FAMILY'S CURSE
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That morning, I was about to have my second class with Mad-Eye, and I was really scared of it being even worse than the previous one. It was pretty clear that Moody didn't like me, but after what he said about my parents, the feeling was both ways.
I ignored the anxious Gryffindors and the quiet Slytherins and just waited, leaned against one of the windows. The door opened magically again and I went straight through it to catch one of the seats in the back before Weasley or any other Gryff could mess with me again.
Moody made his entrance just as the last day, using his cane to support his tired body. He looked all over the room but didn't ask again our names. I bet after the last situation he already knew who we all were.
His eyes focused on me for a few seconds and it looked like he had almost smiled.
"Today, we are going to continue with the last class' topic," he announced.
"You've got to be joking," I complained in a whisper.
"But this time, we are going to practise it."
A bunch of mumbles started to fill the room.
"Isn't that illegal?" George Weasley asked.
"Not if we do it with academic purposes," Mad-Eye replied, making us stand up and using the magic to put the desks against the wall so there was more space in the room. "Now, make two groups. Slytherins in this side, Gryffindors in the other."
We did what he said, the Gryffindors with a clear expression of doubt in their faces, and us, trying to remain as close to each other as possible. Moody positioned himself next to the Gryffindors.
"Now, who remembers the first curse we talked about?" he asked.
"The Imperio" a girl behind me replied in a little mumble.
Without looking at me, Moody pointed his cane in my direction:
"Right, to keep the family traditions, Arambella, here."
Oh, for fuck's sake.
Taking all my willpower, I gave two steps forward so I was in the middle of the circle as well.
I looked at the Gryffindor group and all of them were with their eyes on me and interesting faces.
"Arambella, curse me."
What?!
I felt my shoulders lose their tension because of the surprise his words gave me.
"I beg your pardon?" I asked again, hoping it was only a hallucination.
Some people held their breath and others gasped slightly.
"Curse me with the Imperio."
This couldn't be true. He knew exactly that the only thing he was achieving with this was to make everyone believe that, after all, I was my mother's daughter.
I narrowed my eyes and made a gesture of despising with my lips.
"No." I refused, coldly. "No. No. I will not do this."
I gave two steps back and Moody looked at me with fury in his eyes.
"Curse me, Arambella," he insisted. "It's not like you don't know the curse."
"You don't dare to use the curse that your mother perfectionated and embraced?" Plums shouted at the back of the Gryffindor group, cynic, and making some of them laugh.
"If you don't do it, Arambella, you will force me to send you to the head of your house," he threatened.
"Fine! Do it! I'm telling you I'm not doing the bloody curse." I shouted.
"Out!" he growled, grinding his teeth and pointing his cane to the door. Everybody remained silent as I grabbed my bag and left.
"Since Little Snape doesn't have what it takes to do the curse, we are going to leave the practice till next day and focus now on the next topic..." I heard Mad-Eye say as I walked through the empty corridor knowing damn well where I was going.
The fury and rage that was running through my veins manifested itself in a fast and violent walk and heavier breathing. Once I arrived in front of the black door, I took a deep breath trying to calm myself and I knocked twice. I opened the door without waiting for an answer and found Snape's eyes focusing on from his newspaper to me.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. "You should be in Defence Against the Dark Arts."
"Moody kicked me out of class," I answered sitting in the chair in front of his desk.
"What? Can't you stay a day without getting in trouble or needing me to solve your problems? I told you to keep a low profile and not catch his attention, but of course, why on Earth would you listen to me? I'm never-"
"He tried to make me cast the Imperio" I interrupted him speaking over his voice.
He silenced himself immediately and looked at me with a face full of surprise.
"Is this any kind of joke of yours, Lilith?"
"I wish it was." I laughed cynic. "But no, he wanted us to practise the unforgivable curses."
"That's illegal." he interrupted me.
"He said it was for academic purposes."
"Still illegal."
"He said he wanted me to continue the family tradition and ordered me to curse him with that."
"And you refused to, I suppose," he said furrowing his eyebrows.
"Yes, so he said I had to go to the head of my house's office. And here I am." I answered. "Severus, he's not going to leave it there, he wants me to do the Imperio and to prove I'm just like my mother. He won't stop until I do it."
Snape's facial expression went from confusion to anger.
"Do not worry. I'll fix this," he said tightening his jaw. "Now, go to your common room."
I nodded and picked my bag again to leave his office. I didn't go to the common room but to the Hall where I found Cedric all by himself.
"You look lonely," I said as I approached him. "Can I sit?"
"Sure!" he replied with a big smile.
"Oi! Do you already know the results from the Goblet?" I couldn't be here in the morning." I remembered suddenly.
"Yeah..." he sighed hard and looked pretty disappointed. Oh, no. "I'm one of the competitors!" he announced changing his expression to a huge smile.
"Fuck, mate! You scared me!" I said as I gave him a soft punch in the arm. "But, congratulations! That's really cool! Who are the other two competitors?"
"Actually, three." he corrected me. Wait, what? "Fleur Delacour from Beauxbatons, Viktor Krum from Durmstrang...and Potter."
"Who?!" I almost shouted. "How is he a competitor?"
"I don't know. Everyone's saying he put his name in the Goblet."
"But how could he? We all saw what happened to the Weasleys when they tried."
"No idea, mate. I suppose we can only expect him to, at least, survive the Tournament."
"Yeah, I s'pose so," I replied, still pretty confused. I looked to the door and saw Cho Chang, Cedric's love interest, entering the Hall. "Look, your girl's over there. I should go." I said as I caught one of the chocolates he had on his table.
"Bye, Lith! You owe me chocolate!" I heard him say as I left the place.
This time, I did go to the Slytherin common room. When I entered it, I saw Draco sitting on the stairs that took to the individual dungeons, drinking a little box of apple juice. He seemed disappointed and confused as he looked to the floor.
"You good?" I asked him, leaning against the wall he was giving the back to.
"A few days ago, I said that finally, he was not going to be the damn protagonist, and now, look. Why does he have to be ALWAYS the damn protagonist?" he complained looking like a little boy. " I hate him" he sipped his juice with his eyes still focused on the wall.
I held my laugh.
"You wish you were him, huh?"
He looked at me from the corner of his eye. "Yes," he replied quickly, taking again the straw to his mouth. "I want to kill him too, though."
I freed my laugh and left him there, not without giving him a little cuddle in his hair before, to get back to my dorm.
Oh, Draco, if you only knew how much you improved my shitty day...
✵ ✵ ✵
I spent the rest of the day sleeping, doing homework, and talking to Olivia and Pauline. I explained to them what happened with Moody and had to give Pauline a bit of the previous context about my family's history so she knew why he hated me so much. The two of them agreed that he went too far with the curse.
I wasn't ready to confront him again today, but it wasn't like if I could skip the class.
Damn, if only I could have Professor Lupin back.
I repeated the same procedure I did yesterday; ignore the lions and make sure I was as far as possible from the ex-Auror.
When we entered the room, he was already there, with the desks in the same positions as yesterday, which meant that he wanted us to continue to practise magic.
I really hope Snape talked to him...
"Okay, class, make a little circle," he ordered and cleared his throat. "We are going to continue practising the curses."
The air started to feel heavier and everyone stayed close to each other. At that moment, the stormy clouds from outside seemed more interesting than ever.
"Since Little Snape complained to her uncle about how I do my classes, I'm going to use her as an example again. Just for your information, Arambella, he had to use McGonagall to tell me about it because he wasn't brave enough to do it himself."
"Bastard" I grumbled in a whisper.
"Come here."
I obeyed without hesitation. I was not going to allow him to humiliate me again.
"Since you don't want to curse me," he started putting the sleeves of his jacket in his elbow and grabbing his wand with firmness. "and I do have to teach these kids anyway, I'll curse you." he finished as if he was referring to the most common and normal thing in the world.
I felt the blood becoming ice in my veins and the air leaving my body. Every single person in the room, except him, had their eyes open widely and their brows lifted. None of them did expect that.
I didn't say a word, just stood there with more firmness, stoic, and with no expression on my face. Even though on the inside, I felt a hurricane going on. That seemed to annoy him even more.
"Imperio!" he cursed and I felt the magic hit me.
I felt like if my body didn't belong to me anymore, like if my consciousness was trapped and jailed in the deepest part of my brain while every single one of my muscles was made of rocks and was covered by threads, making me a human muppet.
Moody's eyes were looking at mine with eager curiosity, I forced myself not to show how actually scared I was. I couldn't even swallow on my own.
"You see this, kids? She is now completely under my will. She is not more than a muppet or a doll, I could make her jump out of that window and kill herself and she will do it without hesitation." he said devilishly. "Her mother used to love this curse, I bet Little Snape would have already done it to all of us if it wasn't because of that pathetic fake moralism she's trying to prove."
I tried to own again my breath and my body, but I couldn't. His magic was way stronger than my quiet one.
Please, make it stop. Please, make it stop.
"As you can see, I'm not forcing her to be quiet but she's so full of herself and all that Snape Death Eater pride, she wants us to believe she's not scared about this."
"Profesor Moody..." I heard George Weasley talking in a little insecure mumble. I couldn't look at him since my eyes were fixed to the desk behind Mad-Eye. "Isn't this too much?"
"Too much? The fun has just started, Mr Weasley!"
I noticed how my feet started to walk by themselves in a kinda robotic and creepy way to my left, in the twins' direction. What was he going to make me do?
"Now, I'm going to show you how I can control her speech. Arambella, you are going to tell the Weasleys what your mother did to their family and how they are going next once she's out of Azkaban."
No. No, please, no.
I struggled, trying to fight the curse in my body, but it was too powerful.
"Circe Snape commanded the death of your Prewett uncles. She ordered her servants to drown them. Once she is out of Azkaban, you two will be next." I heard how the words left my mouth and how my lips moved against my will. George gasped and looked paler than before and Fred held his breath, redirecting his eyes to his shoes.
"Well done, Arambella." Moody talked, showing evil happiness. "Now, back to your place."
My legs moved again to the place where I was before and I couldn't stop thinking about how mentally painful this was.
"I'm going to leave you now." he put his wand down and the immediate feeling of control over my body overwhelmed me, so I fell on my knees to the floor. A single tear abandoned my right eye and travelled down my cheek as I kept eye contact with Mad-Eye. He was, certainly, proud of himself.
I breathed deeply and looking at him in the eye with the heaviest and deathly look on my face, I talked, with the coldness running in the words:
"Are you happy now, Professor?"
"Class is over," he replied, turning around.
I stood up slowly, feeling my legs quite weak, and grabbed my bag to leave the room.
How did he dare to use that bloody curse on me? What did Snape tell him that did not work at all for Moody to hurt me like this? I feel sick, tired, and almost violated.
As I walked away, I noticed how someone grabbed my arm and walked me to the empty corridor that took me to the abandoned restroom. Fred Weasley pinned me against the wall and put one of his hands in my neck. His fingertips felt like fire on my skin.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I shouted at him.
"Tell me the fucking truth, Lilith." he groaned. "That wasn't the Imperio, right? It was you."
"Are you out of your mind?" I grumbled. "I'm the last person that wants to see Circe Snape out of Azkaban. I think my boggart said it pretty clear, Weasley."
He tightens his jaw making it sharper.
"I don't care if she's your boggart. I don't care what she does to you. If she or you dare to hurt my family again, I won't hesitate to use your own damn curse against you."
The anger covered me from up to down and it took all my strength to grab the collar of his shirt and switch the positions. In milliseconds, I took my wand out of my pocket and put it against his cheek, with my hand still on his collar, pressing.
"Threaten me again, Weasley, and maybe I'll reconsider the family tradition with you. Your own eyes saw how that fucking bastard cursed me and forced me to repeat those words. After all these years and everything you have told me, I would have all the damn right to curse you a bloody cruciatus. I'm not Circe nor a murderer, don't make me become one."
I took the wand out of his face and without waiting for his reply, I walked away, leaving him with his stupid emotions.
I went to the only place where I certainly knew I would be comforted with real affection.
Liv's room.