Chapter 8: Level 3
How Colin and I brought the Unforgivable Curses back to Hogwarts.
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A/N- THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS BRUTALLY ANTI-MUGGLE PROPAGANDA. I DID NOT WRITE IT; MERELY EDITED IT. I LIFTED IT FROM HITLER'S MEIN KAMPF BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT TO IMAGINE IT MYSELF.
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I am met with Colin's smug face the morning of Tuesday of the 16th of December, 1997. Seamus, Luna, and I sit down to our oatmeal, avoiding each other's eye. Colin doesn't eat, but briefs us for the millionth time on the walk-out. Only the three of us and Ginny had agreed to stand with him in front of Alecto Carrow within the hour, but he's determined our example will be the thing to set every student proudly alongside us.
I put down my spoon, blinded for a moment in my left eye. The ceiling of the Great Hall is full of rain clouds, and the Hall is still mostly empty.
Pansy Parkinson, standing in front of the staff table had just finished adjusting her gleaming new Head Girl badge. Colin moans on, but their voices carry over his.
Miss Parkinson? Carrow hesitated. I can't imagine how you can continue to contrive so many questions on a subject where there is nothing to debate.
I only wish to learn as much from you as possible, Professor. Your expertise-
Enough, Parkinson. I have told you time and again that only fools respond to flattery when it comes from those that are beneath them. You memorize but do not understand. And put your quill and parchment away you look as keen as a house-elf.
When the plates and silverware had all disappeared and the younger students left for their morning classes, Carrow rises, taking her place behind Dumbledore's podium. She had a habit of resting two fingers heavily on her temple and squinting out at the students seated far away at the Bleeder tables as she spoke.
We will begin class today by examining, she glares through her wide set eyes, the place Muggles and those of lowly birth have taken in the Magical World thus far. While this subject is inherently unworthy of spending the time to clarify, I see it as a necessary rectification. Many of you have been sorely misguided.
Children, those I have mentioned have always been and will always be for no greater purpose than the advancement of Magical Peoples. If this were not so, the Wizarding Race would never have been able to take his first steps toward his future endowment; just as without the help of various suitable beasts which he knew how to tame, he would not have arrived at the advanced stage which is now gradually permitting him to do without these beasts.
For thousands of years Dragons, Dementors, Giants, House Elves, even Goblins have served Wizards in their rightful place help him lay the foundations of a development which now, in consequence of certain Dark Arts being pioneered by Great Wizards, are causing these beasts to be superfluous. In a few years these beasts' activities will no longer have a place, but without their previous collaboration Wizardkind might have had a difficulties getting where we is today.
Thus, for the formation of higher Magic the existence of lower life forms was one of the most essential preconditions, since they alone were able to compensate for the lack of magical aids without which a higher development is not conceivable. It is certain that the first culture of magic was based less on the tamed beast than on the use of Muggles. Who else did Wizard Lords have till their lands? Who else did Wizard Kings send into battle? How else to subjugate them but with the promise of the existence of magic? For what else was the feudal religion of ritual and chastisement?
Only after the enslavement of subjected races did the same fate strike beasts, and not the other way around, Carrow turns her glare back to Parkinson. For first the awe-struck Muggle drew the plow-and only after we learned the superiority of the Ox and how to train the Dragon. Only pacifistic fools can regard this as a sign of human depravity, failing to realize that this development had to take place in order to reach the point where today these same Wizards now use the Magic they have learned to magic the grain to scythe itself!
A quarter hour into the lecture that was still gaining steam, Colin Creevey stands from the back of the Bleeder tables.
Carrow squints over the edge of the podium down the long table, Is there a question? Speak up now!
Colin puffed his chest at the address. Professor Carrow, I as well as many students alongside me, respectfully decline to waste our time twiddling our thumbs during your lectures. We represent-
And your Surname is?
Creevey. Colin Creevey, Professor.
Well, well we do have a rabble-rouser in our midst. I will be informing my brother Amycus of your Level 2 Detention and he will expect you in his office at 6 pm tonight. Now sit yourself down! I am feeling generous today.
No. I'm leaving. And I'm not going alone.
You're detention, Creevey, will be a Level 3 infraction. And you will be seated. Or are you or anyone else for that matter, demented enough to wish to discover what is in store for students beyond Level 3?
Colin's chin is held high at her threat. What can you do to me? You've shut me in a closet for a day, you called that Level 1. You had Dennis haul a barrel of Merlin-knows-what up to the Astronomy tower and when he gets there Filch tells him to bring it back to Hagrid's cabin. He carried that bloody barrel back and forth six times, and you call that Level 2. And Neville here, he landed himself a Level 3 when he got a negative score on his last transfiguration exam, and that's rigging him upside down in Filch's old manacles for the night.
What pointless humiliation can there be beyond Level 3? Colin grabs for his bag, the signal for all of us to rise with him and follow him out of the Great Hall.
I have been lenient, Mr. Creevey. It would seem that up until this moment, the majority of the student body has been wise enough to welcome the imminent new regime.
Seamus and Luna remain still. Of all the stupid things I've done in my life- I rise to face Carrow alongside Colin and a second later Ginny does as well. The surrounding students are still as statues.
Carrow steps down from the lectern, and begins to walk toward the three of us at the back of the Hall.
Sit down, Miss Weasley. The progress of Wizardkind is like the climbing of an endless ladder; it is impossible to climb higher without first taking the lower steps. Thus, the Wizard had to take the road to which reality directed him and not the one that would appeal to the imagination of a modern pacifist blood-traitor.
She raises her wand to Colin's throat. Crucio, she mutters.
Colin screams twice in agony before Carrow lowers her wand. The sound echoes horribly and there are tears in Colin's eyes.
Ginny moves toward them but someone by her holds her arm. You can't do that!
Incorrect, Miss Weasley. You will find there is very little that I cannot do. I would advise you to sit down before don't have the choice.
Ginny's face contorts as Carrow's wand whiskes to her and she is forced to bend back onto the bench.
Colin is still on all fours, panting on the ground. Pansy and a few others at the front are smirking, but those of us in grey uniforms are terrified waiting her next move.
Thus, the road WIzardkind had to take was clearly marked out. As a conqueror he subjected Muggles and regulated their practical activity under his command, according to his will and aims. But in directing them to a useful, though arduous activity, he not only spared the life of those he subjected; he gave them a fate that was better than their previous so-called 'freedom'!
As long as he ruthlessly upheld the master attitude, not only did he really remain master, but also the preserver and increaser of Magic. And children, what could be more noble?
Longbottom, why are you still standing? There is still three hours left in this class. Carrow grins a mirthless grin. Do you, perhaps, have a question?
Y-yes. I have a question. I'm just trying to understand where you fit. Into the whole, conqueror/subjugated thing.
Carrow's mouth opens in anger and her brow furrows so tightly her eyes are reduced to dots. Where I fit, Longbottom?
H-how much Muggle blood do you and your brother have?
CRUCIO! Carrow rages toward me. The curse hits and the memory of the last time, in the Department of Mysteries, is a thousand times lesser than the feeling now of acid boiling under my skin.
The curse is released, and her fizzled hair coming out of its bun. Her wand is still pointed to me as she reaches into her pocket and pulls from it a silver letter opener.
YOU WILL NOT ASK QUESTIONS YOU KNOW THE ANSWER TO. I HAVE PURE, RIGHTEOUS BLOOD IN MY VEINS, BETTER THAN ANY BLOOD TRAITOR COULD HOPE FOR!
With a stroke she slashes the silver instrument across my face, leaving a bleeding gash.
SEE FOR YOURSELF! SEE FOR YOURSELF HOW DIRTY YOUR OWN BLOOD IS!
I hold my cheek together with my wand hand and check that my tongue still works.
Dumbledore's Army or bust, I tell her. And I sit down to my notes.
If I thought the lecture was over then I was wrong. We were forced to endure the rest, Colin in uncontrollable tremors and Ginny catatonic from the waist down. Luna ripped the end of her tie by magic and handed it to me to use as a bandage.
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A/N: again, thank you for the reviews. I haven't been able to get this chapter up as early as I wanted to, but Ive been a bit sidetracked by starting to do character art for the story. it's in progress and all I have right now is the lineart for Gin, Nev and Luna but Colin's in the short as well. He's probably just said something incredibly rude which is why ginny looks pissed and Neville has his "how am I constantly surprised by how much this guy is an arse" face on.
the url is pinkdiscodress [dot] deviantart [dot] com