Vocabulary Lesson

He liked the sound of them.

He supposed that he shouldn't. Knew that he shouldn't. But there was something about those forbidden spells - something about the Unforgivables that no other spells, no other curses could even come near. It wasn't even their power that seduced him. He knew that there were other ways to get what he wanted, other ways that weren't even forbidden by a Ministry that only looked to textbooks for the uses of spells. So under ordinary circumstances, he would have simply learned them, filed them away, and then moved on to the next thing.

It was the sound that did him in.

No. Not the sound. It was the feel. The syllables that rolled off the tongue in a cruel, elegant stream. He loved the way they fit together, the way everything finally made sense as a hapless rat writhed under his wand with a single spoken word: Crucio.

That was the one he liked to say the most. It required finesse, not to mention subtlety, in order to pronounce it correctly, and it pleased him that he could. It had to be said with dignity. Grace, even. It couldn't be the simple, stumbling hybrid of three different syllables, or the spell wouldn't work; it couldn't be "crew-she-oh," but crucio. One elegant syllable, sliding from the tongue and ripping through the body of whoever it was aimed at. He supposed that it was wrong to enjoy the sight of the rat's pain so much, but it wasn't really the pain he was enjoying, so it was probably all right. It wasn't the pain, but the sound of the incantation that he loved. He liked the sound of it.

The Imperius Curse was more prosaic-sounding. Imperio. Not in the same league as the Cruciatus Curse, aesthetics-wise - but really, comparing them was a bit like preferring one brand of gourmet chocolate to another. He would take them both. Maybe both at the same time, if that was at all possible; he'd have to look into that. And maybe with a Memory Charm or Confundus Charm thrown in for good measure... yes, that would work very well. He'd definitely have to look into that. But for now, he could settle for the precise command of imperio.

That one had to be said exactly. Control was utterly necessary, so it would never bring as much of a thrill as the Cruciatus. But that was all right; there was still a great deal of enjoyment to be found in holding another mind - this time a rat, but maybe a human mind next time, he wondered what that would be like - hostage to the precisely-spoken syllables of a well-cast imperio. Come to think of it, he liked the sound of that one better than he'd thought. It wasn't the control he liked, though - he wasn't some kind of dictator - but the stiff-fluid pronunciation of the incantation. He liked the sound of it.

Avada Kedavra, by contrast, was almost brutal in the directness of its pronunciation. There was no slurring here; there was no possibility that this incantation might ever have less than six syllables, each starkly enunciated. It had taken far more practice to master how to say this spell than it had for either crucio or imperio. But that was all right, really, because once he understood, it was his forever. And there was a certain amount of primitive joy to having the power of life and death at the tip of his well-schooled tongue. It would have been worth twice the amount of practice to gain that.

He often wondered why they didn't teach them in school. Didn't the fools realize what was going to waste here? Squeamish, probably, and afraid of the spells; they probably didn't want their little darlings' fragile minds exposed to such - he sneered - horrible things. But now that he had tasted them on his tongue, he would never let them go. They were his - his to do whatever he wanted. They weren't evil. They were strong and good. Beautiful, even.

And he liked the sound of them.