Chasing Shadows || Draco Malfoy x OC

Year 4- Ch. 36

The next couple of days went by without much to them, Céline was not speaking to Draco and she would avoid any attempted approach from Harry and Hermione. Ron both being his stubborn selves, both didn't try speaking with her. Draco on the otherhand would try to make small talk or try to ask something here or there, only for Céline to not respond.

Céline also finished her potions that Professor Snape had given her, which she was thankful for, because by Thursday, she didn't have to purposefully try to hide her arms or neck. All the bruises and the pain had disappeared and healed fully.

she entered her D.A.D.A class room and looked around for an open seat. She saw an open seat next to Draco and next to Theo, so she chose the latter. When she sat down next to her friend, who was giving a flirtatious grin, Draco rolled his eyes. He had been in an especially bad mood since he was scolded by Céline.

Even more so when she would ignore him. He hated being ignored. She even sat next to Tracey during mealtimes in the Great Hall, which was not her usual spot.

Céline pulled out her copy of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection and waited for the professor to come to class. It was unusually quiet for this class, but then they all heard Professor Moody's distinctive clunky footsteps entering the room.

"You can put those away." He growled as he limped over to his desk and sat down. "Those books.. you don't need them." Everyone quickly put them away, excited to see what this new Professor would teach.

He pulled out a register and started calling out each name, his electric blue eye, swiveling around at each student when they answered back.

"Right then," he said, when the last person 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, Kappas, and werewolves, is that right?"

The class nodded in agreement, some murmuring to each other.

"But you're behind — very behind — on dealing with curses," said Moody. "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?" Ron, who sat in the front with Harry and Hermione sitting at the table next to them.

Professor Moody's blue eye turned to Ron and after a moment he smiled at him. "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 the one year. Special favor to Dumbledore. . . . One year, and then back to my quiet retirement."

"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 put that away, Miss Brown, when I'm talking."

A girl with honey blond hair, sitting a couple of tables down from where Céline was, jumped, quickly looked up and quickly shoving parchment paper under the desk.

"So.... Do any of you know which curses are heavily punished by Wizarding law?" He asked.

Several students, including Ron and Hermione, raised their hands. Professor Moody pointed to Ron, looking at him with his normal eye, while the blue one was still fixated on the blonde girl.