Not Losing Hope (Against Time Sequel)

Chapter 12- The Unforgivable Curses

Chapter 12

The Unforgivable Curses

The next two days passed pretty quicky. I had seen Cedric very little, and I actuallt felt disappointed.

"You know why Snape's in such a foul mood, don't you?" Ron said as we watched Hermione teaching Neville a Scouring Charm to remove the frog guts from under his fingernails.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Moody."

It is common knowledge that Snape really wants the Dark Arts job, and he had now failed to get it for the fourth year running.

"I reckon Snape's a bit scared of him, you know," Harry said thoughtfully.

"Imagine if Moody turned Snape into a horned toad," Ron said, his eyes gleaming, "and bounced him all around his dungeon..."

Ron and Harry were looking forward to Moody's first lesson so much that they left early on Thursday lunchtime to get to the classroom before the bell had even rung. Hermione and I turned there later, since I had waited talking with Fred and George, and she was yet again in the library.

"Been in the -"

"Library." Harry finished her sentence for her. "C'mon, quick, or we won't get decent seats."

We hurried into four chairs right in front of the teacher's desk, took out our copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, unusually quiet. Soon we heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. I could barely see his clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath his robes.

"You can put those away," he growled, stumping over to his desk and sitting down, "those books. You won't need them."

We returned the books to their bags, I did it hesitantly, really afraid of why we might not need them.

Moody took out a register, shook his long mane of grizzled gray 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 swiveled around, fixing upon each student as he or she answered. I felt Goosebumps when his magical eye landed on me.

"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 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. I've got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark -"

"What, aren't you staying?" Ron blurted out.

Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at Ron, and after a moment Moody… it looked wrong… somehow like he was trying hard to smile. Besides, he made his heavily scarred face look more twisted and contorted than ever.

"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody said. "Your father got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago… Yeah, I'm staying just the one year. Special favor to Dumbledore… One year, and then back to my quiet retirement."

He gave a harsh laugh, and then clapped his gnarled hands together.

"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 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. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, when I'm talking."