When they arrived in the Defence classroom, Professor Ollerton was nowhere to be seen. That was...unusual.
Dorea wouldn't say that Defence had been her favourite class so far this year, but it was a definite improvement over the clown show of second year, or the mind-numbing boredom of first year. So far as Defence professors went, they'd been a bit spoiled last year. Remus had his moments, yes — the poorly-considered practical lesson with the boggart at the beginning of the year was a good example — but he was undoubtedly competent, and was quite an engaging lecturer as well. Constantly slipping in little jokes here and there, making games out of practical lessons, that sort of thing. Ollerton, by comparison, was very dry and professional — he definitely knew what he was talking about, he just didn't do nearly as good of a job at making it interesting for the easily-distractible teenagers in his audience. The common opinion of Ollerton among the students who had him was that it could definitely be worse, so they weren't exactly complaining, but that Defence was fated to be a somewhat boring class this year.
Boring was better than useless, or an outright danger to the students, so, mixed bag.
As very professional as Ollerton was, he'd never been even slightly late to class. Dorea wasn't the only one surprised by it, the few people who'd gotten here before her muttering to each other, occasionally glancing to the door for him. Shortly after stepping into the classroom, Tracey blurted out, "Where the hell is Ollerton?" Because she could be very blunt like that these days, it was odd — she hardly used to talk at all, sometimes lately Dorea barely recognised her.
"We think he's ill or something," Morag said, from where she was already sitting with Olivie.
"If he was, you'd think they'd tell us at lunch not to come to class."
"Do you think it's a practical lesson today, and we're supposed to meet at the duelling hall?"
"There wasn't anything posted in our common room," Draco offered. Turning toward Morag, "Did you see anything in Ravenclaw?"
"No, nothing. Or, not for us — the sixth years have a practical lesson today. Maybe Ollerton got it mixed up?"
"Doesn't sound likely to me, bloke seems too put together for that."
"Well, I don't know, something must get going on..."
Half-listening to the speculation going on around them, their group split up to find their seats. Dorea ended up at a table with Mandy, Millie, and Lisa, Padma joining Liz and Daphne and Tracey — they had four-person tables in this classroom, for some reason, Dorea had a feeling there'd be some kind of group projects down the line. Half-heartedly pulling out her notes, Mandy said, "I don't know, should we even bother? How much time do we have until class starts?"
Lisa shook her hand, the sleeve of her robe falling from her wrist. "Four minutes."
"Honestly, if he's not even going to show up — I could be doing the reading for Transfiguration instead of just sitting here..."
"Oh, is there a reading for Transfiguration?" Dorea asked. The Ravenclaws had had that earlier today, but they were a day ahead, the Slytherins wouldn't have it until tomorrow.
"Well, we have one, anyway." The new junior professors had split the fourth-year classes, they were following more or less the same lesson plans but it was possible things would get off. "It looks like more in-depth cross-species stuff, resistances relative to anatomical similarity and behavioural complexity, you know? I flipped through it, there were a lot of diagrammes..."
Talking about Transfiguration, what there was scheduled for this year, it was impossible to miss how squeamish the other girls were about the subject matter — Mandy and Lisa were, anyway, if it bothered Millie at all she didn't show it. Which was fair enough, since the curriculum this year was mostly focussed on cross-animate transfigurations — that is, transfiguring one living thing into another — a variety of conjuration spells — in the sense of charms that created a conjured object as an end-product, they wouldn't start true conjuration until next year — and in spring starting in on proper vanishing spells. The first and the third — and also sometimes the second, depending on what spell you're looking at — can turn out very very gross, if the spell isn't performed quite correctly. Like, the skin not being properly solid, so the poor thing leaks all over your desk — or for a particularly dramatic example, when practising animate-to-inanimate transfigurations last year, instead of transforming into a ceramic jar Leanne's pheasant had exploded, splattering blood and viscera all over the room. McGonagall had cleaned it up immediately — the pheasants had been conjured in the first place, to reduce their magical resistance and make it easier for first attempts, so all it'd taken was a big dispel over the whole room — but still, very gross.
(Luckily Dorea hadn't been sitting anywhere near ground zero, but Megan had gotten blood in her eyes, and a chunk of bone had slipped under Hannah's collar before McGonagall vanished it all. She had gotten blood on her hands due to one mishap or another, but thankfully it was easily cleaned off with a dispel.)
Dorea didn't like blood and stuff, much — she didn't get quite as squeamish as some of the other girls, but it did still make her uncomfortable — but she wasn't particularly concerned about it. If she was being honest, mostly just because she was good at transfiguration — the worst mishaps she'd had involved just a little bit of leaking, or the animal being somewhat out of proportion, nothing quite so dramatic as all that. She was normally one of the first in their class to get whatever spell they were doing for the day, and she could fit in more detail into the finished product than most. (McGonagall had been very impressed with the painted flowers and bronze accents on her teapot for last year's exam.) If she could be said to have a best class, even an easy O, it was probably Transfiguration. She didn't know why, she could never explain what she was doing differently from anyone else in a way that was at all helpful — and Liz had asked on any number of occasions, since she still struggled with the practical work in that class sometimes.
Personally, she suspected she wasn't doing anything special, and that she was just naturally good at transfiguration. Both classes of inborn talent for self-transfiguration ran in the family, it was very possible she'd inherited the trait — Sirius seemed to think so, he'd offered to teach her the animagus transformation as soon as they started human transfiguration in sixth year. (He'd admitted he could try to teach it to her earlier than that, but it was far more risky without the background in animate transfiguration and anatomy, she was fine with waiting, thank you.) So, there was really nothing she could tell people to help. Like Liz's instincts for charms, or Daphne's with potions, that was just the way things went sometimes.
And most of the rest of her class didn't have the same natural talent, so it was very likely there would be more disgusting mishaps in Transfiguration class. They didn't find the fact that the messes could be easily cleaned up with a basic dispel very reassuring.
Throughout the conversation, Lisa would occasionally glance at her watch — so Dorea knew when they'd passed the beginning of the period. The noise in the room stepped up a little louder, people chattering a bit more now that Professor Ollerton had officially failed to show up. A good five minutes into the period, people were talking about just leaving, when they were abruptly startled into silence by a heavy bang, the door opened hard enough that it'd swung around and slammed into the wall.
Alastor Moody limped down the middle of the classroom, the shuffling of robes and the regular clunking of his staff and prosthetic leg easily audible in the sudden quiet. The grizzly old Auror was even more gruesome-looking up close, grey hair let loose in a chaotic mane, face and hands a mess of overlapping scars — he was missing a couple fingers and a good chunk off his nose, his jawline visibly uneven — the limping only highlighting his visibly-lopsided frame, stooped and stiff from fused joints and nerve damage from countless curses. And then on top of all that was the eye — looking inhumanly oversized, due to the missing eyelids, a bright unnatural blue, zipping all around in its socket dizzyingly fast, cold creeping tingles crawling down Dorea's spine. She had no idea how he could stand looking through that with it moving around so fast, she would be terribly nauseous...
Moody shuffle-clunked his way to the front of the classroom, a leather case dropped on the teacher's desk with a low thump. Pulling out a roll of parchment, Moody turned back to the class, leaning against his staff. In a low, gravelly voice, "Black, Dorea."
Dorea froze as, the natural eye still on the scroll, the false eye zeroed in on her, still and unblinking. She remembered Daphne insisted Moody's prosthetic eye was an Artefact — she'd thought that was very silly at the time, but looking directly back at it, her breath frigid in her throat and her skin crawling, she could believe it. "Yes, sir?"
The Eye stayed on her for another second, before finally looking away again, Dorea let out a breath. "Brocklehurst, Amanda." Oh, he was going down the class list, okay...
Over the next few minutes, Moody worked his way down the list, the false eye fixing on each person for a breath before moving on. Though some people, Dorea noticed, were stared at rather longer than others — specifically, the students with close relatives in the Death Eaters. Draco was glared at especially long, his face paling as the seconds dragged on, before Moody finally turned away again without a word. The air in the room felt stiff and silent, nobody hardly even moving, intimidated by Moody being...well, Sir Alastor Moody.
Finally, he reached the end of the list — if Blaise at all minded the harsh glare he was getting, he didn't show it, blithely smiling back — and Moody carelessly tossed the scroll aside. Folding both hands around his staff, he leaned over it toward them, brow furrowed and face half-shadowed by his hair. "I'm Alastor Moody, as I'm sure you all know by now. I ain't bothering with no going off on my life story, like some pompous wanker — if you somehow haven't heard who I am, ask a friend. I was asked by Albus to review the state of the Defence class here, before he was kicked out on his arse like the stubborn damn fool he is, take a look out for the rumoured curse on the post while I'm at it. Personally, I doubt there is such a thing, more likely it weren't nothing but a string of bad luck and shite hiring decisions, but it pays for men like him to owe you a favour, so here I am.
"I'll be dropping in on classes from time to time, to see how you're coming along. This time, your class drew the short straw — so you get to deal with me today, lucky you."
Dorea wasn't looking, too difficult to tear her eyes away from the man, but she had the feeling nobody in the room was feeling particularly lucky at the moment.
"I understand you and Blake have been talking about the categorisation system the Ministry uses, a little on what kind of magics you might find in one category or another. Blood magic and soul magic and big damn rituals. Maybe you noticed, what do most of them have in common?" Silence dragged for a long moment, nobody particularly eager to draw the unnerving man's attention. Eventually, Michael raised his hand. "Corner."
"They're all harmful magics, sir."
The false eye stopped spinning, Moody's brow furrowing as he stared down at Michael. "Plenty of healing magic is restricted to practitioners. Would you call that 'harmful', boy?"
"...No, sir."
"I didn't think so. Parkinson."
"Some may be intended to cause harm, but all restricted magics can be dangerous if used poorly, for the target or the caster herself. Sir."
"Performative magics are restricted. Has a violinist threatened you with a sonata, maybe? That must have been terrifying, my deepest sympathies." There was a little bit of nervous chuckling in the room, Pansy sank a little in her chair, her cheeks pinking. "Potter."
"Most of them are witchcraft."
"Ah!" Moody snapped his fingers, a few students twitching at the unexpected noise, jabbing a finger at Liz. "There it is. In English, we have an annoying habit of using 'wizard' and 'witch' as gendered terms — would that we could speak a proper Celtic language in this damn country anymore—" He didn't really have a noticeable accent, but Dorea was aware that Moody's first language would have been Breton. "—but the correct meaning is for different ways of doing magic. Wizardry is using your own magic to cause an effect in the world — mostly wand magic, but there are other kinds too. Witchcraft harnesses magic in the world around you, and exploits it to your ends. Potions, enchanting, most craft magics, ritual, and so on. If you need anything more than a wand to do it, chances are you're looking at witchcraft. This is what the words 'wizard' and 'witch' originally meant, where the use of them for men and women came from, I don't know — I might make a joke about wooden rods, but I been told to watch my mouth in front of the sweet little kiddies.
"It may seem a small thing," Moody said, raising his voice a little over more hesitant chuckles, "but it is important to remember, to get yourself into the right way of thinking. There's a long history to this, but it isn't the same history you're like to hear in the Ministry-approved course you get in the History class here. That history, it follows the leaders of men, the great movers and shakers, and the important developments in the science of magic, arithmancy and wardcrafting and so on. This history was written by and for the top of the heap. Wands used to be expensive — still are now, in point of fact — wizardry was once only for the poncy bastards who could afford to pay for a wand, and the education needed to use it properly. The great, nameless masses of the poor, for them there was only witchcraft.
"And that class difference is important, there's a lot of old baggage in how we talk about the Dark Arts inherited from generations past. Wizardry was long thought to be a refined discipline, clean, and dignified — just as the nobles and wealthy merchants thought themselves a refined class of people, so was their magic. The arts of the common people, though, were vulgar and corrupted, sometimes perverse, and easily turned to evil — just as are the hearts of common men, absent the moral righteousness of their betters. There was always suspicion, of what common people might be getting up to where their masters couldn't see, stories of black rituals and ecstatic orgies, and all manner of nonsense. For much of history, the practices of common magic folk were not written down, not formally taught and studied the way 'proper' wizardry and enchanting were. No, it was passed down teacher to student, master to apprentice, in secret, away from the prying eyes of those not inducted into their tradition, a tradition in some cases stretching back thousands of years — and so they were called the 'Dark' Arts, because they existed unseen where the light didn't reach."
This wasn't entirely new to Dorea, in principle. Ollerton had made reference to all that in passing, not going into much detail about it, but Dorea been told a similar story by Cassiopeia, in her education to take over the House of Black. The old Gaulish clan that would, in time, become the Blacks had had very close connections with the priesthood in their area — most of the high priests were from the family, actually, how politics and religion worked for the ancient Celts, and whether and how the two were separated, was sort of complicated. The family had retained their own traditions, ultimately dating back to before the Roman conquest, which would definitely be considered under the umbrella of Dark Arts in this old sense of the term. Because they had their own witchcraft practices, Dorea's ancestors had been rather less dismissive of the arts practised by the common people on their lands, so had been rather more familiar with other 'Dark' Arts than most of their peers. (Though there were exceptions, especially among the more deeply religious Founders, like the Peverells or the Boneses.) Those old practices had been more or less lost when the family had nearly died out around the time of Secrecy, but the culture of appreciation for magics normally left alone by others of their station had been retained up until Sirius's generation.
And while that might have originally meant 'Dark' Arts in the old sense, closer to the modern day it definitely became more like Dark Arts in the modern sense — a lot of Blacks had been into some very sketchy stuff. Their reputation for vile dark magics might be overblown at times, but not undeserved. For whatever reason, Cassiopeia had decided not to teach Dorea a lot of the family's old practices, and Andi hadn't made a point of it either, so with Dorea the old House of Black, inheritors to a tradition stretching all the way back to dim pre-Roman ancient Gaul, would finally die. Dorea was kind of ambivalent about that, honestly, but it wasn't like the family's archives and artefacts squirrelled away, including ritual implements and grimoires detailing secret magics and rituals, had all been destroyed — if one of her descendants decided they wanted to restart some of their old traditions, well, she guessed that was up to them. Personally, she was pleased she hadn't had to deal with being pressured into learning some of the seriously unpleasant magic the family had gotten into, and if that meant throwing the baby out with the bathwater, oh well.
But then, Dorea had never really had the interest in or talent for witchcraft the way, for example, Liz did. And Liz was descended from literal death cultists — some of the things Dorea had heard about the Peverells were, just, freaky as hell. Luckily, the Potters' turn to the Light had resulted in a lot of their old traditions dying out centuries ago, so Dorea probably didn't have to worry about Liz getting into anything really nasty either. She couldn't say as much for some of her other classmates, though, she honestly preferred not to think about what they might get up to at home.
(Like sacrificing cows in grisly, public rituals, for example.)
"As little as they may have thought of the commoners' arts," Moody continued, "in time some of them proved useful. You can still do things with potions you can't with a wand, and ever more things as the art was refined through the Middle Ages. A lot of craft magics are respectable careers now, posh types even show off how cultured they are with knowledge in low arts, even sponsor low-born artists and the like. A big change in the culture of our country, slow over centuries, and it also came to change how we thought of magic. Some magics need to be restricted, for safety, but practising one of these arts doesn't carry the same stain it used to. But, that history didn't just go away — there is still an air of danger and judgement around these magics, as you might guess, since we still call them all 'Dark Arts', dangerous or no.
"And we do still put dangerous magics in there, what you might think of when you hear dark magic, all kinds of vile shite. But the bad stuff, you'll mostly find that in Category Four and Five. And as Potter said, most Dark Arts are still witchcraft, though there are exceptions. Our subject today, of all the awful, twisted, evil magics in Category Five, there are..." Trailing off, one hand peeling away from his staff, Moody lifted three fingers — or, his thumb, pointer, and middle finger, it looked like he was missing most of that ring finger. "...three. Three curses, spells cast by a wand, are found in Category Five, only three. Since using anything in Category Five on another person gets you a one-way ticket to Azkaban, these magics are sometimes called Unforgivable — and so you'll most often hear these three called the Unforgivable Curses.
"What are you waiting for? Write this shite down." There was a sudden clattering and shuffling as half the class scrambled for their notebooks, Moody raising his voice a little to cut over them. "You'll hear people say, these are very difficult spells, it takes a dark mage of great skill and power to cast them — this is delusional nonsense. What makes these spells most dangerous, most threatening is that they're easy. If only a few were able to cast them, well, then we needn't worry about them at all, would we? The power required to initialise them is somewhat high, if you're comparing against household charms, any adult shouldn't have a problem. No fiddly wand movements, no ritual preparation, nothing like that. If you know the incantations, if you know how they work, anyone can cast them, anyone. And like any crime, if one of them is used on you, it's probably going to be someone you know. A friend, a teacher, a lover. Someone you trust.
"People call me paranoid," he grumbled, "but I've been around long enough, I've seen the records — I'm not paranoid, everyone else is delusional. We put all the bad people away in Azkaban, so the rest think they're safe. But you're never safe. If someone is going to harm you, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it's going to be someone close to you, someone you would never see it coming from. That's the point — if you saw it coming, they'd never get you in the first place, would they? This idea we have that we're a civilised society, that the barbarity of the past has been left in the past, this is an illusion, a fucking lie, and always has been. All our laws, all our noble defenders in their pretty uniforms, the horror of Azkaban, these do not keep you safe. We may beat the piss out of whoever stole from you or murdered you or raped you, but by then it's already too late for you, innit? The bastard who fucked you over being left in Azkaban to rot, after the deed is done, what good does that do you? eh? No, we, the Aurors and the D.L.E., we can't keep you safe — the only person who can do that is you. You need to learn to protect yourself, because nobody else is going to do it for you. You protect yourself by knowing — what a threat might look like before it's too late, spells to check suspicious objects or food or drink, some decent battlemagic if it comes down to it. And to keep your head about you, to not trust the wrong person and get yourself fucked over like a damn fool. The only thing that will keep you safe is constant vigilance — never forget it."
Moody finally broke off, so worked up from his raving that — in the intense silence stifling the room, no one hardly even seeming to breathe — Dorea could hear the old Auror's harsh breathing from here. He reached into his featureless grey robes and pulled out a flask, threw back a sizeable gulp from it. Tottering back a couple awkward steps, Moody heaved himself up onto the desk, set the flask down next to him. Staff resting against one thigh, he rubbed at the other — the side with the prosthetic leg, Dorea noticed. "You have to know. Parents like to delude themselves that they can protect their children, that you don't need to know the true horrors of the world, it'll never affect you. But that's nonsense, it just leaves you vulnerable. You need to know, what's out there, what nasty shite nasty people can do to you, if you're going to protect yourself from it. It's the only way.
"So, go on. Unforgivable Curses. Who can give me one?" Nobody moved for a long moment, the room still stiff and silent. But, slowly, people started raising their hands. "You, Goldstein."
His voice quieter than normal, slightly breathy, Tony said, "The Imperius Curse, sir."
"Ah, yes, you would know that one. The Curse of Command. This one gives the user complete control over another person's mind. And I mean, complete control — the victim will do whatever the user orders them, with no hesitation, as though nothing but a puppet on strings. Divulge secrets, kill themselves, complete with a suicide letter, kill their family. Take off their clothes," he added, with a glance to someone in the front row — Dorea couldn't tell for sure who from here, but probably Olivie or Su Li. He didn't explicitly say that the curse could easily be used to rape someone, but the implication was obvious. "No wand movement, a simple, short incantation — imperito, literally 'I command', shortened from a lengthier incantation that first appeared in the Third Century — the only casting requirement the will to dominate, and a confident certainty that the target should, and will, do as bid. And like most curses targeting the mind, it has no visible spellglow, the low friction meaning it travels very quickly, will cross a room in a blink. If you wait until after you hear the incantation, it's already too late.
"But this one has its limits. It can be defended against, with care — most enchantments and potions to protect yourself from mind magic will also block the Imperius. Even occlumency will do in a pinch, if you're skilled enough. It is possible to defeat the curse with pure force of will, but the advantage given to the user by the curse itself makes this very difficult — easy for mind mages," Moody added, with a nod to Liz, "and some Seers, who are both practically immune to this one, but not for most anyone else. Every Auror is trained to resist it, but few of even us can do it on demand. As the Imperius Curse is an active spell, it takes constant input from the user — they must hold the curse on you, meaning they can only give commands while in the victim's presence, while the spell is active. Once the spell is dropped, the victim is free again.
"But some clever bastards found a way to use the curse to implant deep compulsions in the victim's head. Normally a conditional thing — if this happens, do this. It's unconscious, automatic, when it happens the victim often doesn't even realise what they're doing until it's already done. This is what was done to Justin Goldstein, back in the War. Your uncle?"
Tony nodded. "My father's cousin."
"I thought so," Moody said with a sharp nod, "the poor bastard. Some sick son of a bitch though it would be a laugh to tie a compulsion to murder his own family to the kiddush, a prayer Jews traditionally recite over meals on the Sabbath. Justin Goldstein, his wife, their children, and one of his cousins were found at their dinner table the next morning — or their mutilated bodies were, at any rate."
Well. That was...gruesome. And, maybe it wasn't a great idea to talk about Tony's relatives being murdered in a hate crime in front of the whole class...
"The Imperius is very obvious when it's active — glassy eyes, blank face, it's not subtle. But the deep compulsions are impossible to detect until they're triggered. There's no way to tell if some bastard has made someone close to you a knife at your throat, until the moment they strike. The only defence, is constant vigilance.
"That's one, give me another. Come on, then, don't be shy. You, Greengrass, go."
Daphne quick glanced at Liz next to her, before saying, "The Cruciatus is one of the three, sir." Judging by that look, Dorea would guess Daphne had consciously avoided the other remaining one — she needn't have bothered, Dorea seriously doubted Liz would have been troubled by the reminder.
"Yes, and there's a nasty one. The Cruciatus is the most modern of the three, only turning up in the Sixteenth Century or so. You might hear people call this a pain curse, or a torture curse, but that's underselling it — it is the worst pain it is possible to feel. Most spells cause pain by attacking the body somehow, sometimes you'll have one that affects the nerves throughout the body. The Cruciatus targets the brain, the part that takes in the signals from the body and interprets them as pain — and sets the bloody thing on fire, every possible pain the body can feel at the highest intensity all at once. It's a hell of a thing, let me tell you, you get hit with it the memory will stick with you — I still get echoes of it, sometimes. It never goes away, never."
Moody paused for another drink from his flask, the room around him in stiff, uncomfortable silence.
"Anyhow, the Cruciatus. Vicious damn thing. Like the Imperius, there's no wand movement, though experienced users might use a harsh jab to get it flowing smoother. The spellglow is also invisible, when performed correctly — if the user gets it slightly off, you might get a faint, unstable envelope, usually orange or red — but it travels more slowly, more like any other hex, slow enough you can react if you're quick. The only other casting requirement is the burning need to see someone hurt — anger or hatred will get you there, but the spell works best when motivated by pure, sadistic enjoyment of another's suffering. Sick bastards. It's a dark curse, will slip through most arithmantic shield charms. Most light or dark shields will shatter on impact, but will stop the curse in the process, if they're cast well enough — you need enough power in the shield to balance the curse, and it's a powerful spell, so you might only weaken it. Also like the Imperius, this one is a sustained curse: it will just keep burning at you until the user lets up. If you see someone under it, toss a spell at the user — it doesn't matter what, all you need to do is distract them, even for a second.
"As you might guess, having powerful dark magic cast straight into your brain isn't what you might call healthy. The effects on the brain are like an epileptic seizure, and just as dangerous if it goes on too long. You might hear it said that people can be driven mad by the Cruciatus — Frank and Alice Longbottom, for example—" The false eye flickered between Dorea and probably Draco as he said it — the Longbottoms had been tortured into catatonia by Bellatrix Lestrange, who happened to be a close relative of both of them. (And also Liz, incidentally, but Moody didn't glance at her.) "—but no, that's nonsense. They aren't mad, their brains have been fried from the inside out. And the damage was done with dark magic, so it can't be healed. Not even with blood alchemy, there's nothing to be done about it, nothing at all. So if you see someone being held under the Cruciatus, or even if you only think it might be the Cruciatus, do whatever you fucking can to interrupt it before it's too late — because once enough damage has been done, there's no coming back, ever.
"And speaking of no coming back — anyone want to give me the last spell? Hmm?"
Silence lingered over the room for a long moment, tense and uncomfortable. Dorea noticed multiple people glance in Liz's direction.
"Come on then, don't be shy, now. Whatever bastard might use the thing on you surely ain't like to be. Yes, Cornfoot."
"The Killing Curse, sir."
"There's about a hundred killing curses. Care to be more specific?"
"Er...the Unforgivable one?"
Moody snorted. "Nice try. Anyone know it?" A long, dragging silence, before, "Potter, go."
"The Curse of Annihilation, sir, also called the Green Death. For the colour."
"That it is," Moody said, voice dropping a little. "And a damn intimidating thing it is to see. A bright, sickly green, intense enough to fill a room, you'll see the flash from clear across a battlefield, even — I can tell you from experience that living things don't cast a shadow in the light from it, you'll see the glow no matter how many people are in the way. It doesn't look like any other spellglow, thicker and longer, moving like a queer mix of fire and lightning. And it leaves a chill behind it, that you'll feel through any warming charm or environmental ward — and if it hits someone, the chill lingers for hours, sometimes even days. The hand of Death leaving an echo on the mortal world, so they say."
Moody paused to take another drink, once again seemingly careless of the tense silence around him. Dorea took the opportunity of the pause to glance at Liz — as she'd guessed, Liz seemed entirely unbothered by the subject matter, her cheek resting on a hand, calmly watching the grizzled old Auror.
"This curse is the oldest of the three, dating to the early days of the Empire. The Roman Empire, that is. It was reserved, once, as a punishment for the worst of crimes — treason, most often, certain acts of desecration. The perpetrator was sentenced to death, but not only that, all physical records of his existence were also to be destroyed, to even speak his name itself a crime. And the means of his execution, the Curse of Annihilation. A curse that does not target the body, but the soul — and destroys it, utterly. It was believed that a person killed with the curse is not only dead, but obliterated from existence, barred even from whatever might await us in death.
"We know now that that part, at least, likely isn't true — the curse does target the soul, and violently strip it from the body, but there's reason to believe it doesn't prevent the victim from reaching whatever afterlife there may or may not be. There are cases of people struck with it leaving a ghost behind, so, it stands to reason..." Moody shrugged off the horror of what he was speaking of — and seriously, that was terrible, Dorea had never heard that people thought the Killing Curse literally destroyed people's souls — paused to take another gulp of whatever that stuff was. Dorea assumed it was some kind of liquor, since Moody was known to have an alcohol problem, so he really shouldn't be drinking that in front of the students, in class... "Like the others, no wand movements, no complicated preparation.
"Animam expedi—" A few of Dorea's classmates tensed at Moody speaking the incantation aloud, a few breaths sucked in through teeth. Olivie in front even started some kind of gesture before catching herself — Dorea would guess something Tugwoods did to ward off bad luck, they were a superstitious lot. If Moody noticed the reaction he got, he didn't show it, just kept going on without pause. "—literally meaning unchain the soul — there's some irony there, some bastard a couple millennia ago must have thought it a laugh. Of the three, it takes the most out of you, power-wise, but not that much, I'd wager most adults could manage it. The difficulty most have is the intent. You need to want the target dead, yes, but not only that — use it in plain old hatred or anger, you might give someone a bloody nose and a hell of a headache, but it won't kill them. 'Course, even a failed casting will get you a one-way ticket to Azkaban, so anyone using it is likely to finish you off with something else anyway.
"No, you don't just need to want the target dead — you must wish all memory of their existence wiped away, as though they'd never been in the first place. Even your own memory. The intent can be hard for most people to get right, because if you're murdering someone, most of the time you have a reason for murdering them, they've offended you or whatever. And it can be hard for people to let go of those reasons, to summon the sheer...disdain for someone's existence necessary to get the curse to work. It's almost impersonal, in a way, and murder is often very personal. Now that we know the curse doesn't really destroy the soul, this is why it's Unforgivable: anyone who can display such apathy to the lives of other people is a danger to society, plain and simple, and needs to be removed for the safety of everyone around them.
"Get the intent right, and it's death, instant, and unrecoverable. The best healer in the world gets to you a second after the curse lands, they can't do shite, you're already gone. Two millennia the curse has been around, and nobody has ever survived, not once...until Potter here, at any rate."
Naturally, every eye in the room went to Liz — this she did seem uncomfortable with, visibly stiffening in her seat, eyes dropping to the table. It only lasted for a couple seconds, though, Moody moving on without further comment on the miraculous events of Hallowe'en '81. "Of the three Unforgivable Curses, this is the hardest to defend against, especially for young people. It'll pass straight through any arithmantic shield charms, and even most light or dark ones — certainly any shield any of you can cast. It travels slow enough to avoid, but if you're caught flat-footed, the only thing that'll stop it is a physical barrier. Something convenient close by, conjuration. Conjured animals are very useful, as you can direct them into a spell with a tug at their animation charms, but metal is also good — iron if you can manage it, bronze will do if you can't. But at your age, I doubt you can manage any of those. If you hear that incantation — animam expedi, never forget it — don't sit there and throw up a shield like a fucking idiot, you move, you run your little arses off and don't slow down for nothing — and pray the bastard will miss, because that's the only way you're getting out of it alive.
"Now, we got another half hour or so, so we're going to have a little exercise. I'm going to give you a scenario, you're going to tell me how you get out of it alive. Hopefully, I can get you used to using your bloody head for five seconds, and maybe save your life one day. Let's start with something simple..."
The rest of the period was a little more lively, the stiffness in the room slowly dissolving as people took part in the conversation. In fact, as people got more comfortable, there was even a bit of joking around and teasing — it helped that Moody didn't try to stop it, as a more professional teacher might, even joining in, not trying to cover how stupid he thought some answers were to avoid embarrassing anyone in front of their classmates. Moody wasn't a subtle person in general, and his opinion of some of the students was made very obvious over the last half hour or so of class. For example, when he came up with a scenario of already having been forced to commit a crime with the Imperius, asking what you should do afterward, Moody immediately asked Draco to respond, not even waiting for hands to go up — obviously, Moody didn't believe Lucius's claims to having been coerced into following the Dark Lord, his tone as he spoke to Draco on this particular question left absolutely no doubt about that.
The more interesting part of that exchange was how uncomfortable Draco seemed about it. Normally, when somebody brought that whole business up — which was rare, what with the Truce and all, but it did still happen occasionally — Draco would get offended, firmly (and naïvely) defending his family's honour. This time, though, Draco was avoiding Moody's eyes, his cheeks noticeably pinking, stammering out something about copying memories to bring in to the DLE to prove your innocence — perhaps owling them in, if you suspect the Aurors weren't going to give you time to explain yourself. (The DLE had pensieves for investigative purposes, and the Imperius left enough visible signs that the memory of the event should be proof enough.) Which was, notably, not what his father, or any of the other former Death Eaters who'd made similar claims, had done. His discomfort was obvious enough that even Moody softened somewhat — so far as Moody could ever be called soft, anyway — their classmates throwing him occasional glances over the rest of the period.
Had Draco...learned something about his parents, over the summer? Dorea had always suspected that Draco's strenuous defence of his family's story was, in large part, because he believed it to be true. Which didn't necessarily mean he disagreed with the movement's politics, of course — even many people who did thought an indiscriminate terror campaign to enact them was unacceptable. His reaction to Moody's scenario, though, was...odd. She couldn't help wondering whether Draco hadn't learned, recently, that his father's claims to have been forced were lies. Given how long he'd been insisting the opposite — and that he was friends with Liz now, rumours of the Dark Lord's increasing activity floating around — she could imagine how that revelation might make him uncomfortable.
(Dorea made a mental note to tell Aunt Andi that, if the Dark Lord returned, it was possible that they could get Draco to defect with the right approach, and turned back to the lesson.)
The final scenario they were left with was rather unhelpful. After explaining the circumstances they found themselves in — an abduction scenario, basically — Moody took suggestions of how to deal with it for a few minutes, before cutting them off. There was nothing they could do in that situation, they were already dead. To avoid that sort of thing from happening, they had to keep an eye out for warning signs, and react before it got that far — the only way to protect themselves, he growled, was constant vigilance. And they were dismissed on that note, the class streaming out into the hall stiff and unsettled.
The tense, dark mood gradually broke as they walked, by the time they reached the Grand Staircase conversation starting up again. Walking next to her, Lisa started, "Well, that was..." And then she trailed off, seemingly unsure how to end that sentence.
Dorea gave her a humourless smile. "That was Sir Moody — he's always like that. I've never met him in person before, but my cousin Dora's told me stories."
"You keep calling him Sir Moody," Mandy said. "Shouldn't it be Sir, um..."
"Alastor. And no, Aurors get sir or dame, but mages use surnames with the title."
"Ugh, stupid..." Dorea did sympathise with Mandy, keeping magical and non-magical conventions straight could be a bloody pain.
They continued down the stairs silently for a moment — mostly, anyway, Liz and Tracey were muttering about something, Dorea couldn't hear what from here — when Padma suddenly blurted out, "Oh! I've been meaning to ask, have you seen Hermione recently? She wasn't at Potions this morning, and I didn't see her at lunch."
"She's at the Greenwood," Daphne said. "Her mother gave birth yesterday, Hermione went to join her family."
"Oh, I hadn't heard that." Not that Dorea would expect to, necessarily. She must have been called away after their study group meeting yesterday morning, and the Slytherin and Gryffindor dorms were on opposite ends of the school, so. If she was too occupied to have sent a letter off to her friends about it yet, well, Dorea understood. "Do you know if Emma's okay?"
"I understand it was a difficult birth, but yes, I'm told she'll be fine. And the baby too — Mother says the midwives believe she's a mage as well."
There were a few comments from their friends at that, mostly variations on oh good for her. It could often be difficult for muggleborns, practically having to leave their families behind, so having siblings to join the magical world with them was something. (Not to mention, mages had a significantly longer lifespan than muggles, so even if they did remain in contact with their families, they'd live to see their siblings, nieces and nephews, and likely even grand-nieces and -nephews die of old age, which was hardly a pleasant experience.) Luckily, it was pretty common for full siblings of muggleborns to also be muggleborns — the exceptions were often half-siblings, like in Dorea's case, or the result of the family moving house between one kid and the next. Hermione's parents had moved since she'd been born, but her new baby sister had been conceived and born on the Greenwood, which was a much more magical environment than wherever Hermione's parents had been for her. It really wasn't a surprise that she'd turned out a mage, but still, good news.
Dorea was holding out hope that her new baby sibling would also be magical — Richard wasn't a mage, obviously, but Mum was around much more magic these days than when she'd been with Sam and Ben. Especially since she'd be having the baby at Ancient House this time. Definitely possible, but it was hard to say for sure how likely it was.
"We should send something," Padma said, likely thinking of the traditional gifts some purebloods sent on the birth of a child. The Patils weren't old British purebloods themselves, obviously, but they'd been around long enough to pick up that sort of thing. "Do you know the baby's name?"
"I'm afraid not — Mother sent me a note before Emma was in any state to finalise such a thing."
"Rachael Minerva. Rachael after Emma's great-aunt, Minerva after Daniel's mother." Everyone glanced at Liz, surprised, she shrugged back at them. "Nilanse brought me a letter from Hermione over lunch, yours will probably come in at dinner, or tomorrow."
Dorea didn't know how she felt about Hermione telling Liz about it first. But then, it was possible she hadn't, and Liz had just gotten the news quicker — the Hogwarts wards redirected post to only be delivered at breakfast or sometimes dinner, but Liz's went to her family manor instead, so the elves could get them to her more quickly. And Rock-on-Clyde was somewhere in Wales, a short trip from Anglesey, so Nilanse could have gotten it here long before the owls even reached Hogwarts, regardless of the post wards. Yeah, it probably didn't mean anything, she'd wait to see if she got a letter herself before taking it personally.
"Wait, Hermione's grandmother is named Minerva?"
"That's what I'm told. Well, Athénaïs, technically..."
"That's an odd name for a muggle." A not uncommon name for a pureblood, though, especially in pre-Revolution France — Dorea guessed Tracey was thinking Hermione's grandmother might be a squib. Which, Hermione was muggleborn, so that was definitely possible...but one would think it would have come up after Hermione turned out to be a mage.
"Is that a surprise? 'Hermione' is an odd name for a muggle too, you know."
"Emma likes P.G. Wodehouse, it's a reference."
"Who?"
"Muggle author, never mind."
"I guess we're going to have a lot of people disappearing for a bit coming up," Mandy said. "Sally-Anne and Hermione are already gone, and I guess Lily can just walk to and from the village to visit her parents, but—"
"No, she can't, her parents are at the Greenwood. Aren't they?" Dorea asked Daphne, just to confirm.
She nodded. "Yes, the Moons were happy to accept our invitation. The Ropers are there also, they arrived just a week before we left for school. But, of course, Lily and Sophie can floo back and forth without too much trouble — I expect our friends will come for classes but then return to the Greenwood each night, for perhaps a couple weeks at least. I know Sophie plans to do so, she's already talked to Professor Sprout about it. But I'm not surprised Hermione has decided to stay for a couple days, it was a difficult birth." Daphne tactfully didn't mention the birth defects Hermione had already told Dorea about, not the sort of thing one discussed in public — Hermione might want to stay at least until the procedures to repair those were done with, emotional support, you know.
"I'll probably be flooing back and forth from home too," Lisa said. "The baby's due this weekend, we think. Dorea?"
"Flooing to Ancient House can be a pain — the place is so damn big, it takes forever to get anywhere — but yeah, I'll probably do that too. Though, the midwife thinks it might be a couple weeks yet."
"A couple weeks? Shouldn't they all be born around the same time? Hermione's sister was a little early, but not that much..."
Dorea shrugged. "One of my brothers was late too, it happens. I'm told it's not anything to worry about, she'll come when she comes."
The conversation went on from there, talking about the new baby siblings several of their friends were getting, what would be appropriate to send for gifts. Mandy hadn't heard about the tradition yet, thought it was sweet, so they spent longer going over the basics of the idea than they would have otherwise. Dorea didn't participate much — with the other noble girls in the group, she didn't have much to add, and she honestly didn't know what their family was sending people, Ted was taking care of it — she ended up alone at the front of the pack, with Liz, silently plodding down the stairs. It was rather awkward, as things always were with Liz these days...or, Dorea felt awkward, at least, it never seemed to bother Liz.
Though Liz did seem uncomfortable this time, but Dorea was pretty sure it wasn't about her. They were nearing the Great Hall, when Liz turned to her and said, "There's going to be a lot of baby talk for the next few weeks, isn't there."
Dorea felt her lips twitch. "Months, probably. I'm guessing you're not a fan?" Honestly, she could have guessed that Liz didn't care for infants — she hardly tolerated people their own age most of the time, she expect Liz would just find babies annoying.
"I don't know if I've ever even seen one in person."
...That was hard for Dorea to imagine, honestly, but she guessed Liz didn't have younger siblings, did she? "I'm sure the Grangers would be okay with you visiting them, if you like."
"Ugh. No, I'm good, thanks."
Dorea completely failed to hold in a smile — not that it mattered, really, since Liz would be able to tell what she was feeling anyway. After how dark and tense and unnerving that Defence class had been, but that hadn't bothered Liz at all, she seemed much more discomfited by the thought of seeing a baby. Sometimes Liz was just...
It should probably be concerning that Liz was more comfortable with discussion of the awful things people could do to each other with literally the Unforgivable Curses than she was, just, babies existing, but, Dorea couldn't help it, it was weirdly adorable. As intimidating as Liz could be sometimes, she was also just so very silly.
Dorea was calling it now: Liz was never going to have children. They were only fourteen, but still, she felt very confident in that prediction.
(Honestly, Dorea didn't think that said anything good about Liz as a person — not liking children was kind of a red flag just in principle, she thought — but that ship had already sailed by now.)
Bluuuhhh. Not happy with this chapter, kind of hated writing it the whole way through. But, being sleep deprived probably didn't help — the kittens have been being shits, and the neighbor keeps waking me up with the fucking snow blower, asshole — and sometimes it just goes like that, so fuck it. Kind of an odd ending, but the original plan was for this to be the first half of a chapter, and I know that, so maybe that's why it feels off to me? Whatever. Next one should be pretty short too, so I might have it relatively quickly again, we'll have to see.
And then the scene after that should also be short, but the one after that should be a more me length. The one after that will either be really long or really short, depending on how I decide to frame it. I'm leaning toward the short version, honestly, but we'll see. So, if all goes well, we'll be at the start of the tournament pretty quickly, actually. Here's hoping.
I know there were things in this scene I was planning on commenting on, but they completely slipped my mind. So, um, see you all next time, then. Bye.