分卷阅读11（2 / 2）

“Put away what you want,” Lucius Malfoy started, watching as students began stuffing books away. “I am going to talk and you are going to listen, and you will have to use your own intelligence as to whether or not you will be tested on what I am going to inform you of by your normal teacher.”

Quills and parchment began appearing back on the desks.

“Now I have no idea what in the name of all things magical your Professor has you studying, nor do I want to know, Miss Granger so kindly put your hand down.”

Harry and Ron exchanged looks. Snape had obviously been taught something by Lucius Malfoy sometime in his life for their lecturing methods to be so similar.

“For this class period we are going to talk about curses and the effects thereof. I won’t spend time on the Unforgivables as I’ve heard those were dealt with in your Fourth Year, except to say that they are becoming somewhat of a cliché. Now those three curses were singled out by the Ministry out of the hundred and seventeen curses that might have been selected as Unforgivables. Why? Because they were popular. It’s easy as snapping your fingers to cast Cruciatus on someone if you hate them, and Imperius gets to be a walk in the park if you use it enough to become familiar with it. But the rest of the hundred and seventeen are much harder to maintain and have somewhat gruesome effects, therefore they were not used as often. However, this makes them more appealing as the years move on, as they are not Unforgivable, and the punishment for using one of them on another creature is merely a tongue lashing by some Ministry official who doesn’t know what he’s talking about to begin with and no amount of time in Azkaban at all. Now, as all of the Unforgivables have a weak spot—Cruciatus becomes ineffective as one’s mind blocks out the pain in order to save one’s sanity, the Imperius counts on the fact that your victim of choice has little to no will power, and as long as someone else gets in the way of the Killing Curse when its thrown at you, you’re safe—so do these other curses have weak spots that can be exploited if you know what is coming towards you.”

“Can you believe he got all 117 curses into one class period?” Ron groaned as he nursed his writing hand in the Common Room.

“You think this is bad? Can you imagine if he were to become the permanent Defense Teacher?” Harry groaned.

“That was the most informative class I’ve ever had,” Hermione pointed out. “More than half of those curses aren’t archived in our library except in the Restricted Section.”

“Bloody amazing,” Ron muttered sarcastically.

“Did you notice that Malfoy didn’t write anything at all?” Harry wondered out loud.

“Which one?” Ron muttered from where he had been attempting to wallow in pity for the most certain loss of a limb after all those notes.

“Draco.”

“I did,” Hermione spoke thoughtfully. “But do you know something even more strange? He was mouthing the names of the curses two words before his father said them.

“As if he’s heard that particular lecture before?” Ron asked.

“Exactly.”

“Well I guess that’s something I can ask him when I have to meet him to go find bloody potions ingredients in the Forest,” Harry muttered. “Might make for good conversation.”

Ron patted his shoulder sympathetically before realizing he was using his “injured” hand to do so and returned to self pity.

“It can’t be that bad—” Hermione started to say but the looks from the two boys silenced her.