Willow's POV:
The next few days passed without great incident, unless you counted Neville melting his sixth cauldron in Potions. Professor Snape, who seemed to have attained new levels of vindictiveness over the summer though only to every other student and not to me, gave Neville detention, and Neville returned from it in a state of nervous collapse, having been made to disembowel a barrel full of horned toads. I felt sorry for him when I heard, though hardly.
I sat in DADA, waiting for Moody to show up to get class underway. Most fourth years that I knew were looking forward to Moody's first lesson. However, I am not. Fenrir's words in his letter still flashed before my eyes. I already had my copy of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection out and waiting by the time he finally showed up. 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 desk and sitting down, "those books. You won't need them."
I sighed heavily with an eye roll, knowing full well that nothing good could come of anything he had to teach us.
"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," Moody said. "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?" someone blurted.
Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at the kid, whose name I forgot; he looked extremely apprehensive, but after a moment Moody smiled — the first time anyone 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. The student looked deeply relieved.
"Yeah, I'm staying just the one year. Special favor to Dumbledore. . . . One year, and then back to my quiet retirement." Moody stated, as 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 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 Honeycutt, when I'm talking."
Lila Honeycutt jumped and blushed. She had been showing Octavia Spencer her completed horoscope 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. Moody pointed at me, though his magical eye was still fixed on Lila.
YOU ARE READING
A Greater Power
Fanfiction**On Hold** Willow Black is the only daughter to a man she has never known. Born to a woman who was a drug abuser, Willow learned how to survive at a young age. Now as a Seventh Year Slytherin, Willow will be tested in ways she never thought possibl...
