Disclaimer 1: This is fanfic. That means I do not own any of it. I just borrow it to play with for a little while and let people see the pathetic results if they really want to.
Disclaimer 2: I'm not making any money from it. It's just for fun.
Disclaimer 3: What isn't borrowed is all made up. None of this is real or most likely at all realistic. Please don't trust any of the information in here. Most likely you know more about whatever I'm writing about than I do.
Disclaimer 4: Attitudes, views and opinions expressed by the characters or in the story are not necessarily those of the author. Even when writing Science Fiction or Fantasy I do not tend to attempt to create perfect/better worlds in which everybody gets a happy end ... or whatever is best for them. Please accept that some characters will have a bad ending or be unhappy.
Disclaimer 5: I intend no insult to anyone. If I offend anyone I'm very sorry. Please understand that it was an accident as I tend to be very clumsy in these things.
Notes: The spell that killed ... well, a house-elf at least
Chapter 14: The Unforgivable Curses
Two more days of anticipation passed before Harry finally had his own first lesson with Professor Moody. Most of his classmates were eager to sit in the front as they had heard a lot of stories about how cool Professor Moody was, but by reminding Ron and Hermione of Draco's horror stories he managed to convince them to sit in the back.
Ron in particular only did so hesitantly at first, but looked very pleased with his seat when Professor Moody revealed his intention to demonstrate the unforgivable curses on three engorged spiders.
From this distance the imperious curse was an excellent show and Harry and his friends cheered with everybody else, but when Professor Moody continued with the cruciatus curse Hermione fell silent and frowned.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked her. "Don't you like it?"
"I think Draco's right about Professor Moody. This is ..."
"What's that in the back row?" Professor Moody snapped. "If you have something on topic to say, tell the whole class. If not, save your worthless chatter."
Harry lowered his head in shame, but to his surprise Hermione stood up as if she'd been called on to answer a question.
"I was saying that this isn't funny. The spider is suffering the most excruciating pain it is possible for a spider to feel. We should be feeling appalled, not amused," she declared looking into the Professor's eyes defiantly.
To Harry's, and probably everybody else's surprise, Professor Moody was pleased however and called that a very important contribution indeed.
He left the cruciatus spider twitching helplessly next to the imperious one and demonstrated Avada Kedavra on the third.
Harry watched that demonstration wide-eyed. This was the spell that had given him his scar. This spell had killed his parents, if the story his headmasters had told him was true after all and even if it wasn't it had killed at least one innocent house-elf nurse that had tried to defend her charges.
Yes. maybe Draco was right about Professor Moody. Harry politely declined when the Professor offered him a cup of tea after the lesson, claiming that he had urgent Divination homework to do.
It wasn't even really a lie. That Divination homework did take up almost the whole evening to write, because he and Ron were stupid enough to attempt to do it properly at first. Only when all their efforts failed to yield any comprehensible results did they resort to lying, which was much faster and a lot more fun, but also very bad, Harry knew.
At least Frederick and George, too, didn't seem to be completely comfortable with what they were writing. It made Harry feel a little better to know that he wasn't the only one that was forced to cheat sometimes.