Disclaimer: Of course, I don't own the characters you recognize in this story- they all are the creations of our famous JKR.
"Hermione! Can I ask you something?" Ashley jogged to catch up with the bushy-haired girl, who was just coming out of Arithmetic class with a pile of books held close to her. She nodded and waited patiently for her to go on. "Do you know anything about curses?" Hermione flipped her hair nonchalantly.
"Well, I have been starting a book I got from the library on difficult curses, but we're really not studying them until fourth year. Why do you ask? I mean, I can tell you what the types of curses are, and how they…" Ashley shook her head.
"No, I mean…are there any curses that change people? They way they act? Or something?" Hermione paused- an unusual thing for one like her.
"There is a book in the library I found on that sort of curse…" She said slowly, brow furrowed. "It mentioned one curse…it has to be cast on someone when they're very young, and the accursed must…oh, I can't remember. You'll really have to look it up. And really, why do you want to know? It's not like…" She turned to face Ashley- yet all that was left of her was a swish of air as she raced down the stairway.
The candle that lit up the book Ashley was bent over was dimming fast as night fell. Ashley leafed through the pages anxiously. Two days ago she and Draco had started looking for the book Hermione had mentioned with no luck. She glanced over at a bench where Draco was supposed to leave any book he found- nothing there. Finding something, she realized, was harder when the person helping you was forbidden to communicate with you by an unwritten rule.
The candle had flickered down to its last drop of wax when a thump was heard in front of Ashley's table. A heavy, leather-bound book landed onto the bench before a green-trimmed robe swished out of sight behind the bookcase. Ashley slammed her book shut and went over to inspect the new arrival.
"Rare and Difficult Curses of the Eighteenth Century." Ashley read aloud, knowing a familiar blond head was listening just beyond the bookcase. She heaved it over to her table and started thumbing through the chapters. Animal Mutations, Weather Curses, no, that wasn't right, Elf-Performed Curses, Personality-Altering Curses- there it is. She pored over the chapter and muttered one paragraph to herself.
"Though the previously mentioned curses are difficult to cast and more difficult to break, this last curse is perhaps the most elaborate dark spell of them all. The Amoria Curse must be cast when the target is young, the desired age being of around five years. When cast, the spell must be carefully instructed and said to fit the desires of the curser…" Her eyes skipped a few sentences.
"One casting this curse most often chooses to change the child from, for example, boring to entertaining, law-abiding to troublesome, and- perhaps one of the more disturbing ones- good to evil." Ashley stopped reading. That was it. Draco had been set under the Amoria curse, changing him from good to evil. He didn't fit the mold of the Malfoy family, so they made him fit- like a puzzle piece ripped and bent to fit into the picture.
Ashley lugged the open book back onto the bench and leaned against the edge of the bookcase. Two hands quickly appeared and picked up the book at the same page. Silence for a moment, then:
"What?" A quill could be heard scratching furiously- the book was quickly dumped into sight, along with a messy note:
Did you read all of it?
Well, I thought the first paragraph would be enough for you. Ashley thought and scanned the next paragraph.
"There is only one way to break this Amoria curse, and depends much on the accursed's luck- which, if they have been cursed at all, is quite low at this point. The accursed must find their true love before the day he or she turns the age of seventeen, when the curse becomes unbreakable by any means. If the love between them is strong enough, that emotion will keep he or she alive when they realize they must make the ultimate sacrifice. The accursed will then come back to the world, yet with the burden of the curse off their shoulders. If the love is not strong enough, however, the accursed will, as in most cases, not come back or- even worse- awaken with the curse a permanent stain on their soul." Ashley took her own quill and wrote out a question:
What is the ultimate sacrifice they're talking about?
The note disappeared for a second, then came back with a new, terrible scrawl written on the fringe:
Death.