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"Damn that man!"
Two hands slammed down onto a wooden desk, a head following shortly after. Fists clenched, the Muggle Prime Minister fumed, averting his eyes from the letter that was the cause of his anger.
"Surely he must be joking? Who on earth does that man think he is?"
The minister muttered under his breath, shaking his head and burying his face in his hands.
"He doesn't even have the decency to ask permission. I'm the Prime Minister of England! How can he be this bloody brazen!"
He crumpled the letter in one hand, and threw it aimlessly at a bin sat across the room from him.
Prime Minister,
This letter is to inform you that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry will shortly be welcoming two delegations from Durmstrang Institute and Beauxbatons Academy. The delegations will each include upwards of 50 students, who in interest of complying with muggle border and travel restrictions have been preselected from the previously anticipated 200. In addition, 5 staff members from each visiting school will also be in attendance. The schools will be arriving through magical means, and will be quarantining not for 2 weeks but for 3 days. Because of the minimal spread of the virus in the Wizarding World, we believe that these precautions will suffice.
Yours,
Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic
The man snorted.
"Let them dig their own graves then."
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The classroom door crashed open, the heavy metal handle slamming into the stone wall. A heavy clunking sound entered the room, preceding the entrance of the newest professor. The startled students slowly returned to their normal seating, some still frozen in place, hands before them, protecting from a threat. Harry took a deep breath, calming himself.
Professor Moody walked into the classroom, his fake eye rolling over in his head, whirling around the classroom. His other, natural eye stared at the students with ferocity.
"And what on earth do you think your hands are going to do for you!"
He slammed his hand down on Seamus's desk, glaring at the class. The boy jerked back in his chair, clearly regretting his decision to sit at the front of the class.
"Well?"
The room was silent, even Hermione's usually enthusiastic hand and energetic answers absent.
Moody sighed. Suddenly, in a burst of motion, he drew his wand, within an instant having it pointed at Seamus's neck.
"Dead."
From beside Harry, Ron let out a slight chuckle, a snort leaking from through his lips. Moody whirled, deceptively quick for a man of his size and impaired with so many visible injuries. His wand came up, pointing at Ron. His voice was flat, cold, and unyielding.
"Dead."
Ron's mouth froze, looking helplessly towards Harry for help. Harry shrugged, unable to provide much more than a weak smile. Moody strode through the classroom, jabbing his wand furiously at the students, repeating the same word, over and over.
"Dead."
He strode to the front of the room, his scarred face twisted in anger and frustration.
"Every single one of you. Every single one! Had a deadly weapon within arms reach. Yet when faced with a threat, when a stranger pointed their wand at you, you did nothing. Just sat there! Like a bunch of idiots."
The grizzled man laughed to himself covering his face, and staggering around in mirth. Suddenly, his face grew stony, and he turned to the class once more.
"Do you want to die, boys and girls?"
No response.
"Well, do you?"
The man shouted this time, his voice echoing through the classroom. A ragged chorus of 'no' filtered through the class. Moody chuckled, nodding to himself slowly.
"After all, it would be no fun if our enemies just died, would it."
Smirking to himself, and whispering under his breath, he paced. Finally, he came to a stop, and took his wand out once more. There were more than a few visible flinches, as the wand tip twitched. Inky dark letters appeared on the blackboard, spelling out a pair of words. 'Professor Moody'. Rapping his knuckles against the board, the man spoke up once again.
"That is me. Professor Moody. You will refer to me as such, or as sir. As I'm sure many of you know, I formerly served with the Aurors of this country's absolutely delightful ministry of magic. Can anyone here tell me just what an Aurors job is?"
Hermione found her voice, piping up.
"I-I think, to apprehend or detain Dark Wizards, is it not, Professor?"
Moody sat back at his desk, feet planted in the ground, and shrugged.
"Close enough, girl. None of that fancy language matters in the end though. My job was to stop Dark Wizards from crawling into your cozy little homes while you were sleeping and torturing you. By any means necessary. And trust me, I was good at it."
A maniacal grin spread across the man's face. He shifted his weight, tapping his wand on his desk.
"Well then girl. You're in an alley, late at night, alone. A little scumbag comes up to you, wand out, about to curse you. What do you do?"
Hermione opened her mouth, but faltered. She looked down, her hands twisting in her lap.
"I guess I've never thought about that, professor."
Moody spat off to the side, a dark look on his face.
"Then you've wasted 3 years at this school, all of you! Were all of your teachers so useless that they couldn't even teach you the basics of self defense?"
From next to Seamus, Dean Thomas interrupted the professor.
"Well, um, Professor Moody. Last year, Professor Lupin taught us a lot about how to deal with magical creatures, which was pretty useful. But… first year and second year, our professors were…"
He looked around, looking for support, before continuing.
"Pretty useless, like you said."
Moody nodded slowly.
"Well learning how to deal with creatures is all well and good, but this class isn't about that is it. Not when there's quite literally a class called Care of Magical Creatures! Bah. Then it looks like you lot are severely behind in learning how to deal with a human threat. I'm going to be honest, most of you, unless your name happens to be Harry Potter, will never have to face a threat more than a thief in a dark alley, or for the women, a pervert in the same. When that happens, you're going to be facing a human. A thinking person. Not an animal. As you are right now, you all will freeze. You might get robbed, you might get beaten, even killed."
The clunking echoed through the room, as Moody walked towards the back of the room.
"There's one first step that I want you all to have carved into your brains by the end of this year. I don't care if you forget every other thing I teach you, you fail your final tests, anything. If you remember this, I've done my job."
The students waited with bated breath, too afraid to turn around and meet the mismatched eyes of their professor.
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
With a roar, Moody sent a flurry of spells through the classroom, smoke billowing around, extremely bright flashes of light, and large bangs, as if tens of fireworks had gone off in quick succession. More than a few screams echoed around the room, as the dazed students tried to make sense of their surroundings.
"Purgo!"
Moody's voice cut through the panic, clearing the smoke. He stood in front of Hermione, glaring down at the disheveled girl.
"That, Granger, is the answer to my question. If you find yourself in that kind of situation, do exactly what I just did."
Blinking tears out of her eyes, and wincing at her ringing ears, Hermione responded.
"...Make a lot of noise and disorient the attacker… sir?"
Moody smiled for the first time, a seemingly genuine smile, yellowed teeth snarling.
"Muggle-born?"
Hermione nodded shortly.
"They always have the most sense. Good job, Granger. 5 points to Gryffindor. Did you hear her? Disorient the attacker. Write that down! Basics, everyone, these are basics. Make as much noise as you can! Scream, cast any noise making charm you know, and do it as many times as you can. Not only will this serve to disorient the attacker, as you all heard."
Here, Moody paused and smirked, the majority of the class still trying to regain full focus and awareness after the cacophony of sound from seconds before.
"But it will also serve to get the attention of anyone who might be nearby. Those are some of the most basic spells I'll be teaching you in this class. Noise, light, and cover. If your attacker is blind, deaf, and afraid to move, he can't attack you, now can he?"
Moody took a glance over the class once more.
"Gryffindors, you all?"
With a little shuffling, the students nodded back at him. Moody tweaked an eyebrow, before humming slightly, sighing. He turned, looking Harry dead in the eyes.
"Well then. All about bravery, heroism, and courage, I assume? Let me burst that bubble for you."
Moody's eyes bored into Harry's, both his natural and magical eye glaring at the Gryffindor, before he continued.
"The best thing you can do, the very best thing, if you find yourself in a bad situation, is to run."
A few snorts came from the seats, but Moody seemed focused on Harry.
"Run. Flee. Escape. Retreat. I don't care what the word is. I don't care how cowardly you might think that is. I don't care about your pride. I've been on battlefields, boys and girls. I've stepped over the steaming corpses of brave men and women who stood and fought, when they could have cut and ran. If you ran into a Dark Wizard, who was actively trying to kill you, as you were right now, none of you would survive. Not one."
The room fell into silence once more, even Moody seeming to fall back into his memories for a moment. Shaking himself out of his slight trance, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor spun around, jabbing his finger at Lavender Brown.
"You! Dark alley, alone. Someone comes up behind you, and points their wand at you. What do you do?"
Lavender, flustered for a moment, froze, but quickly regained confidence.
"Uh, uh. Cast the Caterwauling Charm, Lumos Maxima, then-"
Moody's hand came up, silencing the girl.
"Good, now you. You've cast a good noise spell, and a good one for light. What next?"
His hand pointed now to Ron. Stammering slightly, the redhead answered.
"Cast some kind of smoke spell? I forgot, I remember Fred and George using one… Fomo? Fumo? I can't remember. But cast that, then run like hell."
Moody grunted, satisfied.
"If whoever those were knew the smokescreen spell, I'd be impressed. We'll be going over those three spells next class. I want you to be able to cast all three within seconds. It'll be a practical class, so be ready for that. Bring earplugs if you want, you might run the risk of being deaf at the end of class."
Looking back to Ron, he spoke again.
"The spell you were looking for is Fumos. It's a good one to learn. The Caterwauling Charm, Sonitus Tumultus. And the light charm, Lumos Maxima. I want you to look up each one, find them in textbooks, ask older students, I don't care. You better all come to our next class knowing the perfect pronunciations of each incantation, as well as the wand movement."
With a rough clap of his hands, Moody strode to the front of the room, and nodded.
"Class dismissed."
He turned on his heel, and walked out of the classroom door, leaving a shell shocked class of fourth-year Gryffindors behind me. A collective sigh seemed to emerge from everyone, bodies relaxing and shoulders losing their tenseness, as they came to terms with the class they had just gone through.
As the chatter slowly started up, and bags began to be packed, the door suddenly slammed open once more. This time, instead of bangs of light, smoke and noise, jets of water flew through the air, slamming with force into the unwitting Gryffindors.
Neville tumbled over his desk in an effort to flee, crashing into his neighbor, causing a cascade of chairs and desks. As the screams and clattering of flying objects came to a rest, the entire class looked up, in utter disbelief, at the silhouette of their professor, grinning wickedly at them from the door.
"Hmmm. I don't see a single wand out. Nor do I see a single person running. I guess this year will be a long one. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! Get that through your heads, boys and girls. On your toes, ready for anything, all the time."
He turned and walked off into the hallway, with a throwaway comment over his shoulder.
"Thanks for cleaning the classroom for me!"
The classroom settled into stillness once more, broken only by Neville's soft moans from his prone position on the ground. Harry rushed over to him, shaking his shoulder gently.
"Nev, Nev. You alright?"
The stout boy just groaned again. Harry jerked his head towards Ron.
"Mate, can you go just check if… if Moody's gone or not?"
Face pale, Ron nodded, slowly making his way over to the door. Wincing, he raised his hand up in a protective posture as he leaned out the door. With an audible sigh of relief, he took a full step out, looking down both ways.
"He's gone."
Harry slumped back, leaning on the wall for support. He patted Neville gently on the shoulder.
"He's gone mate, he's gone."
Harry turned to look over to Hermione, her hair still tousled, but eagerly writing on a piece of parchment that had somehow been spared of Moody's water bombardment. Harry shook his head, as Ron came to sit beside him.
"Some class, huh."
Ron groaned.
"Bloody hell. I don't know if I'll live till the end of this year if I have to go through this every week, mate."
Harry nodded quietly.
"But… I guess it's… real though, isn't it. He really knows his stuff."
"I think you're right, Ron. It may have been quite a brash manner of communication… and perhaps a tad excessive and showy, but I think there were several very important messages in that class."
Hermione chimed in from her seat, turning towards the two.
"Come on now, pick Neville up. We'll miss lunch at this rate."
Clearly, even a class with Mad-Eye Moody wasn't enough to stimie Ron's appetite, as his stomach growled loudly. Harry chuckled weakly in response.
"I guess getting enough food is part of Defense too? Can't run if you don't have energy after all…"
He trailed off, together with Ron grabbing Neville by the shoulders, heaving him to his feet, and supporting the dazed boy as they walked out of the classroom.
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"He's not… actually teaching them, is he master?"
The prostrated man whimpered quietly from his bowed position at the base of a high-backed armchair. A sibilant voice rang out softly into the dark of the room, lit eerily with a small flickering fire.
"No, Wormtail. He must pretend, to convince that old fool he actually cares… But he might be. Crouch always liked playing with his prey… Dolohov and Bella taught him well."
AN: Another slightly late chapter, sorry guys. Hope you enjoy it though, I rather liked writing a Moody lesson. I doubt anyone would, but don't take any self defense advice from me or this story, it's a work of fiction.
