Infinite Magic (Male Reader x Harry Potter)

The Unforgivable Curses

The next two days passed without great incident.  Suguru had managed to make a good impression on almost all of the teachers, apart from Professor Snape of course.  Snape, who seemed to have attained new levels of vindictiveness over the summer, gave Neville detention for melting his cauldron, and the poor boy returned from it in a state of nervous collapse, having been made to disembowel a barrel full of horned toads.

Suguru: I've been here two days, and I already hate him.

YN: Join the club.

Ron: You know why Snape's in such a foul mood, don't you?

We were watching Hermione try to teach Neville a Scouring Charm to remove the toad guts from under his fingernails.

Harry: Yeah.  Moody.

It was common knowledge that Snape really wanted the Dark Arts job, and he had now failed to get it for the fourth year running.  Snape had disliked all of our previous Dark Arts teachers, and shown it, but he seemed strangely wary of displaying overt animosity to Mad-Eye Moody.  In fact, whenever I saw the two of them together at mealtimes, or when they passed in the corridors, I had the distinct impression that Snape was avoiding Moody's eye, whether magical or normal.

Ava: I think Snape's a bit scared of him.  Imagine if Moody turned Snape into a horned toad, and bounced him all around his dungeon.

YN: I'd pay a hundred galleons to see that!

The Gryffindor fourth years were looking forward to Moody's first lesson so much that we arrived early on Thursday lunchtime and queued up outside his classroom before the bell had even rung.  The only person missing was Hermione, who turned up just in time for the lesson.

Hermione: Been in the-

Harry: Library.

YN: Yes, we figured.

Ron: C'mon, quick, or we won't get decent seats.

We hurried to the two tables closest to the teacher's desk.  Harry, Ron, and Hermione at one, and Suguru, Ava, and I in the other.  We pulled out our textbooks, and soon we heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever.  I could just see his clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath his robes.

Moody: You can put those away.  Those books.  You won't need them.

We returned the books to our bags, Ron looking excited.  Moody took out a register, shook his long mane of grizzled gray hair out of his twisted and scarred face, and began to call out names, his normal eye moving steadily down the list while his magical eye swiveled around, fixing upon each student as he or she answered.

Moody: Right then.  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.

Moody: But you're behind, very behind, on dealing with curses.  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-

Ron: What, aren't you staying?

Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at Ron.  Ron looked extremely apprehensive, but after a moment Moody smiled.  It was the first time I'd ever seen him do so, even before Hogwarts.  The effect was to make his heavily scarred face look more twisted and contorted than ever, but it was nevertheless good to know that he ever did anything as friendly as smile.  Ron looked deeply relieved.