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“Sebastian!” says the new student, bounding up to him in the DADA tower. “I killed like seven Ashwinders today! It was amazing, I used Crucio twice.”
Sebastian blinks and looks around. A few other students are wandering around the halls, so he leans in close.
“Yeah?” he asks in a low voice.
The new student is nodding brightly. “It worked really well.”
Sebastian wonders briefly if he should find it interesting as he does, but, well. Ashwinders are a blight and none of them deserve to live. Right?
And Crucio can be useful. Right?
He just… won’t tell Ominis.
“Go on,” Sebastian presses.
“I was hunting trolls, you see,” the new student begins, which makes Sebastian snort. Of course, his friend the troll slayer, at it again. “And I spotted a camp nearby. They attacked me first, you understand…”
“They always do,” Sebastian nods.
“I was a bit tired and wanted to get out of there, so the first thing that came to my mind was Imperio.”
Sebastian inhales sharply. Oh my, now this is getting quite intriguing.
“And I, erm, was looking through some spell books the other day, and I learned something about curses, and how they can spread. If I Imperio someone and tell them to help me fight, they can spread the curse to others too, and then everyone’s pain is connected.”
“Their pain is what? Where did you learn this?”
“The restricted section somewhere,” his friend waves off. “Anyway, I wanted to try it, so I Imperio’d one of them first, and then let them spread the pain curse around. And there were a lot of them! They all ganged up on me. So I used Crucio on another, to take him out of the fight for a minute, and that spreads the curse too–”
“You have to teach me that,” Sebastian interjects.
“Sure. The Undercroft later?”
“No, Ominis might show up.”
His friend nods sagely. “Maybe just come out with me to the forest. Let’s go after dark tonight.”
Sebastian is certain he will not be able to pay attention in Charms class later. “What happened next?”
“Well, I could use the pain curse to kill almost all of them at once. Hurting one hurt the others. So once the first group was gone, more of them appeared, and they were angry. One of them was a wolf animagus! She was lightning-fast, I couldn’t handle both her and the others, so I Crucio’d her too. While she was occupied, the others were much easier.”
Sebastian releases his held breath. “I knew it! It’s a good spell to know.”
“It is!”
“They were going to kill you first, right? Self-defense.”
“Well, I could’ve ran.”
The two stare at each other for a beat.
“But then they would’ve just kept terrorizing people. They might’ve killed someone else. Right?” Sebastian asks.
“Right,” his friend responds.
Sebastian nods to himself. “And... you tried Imperio too? How did it feel?”
His friend looks up at the ceiling in thought. “It was… different. I don’t normally think about spellcasting that way. I think ‘attack, stay alive,’ not ‘command,’ you know? But once I thought about it that way, it wasn’t actually too hard. I was surprised how easily it came.”
“If you want them, they’re not hard at all,” agrees Sebastian.
“I didn’t ask him to attack his friends, really, but I needed protection, so that’s what he did. I wasn’t able to hold it for very long, but luckily by the time he broke out of it, he was pretty hurt from the pain curse, so a Diffindo could finish him off.”
A pair of students come to their corner to sit on an open bench, chatting loudly about Potions class. Sebastian and the new kid quiet down. They sit in contemplative silence for a bit, staring at the wall, and Sebastian absorbs everything he's just learned.
The new fifth year has, to a degree, been his saving grace this year. Anne’s absence from school is sharp and lonely, and Ominis just doesn’t quite understand a lot of things. But this student?
Not only have they been there for Sebastian, but it seems like new rumors about them circulate around school every week. Supposedly, they rescued Adelaide Oakes’s missing uncle, and braved a cursed tomb to help Samantha Dale’s brother. Natty Onai says they helped her free a hippogriff from a poacher camp. Poppy Sweeting says they infiltrated an underground dragon-fighting ring together. And that's not even touching on the whole 'ancient magic' thing.
It’s a bit insane. Where did this kid come from?
He bets no one else knows about this though. He’s not going to spread the rumor that they experiment with Crucio in their free time. It’s a secret that only he gets to be in on. They came and told him, after all.
“The fewer Ashwinders about, the better,” Sebastian says resolutely.
His friend smiles. “I think so too.”
“Well done, Ashwinder-slayer.”
“Heh. Maybe don’t say that one out loud.”
“Right, troll slayer it is. Did you even kill the troll?”
“I did! Actually, I used Crucio on it too. Those things are really sturdy and I needed to catch my breath.”
Brilliant. Sebastian finds himself smiling too.
Dark magic doesn’t have to be untouchable and scary, like everyone thinks. It’s not like Ashwinders can be reasoned with. And seven of them! His friend had no choice but to kill them. No, it was heroic, really.
Sometimes murder really is the only way to get the job done.