Broken

Chapter Three

Cedric and I never did talk about what happened with Cho and I. He tried to talk about it, but I shut him down almost immediately, telling him I never wanted to discuss it. He never brought it up again after that. The day when the three championships get selected for the tournament was getting closer and closer, and my nerves were getting worse and worse.

-

I had my first class of Defence Against the Dark Arts today with the Gryffindors. I sat down next to Draco at a desk and Pansy and Blaise sat in front of us. Soon after everyone was seated the new professor entered the room. He looked a lot worse close up than he did when I saw him from a distance in the Great Hall. He was dressed in old, dirty clothes, his hair was greasy and looked matted to his head. His eye that was strapped to his head was looking frantically around the room at everyone.

"I am Professor Moody, your new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher!" He yelled as he turned around and scribbled "Moody" on the chalkboard for everyone to see. He turned back around and faced the front of the class. "Now, can anyone tell me how many unforgivable curses there are?"

Hermione Granger began to speak immediately without even raising her hand. "Three sir, the use of any one of them will..."

"End you up in Azkaban." Moody interrupted as he wrote out "Azkaban" underneath his name on the chalkboard. "The Ministry says you are too young to learn about these curses..." he began, "but I say different!" He shouted in a grumbly voice.

He looked around the classroom and moved forward towards everyone, it seemed everyone in the front row was leaning as far back as they could in their chairs to get away from him, they all seemed completely terrified. He turned away again quickly and walked towards his desk, he put his hand in a jar and quickly revealed a medium sized bug that looked a bit like a spider. He asked Ron Weasley to give him a curse. Ron suggested the Imperius Curse. Moody was happy with this response as it was right.

Moody pointed his wand at the bug and said "Imperio."

The bug was lifted into the air and Moody was making it do all sorts of different things. It was flying over students faces and landing some students heads. Draco was laughing next to me until Moody put the bug on Draco's face.

"Get it off me, Dixon!" He squealed.

I laughed as I tried to bat it off of him.

The laughing quickly silenced when Moody brought the bug over to the window and suggested he could make it jump out, or make it drown itself as he put it over a bucket of water. Everyone was starting to realize how serious this curse actually was. Moody then picked on Neville Longbottom for another curse. Neville said the Curciatus Curse. Neville probably knew a lot about this curse because of what his parents went through. Moody got Neville to come up to the front of the class and stand in front of the bug.

Moody pointed his wand back at the bug and said "Crucio."

The bug began to screech in pain. I could see Neville was extremely upset and looked terrified. I felt so bad for him. Was this Moody's idea of a sick joke?

"Stop it! Can't you see it's bothering him! Stop it!" I yelled at the him. I didn't even realize I was stood up from my seat.

Moody quickly looked up at me and stopped torturing the bug. Neville coward back to his seat. I was still standing and looking Moody dead in the eye until Draco grabbed my arm to pull me back down. I sat down and looked at the floor.  Moody walked towards my desk and put the bug in front of me.

"Can you give me the last curse, Miss Dixon?" Moody whispered.

I shook my head and continued to look down at the ground.