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The darkest magic is the simplest. It's about intent more than it is about words or wands or spells. Take a spell, say it just so. It will cure a toothache. Say the same spell carelessly. It will kill a man slowly and horribly. Dark magic is the path of least resistance. It is the easy way out.
What it really requires is that you don't give a toss whether you live or die. No hope, no conscience... Everything's easy then.
Easy.
Light the candle.
Say the words.
::
All Saints dawns with the smell of a flame drowning in wax, almost sweet, like caramel. Red and gold leaves blow in through the open window and swirl in a little tornado at Remus' feet. His back aches from sleeping in the chair; he flicks the tail of the quilt over his frigid toes, watches the leaves dance through sleep-crusted eyes.
It didn't work. The disappointment sits in the pit of his stomach, a cold, immovable object with sharp edges; he covers his face with his hands and weeps, he says the name once, twice, three times.
The leaves fall to the floor.
::
It's when the sun goes down and it is, properly, All Souls, that the doors begin to slam.
Knocking noises in empty rooms. Books tipped off the shelves. The cook stove flares to life, its door open on a gaping maw of flame. Remus races around the house righting the wrongs; he stands in the front hall and commands the poltergeist to show itself, to depart, with the strongest spells he knows.
The portraits hide their faces.
The lights gutter, and go out.
The house is silent, still and cold, and then he hears it, the bedroom door, the only bedroom door that creaks, and no charm or any amount of oiling would make it quiet. Their bedroom door. A sound too soft to be footfalls, too heavy to be anything but.
Remus goes up the stairs, wandless; he knows now, he understands. He passes an ancient portrait of a lady who suddenly sobs Why did you do it? Why? in a rent voice of pure anguish.
'Because.' He cannot lie to the dead. 'Because I couldn't bear it any longer. Because it's too hard without him.'
She shakes her head, tears at her hair, at her fine tatted kertch, and finally at her eyes, her nails digging horrifically deep. The painting begins to bleed, and now they're all shrieking, howling, the entire House of Black, seven generations and seven again.
Remus chokes on the taste of his bile, turns back up the stairs, one foot in front of the other, up the stairs, turn left down the hall, down the hall.
The darkest magic is what comes from within, from desperation, from fear, from grief. The darkest magic is from the heart.
Easy.
Light the candle.
Say the words.
Remus opens the door.