AN: I feel like this chapter is boring and takes a lot from cannon, but we've got to slog through the boring stuff to get to the good stuff, the three tasks. I'm looking forward to that.

Year 04 Chapter 05- The Unforgivables

The next day dawned bright and early. Harry and Hedwig had their usual exercise session, followed by the usual hot tub time. They met up with Hermione, Bella, Neville, and Ginny, before heading for breakfast, where they were joined by Luna. After breakfast, The Gryffindor fourth years were soon headed for Herbology, their first class of the year, where they spent the class squeezing bubotubers, which looked like large ugly slugs climbing out of the soil. The pus was used in potions to get ride of acne; something which found great use in a school full of teenage girls.

The next class of the day was care of magical creatures, where the students were studying wood nymphs. Hagrid made a comment about blast-ended screwts, but Professor Grubbly-Plank seemed displeased with that plan.

After class they met up with Luna and Ginny on their way to lunch. The meal was good, as always and Harry was soon following Hermione to double Arithmancy, where they discussed the simple mathematics that went into beginner spell creation.

They left the class to meet up with their friends, and on the way back ran into a fight between Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley. Draco insulted Ron's parents, calling his mother fat, before Ron punched Draco in the nose. They were quickly rolling on the floor, wrestling, and trying to hit each other.

"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione called, as the boy in question waded into the fight, pulling Ron off of a bleeding Draco.

"Enough." Harry said in his commanding voice. Both boy's froze at his tone. "This constant fighting is getting old."

"He started it." Ron whimpered.

"No I didn't." Malfoy shouted, holding his bleeding nose.

"I don't really care who started it, I'm ending it. Now Malfoy, you should get to the hospital wing, and if I hear you insult Ron one more time, I'm going directly to Professor McGonagall."

"Thanks mate." Ron said, before heading to the great hall himself, for dinner. Unfortunately, Draco didn't like being shown up, and whipped out his wand, ready to curse Harry, but the shape-shifter was too fast, snatching the wand out of the boys hand.

"Hey, give me my wand back!" Draco demanded.

"You can get it back from Professor McGonagall." Harry said, before heading into the great hall, where he approached the professor in question, who was seated at the head table.

"Here you are, professor." He said, handing her the wand. "I took this off of Draco Malfoy, when he attempted to curse me."

"Where is Mister Malfoy now?" She asked.

"Probably on his way to the Hospital wing. He was fighting with Ron Weasley again, and had a bloody nose."

"Alright, I'll deal with them," She sighed, being frustrated with the two of them. "Thank you, Mister Potter."

Harry joined his friends who were seated at the Ravenclaw table, and enjoyed a relaxing lunch. The rest of the week past quickly for the group, until Thursday, when they had their first Defence Against The Dark Arts class, with Professor Moody. The Weasley twins had been singing his praises all week, saying he really knew his stuff, and had lived it all, fighting the dark arts, so everyone was really looking forward to the class, except Harry, who had met Alistair Moody before, and was wondering what he would try to shock the class with. It turned out, he was right.

"So... do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"

Harry grimaced, immediately understanding what they were being taught about. He was especially disbelieving when Moody pulled out a spider, and cast the imperious curse on it.

"You're not seriously going to show students the unforgivable curses, are you?" Harry asked "Cast them in a class room?"

"And why not? They need to know, and your headmaster agrees with me."

Harry wanted to argue that they were too young, but he felt it would be hypocritical. What he was fourteen, he was fighting in a war, defending his masters castle, and using spells a lot darker and more painful then the killing curse.

"Fine. Continue." He grumbled.

"Thank you for your permission." Moody said sarcastically. "Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"

After casting the Cruciatus Curse, Moody asked for another. Hermione's hand went up, but Moody's normal eye was looking at Harry.

"Fine, I'll say it." He exasperated, "The killing curse. Avada Kedavra"

"Ah," said Moody, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "Yes, the last and worst. Avada Kedavra... the Killing Curse." He then pulled out a spider and cast the curse on it.

"Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no counter-curse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of me."

Harry rolled his eyes at the dramatics. He reached up and petted Hedwig, who was sitting on his desk watching the show.

"Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it — you could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed. But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to teach you how to do it.

"Now, if there's no countercurse, why am I showing you? Because you've got to know. You've got to appreciate what the worst is. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're facing it. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he shouted, causing the class to jump.

"Now... those three curses — Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus — are known as the Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban. That's what you're up against. That's what I've got to teach you to fight. You need preparing. You need arming. But most of all, you need to practice constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Get out your quills... copy this down..." The class continued with lots of note taking.

"You alright, Nev?" Harry asked as they left the class. He was the only one of his friends who knew why Neville had reacted the way he did.

"Interesting lesson, wasn't it? I wonder what's for dinner, I'm — I'm starving, aren't you?"

"Neville, are you all right?" said Hermione.

"Oh yes, I'm fine," Neville gabbled in an unnaturally high voice. "Very interesting dinner — I mean lesson — what's for eating?"

Before they could say any more, Professor Moody clunked his way into the corridor.

"It's all right, sonny," he said to Neville. "Why don't you come up to my office? Come on... we can have a cup of tea."

Neville looked like having a cup of tea with Moody was the last thing he wanted to do but he held his head high, and took a step forward. Moody looked at Harry.

"You all right, are you, Potter?"

"I'm fine."

Moody watched Harry for a moment longer, then spoke. "You've got to know. It seems harsh, maybe, but you've got to know. No point pretending... well... come on Longbottom, I've got some books that might interest you."

They headed back to the classroom, while the others headed for dinner. It turned out that Professor Moody lent Neville a book titled 'Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean,' which Neville seemed to greatly enjoy.

September rolled into October, and they had another interesting DADA class, where Moody told them that he would be putting them all under the imperious curse. Of course Hermione had to speak up.

"But — but you said it's illegal, Professor," Hermione said sounding unsure. "You said — to use it against another human was —"

"Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like," Moody responded, staring at her unblinkingly with both his normal and magical eye. "If you'd rather learn the hard way — when someone's putting it on you so they can control you completely — fine by me. You're excused. Off you go."

Hermione had nothing to say to that. One by one, Moody made the students jump on desks, do hand stands, and dance in front of their peers. Finally it came Harry's turn. Moody cast Imperio, and Harry felt the floating sensation that he'd long since recognised as the mental manipulation. 'Jump onto the desk... jump onto the desk' came Moody's voice, echoing in his head. Harry shook his head, clearing it of the misty feeling, and spoke aloud.

"No."

Harry could no longer hear Moody's voice in his head nor feel the floating sensation.

"Look at that, you lot... Potter fought! He fought it, and he beat it! We'll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you,

pay attention — watch his eyes, that's where you see it — very good, Potter, very good indeed! They'll have trouble controlling you!"