A/N: I'm giving all of you the same offer I gave to the readers of my other fic. If I get 10 reviews by Friday I'll post my next chapter early.
Disclaimer: If I owned HP we'd see more of the emotional depths of characters besides Harry and there would be fewer Christians going around making idiots out of themselves by calling the books "works of the devil" (Oh and before you freak out on me I'm a strong Christian myself. I just think it's stupid the way other Christians behave over these stories. I mean come on! They're FICTION! But moving on. You're not here to listen to me whine.)
Blaise raised an eyebrow as Draco stepped into Defense Against the Dark Arts flanked by Vince and Greg.
"Didn't Draco declare that he wasn't going to attend a class given by 'that mudblood creature'?" Blaise asked quietly leaning over to Alex's side of the desk.
"Yes." Alex responded, pulling her copy of The Dark Forces: A guide to Self Protection from her bag.
"Then what's he doing here?"
"What?" Alex twisted around in her chair and accidentally met Draco's eyes. His gaze was bitter, angry and quickly shoved behind a mask of arrogance. "Don't ask me Blaise. The boy doesn't confide in me."
Blaise rolled his eyes. "Best guess then."
She wrinkled her nose and shrugged. "I'd say his father ordered him to."
"Good guess." Greg confirmed from the seat behind her, either ignorant of or simply ignoring Draco's glare.
"So, we're all here under orders," Blaise commented simply. "What a pity."
"What's a pity, Zabini?" a harsh voice asked. Professor Moody stood in the doorway. "Put those away, my pretties. You won't be needing those books."
"Then what did he make us buy them for?" they heard Pansy mutter to Milli.
"Did it cut into your pocket money too badly?" Milli responded nastily, obviously annoyed.
"According to Professor Lupin you are all very well acquainted with Dark creatures. Good. This year we'll be covering curses and how to deal with them. I'll be bringing you up to scratch on what one wizard can do to another." Moody swept the Slytherins in the class with both eyes. "I have a feeling that some of this class has the advantage over the rest of my students even though you aren't even supposed to learn anything on this topic until your sixth year."
A low level snicker ran through the Slytherins.
"So, curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, I'm only supposed to show you a couple of counter curses and call you prepared. I'm not going to do that. After all how are you supposed to defend yourselves against something you've never seen? A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you is not 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. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked causing one of the Hufflepuff girls to jump and almost fall out of her chair.
"So, can anyone tell me which curses are most heavily punished by the Ministry? I'll give you a hint there are three of them."
No one answered for a long moment. Moody fixed one eye on the group of Slytherins seated in front of him, the one that included Alex, Draco and all of their respective friends.
"If one of you lot do not answer me by the count of ten I will give detention to you all." There was another brief pause.
"1…2…3…"
Alex exchanged a glance with Blaise. It would seem they'd be playing Chicken with the professor.
"4…5…6…"
Draco yawned.
"7…8…9…"
Alex sighed and heard everyone else do the same.
"The Unforgivables are the Cruciatus Curse, the Imperius Curse and the Killing Curse." The entire group spoke as one, somehow all adopting Blaise's trademark bored monotone.
"I wonder which genius came up with the name for that last one." The real Blaise commented dryly.
"Then I take it I don't have to explain what it does. Now, first you mentioned the Cruciatus Curse." Professor Moody placed a jar of spiders on his desk. "This curse is a causer of pain. When cast properly the victim will experience pain in its purest form. The curse also leaves the victim completely unmarked, except for any injuries sustained when he or she thrashes around in a vain attempt to relieve the pain. However, prolonged or repeated exposure within a short space of time can cause a person to go mad or even die if blood vessels in their brain burst due to the strain. " He pulled a spider from the jar and muttered, "Engorgio." It swelled to the size of tarantula. "Pay attention! Crucio."
The spider's legs snapped in on it's body and it began to roll around, twitching horribly. Alex grimaced. Moody didn't remove his wand and it began to jerk even more violently. One could almost hear the screams in the deadly silent classroom even though the spider made no noise.
"As fascinating as this is Professor…" Draco snapped after a long moment. Moody pulled his wand away and the spider went limp. A collective sigh of relief rose from the Hufflepuffs. Alex twisted in her seat to look at Draco. His voice had sounded…odd and his face was paler than normal. Vince leaned over and whispered something to him. At once Draco brought white knuckled fists up out of his lap and flattened them on the desk top with an act of will.
"And that is the Cruciatus Curse. What was next? Anyone?"
"The Imperius, Professor?" one of the braver Hufflepuffs spoke up.
"Exactly. The Imperius is a curse of control. Once cast it will allow the caster to wield the victim like a puppet. There are ways to fight it but that's next class. Right now all you're going to do it watch." Moody pulled a second spider from the jar and said, "Imperio."
The spider did a swan dive off Moody's hand and, upon landing on the desk started to cartwheel in a slow circle. The class began to snicker.
"Oh! Think that's funny do you? Would you still find it funny if it happened to you I wonder."
All laughter died. From behind her Alex distinctly heard a snort of disgust.
"Last is the curse I don't need to describe. The Killing Curse. Quite obviously it kills you. No marks. No proof. You are just completely and totally dead where you were alive a second ago." As he spoke the Professor reached in and grabbed one last spider. Placing it on his desk he pointed his wand at it solemnly. "Avada Kedavra!" he yelled.
There was a blinding flare of green light and a loud rushing noise, as if something huge was flying directly overhead. Then it all stopped and the spider was curled up on its back. Unmistakably dead without a single mark on it.
A gasp of horror and fear slipped out of most of the mouths in the room, including quite a few Slytherins.
"They're cruel and nasty." Moody finally spoke into the unbroken silence. "There aren't many ways to escape an Unforgivable. Your best bet is CONSTANT VIGILENCE!"
The whole class jumped.
"Keep your wits about you and you have a better chance of living to tell the tale. Class dismissed." That said Moody turned and strode from the room. Alex stood and slowly collected her things.
"There was no reason for that!" she snapped to the absent Professor but shoved her anger at him away as Blaise coughed, clearing his throat.
"I…well, it's one thing to read about them, even to learn how to perform them…" he trailed off, the ever present twinkle in his eyes dim.
"I know." Draco's voice was unexpectedly sympathetic. "The first time I saw my parents use them…well I very nearly did something the house elves wouldn't have approved of."
Blaise was staring at Draco. "You've seen your parents use the Unforgivables!" he hissed.
Draco shot a glance at the retreating forms of the last few Hufflepuffs, watching them until the last one passed through the doorway. "All three." He said vaguely. "Avada Kedavra only once and it was on a house elf."
Alex resisted the urge to ask him who the other two had been practiced on. She had the feeling she knew the answer and she doubted he'd tell her anyway. Instead she said, "I've seen the Imperius before."
"Then you know what I mean." Draco commented wryly.
"I always know what you mean Draco. You're easy to understand."
Greg smirked at her, the typical banter helping them all regain their footing.
"Um, I hate to say this," Milli commented, coming over to join them. "But don't we have another class?"
A/N: Honestly people I won't type it again so read the one at the top of the page...and review!