May the Best Man Win |×| Fred Weasley | 1 |×|

×| FORTY-THREE |×

EVELYN HAD ONLY EVER HEARD OF THE UNFORGIVABLE CURSES IN PASSING. When her father talked about the first war or any war really from wizarding history, the most he'd say about them was their basic function. If someone had asked her that morning what suffering each curse could befall on its victim she could only have answered in simple terms; there was one curse for pain, one curse for control and one curse for death. Then she'd walked into the defence against the dark arts classroom wondering what the new professor would teach as part of the N.E.W.T class only to find herself staring at a blackboard with the much more complex definitions of the same evil spells.

Evelyn was rather glad she'd sat with Nikki towards the back of the classroom rather than at the front where Ethan was sitting with another girl from Slytherin. It meant she was further placed from the wrath of Professor Moody who furiously scribbled notes and incantations on the blackboard, continuously referencing to his experience with the curses and how grumbling that he really wasn't supposed to be teaching them this early in the year, but found them too important a subject to push until the summer. He said that Dumbledore found most students to immature at this stage to cope with such information - which was apparently a load of codswallop.

"Imagine that Harry Potter wasn't so damn lucky all the time. You don't want he who must not be named to return and not know what he's doing to you, do you now?" Moody growled at them, holding the class in a silence of respect and intimidation in a way that only McGonagall could rival, "The way everything's going with this Triwizard tournament and all, some of you might even experience the use of these spells soon enough." His enchanted eye swivelled around the room passing through each student in turn. When his gaze reached Evelyn she shrank down into her chair, a sick feeling rising in her stomach that only subsided when finally the stare moved on back to the blackboard.

"Now can any of you lot tell me the name of any of these three curses?" Moody barked. Silence was thick in the air, no hushed sniggering coming even from Fred and George who sat in the corner on the other side of the room. Evelyn tried her best not to make eye contact with the professor as her insides began to churn again. It was a long minute before somebody finally spoke up, breaking into the tension in the room.

"The imperious curse." The suggestion came extremely quietly, as if whoever had said it didn't want to disturb someone or something. Evelyn doubted they'd ever find out who it was that spoke up, not that it mattered - she'd soon forgotten the quiet statement as she found herself squirming at the sight of Professional Moody taking a spidery creature from a jar on his desk. He seemed to have many Such creatures on display and Evelyn grimaced as the wondered what he could possibly be taking one of the creepy crawlies out of the safety of the jar for.

"The imperious curse, indeed." Moody said, lifting the creature into the air with a flick of his wand so that is floated eerily, spindly legs clawing at the nothingness, "Surely a lot of you have heard of it. There was a lot of trouble in the ministry around this particular curse around the time of You Know Who's uprising. A load of Ministry workers claiming they'd been under the influence, not really part of the ranks. They said they'd been controlled by him."

Moody uttered the curse gruffly, and Evelyn understood why he'd taken the spidery thing from its home. Moody had the creature zooming about the classroom, scuttling over the cold stone floor and doing flips over students desks. There was a mass of screaming as the professor instructed his victim to jump from head to head of some of the class (when it landed on Ethan's hair the boy squeaked like a mouse and scrambled to stand in a vain attempt to remove it from his head. He was then promptly told to "get a grip Mr. Patterson" by professor Moody who proceeded to have the animal swing from a Thestral skull that hung just above Lee Jordan's head.)

Evelyn jumped when the spider was sent to her and Nikki's desk where it tapdanced over her parchment in an unnatural way. Evelyn heard half-suppressed cackles coming from Fred and George's direction, presumably brought on by Ethan's squealing and her jump. Apparently Moody had noticed their laughter too, because soon the creature was ordered away from Evelyn.

"Think she's funny do you?" Moody asked the twins directly with an uncharacteristically large grin on his weathered face. He forced the spider to crawl over George's face - who's back stiffened and who's laugh subsided quickly whilst Fred's only grew louder - and then to begin to climb into Fred's ear, making him yelp and topple off of the bench and onto the floor. At that, everyone in the room burst out in laughter, and even the professor chuckled briefly before a dark look spread over his face, "it's all fun and games right? Even if I have her jump out of the window?" He levitated the spider to the window ledge to illustrate his point, "Drown herself?" He did the same above a glass of water before lowering the creature back to his desk.

"I'm glad that's over." Evelyn whispered to Nikki once she thought the professor wasn't looking, forgetting that the man could literally see out the back of his head.

"What's that Miss Fortescue?" Came the gruff voice of mad-eye moody as he stomped over to her. Evelyn froze for a second, mouth hanging open like a fish out of water, until Nikki slapped her on the elbow to break her trance.

"Nothing, Sir." She said quietly, daring not to make eye contact with the looming professor.

"Is that so. Then you wouldn't mind telling us the name of another one of our curses would you, Miss Fortescue?"

Evelyn paused. Both spells that hadn't been mentioned were equally disgusting and cruel. She'd never want to see either inflicted on anybody, but judging by the spider that Moody had brought to her desk, whatever she offered as an answer would be demonstrated in front of her very eyes.

"The Cruciatus curse..." She tried nervously. Perhaps it would be the lesser of the evils.

"Very good. The answer, that is. The curse itself -" he pointed his wand at the spidery thing and spoke the incantation, "cannot be described as such, as I'm sure you can very well see." The spider started screeching and writhed in its place on the desk in agony. Spindle legs contracted sharply, body arching, shuddering helplessly, in the silence of the classroom every scratch it made across the table was like a boom of thunder.

Evelyn shrank into herself again, away from the tortured creature, as though being near it would cause her to be caught by its pain. She could feel Moody's eye leering at her, could feel the contorted grin that formed on the professor's grizzled face. For the longest time he kept his wand trained to the creature, spouting comments to the class in his roughened growl although Evelyn failed to listen to them. Her attention was taken by horror at the evil taking place inches before her.

Finally, Moody relented, and the spidery thing slowly wriggled off the remains of its agony. Then Moody, seemingly satisfied with the demonstration, asked the class for the final spell.

Nobody answered him.

Professor Moody scoffed at them. "Cowards," he called them. "The last one is easy," he said.

A little flash of green shot from the end of his wand and the spidery creature, that had barely gotten back to its feet, stilled and shriveled like a leaf in the winter, suddenly effortlessly calm. There was no screeching. No writhing. Just rest and quietness in death.

And it was then, on that unassuming autumn day in the defence against the dark arts classroom, that Evelyn decided on the worst thing. The thing that truly made those curses unforgivable: they were not only evil to their victims, but, in a different capacity, to the witnesses as well.

Thank Merlin she'd not have to see one used again ever in her life, Evelyn thought, as the professor swept the cheated creature to the ground and crushed it with his wooden leg as he made his way back to the front of the class to scribble on the blackboard.