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“Hey everyone! This is Ares Black with another episode of Dark Arts Live: Exploring the Dark Side, I'm glad to see everyone here. We've got an interesting episode tonight based on a question from last night's chat. That question was “What makes some spells Dark while other spells that do the exact same thing are considered Light?” and the answer is…. drumroll please… I have no fucking clue! Well, that's not totally true, I actually did some research and asked a few people like I always do, and the real answer appears to be that our government is criminally incompetent and just bans spells that are regularly used against them. That's it. That's all I found. So in order to give you a better answer, I'll be casting similar spells from each side of the spectrum and discussing them live with you tonight. I'll also keep an eye on the chat in case any of you can think of a set of spells I missed, or if you are casting along with me, if you notice something I didn't about them. As always, you should only cast along with me if you are over-age, behind sufficient wards to hide the trace, or want a nice long visit with the dementors!”
He paused to double check his half-mask and hood were still firmly in place before continuing.
“Our first set of spells will be the severing charm diffindo which I'm sure you all learned back in third year, and its most commonly used dark variant caesa. The caesa curse, or cutting curse in case your Latin isn't very good, was declared a dark spell in 1722 when it became popular amongst criminals for its superior cutting ability. For those of you who know Latin, you may have noticed it could also be translated to slaughter or kill, and that's exactly what it was designed to do. Not for killing people, though it presumably does work on them as well, but for killing livestock. If cast properly it makes a cut approximately four inches deep and a foot long, but it can be overpowered much like a diffindo to make a larger cut. Unlike a diffindo it doesn't scale downwards, if you cast it with less power it will just fizzle. Another thing it has in common with your everyday severing charm is the wand movement. The movement is a simple slashing motion in the direction you wish the cut to appear.”
He continued to explain the function of the spell along with how to cast it before casting both spells multiple times at his test dummy positioned behind him so it would remain in the camera's view.
“I think it's safe to say caesa is not a dark spell, just an illegal one. Did anyone else get anything different? Anyone feel any of that delicious dark tingle? No? Me either.”
A flood of negative responses and emojis filled the chat, which he had projected on the wall behind the camera before a longer message caught his eye. He blinked hard a few times before reading it out loud for his viewers.
“Well, it looks like we've either got someone with a death wish, or our local dark lord, for those of you in Britain at least, has chimed in with a truly dark cutting curse. The message, from a viewer named You-Know-Who reads “Caesa is a delightful little cutting curse, but for a truly dark cutting curse, you should try sectumsempra. It has the same wand motion but the results speak for themselves.” Well what do you say, chat? Do I give it a go?”
A wave of thumbs up and positive responses flooded the chat while he prepared himself to cast the curse he'd only used once before. He still felt bad about using it on Malfoy, but he couldn't wait to feel the rush of dark magic again. With a flourish he cast it at the training dummy, once again blown away by just how effective it was. Massive sword-like slashes appeared at odd angles across the dummy and he swayed as a wave of dark magic swept through him.
“Woah! That one really packs a punch. That is definitely a dark curse, and let me tell you a secret. That little spell isn't on any Ministry banned list, at least not yet. It probably will be after tonight since I'm sure we've got a Ministry lurker or two watching the stream, but for the next few months until our darling corrupt leaders can add it to the books? Still totally legal! So have fun with that one, and thank you to You-Know-Who for the suggestion!”
The next hour was spent in much the same fashion, testing spells of both light and dark, as well as the many not-so-dark but still illegal spells he had found in the Black library with regular recommendations from You-Know-Who. He was pretty sure it really was Voldemort based on some of the recommendations, but he dutifully cast each one. By the end of the stream he was higher on dark magic than he had been the night he'd tried the unforgivables on conjured rats.
The whole streaming thing had honestly been an accident. He'd come back from a surprisingly boring sixth year ready to spend his first full summer with his godfather when he'd discovered the location of the much talked about, but previously impossible to locate, Black library. As any somewhat rebellious teen would do, he'd decided to look around and see if he couldn't get answers to some questions that had been bothering him for years. Stuff like “What actually is dark magic?” and “Why the hell did my light-side muggleborn mother use dark-as-fuck blood-magic to protect me?” along those same lines were questions about why Dumbledore of all people had used blood-wards on his aunt’s house, and how they could possibly still be functional after Voldemort used his fucking blood to come back.
He'd gotten most of his answers, and became a bit more curious than was totally healthy, so he'd decided to try out some of the spells, but thinking himself smart, he'd recorded himself. At the time he thought it would be useful to keep a digital diary of his exploration and to see if dark magic really would change him over time as everyone claimed. Unfortunately he'd fucked up and hit the shortcut for “livestream” instead of “record.” By the time he'd noticed, nearly five hundred people were watching him talk to himself, and the chat was going crazy with questions and suggestions. He'd been absolutely mortified at the time, but thankful he'd taken the precaution of wearing a mask just in case anyone ever looked through his saved files. Plausible deniability and all that.
It had grown from there. Exponentially. More than he ever could have predicted, and he actually kind of enjoyed it. It was a lot like teaching the DA again, except he'd be thrown in Azkaban instead of expelled if he was caught. He was surprised by how much he enjoyed exploring forbidden magic and learned more studying for each episode than he had in six years at Hogwarts. That he'd finally had a quiet year except for almost murdering Malfoy had also helped, but most of it was because dark magic was just so interesting. Who cared why a summoning charm worked when you could be reanimating a dead cat instead?
And yes, he'd done an entire week-long segment on necromancy and reanimated the skeleton of a cat Kreacher had kindly procured for him from its resting place in the back garden. It had been fascinating and required an absolutely brutal crash course in runes and rituals, but it had been worth it. Tibia, otherwise known as Tibby, was a fucking delight. He just wished he could introduce her to his friends.
Honestly, it had been the best damn summer of his life, that wasn't saying much comparatively, but it was still brilliant. Sirius had been proven innocent, there weren't any Dursleys, he could learn cool magic, and he had an online following greater than the magical population of Britain. And how may one ask, had Sirius been proven innocent? Well, he had finally embraced his inner Slytherin and traded the Dark Lord the prophecy for a highly-obliviated Wormtail who he had promptly handed over to Kingsley. It wasn't like the stupid thing was worth much.
When Dumbledore had finally told him what it said after their misadventure in the Department of Mysteries, while Sirius was literally dying from a curse Bellatrix had hit him with, well he'd lost his temper. Destroying Dumbledore’s office had only been the beginning of his ‘reign of terror’ as the Order had taken to calling it. When they'd sent him back to the Dursley’s on an information blackout, unaware if Sirius was even still alive, he'd gone on a bit of a rampage.
Shoving him back in muggle hell had been a very poor decision on Dumbledore’s part. He'd been alone and unsure if Sirius would live. Absolutely desperate to save the last remaining member of his family, but apparently no one had considered how far he would go. He'd promptly fucked off under his invisibility cloak and gone to Gringotts, traded a pile of galleons for muggle pounds, and bought an expanded tent warded to the teeth to stay in for the summer.
He then proceeded to blackmail Rita Skeeter into doing a tell-all interview about his life, painting both Dumbledore and Fudge as incompetent idiots. He shared everything from Sirius being innocent to his yearly near-death experiences all with memories as proof. He'd even shared how the Dursleys had treated him and a memory of him begging Dumbledore not to send him back, including the old man explaining how he'd cast illegal-as-fuck-blood-wards to protect him. The public outcry had been beautiful, but with Fudge still clinging to office it didn't seem like Sirius would be declared innocent in time for it to help him.
It might have ended very differently if Harry hadn't known what curse the sadistic bitch had used, but due to sneaking into the restricted section and looking it up immediately after leaving Dumbledore’s office that night he did. He also knew the Order didn't have a good enough healer to counter the curse that was slowly and painfully dissolving his godfather's organs. All they were doing was delaying the inevitable, but he refused to let Sirius die just because he couldn't be taken to St. Mungos. Que writing an offer to the Dark Lord. Pettigrew for the prophecy. The Dark Lord had accepted and the next day they had both gotten what they wanted. Sirius was transferred to St. Mungos only minutes after his pardon was posted on the Daily Prophet spell-site that night.
Harry had spent the rest of the summer writing absolutely scathing messages to anyone in the Order who tried to contact him and hiding out in a muggle campground. He hadn't been able to see Sirius in person that summer, but as soon as he was well enough they'd kept in contact through the mage-net. He'd also closely followed the news of various Ministry officials being sacked (including Umbridge, fuck that bitch), Dumbledore being kicked out of the Wizengamot, and the ongoing custody battle over him that had been kicked off by the magical world discovering he'd been living with abusive muggles. Much to both Dumbledore and the dark side's chagrin, Sirius had won hands down by presenting a copy of his parents' will.
That led him to now. Somehow he'd become one of the top content creators on You-Cast in only a few months, and under an alias teaching Dark Arts of all things. The irony of the Boy-Who-Lived, the Light's Golden-Boy, being on Britain's most wanted list right at number seven below Fenrir Grayback and above Antonin Dolohov gave him a very odd feeling. He could only imagine what his friends would think if they knew. He knew some of them even watched the stream. He was sure Dumbledore would throw an absolute fit about it, but he'd pretty much decided he didn't give a damn what the old man thought. Sirius and Remus he wasn't sure about. He hoped they'd understand, but kind of doubted they would.
The only reaction he really really wished he could see was the Dark Lord's. He was half tempted to tell the man himself just so he could see the absolute meltdown he'd have when he learned his nemesis had done more to promote the Dark Arts and damage the Light than he had in his entire career as a Dark Lord. The irony was not lost on him.
It wasn't like he'd become a blood purist or anything. He still thought the purebloods were idiotic bigots, but dark magic? He liked dark magic. It was interesting and versatile and he was damn good at it. He wanted it legalized and normalized after learning more about it. He wanted it to be taught at Hogwarts and for people to understand it. It was fucking addicting. He could admit to himself and his viewers that he had become a dark wizard and loved it. He just hated that it was so closely tied to blood purity. He even thought Hermione would like it if she ever got off her moral high-horse. His mother certainly had, considering blood-magic was the kind of dark even he hadn't yet been brave enough to dabble in.
He was pulled from his thoughts by his spellphone dinging with a private message.
Message from You-Know-Who: Your videos have been an absolute delight. Would you be interested in collaborating?