Pink in the Night.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

"You put those away," growled Mad-Eye Moody, stumping over to his desk and sitting down, "those books. You won't need them."
The class slowly returned their books to their bags, exchanging odd glances.
Moody took out a register, shook his long man 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 they answered.
"Right then," he said, when the last person had declared themselves present, "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling Dark creatures— you've covered Eklings, Dugbogs, revised Red Caps, and had a fair share of defence, correct?"
There were several murmurs of assent.
"Right where you need to be," said Moody. "But you're behind on dealing with hexes and curses. I've got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark Arts and I don't plan on wasting a single moment of it.
"Straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you countercurses 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 till 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. 
"So... do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by Wizarding Law?"
Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Cho, (Y/n), and Marietta Edgecomb's. Moody pointed at Marietta.

"The Imperius Curse," Marietta said crisply.

"That's one of them," said Moody appreciatively. He got heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. 
Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Imperio!"
The spider leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing back and forth as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a black flip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.
Everyone was laughing— everyone except Moody.
"This it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"
The laughter died away almost instantly.
"Total control," said Moody quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats...
"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," said Moody, and the class instantly knew he was talking about the days in which Voldemort had been all-powerful. "Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.
"The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked, and everyone jumped.
Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar.
"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Cho raised her hand slowly.
"Yes?" said Moody, his magical eye rolling right over to fix on Cho.

"The Cruciatus Curse," Cho said in a small, silky voice.

"The Cruciatus Curse," said Moody, reaching into the jar and pulling out the next spider and placing it on his desktop. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," he said, pointing his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!"
The spider swelled. It was now larger than a tarantula. (Y/n) squeaked from beside Cho.
Moody raised his wand again, pointed it at the spider, and muttered, "Crucio!"
At once, the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. Any normal person couldn't hear it, but (Y/n) heard the smallest of sounds from the spider. Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently—