"Can I call you Tori? You know Tori, I'm a great friend."
"I don't get it, why are you being nice to me?"
"Maybe I don't want to see you friendless."
When Victoria Silvers, who comes from a long line of Slytherins, is sorted into Gryffindor her life...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"An aging potion, that's the only thing that seems to work." George was whispering. He, Fred, and Lee had stayed up the entire night trying to figure out how they could slip their name into the goblet of fire.
Tori was right. They asked her to help. "Come on, Tori. Your the only one who's taking O.W.L.S. potions." Tori rolled her eyes, sighing. She too had spent a good chunk of the night awake. She had been reading anything she could find on the Triwizard Tournament.
"Why can't you ask Angelina? She's taking potions." Tori asked, gesturing to her friend. "Angelina's not going to help us. She's already been bragging about how she's of age."
It was true. Angelina was about to be of age a few weeks before the deadline. Tori sighed as she took a bite of her toast, "Guys... the tournament is extremely dangerous... people have died! And all for what? Money? If you need money—"
"Tori, we've told you this. We don't want your money. We want to earn it. Besides, how dangerous can it be? Please, Tori, please!" Fred said, causing Tori to sigh. "Fine."
✧ ✦ ✧
They hurried into their Defense Against the Dark class right in front of the teacher's desk, took out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, unusually quiet. Everyone was unsure how to feel about their new teacher. 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, stomping over to his desk and sitting down, "Those books. You won't need them." They returned the books to their bags, Angelina 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, 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, "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 agreement.
"But you're behind – very behind – on dealing with curses," Moody said. "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 Arts. 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 counter-curses and leave it at that. I'm supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like since you're in the sixth year.
"So, 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 not put your gum on the bottom of your seat, Miss Campbell, when I'm talking."
