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—THE NEXT FEW DAYS PASSED BY WITHOUT ANY GREAT INCIDENTS, UNLESS YOU COUNTED NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM MELTING HIS SIXTH CAULDRON IN POTIONS. Professor Snape, who seemed to have attained new levels of vindictiveness over the summer, gave Longbottom detention, and Longbottom returned from it in a state of nervous collapse, having been made to disembowel a barrelful of horned toads.
"You know why Snape's in such a foul mood, don't you?" asked Rigel curiously to Draco as they watched Granger teaching Longbottom a Scouring Charm to remove the toad guts from under his fingernails.
"Yeah," said Draco. "Moody."
It was common knowledge that Snape really wanted the Dark Arts job, and he had now failed to get it for the fourth year running.
Snape had disliked all of their previous Dark Arts teachers, and shown it – but he seemed strangely wary of displaying overt animosity to Mad-Eye Moody.
Indeed, whenever Rigel saw the two of them together – at mealtimes, or when they passed in the corridors – he had the distinct impression that Snape was avoiding Moody's eye, whether magical or normal.
"I reckon Snape's a bit scared of him, you know," Blaise said thoughtfully.
••
The Gryffindor and Slytherin fourth-years were looking forward to Moody's first lesson so much that they arrived early after lunch on Thursday and queued up outside his classroom before the bell had even rung.
The only person missing was Rigel, who turned up just in time for the lesson and was the only person not excited. In fact, he looked bored.
"C'mon, quick, or we won't get decent seats." Draco whispered.
They hurried into three chairs right in front of the teacher's desk, took out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, the Gryffindors unusually quiet, but it was normal to see the Slytherins quiet.
Soon they heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. They could just 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."
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 started, 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?"
