The Goblet of Fire - Harry Potter Male Reader Insert

10: Testing Immortality

The next two days passed without great incident. The Gryffindor fourth-years were looking forward to Moody's first lesson so much that they arrived early after lunch on Thursday 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.

"Been in the -"

" - library," Y/N finished her sentence for her. "C'mon, quick, or we won't get good seats."

They hurried into four chairs right in front of the teachers desk, took out their copies of the The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, unusually quiet. Soon they heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor.

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

They returned the books to their bags, Ron looking excited.

Moody took out a register, shook his long mane of grizzled grey hair out of his twisted and scarred face and began to call out names.

"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?"

There was a general murmer 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 -"

"What, aren't you staying?" Ron blurted out.

"You'll be Arthur Wesley's son, eh?" Moody said, smiling. "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."

He gave a harsh laugh, and then clapped his gnarled hands together.

"So - straight to it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you counter-curses 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 until 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, Mrs Brown, when I'm talking."

Lavender jumper and blushed. She had been showing Parvati her completed horoscope under her desk. Apparently Moody's magical eye could see through solid wood, as well as out of the back of his head.

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

Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Y/N's, Hermione's and Ron's. Moody pointed at Ron, though his magical eye was still fixed on Lavender.

"Er," said Ron tenatively, "my dad told me about one... is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"

"Ah, yes," said Moody appreciatively. "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."

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