| HIDDEN IN SECRETS |

chapter forty-five

UNFORGIVABLE CURSES

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On Thursday, Verena headed to the class she was most dreading. She liked Defense Against the Dark Arts, but she was not very fond of the teacher, especially after he transfigured Draco into a ferret.

"Excited, are you?" Harry asked as he found her in the corridor. "Fred and George love him."

"So excited," Verena replied sarcastically. "Yeah, I'm so glad that the teacher is the person who murdered my aunt's fiancé."

Harry sighed. While he knew how much her aunt had been affected by it – never marrying again – he also knew that Moody had probably done the wizarding world a favour, even if he killed what would have been Verena's family.

Verena took a seat beside Padma Patil, next to the table Harry sat at. They took out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection. It was unusually quiet, different from when Professor Lupin was teaching. Moody just had that frightening presence about him that could silence a crowd.

Then, they heard a heavy clunking sound and turned their heads to see Moody walking toward the front.

"You can put away those books," he said with a gruff voice. "You won't need them."

Moody took out a register and began to call out names, his normal eye moving down the list while his other eye swivelled around, glancing at each student as they answered.

"Right then," he said after the last person responded. "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?"

The class nodded, murmuring in confirmation.

"But you're behind – very behind – on dealing with curses," said Moody, starting to write on the blackboard. "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?" Weasley asked.

Moody turned around and smiled.

"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" he assumed. "Your father got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago... Yeah, I'm staying just the one year. Special favour to Dumbledore... One year, and then back to my quiet retirement."

He laughed and then clapped his hands.

"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 find another place to put your chewing gum beside the underside of your desk, Mr Finnigan!"

Verena looked back to see Seamus Finnigan looking up from his desk.

"No way. The old codger can see out of the back of his head," he said.

Moody threw a piece of chalk at him while yelling, "And can hear across classrooms!"

"So," he continued, "do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"