Chapter 13

Unforgivable

Tom walked out of greenhouse four tired and cranky. He had just had an exhausting double period exam in Herbology. He had done well (surprise, surprise) but even so he had been up half the night revising. He wasn't sleeping well at the best of times recently and he was up half the night trying to remember the four uses of Snickleberry roots and how to correctly harvest the leaves of a Mimblewug. He plonked himself down at his usual place at the table and began to attack his Steak and kidney pie.

"Grindlewald has the right idea," came a voice from further down the table. Tom turned to see what was going on. Nero Malfoy was talking with some other fourth years: Amaya Zolar and Angra Mainyu. "He ignites a war between the strongest Muggle nations and then sits back and watches as they destroy themselves. Then, once the dust clears, he appoints himself head of a new, stronger all wizarding society." He turned his head slightly and noticed that Tom was ear wigging. He continued in a slightly louder voice. "Of course, it'll only be a society for purebloods. The dregs of society will have no place in the new world. Of course, they will be permitted to live. Slaves will always be needed to do the work to menial for a true wizard."

Tom slammed his goblet down on the table angrily, spilling some orange juice. "You got something to say to me?" he asked dangerously. "What does it say about a 'true wizard' if he gets beat by a half breed? I thing you overrate yourselves."

"Everything all right here?" Seth enquired, his cold grey eyes flashing dangerously. He had seen Tom slam down his goblet in anger and he was not going to allow a house fight in his presence.

"Everything's fine," Nero replied. "Riddle and I were just having a little debate."

"Make sure you play nicely in public," Seth warned. He turned his eyes to Tom. "Riddle, get to class. I'm sure you will find today's defence class quite…illuminating."

Tom finished his food, grabbed his bag and left in a huff. There was nothing better he would like at that moment in time than to take a little frustration out on that arrogant, smug little face. His fowl mood increased as he made his way to the Defence classroom on the fourth floor. The stairs kept moving, forcing him to hake several alternate routes. A crowd on the third floor jostled him and Peeves, sensing his bad mood, floated above him and kept dropping stink bombs on him.

Needless to say, Tom was not in the best of humours when he reached the Defence classroom.

"Oh my," Bathory Malfoy cooed as he walked in the door. "I thought I smelt something disgusting. A mudblood just walked in."

It took every ounce of self-control that he possessed to stop himself from cursing every laughing face in the room. Which was a lot more than usual. It seemed like every third year was in attendance. Classes weren't grouped together until NEWT level in sixth year. Of course, certain classes like Potions were doubled up, but Defence wasn't. Something big was going on. Tom took his seat and cast an air-fresh charm on himself to get rid of the excess smell.

They didn't have long to wait for the professor to enter. He had the air of a man under protest, like he would have given anything not to teach this particular lesson. The attitude of their teacher made all noise from the students cease and them to pay rapt attention.

"Good afternoon," he began. His voice seemed a little more raspy than usual. "You are no doubt confused as to why the whole third year has had their schedules rearranged so you could be here. Believe me, if I had my way, you would not be hearing this until you were in your seventh year, if ever while you are in Hogwarts. Unfortunately, this teaching order has come direct from the ministry." If there had been one person in the room not taking him seriously before, they sure as hell were now.

"Today's lesson is on curses. You will not be taught how to cast these curses and if any of you attempt to do so, I will make sure that you are put away for the rest of your lives." He paused to let his comment sink in. A small Hufflepuff girl with glasses and pigtails let out an involuntary giggle.

The professor spun round to glare at the girl, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Fifty point from Hufflepuff and a weeks worth of detention, starting tomorrow," he snapped, before leaving the girl on the verge of tears.

"Anyone else fancy a laugh?" he said to the whole room. "I've just got a shipment of Dune Vipers and I'm in need of someone to help muck them out." No one made a sound. He was usually quite an easy-going professor. Whatever was up, he was not messing around.

"The curses that I am going to talk about today are the darkest, most dangerous and powerful curses known to wizard kind. No government or organisation has ever authorized their use, save dark wizards. Use of any of them will be punished by immediate imprisonment in Azkaban prison for the rest of your life. These are the Unforgivable curses."

"The first is called the Imperius curse. The incantation is Imperio. This curse strips away the free will of a victim, leaving them slave to their masters will. A strong mind, with an incredible sense of self can separate an order from free will and break through the curse. Under the influence of the Imperius curse, someone can be ordered to perform any task: rape a helpless woman, strangle your dearest friend. Anything at all."

"The second curse is called the Cruciatus curse. The incantation is Crucio. This curse induces unlimited agony in a victim's entire body. Dark wizards have been known to use it to extract information, punish disobedience or failure. Sometimes they use it merely as it gives them pleasure to torture an innocent person. Some of the worse muggle tortures have been caused by sheer boredom. I am not exaggerating when I say the curse is unendurable. If left under the curse too long, the pain overwhelms and burns out the mind, leaving permanent and irreversible insanity. Many an auror have met this fate pursuing dark wizards."

"The final unforgivable curse is also arguably the worst. It is the killing curse. The incantation is Avada Kedavra. If this curse is used, death is certain. There is no known shield that will block the killing curse. No one has ever survived. And unless there is a major breakthrough in shield charms, no one ever will."

"You may wonder why I am teaching you about illegal dark curses that even the highest ranks of Aurors are not authorized to use. Believe me, if it were my decision I would not be. There will never be in incident in Hogwarts that you will encounter these curses. God willing, you will never have to deal with such an event in your life. But the ministry has descided that all schools third year and above should know of these curses so they can report on anything suspicious. Rumours are that Grindlewald is using these curses to recruit spies."

"There are several curses that perform a similar function to these three charms. Even a simple disarming charm can kill in certain circumstances. So can anyone tell me why these curses are considered unforgivable?" No one answered. "It takes a great deal of power to cast these curses, as it does with most dark magic. It also takes a strong, negative emotion. Casting these curses is psychologically damaging and opens your soul to darkness. Once darkness is inside you, it never lets go."

He paused, as though trying to work out how to explain himself. "As a race, human are the most violent on the planet. We are the only species that actively tries to destroy each other. Racism, war and genocide: these are only a few words that describe the ugliness we show to our fellow man. A darkness is in the core of every human alive and it has been with us since our ancestors first stood on their hind legs and clubbed his neighbour. In modern, civilised society we can usually keep it under control. If it comes to the surface on its own accord, this is normal and healthy."

"It's when you reach down into your soul and pull the darkness out is the problem."

Tom listened to the lecture in morbid fascination. The way his professor described how once darkness was in the heart, it would consume you. Responsible types were the worst, he had said. Dark magic can grant great power and if a responsible person got a taste of it, something that was bigger than them, they would crave more like an addiction.

The time flew by and before he knew what was happening, his feet were walking him out of the room on autopilot. He wasn't really looking where he was going. He had a case of information overload.

BANG.

Tom had walked into someone, sending papers flying. He looked up to see who had hit him. There were three of them, all clad in Slytherin robes. They were first years whom Tom remembered them been sorted just a few months ago. He especially remembered them by the arrogant, superior smirks they had worn as they had pulled the sorting hat off their heads and crossed the hall to take their place at the Slytherin table. Now what were their names? He was sure that the mousy looking boy was Magnus Abaddon, and the surnames of the other boys were Birch and Draconus. As Tom had learned the hard way, your family name was everything in Slytherin. There was almost an unspoken caste system, with certain purebloods at the top, others lower down. As he was not a pureblood, he was essentially the same as he had been his entire life: an outcast.

"Watch where you're going mud-blood," Abaddon spat. Tom sighed, this was getting old. He had now lived with this attitude for over two years. The immortal threat from Seth Malfoy still hung in the air; so at most the other Slytherins could only make snide comments outside the common room.

"As we are in the corridor, I will not curse you as I'd like to," he replied in an icy cold voice. "Prey you never cross me in the common room. You do not want me as an enemy, Abaddon."

Abaddon sneered. "You dare to threaten me, mud-blood," he snarled. "You are unworthy to even breath in my presence. We'll show you who your true betters are."

Tom just rolled his eyes; he had had worse threats since he had come to Hogwarts. Worse since he had learned to walk, come to think of it. He spun on his heel to leave.

"You dare insult me by turning your back on me?" Abaddon screamed and before anyone could react, he fired a curse at Tom. Tom's robes caught fire. He managed to extinguish the flames but there were several scorch marks that magic wouldn't fix. The full force of the temper that he had been in before class returned in microseconds.

"You little shite. Kitte Imasu," he shouted. A large arrow shot out of his wand and went up the corridor. Abaddon dived out of the way. So did most of the crowd who were watching. Tom began throwing some very offensive spells at his opponent. One finally hit, and the boy doubled over, gasping for air.

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" a voice thundered down the corridor. All eyes turned to see professor Dumbledore marching towards them.

"It was self defence, sir," Tom insisted. "He attacked me first." There was an unenthusiastic murmur of agreement from the assembled crowd.

"That is as maybe but, as you know, magic is strictly banned from the corridors," the older man cut him off. He gazed at Tom. "For a provoked but excessive use of offensive magic, twenty points form Slytherin." Tom was gutted: those were the first points he had ever lost. Dumbledore turned to Abaddon, who looked like he was trying to escape. "For an unprovoked and underhand attack on a fellow student, thirty points from Slytherin and a detention to be determined by your head of house. Now, be off with you."

The crowd thinned and soon Tom was left standing on his own. Had Dumbledore not interfered, he would have continued to curse Abaddon even though he had been down. The voice of his defence teacher rang in his ears.

"It's when you reach down into your soul and pull the darkness out is the problem."

AN: hi there. Thank you to my loyal fans who have sent emails begging me to continue the story. It has not been abandoned. I'm having some personal issues at the moment. I'm off to America tomorrow for a month so I won't update for a while. I have two chapters nearly finished but I couldn't complete them before I left.

I had a kind of inspiration recently: until now I had been kind of comparing Tom to Hitler. Both obsessed with their own purity yet both tainted (Tom with muggle blood, Hitler was part Jewish). Now I kind of think as Tom as a twisted version of Michael Jackson. He was a black man who had it all: looks, fame and talent. Now he looks like some kind of circus freak so he can convince himself that he is white.

As a hobby I sort of collect names. Here are the meanings of some of the unusual names I used in this chapter:

ABADDON m Biblical
Means "ruin, destruction" in Hebrew

AMAYA f Japanese
Means "night rain" in Japanese.

ANGRA MAINYU m Near Eastern Mythology
Means "evil spirit" in Avestan

TTFN.