Oh God Not Again!

Chapter Thirty Eight

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: By Harry's scar being born on the 31st of December, I meant that the scar is a Horcrux and Riddle was born then. Also, I was looking over Book Four when I was writing this and I noticed that Ron and Harry seemed to think Snape having 'seemed to have attained new levels of vindictiveness over the summer' was because he didn't get the DADA job again. Uh, hello? Sirius escaped from right under his nose right after exams and he can't even say anything because Dumbledore helped him. How do they not realize that's going to cause some bitterness? And that's not even counting the fact it's Moody (or supposed to be) since they have no way of knowing of Snape's…legal troubles… at that point.

Harry might have been looking forward to Actual Moody's first class – and he knew it was still Actual Moody as he had had the twins check just that morning. He was having them check so often in fact that they started getting a little annoyed and so he started paying them every time they did so. Naturally, they took that to mean 'seek Harry out at every available opportunity and assure him that Moody is Moody', but Harry didn't care. The twins needed the money for their awesometastic future joke shop. Anyway, Harry might have been excited, but not excited enough to actually show up early. Unlike the rest of the class. Even Hermione had had Neville and Ron drag her out of the library so she could stand outside the classroom in anticipation.

Harry actually showed up after Moody did, but before the bell had rung. His friends looked disappointed at his apparent apathy and made him sit in the front with them as punishment. Okay, maybe they didn't view it as punishment, but he was a normal teenager – well, sort of. Not at all, actually, but it was the thought that counted – and as such sitting in the front was never, ever something he wanted to do.

"I've got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark-" Moody was explaining when Ron so very rudely interrupted.

"What, aren't you staying?" he blurted, sounding upset. Harry wondered about that. They hadn't even been in his class for two minutes and Ron already wanted him to be their teacher forever? Then again, if the stories he'd been hearing about Moody's class all week (all vague, of course) were any indication, Moody knew his way around publicity too.

Moody shot Ron an 'are you stupid?' look but managed to restrain himself from making the biting comment that he so very clearly wanted to. "Does anybody want to answer that?"

Harry started to raise his hand, but Neville beat him to it. "Didn't Voldemort put some sort of curse on the position because he threw a hissy fit after Dumbledore realized he was evil and didn't give him the job? That's what Professor Black said."

"…I knew that…" Ron lied. Harry was rather impressed that even though Ron might have been the only one of the eight Gryffindors in their year not to get the fifty points Sirius promised for saying 'Voldemort', everyone else now used that name with such regularity that Ron had stopped twitching some time in early December.

Moody looked amused. "Sirius always was too reckless for his own good…Yes, Voldemort did indeed curse the position some forty years ago. Seeing as the curse was successfully thwarted for the past two years by people voluntarily leaving and having a one-year contract, I also plan to stay for only a year. I may come back in a few years if retirement proves to be too dull, but you'll be out of school by then so it won't matter."

"Are we going to get the Imperius Curse cast on us?" Harry asked curious.

Moody looked at him suspiciously. "How did you know that? Have you been talking to the other classes? Because if I found out they ruined this for you-"

"Oh, no," Harry assured him. "It's just that from what I can tell, surviving the Avada Kedavra gives you a psychic scar." He was a bit surprised the lesson would be the same. Then again, he supposed that gave credit to Crouch's acting skills the first time around.