The Potter Twins and the Goblet of Fire

Chapter 5: Mad Eye Moody

The storm had nearly blown the roof off of the Great Hall, but luckily, the school was still standing, (just barely.)

Hermione had finally started eating again, claiming that there were better ways to fight for the rights of House-Elves.

They had the usual classes.

Herbology with Professor Sprout.

Hagrid had made the class study very dangerous creatures called Blast-Ended Skrewts.

They looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. At least they were small. For now...

Divination with Trelawney. Both Potters hated it, since she kept predicting Harry would die, and always got something hilariously wrong about Michael's future.

She hilariously said she predicted they were both born in midwinter.

They were born in July….

Michael was at least having an easy time going through the process of becoming an Animagus.

Things seemed to get worse when Malfoy showed off another article written by the harlot known as Rita Skeeter, making light of the troubles Mr. Weasley and the Ministry had gotten themselves into.

They even got his name wrong! It was Arthur! Not Arnold!

Malfoy, "and there's a picture, Weasley! A picture of your parents outside their house, if you can call it a house! Your mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn't she?"

Ron was shaking with fury. Everyone was staring at him.

Harry, "get stuffed, Malfoy. C'mon, Ron…."

Malfoy, "oh yeah, you were staying with them this summer, weren't you, Potters? So tell me, is his mother really that porky, or is it just the picture?"

Harry, "you know your mother, Malfoy? That expression she's got, like she's got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?"

Malfoy, "don't you dare insult my mother, Potter."

Michael, "and Lord knows if she didn't have that expression, I get the feeling every boy in Hogwarts would want a piece of that! Even me!"

Malfoy yelled, "shut up!"

Harry, "keep your fat mouth shut, then."

BANG!

Several people screamed, Harry and Michael felt something white-hot graze the sides of their faces. They plunged their hands into their robes for their wands, but before they'd even touched them, they heard a second loud BANG, and a roar that echoed through the entrance hall.

"OH NO YOU DON'T, LADDIE!"

The twins spun around. Professor Moody was limping down the marble staircase. His wand was out and it was pointing right at a pure white ferret, which was shivering on the stone-flagged floor, exactly where Malfoy had been standing.

There was a terrified silence in the entrance hall. Nobody but Moody was moving a muscle. Moody turned to look at Harry and Michael at least, his normal eye was looking at Harry; the other one was pointing into the back of his head.

Moody, "did he get either of you?"

Harry, "no, he missed."

Moody, "LEAVE IT!"

Michael, "leave, what?"

Moody, "not you, him!"

Moody pointed at Crabbe, who had just frozen, about to pick up the white ferret. It seemed that Moody's rolling eye was magical and could see out of the back of his head.

Moody started to limp toward Crabbe, Goyle, and the ferret, which gave a terrified squeak and took off, streaking toward the dungeons.

Moody, "I don't think so!"

Moody pointed his wand at the ferret again, it flew ten feet into the air, fell with a smack to the floor, and then bounced upward once more.

Moody, "I don't like people who attack when their opponent's back's turned. Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do…."

The ferret flew through the air, its legs and tail flailing helplessly.

Moody, "never. Do. That. Again."

McGonagall came down the hall, yelling, "Professor Moody!"

Moody, "hello, Professor McGonagall."

McGonagall, "what…. What are you doing?"

Moody, "teaching?"

McGonagall, "teach- Moody, is that a student?"

Moody, "yep."

McGonagall, "no!"

McGonagall ran down the stairs and pulled out her wand; a moment later, with a loud snapping noise, Draco Malfoy had reappeared, lying in a heap on the floor with a terrified look. He got to his feet, wincing.

McGonagall, "Moody, we never use Transfiguration as a punishment! Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that?"

Moody, "he might've mentioned it, yeah, but I thought a good sharp shock-"

McGonagall, "we give detentions, Moody! Or speak to the offender's Head of House!"

Moody, "I'll do that, then."

Moody kept glaring at Malfoy as he muttered about his father.

Moody, "oh yeah? Well, I know your father of old, boy…. You tell him Moody's keeping a close eye on his son…. You tell him that from me…. Now, your Head of House'll be Snape, will it?"

Malfoy, "yes."

Moody, "another old friend. I've been looking forward to a chat with old Snape…. Come on, you…."

He seized Malfoy's arm and marched him off toward the dungeons.

McGonagall stared anxiously after them for a few moments, then waved her wand at her fallen books, floating them back into her arms.

….

A few minutes later, they sat at the Gryffindor table.

Ron, "don't talk to me."

Hermione, "why not?"

Rom, "because I want to fix that in my memory forever. Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret…."

The group of friends began laughing.

As their meal continued, Fred and the others talked very highly of Moody and his lessons, and how cool the wizard was….

….

The next two days passed without great incident, unless you counted Neville melting his sixth cauldron in Potions. Snape, who seemed to have gotten angrier over the summer, gave Neville detention, and Neville returned from it in a state of nervous collapse, having been made to disembowel a barrel full of horned toads. Horrifying to someone who had a pet toad.

The students knew why Snape was so angry. Another year of failing to be able to teach defense against the dark arts.

Harry, Michael, Hermione and Ron sat with other students such as Neville and Draco, their books about the dark arts in front of them.

Soon, they heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever.

Moody, "you can put those away. Those books. You won't need them."

They returned the books to their bags, Ron looking excited.

Moody took out a register, shook his hair out of his face, and began to call out names, his normal eye moving steadily down the list while his magical eye swiveled around, fixing upon each student as he or she answered.

Moody, "right then. 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?"

There was a general murmur of assent.

Moody, "but you're behind, very behind, on dealing with curses. 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-"

Ron, "what, aren't you staying?"

Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at Ron; Ron looked extremely apprehensive, but after a moment Moody smiled, the first time the twins had seen him do so. The effect was to make his heavily scarred face look more twisted and contorted than ever, but it was nevertheless good to know that he ever did anything as friendly as smile. Ron looked deeply relieved.

Moody, "you'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh? Your father got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago…. Yeah, I'm staying for just the one year. Special favor to Dumbledore…. One year, and then back to my quiet retirement."

He gave a harsh laugh, and then clapped his gnarled hands together.

Moody, "so, 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 jumped and blushed. She had been showing Parvati her completed horoscope under the desk. Apparently Moody's magical eye could see through solid wood, as well as out of the back of his head.

Moody, "so…. Do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"

Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Ron's and Hermione's. Moody pointed at Ron, though his magical eye was still fixed on Lavender.

Ron, "er. My dad told me about one…. Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"

Moody, "ah, yes. Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."

Moody got heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. Harry and Michael felt Ron recoil slightly next to them.

Ron hated spiders.

Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Imperio!"

The spider leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a backflip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.

Everyone was laughing…. Everyone except Moody.

Moody, "think it's funny, do you? You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"

The laughter died away almost instantly.

Moody said quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over, "total control. I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats…."

Ron gave an involuntary shudder.

Moody, "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!"

Everyone jumped.

Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar.

Moody, "anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"

Hermione's hand flew into the air again and so did, to Michael and Harry's slight surprise, did Neville's. The only class in which Neville usually volunteered information was Herbology, which was easily his best subject. Neville looked surprised at his own daring.

Moody, "yes?"

Neville, "there's one. The Cruciatus Curse."

Moody was looking very intently at Neville, this time with both eyes.

Moody, "your name's Longbottom?"

Neville nodded nervously, but Moody made no further 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.

Moody said, pointing his wand at the spider, "the Cruciatus Curse. Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea. Engorgio!"

The spider swelled. It was now larger than a tarantula. Abandoning all pretense, Ron pushed his chair backward, as far away from Moody's desk as possible.

Moody raised his wand again, pointed it at the spider, and muttered, "Crucio!"

At once, the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but the twins were sure that if it could have given voice, it would have been screaming. Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently….

Hermione said shrilly, "STOP IT!"

Michael and Harry looked around at her. She was looking, not at the spider, but at Neville, and the twins, following her gaze, saw that Neville's hands were clenched upon the desk in front of him, his knuckles white, his eyes wide and horrified.

Moody, "sorry lad..."

Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed, but it continued to twitch.

Moody muttered, "Reducio", and the spider shrank back to its proper size.

He put it back into the jar

Moody, "pain. 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?"

Harry and Michael looked around. From the looks on everyone's faces, they guessed they were all wondering what was going to happen to the last spider. Hermione's hand shook slightly as, for the third time, she raised it into the air.

Moody, "yes?"

Hermione whispered, "Avada Kedavra."

Several people looked uneasily around at her, including Ron.

Moody, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth, said, "ah. Yes, the last and worst. Avada Kedavra…. The Killing Curse."

He put his hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody's fingers, but he trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop. It started to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.

Moody raised his wand, and the brothers felt a sudden thrill of foreboding.

Moody roared, "Avada Kedavra!"

There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible something was soaring through the air. Instantaneously the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead. Several of the students stifled cries; Ron had thrown himself backward and almost toppled off his seat as the spider skidded toward him.

Moody swept the dead spider off the desk onto the floor.

Moody, "not nice. Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only two known people have ever survived it, and they're sitting right in front of me."

Harry and Michael felt a sense of dread as Moody's eyes, (both of them), looked into their own. They could feel everyone else looking around at them too. The twins stared at the blank blackboard as though fascinated by it, but not really seeing it at all…. So that was how their parents had died…. Exactly like that spider. Had they been unblemished and unmarked too? Had they simply seen the flash of green light and heard the rush of speeding death, before life was wiped from their bodies? They had been picturing their parents' deaths for three years now, ever since they'd found out they had been murdered rather then dying in a car crash, and ever since they'd found out what had happened that night: Wormtail had betrayed their parents' whereabouts to Voldemort, who had come to find them at their cottage. How Voldemort had killed their father first. How he had tried to hold him off, while he shouted at his wife to take the kids and run…. Voldemort had advanced on their mother, told her to move aside so that he could kill them…. How she had begged him to kill her instead, refused to stop shielding her son's…. And so Voldemort had murdered her too, before turning his wand on the boys….

The twins knew these details because they had heard their parents' voices when they had fought the dementors last year. For that was the terrible power of the dementors: to force their victims to relive the worst memories of their lives, and drown, powerless, in their own despair….

Moody was speaking again, from a great distance, it seemed to Harry and Michael. With a massive effort, they pulled themselves back to the present and listened to what Moody was saying.

Moody, "Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it…. You could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed. But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to teach you how to do it. Now, if there's no countercurse, why am I showing you? Because you've got to know. You've got to appreciate what the worst is. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're facing it. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

The whole class jumped again.

Moody, "now…. Those three curses. Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus. They 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…."

They spent the rest of the lesson taking notes on each of the Unforgivable Curses. No one spoke until the bell rang.

But when Moody had dismissed them and they had left the classroom, a torrent of talk burst forth. Most people were discussing the curses in awed voices.

They were talking about the lesson, as though it had been some sort of spectacular show, but Harry and Michael hadn't found it very entertaining, and nor, it seemed, had Hermione.

Hermione, "hurry up."

Ron, "not the ruddy library again?"

Hermione, "no. Neville."

Neville was standing alone, halfway up the passage, staring at the stone wall opposite him with the same horrified, wide-eyed look he had worn when Moody had demonstrated the Cruciatus Curse.

Hermione, "Neville?"

Neville looked around and said in a high pitched voice, "oh hello. Interesting lesson, wasn't it? I wonder what's for dinner, I'm…. I'm starving, aren't you?"

Hermione, "Neville, are you all right?"

Neville, "oh yes, I'm fine. Very interesting dinner…. I mean lesson…. What's for eating?"

Ron gave Michael and Harry a startled look.

Ron, "Neville, what-?"

But an odd clunking noise sounded behind them, and they turned to see Moody limping toward them. All five of them fell silent, watching him apprehensively, but when he spoke, it was in a much lower and gentler growl than they had yet heard.

Moody, "it's all right, sonny. Why don't you come up to my office? Come on…. We can have a cup of tea…."

Neville looked even more frightened at the prospect of tea with Moody. He neither moved nor spoke. Moody turned his magical eye upon Harry.

Moody, "you alright, are you, Potters?"

Harry, "yes."

Michael, "j-just fine."

Moody's blue eye quivered slightly in its socket as it surveyed the twins.

Moody, "you've got to know. It seems harsh, maybe, but you've got to know. No point pretending…. Well…. Come on, Longbottom, I've got some books that might interest you."

Neville looked pleadingly at his friends, but they didn't say anything, so Neville had no choice but to allow himself to be steered away, one of Moody's gnarled hands on his shoulder.

Ron, "what was that about?"

Hermione, "I don't know."

Ron, "some lesson, though, eh? Fred and George were right, weren't they? He really knows his stuff, Moody, doesn't he? When he did Avada Kedavra, the way that spider just died, just snuffed it right-"

But Ron fell suddenly silent at the look on Michael and Harry's faces and didn't speak again until they reached the Great Hall, when he said he supposed they had better make a start on Professor Trelawney's predictions tonight, since they would take hours….

Hermione did not join in with the boy's conversation during dinner, but ate furiously fast, and then left for the library….

….

Later, when they got back to the Gryffindor common room, Neville was in a much better mood. Moody had given him a herbology book Professor Sprout suggested in order to cheer him up.

Fred, George and the others actually had a fun time making up answers for their divination homework.

Hermione eventually returned with what she had been working on.

A bunch of badges for something called S.P.E.W.

The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.

Ron and the others kept trying to explain to her that House-Elves liked their lives as is, and that Dobby was a very rare exception, since working for the Malfoy's was Hell on Earth.

But she wouldn't seem to listen. All Harry and the others could do was offer her support in her very bizarre freedom fighting for house-elves.

One very important thing to come out of that evening was Harry and Michael finally received a letter back from Sirius.

Hedwig arrived with the letter, and they read, "Harry and Michael. I'm flying north immediately. This news about your scar's is the latest in a series of strange rumors that have reached me here. If it hurts again, go straight to Dumbledore. They're saying he's got Mad-Eye out of retirement, which means he's reading the signs, even if no one else is. I'll be in touch soon. My best to Ron and Hermione. Keep your eyes open, boys. Sirius."

Harry and Michael were very worried about their Godfather. He was putting himself in harm's way in order to help them. All because he thought they were in danger!

Harry went off to bed in order to forget about their troubles, and ended up lying awake that night with Neville doing the same.

Michael, however, went to see an old friend….

….

Michael walked into the office to see Dumbledore looking at a photo of some old friends.

It was of him, Newt Scamander, and a few others. When he saw Michael enter, he put the photo down and greeted him with a warm smile and said, "hello, Michael, my boy. What troubles you?"

Michael, "Harry and I…. We received a letter from Sirius…. He's coming back to Hogwarts."

Dumbledore looked shocked and said, "so, he and I must both fear that something terrible is going on…. Thank you for telling me this, my boy."

Michael smiled, "if there's anyone I can trust at this school, it's you Sir. You've always been there to understand what I'm going through. Your friendship means a lot to me."

Dumbledore smiled, "it is no trouble, Michael. Oh! And I've all but finished your registry. Once you complete your first transformation, we can finish it up and send it off to the Ministry."

Michael, "that's great news sir. Thank you."

Dumbledore, "now, is there anything else?"

Michael, "no. I just thought you needed to know about this. I'm heading back to my dorm now. Good night, sir."

Dumbledore, "good night."

And with that, Michael returned back to his dorm….

….

Reviews:

denni19moll: Good idea! So if and when I write this Kim Possible story, it would be OC x Kim and Ron x Tara or Ron x Yori.

Bailey Radcliff: thank you very much. I'm glad you're enjoying this story and my little changes to it.

Canadude2029: indeed. Crazy stuff just keeps happening at this magical school. And yeah, your guess was correct.

….