Chapter 12
The Unforgivable Curses
The next two days passed pretty quicky. I had seen Cedric very little, and I actuallt felt disappointed.
"You know why Snape's in such a foul mood, don't you?" Ron said as we watched Hermione teaching Neville a Scouring Charm to remove the frog guts from under his fingernails.
"Yeah," Harry said. "Moody."
It is common knowledge that Snape really wants the Dark Arts job, and he had now failed to get it for the fourth year running.
"I reckon Snape's a bit scared of him, you know," Harry said thoughtfully.
"Imagine if Moody turned Snape into a horned toad," Ron said, his eyes gleaming, "and bounced him all around his dungeon..."
Ron and Harry were looking forward to Moody's first lesson so much that they left early on Thursday lunchtime to get to the classroom before the bell had even rung. Hermione and I turned there later, since I had waited talking with Fred and George, and she was yet again in the library.
"Been in the -"
"Library." Harry finished her sentence for her. "C'mon, quick, or we won't get decent seats."
We hurried into four chairs right in front of the teacher's desk, took out our copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, unusually quiet. Soon we heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. I could barely see his clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath his robes.
"You can put those away," he growled, stumping over to his desk and sitting down, "those books. You won't need them."
We returned the books to their bags, I did it hesitantly, really afraid of why we might not need them.
Moody took out a register, shook his long mane of grizzled gray hair out of his twisted and scarred face, and began to call out names, his normal eye moving steadily down the list while his magical eye swiveled around, fixing upon each student as he or she answered. I felt Goosebumps when his magical eye landed on me.
"Right then," he said, when the last person had declared themselves present, "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling Dark creatures - you've covered Boggarts, Red Caps, Hinkypunks, Grindylows, Kappas, and werewolves, is that right?"
There was a general murmur of assent.
"But you're behind - very behind - on dealing with curses," said Moody. "So I'm here to bring you up to scratch on what wizards can do to each other. I've got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark -"
"What, aren't you staying?" Ron blurted out.
Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at Ron, and after a moment Moody… it looked wrong… somehow like he was trying hard to smile. Besides, he made his heavily scarred face look more twisted and contorted than ever.
"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody said. "Your father got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago… Yeah, I'm staying just the one year. Special favor to Dumbledore… One year, and then back to my quiet retirement."
He gave a harsh laugh, and then clapped his gnarled hands together.
"So - straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you counter curses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year. You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then. But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves, he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you isn't going to tell you what he's about to do. He's not going to do it nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, when I'm talking."
Lavender jumped and blushed. I noticed she was showing something to Parvati.
"So… do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by Wizarding law?"
Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Ron's and Hermione's. Moody pointed at Ron, though his magical eye was still fixed on Lavender.
"Er," said Ron hesitantly, "my dad told me about one… Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"
"Ah, yes," said Moody appreciatively. "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."
Moody got heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. Ew.
Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered,
"Imperio!"
The spider leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a back flip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.
Everyone was laughing – I wasn’t. What is so funny about it being controlled? It’s wrong.
"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"
The laughter died away almost instantly.
"Total control," Moody said quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats. . ."
I was glaring at the floor now. So much for hoping he wouldn’t teach scary stuff.
"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," Moody said, and I bet everyone knew he was talking about the days in which Voldemort had been all-powerful. "Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.
"The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked, and everyone jumped.
Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar.
"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Hermione's hand flew into the air again and so, to my surprise, did Neville's. The only class in which Neville usually volunteered information was Herbology which was easily his best subject. Neville looked surprised at his own daring. Geez, he decides to collaborate in this class of all.
"Yes?" said Moody, his magical eye rolling right over to fix on Neville.
"There's one - the Cruciatus Curse," said Neville in a small but distinct voice.
Moody was looking very intently at Neville, this time with both eyes.
"Your name's Longbottom?" he said, his magical eye swooping down to check the register again.
Neville nodded nervously, but Moody made no further inquiries. Turning back to the class at large, he reached into the jar for the next spider and placed it upon the desktop, where it remained motionless, apparently too scared to move.
"The Cruciatus Curse," Moody said. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," he said, pointing his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!"
The spider swelled. It was now larger than a tarantula. Ron pushed his chair backward, as far away from Moody's desk as possible, and I was tempted to do the same, for whole different reasons of course.
Moody raised his wand again, pointed it at the spider, and muttered, "Crucio!"
At once, the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but I could almost hear it screaming. Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently
"Stop it!" Hermione said shrilly, at the same time I looked away sadly.
Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed, but it continued to twitch.
"Reducio," Moody muttered, and the spider shrank back to its proper size. He put it back into the jar.
"Pain," said Moody softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse… That one was very popular once too.”
"Right…anyone know any others?"
I didn’t dare look up. I know the third one, but I’m not saying it.
"Yes?" Moody said, making me look up to find Hermione’s hand in the air.
"Avada Kedavra," Hermione whispered.
"Ah," said Moody, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "Yes, the last and worst. Avada Kedavra. .. the Killing Curse."
He put his hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody's fingers, but he trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop. It started to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.
Moody raised his wand, and Harry I couldn’t help but gasp. He wouldn’t…
"Avada Kedavra!" Moody roared.
There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible something was soaring through the air - instantaneously the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead. I stifled a cry as I looked at the now unmoving spider. Was that the way my mom died?
Moody swept the dead spider off the desk onto the floor.
"Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of me."
I looked at Harry sadly. Everyone else was looking around at him too. Harry stared at the blank blackboard as though fascinated by it. So that was how his parents had died too… exactly like that spider.
"Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it - you could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed. But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to teach you how to do it.
"Now, if there's no countercurse, why am I showing you? Because you've got to know. You've got to appreciate what the worst is. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're facing it. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he roared, and I jumped again.
"Now… those three curses - Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus - are known as the Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban. That's what you're up against. That's what I've got to teach you to fight. You need preparing. You need arming. But most of all, you need to practice constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Get out your quills… copy this down..."
We spent the rest of the lesson taking notes on each of the Unforgivable Curses. No one spoke until the bell rang - but when Moody had dismissed them and we had left the classroom, a torrent of talk burst forth. Most people were discussing the curses in awed voices - "Did you see it twitch?" "- and when he killed it – just like that!"
They were talking about the lesson as though it had been some sort of spectacular show, but I hadn't found it very entertaining - and nor, it seemed, had Hermione or Harry.
"Hurry up," she said tensely to us –Harry, Ron and myself- as we walked along.
"Not the ruddy library again?" Ron said.
"No," Hermione said curtly, pointing up a side passage. "Neville." Neville was standing alone, halfway up the passage, staring at the stone wall opposite him with a horrified, wide-eyed look.
"Neville?" Hermione said gently.
Neville looked around.
"Oh hello," he said, his voice much higher than usual. "Interesting lesson, wasn't it? I wonder what's for dinner, I'm - I'm starving, aren't you?"
"Neville, are you all right?" I asked gently.
"Oh yes, I'm fine," Neville gabbled in the same unnaturally high voice. "Very interesting dinner - I mean lesson - what's for eating?"
"Neville, what - ?"
But an odd clunking noise sounded behind us, and we turned to see Professor Moody limping toward us. All five of us fell silent, watching him apprehensively, but when he spoke, it was in a much lower and gentler growl than I had yet heard.
"It's all right, sonny," he said to Neville. "Why don't you come up to my office? Come on. . . we can have a cup of tea…"
Neville looked even more frightened at the prospect of tea with Moody. He neither moved nor spoke. Moody turned his magical eye upon Harry.
"You all right, are you, Potter?"
"Yes," Harry said, almost defiantly.
Moody's blue eye quivered slightly in its socket as it surveyed Harry. Then he said, "You've got to know. It seems harsh, maybe, but you've got to know. No point pretending… well… come on, Longbottom, I've got some books that might interest you."
Neville looked pleadingly at us, but we didn't say anything, so Neville had no choice but to allow himself to be steered away, one of Moody's gnarled hands on his shoulder. The way he looked at Harry seemed so wrong…Geez, I am now seeing things.
"What was that about?" Ron said, watching Neville and Moody turn the corner.
"I don't know," Hermione said, looking pensive.
"Some lesson, though, eh?" Ron said to Harry as we set off for the Great Hall. "Fred and George were right, weren't they? He really knows his stuff, Moody, doesn't he? When he did Avada Kedavra, the way that spider just died, just snuffed it right -"
But Ron fell suddenly silent at the look on Harry's face and didn't speak again until we reached the Great Hall, when he said he supposed they had better make a start on Professor Trelawney's predictions tonight, since they would take hours.
I did not join in with Harry and Ron's conversation during dinner, neither did Hermione. She ate furiously fast, and then left for the library again. Harry, Ron, and I walked back to Gryffindor Tower, and Harry raised the subject of the Unforgivable Curses again.
"Wouldn't Moody and Dumbledore be in trouble with the Ministry if they knew we'd seen the curses?" Harry asked as we approached the Fat Lady.
"Yeah, probably," said Ron. "But Dumbledore's always done things his way, hasn't he, 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?" Harry said.
"I s'pose," Ron groaned.
They went up to the dormitory to fetch their books and charts, and I went up to get mine as well.
I took my copy of Unfogging the Future back down to the common room, found Ron and Harry’s table, and set to work on my predictions for the coming month. An hour later, Ron and Harry had made very little progress, though their table was littered with bits of parchment bearing sums and symbols, and I had already finished.
"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," Ron said, 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."
"What - make it up?"
"Yeah," said Ron, sweeping the jumble of scrawled notes off the table, dipping his pen into some ink, and starting to write.
“Wait… weren’t we doing that already?” I asked confused. I had invented all the stuff I wrote.
After sending me a glare Ron read as he wrote, "Next Monday I am likely to develop a cough, owing to the unlucky conjunction of Mars and Jupiter." He looked up at us. "You know her - just put in loads of misery, she'll lap it up."
"Right," Harry said, crumpling up his first attempt and lobbing it over the heads of a group of chattering first years into the fire. "Okay. . . on Monday, I will be in danger of- er - burns."
"Yeah, you will be," said Ron darkly, "we're seeing the skrewts again on Monday. Okay, Tuesday, I'll… erm…
"Lose a treasured possession," Harry said, as he flicked through Unfogging the Future for ideas.
"Good one," Ron said, copying it down. "Because of... erm. . . Mercury. Why don't you get stabbed in the back by someone you thought was a friend?"
"Yeah… cool..." Harry said, scribbling it down, "because... Venus is in the twelfth house."
"And on Wednesday, I think I'll come off worst in a fight."
"Aaah, I was going to have a fight.” Harry complained.
“Lose a bet,” I said as I smiled at their ideas.
"Yeah, you'll be betting I'll win my fight…”
They continued to make up predictions (which grew steadily more tragic) for another hour, while the common room around us slowly emptied as people went up to bed. Crookshanks and Zyrah wandered over to us. While Crookshanks leapt lightly into an empty chair, and stared inscrutably at Harry, Zyrah jumped in my arms and rested there.
I got bored and started to just look through the room, and I soon saw Fred and George sitting together against the opposite wall, heads together, quills out, poring over a single piece of parchment. It was kind of unusual to see Fred and George hidden away in a corner and working silently; they usually liked to be in the thick of things and the noisy center of attention. There was something secretive about the way they were working on the piece of parchment, meaning it was either from the Joke shop, of the Triwizard Tournament.
As I watched, George shook his head at Fred, scratched out something with his quill, and said, in a very quiet voice that nevertheless carried across the almost deserted room, "No - that sounds like we're accusing him. Got to be careful. . ."
Then George looked over and I thought he saw me watching, but he was looking at Harry. Soon, he turned to me, and I stood up and pulled a chair to their table.
“What are you two planning? I at first thought it had to do with the jokes, or Triwizard Tournament… but it isn’t. What is it about?”
“Well…” George hesitated as he looked at Fred, who after a while nodded. “Remember the bet in the Quidditch cup?”
“Yeah,” I said confused. What about it?
“That git paid us with Leprechaun coins,” Fred stated.
“And…” I asked confused.
“They disappeared! All the money was false, so it went awaw.” George whispered furiously.
“What?” I said angrily, but caring to keep it down.
“That git! Of course you’re demanding the money right?” I said instantly.
“Of course,” George said smiling.
“Well… you tell me how it goes ‘kay?” I said yawning. “I’m off to sleep.”
“Sure thing,” They both said smiling. “Night.”
I stood up and went to Harry and Ron. I picked up my parchment, rolled it up, said good night, and went off to bed.
I waited a bit on bed, just thinking, when suddenly a familiar black owl was by the window. I quickly went to it and opened it excited, and sure enough, it had a letter! I read it as fast as I could.
Ashley,
Cedric seems okay, not at all like Snivellus so I’m sorry for that. I can see you have an interesting group of friends there… and I kept the picture, I hope you don’t mind. I'm flying north immediately. Harry sent me a letter complaining from his scar, he says it hurts. If it hurts again, please do make sure he goes straight to Dumbledore.
I'll be in touch soon. With love,
Snuffles
I smiled a bit as I finished the letter, but then I couldn’t help but sigh. What could Harry’s scar hurting mean? May this really have something to do with Voldemort? I hope not…
Trying not to think to much about it, I drifted off to a dreamless sleep.