The Last Descendant || A Harry Potter Fanfiction

Chapter 12

Too young to know it gets better   |   forever winter, Taylor Swift.

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The following day, the Slytherins had their first DADA lesson with the Ravenclaws.

Aerea and Daphne sat down beside each other and waited until the lesson began.

"Right then," Moody said once everyone had declared themselves present. "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, and Kappas, is that right?"

There was a general murmur of assent.

"But you're behind - very behind - on dealing with curses," Moody said. "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 and then back to my quiet retirement.

So - straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministery 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 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 cheese 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."

Everyone was either too scared to ask anything or they weren't listening.

"So... do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by Wizarding Law?"

All of the Ravenclaws rose their hands, including some Slytherins.

"Miss Gr- Malfoy?" Moody pointed at Aerea.

"I didn't raise my hand." Aerea said flatly.

"And yet, I want you to answer the question."

"There is the Imperius Curse." Aerea said.

"Ah, yes," Moody said, satisfied she gave an answer. "Your father would know that one, wouldn't he? Gave the Ministery a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aerea snapped, bot bothering to hide her anger.

"That's a story for another time," Moody said, turning towards his desk. He took out a glass jar, inside, three large black spiders were scuttling around in 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 leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a back flip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.

Almost everyone in class laughed.

"Think it's funny, do you?" Moody growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"

The laughter died away immediately.

"Total control," Moody said quietly as the spider baked itself up and began to roll over and over. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats...

"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," he said. Everyone knew he was talking about the days in which You-Know-Who was all-powerful. "Sone job for the Ministery, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting off their own free will.

The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Everyone jumped at his sudden outburst.

Moody threw the somersaulting spider back in the jar.

"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"

Padma Patil raised her hand.

"Yes?" Moody waited for her answer.

"The Cruciatus Curse," Padma answered.

"Yes, very well," Moody grabbed a different spider. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," He pointed his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!"

The spider was larger now.

Moody raised his wand again, pointed it at the spider, and muttered, "Crucio!"

At once, the spider"s legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound was coming from it, but Aerea knew that if it could, it would be screaming.

Moody seemed fixated with the spider and didn't remove his wand.

Feeling that the class was uncomfortable, Daphne decided to step in, "Stop it!" She yelled.

Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed and the spider, but continued to twitch.

"Reducio," Moody muttered, and the spider returned to its normal size.

"Pain. You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse... That one was very popular once.

"Right... anyone know others?"

Moody turned to Daphne.

"The Killing Curse." She answered quietly.

"Yes, the last and worst. Avada Kedavra.... the Killing Curse." Moody said with a slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth.

The third spider tried its best to get away. It was as if it knew what fate had in store for him.

Moody raised his wand one last time. "Avada Kedavra!"

With a flash of green light and a rushing sound, the spider had rolled over on its back, unmistakably dead.

"Not nice," Moody said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's in your year. Harry Potter.

"Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it - you could get all your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed. But that doesn't matter. I'm not jere to teach you how to do it.

"Now, if there's no countercurse, why am I showing you? Because you've got to know. You've got to appreciate what the worst is. You dont want to find yourself in a situation where you're facing it. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Everyone jumped again.

"Now... those three curses - Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus - are known as the Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban. That's what you're up against. That's what I've got to teach you to fight. You need preparing. You need arming. But must of all, you need to practise constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Get out your quills... copy this down..."

The rest of the lesson was spent taking notes on each of the Unforgivable Curses. No one uttered a word until the bell rang.

Chaper 12!

Another filler chapter honestly, I just copied the stuff Moody said in Harry's lesson but since he and Aerea don't have DADA together I had to improvise, which I think I did pretty well.

I hope you guys have a wonderful day and take care!

-R