The Unforgivable Curses

The dormitory was just as she remembered it, with hardly anything changed. A thin layer of dust had settled on the textbooks Cersei and she had piled on their desks before leaving school.

The common room was bustling. Cedric and another Hufflepuff Prefect were leading the first-years to their dormitories.

Dumbledore had spoken to Cedric alone at the end of the feast. No one knew what the two had said, but when Cedric caught up with the rest of them on their way back, he was visibly happier.

Lying in bed, Clara began thinking about the letter Professor Dumbledore had written her before term started.

Professor Dumbledore certainly seemed capable of resolving her confusion and answering her questions, and of clearing up the mysteries she had failed to see through.

She felt she should find time to visit the Headmaster's Office, too. After all, the matter of Sectumsempra still hadn't been resolved. Since he had said as much in his letter, Professor Dumbledore would probably be willing to see her.

Oh, and wasn't there the Gabriel Protective Charm? Surely Professor Dumbledore would know what that was, too?

If both questions could be answered, she would be one step closer to the truth.

Oh, right, she also needed to find Cedric. Now that they knew the outcome, doing nothing about it definitely wasn't either of their styles. She had been so caught up in her thoughts at dinner that she hadn't asked him about it yet.

The new timetable for the term was posted on the noticeboard outside the Great Hall after breakfast the next day.

Fortunately, there was only one Potions Class with Professor Snape, on Tuesday.

"Lyla, did you know? Lots of people say Professor Snape has always wanted to teach Defence Against Dark Magic Class, but apparently he's never managed it." Rowle held her arm as he spoke in a low voice.

"Hufflepuff, five points from your house for disrespecting a teacher!"

Before Clara could answer, Snape's voice sounded behind them. It slithered up their spines like a cold snake.

Rowle froze on the spot, his nails nearly digging into Clara's sleeve.

When did he get here?! Doesn't he make any noise when he walks?

Clara turned around and met Snape's perpetually cool expression, then watched him leave.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed five yellow sapphires falling in Hufflepuff's hourglass in the Great Hall.

Looking as though he was about to die, Rowle stared at the fallen gems, wanting to cry but unable to shed a tear. A few Slytherins nearby laughed with delight. Rowle glared at them and pulled Clara away in a huff.

"You might really have hit a sore spot, Rowle." Once they had reached a deserted corner, Clara patted him on the shoulder and comforted him. "After all, it's as if our school's Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor position is cursed. They change every year, but it still hasn't been his turn."

But as soon as she said it, she felt something was strange.

Why did she feel as though she had taken his Defence Against Dark Magic Class?

No, that wasn't right. He had been the Potions Professor on every timetable from her first year through her fifth. She couldn't have remembered that wrong.

Strange images suddenly began appearing before her eyes.

Her head started hurting again.

Just like that night at the Quidditch World Cup, it was as if something were pounding violently against the inside of her skull, trying to break through a locked door.

She braced one hand against the stone wall, her fingertips pressing against the rough surface, her knuckles turning slightly white.

Snape was standing in his empty dungeon? It was the Potions classroom, the one crammed with bottles and jars, but now it was very empty.

Three wooden figures moved in front of him.

Then came green, purple and red light.

A buzzing filled her ears, mixed with the sound of spells she couldn't make out clearly.

"Lyla? Lyla, what's wrong? Should I take you to the Hospital Wing?"

Rowle's voice came from far away, growing closer and pulling her out of the dim dungeon. Clara came to her senses and found Rowle holding her arm, his brow tightly furrowed.

"Oh, Merlin, I'm fine. It's the same headache I had at the Quidditch World Cup." Clara leaned against a pillar to recover for a while, waiting until the images before her eyes had completely faded before taking a deep breath.

She rubbed her temples and muttered under her breath, as if speaking to Rowle and reminding herself at the same time, "I really should go see Professor Dumbledore."

"I'll go with you after class today."

"No, there's no need, Rowle. This might be a little complicated, and I don't want to involve you."

"But..."

"Trust me, Rowle. I can handle it on my own."

"All right." Rowle didn't insist, tacitly accepting her decision. "Oh, right, Lyla, did you get a tattoo?"

"Huh?" Clara was a little bewildered.

Rowle took her left hand and pushed up her sleeve. There was nothing there.

"That's strange. I definitely saw a tattoo like a bracelet here just now, and it was glowing."

Clara shook her head. "It's fine. I'll tell the professor about it. Thank you, Rowle. I hadn't noticed it at all until now."

But before she had time to visit the headmaster, there was another potentially difficult task she had to complete.

Professor Moody's Defence Against Dark Magic Class.

Oh, Merlin, why did they have this class on the very first day of term??? She didn't even have time to visit Professor Dumbledore before class.

With a new professor, the classroom on the fourth floor had once again taken on a new style for the year.

She had to admit, seeing the design of the Defence Against Dark Magic Class classroom each year was like opening a mystery box, but the annual renovations did make it look a little newer than the other classrooms.

Professor Moody was most likely a practical sort. Three empty cages stood in front of the first row of seats.

Clara chose a seat near the back and put her textbook on the desk. Rowle sat beside her, staring nervously at the cages and muttering, "Please don't let it be spiders, please don't let it be spiders."

The other Hufflepuff students filed in, each unconsciously going around the three cages as they passed the front row, as if avoiding some ominous premonition.

Moody emerged from behind the lectern, leaning on his walking stick, his wooden leg tapping a dull rhythm on the stone floor.

His magical eye spun around, sweeping over the entire classroom before settling on the cages in the front row.

"Put your textbooks away." His voice was rough and low. "You've already studied quite a few dark creatures-Boggarts, Red Caps, Kappas. They'll earn you a few marks on your O.W.L. Exams, but in the real world they're worthless."

He paused, and his magical eye spun around again before settling on a spot near the back of the classroom. Clara felt the eye linger on her for an instant and lowered her head. It worked; her head didn't hurt.

"Today, we'll talk about the illegal curses, because those are what you might encounter in the real world. Does anyone know which ones they are?"

The classroom was quiet for a few seconds, with only a few Slytherin students exchanging glances.

"The three Unforgivable Curses. The Imperius Curse, the Cruciatus Curse and the Killing Curse."

Clara's lips moved, and she spoke almost instinctively. The three names slipped out of her mouth, not loudly, but enough for everyone to hear.

Moody's false eye swung sharply toward her and fixed on her.

"Very good," he said, a trace of approval in his voice that was hard to detect. He came down from the lectern and walked over to her, his wooden leg striking the stone floor harder than before.

"What's your name?"

"Clara Albert." She had to raise her head as a sign of respect.

Her eyes met Moody's, and the moment she saw his false eye, her head felt as though it had been pricked by a needle again.

A dull ache began in her head, but she forced herself to sit up straight, her fingers clutching the edge of her robes beneath the desk.

"Ten points to Hufflepuff. Miss Albert, I can see you've read a great deal." Moody seemed not to notice her discomfort. He turned and strode back to the lectern, then waved his wand, and the black cloths covering the three cages flew back into the cupboard on their own.

There was a spider in each of the three cages.

Rowle let out a wail, but Clara seemed not to hear him, nor did she notice what was happening at the front of the classroom.

Had she read a book about the Unforgivable Curses? Why did she have no memory of it at all?

The strange feeling made her think of the spell Sectumsempra again.

Muscle memory? Why do I have these muscle memories?

"Miss Albert, please don't get carried away with yourself just because you answered the question. Raise your head."

Clara forced herself to look up from the desk and meet Moody's eyes again, pulling her lips into an unnatural smile. Her headache intensified, the dull ache turning into a sharp, stabbing pain, as if a needle were repeatedly piercing her temple.

But she didn't dare look away again so soon. If the professor called on her twice in the first lesson on the first day of term and she still wouldn't look up, who knew what her classmates might notice?

"Very good. Now, let's demonstrate these three curses." Moody turned to the cages holding the spiders and pointed his wand at the first one.

Clara watched the first spider crawl out of its cage after being placed under the Imperius Curse and perform an eerie dance on the desk. Her vision began to blur, a misty veil covering her eyes.

She heard Rowle muttering beside her, "That's so cruel," but his voice grew more and more distant.

She heard her own heartbeat, faster and louder.

She seemed to have come to the dungeon.

A figure in black stood on the other side of the desk, where three cages had also been placed, each covered with a black cloth.

"The Ministry of Magic has classified three curses as 'Unforgivable Curses.'" The black cloth was lifted, revealing a fat gray rat trembling in a corner of the cage. "The Imperius Curse-complete control over a person's will."

He spoke the spell, and the rat performed a dance before her.

He walked over to the second cage and lifted the black cloth. Inside was a spider the size of a palm, lying in the middle of its web.

"The Cruciatus Curse."

The man raised his wand without the slightest pause, but his voice was a little softer than before. "Crucio."

The spider curled sharply into a ball, all its legs twitching. It rolled around the bottom of the cage, its body shaking violently.

He walked over to the third cage and placed his hand on the black cloth, but did not lift it immediately.

"The Killing Curse." His voice grew lower. "The most unforgivable of them all. No countercurse, no defence, no cure. Once it hits, death is instantaneous."

He lifted the black cloth. This cage also contained a rat, smaller than the first, with messy gray fur.

"Wait." She heard herself speak. "Professor, do you have to... do you have to kill it?"

The man did not answer her.

A flash of green light passed, and the last spider in front of Professor Moody twitched once on the desk at the front of the classroom, then lay still.

She had heard the incantation for the Avada Killing Curse before, but when? She couldn't remember.

But she felt as though that green light had passed through the classroom, shooting from the front all the way to her seat and striking her in the chest.

Her headache exploded at that instant. It was as though someone were cutting into her brain with a blunt knife, stronger and more uncontrollable than any time before.

She felt as if she had fallen out of her seat, and there was a point of dazzling light on her left wrist.

She heard Rowle cry out, but no matter what she did, she couldn't speak. In the last second before the world went dark, she saw the spider lying on the desk.

It reminded her of Cedric in that dream.