Chapter 9: The Unforgivable Curses
Term continued. Harry increasingly felt that he didn't have enough space – Dom and Donald were increasingly annoying everybody and there were now nine young men crammed into three small rooms in the college.
"It's okay for you," he said to Lizzy one day. "You and Lyra have got a room each, and one spare. They should let some of us move in, I'm forever having to wait for a free shower these days."
"You can carry on waiting," said Lizzy. "I'm not sharing a bathroom with any of you."
"Well then," said Harry. "They could at least move the wall. You can have a room with Lyra and the end of your bathroom, and we can have the other five dorms, our bathroom, and the rest of yours."
"I'm fine how it is, thanks," Lizzy said.
About halfway through November Kingsley Shacklebolt surprised his Curses class by telling them that they wouldn't need their wands today.
"The next unit of work is very important," he said in his deep voice. "I don't want anyone doing anything until we're absolutely sure you can get it right." He paused, but no one said anything. "We will be studying the so-called Unforgivable Curses."
Lizzy gasped, Ron and Harry gasped at each other. Rudolf said, "I can do tose."
"You were taught at Durmstrang, is that correct?" Professor Shacklebolt questioned.
"Yes," said Rudolf. "I vos."
"Well, you will have a head start then. I'm going to demonstrate first, then we'll get going on the theory."
"Let's hope he demonstrates on those annoying first-years," hissed Ron, but it was not to be. Instead, Professor Shacklebolt drew three spiders from his desk and proceeding to demonstrate on them the controlling powers of the Imperius Curse, the torturing Cruciatus, and finally the killing curse, Avada Kedavra, much like Professor Moody – at least, someone pretending to be him – had done in Harry and Ron's fourth-year at Hogwarts.
Professor Shacklebolt brushed the spiders into a waste paper basket, signalled for silence, and began to talk.
"You should all have studied how to protect yourselves from these curses – as far as it is possible – at school, and I believe I covered it with you again briefly last year. My job now is to teach you how to use these curses, as you will doubtlessly need to do so when you become Aurors. I must stress that should you decide to take some other path you must never use the curses on another human being, you will spend a long time in jail. If any of you do become Aurors, even then you must only use the curses in circumstances when you have no other choice. Always think about what you are doing."
He continued to talk, and Harry found himself being increasingly filled with dread. He had never thought about it before, but were he to become a full-time Auror there would almost certainly be times when he would have to be prepared to kill other human beings – as he had killed Voldemort. How could he live like that?
Harry's bad feelings continued. He stayed awake now on most nights, unable to sleep. At one o'clock the next Saturday morning he dragged himself out of bed and, pulling on his dressing gown, left the room. Ron was snoring quietly, but Rudolf was nowhere to be seen. Harry was too tired to care, but he still couldn't drop off.
The lights were already on in the common room, but it wasn't Rudolf, it was Katsuro. He was back in his brightly-coloured robes and was obviously practising wandless magic: things were levitating and changing shape even though his wand was stationary on a table some feet away from where Katsuro was sitting.
"Evening," muttered Harry, flopping down on a chair and staring blankly at the empty fireplace.
"It is morning now," Katsuro pointed out. "Can you not sleep?"
Harry shook his head. "I keep thinking about –" He broke off.
"Your parents?" Katsuro suggested.
Harry was slightly taken aback, but then he realised that nearly everyone in the wizarding world knew his parents were dead. "A bit," he answered. "But more about – I killed Voldemort," he said abruptly.
He expected Katsuro to try and do what Ron and Hermione had, but he didn't. Instead, he returned all of the floating objects to where they had been before and unTransfigured them, before saying, "My mother was killed as well."
"What?" said Harry without thinking. He corrected himself. "I'm sorry. It wasn't Voldemort, was it?"
Katsuro smiled. "You don't have to be sorry. I cannot remember her. I was only one year old when it happened. No, it was not Voldemort. It was a Dark wizard though. My mother's old husband."
"He killed her?"
"Yes, because she never loved him. His name was Dorobo Seimeino. My mother's parents tried married her to him – you can do it like that in Japan – when my eldest sister was born. She was only eighteen, my father even younger. It was more complicated than that. My father's mother was Muggleborn. My mother's family were all pureblood. My father was nearly expelled when the school found out what he had done. If he had not been able to play Quidditch …"
Harry wasn't sure if he really wanted to hear Katsuro's life story, but he listened anyway.
"He did not stop visiting her. My brother Akira was born. Dorobo left my mother. He began to play with the Dark Arts. My parents married. They had another son."
"You?"
"No, not yet. My brother Yori. I came later. August 1st 1981."
"That's nearly exactly a year after me!" said Harry in mild amazement.
Katsuro smiled again. "My father won the Quidditch League that day, with the Hidaka Hi. That's why I've got my name." He paused, seeing Harry's look of puzzlement. "It means 'victory'," he supplied. "A year later, my father had another Quidditch match. Dorobo came to our house to seek revenge. He should have known my father would not be there, if he had read the newspaper. But he killed my mother, and left. Emi – my sister – can still remember it. She told my father – she recognised her mother's old husband – and he told the Aurors. They caught Dorobo. He was executed."
"Is that why you became an Auror?" Harry asked curiously. "Because your mother was killed?"
"Not really," said Katsuro. "I am just good at magic."
They sat in silence on opposite sides of the room. "What was your mother's name?" Harry asked after a few minutes.
"Sayuri. Small lily, you would say."
"Lily?"
"Yes."
"That was my mother's name."
A/N: Although I have researched relevant Japanese culture and language as thoroughly as possible, I may have made some mistakes. Please forgive me if this is so.
