falling ; hp

─── two

"How can I miss Malfoy turning into a ferret?!" Willow whined as she listened to Harry. "Wish I wasn't food poisoned," she muttered. Due to food poisoning,  Willow couldn't attend the first two days of her fourth year.

The students were waiting for their first DADA class as Willow was seated between Harry and Ron.

“I reckon Snape’s a bit scared of him, you know,” Harry said
thoughtfully.

“Imagine if Moody turned Snapto a horned toad,” said Ron,
his eyes misting over as Willow laughed, “and bounced him all around his dungeon. . . .” Suddenly, Hermione entered the classroom as she breathed heavily. She looked around in search of her friends as Willow raised her hands. Soon, Hermione sat beside Ron.

Soon, they heard Moody’s distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. “You can put those away,” he growled, stumping over to his desk and sitting down, “those books. You won’t need them.”

They returned the books to their bags, Ron looking excited as he looked at Hermione, who had a frown on her face.

"Look at 'mione," He whispered to Willow, who stuffled her smile.

"She must be cursing him in her mind," Willow said as Ron agreed to her.

“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?”
There was a general murmur of assent.

“But you’re behind — very behind — on dealing with curses,”
said Moody. “So I’m here to bring you up to scratch on what wiz-
ards can do to each other. I’ve got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark —”

“What, aren’t you staying?” Ron blurted out. Willow pinched his thigh as Ron winced slightly. Seeing this, Harry chuckled as he covered her mouth esoterically using her hand.

“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 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. They come in . . ." Which Willow didn't bother to listen. She randomly doodled in her notebook as she pretended to take notes.

"Stop doodling, Ms. Lupin, " she flinched as she looked up to meet Moody’s cold eyes. Willow immediately kept her quill down and listened to him reluctantly.

“So . . . do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?”

"Imperio curse," Willow answered as Moody nodded his head in acknowledgment. "That's very much right,  Ms. Lupin. Your father must've taught you that" she smiled awkwardly and lowered her head.

Well,  that was true.

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. Harry felt Ron recoil slightly next to him — Ron hated spiders. Oh, Willow was enjoying it thoroughly.