Suspected
Chapter Ten: Offense and Defense
"Ms. Rita…" A Hufflepuff sixth year by name of Melanie Colbat placed a hand on her shoulder, to which Rita jumped reproachfully—her neck flushed and cheeks a rosy pink, Rita hurriedly patted her consoling hand, brought out of her reverie. "Ms. Rita…?"
Rita glanced up to acknowledge her surroundings. The Defense Against the Dark Arts Classroom. The desks were still occupied by sixth year students, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, second slot of the day. Rita cleared her throat nervously; she took note of Professor Mad-Eye Moody whom had risen from his seat at the teacher's desk, smirking slightly, and limped up toward the steps of the professor's office. Rita realized quickly that she had to assign them homework over the three Unforgiveable Curses, taking note of the black chalkboard where Moody had written a detailed description of all three Curses—he even, to Rita's discontent, drew a vivid image of the end result of the Killing Curse. The students themselves seemed to have taken the class rather well; however, Melanie Colbat, as gentle as she was, looked at Rita in concern.
"Ms. Rita," she repeated in a soothing voice. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," Rita said, rising to her feet. "I'm fine."
"It's just that it seemed you were out of it during the whole lesson," said Melanie carefully, watching Rita step toward the chalkboard.
Realizing that the prudent Hufflepuff was merely doing her due diligence in speaking to her professors as if they needed a shoulder to lean on every year, reassured her that she was—again—fine. Rita pulled out her wand, and, with a slighted expression on her face as she read Moody's description of the Cruciatus Curse, feeling her cheeks burn— "Erado…"
The words on the chalkboard wiped away, and Rita wrote down the assignment that would be reviewed in three days: a scroll's worth of parchment to list three preventative measures to avoid the first two Unforgiveable Curses, and how to—because it could not be deflected unless it was interrupted with perfect timing—recognize when the caster would perform the Killing Curse. Rita was actually more curious as to what they would write as an answer, if any, for the very last point of the assignment. Unless the caster spoke the incantation, there was no real way to recognize the Killing Curse was being performed, unless it was a near miss. Nearly.
"Ms. Rita," said Melanie politely, "I have a question…"
"What's your question?" said Rita routinely, dropping her anxious deposition altogether, turning around after she had finished writing on the board.
"Can you resist the Cruciatus Curse?"
Rita paused. The students looked at her expectantly. Of course, she would be the person to ask, wouldn't she? Rita pursed her lips uneasily, uncertain exactly how to answer that question. She had always been the one to perform it, but there were only a handful of times that she had received it. She had given it some hard thought when Professor Moody had described the Cruciatus Curse during the lesson, and had jumped down the erogenous rabbit hole for the remaining hour.
"It takes mettle to resist it, Ms. Colbat," Rita said slowly, finding the words. "It will still hurt, but if you find a way to cope, you can bear through it without losing your sanity. However," she turned to the rest of your class, "this can only help so much. Extended and prolonged exposure to the Torture Curse can have detrimental, long-lasting, effects."
"Like death?" asked Melanie softly.
Rita considered it; she thought of Frank and Alice Longbottom. She thought of her own personal experience with the searing pain that had felt as if it would go on…forever. One would be surprised just how much a person could live through, with whatever was left being next to nothing but a vegetative state…
"If given enough time under the influence of the Curse, it would make you wish for something as merciful as death; and hopefully, and I do mean hopefully, that if any of you should find yourselves in the company of such a person who would use it on you, they would oblige…"
She heard several students gulp, then they gathered their books and parchment and quills in silence. Melanie gave one last look to Rita, hesitant, and she seemed to reconsider whatever she was going to ask. She nodded, quietly retreated to her desk, and followed her classmates out the door. Rita waved her wand, and the door closed softly behind Melanie.
Relinquishing a steady sigh, Rita passed a hand over her face, and dropped in the chair behind the teacher's desk.
"Charming, Rita," came Moody's voice from the railed balcony of the staircase.
Rita inhaled a sigh of patience, and looking straight ahead, she replied, "What exactly would you have had me say instead, Professor?"
"They'd expect an answer like that from me, not from their coddling teacher's aide."
"Don't you remember? I'm your coddling teacher's aide."
Rita heard the sound of the stainless-steel hip flask being opened; she shot a reproachful look over her shoulder, "Really, Professor? Drinking now?"
"Class is dismissed," Moody said casually, shrugged a shoulder, sneering a grin on his scarred face. "I reckon I won't be sharing this with you this time, Rita. You wouldn't like it." He flicked his tongue out against the crease of his mouth.
Rita stared at him. Forget the drinking. He seemed to share a familiar tic with Barty Crouch Jr. Perhaps Moody had started to think so much like the people he hunted, he had attributed some of their quirks to his own personality. Moody seemed different, not so much as his snide remarks but he was more…relaxed? Could that be?
"Where did you go, during the lesson?" Moody continued, as he descended the staircase, his wooden leg punctuated his words with each thud against the flooring.
"I've been here this entire time."
"Uh-uh," Moody said with a shake of his head, drinking from his hip-flask, then he screwed the cap on tight. "Not what I meant."
"Then say what you mean," Rita said defensively, crossing her arms on the desk. She watched him carefully, and he had that critical expression on his face that he wore whenever he locked eyes with her. The ever-persistent edge of a worn-down Auror whom still believed that there were traitors in the room.
"That little student of yours, Ms. Colbat, might be a bit naïve; but despite what you might think because of the way I look now, I recognize that look on a woman when she daydreams about—"
"You know," Rita interrupted him, rising to her feet when he approached her, "we might be working together, and we'll spend a lot of time together, but you don't have to do…that…every time we are left alone." She indicated his suspicious expression with an impatient hand. "You don't have to psychoanalyze me." She paused, considering the fact that Moody actually would know what he was talking about. "You and I have lived two very different lives—"
"Not too different. My scars are on the outside," said Moody seriously. He took a step toward her; and Rita's face flickered with apprehension, and she took a synchronized step back. "But someone has dug their nails so deep into you, even I can see your heart bleeding when you speak to the students about defensive magic, about the depravity of the Dark Arts—You've practiced it for so long, you speak of it as if it's an enemy, but your voice—dripping in unrequited love for it—"
"Poetic," Rita cut him off loudly. "Did you come up with that all by yourself? I didn't pin you as a wordsmith—"
"Mock all you want," Moody said with a frown, shaking a finger at her, like a grumpy old man. "Considering Madame Lestrange's own master, I could only imagine what she had to do to you to make you look like that—" he indicated her seat in the classroom where she had remained stoic during the lesson— "when a professor gives a lesson about the three deadliest Curses. I didn't pay much attention to the students in the class; they're all Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws—It's the Slytherins I'll be watching for. No doubt, I probably know their mothers and fathers—"
"I'm a Hufflepuff; and not every Slytherin that comes out of the House turns Dark," Rita said with a flippant hand.
He turned to leave the classroom, but halted. Rita could imagine that the lightning blue magical eye swiveled to stare at the back of his head, right at her. She didn't move, wearing a scornful expression on her face.
Moody said seriously, "I'll have to have a little chat with your husband soon enough; he's been avoiding me since I've got here."
"Severus Snape," spat Rita, "was personally acquitted of his charges associated with the Dark Lord. The Ministry of Magic is aware of his past and what he had to do in order to survive. Even when Karkaroff tried to give his name in return for a lighter sentence in Azkaban, Dumbledore vouched for him. He trusts him."
She grew increasingly aware with each passing year that she defended her own husband's name to protect him more than she protected herself from their Dark history.
Moody turned full-bodily to match her poisonous gaze with one of his own.
"I do admire your fierce loyalty to your comrades-in-arms," said Moody. "I can see why the Sorting Hat placed you in Hufflepuff. Dumbledore trusts him, but I don't. I don't trust you; and it's clear that Dumbledore doesn't trust you either."
Rita didn't reply.
"I don't know if you truly care for your students as much as you show it, but," he took another swig from his flask, "for what it's worth, it's quite convincing. At least to them, it is. I'm wondering why, if you think that Dumbledore would be so willing to vouch for you, why he won't let you teach Unforgiveable Curses, or anything at all."
Rita hesitated, for she thought perhaps the instance might've proved his point; however, …
"The last time I personally taught a lesson was last year, with Professor Lupin," said Rita calmly. "Wandless magic. Inadvertently, I might have threatened to use one of the Unforgiveable Curses on a particularly nasty Slytherin because he had hoped that I would show him how to use Dark Magic. My temper got the best of me."
"And instead of cursing him, you cursed yourself"—Moody referred to her hands again with his flask— "Is that it, Rita?"
"Allegedly," Rita emphasized delicately.
Moody made a small noise of what Rita could have sworn sounded like approval, but she didn't ask for clarification. He simply turned on his heel and walked out of the room.
And he left her alone.
The owl post came with afternoon feast, and Rita wasn't in the mood to gallivant another minute in front of Mad-Eye Moody; she opted out of sitting at the Staff Table beside he and Snape and stepped out onto the Hogwarts Grounds for a bit of fresh air, feeling as if she were suffocating under the wide-eyed gaze of Mad-Eye's electric blue, swiveling eye. She had grabbed a copy of The Daily Prophet, making mental notes of any more disappearing officials from the Ministry of Magic to more or less confirm her growing apprehension that the Dark Lord was rising to power.
The beginning of the article made Rita's eyes roll immediately:
"FURTHER MISTAKES AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
It seems as though the Ministry of Magic's troubles are not yet at an end, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Recently under fire for its poor crowd control at the Quidditch World Cup, and still unable to account for the disappearance of one of its witches— ("They still can't find poor Bertha," Rita said to herself)—the Ministry was plunged into fresh embarrassment yesterday by the antics of Arnold Weasley, of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office."
Rita stared at the name. Arnold…Weasley…? Arthur Weasley.
"Poor Arthur," Rita muttered under her breath.
"Arnold Weasley, who was charged with possession of a flying car two years ago, was yesterday involved in a tussle with several Muggle law-keepers ("policemen") over a number of highly aggressive dustbins. Mr. Weasley appears to have rushed to the aid of "Mad-Eye" Moody, aged ex-Auror who retired from the Ministry when no longer able to tell the difference between a handshake and attempted murder. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Weasley found, upon arrival at Mr. Moody's heavily guarded house, that Mr. Moody had once again raised a false alarm. Mr. Weasley was forced to modify several memories before he could escape from the policemen, but refused to answer Daily Prophet questions about why he had involved the Ministry in such an undignified and potentially embarrassing scene."
Rita frowned. A different sort of cruelty, Rita Skeeter was capable of. Slander and libel.
"Rubbish," Rita tossed the paper aside.
Though, the paper did explain about exactly what Moody and Dumbledore had whispered to each other when he had first entered the castle. Moody apparently had believed he was about to be ambushed and jinxed the living daylights out of a few garbage cans outside of his home, alerting his Muggle neighbors, bringing attention on himself. Rita thanked her instincts for not having tried to approach his house as she had wanted to at the beginning of the year—He might have killed her.
A swift walk along the Black Lake cleared her head, and Rita returned to the castle.
The bedrock of the Slytherin dungeons glowed a pale green under the light of the Black Lake; it always seemed so gloomy and ominous compared to the bright and welcoming entrance of the yellow, Hufflepuff Common Room. Severus always put things into perspective; and perhaps he might have had some wise insight about the animosity between Moody and Rita that she possibly had overseen due to her particular bias—one great bias…
Rita knocked twice on Potions Classroom door, turning the handle to anticipate the cynical, ever-leveled voice of her husband, ready to listen to her engage in an angry rant about what was unfair with the newest Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher; however, she was met with surprise when Draco Malfoy was seated at a desk, the only student in the Potions Classroom, with her husband looking absolutely livid. Rita didn't quite understand why Snape looked loathsome in the presence of his favorite student until she opened the classroom door all the way and spotted Mad-Eye Moody, too, looking livid.
What could possibly have happened since Rita had left the classroom?
"What…?" Rita was about to ask, however Snape held up a hand for her not to speak.
Snape turned to Moody, "I didn't think any Staff member had to tell you that transfiguration isn't a form of punishment that we use at this school, Moody."
"I'll teach any student not to curse an opponent when his back is turned. Your student wielded quite a hex when Potter's back was turned, a cowardly thing to do, perhaps you would know, Severus—"
Rita stared at the two adults, confused, mouth slightly agape. Draco Malfoy had a pained expression on his face, sharing the same anger that Snape showed. Although she was not fond of the only child of the Malfoys, Rita felt a pang of concerned compassion for him; the boy was close to tears, even if he was trying to hold them back. His face was pink, and any movement he made caused him to wince.
He was, after all, Bellatrix's family.
"What happened?" Rita asked Malfoy.
"He turned me into a ferret," Malfoy said, and his voice almost broke.
"What?" Rita reacted, staring at him. She turned to Moody. "You turned him into a ferret?"
Snape gave her a look, an attempt to ward her away so he may resume his business with Moody; however, leaving the two of them alone with both of them looking particularly murderous didn't sound like a good idea. Rita gave both men a wary look before approaching Malfoy. A surprised look on his face showed that even Malfoy didn't expect her to react as strongly as she did, for she gently placed the palms of her hands against his flushed cheeks, surveying for any physical harm. Although she had never been transfigured into an animal, she had known other witches and wizards who had tried to turn into an Animagus without proper training—the results were always lethal, if not fatal. And painful.
"Alastor," she chastised him. "He's a student."
"And I know his father too—and believe me, if you and he—" Moody pointed a stubby finger at Snape— "had a child and he pulled his wand out on a man with his back turned, I'd have done the same."
Snape frowned, "I assure you that I will make sure that Mr. Malfoy will earn his own punishment for what he's done, but this is an unacceptable manner of dealing with unruly students, particularly students in my own House."
"You are quite fond of your nest of vipers, aren't you? Snakes in the grass," Moody growled, "and the badgers that protect them." He glanced at Rita pointedly. "I'll give that boy detention."
"And what would you have him do, hm?" Rita remarked with a sneer. "Would you like Mr. Malfoy to turn into a beetle next? With your own efforts, he's halfway to learning how to become an Animagus—"
Moody hissed at her, dismissing her with a hand. "I'll think of something on the way back to the classroom."
"Or," Snape replied coldly, "Perhaps your efforts in teaching Mr. Malfoy how to become the first flying ferret was punishment enough."
Rita's mouth fell incredulously, giving Moody a look of disbelief. Not only had Moody turned Malfoy into an animal, but apparently, he had decided to bounce him off the concrete and into the air like a circus animal.
Moody obviously gave it some thought, and he consented to Snape, "Fine. But if I see anything like that happen again—"
"You'll report to me the instant that you see it," said Snape curtly, "for the distribution of punishment belongs to the offender's Head of House."
Moody nodded, frowning disdainfully, and he turned to Malfoy.
"Oi, you tell your father that I'm keeping a close eye on his son. Tell him that from me."
"My father will hear about this," Malfoy breathed, his face contorted in sheer resentment.
"Will he? I could tell you tales about your father that will curl even your hair—" Moody began, stepping forward; but when Malfoy recoiled, Rita stepped in between them with outstretched hands,
"That's enough, I think," Rita said lightly. "You've clearly shown Draco the consequences of his own actions, so let him be."
Snape placed a hand on Malfoy's shoulder, helped the boy up to his feet, and he turned to Moody with a scowl, "You can see yourself out, Professor Moody. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."
"I wasn't done talking to you," said Moody.
Rita shook her head skeptically, "And I'm sure what you and Severus are going to discuss is a civil conversation, is it? Two colleagues having a civil conversation?"
Moody gave her a small nod. At least wait until Malfoy was out of the room. Though, considering his father's history of leaking information about the goings-on of the Ministry of Magic and the Dark Lord's bidding, it wouldn't have surprised Rita if Draco actually did know some of the worst things that Lucius had done. Also, it wouldn't shock her if Draco's respect for his father actually grew because of it.
So, Moody turned around and walked out of the room and Rita closed the door behind him, turning to face Snape and Draco with a look of surprise (and relief) on her face.
"Meddling again, are we?" Snape remarked curtly. He had, since the agitator had left, calmed down significantly. A small smirk on his face shown only ever so slightly; perhaps her meddling had excellent timing.
"I wasn't," said Rita. "I had some free time; thought I'd come see you, but then…"
She gave Malfoy a weary look, one of genuine concern. "Draco, are you alright?"
"Why do you care?" said Malfoy. He might have tried to substantiate a hateful tone, but it was obvious that Moody had hurt him a greater deal than he had let on while in his presence. Perhaps the only student that Rita's fondness and gentle compassion hadn't convinced was he.
"Draco, whatever you think of me, I actually don't want to see you hurt," Rita said cynically, yet still sat down beside him. "But Professor Moody does have a fair point—"
"—You're taking his side, really—?" Malfoy interjected furiously,
"—You were trying to curse Potter behind his back!" Rita said loudly over him. She glanced at Snape quickly to see if he'd back her up; and although he, too, seemed betrayed by Rita's affirmation, he remained silent. "You're not in my little Dueling Club anymore, but you should know better than that. Only cowards aim for their opponent when their back is turned. Your father is lying low on the radar and the Dark Mark is in the sky, and you're throwing around curses at school—How does that look, Draco?"
"It looks," said Malfoy irritably, "like I was trying to defend my mother's honor—"
"Right after you probably insulted either Mr. Weasley's mother or Potter's," said Rita, and she gave Snape another quick glance. "Really, Draco?"
"I'm the one who got hurt," said Malfoy defensively. "Look at me." He made to move, but he winced. Rita shook her head to stop him from getting up from his seat; he shoved away her consoling arm from his shoulder with a frustrated groan.
Rita saw his pain, and she felt a pang of guilt. She glanced at Snape, whom wore a disapproving look. Rita's face softened.
She realized, in her heart, that she sometimes forgot that Malfoy—although he could be pompous, arrogant, unruly, and downright uncouth—he was still only a boy, fourteen-years-old and temperamental, and her own favoritism toward Harry Potter and his friends might have blinded her to the fact that he was, by association, family.
"You're right, love," she said quietly, and she clasped her hands together in her lap with resignation.
Snape turned to Malfoy, "For the sake of school policy, you will receive a detention, but not at Professor Moody's discretion. You will spend it with Rita." Both Malfoy and Rita looked up at him in surprise. "The next time that you want to curse Potter in front of his friends, with Rita's help, at least you will be successful—"
"Excuse me," Rita remarked, rising to her feet, "but in case it has escaped your notice, I'm not teaching anyone how to curse anybody—"
"You're not going to," said Snape curtly. "But if Draco needs a detention to satisfy misconduct, perhaps he ought to spend it with you. He doesn't require improvement in Potions, but I know that"—he turned to Draco— "he does think that Defense Against the Dark Arts is a waste of time."
"It is." Malfoy remarked.
"It's not," Rita and Snape replied simultaneously.
"It certainly will help your chances the next time you're at risk of turning into another white ferret," said Snape coldly. "That would have been handy to know the counter for that sort of thing, wouldn't it, Draco?"
"Yes." Malfoy said derisively, for the expression of Snape's face was compelling enough to make him answer so.
"Great." Rita muttered.