Auror's Son | Book 4 Harry Potter x OC

Chapter 7: Discomfort and Flashbacks

3rd Person POV

The fourth years left lunch early to get to Professor Moody's first lesson. Raven had gotten a front row seat with Daphne next to him. He was excited to see what his Godfather had planned. They took out their books and waited for Moody to arrive.

Soon they heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and he entered the room. "You can put those away." Moody said, stumping over to his desk and sitting down. "Those books, you won't need them." Everyone returned their books to their bags. Moody took out a register and did roll call.

"Right then." Moody said. "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 assent.

"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-"

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

"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody asked, looking at Ron. "Your father, and Raven's mother got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago...Yeah, I'm staying just the one year. Special favor to Dumbledore...One year, and then back to my quiet retirement."

Won't be quiet if Mum and I visit. Raven thought mischievously

"So-straight into it. Curses." Moody said. "They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you countercurses 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 till 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?" Moody continued. "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...So do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by Wizarding law?"

Several hands shot up. Moody pointed at Ron. "Er." Ron said tentatively. "My dad told me about one...Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"

"Ah, yes." Moody said. "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse." Moody got to his feet and reached into a jar, and pulled out a large spider. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Imperio!"

The spider began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a back flip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and then started to tap dance.

Everyone was laughing-everyone except for Moody...and Raven. Raven could feel the spider's discomfort and it was making him uncomfortable, so he went into Instinct Mode and it numbed the pain.

"Think it's funny, do you?" Moody growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you." The laughter died instantly. "Total control. I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats...Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse. Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will."