Amie and The Return (Harry Potter fan-fic) Book 4 COMPLETED

Neville

During the next couple of days Amie had taken all of the ingredients Dumbledore got for her, along with her cauldron, to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Just like when they were making Polyjuice Potion in second year (well, Hermione mostly), she had chosen a booth and that was where she was brewing the potion. So far, so good, thought Amie as she checked the currently blue potion on Thursday morning before breakfast.

"Where did you run off to?" asked Hermione as Amie finally made it to the Great Hall and sat down at the Gryffindor table by her friends.

"Had some stuff to take care of," Amie said, avoiding her friends gazes.

"What stuff?" asked Ron suspiciously.

"None of your business!" Amie snapped.

"Okay, okay, don't bite my head off!" Ron exclaimed.

"Sorry," Amie said quietly, ashamed that she yelled. "It's just, you can't know. So please, if I say that I can't tell you, listen to me?"

"Fine," Ron said, a little grumpily.

"Thank you," Amie smiled. "Now, who's ready for classes?"

Since it was Thursday, it was time for their first lesson with Moody, right after lunch. Everyone, except perhaps Amie, were really looking forward to it. That's why everyone arrived early and were queueing outside of his classrom before the bell rung. The only one who wasn't there as early as the others was Hermione, who arrived just in time.

"Been in the -"

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

Amie didn't really care where she would be sitting, but she followed her friends to the front of the classrom and sat down, taking out her DADA book. The class was relatively quiet waiting for Moody, and soon enough they could hear the thumping of his wooden leg, announcing his presence.

"You can put those away," Moody growled, limping up to his desk and sitting down. "those books. You won't need them,"

The class put their books back in their bags, looking excited.

Moody took out a register, shaking his hair out of his face. He began reading names, and when a student answered, he fixed them with the gaze of his magical eye.

"Right then," he said as he'd finally read the last name on the list. "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 made agreeing noises.

"But you're behind - very behind - on dealing with curses. So I'm here to bring 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?" Ron exclaimed. Amie elbowed him in the ribs.

Moody's magical spun around in its socket to stare at Ron, who looked as if he regretted speaking. But Moody suddenly smiled, and Ron looked relieved. The smile made Moody's face twist and contort even more horribly, but he still seemed nicer.

"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" said Moody. "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 laughed, and then clapped his hands together.

"So - straight into it. Curses. They come in many strenghts 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 Brown, when I'm talking,"