"Right then," Moody started after 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 Werewolves, is that right?"
Everyone murmured with agreement, none of them wanting to fully speak. Rebekah stayed quiet, carefully glaring at the Wizard with hidden disdain. Her group was huddled to the front in one of the corners, with Blaise to her right and Daphne behind her with Pansy. Draco sat diagonally from Rebekah's desk, to his right was Theo with Tracey in front of them but in the desk next to Blaise.
"But you're behind, very behind on dealing with curses," Moody growled. "So I'm here to bring you up to scratch on what wizards can do to each other. I've got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark —"
"What, aren't you staying?" Ron blurted from the other corner of the room.
"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody smiled, it contorted his scarred face. "Your father got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago. . . . Yeah, I'm staying just the one year. Special favour to Dumbledore. . . . One year, and then back to my quiet retirement."
"Thank Merlin," Rebekah mouthed to her group, they all grinned lightly before hiding it.
"Se, straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, 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 old enough to deal with it till then. But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves, he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better.
"How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? 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. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, when I'm talking."
Lavender Brown blushed and shoved her horoscope back into her bag, nudging Parvati who snickered at her.
Moody paused. "So . . . do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"
Of course, Rebekah already knew. They were the Unforgivables.
The Imperius Curse, the least destructive out of the three, could make anyone do anything. It was more or less mind control and it was strenuous to actually break the hold that the spell had.
The Cruciatus Curse was second, it tortured the person with extreme amounts of pain and could leave the victim with permanent mental damage if used for too long.
The Killing curse was the worst. It did just as its name stated, it killed the victim instantly and there was no dodging the spell unless you got out of the way. No one could survive it.
"Er, my dad told me about one. . . . Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?" Ron said when Moody picked on him again.
"Ah, yes. Your father would know that one." He paused. "Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse.
"Total control," Moody summoned one of the jars that held a spider, using the Curse to control the spider as it balled upon itself. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats . . ."
Rebekah gave an involuntary shudder. She hated spiders.
"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, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" He almost smiled again when everyone flinched. "Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Rebekah was surprised when Neville pulled his hand from his lap and into the air. He never really answered questions unless it was in Herbology, his best class where he was on par with Rebekah in.
"There's one, the Cruciatus Curse," Neville said in a low voice with a slight quiver.
"Your name's Longbottom?" Moody asked and when Neville nodded, he made no more inquiries. Turning back to the class at large, he reached into the jar for the next spider and placed it upon the desktop, where it remained motionless, apparently too scared to move.
"The Cruciatus Curse. Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," He said, pointing his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!"
The new spider swelled until it was larger than a tarantula and made Rebekah shove her chair back. She wasn't the only one, Ron had pushed his back as far as he could from Moody's desk.
Moody raised his wand and pointed it at the spider, and muttered, "Crucio!"
Rebekah had been too focused on how the spider twitched in Moody's grip. It squirmed and tried to free itself. It twitched violently and shuddered again and again. Rebekah's eyes didn't waver from the spider until Hermione's voice brought her attention back.
Neville had gone white and his knuckles matched, his hands tightly gripped the desk in front of him as he watched the mini torture scene before him.
"Professor," Rebekah growled. She couldn't stand the type of fear Neville had, it was from past trauma that wanted to resurface. "STOP!"
"Pain," Moody said after he shrunk the spider down again. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse. . . . That one was very popular once too.
"Right . . . anyone know any others?"
"Avada Kedavra," Rebekah announced loudly. Her group tensed for a second as they heaved a breath out, but the class looked completely uneasy as she had straightened her back. "The Killing Curse."
"What's your name?"
"Rebekah Potter," She gritted her teeth.
"Of course, you'd know about this one," His Magical eye darted to her green tie and crest. The Slytherin Heir crest rested on her sternum.
With a bright green line that mirrored in Rebekah's eyes, the spider was dead. Some students cried out as the spider was killed. Ron had propelled himself backwards as Moody scrapped the spider off of his desk.
"Not nice," He said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and she's sitting in front of me."
Rebekah had gone cold. Shivers went down her back. Her eyes stung for a moment but she gritted her teeth as she shuddered once before making herself gather up her courage. She bit the inside of her cheek as she raised her chin to glare at him before nodding once.
This was the spell that had killed her father who refused Voldemort access to her mother and her. The spell that Lily Potter had thrown herself into to save her daughter. The spell that made her scar.
Images flashed before her eyes. Mum. Dad. Corpses. Dead. Screams. Greenlight. Anger. White. Grey. Black. Death. Snake. Man. Darkness. It repeated and repeated until some of the images merged. Mum and Dad. Dead corpses. Scream of anger. Greenlight. Snake man. Pain, and then darkness.
She didn't comprehend anything of what Moody said next. She was in her own little world until Daphne jabbed a blue biro pen into her back. Shaking off the memories, she nodded when Daphne asked if she was alright.
"Now . . . those three curses — Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus — 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 to 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. . . ."
By the end of the lesson, Rebekah was back to normal. She had shaken off the lesson. Halfway down a passage, Rebekah saw Neville standing there like a statue. He was wide-eyed and didn't react as Rebekah quickly walked over and carefully placed her hand on his shoulder.
"Are you alright, Longbottom?" Rebekah asked after he turned around, still with glazed eyes.
"Oh hello," He said as if he was still in a daydream. "Interesting lesson, wasn't it? I wonder what's for dinner, I'm — I'm starving, aren't you?"
"Are you okay?" She tried again, not believing him in the least when his eyes glazed over dangerously. Rebekah touched him by the bicep, almost grabbing him. "You're not alright. Come on, let's go to the library, Longbottom. Talpey, can you go ahead and get the Alcove ready? You all can go to dinner, I want to have a talk with him."
"When are you going to have dinner?" Draco asked.
"I'll have Talpey bring us up something," Rebekah shrugged.
The Alcove in the library shelves had turned into two cushioned benches with a table between them. Rebekah had Neville follow her there, assuring him that she wasn't going to hurt him.
"Why are you being so nice to me, Potter?" Neville clasped his hands around the steaming cup of tea. He drank it, the sneakily added in Calming Draught helped him keep a level head. "I haven't done anything to earn it."
"Nor have you earned my wrath,"
"You're really good at calming people down,"
"I've been the one to help the First years. You don't know how nerve-wracking it is for them to be sorted and suddenly be hated by three-fourths of the school. I almost became the mother hen for them, the ones who have fears of being a Slytherin. We're not evil, Longbottom. We have to act tough to keep the other Houses off our backs, and to actually feel safe, we learn defensive spells."
He paused "You weren't affected by the Curses Moody did in the lesson!"
"You don't know that!" Rebekah's hands were white around the teacup. "Many people believe I don't remember it, I don't remember everything but I remember that spell. The drop of my mother's corpse as she sacrificed herself has been with me ever since I was attacked by Dementors. When Moody killed the spider, it affected me negatively. I retreated into my own mind to try and keep myself from lashing out."
He was shocked. Rebekah was always so strong, so happy. He nor any of the Gryffindors had seen her anywhere but at her best.
"I— I just froze. It was horrible. I couldn't think straight, all I could think of was my parents," He gulped the tea before slumping slightly in the seat, his shoulders less stressed and tensed. "They were tortured by— by Bellatrix Lestrange."
"She's in Azkaban at least, she can't hurt you or your parents anymore. Even if their minds have been broken, you have to remember that they love you. Both of our parents loved us enough to sacrifice themselves for us…"
Talpey brought a simple roast dinner for both of them. Rebekah had dismissed Emperor to get his own diner before time was up. After a long and pleasant discussion about sun-aquatic based plants, Neville and Rebekah exchanged first names.
It was nearing midnight and Rebekah was floating on the waters of the Black Lake.
Rebekah needed this. Some time to get her thoughts into order. The lake was freezing cold but soothing against her flushed skin, She had used warming charms and ingested some potions to keep herself warm as she swam in the lake. Mell floated next to her, a half bubble around her scaly face to allow Rebekah to hear.
"It's been a while since we hung out," Mell muttered, flipping her tail under so it sent a wave over Rebekah. She sent one back and almost wrestled Mell into the water before Rebekah had to go back up for air.
"Ha!" Rebekah threaded water slowly to keep her head above the water. "Stop tryna drown me! I had en—"
She screamed playfully as she felt the squid grab her by the leg and threw her metres into the air, easily catching her. It peaked its head out of the water and almost snickered as Rebekah huffed at it.
"Now he's tryna drown me!" She gently banged a fist against the thick appendage that held her waist. Rebekah pointed at Mell with a grin. "Do it to her too!"
Rebekah laughed heartedly as Mell was chucked into the air. The bubble around her head dispersed with the speed and instead of her beautiful voice, a screeching sound that was worthy of a wailing Banshee erupted from it. Some of the lights from the castle flickered on, the squid quickly plunged Rebekah back under the water just enough as a pair of windows opened.
The two girls exchanged a look, Mell's honey eyes glistened with mirth. "I think that's your cue to go back to your dorm, 'Bekah. Don't need you getting in trouble."
"You're right, same time tomorrow? I might be able to convince more of my group to come," Rebekah suggested and Mell nodded.
Rebekah was several dozen metres away from her dorm window and so the squid took her by the waist and quickly skidded to the other side of the lake. The area around the window opened, the water pulling back until there was enough room for her to touch the glass and open it. She was dripping onto the stone floor but used a quick spell to dry herself.