O, CURSED CHILD. ﹙ harry potter ﹚

XXIX ; foreign schools

            and then she heard mad-eye moody's voice, echoing in some distant chamber of her empty brain: flip a desk... flip a desk

            elara made no movement. 

            flip a desk...

            why? she asked in her head, i won't do it until you give me a good reason.

            because i said so...

            that's not a reason. elara subconsciously put her hands on her hips, a telltale sign she was annoyed.

            flip the desk! NOW!

            no!

            the feeling washed away from elara. she came back to reality to see her classmates gaping at her. moody looked the slightest bit taken aback. elara felt her lips quirk upwards. 

            "well done!" moody's gravelly voice sounded, "look here everyone, she's fought off the curse with ease! never seen a witch or wizard this young do that!"

            moody made her go under the curse four more times so she could demonstrate to her classmates how to effectively through off the curse. 

            all the fourth years had noticed a definite increase in the amount of work they were required to do this term. professor mcgonagall explained why, when the class gave a particularly loud groan at the amount of transfiguration homework she had assigned. she said that o.w.l.s. were close, but no one but hermione seemed to agree.

           harry, ron, and elara were deeply amused when professor trelawney told them that they had received top marks for their homework in their next divination class. she read out large portions of their predictions, commending them for their unflinching acceptance of the horrors in store for them — but they were less amused when she asked them to do the same thing for the month after next; the three of them were running out of ideas for catastrophes.

            meanwhile professor binns, the ghost who taught history of magic, had them writing weekly essays on the goblin rebellions of the eighteenth century. professor snape was forcing them to re- search antidotes. they took this one seriously, as he had hinted that he might be poisoning one of them before christmas to see if their antidote worked. professor flitwick had asked them to read three extra books in preparation for their lesson on summoning charms.

            even hagrid was adding to their workload. the blast-ended skrewts were growing at a remarkable pace given that nobody had yet discovered what they ate. hagrid was delighted, and as part of their "project," suggested that they come down to his hut on alternate evenings to observe the skrewts and make notes on their extraordinary behavior.

           "i will not," said draco malfoy flatly when hagrid had proposed this with the air of father christmas pulling an extra-large toy out of his sack. "i see enough of these foul things during lessons, thanks."

            hagrid's smile faded off his face.

           "yeh'll do wha' yer told," he growled, "or i'll be takin' a leaf outta professor moody's book. . . . i hear yeh made a good ferret, malfoy."

            the gryffindors roared with laughter. malfoy flushed with anger, but apparently the memory of moody's punishment was still sufficiently painful to stop him from retorting. harry, ron, elara, and hermione returned to the castle at the end of the lesson in high spirits; seeing hagrid put down malfoy was particularly satisfying, especially because malfoy had done his very best to get hagrid sacked the previous year.