An American at Hogwarts: Book Two

Chapter Nineteen

After lunch, my schedule was pretty easy. We had Transfiguration, DADA, and then my friends went to History of Magic while I went to go run. I dropped that class the first chance I got, and I decided to use the hour to keep up on my training from Nat and Clint instead.

DADA was the only class that could really hold any element of surprise for me. I knew all the other teachers, so I knew what to expect. But as my friends and I walked into the room that used to belong to Professor Lupin, we had no idea what it would be like now that Moody was here.

"Is this really going to be your fourth professor in four years?" I asked, taking my usual seat next to Lee, the twins sat behind us and Angelina and Alicia in front of us.

"Yup. And the only good one so far's been Lupin," said Fred.

"Well I hope this one's good."

"Dad went to help him with some dustbins that attacked a few muggle police officers yesterday, remember?" said George.

"Oh yeah, that's right. He still made it here in time to teach though."

"If by 'in-time' you mean late to dinner," Alicia joked. I grinned and turned to respond, but before I could the classroom door came flying open. I thought Snape knew how to make a dramatic entrance, but this guy put him to shame.

"All of you, books back in your bags. You won't need them."

Lee and I shared a grin. We were already off to a good start.

Moody took attendance, then launched straight into the lesson. He and Lupin had apparently been in touch (which I took as another good sign), so Moody knew we'd done a good job of covering magical creatures. As such, he decided he was going to focus on teaching us curses.

He kept yelling "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" which I loved too, and I was sure my family would agree. I decided to add it to my vocabulary immediately.

Moody didn't waste any time before starting talk about a few things called "Unforgivable Curses". I'd never heard of them before, but apparently they were the three spells in the wizarding world that were completely outlawed, everywhere, no matter what.

Moody had a jar of spiders on his desk, and one at a time he zapped them with each spell to show us what it did. He started with one that controlled the mind of whoever it was used on, then one that tortured people, and finally one that killed them in an instant. Apparently, it was unblockable.

Everyone else in the class seemed the most bothered by the last two, but my mind was on the first one for the rest of the lesson. Yes, I didn't like the idea of the Killing Curse being unblockable. I made a mental note to work on that. But the idea that someone could completely take over your free will? All with just a simple spell?

It had happened to my Uncle Clint. It was my Uncle Loki's fault, and he'd tried to do it to my dad too. All that was behind us now, but Uncle Clint had told me about the experience once. He'd said it was hell. He killed people who were his friends and coworkers. He'd almost killed my Aunt Nat.

The idea that someone could do that to me... that most adult wizards could do that to me? Even though I knew they wouldn't, that's not something I ever wanted to risk experiencing.

I tried to pay attention to the rest of Moody's lesson, but it was only more unsettling. The one diamond in the rough was that there was a way to resist the Imperius Curse. If you had a strong enough will, and if you practiced, you could resist.

As soon as class ended, I said a hurried goodbye to my friends and rushed to go find Jackson. He was the only other person from my world, who would understand why it would be worth whatever pain or humiliation we dealt with to find a way to resist that curse. I needed help if I was gonna be able to resist that thing, and Jackson was the perfect place to go.