Marauders - Always - Part One

She Needs a Friend

Frank Longbottom stood to one side of the Auror Training Center's main room, stretching and listening to McKenna Johnston talking. She'd gone on a particularly awful date the night before with a muggle man that was, as she put it, "threepence short of a shilling". McKenna sighed heavily as she got to the end of a long winded description of the entire evening, "And so I just fell into my bed and tried like hell to sleep but my brain would simply not shut off, whatever I tried, so I'm tired as bloody hell today! And of course its our first day with this training."

Frank nodded, "Well the bloke sounds like a tosser anyway, you're better off knowing it up front and not years from now, when you're stuck in some relationship you're not happy in, yeah?"

"It's just so difficult, dating," McKenna replied. "You're so lucky you found Alice in school. You avoided all this rubbish."

Frank nodded, "I know."

McKenna was about to reply back when the doors of the training room banged open and Mr. Underhill entered, magically towing along several life size fighting dummies that he sent levitating about the room so they seemed to be standing like actual men. He cleared his throat and the aurors lining the walls of the large room turned to pay attention, stopping their various forms of stretches to prepare for the training session.

"Morning everybody," he muttered, voice amplified magically. There was a general mumbled reply back and he waved his wand at a large board at the front of the room, a bit of chalk running boldly across it. "All of you know what we are here for and why, the circumstances and who ordered this, so there's no reason for me to get into all of that. Instead, let's get right to business." He drew a deep breath.

"The incantation that we will be learning today and training for over the next week is an intense curse, created specifically for the purpose of this administration, and can only be cast by registered wands, preventing it from being unchecked and uncontrolled. When a trainee has shown sufficient understanding of the spell, his or her wand will be registered and any use of the spell will be traced by the Ministry and the use of the spell will automatically be followed up by a Ministry investigation." Underhill recited this as though he had memorized it, one hand in his trouser pocket as he paced nervously across the front of the room.

"The spell is legal only for the purpose of killing known criminals as labeled by the Ministry for Magic as kill on sight offenders. This is not something to be used in all self defensive situations, nor against just any criminals, even known Death Eaters. This curse is not intended to replace a fair trial. It is a killing curse - and just as heinous as the avada."

McKenna frowned, and Frank shifted uncomfortably.

"Not all of us in the Department feel that this curse is necessary - or even that it should be taught - but here we are." Underhill shrugged and the chalk clicked as it hit the eraser tray and it spun over magically for the aurors to see.

Mortesfinite.

He stood staring at the spell written out on the board, then turned 'round to face them again.

"This is a silently performed curse. Points will be taken away for speaking it out loud as well as for any movement of the lip while casting. You will not be registered as having completed this mandatory training until the spell can be performed satisfactorily without any outward indication of the magic being worked. This spell will remain confidential by penalty of the dementor's kiss."

Underhill waved a palm around the room. "The dummies you see floating about are the only things in the room that will accept the curse. In each dummie there is a sensor which will report if the magic was strong enough to take the life of the theoretical human being being executed."