Hermione Granger and the Goblet Of Fire (Completed)

Chapter 12 - Moody's lesson

Hermione learnt a lot about House Elves over the next week. Somehow, House Elf enslavement had gone on for centuries, and for some reason no one had done anything about it before. Often times, Elves have poor working conditions and are never paid, and, most remarkably of all, a House Elf had never been in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, despite the fact that there was a centaur, a merman and vampire were all members of that department on separate occasions

Hermione decided that she needed to do something big. She knew that, unfortunately, the Ministry for Magic wild never listen to the views of a fourteen (nearly fifteen) year old girl. She therefore decided to start small, and get everyone at school on her side. If she could get her peers interested in her cause, maybe they could be the generation to finally abolish House Elf enslavement forever, as well as all other forms of Magical bigotry. She decided to start a club, as that would be a very obvious way of showing the outside world that the members cared and wanted change

However, on the Thursday, the prospect of Professor Moody's Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, drew thoughts of House Elves out of her head, though it wasn't enough to stop her from spending all get lunchtime in the library and therefore nearly being late

She ran to the classroom and found Ron and Harry waiting for her
"Been in the-"
"Library" Harry finished "C'mon, quick, or we won't get decent seats"
They managed to get three seats at the front of the classroom and took out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self- Protection. The class waited, until finally they heard Moody walking down the corridor and entering the room

"You can put those away" he said, walking over to his desk "those books. You won't need them"
As they put their books back, Moody did the register. His magical eye focused on every person when they answered, while his normal one stayed glued to the list
"Right then," he said, as Blaise Zabini answered to his name "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 an affirmative noise from everyone
"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 said, his voice unnaturally loud in the silent classroom. Moody's eye fixed on Ron, and Ron went pale. To Hermione's surprise, Most smiled

"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody said, and Ron nodded timidly  "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 short shout of laughter before clapping his 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 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. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, when I'm talking"
Lavender went red. Moody's eye seemed to be able to go through solid objects, as Lavender was showing Parvati something under the table

"So... do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"
Hermione raised her hand, and so did Ron. Moody pointed at Ron
"Er" said Ron "my dad told me about one... Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"
"Ah, yes" said Moody "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse"