the gentle moon / george weasley

very gifted.

The Gryffindor sixth years were looking forward to Moody's first lesson so much that they arrived early after lunch and queued up outside his classroom before the bell had even rung.

The only person missing was August, who turned up just in time for the lesson.

"Been in the —"

"Library." Fred finished

George laughed when August rolled her eyes at him, shoving a new muggle book into her bag with a smug look.

"Yes, I was in the library." She hissed.

"You've read that one already." George pointed out as they walked into the class.

"I know." August beamed, pulling her friends to the front row. 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, eyeing all the textbooks on the desk, and sitting down, "those books. You won't need them."

Moody took out a roster, shook his long mane of grizzled gray 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 swiveled around, fixing upon each student as they answered.

"Right then," he said, when the last person had declared themselves present, "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. 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 deal with Dark —"

"What, aren't you staying?" Fred blurted out

"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."

"We went over hexes last year." August pointed out.

"I didn't say hexes." Moody smiled. 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 a smile. "So... do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"

Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including George's and August's. Moody pointed at George, though his magical eye was still fixed on a Slytherin girl in the back row.

"Er," said George 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 desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Imperio!"

The spider leaped from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. George went to say something to August, but when he turned to her he had to cover his mouth with his hand to suffocate the laugh coming out. August's mouth was wide open, leaning across her desk with furrowed brows. August turned to George, her mouth still open, but closed it quickly when she saw him laughing at her expression.