7/2/17 - I edited the letter from Padfoot a bit. Nothing major, but it'll come up when discussing Marauder nicknames later.
The next three days passed without major incident, unless you count the first Potions lesson of the year, in which Malfoy caused Neville to melt a cauldron and I flung a firework into Malfoy's in return, docking twenty points from Gryffindor before we even earned any.
On Friday morning, I was awoken by a high-pitched voice squeaking, "Happy birthday to yous! Happy birthday to yous! Happy birthday Missy Riss-sy, happy birthday to yous!"
"Turn off the alarm," a voice groans from my right.
"Stuff it, Patil," I grumble in response, cracking open an eye to see a small, wrinkled creature standing on the end of my bed. "Dobby?"
"Missy Rissy is awake!" he squeaks. "It is being you's birthday!"
I open my other eye, blink slowly, and twist to look at the Muggle calendar Hermione had hanging over her bed, finding today's date – September 5th. Hermione had it circled in red, which made me smile.
"Huh. I guess it is. Thanks," I yawn, slipping my slippers on and grabbing my wand as I leave the dorm, trudging down the steps to plop bonelessly on one of the overstuffed couches. A quick Tempus reveals that it's about 7:30, a half an hour before I had to go down for breakfast.
So I sink into the couch and watch the fire, letting my mind wander to the year before.
On September 5th, 1993, my world got upended. Before my 13th birthday, I had believed myself to be Allison Potter. Thanks to some strong concealment charms, I even looked the part. But there was a catch: on my thirteenth birthday, the magic would fade, like some modern-day Cinderella. And by the time my birthday was over, I'd gotten the "Surprise! You're really the daughter of a mass-murderer!" talk from Dumbledore.
Of course, Dad wasn't really a mass-murderer, but I didn't figure that out till June.
"Orissa?"
I look up to see Hermione looking at me curiously, and I realize she's said my name a few times. "Yeah? Just got lost in my thoughts, sorry."
"Penny for them?"
"Just last year," I smirk, and she snorts.
"Here's to a better birthday. Happy birthday, by the way," she offers.
"Thanks." I give her a grin. "I'm gonna go get dressed. Be right back."
I head back upstairs, bidding my dorm mates good morning before calling dibs on the first shower. I jump through at light speed and quickly don my uniform, bolting back downstairs to meet Hermione in the Common Room, now joined by Harry and Ron, who both wish me a sleepy 'Happy birthday.'
We quickly make our way down to breakfast, Ron in the lead with a growling stomach. I find us all seats at the table, accepting a few more well-wishes from those at the table.
"What's today look like?" I ask, grabbing a muffin and stuffing half of it in my mouth. "'Eve 'ot 'effese, 'ight?"
"Honestly, Ori," Hermione admonishes. "Sometimes you're as bad as Ron."
"'Ey!" Ron protests around a mouthful of pastry.
I roll my eyes and pointedly swallow as Hermione answers my question. "Yes, we do have Defense, but that's not until after lunch. We've got Transfiguration and Charms first."
"Cool," I mutter before stuffing my face again.
"Budge over! Budge over, everyone!" Fred and George worm their way into seats at the table. "Important people coming through!"
"Who? I don't see anyone important," I tease.
"Ha, ha," George laughs. "Morning, Blackie. Happy birthday, old pal."
"Thanks, numbskull," I grin.
"We come bearing gifts!" Fred announces dramatically, setting a bag on the table that was an eye-scorching shade of orange.
"You shouldn't have," I smirk. I pull the bag closer, moving my plate aside to lay the contents out.
Inside there was a new batch of Dr. Filibusters Fireworks, a few fake wands, and the first stages of plans for Ferret Fritters.
"This is brilliant," I exclaim, flipping through the pages. "Thanks, boys."
"No problem," the chorus. "Anything for a fellow prankster."
I give them a smile, directing my attention upwards as the morning mail comes in. I spot Tyche as she flies in, swooping down towards me with a medium-sized cylindrical package and a letter in her talons.
"What is it?" Hermione asks as Tyche lands, gobbling down the bit of muffin I feed her with a friendly hoot and taking off again for the owlery.
I open the letter first, my heart lifting at the first few lines.
Pup-
Glad to hear you've arrived safely. Here's to the start of a good term, eh? Give Hogwarts hell for me.
Yes, I did hear about the World Cup. Followers of You-Know-Who were deadly in the First War. Please, please be careful. They aren't playing around.
Glad to hear school's alright. The Tournament sounds wicked – I've only read about it in books.
There isn't much more to do here – just read and clean and read some more.
As for the nickname - I called you Padlet when you were a baby; it means "little Padfoot". But as you aren't so little anymore, you could always make up your own nickname, if you like - Prongs was always a big fan of "Paws".
-Padfoot
"Padlet," I breathe. "Little Padfoot."
"What was that, Ori?"
"Nothing." I look up at Hermione, tucking the letter away. "What's that?" I ask, looking at the package on the table in front of us.
"Dunno," Ron shrugs. "Who's the letter from?"
"Snuffles," I answer simply, tucking the parchment away and reaching for the parcel. I make quick work of the paper, tearing it away to reveal a brown leather item that looked a bit like the forearm pieces in my Quidditch uniform, only without the hand part and with a small tube running along the bottom.
"Here's a note," Hermione announces. "Happy Birthday," she reads. "This is a wand holster – it straps onto your opposite arm and your wand goes into the bottom. A little bird (with glasses) told me you were a pretty good duelist. Sorry I couldn't get you more. Enjoy." She raises an eyebrow. "It's not signed."
"It doesn't need to be," I retort, picking up the holster and rolling up the sleeves on my left arm. It straps on easily enough, and I'm pleased to find that it self-adjusts. It fits nicely from my wrist to the bend in my arm. I slide my wand into the tube at the bottom and then slide it back out again, like a knight might draw a sword.
"Brilliant!" Ron exclaims. "That'll make sure you don't lose your wand again."
"Don't remind me," I groan, shaking my robes down around the holster – it was hidden perfectly. "Right, then. Let's get to class. I do not want to be late to Moody's class."
The other three quickly shovel down the rest of their breakfasts and pack their bags; I quickly holster my wand, grab my own bag, and lead the way out of the Great Hall.
The Defense classroom hadn't changed over the summer; save for the removal of Remus' personal effects, it looked exactly as it had in June.
Shaking off the memories of the previous year, I take a seat near the back of the classroom and prop my feet up on the desk – "brilliant" as this man may be, I had made it my personal mission to put every new teacher I had through proverbial hell. If they couldn't withstand me, then how did they expect to handle the Slytherins? And besides, pestering teachers was in my blood.
I ignore Hermione's disapproving glare, focusing instead on the telltale thump-thump-thump of wood against stone that announced Moody's arrival just before the door is flung open.
The ex-Auror cast an imposing shadow over the room, his beady eye squinting at each and every one of us while the fake eye spun wildly around the room, almost as if he was trying to look at everything at once.
Moody's eye finds me soon enough, and with a quick flick of his wand, he shoves my feet off the desk, sending me tumbling to the floor in a flailing bundle of limbs. I hit the floor with a grunt, quickly making sure I wasn't hurt before lifting my eyes to look at the professor.
"You'd be Sirius Black's daughter," he growls. "Aren't you?"
I nod silently, not moving my eyes from his face.
Mad-Eye Moody nods sharply and gives me a long look, both of his eyes boring into mine intensely, like he was searching for something – insanity, maybe? Was he already trying to compare me and my dad?
Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't; I'd never know, because Moody turns around and thumps back to his desk. "You can put your books away," he announces, taking a seat at his desk. "You won't be needing them."
I can't help the grin that breaks out on my face as I pick myself up off the floor. No books on the first Defense lesson of the year sounded like a good birthday present to me.
"Now," Moody continues once we were back in order and roll had been called, "Professor Lupin has told me what he can about this class. I understand that you have a decent understanding of Dark creatures – hinkypunks, Kappas, werewolves, and the like?"
There a general murmur of agreement from the class before he continues. "But you're behind – extremely behind – on curses. That's my job. I'm only here as a favor to Dumbledore, so I've got one year to show you what wizards can do to each other before I go back to my quiet retirement."
"Sorry to tear you away from your precious attack bins," I mutter under my breath.
"What was that, Ms. Black?" Moody asks, his magical eye fixing itself on me.
"Nothing," I deny, the one word forming a mortifyingly high-pitched yelp. I wasn't going to lie: somewhere in the deepest corners of my mind, something was a tiny bit afraid this man. Hell if I'd admit that, though.
"Now," Moody continues. "Let's get on with it. Curses. There are several kinds, of course, all varying in strength. You have your minor hexes and jinxes – those are harmless, really, won't cause you more than a little discomfort. I can see you grinning, Miss Black."
I blink in surprise from my seat – halfway across the classroom and currently behind Mad-Eye. But I straighten out my mouth anyways, crossing my arms petulantly.
"And then," the professor continues, "you have your mid-level curses. They'll do more damage – usually a concussion or a broken bone or two. Repeated uses of a mid-level curse could kill your target, but it's not a sure thing."
"Now," the professor growls. "The Ministry wants me to leave it there. They say you don't to need to know about the real Dark curses – not until sixth year, they say. Well, I say that's the biggest pile of dung I've seen in a while," he snorts.
"You're never too young to be attacked by a Dark Wizard. They aren't going to care if you're fourteen or twenty-four. And they aren't going to explain what they're doing before they attack. You need to know what you're facing out there. You need to stay on your toes. Remember, CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he roars, causing more than one student to fall out of their chairs in shock. A few of the girls in the class even squeal in fear.
I just press a hand to my ear, cursing – for the first time – my decision to become an Animagus. Being a part-time dog meant I had really excellent hearing, which meant that was incredibly loud.
"Luckily for you," Moody continues, once everyone's gathered themselves together and my ears have stopped ringing, "Dumbledore thinks you're made of sterner stuff. Who can tell me what one of the three Dark curses are?"
The entire class nervously shifts for a moment before Ron speaks. "Uh, my dad told me about one. It was called the...Imperius Curse or something?"
"Ah, yes," Moody smiles – an expression which somehow serves to make his grizzled and scarred face more terrifying. "Your dad would know that one...it gave the Ministry quite a hassle, a few years back."
Moody moves around his desk and opens one of the drawers, pulling out a jar full of spiders. I glance over at Ron to see him dangerously pale. I couldn't imagine what must be going through his head right now.
Moody opens the jar and lets one of the spiders crawl onto his hand, jabbing his wand at it. "Imperio!"
"The Imperius Curse gives you the ability to control your target," the professor explains as the spider hops up and down on his hand, copying the movements Moody was making with his wand. "I can make her do whatever I want – dance," he chuckles as, with a swish of his wand, the spider launches into an elaborate tap dance on the dance, then a series of cartwheels.
The class laughs, but we're quickly silenced as Moody makes the spider dangle itself over a barrel of water, forcing it closer and closer to the water.
The spider could drown itself, I realize, and it would never know.
"Total control," Moody whispers gravelly. "I can make it throw itself out the window, drown itself, shove itself down one of your throats…"
I shudder, and a few chairs away, Ron gags.
Moody cancels the spell and lets the spider back in the jar. "That one gave us quite a lot of trouble, years ago. Certain Death Eaters claimed that they served You-Know-Who while under the Imperius. Bull, if you ask me," Moony mutters, then clears his throat. "Right. Who knows another curse?"
The class stays quiet for a moment, giving each other clueless looks, before a quiet voice speaks up from a few seats behind me.
"The Cruciatus," Neville whispers quietly.
Moody nods, giving Neville an inquiring look. "Your name's Longbottom, right?"
Neville nods nervously, but Moody just gives him the same look he gave me before returning to his desk.
"The boy is right. The Cruciatus Curse is one of the most dangerous Dark curses." Moody grabs another spider from the jar and, after a moment of consideration, enlarges the spider to the size of a dinner plate.
Ron immediately abandons all pretenses and shoves his chair back, scrambling away from Mad-Eye's desk as fast as he could.
The professor pays him no mind, simply leveling his wand at the enlarged spider and bellowing, "Crucio!"
A key of orange light erupts from the tip of his wand and hits the spider, and the effects are immediate; the spider twitches and writhes in pain – if spiders could scream, I was entirely sure this one would be hoarse already.
A strangled sound comes from behind me, and I twist in my seat to see Neville gripping the edge of his desk, eyes wide and face paler than Nearly-Headless Nick.
Something wasn't right. I didn't know what, but something was not right.
"Stop it," I request politely, but the professor doesn't seem to hear me. I try again, louder, and still nothing.
"Oh, come on," I mutter, standing up quickly enough to make my chair tip over and making my way back to Neville, clasping a firm hand around the boy's clammy, cold wrist.
He lets out a small scream but whips around to look at me, his eyes focusing on me instead of the spider.
"Hey," I greet with a small grin. "You're okay. It's okay."
Neville looks at me, then tentatively over my shoulder, then back at me, and nods. "I'm…alright." He then seems to realize my hand is still on his wrist, and he pulls back like he's been burnt. "Th-thanks, O-Ori," he stutters.
"No problem," I shrug and turn around to see Moody putting the still-twitching spider back into the jar.
"Nasty, that," Moody sighs. "The Cruciatus Curse is the most effective way of delivering pain by magic. It's also known as the 'Torture Curse', mainly because the Death liked to send people into flat-out insanity by prolonged exposure. It's only got one other use…" Moody pauses, and his eyes fix on mine. "It's been common practice to put prisoners of Azkaban under the Cruciatus for centuries."
My stomach drops to the floor, and the room seems to spin. It's been common practice to put prisoners of Azkaban under the Cruciatus for centuries...Dad. Dad had been put under the 'Torture Curse' for twelve years. It was a bloody miracle the man wasn't insane.
Over the summer, while it had just been Dad, Kreacher and I in Grimmauld Place, every so often, I could hear Dad wake up in the middle of the night screaming. (I had no doubt he woke up more often than I heard, but I figured he'd put up a Silencing Charm. Whenever I tried to ask him about the nightmares, or try to help, he'd clam up and assume a light, carefree mask.
Was this what he dreamed of? Endless pain and suffering? As if Azkaban, from what little he'd told me about it, wasn't bad enough.
I'm jolted from my thoughts by a hand on my shoulder, and I look up to see Neville, with his face flushed red, watching me intently. "Orissa?" he whispers. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," I whisper back. "Thank you."
He blushes and mutters a 'no problem', and I turn back to the lesson just in time for Moody to introduce the last curse.
"The Killing Curse," he announces gravelly. "It's nasty, quick, and inescapable; there's no shield that can stop it, no way to deflect it, no way to survive being hit. In fact, only one person has ever survived the Killing Curse, and he's sitting in this very room."
This, of course, draws every single eye in the room to Harry, who looks like he wants to crawl under his desk and die.
I take the initiative and clear my throat. "He's not really that great, guys," I announce in an overly-loud voice. "A scrawny little bugger, if you ask me."
Nervous laughter rippled across the room, and Harry gives me a relieved look, which I return with a wink.
"Pipe down, Black," Moody barks. "Back to business, everyone." He scoops the last spider, who seemed flighty and nervous, almost as if it could sense what was coming, out of the jar.
Moody traps the spider on the desk, aims his wand, and bellows, "Avada Kedavra!"
There's a flash of green light, a sort of swooshing sound in the air, and then...silence. That's it. The spider is dead, right on top of the desk, but there's no fanfare, no sound at all. No twitching, no spasming. The spider just...went limp.
I glance over to see Harry as pale as Neville had been, eyes wide and transfixed on the desk.
He'd just witnessed his parents' execution for the first time in memory, I realize with a jolt. Five minutes ago, he hadn't known how his parents died. And I knew he still had nightmares about that flash of green light.
I reach over to squeeze his hand. "Harry. You alright?"
He slowly turns to look at me, green eyes – almost the same shade as that curse – looking more lost than I'd seen them in a while.
But he clears his throat and blinks. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."
I roll my eyes at him but lean back in my chair, returning my eyes to the front of the class.
The rest of the class passes in a blur – the Unforgivable Curses are, of course, Unforgivable, and Very Very Bad, yadda, yadda, yadda. Soon enough, I was following the rest of the class out into the hallway, shoving through the crowd and trying to ignore the students that were enthralled by the curses we'd just seen.
What did I expect? They didn't have loved ones that had been tortured, or even killed, by the bloody spells.
I round a corner in the staircase to see Neville sitting on a windowsill, staring off into space.
"Hey, I-" I start, blinking as he jumps, almost falling off his perch. "Woah, you okay? Didn't mean to scare you."
"I…" he falters. "You didn't. I just wasn't paying attention. Have you heard what they're having for lunch in the Great Hall? I'm starving."
"Um…" I bite my lip, startled by the change in subject. "Finger sandwiches, I think. That's what Ron told me, anyway. Neville, are you okay?"
"Are you?" he challenges with more force in his voice than I heard since he threatened to fight me in first year.
"Not right now," I admit, stuffing my hands into the pocket of my robes. "Hearing that your parent got tortured by something like that...it isn't anything you get over."
"Trust me, I know," he mutters caustically, and I give him a confused look, but before I can say anything our conversation is interrupted by Harry, Ron, and Hermione approaching.
"There you are!" Hermione exclaims. "I was so worried – Neville, are you alright?"
"Ah, yeah," he murmurs. "Thank you, but I should be going…"
Just as Neville stands up, though, Moody's signature thumping sounds behind us, just before the professor himself appears.
"There you are. Longbottom, how are you feeling?"
"Fine, sir." Neville blushes, ducking his head. "I'm sorry for breaking down in class."
"Understandable," Moody dismisses, then turns to Harry and I. "And you two?"
"I'll be alright, sir," Harry promises, and I nod.
"Good. It's a painful process, but you need to know, you understand. You need to know."
I nod – because that much, I agreed with. With the Death Eaters and Voldemort posing the threat that they did right now, we needed to know what we were up against. And it wasn't Moody's fault that two of the three Unforgivables brought up traumatic memories.
"Longbottom, would you like to join me for tea?" Moody invites. "I have some books I want you to look at."
"Uh, sure, Professor."
"Black? Potter?"
"No thanks, sir," I decline. "I've got a ton of homework to do tonight."
Moody nods and leads Neville away, thumping down the hallway towards his room.
I turn in the other direction and hitch my bag higher on my shoulder. "Come on," I instruct my friends. "We've got lunch."
At the word "lunch", Ron practicality runs down the stairs, forcing the rest of us to keep up or be left behind.
Just before the classroom disappears from sight, I give it one last backward glance.
That tiny piece of me that was scared of Mad-Eye Moody had just grown a bit. And I just had the oddest feeling that there was something...off about the man.
But that's nothing, I scold myself. You're just being paranoid.
And I take off after my friends, shoving all thoughts of green and orange lights to the back of my mind.