Harry Potter and the girl he loved

part two - chapter 8

"Alastor Moody," Professor Moody began as we sat intently waiting for our first lesson of the year to begin, "Ex-auror. Ministry Malcontent and your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. I am here because Dumbledore asked me. End of story, goodbye, the end. Any questions?

The whole class blinked back at him in shock and silence, everyone far too terrified to ask anything.
So, Moody continued, "when it comes to the Dark Arts, I believe in a practical approach. But first, which of you can tell me how many Unforgivable Curses there are?"

Hermione hesitated before answering, "three, sir."
"And they are so named?" Moody asked as he turned to write something on the board.

"Because they are unforgivable. The use of any one of them will-" Hermione spoke.
"Will earn you a onee-way ticket to Azkaban, correct," Moody finished for her, "now the ministry says you're too young to see what these curses do. I say different! You need to know what you're up against! You need to be prepared. You need to find another place to put your chewing gum besides the underside of your desk Mr Finnigan!"

We all turned around to look at Seamus who sure enough, was frozen still, in the process of putting his gum under the desk.
He turned to his friend to complain, "No way. The old codger can see out of the back of his head."

Moody suddenly turned around and lobbed the piece of chalk in Seamus' direction, and yelled, "And hear across classrooms!"
We all turned back to look at him at the front, petrified of doing anything else.

"So which curse shall we see first?" Moody asked, hobbling his way over to me and Harry's desk at the front, "Miller!"

"Yes?" I ask with a shaky voice, not even bothering to correct him with my surname.
"Stand," Professor Moody demands and slowly I raise to my feet, "give us a curse. I know you know one."

"I'm afraid I don't Professor," I lie, praying with everything that I am that he doesn't reveal my secret.
His magic eye looks me up and down before he sighs and says, "Fine. Sit."

I breathe a sigh of relief as I sit down and he looks around the rest of the room for his next victim. His eyes land on Ron, "Weasley, stand."

Ron shakily stands up.
"Same question," Moody grumbles.

"W-well my dad did tell me about one," Ron stuttered, "The Imperius curse."
"Oh, yeah, your father would know all about that," Moody says nodding his head, "it gave the ministry quite a bit of grief a few years ago. Perhaps this will show you why."

Moody walks to the front and opens a container filled with spiders inside.
He dips his hand in and scoops one up. He takes his wand out and points it at the spider and mutters, "engorgio."

The spider doubles in size in the palm of his hand so he says loudly, wand still pointing at the spider, "Imperio!"

Using only his wand, he moved the spider onto Neville and Deans desk to which they jumped to the side, not wanting to be touched by it. He then picks it up and moves it ontop of Crabbe's head, to which he groans and squeezes his eyes tightly.

"Don't worry. It's completely harmless!" Moody says, moving it over onto Parvati Patils hand. Everyone bursts into laughter as the spider flies in a zig zag pattern, left and right around the room until it stops just above Ron's head, just barely brushing his hair with the tips of her legs.

"But if she bites, she's lethal," Moody laughs manically before dropping the spider onto Ron's face and watching him squirm about in terror. I feel kind of bad for the poor boy.

"What're you laughing at?" Moody snaps, moving the spider onto Draco's face, to which everyone, myself included, laughs harder as we watch Draco turn to Goyle in horror screaming at him to get it off. Goyle waves his arms about frantically, too scared of hitting Draco to whack off the spider.

"Talented isn't she?" Moody exclaims, "What should I have her do next? Jump out the window?"
He moves the spider against the window as the laughter dies down.
"Drown herself?" He suggests, floating her above a bucket of water.

We sit and watch in silence as Moody brings the spider back to the safety of his own hand, "scores of witches and wizards have claimed that they only did You-Know-Who's bidding under the influence of the Imperius curse. But here's the rub: How do we sort out the liars?"

"Another, another," he requests, looking around the class. A few kids put their hands up including Neville, who puts a small hand in the air.

"Longbottom is it?" Moody asks him, "up. Professor Sprout tells me you have an aptitude for Herbology."

Neville nods at this random accusation, before speaking up, "t-there's the, um, the Cruciatus curse."

"Correct! Correct!" Moody says before beckoning Neville over to his table.
He points his wand at the small spider and I bite my lip, not wanting to watch what happens next.
"Crucio!"

The spider struggles and squeals in pain and I can't help but watch even tho I don't want to. I still remember the feeling. One thousand white-hot knives, boring into the skin.
He only did it for short amounts of time, just less than to keep me from going insane but it still left a mental scar that I will never be able to unfeel.

I turn my attention to Neville, who looks as though he'd rather be dong anything else right now other than witnessing this. He looks as though it's not the spider whose under the curse, but him.

"STOP IT!" Hermione screams out and I'm thankful she does, "can't you see it's bothering him? Stop it!"

Moody looks unphased by her words, and almost bored as though he was zoning out. He looks up at Hermione, sighs, and then lowers his wand.
He stands up with the spider in his hand and puts in on Hermione's desk.
He clears his throat before saying, "Um, perhaps you could give us the last Unforgivable Curse, Miss Granger."

Hermione adamantly shakes her head, tears in her eyes.
"No?"

Moody points his wand at the bug and in one swift movement with his wand, he says, "Avada Kedavra!"
A flash of green light bursts out of his wand, knocking the spider over on it's back, dead.
I look at Harry, but he only stares numbly at the spider's corpse.

"The Killing curse. Only one person has been known to have survived it, and he's sitting in this room."

Moody walks over to me and Harry's desk and stares down at him, forcing him to make eye contact, before reaching into his coat for his bottle and taking a huge swig of it.

~small time skip~

I don't say a word as we leave the classroom, leaving Ron to talk.
"Brilliant isn't he?" Ron says, "completely demented, of course, and terrifying to be in the same room with, but he's really been there, you know? He's looked evil in the eye."

"There's a reason those curses ar unforgivable," Hermione cuts in, "to perform them in a classroom...I mean, did you see Neville's face?"
I elbow Hermione as we pass Neville, who's staring out the window with a blank expression.

"Neville?" I say softly, putting my hand on his arm.
Just then, Moody storms down the stares towards Neville, he puts an arm on his shoulder and says, "son? You alright?"

Neville only looks at him and gives a small nod.
"Come on. We'll have a cup of tea. I want to show you something."

1239 words - 10/4/22

GUYS!
I might be watching the outfit tonight!!! I love Dylan O'brien and I've never seen one of his films in the cinema so I'm super excited!