The Disgraced of the House of Black - A Multi-Character Fanfiction - Part One

81. Blasted Curses

Despite Fred, George, and Lee's assurances about how amazing Professor Moody was, Althea couldn't help but feel apprehensive as she entered his classroom on the first Thursday of the year. It was warily that she set her bag down beside her seat between Harry and Neville and sat down. The rest of the class had joined them, each looking just as apprehensive yet excited as everyone else. They didn't have to wait in jittery silence for long, however, as soon a noise reached their ears.

Clanking into the room, their teacher, Professor Moody, said, "You can put those away. Those books. You won't need them."

Picking up a piece of parchment, he read through the class register, his magical swivelling eye focusing on each person as they raised their hands.

Once he had finished, he said, "Right then. 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?"

"But you're behind, very behind on dealing with curses," Moody resumed after the general mutter of agreement. "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 interrupted sadly.

"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody remarked, smiling at Ron and effectively twisting his scars making him just a bit more menacing. "Yeah, I'm staying just the one year. Special favour to Dumbledore. One year then back to my quiet retirement."

Letting out a harsh laugh, he clapped his grotesquely scarred hands together as he began again, "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 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? 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 put that away, Miss Brown, when I'm talking."

She quickly put away their latest Divination homework she had been showing a friend under her desk. Althea was not fond of the fact that Moody's eye seemed perfectly capable of seeing through solid objects.

"So," Moody said. "Do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by Wizarding law?"

Several hands went into the air, including Hermione, Neville, and Ron's. Althea, although she knew them, kept her hand down. Moody pointed to Ron.

"Er," he began tentatively, "my dad told me about one...Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"

"Ah, yes," Moody remarked. "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."

Althea could not help but feel her apprehension grow as she watched Moody withdraw a jar of spiders from his desk. She swallowed. Surely he wouldn't show them all? Not right in front of them, would he? Better yet...should he? Althea could not come up for an answer, but as he brought out the spider and began moving it around the room, she knew she didn't want him to show them all.

"Total control," Moody remarked as the spider curled into itself so tightly Althea knew it could not be painless for it. "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. The Imperious Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Everyone jumped.

Replacing the spider in the jar, Moody asked, "Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"

Hermione and Neville both raised their hands again. Moody pointed to Neville.

"There's one," Neville said nervously. "The Cruciartus Curse."

Althea looked over at him quickly, remembering vividly their conversation from the end of the previous year. She gently took his hand in her own, squeezing gently. He squeezed back.

Moody stared at him intently for a moment before he asked, "Your name's Longbottom?"

Neville nodded, and Moody, to both Neville and Althea's relief, asked no more, instead turning and retrieving one of the other spiders and enlarging it.

"Crucio!" Moody cried.

Instantly, Althea felt she was going to be sick. The spider writhed and twisted in pain, and although it was not, she imagined easily that if it had lungs, it would be screaming. She suddenly became aware that the hand clutching her own had grown so tight she was losing circulation.

"Stop it!" she cried, looking over at Neville and seeing he looked as pale as a ghost, his eyes wider and more horrified than she could possibly have imagined. "Stop it!" she pleaded, shifting her eyes to Moody.

He seemed to be coming out of a trance as he stopped the spell, shifting his gaze from it to Neville.

"Reducio," Moody muttered, returning the spider to normal size. "Pain," he added softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciartus Curse...That one was very popular once too." There was a long pause before he added, "Right...anyone know any others?"

No one raised their hand. Bitting her lips hard, Althea, without bothering to raise her hand, said, "The Killing Curse. Avada Kedavra. Pretty self explanatory."

Fishing out the last spider, Moody performed the last curse.