Ella Potter (Draco Malfoy)

Chapter 22

The next two days passed without great incident, unless you counted Neville melting his sixth cauldron in Potions. Professor Snape, who seemed to have attained new levels of vindictiveness over the summer, gave Neville detention, and Neville returned from it in a state of nervous collapse, having been made to disembowel a barrel full of horned toads. 

Ella and Draco weren't very excited for their Defense Against the Dark Arts class. They didn't like Moody one bit. He was irritating and Ella would've loved if her dad took over. Harry had apologized for bringing her into Draco and his fight so she didn't hold anything against him.

They hurried to the chairs in the back and took out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited. Soon they heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. They could just see his clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath his robes.

"You can put those away," he growled, stumping over to his desk and sitting down, "those books. You won't need them. "

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.

"Right then," he said, when the last person had declared themselves present, "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.

"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 magic"

"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."

"So. . . do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"

Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Draco's and Ella's.

"Miss Potter" Moody said

"There are three curses, Imperius Curse-"

"yes the imperius Curse" Moody got heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it.

Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Imperio!"

The spider leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a back flip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.

Everyone was laughing - everyone except Moody.

"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"

The laughter died away almost instantly.

"Total control," said Moody quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats. . . "

"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," said Moody "Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.

"The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked, and everyone jumped.

Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar.

"Ok Potter, Another illegal curse?"

"The Cruciatus Curse," Ella said 

He reached into the jar for the next spider and placed it upon the desktop, where it remained motionless, apparently too scared to move.

"The Cruciatus Curse," said Moody. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," he said, pointing his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!"

The spider swelled. It was now larger than a tarantula.

Moody raised his wand again, pointed it at the spider, and muttered, "Crucio!"

At once, the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but if it could have given voice, it would have been screaming. Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently.

Draco wanted to look away from it, he looked at Ella and just saw her staring at it. Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed, but it continued to twitch.

"Reducio," Moody muttered, and the spider shrank back to its proper size. He put it back into the jar.

"Pain," said Moody softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse. . . . That one was very popular once too. Right... Potter you know the last curse personally"

"Avada Kedavra," Ella said "the killing curse"

"Ah," said Moody, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "Yes, the last and worst."

He put his hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody's fingers, but he trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop. It started to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.

Moody raised his wand "Avada Kedavra!" Moody roared.

There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible something was soaring through the air - instantaneously the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead. Several of the students stifled cries.

Moody swept the dead spider off the desk onto the floor.

"Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only two known people has ever survived it, and one's sitting right in front of me"

Everyone stared at Ella as she looked down at her wrist where the scar that matched her brother's was.

"I never noticed it" Draco said holding her wrist up to his eyes as they left class "It's been on your wrist"

"our robes cover it so I'm not surprised you haven't noticed" Ella said taking her wrist away from Draco

"how did you know all of the curses?" Draco asked

"Snape taught me" Ella replied

"Careful with your words love, Professor Snape told you" Draco said smirking

"No, taught me" Ella replied like it was nothing, Draco stopped to think.

He blinked and shook his head, he ran to catch up with her "taught you? You know how to cast the 3 curses"

"of course, do you really think my dad would've left me defenceless, the world is a dangerous place" Ella said

"but you're a potter" Draco said

"so, Snape still cares for me" Ella said "I owe him my life, I'd do whatever he asks of me"

As they entered the Great Hall for dinner Harry grabbed Ella's arm. 

Draco grabbed his arm and pushed him away "hands off potter"

"I want to talk to my sister Malfoy" Harry said glaring at him

Ella sighed "Draco go sit down, I'll be there soon"

Draco angrily walked to the slytherin table while Harry went to the hallway with Ella.

"You had Professor Moody today right?" Harry asked

"yeah, did he do the thing with the spiders" Ella asked

"Yeah... so the killing curse... it was the one that killed our parents" Harry said "seeing how they died just like that spider..."

"I know" Ella said "it's a bit overwhelming"

"Why are you friends with Malfoy, he's such an asshole" Harry questioned

"I don't know Harry" Ella replied "I just am"

"Be careful" Harry said "I don't want you getting hurt by him, I'm going in"

Harry turned and went into the Great Hall, Ella stood there and mumbled to herself "I'm sorry Harry, I love Draco"