Girl Who Escaped {Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire} [BEING EDITED]

[3] The Unforgivable Curses

 EDITED

January 4, 2014

If you find any grammatical/spelling errors, please politely let me know. I am not a professional, nor do I claim to be an experienced author. I do make mistakes that I am trying to clean up.

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[Chapter 3: The Unforgivable Curses.]

The next few days were uneventful, other than The Twins' constant attempts to get me back for the chocolates I'd slyly passed them--candies that caused flaming flatulence. It landed Fred in detention because he passed flaming gas just as Snape walked behind him. Lee Jordan singed Angelina Johnson's robes while preoccupied by flirting with Hattie Mullingar, earning him a very stern chewing-out. George hadn't gotten in quite as much trouble as his two partners in crime, but I imagine it was still rather embarrassing for him. When the news got back to me, I was absolutely delighted. A triple whammy!

     Sometime earlier in the week, during Transfigurations, Neville turned a stone glass into a bird which went insane and tried to peck our eyes out. Other than that, classes and life as a student went by pretty smoothly.

     Professor Moody's Thursday class was jam packed. The whole class took out their books titled 'The Dark Forces: A Guide To Self Protection,' and began readying themselves for whatever lesson Moody had planned for us. Although this would be my first class with him, I'd heard many whispers about his rather raw methods, and found myself growing anxious as I sat with my classmates, awaiting further instruction.

     "You can put those away." A voice said from the back of the classroom. All heads turned to see Professor Moody limping towards his desk. His eyes fixated on me, "Those books. You won't need them."

     We all returned the books to their proper places, and I shifted in my seat; there was a growing feeling of angst in the room. Defense Against the Dark Arts was probably one of my more favorite classes, but somehow, sitting and waiting for Moody to speak made me considerably less excited.

　Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps could be heard as he walked to the front of the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. I could just see his clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath his robes.

　Moody took out a register, shook his long mane of grizzled gray hair out of his twisted and scarred face, and began to call out names, his normal eye moving steadily down the list while his magical eye swiveled around, briefly fixing upon each student as he or she answered.

　"Right then," he said, when the last person had declared themselves present. "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," said Moody. "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.

　Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at Ron; Ron looked extremely apprehensive, but after a moment Moody smiled-- the first time I had seen him do so. The effect was to make his heavily scarred face look more twisted and contorted than ever, but it was nevertheless good to know that he ever did anything as friendly as smile. Ron looked deeply relieved.

　"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody said. "Your father 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."