Chapter Thirteen
"I heard your brother got drafted by the Falmouth Falcons!" Delia whispered across the table to Carolina, not caring that Professor Dumbledore was enumerating the rules and regulations for new school year.
"Have you met any of his teammates? Are they fit?" Abigail cut in, before Carolina could respond to Delia.
Carolina shook her head and pursed her lips, refusing to talk over the headmaster.
Delia rolled her eyes. "Carolina, we've heard these rules a million times before, surely you can tell us something about them…"
"Shh!" Carolina sushed them, raising a finger to her lips. Professor Dumbledore had paused talking and was peering out into the crowd of students, looking as if he had something important to say.
"Why couldn't he have made Morgana prefect—you'd be a lot more fun without that bloody badge," Abigail whispered to her sharply.
"This year Hogwarts will play host to two other wizarding schools—Beauxbatons and Durmstrang—as our three academies engage in a timeless tradition… The Tri-Wizard Tournament!" Dumbledore boomed out, causing any and all students who had been dozing off after a hearty welcome back meal to sit up straight in their seats, their eyes trained on the aging headmaster.
"You're joking!" A voice called out from the Gryffindor table. Carolina recognized it was immediately and glared at the redhead. Of course he would be the one to obnoxiously interrupt the headmaster.
"I am in fact, not joking, Mr. Weasley although I did hear a good one this summer about a..." Dumbledore trailed off, only to be cut off by a loud cough from Professor McGonagall. "No, no better not, continuing on then," he said.
"Due to the grandiosity of the event, the normal inter-house Quidditch cup will be cancelled, but I do believe there will enough entertainment to go around despite this… I expect the students of Hogwarts to welcome our guests into our castle, helping them to feel at home here in a foreign land as we would ourselves desire if we were in their shoes. And let me remind you all that this is a chance to, shall we say, put our best foot forwards, showing the true Hogwarts spirit!" He finished to loud applause, and a few whistles. Students turned to talk amongst themselves excitedly, discussing the revelatory news.
Just then, the enchanted night sky overhead erupted in a heavy clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, making several of the first years jump in their seats. The eruption was followed by the loud creak of the gigantic wooden entry doors slamming shut, and hundreds of heads swiveled around to the back of the hall, staring at the newcomer.
"Ah, Alastor, I was beginning to wonder whether you'd been delayed… welcome!"
The grizzly man standing in the back of the hall made his way up the center aisle, approaching the professors' table. He had an uneven way of walking, almost like a limp, but one foot made a distinct metallic thump as it hit the stone below, Carolina noticed. His whitening hair was disheveled in a wet mess about his face. But the most arresting detail must have been the bright blue eye bulging from his head and swirling around at a dizzying pace. It was so terrible unnatural that Carolina felt herself look away, unable to take in his gruesome, scarred face.
"Albus," the man growled, gruffly gripping hands with the Headmaster after finishing the long walk across the hall.
"Students, may I present to you our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Alastor Moody!"
Moody? Carolina had read about him when she had been going through her legal section phase in the library. Many of the more recent trials of dark wizards and witches had called him as a witness, as he was often the Auror who had caught them. But the man she had imagined while reading her books looked vastly different from the one standing at the front of the hall. She had imagined a barrel-chested, handsome man in swirling robes… not this… she didn't even have the words for it as she watched his eye swivel to the back of his head, refraining from gagging. But he was one of the best Aurors of his day… If Carolina wanted to work in magical law, surely she would need a recommendation from him as her Professor to get a job in the department. She shivered to herself; how unfortunate that he had to look so… disturbed.
Carolina sat down next to Adrian who was leaning across the aisle to talk to Miles and Graham.
"Miles, I reckon you'd have made captain this year, if everything was normal," Adrian had been saying, before pausing as he felt Carolina at the desk with him. "Morning, Caro!"
"Morning," she replied sleepily, having stayed up far too late the night before, reading ahead in their defense against the dark arts textbook after her prefect rounds.
"As I was saying… Snape wouldn't give it to Malfoy, he's only been on the team for two years, you're the natural choice." Carolina looked over, mildly interested. Miles looked rather dejected and Graham's brows were furrowed. When he caught her looking, he sent a glare her way.
Carolina quickly turned back around, deciding it was a safer option to investigate the other students taking N.E.W.T. Level Defense Against the Dark Arts. She knew from talking to them last night that Abigail and Delia had dropped the class, and if Graham was sitting with Miles, that probably meant that Cassius hadn't scored high enough on his O.W.L. to continue with the subject. So the only other Slytherin would be… Morgana Bulstrode who was seated in the front row, hands clasped in front of her.
Seated next to her was a Ravenclaw boy with rather bad acne who was sucking on the end of his quill.
The room was actually quite full, seeing as this was a N.E.W.T. level class, and students from each house would be in attendance. There were quite a few Ravenclaws and three Hufflepuffs, the only students missing were…
She heard a raucous bout of laughter echoing in the hallway just as a contingent of seven Gryffindors trotted into the classroom, their conversation in full swing. There were four girls, two of which Carolina knew to be on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, the boy that commentated the matches, and the twins who were grinning, having just cracked some joke. As the group found their seats, the twins' heads turned towards her, perhaps feeling her watchful gaze. Immediately, upon meeting her hopeful eyes, they shot her twin glares and took their seats on the far side of the classroom.
Carolina sighed. It seemed she couldn't catch a break this morning. Montague seemed to be angry at her for no reason, and now Fred was still holding a grudge against her this long after the World Cup?
"Textbooks away!" yelled a voice from the back of the classroom and Carolina heard the distinct thud-step, thud-step. She knew, without having to turn around that their new Professor had finally entered. "We'll be having a practical lesson today!" He finally reached the front of the classroom and turned around with much more agility than Carolina would have credited someone of his age. "Now, your education in this subject has been quite irregular from what I've heard," his eye spun in its socket, making Carolina's stomach twirl. "It's a marvel any of you passed your O.W.L.s at all, with how this class has been taught. I hear however, that Professor Lupin adequately educated you on magical creatures, is that so?" He waited, daring the class to contradict him, or perhaps waiting for any answer at all.
He was met with silence. "Yes, sir," Carolina found herself saying after a moment. She was rather frightened of the man, but couldn't help herself. She had expectations to uphold as the smartest witch in her year. Besides, she wanted him on her good side.
"Your name is?" Professor Moody questioned gruffly.
"Carolina Flint, sir," she replied.
"Flint you say?" Moody snarled. "Related to Filward Flint?"
"He was my grandfather, sir," she said dutifully, uncertain of where this was going.
"And did you ever hear about your grandfather's illegal participation in muggle Capturing sports?"
"He died before I was born, sir." Her father never really talked about his own father. Carolina only knew him from his portrait in their sitting room, which was either dozing or absent the majority of the time. She had known that he had spent the last year of his life in Azkaban, but when she had asked her father about it, he had muttered something about embezzlement. But now that Carolina, thought about it, no one got sent to Azkaban for embezzlement. It was unheard of.
"Well before his death, he claimed to have been put under the Imperius Curse… Didn't help his case though, ended up in Azkaban."
"Rotten family, the lot of them," Carolina heard someone whisper from the far side of the room, and she didn't have to look to know who was talking.
"Now, who can tell me about the Imperius Curse?" Moody continued, as both his magical eye and his normal one darted accusingly around the room.
Carolina slowly raised her hand, determined not to be bullied on account of her familial associations.
"Ms. Flint?"
"It's an unforgivable, sir. It bends the will of the victim to that of the spellcaster, forcing them to do the bidding of whoever put the curse on them," she said.
"Right, now Dumbledore reckons I ought not to show this to you, but I disagree. You have got to be prepared for what's out there. Constant vigilance!" he barked, before grabbing his hip flask and taking a long swig.
Carolina's mouth dropped open, but she quickly corrected herself, hoping the professor hadn't seen. Was he drinking on the job? That was unheard of, and broke about a thousand school policies, and put the students' lives at risk!
"Now…" Professor Moody began, grabbing a large millipede from one of the jars by the classroom window. "The problem with the Imperius Curse is how to tell who is actually under it, and who is using it as an alibi. Caused a fair few problems for the ministry a few years back… Imperio!" He cast the spell on the millipede as various gasps could be heard around the room from the students.
The rest of the lesson proceeded as such, Moody generally awed the students in his tales of being an Auror, while demonstrating the three unforgivables… which Carolina found strange; they weren't set to cover those spells until their seventh year. But it wasn't the subject matter that Carolina found the most beguiling. She couldn't shake that image of the Professor and his hip flask. Surely it was only a handy way to drink gilly water or pumpkin juice, nothing stronger.
After Defense, the students had their lunch break, and Carolina walked with Adrian, Miles and an untalkative Montague towards the great hall.
They walked down the moving staircases to the entry hall only to see the Weasley twins, their commentator friend next to them, surrounded by a gaggle of first, second and third years, squirming around each other to see what the twins were holding.
Carolina squinted her eyes, furrowing her brow. The two redheads had all but sprinted from the Defense room ten minutes ago, and here they were now, loitering around the Great Hall? Something was up.
"Puking Pastilles! Fever Fudge!" One twin yelled out over the clamoring students.
"Get them before they're gone!" The other followed.
"Looking for a way out of class? Look no further!"
"Only three sickles a piece!"
"Exactly what is going on here?" Carolina questioned, her hands on her hips, strutting up to the duo. The younger students turned to look at her, slightly frightened; a few even ran off.
"None of your business, Flint," Fred said, narrowing his eyes at her.
Carolina felt her chest fill up with a hot, bubbling rage. So he was using her last name now?
"It actually is my business, Weasley," she emphasized. "I believe students are banned from selling or buying anything on school grounds. Twenty points from Gryffindor, and detention, both of you!"
She didn't wait to hear their protestations, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder and storming away. She was right, it was against school rules, but her punishment had been harsher than she would have normally deemed fair for first time offenders. But Fred was being such a git. He deserved it, she reassured her self.
"Carolina, you are my hero," Adrian said throwing his arm over her shoulders.
"I only wish I'd thought to do that first," Miles added on, grinning at her.
Even Montague grinned a sinister smile at her.
"Well, if they made those candies themselves, I really am doing a public service to the school. Who knows what their ingredients are!"
"A real public servant, you are!" Adrian said laughing as they sat down at the Slytherin table and Carolina marveled at her newfound social capital; it seemed she could do no wrong as a prefect as long as she was deducting points from Gryffindors. Now, all her classmates wanted to be her friend.
Author's note: WOW, thank you all so much for the reviews and support you have been showing the story! I absolutely love hearing from you all and it's definitely inspiring me to write quicker! :-) Hope you liked this chapter, even though it wasn't as exciting as the previous one!