Harry Potter and the Descent into Darkness by Athey

Part 13

Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. JKRowling does.

First Beta Pass by Clemex

– –

One of the things he enjoyed most about Moody's Defense Against the Dark Arts classes was that they were often very active, and focused on practical work. Moody didn't spend the entire class block lecturing, or having them read from their textbooks. He almost always set them to actively practicing spells in class.

The class was currently spaced around the room, all partnered off, and practicing the disarming charm. The thing about the class was that it had an odd number of students, so they could never get an even partnering set up. Since, by this point, Harry knew most of the spells that Moody was teaching the 4th year students, he had taken to standing back and observing in the class, or sometimes even reading.

'Moody', however, had also taken the opportunity to take Harry aside and teach him some slightly more advanced spells from time to time. Something which Harry had appreciated greatly. He now wondered exactly what the man's motive was behind the action. For that matter, 'Moody' had been trying to help him with the tournament the whole year.

Harry had come to the realization that he was not entered in the tournament so that he would die in it. Voldemort needed him in order to complete his resurrection ritual. So killing Harry was most definitely not the immediate goal. So why enter him in the tournament at all? Harry didn't know. But he intended to find out.

In fact, there were a lot of things that Harry wanted to find out, and his ultimate conclusion was that there was only one man who could really answer all those questions, and that man was Voldemort himself.

The rest of the students in his defense class were scattered around the room, all weakly attempting to disarm their partners, and most of them were failing miserably. It was quite honestly pathetic. Harry sneered at their pitiful attempts and rolled his eyes. He pushed himself off the wall that he had been leaning against and walked casually towards Moody, who was correcting Seamus's wand movement.

"Professor," Harry said in a quiet voice.

'Moody' turned and narrowed his one proper eye at Harry. "Yes, Potter? You need something?"

Harry glanced back and forth to see if any of the nearby students were paying them any attention. When he was sure that they weren't he leaned in a bit closer. "I was hoping that I could speak with you after class. Privately. It's important."

'Moody' looked suspicious – but he always looked suspicious, so this wasn't much of a change – and finally he nodded his head curtly.

Harry grinned lightly and took a few steps away and 'Moody' refocused on a Ravenclaw boy and started yelling at him for his poor pronunciation.

–

"You coming, mate?" Ron asked as he slung his bag over his shoulder and started heading for the door of the defense classroom.

"Moody asked me to stay after class," Harry said, as he finished back up his notes.

"What's he want?" Ron asked looking confused. Hermione's head came up and her eyes were filled with curiosity but she didn't say anything.

Harry shrugged. "Won't know till I go talk to him, will I? I'll catch up with you guys later. I may be late to diner if whatever he has to talk about takes a while."

Ron shrugged and started to leave, but it was obvious from Hermione's face that she was dying to ask some questions. Harry pointedly ignored her and turned to head back to the front of the class where Moody was standing beside his desk. His one normal eye was narrowed on him suspiciously, while his magical one was trained on him intently.