Forever Yours ☞︎ Harry Potter X Reader

Fourth Year ➪ The Unforgiveable Curses

The next two 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, 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. In addition to that, Y/N noticed that during potions lessons, Snape would act towards her just as he acted towards Harry; with complete and utter hate.

At first she didn't notice the difference in his behaviour toward her, but after he deducted 5 points from Gryffindor, because she "put in the lacewing flies too slowly," into her potion, she started to catch on.

"What the bloody hell is up with Snape this year?" Y/N asked after a particularly harsh lesson.

"I think he might still be bitter about last year," said Hermione.

"And, he now knows that your dad is Lupin," Harry added. "and he hated him almost as much as he hated my father."

"Yep. That'll do it," Y/N sighed. "I guess that I need to accept the fact that I will probably never even have a chance at getting a good grade in potions again."

"Join the club," said Ron, draping his arm around Harry. "But I suppose he's also in a foul mood because of Moody." It was a known fact 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 Harry 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," Harry said thoughtfully.

"Imagine if Moody turned Snape into a horned toad," said Ron, his eyes misting over, "and bounced him all around his dungeon. . . ."

And the four laughed together at that blissful thought on their way to the common room.

⋆✧⋆

The Gryffindor fourth years were looking forward to Moody's first lesson so much that they arrived early on Thursday lunchtime and queued up outside his classroom before the bell had even rung. The only person missing was Hermione, who turned up just in time for the lesson.

"Been in the --"

"Library." Harry finished her sentence for her. "C'mon, quick, or we won't get decent seats."

They hurried into four chairs right in front of the teacher's desk -- Y/N and Harry near the desk directly in front of the teachers table, and Ron and Hermione in the desk beside them -- they took out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, unusually 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.