Chapter Eighty-Two: Unforgivable
That practice was absolutely necessary, both as an outlet, and for its intended uses of building up their reserves (strength, knowledge, and, in the second type, magic-based duels he insisted upon after that first session, magical power). But without those sessions, Harry would not have lasted as long as he did in their first Defence class. Which was saying something, as he still left early. He couldn't help it.
There was a bit of evidence gathered at the same time, from the lesson, to do with Neville. He'd reacted worse to the Cruciatus Curse than Harry had. That was saying something.
The Twins had spoken highly of this class, and Harry didn't understand why. Yes, of course, the famed auror Alastor Moody knew what he was talking about. But an actual demonstration, disregarding the backgrounds of his students, not even warning them of what was to come, both made complete sense, and seemed immensely cruel, which was not the same thing as "cool".
They filed in on that Tuesday, taking their seats without knowing how important their choice would be for that lesson. Every Defence teacher seemed radically different from all the others, anyway. Quirrell, who feigned incompetence, and taught a limited agenda, regardless; Lockhart, who genuinely was incompetent, but dangerous nonetheless, who had taught them nothing except that they should not believe everything they heard; Professor Lupin, well-versed in his area of focus. Moody would naturally know his stuff, but would he be a good teacher?
Harry's immediate reaction to learning about their lesson was to pity Ron, who was arachnophobic (although this struck him as more than slightly amusing; he had the vague memory of a red-headed woman whom he knew to be called 'Black Widow', and she was one of Thor's friends. That could complicate when he caught up to the future).
When he learnt that the subject of the class was something called "The Unforgivables", that caught and held his attention. He knew the name of only one, and that was from the Sorting Hat. And last year, he never had come around to researching it…and then other events had sidetracked him. What little he remembered of that conversation increased his usual wary tension tenfold. Or at least fourfold.
"Who can name one of them?" asked Moody, after a brief introduction to the class, and the function those poor arachnids would serve. He explained why they were called the Unforgivable Curses: the use of any one of them on a human being was grounds for a life sentence in Azkaban. Harry rather expected Hermione to sniff at the anthropocentrism of this philosophy, but she was too busy soaking up the lesson, as only she could.
Unsurprisingly, Hermione's hand was the first in the air. Surprisingly, Neville's tentative one was second, some ways behind him. Both of them glanced at Harry, as if there were something he was supposed to have made of the question. As if they expected him to know one of the curses.
It was absurd, of course: they were not privy to the discussions the Sorting Hat had had with him. If it were going to reveal his deepest secrets, it would not have done to Neville, or anyone else in this classroom—with the possible exceptions of Moody and Ron.
He looked down at his desk, fist clenched tight. They'd taken seats in the front, which ordinarily is a good idea, if you want good grades (and Hermione was aware of this fact). But now both Ron and Harry were wishing that they had sat elsewhere. Only Hermione seemed happy with the arrangement, as she was wont to be, whenever she had the chance to show off.
"You, girl with the bushy hair," said the new professor, pointing at Hermione, who beamed as if he'd given her a compliment. Then, she looked down, seeming a bit uncomfortable, as if she'd just realised something.
"…Avada Kedavra," she whispered, and Harry's eyes widened in shock. He remembered it as if it were seared into his memory (well, it was): his mother, before she remembered, defending him from Riddle, begging him to kill her instead, have mercy. Avada Kedavra. Green light. Badness. An old dream, given a more potent reality, sharp, hard edges, like a blade. He swallowed, hard, and shuddered.
"Ah, yes," said Moody, with what might be confused for relish. "Avada Kedavra…the Killing Curse. The worst of the three, it causes instant death for the victim. And there's no counter to it, no defence possible. Only one person has been hit with it, and lived to tell the tale, and he's sitting right in front of me."
Harry decided to hate this professor, if for no other reason than that he, even as Lockhart had, had singled Harry out for special attention, as if he wanted it, as if he didn't get enough as it was. His nails dug into the wood of his desk. Ron glanced his way, but both of them knew that there was nothing that he could do.
Moody took out a jar of spiders, which was enough to distract Ron. Harry took no pleasure from that fact. He watched with feigned apathy belied by his unblinking stare. Moody set a spider on the table at the front of the room, which he'd decided to use for his demonstrations. Immediately, the spider scurried wildly for safety, but it was too slow.
"Avada Kedavra!" cried Moody, and there was a rush of wind, a beam of green light, and the spider lay there, motionless. Ron did not mind spiders dead; he automatically relaxed, even as Harry tensed, gripping the sides of his desk with greater force. That was it. It was that spell. He'd seen it now, used in front of him, now that he was old enough to understand its significance.
Hadn't this spell killed him, once? Was that why he'd become…what he'd become? Whatever that was? If he'd been hit with the Curse (to which there was no counter, no means of defence), had he not died, same as everyone else?
But Mother, and old magic, had dragged him back…him, and something else.
"Now, there's more to these spells than just knowing the wand movements and the words. That's part of the reason these curses are considered forbidden: you have to mean them. You could all point your wands at me right now and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed."
Care to stake your life on that assumption? asked the more dangerous part of Harry's mind. The part that knew things, but made bad suggestions. It had been easier when he'd called it "Loki"….
Moody was speaking, saying something about how they needed to pay attention to him when he was talking, and CONSTANT VIGILANCE. Harry's heart beat frantically, but his mind returned to the demonstration at hand.
Well, if Moody had started with the worst Curse, things could only improve from here, right?
And then he remembered the Curse whose name he already knew, the one the Sorting Hat had told him, the one that filled him with dread although he had never researched it, only on account of under what circumstances the Sorting Hat had mentioned it: the Imperius Curse.
"Anyone know any others?" asked Moody. Again, with greater hesitance, Neville's hand rose into the air. It was a half-hearted raising of the hand, if ever Harry had seen one. Doubtless, he did not want to see another one of those curses, performed live before him.
"Yes?" asked Moody, sparing him a glance with just his normal, non-electric-blue, non-creepy eye.
"The Cruciatus Curse, sir," said Neville, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Hmm. Your name's Longbottom?" asked the auror, not looking at Neville, at least not with his normal eye. Neville nodded, pale and shaking, and looking as if he'd just volunteered for an impossible task.
He slumped a bit in evident relief when the professor asked no further questions, merely withdrawing a second jar, with a second spider. This one was not as smart as the previous one. Of course, it had barely been there for a second, when Moody muttered something about it needing to be a bit bigger, that they could the easier see the effects of his next spell.
Ron made to push his chair back, but Harry had already clamped his hand around his arm with the solid firmness of a manacle. He sent him a look. "Show no weakness," he said, in a voice too low for Moody to hear. Ron glanced at him, almost pleading, and then looked down, fists clenched in his lap. He'd seen worse.
"Crucio!" cried Moody, pointing at the spider, and Harry stared as the familiar light hit the spider, that started twitching, legs shaking with what Harry knew was unbearable pain.
Oh. Well, this was going to be a wonderfully fun lesson. He was already well-acquainted with the subject material. He wouldn't need to study this. But…he'd blocked the Cruciatus Curse. One of the Unforgivable Curses, which couldn't be defended against, couldn't be blocked.
Hmm.
Neville disturbed the class by pushing himself out of his seat, and backing towards the door. He looked much as Harry felt: white, pale, shaking so badly that his legs could barely support him, as if he'd gone under the Curse. Harry knew that it came with the occasional muscle spasm.
With a start, glancing back and forth between Moody and Neville, it occurred to him that maybe Moody had known whatever backstory piece of information caused Neville to react thus. Maybe he'd guessed that this would be his reaction. What was his aim? Desensitisation? Or did he get a kick out of it…like Snape?
"You've made your point! Cancel the spell," Hermione begged, and Moody shook his head, as if he'd spaced out for a moment. He broke line of sight, and the spider went limp. It was not moving, yet neither was it dead. Harry knew the feeling, knew how it felt just to need a reprieve, but that reprieve would never be given in battle.
He had been hit with that curse only once, and it had burst his last defences, crashed into his every barrier and protection with the force of a wave against the shore. That curse was what had caused him to use the mantra for the first time. It was responsible for everything that had happened ever after, had just as formative a role in Harry's life as the Killing Curse.
He stared at the spider, as Moody reduced it to its original size, and swept it back into its jar. Somehow, Harry doubted that it would be compensated for its recent torture.
"Well, someone's been silent, considering I was told that he was one of the brightest students in the class—the only one to get full marks on the final last term. Why so quiet, Harry Potter?"
It felt too like the exchange of verbal blows that attended a duel. It was tempting to respond in kind. He glanced at Ron, who had gone pale, but was it in response to the recent pains of Moody's victim, or what was now to come?
"Why would I know any of the Unforgivable Curses?" Harry asked, with almost successful feigned indifference.
"You don't have to be interested in Dark Magic to have heard of it," Moody said. "I am sure that you came across it in your studies—"
Harry decided that it would be too suspicious if he kept arguing: Moody would eventually make him admit to knowing the name of the third curse, or he might slip up in some other context. If he kept insisting he knew nothing…. "I'd never heard the names of the Killing Curse, or the Cruciatus before, although they've been used on me. But I think the Sorting Hat mentioned one to me last year, when it was talking about the uses of occlumency. I think it said it was called the 'Imperius Curse'."
He did not dare to glance at Ron, to see his response. There was too much importance to the moment. He didn't know what the Imperius Curse was, or what it did, but he could guess, just by its name, and by the context in which the Sorting Hat had mentioned it. He wished that he'd known more than just that one curse, could have volunteered the name of, say, the Killing Curse. That one seemed the most innocuous—it had done him less harm than the Cruciatus, which had broken him, and as for the Imperius Curse….
"Ah, yes. Caused quite a lot of trouble in the wake of the last war. Plenty of Death Eaters couldn't be brought to trial…convinced everyone they'd been under the Imperius and got a free pass."
That this fact clearly ate at him all these years later was nether here nor there. Harry was compiling a list of reasons to hate Moody, regardless of whether or not he turned out to be trustworthy.
"The Imperius Curse…the mind-control curse." Harry's heart plummeted to his stomach. Like a hare running for cover, he doubted very much that it would return again until all was safe. He didn't want to know how he looked, but it must have been bad, for Ron—Thor—turned to him, and said, in his quietest voice: "Show no weakness. Give no ground."
"Imperio!" Moody cried, and the scuttling spider suddenly relaxed, as if the eyes of the class weren't on it, as if unaware of any potential threats, as if it were safe and secure, doing whatever a spider might do in its spare time. It reared up on four legs and began what was unmistakably a tapdance. Some laughed. Harry clenched his fists so tight he knew they were drawing blood, and very much didn't care.
He didn't mean that.
Did he?
He shook his head, staring at the spider with mounting horror.
"Think it's funny, do you?" asked Moody. The laughter, which had spread from one person to the next, died down at the rebuke. "Total control. I could make it drown itself, jump out a window, throw itself down one of your throats."
Harry shivered, and couldn't help glancing at Ron. For the first time in a long time, he felt a desire for some older relative to protect him from the world. Or maybe just this. Hadn't he wanted Thor to save him, back when—?
Show no weakness. Give no ground. Hold the line. Success is salvation. Death is victory. Sacrifice is worth. Hold the line.
There is an end. You must wait for it, is all. You can outwait anyone.
But he hadn't. He didn't know if those were echoes, memories, or his inner voice giving him advice (and if it did, wasn't it always the worst advice? No?).
Show no weakness.
He watched the spider, feeling a sudden kinship with it.
I've got red in my ledger. I mean to wipe it out.
He stood. He wasn't consciously aware of having done so, but he was in a hundred different times and places, a hundred pieces, each piece in a different place, and a different time.
Why wasn't the spell blue?
He stumbled over the chairs, backing out of the room, as if Moody would try to cast the spell on him if he dared turn his back. As it turned out, that was next week's lesson. For now, he turned and fled.
"If they're called Unforgivables, how are you getting away with casting that one on us?" Harry demanded. A murmur ran through the class. Unfortunately for him, rumour had spread through Gryffindor Tower of his odd behaviour last class. It was only a matter of time before it spread through the school. He blamed Moody. It was easier than blaming himself.
"The Ministry thinks highly of Dumbledore. Dumbledore gave me permission. The Ministry think you're too young to understand, but Dumbledore agrees that you've got to know what's out there waiting for you. You've got to be prepared. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
Most of the class jumped. Somehow, Harry and Ron didn't.
Harry had half a mind to volunteer to go first. Instead, he watched everyone else. Moody probably wouldn't have let him get it over with, anyway, and he learnt something, somewhat, by watching others undergoing the process.
He frowned, and opened his seventh sense. It went against his better judgement to do that when the sheer influx of information was liable to overwhelm him, causing him to miss whatever instruction Moody might give, but let's face it: he wasn't going to help them figure out how to fight off the Imperius Curse—the whole point of this exercise for everyone else was so that they would know how it felt. Only for Harry was it an attempt to find an exploitable weakness to the spell.
All he was missing was whatever sick show Moody was putting on at their expense. Was he a sadist or something? First, calling attention to Harry as the sole survivor of the Killing Curse; then, dragging out the Cruciatus until Neville was shaky and jumpy for hours afterwards; and now this. Dumbledore sure knew how to pick them, didn't he?
This was Dumbledore's friend?
Harry shook his head, studying the sturdy twine of which the spell seemed to be made for any sign of weakness. His seventh sense was far from infallible—it hadn't found Riddle's soul in the diary in second year, after all, and he still had trouble interpreting what he found, sometimes. It was a messy tangle of emotion and movement at the best of times (i.e., when he wasn't a mess trying to find an escape from the noose tightening around his neck). And it was almost impossible to multitask…all the data coming in from his seventh sense concerning everything within his range of awareness was enough to cause sensory overload in itself, if you weren't used to it, without adding data from the five primary senses. He could sometimes get away with using his sixth and seventh senses at the same time…the sixth sense rarely contributed much in the form of data, but it was good at intuition….
He sighed, and opened his sixth sense. Might as well. He needed all the help he could get.
The only thing he could think of—and it would rarely work; it would require plenty of forewarning—was to expand an occlumency shield around himself to intercept the twine before it could reach him.
And then, came Ron's turn.
In retrospect, he should have expected Ron—Thor—to be the odd one out, the only one with a default measure of defence against the inexorable. The twine tried to reach him, but as it approached, it glowed white hot, and began to burn. Harry stared in what he refused to admit was awe; that was quite the spectacle to behold. Ron didn't even seem to realise that he was doing anything.
Moody cast the spell, again and again, frowning at his lack of success.
"Well, er," he began, faltering. "I suppose you have some sort of natural immunity…like nothing I've ever seen before."
He moved on. Harry thought fast. He knew he was running out of leeway.
Of course. Twine was such a sturdy material…but it was made of plant fibres. The spell wasn't, but now he knew that it could burn. And Mother's love was silver fire. It was a stopgap measure, if nothing else.
What do you think, Mother? Should I try?
Although he knew that she couldn't answer him, located too deep in his soul as she was, he still asked. To do otherwise would be rude.
He knew that he couldn't summon the armour, but Mother's love was the ultimate protection—the armour was just the form it usually took. Unfortunately, it was entirely out of his control. All he could do was hope for the best, and give Mother some forewarning about the impending threat.
Do you suppose that you have the ability to block the Imperius Curse, as you did the Killing one?
He'd never made any sort of concerted effort to contact Mother whilst in the Waking World—the last threat requiring her intervention, if you didn't count the dementors, which were equal risk for both of them, had been at the end of second year. He'd still been in denial, then.
Now, he kept his seventh sense open—to see how it would react. Was there mind-reading involved in the Imperius Curse? It forged some sort of connection between the mind of caster and victim, but couldn't override the Fidelius Charm.
Suddenly, it seemed imperative that he not allow any sort of connection to form between him and Moody. Mother reacted to his distress. He could feel it in a flickering, burgeoning ache in his arms.
It is only Moody, testing the class by using an Unforgivable on them. The one thought to be the most harmless. Ha! There is no need for the armour here. That would only rouse suspicion. Please, Mother.
Why couldn't he have been forewarned before school even began that he'd be encountering this? A week was not enough time to prepare, but Moody had given them no forewarning. Even someone who was hit by such a curse in real life would have had the opportunity of studying it, surely. Their research might have been filled with dead ends, as were the hours Harry had spent this last week, scouring the library, but they would have had years to research.
Moody called him up, and he braced himself. His skin burnt all over, a fierce stinging, the sort common with a new burn, before it settles into its usual rhythms. It was painful, but he could work through pain.
He could.
He was not as sure that he could work through mind-control.
He refused to meet anyone's eyes as he trudged to the front of the room like a man on the way to the gallows. If there were someone who wove the fates of men and gods, they were laughing at him. How many such turnabouts could this life hold?
His need to see the details of how the spell functioned was dwarfed by his need to know exactly what Moody was doing. He needed to hear him. He needed to be able to see where he was walking. If it were possible to die of sensory overload, he would have done, second year. Instead, it had given him a raging headache. At least his focus was narrower this time. He didn't need to see the entire room; he only needed to see Moody. He didn't need to hear his classmates' reactions; he only needed to know what Moody was saying.
"Ready now?" Moody asked. The only appropriate answer to that was "no". Harry said nothing. "Alright, then: Imperio!"
He was so fast! Of course, that was to be expected from an auror, but still. There was barely enough time to even think of defending himself before he felt the world begin to fade away. He was filled with a warm, peaceful sort of laziness. Happiness such as he'd never known, or could not remember if he had, flooded him.
Mother? he managed to ask.
Jump onto the desk, a voice commanded. He didn't recognise that voice, but he didn't like the sound of it.
Why? he asked. Suspicion tried to form beneath the pleasant dream.
Such comfort is not for you, said his sixth sense, or whatever it was that he had left as the final barricade to—
Ah. Yes, he needed to fight this off, before certain foreign presences could take advantage of his momentary lapse, the breach in his defences. There were two of them—now three—against him, and Mother. He did not like those odds, but weren't they familiar? He'd fought worse. He'd bested worse.
Fight back, suggested the final barrier. It was too busy warding off Thanos to try something more direct. But something burnt beneath his skin, in those moments stretched into minutes. His seventh sense might as well be closed, for all the good it was doing him. The world was far distant. He needed to get back out. How did you wake yourself from a dream? How had he returned from the mist of his soul after the dementor attack, to the real world? How did he get back? He'd never gone into his own mind before. Except….
Desperation. Fear. Guilt. Loss. Pain. He needed his brother to call him out, and he wasn't there.
He was there. Love is your guiding force, said the memory of the Sorting Hat.
The third second stretched out, and then Mother's love flared bright, for a moment, igniting that sturdy twine, burning it down the line, burning the connection bridging their minds. He felt it break.
Everything came rushing back. He was on his knees.
"You," he said, in a voice rusty from disuse, or from screaming. Ron—Thor—tensed behind him, as if he knew that Harry had been pushed too far, had gone too far. Harry had known that he should have left when Moody had told him to. He also knew that he had to learn if he had any means at all by which to fight the Curse. What did he get from it? Now, his mind was as jumbled as his soul had been, last year…or it felt that way. Perhaps the dust would settle into familiar patterns. But it would never do to just hope that.
He had to climb over a few desks to get there so quickly, but Ron was there a handful of seconds later. He hit Harry, hard, over the head, as Moody and the rest of the class watched. Harry swayed on his feet. His thoughts realigned themselves. He shook his head, to drive out his worst impulses.
"Try it again," he demanded. Ron stared at him in evident horror, but Harry knew that he needed a defence against this spell if he needed one against any.
Moody raised his wand again. Harry was aware of it, this time, aware of the process, aware of the buildup of energy, via his mostly closed seventh sense.
"Imperio!" cried Moody. He was far too eager.
A wall of occlumency fortified with silver fire—fake silver fire, the other magic, sprang up. It let the spell through only far enough to cut the twine, and then it burnt the line leading back to Moody. Other things could be done with that twine, he was sure. He just had no idea what. He stared at it, from his vantage within his own mind. It was limp and innocuous-looking. He'd find a way to take it apart, discover all of its weaknesses, what the optimal defence was.
He left his own mind, returning to the outside world, and Ron hit him again, without even having to be asked.
His head couldn't handle the additional trauma. He lost consciousness, which, to be fair, gave him the perfect opportunity to study the spell further, and with an excuse.
