Chapter 11: Unforgivable
Draco had scarcely cleared the doors to the Great Hall the following morning when something seized his shirt collar and yanked him roughly off to the side. He tore himself free and whipped sharply around, terrified at first and then immediately quite annoyed.
"You could say, 'can I have a word,' you know," he snapped.
"Yes, but you're small," said Marcus Flint. "C'mon." Draco sighed heavily and followed Flint to the fireplace at the other end of the room, where the rest of the team was gathered and looking as if they'd rather be anyplace else.
"What's this about, Marcus?" groaned Montague. "I haven't been up this early since last May."
"I don't know how you could possibly ask that," said Flint smoothly. "Unless it's escaped your notice Adrian and Lucy are gone." Draco jumped slightly; though he felt colossally stupid, it had escaped his notice. Though he couldn't pretend to be heartbroken by Adrian's departure, Quidditch without Lucy wasn't something he looked forward to. Warrington looked similarly startled for a moment, then gave a sullen shrug.
"And this means we're up at the crack of dawn because…?"
"It isn't the crack of dawn," muttered Draco. "It's nearly the end of breakfast."
"Whether it's the crack of dawn or not," Flint interrupted hastily, for Warrington looked murderous, "tryouts are on Saturday. You're all to be there. I want to see how the new players get on with the whole team. Which means," he added, raising his voice slightly to suppress the tide of mutinous muttering inspired by this statement, "that you're all to be on your best behavior." He paused here to glower around at them for a moment. "Fortunately, Gryffindor's tryouts are on Friday," he went on, flicking a bit of dust from his sleeve. "So we'll be able to see what their prospects are like beforehand. If anyone has to ask why that's important, get out of my sight while you can still walk," he added darkly. No one moved. "That's what I thought," Flint went on after a moment. "Now, conveniently, Gryffindor needs a Keeper...and so do we. Draco, what do you know about Ginny Weasley?" Draco sighed. He might've expected this question.
"She hates peas," he said lazily. Flint rolled his eyes.
"Very funny. Is it true she's trying out for Gryffindor Keeper?"
"Who's the Gryffindor Captain this year, Marcus?" asked Draco, taking care to keep his tone level despite his heart hammering in his throat as he met Flint's gaze. There was a split-seconds' pause which might as well have been a year.
"Angelina Johnson. We've watched her play for years, and we all know she'll be hell-bent on keeping the Cup for Gryffindor. Which means we've got to be hell-bent on taking it. All of us. Starting on Saturday." The bell rang overhead and the team scattered at once, joining the usual rush toward the doors. Draco, on the other hand, fought his way across the Hall toward the Gryffindor table; there was something he had to do, and if their Quidditch tryouts were on Friday, it couldn't wait another moment. He found Ginny on the point of joining a group of third-years he'd never seen in his life in fighting their way out the door and snatched her away by the elbow, ignoring her startled yelp.
"I should've known it was you," she said smoothly, recovering the moment he released her. "Can I help?"
"Depends," Draco told her. "What class have you got now?"
"Care of Magical Creatures," she said with a shrug. Draco laughed.
"Perfect. I've got History of Magic. Let's go." Ginny frowned, but nonetheless followed him out into the Entrance Hall and, after a brief glance about to ensure no one spotted them, out the oak front doors and onto the grounds.
"Where are we going?" Ginny asked. Draco raised an eyebrow; the way he was leading her, there was only one possible answer to the question. Ginny shook her head irritably. "Right. I mean, why?" Draco gave her a mysterious shrug and a half-smile.
"You'll see." She frowned.
"Draco, I-Hagrid knows me...sort of, anyway. If I miss his first lesson, he'll know." Draco laughed.
"Just tell him you were there," he said impatiently. "I'm sure he's so drunk he'll have no choice but to believe you."
"Draco!"
"Am I wrong?" Ginny sighed.
"Probably not." They lowered their voices and crept slowly into the Quidditch stands, but as Draco expected, they needn't have feared; the pitch was deserted, as was the locker room.
"Draco, seriously, what are we-"
"Flint asked me about you today," he interrupted, leaning casually against the side of the broom cupboard. "Seemed a bit concerned you'd try out for Gryffindor Keeper." Ginny laughed.
"Wonder where he could've got that impression."
"I told him you're dreadful, of course."
"Of course."
"And then he told me Gryffindor's tryouts are on Friday."
"Well, yes, but why does this mean I can't go to my lessons?"
"I never said you couldn't go to your lessons," Draco retorted.
"You physically dragged me away-"
"Go to your lessons, then!" As he'd expected Ginny didn't move, and he grinned. Of course, now came the difficult bit. "Right. As I was saying, Gryffindor's tryouts are on Friday, which obviously means you'd want to fly your best on Friday-I mean, I know you already know that, but for the sake of-"
"Draco, get to your point."
"Close your eyes." Ginny froze.
"Why?"
"Because-" he broke off. It was too late; she understood.
"Draco, you didn't-you didn't!" He didn't think he'd seen her quite so pale, not even last year on the grounds when they'd tried to rescue Sirius.
"It doesn't work unless you close your eyes." Ginny stared at him for another moment, and then, with an enormous sigh, closed her eyes.
"You'd better not have-" hearing the cupboard open, she broke off.
He'd bought the Firebolt in Diagon Alley after Hermione left, and hadn't quite known what to do with it since. Even looking at it had felt vaguely sacreligious, as though it could tell he wasn't its rightful owner.
"Don't open your eyes yet," he said hastily. Her suspicious frown deepened.
"Why not?"
"Because I know what you're going to say-"
"Too right, you do," she interjected, voice quite a bit higher than normal.
"-And I wouldn't dream of stopping you," he went on hastily. "But first-I mean, there's just facts-"
"What facts?"
"All right, well, for starters, you're an unbelievable flier." Ginny groaned.
"Oh, don't compliment-"
"I'm not complimenting you!" Draco interrupted. "These are facts, remember, and compliments are opinions, so I can't be complimenting you."
"You and logic are not friends," said Ginny dully.
"Logic and I are great friends," he contradicted with a grin. "That's another fact. Anyway...you're an unbelievable flier. But no one's good enough to get away with using school brooms and still win matches. Am I wrong?" A pause.
"No. But-"
"And," Draco went on, "You can't just try out on a brand-new broom without riding it first."
"Everyone knows that," said Ginny weakly.
"Yes, they do." Draco paused. "You can open your eyes now." She did, and for a moment he thought she might hit him.
"I-this is…" she sighed. "I can't. Draco, you know-I mean, I can't."
"Because my father's missing his galleons so badly?" Ginny groaned.
"That's not the point."
"You deserve it."
"That's not the point, either!"
"It is," Draco countered. "You'll be on the team because you deserve to be, not because-" he broke off and shook his head impatiently. Ginny frowned at him, but her expression had softened considerably.
"You trained me for months," she whispered. "You've done enough."
"I trained with you. There's a difference." He paused. "Besides, you wouldn't be the first on the Gryffindor team to-"
"That's different," Ginny interrupted at once. "Harry didn't know who'd given him the Firebolt."
"Well, yours won't be taken away for a month then." For the first time he allowed a smile, and to his surprise, she returned it with a roll of her eyes.
"I...I don't know what to say." He smirked.
"That's a first." She laughed, then smacked him, hard, on the shoulder. He recoiled and stumbled back against the lockers, stunned.
"Ouch! You're a hell of a lot stronger than last-" he broke off as she threw her arms around him.
"You'll come out with me later, then?" he asked, as she released him. She gave a helpless shrug.
"Well, someone did tell me it's not a good idea to try out on a new broomstick…" He grinned, and she smacked his shoulder again. "Don't ever do anything like this again," she said firmly. "And thank you."
The bell rang and they sneaked back across the pitch the way they'd come. Draco couldn't wipe the grin from his face all the way up to Charms class.
Flying was driven from his thoughts that afternoon, however, when they filed into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom with the usual dubious curiosity that accompanied each new teacher.
Moody burst into the back of the class just as the bell rang; Draco had wondered if perhaps he'd be less terrifying in the light of day, but was quickly proved wrong as he clunked to the front of the room to peer suspiciously around at them. If anything, his scarred face and enchanted eye looked even more ghastly and surreal in the afternoon sun.
"You can put those away," he said gruffly. "Those books. You won't need them." Draco and Blaise shared a look as they returned their books to their bags.
"Right then," Moody went on, the moment everyone's attention had returned to the front. "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling Dark creatures. But you're behind-very behind-on dealing with curses." He paused here for effect, and Draco tried to ignore the shiver traveling down his spine. Judging by the general shifting around in seats and trading of furtive glances, he wasn't alone.
"So-straight into it. Curses come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you countercurses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you're in sixth year. You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then." He scowled, which was such a slight departure from his regular expression to be scarcely noticeable. "But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Mr. Nott, when I'm talking." Theo looked dumbstruck and, after a moment, gently slipped his notebook from under the desk and into his bag.
"Magical eye's on the other side, son," Moody added, with a wink of his normal one. Theo's hand twitched as if to snatch the drawing back out and examine it, but he seemed to think better of this at once and simply studied Moody with far more interest than he'd previously done.
"So...do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by Wizarding law?" The class shared yet another anxious look, and Daphne's hand rose tentatively into the air.
"Er-the...the Unforgivable Curses?" she said quietly. "Sir?" Moody gave her an appreciative nod.
"And can anyone name the Unforgivable Curses?" Silence. Draco suspected everyone in the room certainly could name the Unforgivable Curses, and suddenly would've given anything to avoid hearing two-thirds of them aloud.
"The Imperius Curse. Sir." He'd meant to speak above a whisper, and only just managed it.
Moody peered intently at him for what felt like a year.
"Your name's Malfoy?" Draco tried to avert his eyes, but Moody held him fast.
"Er-yes, sir."
"You certainly would know all about the Imperius Curse," hissed Moody. Without taking his eyes off Draco, he opened his desk drawer and took out a glass jar containing a large, black spider. The class recoiled at once; unfazed, Moody coaxed it out and held it in his palm.
"Imperio!" he said firmly, jabbing his wand toward it. The spider leapt from his hand on a thread of silk and began to swing madly back and forth, did several backflips, and landed on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and burst into an unmistakable tap dance. A few people laughed weakly; most, however, seemed to be doing their utmost to avoid looking at the spider's remaining legs, wriggling helplessly in midair as if desperate to regain solid ground.
"Total control," murmured Moody. "What shall I make it do next? Jump out the window? Drown itself? Throw itself down one of your throats?" Pansy gave an involuntary gasp and seized Draco's arm.
"Years back, there were a load of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," Moody went on, eyes once again locked on Draco's. "Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble, see. They had quite a job sorting out the liars." There was a moment of horrible, ringing silence. Draco wrenched his eyes away from Moody's at last and stared firmly down at the desk, feeling deeply and inexplicably nauseous. Pansy gave his hand a squeeze, and he returned it gratefully as Moody picked up the tap-dancing spider.
"Anyone else know another?"
"The, er...the Cruciatus Curse." Blaise was several shades paler than normal, but nonetheless watching Moody intently. The words set Draco's teeth on edge.
"The Cruciatus Curse," Moody repeated, studying the spider with vague interest. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea. Engorgio!" The spider swelled immediately to nearly twice its size; quite a few people jumped. Moody raised his wand again and pointed it firmly at the spider.
"Crucio!"
The spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. Draco was sure that if it had a voice, it would've been screaming in agony. Was that what they'd looked like, the people his aunt had tortured all those years ago? How long could they writhe on the ground like that before they lost their minds?
"Stop it!" Theo's voice seemed to be coming from the other side of the universe. "You've made your point, all right, stop it!" He wasn't looking at Moody or the spider, but at Draco, eyes wide with what looked very much like terror. At the front of the class, Moody lowered his wand.
"Not nice," he said gruffly. "Not pleasant. But it's out there, and you've got to know." He paused. "Perhaps you'd like to give us the last one, Mr. Nott." For what seemed a very long time, no one spoke.
"Avada Kedavra," Theo whispered. With a curious lopsided grin, Moody raised his wand once again.
"Avada Kedavra!" he roared. Green light filled the classroom. At once, the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked but unmistakably dead. Moody knocked the spider casually to the floor.
"There's no countercurse," he said gruffly. "No blocking it. There's only one person known to have survived it, and you know him a damn sight better than I do." Moody paused here to glower around at them, which seemed to be his preferred method of letting his words sink in.
"Now, if there's no countercurse, why am I showing you? Because you've got to know. You've got to appreciate what the worst is. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're facing it. Now...as I'm sure you know, those three curses are enough to earn you a life sentence in Azkaban. That's what you're up against. That's what I'm here to teach you to fight. You need preparing. You need arming. You need to put that chewing gum in the bin, Miss Greengrass."
Daphne sighed and, seeming to decide she didn't dare argue, tossed her fresh stick of gum in the bin with a scowl. They spent the rest of the class taking a great deal of notes on the Unforgivable Curses, but Draco couldn't write a thing. In fact, though he could swear he was looking at the front of the classroom, all he could see was that spider, lying prone on its back, legs twitching helplessly up at the ceiling.
Ginny was quite a formidable opponent even when not riding a vastly superior broom; tonight, however, she seemed to be in three places at once, saving even Draco's trickiest goals with insultingly little effort and leaving him exhausted within the hour. Not that he minded, though-the harder he worked, the further his introduction to the infamous Mad-Eye-Moody was driven from his mind.
"Oh, that's rubbish!" he cried, feigning outrage as Ginny cleared the length of the goal hoops in scarcely a second and swatted away his beautifully timed shot as though she'd been expecting it all her life. She laughed.
"You can give up whenever you like, you know," she taunted. Struck by a sudden inspiration, Draco took a moment to arrange his face into a sneer.
"Just who invited you, Weasley?" he called to the empty stands behind Ginny. She jumped, nearly fell off her broom, and craned her neck as far as it would go to spot her brother. Draco, meanwhile, seized the Quaffle and pounced, driving it through the far-left hoop just as Ginny turned back to face him.
"No, that was rubbish!" she shrieked, though she was laughing. She dove to catch the Quaffle just before it hit the ground, then returned to Draco's side having locked it back in the ball crate.
"Let's do something else," she said decisively. "Let's race." Draco laughed.
"You're joking." Ginny raised an eyebrow and said nothing, and Draco considered. On the one hand, he was doomed. On the other, he couldn't think of a more effective way to stop his brain working than trying to race a Firebolt.
"All right," he agreed. "Let's race." Ginny grinned.
"Last to reach the lake has to kiss the giant squid. Three-two-"
Draco didn't allow her to finish the word two before he shot off into the night sky, turning like a corkscrew in midair as he cleared the top of the stands, relishing the wind in his hair as he pelted down the slope of the grounds. He clutched his broom more tightly than he could remember doing in his life and flattened himself against the wood, head tilted up scarcely enough to allow him to see. If he'd ever flown this fast, he really couldn't remember when; the air took on solid form, as if he were rushing down an invisible tunnel. The lake appeared in front of him as suddenly as if someone had conjured it. A startled yelp escaped him as he fought to stop, lost his balance, and spun out over the water, panting and clutching his broom for dear life. At the edge of the lake, Ginny laughed.
"I suppose that's a tie," she said loftily. "But you did cheat, so I think that means I win." Draco waved this away. Sometime during their flight across the grounds the sun had slipped below the horizon, and on the other side of the lake, the mountains looked particularly enticing shrouded in a strange, otherworldly glow.
"Let's go there," he said, pointing. Ginny drew level with him and frowned.
"That's quite far away, isn't it?"
"We can always turn back," Draco told her, unconcerned and already setting off over the water. This time, he made no effort to race; simply gliding across the lake in the gathering dusk, the air cooling his flushed skin, was nothing short of euphoric.
"Whoa," breathed Ginny as they cleared the other side of the lake and glided to a stop just beyond the tops of the trees.
Looking out over the lake from the other direction, Draco couldn't help but agree; he hadn't seen the castle from this angle since taking the boats across in his first year, but he could remember all too well how he'd stood, utterly entranced, at the edge of the water until Daphne had dragged him away. He couldn't have said how much time had passed when Ginny nudged him; he turned, frowning, and she laid a finger to her lips and once and pointed, not toward the view, but down at the ground. He squinted for a few moments, and when he saw it, it took everything in him to stifle a gasp. Even in the semi-darkness, the lopsided gait was unmistakable. Professor Moody was ambling along below, casting near-constant glances behind him.
Draco turned back to Ginny, wanting to say something about the dread freezing the pit of his stomach. She gestured, wide-eyed, toward the ground once again and set off, much slower this time, behind Moody. Draco allowed her to draw a few feet ahead before he followed, taking care to remain in the shelter of the treetops.
Moody led them, for what felt like a year, along some invisible path away from the lake and, finally, up into the first rocky crags of the mountains. Pausing at the top of a particularly large outcropping, he cast one final glance around him in all directions, took a swig from his hip flask, and Apparated. For a few moments, neither dared breathe.
"Look how much you can see from here," said Ginny finally. She was looking back out over the lake, and following her gaze, Draco could see at once why a paranoid old man might frequent such a place. The castle was in full view, and though darkness had fallen in earnest now, Draco was sure anyone who stood on that rock could see anyone who entered or left it. To his other side, the village of Hogsmeade was likewise crystal clear, its streets laid out neatly below with a few stragglers just visible leaving the pub.
"D'you suppose all the teachers come here when they want to leave the school?" said Ginny thoughtfully. "Since they can't Apparate out of Hogwarts, I mean." Draco was struck by a vivid image of tiny old Professor Flitwick struggling up the side of the mountain.
"Doubt it," he nearly whispered. "They can just go to Hogsmeade, can't they?" Ginny frowned.
"Right." She paused. "Where d'you think he was going?"
"Dunno." Draco could scarcely hear his own voice over the sound of his heartbeat. "Probably not to the pub."
So much for flying taking his mind off the afternoon's lesson.
They didn't speak as they made their way back across the lake, and Draco could feel Ginny studying him as they locked the ball crate and their brooms away in the locker room. He could tell she was burning to ask what was on his mind, but he remained quiet all the way up the grounds to the castle, and she simply bid him goodnight in the Entrance Hall and climbed the stairs without a backward glance. Draco slipped gratefully down the staircase leading to the dungeons, not paying a speck of attention to where he was going until he collided sharply with something approximately his height just outside the common room.
"Christ!" snapped Theo, catching Draco and holding him off, not quite at arm's length.
"Sorry." Draco could scarcely force the word out; his heart pounded in his throat and the dungeon appeared to be spinning, though in front of him, Theo's face was clear. Light from the torches on the wall danced in his eyes, and he was warm. Draco waited for him to let go, but he didn't.
"You weren't at dinner." It occurred to Draco to wrench his gaze away, but something was holding him fast.
"No."
"You've...been flying." Was it his imagination, or was Theo's breath as shallow as his?
"Yeah."
"You fly when you've got something on your mind." Had they been standing so close a moment ago? The scar on Theo's lip was thrown into sharp relief as the torchlight flickered, and Draco was seized by an insatiable impulse to touch it. Instead, he wrenched himself away and felt his back collide, hard, with the stone wall behind him. Good.
"Where've you been, then?" he asked, rather more sharply than he'd intended. Theo appraised him for a moment, with a soft, almost curious look he didn't care for.
"I'd rather not say," he said quietly. "C'mon." With that, he turned and led the way into the deserted common room. It was a very long time before Draco's heartbeat slowed enough to allow him something resembling sleep.
