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—"NOPE," MUTTERED ALEXANDRIA THE NEXT DAY WHEN DRACO TRIED CATCHING UP TO HER. "Slytherin!" growled Draco, face flushing when he noticed how she was trying to keep her laughter in. "Not a word to anyone about what happened yesterday, got it?"
"I don't need to tell anyone, Malfoy. They all already saw it."
Draco looked horrified. "They did?" He asked with widened eyes.
"It's even in the daily prophet." shrugged the girl.
Face flushing even more, Draco rushed away— wanting to grab the nearest daily prophet.
"No it's not." said a voice behind Alexandria when Draco had left.
She turned around with a raised eyebrow. "I know."
Harry sighed. "I've been thinking—"
"That's something new."
"—and I don't get it."
"That's not new."
"Help me, please. I don't get why the things you said are starting to makes sense."
Alexandria sighed and grabbed his arm.
♡
Reaching an abandoned classroom, she let go of his hand with an eyeroll. "What do you want, Potter?"
"Help—"
"Why should I help you? Whatever I say makes no sense to you anyways. You don't trust my words."
"How can I?! What I've grown up believing suddenly is all wrong?" Harry finally lost his calm, sighing when she looked away. "I'm trying, Alexandria. I'm trying to see your side of this all."
"Thank you. Thank you for trying."
Harry, feeling guilty, sighed again. "I know we're on different sides of this.. war.. or whatever.. but will you let me be the big brother I was supposed to be?"
"I can't," said the girl immediately. "Not when you're with them."
"What am I supposed to do?"
Suddenly becoming quiet, Alexandria looked at him. Something flickered in her eyes— if Harry wasn't so oblivious, he would've seen her little smirk. "We can be.. siblings.. but nobody should know."
'Let the manipulation begin,' thought the girl when he nodded enthusiastically.
♡
Sitting down in the DADA classroom, Alexandria and the others pulled out their books. Soon, Moody walked in.
"You can put those away," he growled, stumping over to his desk and sitting down, "those books. You won't need them."
They returned the books to their bags, the Gryffindors looking excited.
Moody took out a register, shook his long mane of grizzled grey hair out of his twisted and scarred face and began to call out names, his normal eye moving steadily down the list while his magical eye swivelled around, fixing upon each student as he or she answered.
"Right then," he said, when the last person had declared themselves present, "I've had a letter from Professor Black about this class. Seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling Dark creatures – you've covered Boggarts, Red Caps, Hinkypunks, Grindylows, Kappas and werewolves, is that right?"
There was a general murmur of assent.
"But you're behind – very behind – on dealing with curses," said Moody. "So I'm here to bring you up to scratch on what wizards can do to each other."
Alexandria leaned back on her chair, already knowing the curses, but still feeling excited.
"So– straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you counter-curses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year. You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it 'til then. But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves, he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you isn't going to tell you what he's about to do. He's not going to do it nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, when I'm talking."
Lavender Brown jumped and blushed. She had been showing Parvati her completed horoscope under the desk. Apparently Moody's magical eye could see through solid wood, as well as out of the back of his head.
"So... do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"
Several hands rose tentatively into the air. Moody pointed at Ron Weasley, though his magical eye was still fixed on Lavender. "Er," said Weasley tentatively, "my dad told me about one... is it called the Imperius curse, or something?"
"Ah, yes," said Moody appreciatively. "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius curse."
♡
"Yes, the last and worst. Avada Kedavra... the killing curse." said Moody 20 minutes later.
They had gone through the first two spells, now on their third and last one.
He put his hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody's fingers, but he trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop.
It started to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.
Moody raised his wand, "Avada Kedavra."
There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible something was soaring through the air – instantaneously the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead.
Several of the girls stifled cries; Weasley had thrown himself backwards and almost toppled off his seat as the spider skidded towards him.
Moody swept the dead spider off the desk onto the floor. "Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no counter-curse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of me."
Harry felt his face redden as Moody's eyes looked into his own. He could feel everyone else looking around at him, too.
♡
"You're a great teacher," teased Alexandria when all the students left.
'Moody' rolled his eyes fondly. "I just had fun."
"Of course you did. You used the unforgivable curses."
"Precisely," nodded the man.
Alexandria let out a laugh and sat down, fidgeting with her bracelet. "How's father?"
"Not good from what I've heard," said Barty as he finally changed back— having not taking his polyjuice potion. "He's been searching high and low for the Potters."
Letting out a sigh, the girl frowned. "But why? I've already got a plan and everything."
