Yu-Gi-Oh!
Dawn of Fate
CHAPTER NINE – THE UNFORGIVABLE CURSES
Two days later found the four wizards from Japan and their respective spirits standing before the Goblet of Fire. The goblet was wooden, and also nothing overly special, not counting the dancing blue flames the leapt out of it. Resting on the table next to the goblet was several sheets of parchment and an owl quill sticking out of an ink vile. The seven of them looked at the goblet, watching as some people stopped to write their name down before throwing the parchment into the fire.
On the first night of school, Dumbledore had presented the strange goblet to the school. Supposedly, if they were old enough, they could deposit their name into the fire to be considered for participation in the Triwizards Tournament. The delegations from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons had put their names in the first night before they settled down to eat – which, Seto had missed, as he was too "preoccupied" with his computer – and the students in Hogwarts had until Halloween to do the same.
"I dunno, guys…" Yugi said nervously. "Seems kinda dangerous, don't you think?"
Yami Bakura rubbed the tip of his nose in thought. "After everything else that we've been through, I don't think a bunch of parlor tricks will be that hard," he stated.
Bakura rolled his eyes. "So enter."
Yami Yugi and Yami Bakura exchanged looks.
"Are we even allowed?" the pharaoh asked. "I mean… we technically don't go to school here…"
The tomb robber was about to reply, when he spotted Dumbledore walking on his way to the Great Hall. He waved to the elderly headmaster, catching his attention.
"Oy, Ojii-san," he began, getting frowns out of the others, "can we dead people enter the tournament too?"
Yami Yugi muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Speak for yourself," while Dumbledore contemplated his question. After a moment, the headmaster shrugged casually, an easy smile on his face.
"I do not see the harm in it," he said. "Though, I would find it wise if you were in your respective host's bodies if you get chosen. The other school leaders might frown down on a spirit participating on his own."
Yami Bakura looked to his hikari as the elderly man headed off.
"D'ya mind?" he asked.
Bakura just sighed, waving his hand. "Do what you want, but when we get home, you have dish duty the whole summer."
"Small price to pay," the tomb robber stated, practically sprinting to the table to write his name in sloppy English before depositing it in the goblet.
Meanwhile, Yugi was looking up to Yami Yugi, a small smile on his face. When asked what he was smiling about, the smaller boy's face broke out into a grin.
"I know you want to enter," he said.
Yami Yugi frowned. "I don't want to put you in harms way, aibou."
Yugi's smile turned sly, as he turned to face the table. "Well, I suppose if that's the case, I'll enter myself then."
A worried look crossed the spirit's face then, and he stepped before his lighter half. "No, on second thought, maybe I will enter."
Yami Bakura sniggered as Yami Yugi went up to write his name down on a piece of parchment. "You are so easily duped, pharaoh."
He glared at the tomb robber as he dropped his name into the goblet. "Bite me, baka tomb robber."
Yami Bakura grinned maliciously. "No thanks. I like my meat raw. You're a little over-cooked."
The pharaoh growled, his fists shaking as if he were about ready to slug the tomb robber, as Bakura shook his head sadly. Yugi sighed, looking over to Marik, Seto, and Yami Seto; all three of whom had been very quiet.
"Are you guys gonna enter too?" he asked as his darker self said something that made the tomb robber turn green.
"Definitely not," Seto and Yami Seto stated at the same time. Marik smirked at that.
"That's only because you might go up against your girlfriend," he sneered.
Both yami and hikari seemed to turn the same shade of red as Yugi giggled.
"Well, what about you?" Seto snapped, not amused.
Marik sobered slightly, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Nah, I don't think so. Hermione won't admit it, but she gets scared every time I have to play in Quidditch. If this is supposed to be more dangerous than that, I don't want to give her a heart attack."
"Speaking of girlfriends," Yami Yugi began, walking away from an almost fight with the tomb robber. He sidled up toward Seto, the sly look on his face making the young businessman take a step back. "When are you going to introduce us to yours?"
Seto blanched at the very thought. He could easily picture Fleur walking away from him and not looking back if he ever introduced someone as delicate and sophisticated as her to any of these crazy spirits. He was so disgusted by the thought that he did not notice the tomb robber sneaking up on his other side until he latched onto his arm.
"Aw, c'mon, Seto-kun," he leered. "If she's going to be your girl, we got to check her out. You know; background check…"
"Past boyfriends…" the pharaoh supplied.
"Favorite food…" Yami Bakura added, tossing a secret smirk to Yami Yugi.
"Favorite color…" he said, returning the smirk.
"Favorite subject…"
"Favorite position—"
"Okay, that's enough!" Yami Seto cut the pharaoh off, as Seto turned several deep hues of red. He managed to pull his hikari out of the tomb robber's grasp and steer him away toward the Great Hall, all the while muttering, "I swear, hikari, he wasn't like that in Khemet. I think it's those 'porn' things the mutt's always letting him and Yugi borrow… and get those dirty thoughts out of your mind!"
Seto stuttered something incomprehensible in return, and Yugi and Marik managed to wait until the two tall boys were out of sight before falling to the ground in uncontrollable laughter. Bakura shook his head sadly, muttering something about his virgin ears, while Yami Yugi tossed the tomb robber a smirk. Yami Bakura returned the expression with his own malicious grin.
"You know, he has to realize that we're never going to let him live this down," he pointed out.
"He'll realize that once all that extra blood leaves his face," the pharaoh replied casually. "He doesn't realize you and Bakura-kun are spying on him, right?"
Bakura grinned slightly then, pulling out a new camera from it's hiding place in his pocket. "Not a clue."
The five of them followed the young businessman and the high priest into the Great Hall, with Bakura and Yami Bakura going off to the Hufflepuff table while Yugi, Yami Yugi, and Marik went to the Gryffindor table. Harry, Ron, and Draco were already at the table, but Hermione was absent, as had been typical since school started.
"Marik, do you have any idea why Hermione's always going to the library during lunch?" Ron asked as the three of them sat down. The Egyptian just shrugged, reaching for a salad.
"Not a clue," he said, setting the sandwich down and reaching over for some pickles. "She's been acting strange ever since she found out that house elves work in this school."
Draco grinned. "It was kinda funny when Yami Yugi said he couldn't understand why she was so upset."
Yami Yugi sighed as his hikari giggled.
"My ears are still ringing from that tongue lashing she gave me," he muttered. "'Of course you would say that! You come from a culture that had slaves!' She acted like I abused them or something."
Harry grinned. "I think it's the mere fact that you had slaves, Panseru."
Yami Yugi shook his head. "I'm not saying it's right or anything, but for me and my people, it was just a fact of life. If I knew I wouldn't have been looked upon with ridicule, I would have freed ever single one of those people, especially those that had cruel masters."
Marik grinned, giving the pharaoh a light punch on the shoulder. "Hey, we can only do what we can. Besides, it's not like you had the throne for very long."
Yami Yugi made a rude sounding noise, tossing a glare toward Yami Bakura at the Hufflepuff table, who was too busy shooting off pickle seeds to notice ("Yami! Eat your food, don't play with it!" Bakura was yelling).
"Anyway," Marik continued, "we've got Defense Against the Dark Arts today!"
"Finally!" Ron exclaimed, rubbing his hands. "Fred and George have been torturing me all week!"
"They already had Professor Moody's class, Ron-kun?" Yugi asked around a mouthful of a roast beef sandwich.
Ron nodded. "Yeah. They said he's the coolest. Better than Lupin!"
A thoughtful look crossed Draco's face. "Well, he was an Auror."
"A what-or?" Marik asked.
"An Auror," Draco repeated. "Ministry of Magic employees who mainly police people who practice the dark arts. I think Moody was probably there the longest before he was forced to retire. It got to the point where he couldn't tell the difference between a handshake and an attempt on his life."
Yugi's eyes widened. "Is it really that bad?"
Ron nodded. "Dark wizards aren't exactly pleasant, Yugi. I mean, we already know about You-Know-Who."
Harry leaned over in his seat slightly so he could see Draco better. "Is that what Moody meant when he said he knew your father? Because he was an Auror?"
Draco smirked. "Yup," he replied. "Him and Moody are old… acquaintances. My father will never admit it, but Moody almost caught him a couple times."
Marik checked his watch, before wiping his mouth off on a napkin. "I don't know about you guys, but I want to try to get there early."
-.oOOo.-
Hermione joined Yugi, Marik, Ron, Harry, and Draco just as they reached the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. She was breathing hard from the run, but she allowed Marik to steer her into the classroom and to the front row before anyone else could claim the space. The rest of the class filed in soon after them, apparently also anxious to start the class with the new teacher they had been hearing so much about.
Moody entered the class not long after everyone was settled, ledger in hand, telling students that had their books out that they would not need them. He took roll call then, his electric blue eye whirling around to look at each student as they answered. When he finished, he was about to take his place behind the desk, when he stopped, his eye swiveling back and forth between Yugi and Hermione.
"You two," he said, motioning to the two of them. "Tell yer friends there to come out and join us like normal students."
Yugi and Hermione exchanged bewildered looks. Apparently, that eye of his could see more than just out of the back of his head. Yami Yugi and Aishisu appeared a moment later, sheepish expressions on their faces as they went and got chairs so they could sit next to their hikaris.
"Right then," he stated, sitting down at the professor's desk. "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin, and he says you've had a pretty thorough grounding with Dark creatures. But you're behind – quite behind – on dealing with curses. So, I've got one year to bring you up to scratch on what –"
"You're not staying!" Ron exclaimed.
Moody's magical eye swiveled on the young wizard, who backed down into his seat a bit. The grizzled professor just grinned after a moment, however.
"Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" he asked, to which Ron nodded. "Your father helped me outta 'a tight corner a few days ago. Send him my thanks. Yeah, I'm staying just this one year. Special favor to Dumbledore, then back to my quiet retirement."
He let out a bark of laughter at that, clapping his hands together loud enough to make the class jump.
"Now then, straight into it," he stated. "Curses; they come in many forms with varying degrees of strength. Now, the Ministry says I'm not allowed to show you what the actual illegal Dark curses look like until your sixth year, but Dumbledore reckons you're ready for it, and I say the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. A Dark wizard isn't going to tell you what he's going to do to you before he does it. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, when I'm talking."
The eyes of the class turned to Lavender as she jumped. Apparently, she had been showing Parvati her horoscope under the table. Hermione and Aishisu rolled their eyes, the latter clicking her tongue disapprovingly.
"So, do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?" Moody asked, his magic eye still trained on Lavender.
Several hands rose hesitantly, and the professor chose Ron out of the mix.
"Um… my dad told me about this one once," he began. "I think it was called the Imperius Curse?"
Moody nodded. "Your father would know about that one. Gave the Ministry quite a bit of trouble."
He got up from his chair, reaching into the desk and pulling out a glass jar. Draco and Ron involuntarily cringed; Ron had always been afraid of spiders, and Draco developed his fear when they had ventured into the forbidden forest in their second year.
Moody took one of the three spiders in the jar out, holding it out so everyone could see it, before pointing his wand at it.
"Imperio!"
The spider leapt from Moody's hand, clinging on to it on a thread of silk. It swung back and forth as if on a trapeze, before it did a back flip, landing on the desk and cartwheeling about. Most of the class was laughing at its antics; the professor was not, nor was Yugi or Marik, or the Egyptian spirits.
"Think it's funny, do you?" Moody growled. "How would you like it if I did it to you, eh?"
The laughter faded away almost instantly as Moody scooped up the spider and put it back in the jar.
"Total control," he explained quietly. "I could make it jump down one of your throats if I wanted to."
Draco blanched.
"Years back, a lot of wizards had been controlled by Imperius," the professor continued. "Quite a job for the Ministry, trying to sort who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.
"Imperius can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how to do so. It takes real strength of character, and not everyone can manage it. Best to avoid it whenever you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
The class jumped as one at his shout.
"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Fewer hands went up this time, among them being Neville's, to Harry's surprise. The only class Neville ever participated in was Herbology, and even then he was quiet. Even he looked shocked at his own daring, but he kept his hand up until Moody pointed him out.
"T…the Cruciatus Curse," he said in a small voice.
Moody smiled softly. "Longbottom, eh?" he asked. Neville nodded, but the professor did not inquire further. He reached into the jar again and pulled out a second spider. He placed it on the desktop where it stayed, too frightened to move.
"This one, needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," he said, before pointing his wand at it. "Engorgio!"
The spider swelled to ten times its normal size. Draco and Ron yelped before pushing their chairs backward, trying to get as far away from the desk as possible.
Moody raised his wand again, pointing it at the spider. "Crucio!"
Immediately, the spider's legs bent in on its body and it rolled over, twitching and rocking from side to side. There was no sound from it, though Yugi imagined that if the poor creature had a voice, it would be screaming. The professor did not remove his wand, and the spider seemed to shudder more and more violently…
"Stop it!" Yami Yugi exclaimed, standing up from his seat.
Yugi looked up at his other self, before looking around at Neville. The young wizard's hands where clenched to tightly on the lip of his desk that his knuckles were white. His eyes where wide with horror, and he was sweating profusely. Moody raised his wand, and the spider relaxed, but continued to twitch.
"Reducio," he murmured, returning the spider to its normal size. He put it back in the jar as Yami Yugi sat down.
"Pain," Moody explained softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives if you know Cruciatus… Now, then. Any others?"
No one was willing to raise their hand after that one. A long moment passed before Draco, his fingers twitching in slight nervousness, raised his hand. Moody regarded him critically a moment, before motioning for him to go on.
"Avada Kedavra," he whispered.
Moody nodded solemnly as the whole class shifted in unease, particularly Yugi and Yami Yugi.
"Yes, the last and worst," the professor explained. "Avada Kedavra… the Killing Curse."
He put his hand into the glass jar, but the last spider seemed to know what was coming. It scuttled about in a futile effort to get away, but was trapped by Moody's fingers and dragged out onto the desk. The creature started to skitter away as fast as it could as the professor raised his wand.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A flash of blinding green light shot out of Moody's wand, followed by a rushing sound, as if something were soaring through the air. Instantly, the spider curled up onto its back, unmarked but still unmistakably dead. Marik stared at the creature in shock, barely registering the horrified gasps coming from the rest of the class. That green… light…
"Bye-bye, hikari-pretty!"
The mist covering the graveyard suddenly glared a poisonous green. He took a step back in surprise, only to have his feet meet the air. Before he knew it, he was falling… falling through an endless sea of deadly green smoke that seemed to be choking him off from all life…
"Not nice," Moody said calmly, snapping Marik out of the memory. "Not pleasant. There's no countercurse either; no way of blocking it. Only one known to ever survive it is sitting right in front of me."
All eyes turned to Harry, who was trying his best to pretend he was not really there, his thoughts wandering off. So… that was what had killed his parents… that was the green light that plagued his nightmares… Harry crossed his arms and rested his head atop them as Moody continued the lesson, knowing there was no way he was going to be able to focus on the rest of it.
-.oOOo.-
That night in the Gryffindor common room, Harry, Draco, Yugi, Marik, and Ron sat about near the fire. Their Unfogging the Future books were set out in front of them, and they were participating in one of their favorite after class pass times: faking their Divination homework. Draco just finished his when Hermione came into the room carrying a sheaf of parchment in one hand and a box full some rattling some things in the other. She sat down in front of them, laying out her things in an empty armchair.
"I've finally finished!" she declared, opening up the box to reveal about fifty different colored badges, all bearing the letters S.P.E.W. Marik picked up one of the badges, blinking in disbelief.
"Spew?" he asked. He exchanged looks with Yugi before looking up at her. "Hermione, we're nineteen years old. Do you know how wrong that sounds?"
Hermione huffed. "Not spew," she said impatiently. "It's S.P.E.W. It stands for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare."
"Never heard of it," Ron stated.
"Of course you haven't," she replied. "I just started it."
"Right…" Draco said. "And… how many members do you have?"
"Well, if you all join, seven," she answered, before looking at Yugi. "Make that eight."
No way am I walking around wearing something that wrong… Yami Yugi muttered.
Yugi sweatdropped.
"And… you expect us to walk around the school with badges that say 'spew'?" Marik asked.
"S.P.E.W!" Hermione corrected hotly, glaring. "I was going to put Stop the Outrageous Abuse of Our Fellow Magical Creatures and Campaign for a Change of Their Legal Status, but it wouldn't fit."
"Unh-hunh…" Marik said dully. "Look, Hermi-chan, you know I normally support you no matter what, but don't you think you're going a little overboard this time? I mean, how many people have told you that the house elves like working for their masters. It's what they do!"
Hermione frowned deeply. "And how would you know? Have you ever owned one I don't know about?"
"Of course not," Marik replied, starting to get annoyed. "I'm just saying it's pretty pointless to form a committee to free creatures that don't want to be freed."
"They're being suppressed!" Hermione practically shrieked. "Their voices can't be heard because their masters are stopping them from rising up in protest."
"Hermione, does it even seem that way in this school?" Marik responded hotly. "If they enjoy working for their masters, then let them work! It's what they want to do, so why try and stop them?"
Hermione stood up from her seat angrily, gathering her things as she did so. "Fine! If that's the way you feel, then you can take that barbaric way of thinking back home into the ground with you!"
"Hey!" Marik exclaimed, insulted, as she stalked off toward the girl's dormitory. After a moment, the boys heard a door slam. A long period of silence followed, after which, Harry looked over to Draco, confusion written clearly on his face.
"What just happened?" he asked.
Draco sighed, giving him an exasperated look. "Offhand? I'd say Marik just got dumped."