Born From Madness (Harry Potter Fanfic)

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Harry and Ron had been looking forward to Moody's class throughout the days, but Hermione felt there was something off about the guy... and it really got strong when they gotten to the first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. While they were grabbing their books out from their bags, Moody came limping to the front of the class. 

'You can put those away, those books, you won't need them." Moody told them. Hermione was bewildered before she put her book into her bag again. 

"Now, I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling Dark Creatures-- but you're behind-- very behind-- on dealing with curses. So I'm here to bring you up to scratch on what wizards can do to each other..." Moody stated to them, "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. I say different! You need to be alert... you need to be prepared... you need to put that away, Miss Brown when I'm talking!" 

Everyone turned to find Lavender jumped as she held up the completed horoscope from underneath her desk. 

"So-- do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law? The one's the wizarding world known as the Unforgivable Curses," Moody asked them. Several hands rose up. 

"Mr. Weasley!" Mood called out. 

"Er... my dad told me about one... is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?" Ron stated to them. 

"Ah, yes. Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, The Imperius Curse." Moody mumbled as he moved over to a glass jar. He pulled out one of the large black spiders. He pulled out his wand and pointed it towards the spider where he quietly used 'Engorgio' to make it a bit bigger. 

"Imperio!" he shouted. The spider soon leapt from Moody's hand then began to create thread before it began to swing back and forth as though on a trapeze then began doing flips. Everyone (except for Hermione) started to laugh until they caught sight of Moody's stern glare. 

"Think it's funny, do you? You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?" Moody growled, causing all the laughter to die down, "Total control... I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats!" 

"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse. Some job for the Ministry was trying to figure out who was being forced to act-- and who was acting of their own free will. Now does anyone else know one?" 

Hermione nervously lifted her hand along with Neville, which surprised her. 

"Yes!" Moody called out to Longbottom. 

"T-the Cruciatus Curse." Neville said. Moody held his wand right at the spider and without warning...

"Crucio!" he shouted. All of the sudden, the spider began shaking violently and was making a low squeaking sound. Moody didn't seem to notice Neville's face was full of fear and sorrow as his hands were clenched tightly till they were white. 

"STOP IT! Can't you see that it's bothering him?" Hermione found herself screaming at Moody. Moody shot his head towards her before he suddenly moved the wand away from the spider, allowing the spider to finally be able to breathe from the torment. Moody slowly moved towards Hermione before setting the spider down right in front of her. 

"Perhaps, Miss Granger... you could give us the last curse?" he asked her. Hermione, with tears on verge of spilling down her cheeks, shook her head. For a moment, Hermione thought Moody wasn't going to think about it... but she was wrong as she watched him point his wand pointed towards the spider.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" he growled. Then with a green flash, the spider was gone. Hermione's heart seemed to stop for a second. Moody moved his wand to his side as he glance over the classroom. 

"The killing curse... there's no countercurse... no blocking it... and only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of us." He stated before looking down to Harry. 

At the end of class, Hermione rushed out of there as soon as the first ring of the bell rung. On the way downstairs, she paused when she saw Neville starting at one of the stain-glass windows. 

"Neville? Is everything alright?" Hermione asked him until Moody came around the corner and suddenly wheeled him away, telling Neville that he had some books that might interest him. Neville slowly followed after Moody. Hermione kept staring at the back of  Moody's head till they vanished. 

"Harry, I work on this any more, I'm going to fall sleep quickly." Ron stated to Harry as he dropped the quill onto the parchment then lean against the back of the chair. Soon Hermione came walking in from her trip from the library with a box that rattled and there was a piece of parchment in her other hand with Winky walking in with a plate of cookies. 

"What do you have?" Harry asked her. 

"Glad you asked, Harry." She said before showing them what was inside the box. There was about fifty colorful badges with the same phrase of S.P.E.W. 

"Spew? What's that?" Harry asked, picking one of the badges. 

"Now spew... it's S-P-E-W. It stands for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. I only just made it." Hermione explained to them. 

"Yeah... how many members have you got?" Ron asked her. 

"Well-- if you two join-- three," Hermione stated to them. 

"Do you really thin we want to walk around wearing badges saying 'spew' do you?" Ron asked her. 

"S-P-E-W!" Hermione shot at him, "I've been researching it thoroughly in the library. Elf enslavement goes back centuries. I can't believe no one's done anything about it before now." 

"Hermione! Open your ears! They like it!" Ron shot at her, "I mean look at Winky. She's thrilled to do housework." 

Hermione proceeded to explain their goals without listening to Ron's idea about the whole thing. Thankfully Hedwig had arrive to cut her off, returning with the letter from Sirius. As Harry was reading it off. But it was a bit confusing, from reading the signs about something that he didn't exactly explain away. However, Harry understood one thing... Sirius was moving back north and Harry felt it was his fault.