DISCLAIMER: All things Harry Potter belong to JKR.

~ Necessity Is The Brother Of Intention ~

Never before had he had such a staggering amount of trouble in the casting of a new spell. Of course, there were always bound to be a few false starts when working with the more complex spells, but never had a casting gone so horribly wrong for him before this one.

Motion, incantation, intent. Each of these had to be done right in order for the spell to work.

The wand movement had been precise and most certainly correct, exactly as described in the book. The intent was definitely there. Perhaps his pronunciation had been off?

He consulted the book again, practiced the motion a hundred times, spoke the incantation out loud with the exact inflection as was described in the book a hundred times.

He definitely had those parts of the spell down now.

This time he was certain that he was ready. This time he would get it right. This time, surely, the spell would work.

"Avada kedavra."

Nothing happened.

He did not need to consult the book this time. He had practically memorized every word of text and every line of every diagram on the page. He knew exactly what he needed to do in order to make the spell work.

Motion, incantation, intent.

His temper flared as he attempted the spell for the third time.

"Avada kedavra!"

And for the third time that day, nothing happened.

And the spark of temper landed on the powder keg of frustration, leading to the inevitable explosion…

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

A faint green spark sizzled to life at the tip of his wand and then, finally, after so much effort… nothing happened.

"AVADA KEDAVRA! AVADA KEDAVRA! AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Not even another green spark was produced as he danced around in a rage, madly flailing his wand arm in a motion that was most definitely not correct.

He kicked his intended target repeatedly, no longer caring about the spell, only wanting to cause pain and humiliation to the one who had witnessed his spectacular failure.

Motion, incantation, intent.

He had done everything right, so why hadn't the spell worked?

Motion, he had studied and practiced, over and over again.

Incantation, he was sure he had pronounced it the right way, with the correct tone and inflection.

Intent. Well, that was the easy one. Of course he wanted to kill the spineless bag of flesh and bones that lay at his feet whimpering and begging not to be killed.

However… By the process of elimination, the two things that were definitely - irrefutably - correct were the wand movement and the spoken incantation. Which meant that something must be off with his intentions. The thought was so completely foreign to him that it took him a while to even consider such a thing as a realistic possibility, but it seemed that perhaps he harbored some subconscious urge to spare this useless waste of human flesh? No. Of Course not. The notion was laughable.

He must have been slightly off on the motion or the pronunciation of the incantation. It was a very difficult spell, after all.

He sat at his desk and began to pore over the book once more.

~end~

A/N: Yes, the title is a play on the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention."

And who was the useless bag of flesh, you ask? *evil laugh* GUESS!

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