Hermione's Twin ⇒ Fred Weasley

Ch. 32: The Hufflepuff

      I rolled my eyes and shouldered my book bag, making my way to Defense Against the Dark Arts class. I turned on my heel and faced him as I walked away. "Don't even think about feeding him one of those, Fred. It was funny when Ron swallowed one, but he was being Ron."

I had given Fred a bag of a new candy prototype from Zonkos and he was having a devilishly good time with them. The chocolates were labeled 'catastrophic catapulting chocolates' for a reason. Ron had been tricked by Fred and I into eating one, and let's just say that his stomach didn't agree with them. "I'll see you at lunch." I waved him off and he waved back with a small smile.

      Shouldering my books, I walked to the DADA classroom. While I didn't want to be late, I didn't actually want to be there either.

     I turned through the wide halls, adorned with stitched tapestries depicting Barnaby the Bramble and witches conquering over small folk of the 1600s. I tongued my bottom lip and furrowed my brow at the thoughts. Something was ... off about Moody. 

     The gargoyles that sat in wait at the corridor to the Defense Against the Dark Arts tower howled and barked jokes to each other about Snape as I passed, but I couldn't be bothered to listen, mind wrapped up in the feeling I got in my gut about the Professor. 

      Moody wasn't all there in the head. I knew this because of the lessons he'd been teaching us. Each of his lessons had been growing progressively... dark. From the very first lesson, Professor Moody had procured his lessons based on the Unforgivable Curses. 

       At first, I'd been able to brush the feeling off. He was an Ex-Auror, and perhaps this had been his way of training us against Dark Arts, against true evil. After all, how can you fight what you don't know? 

     But, now he was using them on students. Well... he was using the Imperious Curse. But, regardless, it still scared me shitless and I always refused to be part of it.

     All too soon, the large, wooden doors to the classroom were right in front of me. I inhaled deeply, swallowing the butterflies in my throat, and pushed the doors open. The mixed class was Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors, each clad in their distinct house robes. 

     I shuffled to my usual seat in the corner of the room, trying to be as invisible as I could be, which wasn't much. As class started, everything went as normal -- normal for Moody anyway. He told everyone to stand up and get in a line and yelled at me that if I didn't participate, I would get marked down again. I ignored this, as usual, and watched as my fellow students began doing the most random things under the Imperious Curse.

     The fact that Dumbledore approved of this kind of teaching made me wonder what kind of Headmaster he was... if he did approve of it. What if he didn't even know this was going on? Someone needed to tell him if that was the case...

        Shrugging my shoulders, I crossed my ankles and proceeded to stare aimlessly at the wall; maybe I'd ask Harry to bring it to Dumbledore's attention later.

✧

       Once the class was dismissed, I made a run for it. Lana and Jenna hollered at me as I completely abandoned them to hunt down Cedric. I'd tromped down two flights of stairs and ran into him and Cho. No... literally ran into both of them, Cedric mainly.

       Cho squealed in surprise and tugged on my sleeves, catching me as I overcorrected and tried to back away from them. She giggled and tucked her glossy black hair behind her ear with a smile. "You okay?"