HOAX | George Weasley

XV

"Excellent question!" was Moody's response, surprising the class. "You see, there are levels to these curses. First off, you have to mean them, that by itself is more difficult that you may all think, and second and most importantly, it takes a great amount of power, one that only great wizards had been able to conjure." She watched him turn to her and she wished she had the power to turn invisible on command. "Look at Ms...?"

"Price." she answered, her voice a mere whisper. He looked at her for a second too long before continuing.

"Ms. Price here could try to get her wand out in this second and say the words pointing it at me and she wouldn't do more than give me a little tickle." He looked to the class now and continued with his lessons, urging everyone to write all this down. Cassie did so with great velocity, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible.

When it had finally finished and she was getting ready to leave, she heard her name being called.

"Ms. Price, could you come here for a minute?" It was Prof. Moody. She looked over to George who had been sitting next to her and told him to get ahead.

"Yes, professor?" She asked, standing in front of his desk and trying her best to look him in the eyes as to not seem disrespectful but also doing her best to avoid his magical eye, which unsettled her to great extents.

"Price." he simply said, and silence followed. She looked around uncomfortably, unsure if she was supposed to answer or wait for him to continue. "I knew a Price." he looked her straight in the eyes now. "Any relation with Elaine Price?"

Cassie took a sharp intake of breath. "Yes, she was my mother." she answered and then the strangest thing happened, Prof. Moody smiled. It shouldn't be strange for a person to smile, but in that moment Cassie thought that his face was not used to smiling, the movement looking stiff on his face and the multiple scars did nothing to convince her otherwise.

"Elaine's daughter." he paused for a moment, seeming to be remembering something. "Fierce Auror she was, one of the greats." Cassie smiled back, she didn't know what to say to that. "So, planning on following in her footsteps, becoming an Auror yourself?"

Cassie's words caught in her throat. This is your chance, a voice was saying in her head. The chance to learn from one of the greatest Aurors in the world. Tell him yes, ask him to be your mentor. But Cassie couldn't speak.

"Uhm..." she wiped the sweat off her hands on her skirt. "I...I haven't decided yet." she settled on answering, part of her wanting to hit herself for losing the opportunity that way, part of her...relieved.

Prof. Moody just made a grunt. "Don't take too long." he said, and turned his head to start writing things on a parchment, which gave Cassie the cue to exit.

Once she was outside the classroom she felt the air returning to her lungs normally. The previous situation had been probably the weirdest encounter that she had ever had with a teacher. Prof. Moody was a strange fellow, and she wasn't sure she wanted to spend more time than needed in his presence. Her friends, however, thought differently. Fred and George had thought this class to be the best lesson of DADA they had ever attended, Olivia thought that he was a bit of a crazy man, but in a good way and Grace didn't know, as she claimed to have fallen asleep sometime after the class started.

Cassie decided to let it go then, she would need to spend the whole year with him as her teacher, and plus, it was most likely all in her head. She hadn't been doing that good mentally and was starting to see problems where they weren't. She had enough with the problems that were indeed real.

For starters, the Triwizard Tournament. With the tournament being held on school grounds, they had been notified that two other schools would be joining them during the rest of the year; Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. This excited Cassie at first, having the chance of meeting students from over other countries sounded exciting. But, after hearing that her job as a prefect will get more complicated because it was their responsibility to also supervise the new students, Cassie wasn't as excited now.