The Task

Chapter 11: The Dark Arts

Hermione felt a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. What on earth had she done? She'd successfully found a way to escape the castle without permission from the headmaster. To top it off, it was the darkest route out, to use the darkest spell where it would tap into the realm of the dead, to use that world as a medium and escape the strongest enchantments placed in these walls, and then to return to the living world, Hermione felt a terrible chill at the thought of it. Malfoy said he wanted to transport something more than a message, something bigger. Hermione pondered on what that could be. She also thought about informing Dumbledore about Malfoy's actions, and she was almost ready to tell when a terrifying thought stopped her. What would happen to Malfoy if he was caught? What would Voldemort do to him? As much as Hermione hated Malfoy, she would not wish the wrath of Voldemort onto her worst enemy.

She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling of her dormitory. Everyone was fast asleep but she could not get her eyelids to drop at all that night. A rush of wind was whistling outside, Hermione could feel the pressure of it worm its way in through the small cracks of the window. She shivered under her covers. Hermione rose from her bed and went down to the common room, next to the fireplace. She set it roaring with flames and absorbed the warmth that flooded her. She sat on the floor; her chin rested on her knees with her arms wrapped around them. If Malfoy were to ask her for more help, which he inevitably would, she'd have to refuse. At least if he used the imperius curse on her, she would not be responsible for her actions. It was clear Malfoy needed someone to help him through this task, whatever it was, and since Hermione knew enough, he chose her to be his partner in crime. She felt sick that she could be involving herself in such dark magic. However, something Malfoy had said earlier was rattling her thoughts.

"So, you don't find them enticing?"

How could Malfoy think that Hermione would find the dark arts enticing? If he asked Hermione that question, did that mean he was drawn to the dark arts? At first Hermione thought Draco was obligated to use the dark arts, because that was how Voldemort and his followers carried out spells. But after Malfoy had asked her if she found them enticing, she was not so sure he was being forced into it, as if at some point, he was enjoying it. That did explain the hungry glimmer that appeared in his eyes when he got a dark spell right, or had accomplished the task at hand. Hermione was reading some things on the dark arts and so many of them followed with grotesque true stories.

She had read an introduction to a book in the restricted section about fighting off dark arts, the pages were printed onto her mind as she recalled the text:

"The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible."

A mutation of spells that only get cleverer, Hermione thought and she continued to think that having sent that bird into the death world and back into the living must have sprouted a great deal of branches to enable it to fly between. One powerful beam, followed by a thousand more for it to weave its way around the obstacles it would face in the land of the dead. So many options, easily avoided, hence the dark arts were the most powerful spells of all. Yet they were an easier incantation to master. In order to produce powerful magic that did not go beyond the magical limits, it would take years of experience to hone such a skill, and an arduous study of the wand. To be able to use loopholes within the bounds of magical law, to be creative with it, to become someone with that skill, one would have to become Albus Dumbledore. It'd take the wisdom of attaining a great age to defeat the darkest and most powerful of magic, lawfully. Hermione's thoughts were running wild with the allure of the art behind magic, behind all types of magic, including the dark arts. Just because it was dark magic, did not mean she could not admire how it worked. To push the boundaries of magic itself was a harrowing thing, and that would require even more intelligence and skill, to go beyond was to create and to draw one's own line to their own spells. The rules were scrapped and a blank canvas was given for a wizard or witch to paint whatever they wished. Hermione could finally understand why Malfoy would find this kind of magic enticing, because it was, very enticing indeed. Was that horrible feeling at the pit of her stomach about casting the spell or how it made her feel to cast it with success?

With that being Hermione's last thought, her eyelids shut into a deep sleep in front of the roaring fire of the Gryffindor common room.