length. Hagrid bred them specifically for the Triwizard Tournament," Theodore said, then quickly covered his mouth when the others stared at him. "Did I say that out loud?"

"Yes. Yes you did," Blaise said. "What else have you been hiding from us?"

"Umm…someone in our group is going to be gone by the end of the year, and another one the year after that?" Theodore hazarded innocently.

"Careful; you'll sound like Trelawney."

"...But they'll both come back?"

"Better."

"You know, this prediction stuff is getting really creepy…you're making predictions, like, every chapter now. That's just so weird."

"And the author has to stop breaking the fourth wall. These abuses of literary devices are simply getting out of hand. Karatemaster101 has got to learn that pulling off stuff like this is against the rules of proper fiction," Artemis muttered.

And Artemis Fowl has to mind his own business, get back to the story, and stop acknowledging the presence of the third-person omniscient narrator.

"How dare you give me orders, you intellectually inferior being," Artemis Fowl replied coldly.

Quite unfortunately for the author, these characters were simply borrowed from more established novelists, and thus were not legally obliged to follow the plot. Threats of erasure also did not apply, for they still had the main storyline to live in. However, as this story is simply a fanfiction and not an actual, published story, it is not bound to the rules of "proper fiction"; thus, the author may break the fourth wall and undergo nitrogen narcosis and forget to take the recommended daily dose of A.D.H.D. pills as many times as desired.

"Well, now I can certainly see why we're trying to keep them alive," Draco said loudly, quickly changing the topic for Theodore's sake and certainly not the author's pitiful attempt to mask the clearly obvious lapse in attention span in the ever-present stream of consciousness. "Who wouldn't want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?"

"Well, dragon blood is extremely useful," Hermione said, "but you wouldn't want to keep a dragon as a pet, would you?"

"That doesn't exactly answer my question," Draco retorted.

Hermione opened her mouth and closed it several times like a fish out of water, and then realized that she had nothing to say to that. It would have been extremely amusing, but at that point another skrewt exploded and the Slytherins all jumped backwards, despite the fact that they were already all way past the radius of destruction.

Artemis gulped and backed away, as all of the other Slytherins and a few of the more intelligent (or girly) Gryffindors did.

"That's it. If this is a year-long project, I'll just drop the class and get a big fat zero," Draco muttered. "Raising Blast-Ended Skrewts – he's gone too far. I mean, the Hippogriffs were dangerous, but at least they looked somewhat decent. These things are as ugly as trolls and smell just as bad. And they'll probably grow to that size, too. I don't care what Theodore says about them only being ten feet long."

Artemis couldn't help but agree. This wasn't a matter of prejudice against Hagrid…this was a matter of survival. He wouldn't be surprised if some poor student (probably Neville Longbottom) was sent up to the hospital wing in ashes by the end of the day.

"All righ', Slytherins, get to it," Hagrid grumbled. "Don' just stan' aroun' like tha' all day."

Many of the Slytherins, who were currently leaning on trees or standing around aimlessly, got up and painstakingly walked over to the food crates. Artemis attempted to determine what was the least unsanitary – ant eggs, frog liver, or chopped up bits of grass snake. Finally, he decided to use his wand to levitate some of the grass snake into a crate, taking care to stand at least five meters behind the "line of fire."

It was a wise decision. Quite soon after he had "fed" one of the skrewts, it exploded and set out a burst of hot sparks that would have easily killed all of the other skrewts inside of the crate. As it turned out, the skrewts were (unfortunately) immune to their own blasts.

"Wait…if they can explode like this, why are we keeping them in wooden crates?"

No one answered that question.


The next two days passed without any excitement, unless one counted Neville Longbottom melting his sixth cauldron in Potions (then again, that was not an unusual occurrence). Professor Snape seemed more irritable and explosive than usual, and gave the other boy an hour of detention disemboweling a barrel full of horned toads. (He had returned late in the evening, blubbering and shaking to the point of nervous collapse. Why he hadn't done that right after the experience with the Blast-Ended Skrewts with Hagrid was still a mystery.)

"Gee, that was a bit harsh, even for Professor Snape's standards," Theodore said.

"It's not exactly his fault. I wouldn't be too pleased if Moody's eye kept staring at me like that," Blaise murmured, watching their Defense teacher's vulture eye swivel around accusingly, focusing on Professor Snape. The other man shifted in his chair and sent Moody a glare.

"This is the first time I've actually seen Professor Snape unnerved," Artemis pointed out.

"Unless you count the time Lockhart attempted to teach him the spirit of Valentine's Day," Blaise snickered.

"I suppose that means no more meetings in the dungeons?" Theodore said disappointedly.

"It's okay. We can always look stuff up on our own, now that we've got the Room of Awesome on our side," Blaise said, winking.

"I wonder how Moody will be," Artemis mused.

"He'll probably be hating on us Thursday," Draco said softly. "He's an ex-Auror. He knows all of our parents. Considering what happened at the World Cup…we do, too."

Artemis suddenly felt great pity and sorrow for his friend. If he found out that his own beloved father had been running around on a terrorist rampage, he would be extremely disappointed as well. Theodore seemed very nervous about the upcoming meeting as well. Of the entire Slytherin class, only Blaise and Artemis would be safe from Moody's prejudice, probably. Quite depressingly, the only reason was because the former's father was already dead (and coincidentally "left" a large sum of money to his mother) and the latter's parents were labeled with the so-called, derogatory epithet, "blood traitor." Although Artemis wouldn't really count on Moody picking on him for some other reason…like his family's somewhat questionable nature of business in the past. Even if he was technically helping Harry Potter.

"He'll tell us big fat stories about our parents," Theodore said sadly. "I don't want to hear them."

"Look on the bright side," Blaise said. "At least he should know his stuff. He's an ex-Auror…he should be able to teach us plenty of Defense Against the Dark Arts…unlike some bloke in outlandishly colored robes we know."

"Yeah. Or he might teach us nothing and claim that it's because our parents already taught us everything," Draco grumbled.

"Well, if he did that, Professor Dumbledore would call it prejudice and force him to teach us something, at least," Artemis said. "It's in the education code. He can be as biased as he likes, but he has to teach us the same things as the rest of our year."

"He may cover the 'same material' but that doesn't mean he'll present it in the same way," Draco muttered darkly.

Their meal was finished in a gloomy silence.


The Slytherins lined up outside of Moody's classroom just in time to see the earlier Gryffindor class burst out, looking mostly extremely high on life. Many of them were talking excitedly as if they had just seen a show.

"Did you see it twitch?"

" – and when he just killed it – just like that!"

"Man, he really knows his stuff."

Only Harry Potter and Hermione Granger seemed rather unamused by the lesson. Hermione had a rather disapproving frown on her face – Artemis could imagine her growing up to be exactly like Professor McGonagall. Neville Longbottom was standing halfway up the passage, alone and staring blankly at the wall like he was in a trance. As Harry and Hermione passed him, he said nervously, "Oh, hello. Interesting lesson, wasn't it? I wonder what's for dinner – I'm – I'm starving, aren't you?"

"Neville, are you alright?" Hermione asked cautiously.

"Oh, yes, I'm alright. Perfectly fine," he gabbled in a voice that had to be several keys above his natural tone. "Very interesting dinner – I mean lesson – what's for eating?" And he scurried off.

"I suppose that isn't a good sign," Artemis remarked off-handedly.

"He was showing us the Unforgivable Curses," Hermione said disgustedly. "Tested it on a bunch of spiders – like it was some kind of circus show. I thought it was rather awful, unlike some people who actually seemed interested." Here she paused to glare at Weasley (Ronald, not to be confused with Fred, George, or Ginny), who shuffled his feet and turned away innocently.

There was an awkward silence. "Well, I suppose I better get moving, then. I don't want to be late for class," Artemis said uncomfortably. He squashed the turning inside his stomach down – he could not afford to show any weakness when they were going to have to deal with Mad-Eye Moody next. Besides – he had dealt with much worse things. He could handle a crazy old Auror, right?

Then again, the "much worse things" had been approached with caution, with at least some inkling of prior knowledge. He had always used proper methods of investigation to gain enough information for at least a backup plan. But as for Moody, all he had ever known of the man was a few snippets of conversation here and there at the two Order meetings he had been to (if the others even considered him a member – which was highly unlikely) and what the Gryffindors had just told him two seconds ago. Gritting his teeth, he walked back to the classroom entrance.

As soon as Artemis rejoined their group, Blaise asked, "What was that all about?" and observed the retreating form of Neville Longbottom with concern.

"He's discussing the Unforgivables. In class," Artemis said.

They all felt slightly ill. The Slytherins definitely knew what they were.


As they filed into the classroom, they all knew immediately that Moody meant business (except for Crabbe and Goyle, who seemed to be more interested in the insides of their own noses – and not for anatomical studies). He stood at the front of the room with a menacing glare, rubbing his grisly, gnarled hands. As a result, the seats in the back were all filled rather quickly, leaving the front for Artemis and his friends.

Moody took out a register and began calling off names. His normal eye scanned the paper, while his magical eye swiveled up and looked around. Whether it was to expedite the roll-call process or because of his paranoia was unknown.

"Bole, Eva!"

"Here," the girl whispered nervously.

Moody's eye swirled to look at her. "I knew your father, girl. Has a pretty good life now, doesn't he?"

Eva didn't respond. Moody just shrugged and went on. Draco shot Artemis a look that clearly said, I told you so, didn't I?

"Crabbe, Vincent!"

Crabbe stared ahead blankly. Draco threw a wad of paper at his goon. "You're supposed to say, 'here,' you idiot."

"Oh! Here, you idiot," Crabbe parroted. Draco slapped him again and then put his head in his hands, moaning pitifully.

Moody glared at him and made a remark about his father, too. Not that Crabbe cared. In fact, he made comments about nearly everyone's father.

"Fowl, Artemis!"

"Here, sir."

Moody actually smiled at him. "Your father was also Artemis Fowl, wasn't he?"

"Yes, sir." What was Moody playing at?

"I'll be keeping an eye on you, boy. Mark my words." Moody growled. "I don't care whose side they say you're on. It won't be mine. There will be proof, eventually."

Artemis knew exactly what Moody was talking about, of course. No, there won't be proof, because we are Fowls, he retorted mentally.

Moody continued. "Goyle, Gregory!"

Again, Goyle stared blankly. "Say 'here!'," Draco ordered, not wanting to make that first mistake with Crabbe.

"Oh! Uh, wait, what?"

"Say 'here,' " Draco repeated.

"Oh. Here."

Artemis rolled his eyes. He wondered who was more stupid – Crabbe or Goyle.

Moody finally got to Draco. "I knew your father, boy. He was a great man, wasn't he?"

"Yes, sir…"

"You sound unsure."

"What's the point of sounding sure," Draco muttered sullenly. "You'll just insult me anyway like you've done to everyone else."

Moody half-glared, half-smirked, and kept going. "Nott, Theodore!"

"Here."

"And you, young man…your – "

"Professor, I already know what you're getting at," Theodore growled, suddenly no longer looking like the meekest Slytherin in their year. "You've spent half the class insinuating that our parents were Death Eaters. But there's nothing in there about us. You continue to judge us based on mistakes that were not even ours, and I find that very unfair."

Moody seemed rather taken aback at this statement. But he hissed in response, "And yet there's the saying that 'the apple does not fall far from the tree', Mr. Nott."

"If you are going to judge us based on our heritage, then you're no better!" Theodore burst out, further shocking everyone. "You preach justice and equality for all, and yet you only practice it to those you favor. I believe that's something called hypocrisy. I don't care about what you say about my father, or who you think he got mixed up with. To me, he's a kind and noble man, and I've never seen him hurt anyone or anything. He's polite to everyone, and listens to others' opinions even if he won't agree. He's a great man, and you would do well to follow his example!" he declared proudly.

Moody stared at him. Theodore stared back defiantly, although his chin wobbled a bit. Moody cocked an eyebrow at Theodore. Artemis felt new respect for his friend. Next to him, Blaise suddenly began applauding profusely. Draco began, too. Artemis shrugged – what the heck – and put his hands together for Theodore's little speech. Pretty soon the rest of the class was clapping and whistling for Theodore (Crabbe and Goyle were still sitting there mutely, imitating everyone else around them, but staring blankly as though they didn't know why they were supposed to be clapping. Or perhaps because the noise around them had confused and frightened them).

Finally, Professor Moody relented and leaned back, impressed. "Very nice, Mr. Nott. You speak bravely – I will give you a chance to prove that you also act as such, later." The rest of roll call proceeded, quite uninterrupted.

"Zabini, Blaise!"

"Here!"

Moody set his clipboard down. For once, he didn't make a single comment. "Right, then. I've heard from your teacher last year, Professor Lupin, that you've covered plenty of Dark creatures and ways to deal with them. Seems you have a pretty thorough ground in tackling…boggarts, Red Caps, hinkypunks, grindylows, Kappas, and werewolves, correct?"

A general murmur of assent sounded throughout the room.

"But it seems that you are quite behind on dealing with curses. I don't know what your parents are teaching you at home – " here his magical eye scanned the crowd again – "So I'm here to show you, face on, the atrocities that people can truly commit. I've got one year to cram everything in my curriculum into your little brains, though, judging from your backgrounds, it should be easier for you lot considering your plentiful amount of prior knowledge. And don't even think of arguing on this one, because I know it's true."

Artemis, Blaise, Theodore, and Draco all looked at one another sheepishly. He was right. But they weren't going to admit it out loud and have it used against them.

Moody laughed – it sounded more like a dry, crackling bark than a laugh, but Artemis assumed that that was the closest Moody was ever going to get to a laugh. "So – straight to the point. Curses. The Ministry says I'm just supposed to teach you a few countercurses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what they actually look like until your sixth year. But your headmaster's got a higher opinion of your nerves, and I do, too. We both reckon you can cope – if you're truly going to fight against the Dark Arts, you have to see, you have to know.

"The sooner you know what you're up against, the better. How are you going to defend yourself against something you've never seen? And if you have seen it, then, good for you – I'm here to show you that it's bad. A Dark wizard who's about to curse you isn't going to tell you that he's about to do it – he's not going to be nice and straightforward. You have to be prepared. Alert and watchful. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" He barked the last few words so loudly that they all jumped in their seats (and Artemis was fiercely reminded of a rather large attack dog – Moody certainly had the attitude and looks for it).

"Copy that down," he ordered. After they had done so, he asked, "All right, what are the three curses most heavily punished by wizarding law? I'm sure you all know it. Yes, Ms. Davis?"

"The Unforgivable Curses," she squeaked.

"Yes, the Unforgivables. Who can name one of them? Mr. Zabini?"

"The Imperius Curse."

"Very good. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble a few years ago, that one. So many people claimed that they only supported the Dark Lord under its influence – and got off scot-free, because who can resist the irresistible Imperius Curse?" He glared at Draco, who bristled. Moody ignored him and reached into his desk drawer, pulling out a jar with a spider in it. "Engorgio!"

The spider grew to the size of a tropical tarantula. "Imperio!"

Moody had the spider perform a series of acrobatics. The class watched silently, transfixed. It was funny, but they all knew that to laugh would be dangerous. "Total control…" Moody whispered. "I could make it jump out the window…drown itself…throw itself down one of your throats…"

Draco looked rather sick at the thought of both Moody controlling him and a spider throwing itself down his throat.

"Mr. Malfoy, you seem like you know plenty," Moody said. "Name another one."

"The Cruciatus Curse," he answered, purposely avoiding the last one. Artemis was unpleasantly reminded of their second year when the apparition of Tom Riddle had used that very curse on his friend. From Draco's expression, he was not particularly keen on the memory, either.

"Ah, yes, the Cruciatus Curse. Engorgio!" he said again, and the spider swelled once more. "Crucio!"

At once, the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but Artemis knew that if spiders had vocal cords it would have been screaming its little throat raw. Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently and violently –

There were mixed reactions. Crabbe and Goyle, of course, had no change in facial expression. Tracey and Pansy were both staring in horrified interest. Eva was doing her best to keep her face stony, but her trembling hands gave her away. Theodore had his eyes squeezed shut, and Blaise was staring sideways, away from the spider. Draco was chewing his lip and twitching.

As for Artemis...of course it was terrible, to him, as he had experienced pain, too. But it was all detached, because it wasn't real pain, just sensory overload. The spider thought it was being injured, but it really wasn't...

"Please stop it," Theodore whispered, shaking.

Artemis surreptitiously flicked his wand from the inside of his sleeve and shut down the spider's pain receptors. It relaxed, and then stopped contorting.

Moody paused, slightly confused as the spider no longer reacted. He poked it, and it scurried clumsily about across the tabletop, then, still disoriented, fell behind the desk and out of sight. The grizzled old Auror fixed Artemis with a piercing gaze, which Artemis met unabashedly. He scanned the rest of the class.

Moody looked at him, and then the rest of the class. They all were staring sullenly up front, too frozen to say anything. "Well, well, well. I expected different reactions from you lot, but this was not what I expected."

Obviously. Most of the other students had no clue what these curses were going on about. They didn't grow up around the Dark Arts. They didn't experience anything personally. And they weren't losing their parents to the Dark Arts, either. The Slytherins, on the other hand, were very well aware of their precarious position in the current status quo, and realized that showing even any inkling of support of these Dark Arts demonstrations would put them directly underneath the radar.

Alastor Moody was not Cornelius Fudge. He wouldn't overlook proof of a student being a future Death Eater for anything. Least of all gold or political support.

Neville knew, and Harry knew, and Hermione was a rule-abiding citizen by nature, but as for the rest of the sheltered population of Hogwarts, they could only view Moody's demonstration with the detached interest. They knew that pain, and death, and loss of self-will were bad, but until they personally witnessed the implications of such things on actual humans like them, they probably wouldn't get it. Though the spiders were a good step to awareness, it wasn't the same. People stepped on spiders on a daily basis.

Now, if it was something like a little fluffy bunny that was being tortured and killed, then maybe there would be more adverse reactions. Unfortunately, that was where the catch-22 took place: if you used anything that could garner human sympathy, like other humans or fluffy and cute little animals, then that was too graphic to be allowed, but unless you used them, it was unlikely that the students could feel the implications of the Unforgivables as much as knowing them.

"That one was very popular once, too. The medieval Muggle torture methods – completely unnecessary if you know how to do this one. You'd confess to anything under the Cruciatus. Right. What's the last one?"

No one would say anything. They already knew.

"Mr. Fowl, how about you?"

Artemis' lips twitched. "The Killing Curse."

"Yes. The last one. The Killing Curse." Moody's already lopsided mouth twisted into a cruel grin.

"Do you really have to kill it?" Theodore said weakly, looking at the still-twitching spider.

"You have to see – you have to know! AVADA KEDAVRA!" Moody roared. A flash of green light – and the spider keeled over, dead.

"Very unpleasant. No countercurse. The only way to avoid it is to jump the hell out of the way." Moody swept the dead spider off the desk and into the trash. "Avada Kedavra's a really powerful curse – needs plenty of magic behind it. You lot can all point your wands at me and say it, and I probably won't get as much as a nosebleed. Or maybe I will. Who knows." His blue eye swiveled around the room again, before finally settling on Artemis. "But that doesn't matter because I'm not here to teach you how to do it. I'm here to teach you to defend yourselves against it. Why am I doing if this, if there's no cure or countercurse? Because you've got to see – you've got to know! You don't want to find yourself in a situation facing it completely unprepared," he ranted.

"And if we are, then 'jump the hell out of the way'?" Blaise asked sullenly.

"That's right, Mr. Zabini. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Moody roared all of a sudden, and they jumped again.

"Now, these three curses…Imperio, Crucio, and Avada Kedavra…The Unforgivable Curses. Copy this down. The use of any one on a fellow human being is equal to life imprisonment in Azkaban. I don't care what any of the old Death Eaters still running loose have to say about it."

They spent the rest of class taking notes. No one dared make a sound. Whether from disgust, or fear for themselves and their parents, they all knew to take Moody seriously. Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws could possibly get away with laughing at a spider being tortured - they might get a reprimand, and then an explanation that "it's not funny!", and then be dismissed for being too young to understand.

But Artemis could not use ignorance as an excuse. Neither could the others. Definitely not Draco or Theodore, given their family history. Blaise would also be highly suspect, despite the fact that his father had never been associated with anything evil (unless you counted his mother, but that was hardly his fault). Even Crabbe and Goyle, the stupidest two kids in school, would probably be labeled as evil minions the moment they even giggled once at the display. The girls might be given slightly more leeway, since Voldemort didn't have many female Death Eaters besides Bellatrix Lestrange (whose insanity was in an entirely different league of her own) and Alecto Carrow (who was simply a member of a minor family and too ugly/poor to marry - something that did not apply to Pansy, Tracey, or Eva, who were all expected to grow up into respectable noble wives or something like that).

Artemis spared his friends a sidelong glance. All of their letters were deformed and smudged, for their hands were shaking too much to write properly.

Artemis looked back down at his notebook, which displayed completely pristine handwriting.

He frowned and decided to purposely smudge it up a little with the side of his hand (which was easy, since he normally wrote with his left hand). It wasn't that he didn't care...he was just so good at detaching himself from the situation. But he knew that what Moody did was wrong. Artemis was selfish, not evil. He knew that torturing spiders was one step away from torturing fluffy bunnies and other human beings. Torturing and killing things was wrong.

He wasn't a killer; he had let Karkaroff live, hadn't he?


"You, too?" Blaise asked, looking at his ink-stained hands as they left the classroom.

Artemis nodded.

Why am I trying so hard to convince other people that I'm not evil?

I shouldn't HAVE to try this hard.

Why am I trying so hard?

I can't fool myself; why am I even trying?

"The Gryffindors definitely weren't exaggerating," Draco said.

"He certainly 'knows his stuff'," Blaise agreed.

"Yeah. In a bad way," Draco muttered sourly.

I'm not evil. I swear, I'm not evil. I'm just good at compartmentalization.

Next to him, Blaise and Draco were still arguing. "I say Lupin was still better."

"Lupin, really? Well, yeah, I guess."

"Yeah. He was."

I'm not evil. I swear, I'm not evil.


A/N: Moral discussion, for those interested: what is Artemis?

Does he not have a conscience, and is just pretending to fit in? Or are his values just too different from the norm, and doesn't want to end up hurting his friends because of this skewed but not incorrect world view? Is he not evil, but just apathetic, and can this apathy be considered evil? What if he does have conventional morals, but tries to hide it so he doesn't look weak, and simply is smart enough to do a better job than the other Slytherins, who also put on (imperfect) masks?

Give me your interpretations. I like reader interaction.