Three days have passed since Malfoy and I had a fight in the common room, we haven't spoken since. Today is Thursday and we have our first Defense Against the Dark Arts class with Professor Moody. Everyone was excited, the students who already had classes with him said that it is kinda different, but so cool
I was sharing a table with Carrie, like always, waiting Professor Moody arrive in the classroom. I didn't talk to her about what happened with Malfoy, nor to Harry.
Soon I heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. I could just see his clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath his robes.
"You can put those away," he growled, stumping over to his deskand sitting down, "Those books. You won't need them." we all returned the books to our bags
"Right then," he said, "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 dealwith Dark —"
"What, aren't you staying?" Ron blurted out.
Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at Ron; Ron looked extremely apprehensive, but after a moment Moody smiled — the first time I had seen him do so. The effect was to make his heavily scarred face look more twisted and contorted than ever, but it was nevertheless good to know that he ever did anything as friendly as smile. Ron looked deeply relieved.
"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 strengthsand 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 sixthyear. 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."
A Gryffindor girl jumped and blushed. She had been showing another Gryffindor girl something I couldn't see 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, including Ron's and Hermione's.
Moody pointed at Ron, though his magical eye was still fixed on the Gryffindor girl.
"Er," said Ron 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."
Moody got heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his deskdrawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it.
