Spells and Visions; A Harry Potter story

Chapter 4: The Cruciatus Curse

The lessons started the next day, and the second lesson was Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid. After Buckbeak Hagrid had finally gotten the courage again to show us something more interesting than Flobberworms. This time, we had to face Blast-Ended Skrewts.
"Eurgh!" Lavender said. I made a face as I looked into the crates. I kind of had to agree with her, the creatures didn't look particularly pretty. They looked like pale, deformed lobsters, but without shells. I couldn't really see heads either. They did have a lot of legs, and the smell also wasn't easy to miss.

The Slytherins arrived, and of course Draco Malfoy had to object about it, but Hagrid told us we had to feed the Skrewts with ant eggs and frog livers. The creatures also seemed to be able to burn, sting and bite, but I kept my mouth shut, compared to Malfoy. Hagrid was our friend after all.

At lunch, Hermione was acting up again. I knew that she stood for house-elf rights and that she tried not to eat until something had been done about their slavery, but now she was eating faster than ever, only to get to the library. And we didn't even have homework yet.

At dinner, I saw Malfoy walking up to Ron, Harry and Hermione, and he called Ron.
"Your dad's in the paper, Weasley!" he said loudly.
He read aloud what was written in the Daily Prophet, but it was written by Rita Skeeter again, so I didn't bother to listen. I only heard that it was about something at the Quidditch World Cup. It probably had to do with the Dark Mark events.

It turned into a nasty argument about their mothers, and got worse when Harry mixed in the conversation. At last, Harry turned his back to Malfoy and took Ron by the arm to drag him away, but Malfoy did something dirty.
He took out his wand and aimed a spell at Harry, which missed, but the loud 'bang' made Harry jump. There was another 'bang', this time from Professor Moody to Malfoy, who was standing a bit behind them. Malfoy disappeared. I walked closer, and saw that the place where Draco had been, wasn't empty at all. There was white ferret on the ground, trembling with fear. I let out a chuckle, but shut up when I noticed the Great Hall was shrouded in silence.

"Did he get you?" Moody asked Harry.
"No," Harry said.
"Leave it!" Moody roared.
"Leave what?" Harry said confused.
"Not you, him!" Moody pointed to Crabbe, who wanted to pick up ferret Malfoy.
The ferret started to run, along with Crabbe and Goyle, but Moody held them back.
"I don't think so!" he said. "I don't like people who attack when their opponent's back is turned." He pointed his wand to Malfoy and let him fly in the air, bounced him back on the ground, and continued to do that. "Stinking, cowardly thing to do. Never do that again."
"Professor Moody!" McGonagall's voice shrieked.
"Hello, Professor McGonagall," Moody said calmly, not stopping to bounce Malfoy up and down.
"What are you doing?"
"Teaching," Moody answered casually.
"Teachi- is that a student?" McGongall said shocked, letting a bunch of books fall out of her hands.
"Yep."
"No!"

She pulled out her wand, and a second later Malfoy was laying on the floor where the ferret had been. He got up, wincing in pain.
"We never use Tranfiguration on our students!" McGonagall said. "Surely Dumbledore has told you this?"
"Well, he might have mentioned it, but-"
"We give dentention, Moody! Or speak to their Head of Houses!"
"I'll do that, then," Moody said grimly.
Malfoy looked so humiliated and hurt, that I almost pitied him, if he wasn't the most annoying student in the school. Moody dragged him along to the dungeons to speak with Snape, who he already seemed to know.

I tried not to laugh as we loaded our plates with food.
"Don't talk to me," Ron said very seriously.
"Huh?" I said.
"Why not?" Hermione asked.
"Because I want to fix this in my memory forever," Ron said, closing his eyes with a smile. "Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret."
We all burst into laughter. Hermione was eating fast again to run back to the library, but not for schoolwork, apparently. I wondered what she was up to.