Brighter Than the Sun

Chapter Forty-Seven

"Shut up," I snapped, glaring at him.

Ron fell silent and didn't speak again until we reached the Great Hall, when he said he supposed we'd better make a start on Professor Trelawney's predictions tonight, since they would take hours. I'd completely forgotten about the assignment, which meant I wouldn't get to I-M Luke tonight.

Hermione and I didn't join in with Harry and Ron's conversation during dinner. Hermione ate furiously fast, and then left for the library again. Once we'd finished eating, Harry, Ron, and I walked back to Gryffindor Tower.

"Wouldn't Moody and Dumbledore be in trouble with the Ministry if they knew we'd seen the curses?" Harry asked as they approached the Fat Lady.

"Yeah, probably," I said. "And I'm half hoping they do. Dumbledore's constantly hiring dangerous teachers. Quirrel tried to kill Harry, Lockhart tried to Obliviate you both, Lupin, while not intentionally, could've killed us — and Sirius — and now we have Moody, who likes to physically abuse and traumatize students."

"I think the abuse and trauma thing is taking it a bit far," Ron said.

"He tortured and killed a spider right in front of us, Ron," I said. "But hey, at least we know what the worst is, don't we?"

"Dumbledore's always done things his way," Ron said. "And Moody's been getting in trouble for years, I reckon. Attacks first and asks questions later — look at his dustbins. Balderdash."

The Fat Lady swung forward to reveal the entrance hole, and we climbed into the Gryffindor common room, which was crowded and noisy.

"Shall we get our Divination stuff, then?" said Harry.

"I s'pose," Ron groaned.

We went up to our respective dormitories to fetch our books and charts. As I went into the girls' dormitory, I saw Lavender and Parvati trying to get Jab to give them better nicknames. He still refused to call Lavender anything but "Curly" and ignored Parvati's requests to call her various flattering names.

"You get what you get, Lavender," I said, causing her to slump in disappointment.

"I'm still holding out for 'Jewel,' " Parvati said hopefully, waving some of her jewelry around. I shrugged and headed downstairs to do Divination homework. I found Harry and Ron talking to Neville.

"... reading this book Professor Moody lent me," Neville was saying. He held up the book: Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean.

"Apparently, Professor Sprout told Professor Moody I'm really good at Herbology," Neville said. There was a faint note of pride in his voice that Harry had rarely heard there before. "He thought I'd like this."

Telling Neville what Professor Sprout had said had been a very tactful way of cheering Neville up. Neville rarely heard that he was good at anything. It was the sort of thing Lupin would've done, and my respect for Moody increased a bit. Sure, he was paranoid and I didn't like his teaching methods, but he wasn't a complete jerk.

Harry, Ron, and I took our copies of Unfogging the Future to a table and set to work on our predictions for the coming month. An hour later, we'd made pretty much no progress, but you couldn't really tell since our table was littered with bits of parchment that had sums and symbols scribbled on.

"I haven't got a clue what this lot's supposed to mean," Harry said, staring down at a long list of calculations.

"You know," said Ron, whose hair was on end because of all the times he had run his fingers through it in frustration, "I think it's back to the old Divination standby."