A/N: I'm getting ahead on writing. As of writing this, Chapter Two won't be going up for another two days. If I can keep this pace up I might finish the story in short order. Popping out two chapters a week means it'll be, oh, eleven weeks before I reach the end of the Goblet of Fire, and proceed on to the Order of the Phoenix. If I significantly ramp up production I could get it all done by the end of the summer. Wouldn't that be nice…o0O0o
"Hermione?" Harry whispered. The girl didn't respond. "Hermione!" he said, a little louder. This time, it caught her attention.
"You were serious about coming to the library?" she asked, surprised. It wasn't often she could drag her friends to the library, and even less often they went of their own accord. She watched as the boy sat across from her at the table.
"How do I switch classes?" he questioned. Divination was starting to really grate on him, and at this point, he didn't care about the difficulty of the alternative classes. Besides, he was sure Hermione would help him with any issues he had with the coursework.
"Are you seriously considering changing classes, or is this just hypothetical?"
"Actually, I don't think it's really considering at this point, Hermione," admitted Harry. "Trelawney gave me some trouble in class today, and I'm tired of being told I'm going to die."
Hermione gave him a sympathetic glance. "Talk to Professor McGonagall tomorrow, as well as Professor Babbling. I don't think Professor McGonagall will give you too much trouble with the schedule change, she thinks about as much of Divination as I do. As for Professor Babbling, she'll probably be fine with it, so long as you catch up on the first year course for Ancient Runes. I can help you with that if you'd like — I've just finished studying up here anyway. Now, we went over Futhark last year..."
The two studied right up to curfew, and by the end of it, Harry wanted to futharking hit something. Runes looked so unassuming, but the different ways you could put them together hurt his brain. Uruz? Elhaz? Uruz elhaz? Completely different things.
At least, Harry thought to himself later that night, it knocks me right out.
The next morning, Harry woke himself early to visit Professor McGonagall. She was surprised to hear that he wanted a schedule change but pleased to note that he was willing to take on the extra work. Professor Babbling was glad to hear she had a new student as well, but cautious.
"I'm sure Hermione will catch you up on all you've missed, she has a way of teaching… I wouldn't be surprised if she came back in a few years to take my position!" the teacher smiled. "Should you find yourself behind in the class, don't hesitate to ask me questions, Hermione will also be an invaluable resource for you."
Professor Babbling loaned Harry a set of preparatory textbooks and sent him on his way. He would only be sitting in on the class tomorrow, as the professor doubted he would be able to understand everything going on.
The next two days passed with a single hitch unless you counted Neville melting his sixth cauldron in Potions. Professor Snape, who seemed to have attained new levels of vindictiveness over the summer, gave Neville detention. He was made to disembowel a barrel full of horned toads, which Hermione was none too happy about.
"That's borderline abusive, Nev," Hermione consoled, "if you'd like, I can ask Professor Dumbledore to reprimand Snape."
Ron, upon learning of Harry changing courses, was rather upset — he went to sit next to Seamus and ignored Harry and Hermione for the rest of the day. The Twins were pretty annoyed with their younger brother, and assured Harry they were planning on pranking the boy until he let up on his silliness.
Ancient Runes wasn't as difficult a class as Harry had anticipated. Some of that could be attributed to Hermione hovering over his shoulder to offer advice, but he thought he had a decent grasp of the subject. He was extremely grateful to Hermione for their library study sessions. On Thursday, their post-lunch session ran right up to the beginning of Defence.
"Been in the —" Harry started as he and Hermione turned up just as the bell rung.
"Library." Ron finished, rolling his eyes. They hurried up to the three chairs in front of the teacher's desk, took out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, unusually quiet. It wasn't long before they heard Moody's distinctive thunking footsteps coming down the corridor. He entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. They could just see his clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath his robes.
"You can put those away," he growled, limping to his desk and sitting down, "the books. You won't need 'em."
They returned the books to their bags, Ron looking more excited for a class than ever before.
Moody took out a register, shook his hair from his eyes, and began to call out names, his normal eye moving steadily down the list while his magical eye swivelled around, fixing upon each student as he or she answered. Harry shuddered; something about that man just didn't seem right.
"I wonder why he's got to shake his hair out of his face if that eye of his can see through anything?" he whispered to Hermione. She shushed him, pointing to the Professor.
"Right then," Moody 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, er… werewolves, is that right?"
There was a general murmur of assent, and some whispers at Moody's pause before saying werewolves.
"But you're behind — very behind — on dealing with curses," growled Moody. "So I'm here to bring you up to scratch on the darkest creature of all. Wizards. There's no creature on this planet quite as dangerous as a well-armed wizard with intent to harm. And 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; Ron looked extremely apprehensive, but after a moment Moody smiled — the first time Harry had seen him do so. The effect was to make his heavily scarred face look more twisted and contorted than ever, but it was good to know that he ever did anything as friendly as smile. It abated his fears slightly, but he was still wary. Ron looked deeply relieved either way.
"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 stayin' just the one year. Special favour to Dumbledore...One year, and then back to my quiet retirement. I hope so, at least — dark wizards can strike at any time, and if my country needs me back, I'd have to put that on hold."
He gave a harsh bark of laughter, then clapped his gnarled hands together.
"But, if I do my job here well, I hope some of you will become Aurors. Then, if any of you have got real grit, talent, and vigilance, maybe I won't be needed so much. So!" he shouted, startling some of the students. "Straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. According to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you countercurses 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 mature enough to process it till then. But Professor Dumbledore never does things by the books — he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better. 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."
He held the class' undivided attention. Some students muttered at the implication that this was more than theoretical practice — the notion that they could one day need this information was uncomfortable.
"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.
"Er," stammered Ron, "my dad told me about this one….is it the Imperius Curse, or something?"
"Ah, yes," said Moody. "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."
Moody laboriously rose to his feet, grunting at the pain in his back. Opening his desk drawer, he pulled out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. Harry felt Ron recoil slightly next to him.
Moody reached into the jar and gently picked up a spider. It must have been charmed or drugged because it didn't show any signs of aggression. He 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 backwards and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a backflip, 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 laughed — everyone except Moody.
"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, then, if I did it to you? Well, you'll get that wish granted. We're practising throwing the Imperius curse off next class."
The laughter died away almost instantly.
"Total control. I could make it jump out the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats… Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse. 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. That's why we'll be going over it next class. It takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it — better avoid being hit with it if you can. The best defence against a spell is not to be there. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he shouted, and everyone jumped.
The spider crawled itself back into the jar. It was eerie, seeing the creature return itself its prison.
"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Hermione's hand flew into the air again and to Harry's surprise, so did Neville's. The only class in which Neville usually volunteered information was Herbology, which was easily his best subject. Even Neville looked surprised at himself.
"Neville?" picked Moody, his magical eye rolling right over to fix on the boy.
"There's one — the Cruciatus Curse."
Moody stared very intently at Neville, this time with both eyes.
"Your name's Longbottom?" he questioned.
Neville nodded, but Moody made no further inquiries. Turning back to the class at large, he reached into the next spider and placed it upon the desktop. It remained motionless, too scared to move.
"The Cruciatus Curse," said Moody. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," he continued, pointing his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!"
The spider swelled to larger than a tarantula. Ron began to scoot his chair backwards, as far away from Moody's desk as possible.
Moody raised his wand, jabbed 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 Harry was sure that if it could have given voice to its feelings, it would have been screaming. Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently.
"Stop it!" interrupted Hermione.
Harry looked at her, stunned. She was looking, not at the spider, but at Neville. Neville's hands were clenched upon the desk, his complexion pale and his eyes wide and horrified.
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," murmured Moody. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse….That one was very popular once too," he paused. "Anyone know any others?"
Harry looked around. From the looks on everyone's faces, he guessed they were all wondering what was going to happen to the last spider. Hermione's hand wavered a moment. She looked at Harry and was sure he knew, but when he made no effort to raise his hand, she raised hers.
"Yes?" said Moody.
"Avada Kedavra," Hermione whispered, her eyes on Harry.
Several people looked at her uneasily, including Ron. Harry looked at Hermione but didn't quite understand. The words were familiar, but he couldn't place them.
"Ah," said Moody, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "Yes, the final and worst of the three. 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 grabbed it roughly and placed it upon the desktop. It scrambled to get as far as it could away from the man, but its few short steps weren't enough.
Moody raised his wand, and Harry felt an oppressive feeling of foreboding.
"Avada Kedavra!" Moody roared.
A flash of brilliant green light pierced the air with a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible predator was soaring through the air — instantaneously, the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead. Several of the students stifled cries; Ron had thrown himself backwards and toppled off his seat as the spider skidded toward him.
"Not nice, not pleasant," he sighed, sweeping the dead spider the desk. "And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it, except with Conjuration. Only one person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of me."
Harry felt his face redden. He was still processing the spell in his mind, and it kept repeating in his head. He could feel everyone's eyes on him, but he kept his gaze locked on the blank blackboard as though it were fascinating, but not really seeing it.
Harry had been picturing his parents' deaths over and over for three years now, ever since he'd found out that they were murdered. Had they simply seen the flash of green light, heard the sound of speeding death, before life was wiped from their bodies? Harry had heard their voices the year prior when he had fought the Dementors last year. Their terrible power to trap their victims in their worst memories had surfaced the sound of his parents dying.
Moody was speaking again, from a great distance, it seemed to Harry. Hermione touched his shoulder, and he jumped slightly. There was no pity in her eyes, only compassion.
Harry settled himself and focused on Moody again. There was time to think over what he'd seen here later.
"Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it — you could all get your wands out 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 the whole class leaned back.
"Now….those three curses — Avada Kedavra, Imperio, and Crucio — 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 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…"
They spent the rest of the class taking notes about the history of each of the spells. No one spoke until the bell rang. 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, Harry thought, as though it had been some sort of spectacular show, but he hadn't found it very entertaining — neither, it seemed, had Hermione.
"Hurry up," she urged tensely.
"The ruddy library again, after that lesson?"
"No," said Hermione curtly. "Neville."
The boy stood alone, halfway up a side passage, staring at the same wall opposite him with the same horrified, wide-eyed look he had worn when Moody had demonstrated the Cruciatus Curse.
"Neville?" Hermione said gently.
Neville looked around. "Oh hello," he whispered tightly. "Interesting lesson, wasn't it? I wonder what's for dinner. I'm starting, aren't you?"
"Neville, are you all right?" asked Hermione.
"Oh, yes, I'm fine."
Ron gave Harry a startled look.
"Neville, what —"
An odd clunking noise sounded behind them, and they turned to see Professor Moody limping toward them. All four of them fell silent, watching him apprehensive, but when he spoke, it was much gentler than they expected.
"It's all right, sonny," he growled. "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. Harry and Hermione moved to stand in front of the boy and looked Moody in the eyes.
"We've got him, Professor," Hermione cautioned.
Moody grunted. "You take care of him. I'm sure he's in good hands," he said, before walking away. It seemed odd to Harry, but perhaps he was just unused to comforting students.
Neville looked gratefully at the trio. "Thanks, guys."
"No problem, Neville. It's what friends do."
Neville smiled weakly at what Harry said. "Friends," he thought.
"Some lesson, though, eh?" said Ron to Harry as the four of them set off to 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 silent at the look on Harry's face and didn't speak again until they reached the Great Hall.
"I suppose we better make a start on Professor Trelawney's predictions tonight," he moaned. "They're bound to take hours."
Ron looked at Harry for a response, his face reddening as he realised Harry no longer had Divination. He remained quiet for the rest of the meal and found himself sitting alone when the other two finished their food rapidly and left for the library.
o0O0o
"Alright, Harry," Hermione said quietly over a library table. "Spill."
Harry looked at her confusedly. "What do you mean?"
"You've been quiet ever since Defense."
"It's nothing," Harry insisted, pretending to read a conveniently open book.
"I know you better than that," she responded softly. "I know the curse bothered you. I'm here for you, you know that, right?"
"It's more than just helping you with your homework," she continued when Harry nodded. "If you ever need a shoulder to cry on, or a hug, or just to vent — I'm here for you. It's what friends do, right?"
"Thanks, Hermione," he mumbled. He felt a little better now, but he would still have trouble sleeping that night.
They went over runes until soon before curfew and made their way back. Hermione walked close to Harry, almost brushing his shoulder. The closeness made Harry a little wary, but it comforted him.
As they climbed into the Gryffindor common room, they were assaulted by a wall of noise. Harry went up to his dormitory to fetch his books and a scroll of paper, and found Neville, sitting on his bed, reading. He looked a good deal calmer than at the end of Moody's lesson.
"You all right there, Neville?" Harry asked him.
"Oh yes," said Neville. "I'm fine, thanks. I really appreciate what you guys did for me early. It's — it's nice to hear you consider me a friend. I think I needed to hear that today."
"It's nothing, Nev, friends have each other's backs," Harry smiled at him, before taking his Transfiguration homework back down to the common room. He found a table and spent the better part of an hour idly transfiguring a metal ball from one thing to another. He didn't notice how littered with bits and pieces his table was until Hermione came down and commented on it.
"Harry, you ought to be working on the homework, not messing around."
The ball split into two identical balls as the fog on Harry's mind lifted. While not the intended effect, it seemed to please Hermione.
"How'd you do that, Harry?" she exclaimed. "Duplication is a type of Conjuration. Professor McGonagall said Conjuration is a N.E.W.T. level transfiguration…"
"I wasn't paying attention, I guess," Harry admitted. "I don't know how I did it."
Hermione looked unimpressed. "Surely you've got some idea? I mean, you're the one who did it."
"Er, let me try again," he looked at the ball and tried to imitate the duplication. The ball split into two once more, much to his surprise. He looked around to see if someone else could have done it, but everyone was absorbed in their own work.
"How are you doing that?" she demanded, sitting across from him and staring at him intently.
"Remember in first year, the equation Professor McGonagall showed us? Transformation equals —"
"Yes, Harry, I remember the equation, but that's for transformative transfiguration. Duplication is a form of conjuration. In Guide to Advanced Transfiguration, the equation for conjuration is given. Lifespan, L equals the power of the wizard, P, times the information of the conjured object, I, divided by the mass of the conjured object, M."
Harry looked at her incredulously as she continued.
"Clearly, M isn't very high — let's say that's 10 grams — and even though it's a duplication, you have very little experience. So, I ought to be rather low," she rambled, writing notes down on a piece of parchment as she pieced together the simple equation. "We'll put it in as 0.5. Your magical core strength might have gone through a growth spurt recently."
She looked up and took a breath. "It doesn't add up."
"It's multiplication, Hermione."
The corners of her lips twitched, but the joke didn't make her laugh.
"What I mean is, that metal ball is still there. It's been a few minutes, and with the low information balancing out the relatively low mass, that would give you a higher power level than you ought to. Granted, that's the simplified equation, but…."
"I haven't got a clue what that's supposed to mean," Harry admired, looking down at her long list of calculations.
Hermione pursed her lips. "It means you've either gotten really good at Transfiguration, or you're stronger magically than you were in class today."
Harry was still confused, but decided to drop the subject in favour of actually finishing his homework (with Hermione's help, of course).
Meanwhile, Ron was busy working on his Divination predictions. Seeing Harry and Hermione working together on homework when normally it would be the three of them together, he began to write his next prediction.
"Stabbed in the back by someone I thought was a friend…" he muttered under his breath.
A/N: I originally had more planned for this chapter, but couldn't fit it all in. As it stands, I'm late to uploading this.