New Romantics | Hermione Granger Book IV

|36| Chapter Thirty-Six

T H I R T Y  S I X 

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Potions class was filled with a different kind of suspense than it usually was as the entire class was just waiting for their Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson to take place. But the class was as miserable as ever, with Ron speculating that Professor Snape was sour that he hadn't been given the position that Moody now found himself in. Saffron agreed. Snape struck her as a jealous person, with the evidence being how he acted in the Shrieking Shack last year. She saw a side of him that she knew was there but seeing him act so vicious and rigid in his views was horrifying. Though, when she thought about it, she understood that she too had shown an ugly side of herself that night and that had things gone the way she planned it whilst in the Shrieking Shack, Sirius would have ended up back in Azkaban, or worse and Peter would have remained to be free.

Before Saffron knew it, she was found to be outside of Professor Moody's classroom with a real sense of anticipation in her stomach. She was desperate to find out what the hype was about him and whether or not he was as angry as Emilia had made him out to be that morning.

To her surprise, Moody began the class just as Lupin had the year previous, by asking them to put their books back into their bags. The class were very impressed by this just as they were last year and undoubtedly hoped that the lesson would head in a similar direction. As Professor Lupin was very popular amongst the Gryffindor students at least.

When taking the roll, Moody lingered on each name and unusually spent the least amount of time looking at Harry, as the man paused after each name to examine the student. Thinking back to her first year and when the teachers spent a lot more time looking at Harry, there couldn't be more of a contrast. Perhaps this was the first sign of the change that the younger students were alluding to that morning.

"Right then," Moody cleared his throat and finally commenced the lesson. "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?"

Saffron nodded her head as the class agreed.

"But you're behind - very behind - on dealing with curses," said Moody and Saffron thought back to when Rowan said he felt defensive when Moody mentioned it in his class. "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?" spluttered Ron and he regretted it a second later. Saffron didn't know what he was thinking but expected nothing less of Ron, it was what she liked about him. He was very easy to read and almost always said what he wanted to say.

To everyone's surprise, Moody actually smiled. But it looked like it was more because of who Ron was rather than Ron's concern as to Moody's contract with the school.

"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" said Moody. "Your father got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago....Yeah, I'm staying just the one year. Special favour to Dumbledore....One year, and then back to my quiet retirement."

"So - straight into it," Moody clapped his hands together loudly making Saffron flinch. "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."