"So what are your thoughts on the Triwizard Tournament?" It was breakfast the next morning when Draco asked me this.
"No, good morning Alice? Glad that we're friends again I really missed you! Nope the first thing you say to me is 'what are your thoughts on the Triwizard Tournament'" I ranted as I searched a platter of danishes for an apple one.
"Someone's foul mood carried over from last night." Emily chanted as she spread a generous amount of butter on some waffles. I made a disapproving face at the pair of them.
"And to think I call you two my friends." I gave up on my search for an apple danish and instead started applying butter to my own set of Waffles. "I think, it is only the first day back and I am already sick of hearing about this Quidditch killing Triwizard Tournament. Emily brought up a good point last night, people have died in this thing. Anyone of age would be stupid to enter themselves."
"How very wise of you Miss Potter." I made a series of quiet grumbles as Severus approached Draco, Emily, and I with our schedules. Naturally Severus would have something to say about the Triwizard Tournament and I'm sure it included something about discouraging me from having any involvement in it. "I'm assuming you've worded your statement to include only students of age, because Professor Dumbledore made it very clear that anyone below the age of 17 is strictly prohibited from entering the tournament. Then again when has anything being strictly prohibited ever stopped a Potter?" Severus narrowed his eyes at me. It was his way of warning me that I better not even dream of trying to enter the tournament.
"You don't have to worry Professor Snape, I want no part of this stupid event. Especially without Professor Lupin to keep me in line this year, I've decide to be a model student." I wasn't sure if he could tell I was mocking him or not, either way Severus was finished with our conversation and he continued to moved down the Slytherin table without another word. "Well where are we off to first?" I asked looking down at the parchment in my hands. "Seriously History of Magic first thing in the morning? When I find whoever it is who makes our schedules…" Only a few feet down the table Severus turned in my direction.
"Miss Potter, as Head of Slytherin house, I prepare the schedules of all Slytherin students." His eyes narrowed at me again, "Any complaints regarding schedules should be addressed to me. Now what seems to be the problem?" The four foot span of students between me and where Severus now stood were staring at me. I grumbled. It was really tiring that everything I said put me at the center of attention.
"Nothing sir, I'm just in a bad mood this morning." I tried to send him a look that said this isn't over yet.
"I can see that. The former Professor Lupin may allow these moody outbursts at his breakfast table, but I can assure you, Miss Potter, that such behavior is not acceptable for any Hogwarts student. Perhaps while our international guests are here you might wish to refrain from such eruptions at breakfast." Severus stalked away advancing further down the Slytherin table. I wanted to shout something about his own poor manners but I knew that wasn't an option so I resorting to pouting my way through the rest of breakfast. Once it became apparent that Professor Binns' lesson would be completely off topic from the actual subject of History of Magic I decided to sleep through the remainder of the class. Following History of Magic fourth year Slytherins had Care Of Magical Creatures with the Gryffindors. Of Course the first thing Ron and Harry wanted to talk about was the Triwizard Tournament.
"Fred and George are already thinking of ways to bribe the judge." Ron said as we got to work on Hagrid's lesson.
"Naturally. Do Fred and George ever do anything by the books? It's almost as if they are determined to be the most, I don't know…"
"I know what you mean." Emily chimed in. "It's like they go out of their way to get into trouble."
"Must be a twin thing." Hermione huffed.
"Hey!" Harry and I called out.
"Alice and I don't go looking for trouble!"
"Yeah it just always seems to find us at the least convenient times." Hermione didn't seem to believe that everything Harry and I had done was completely unavoidable but she said nothing more on the subject as we left Hagrid's lesson. I pulled my schedule out of my backpack to see where our next lesson was. "Looks like we're off to Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"Us as well." Harry said reading Hermione's schedule over her shoulder.
"We might as well get going." I sighed. We slowly made our way across the school grounds and to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom where Mad-eye was already waiting. The six of is found seats easily enough. Ron, Harry and Hermione sat in the front row while Emily, Draco and I sat directly behind them. "The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection." I said reading the title of our text book out loud as I placed it on the desk.
"You can put those away." Moody Growled as he dragged is wooden leg across the room to sit as his desk. "Those books, you won't need them." Hermione and I exchanged a worried look but we put away our books with the rest of the class. Emily leaned over and whispered in my ear.
"This is either going to be really boring or really exciting." I nodded in agreement as we turned our attention to Professor Moody's twisted scarred face.
"Right then, I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you've had a pretty through grounding in tackling Dark Creatures. You've covered Boggarts, Red Caps, Hinkupunks, Grindylows, Kappas and Werewolves, is that right? Miss Potter?"
"Yes Sir."
"But you're behind, very behind on dealing with curses." Moody told us. "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 out. Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at Ron, and after a moment he smiled.
"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 just the one year. Special favor to Dumbledore, one year and then back to my quite retirement." He then let out a harsh laugh and clapped his gnarled hands together. "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 Brown jumped in her seat as the rest of the class turned to the back of the room facing her. She had been showing Parvati Patil something under her desk. Apparently Moody's magical eye could see through solid wood as well as the back of his head. Satisfied that he had thoroughly embarrassed Lavender, Mad-eye continued on with his lesson. "So do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizard law?" Several hands shot into the air, surprisingly among them was Ron. Moody pointed to Ron but his magical eye stayed focused on Lavender.
"Well my dad told me about one it's called the Imperius Curse or something?"
"Ah yes. Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse." Moody stood and took out a glass jar from his desk. Inside the glass jar three large black spiders scuttled around inside it. He reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders and held it in the palm of his hand so the entire class could see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered "Imperio!" The spider leapt from Moody's hand on a fine threat of silk and began to swing backward and forward as if it were on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly then did a back flip, breaking the threat 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 a tap dance. Everyone was laughing that is everyone except Professor Moody.
"Think it's funny do you?" He growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?" As if instantly the laughter died away. "Total control." Moody said as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats. 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 Imperious 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!" Moody barked as he picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar. "Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?" Once again several hand shot into the air, surprisingly one of those hands belonged to the shy Gryffindor Neville Longbottom. Neville usually only answered questions asked in Herbology, his strongest subject.
"Yes?" Mad-eye asked his magical eye leaving Lavender to roll over at Neville.
"There's one…the Cruciatus Curse."
"You're name's Longbottom?" Moody asked reading his attendance sheet again. While Neville nodded nervously Moody reached into the jar again for another spider.
"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 spider swelled until it was larger than a tarantula. Ron, who had a deathly fear of spiders, pushed his chair back far away from Moody's desk. Professor Moody raised his wand again pointing it at the spider. "Crucio!" The spider's legs bent up into its body, rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking form side to side. Within seconds the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently. Emily, who hated to see anything suffer, cried out.
"Stop it!" I turned to her expecting to see her looking at the spider, but instead her eyes were focused on Neville. Neville's hands were clenched on the desk, and his knuckles were white, his eyes wide and horrified. Professor Moody broke the spell, reduced the spider back to its natural size and put it back in the jar.
"Pain. You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse. That one was popular once too. Right, anyone know any others." I closed my eyes and raised my hand.
"Yes, Miss Potter?" I opened my eyes to seen only four or five other hands in the air. Biting my lip, I whispered "Avada Kedavra."
"Ah." Mad-eye's mouth twisted into a wicked smile. "Yes the last and Worst. Avada Kedavra, the killing curse." Once the third spider was placed on the top of Moody's desk it began scrambling frantically as if aware of its fate. Moody raised his wand and roared "Avada Kedavra!" There was a flash of blinding green light and instantaneously the spider rolled over onto its back dead. "Not nice, not pleasant. And there's not countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only two known people have ever survived it and they are both sitting right here in front of me." Moody's "normal" eye starred at Harry while the magical one swiveled in my direction. I didn't have to look around the room to know that once again all eyes were on Harry and I. I felt like I was going to be sick. Severus and Remus had told me from a young age that my parents had died at the hands of a dark wizard but they never told me it was like that. They had never told me everything could be lost as quickly as a flash of green light. The world was spinning like a Merry-go-round that's too fast to stop. I wanted to bolt from the room, but feared Moody's reaction far too much. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me act out. I inhaled a deep quite breath and tried to focus on what Moody was saying next. "Avada Kedavra's a curse that needsd 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 as 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!" he roared again making the whole class jump out of their skin. "Now those three curses, Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus use any one of them on a fellow human being and it's 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."