Feeling for some reason a bit bad for the boy, Skylar had snuck off to the library to see if she could find him and at least see how he was doing. She had pictured herself being thrown against the stone floor like that and figured it wouldn't just hurt one's pride.
Draco often studied alone in the library, Crabbe and Goyle couldn't exactly read and you were lucky to ever catch them with a book. When she approached his table he looked up at her and sneered.
"Here to make a ferret crack!" He spat. Maybe people had been making fun of him for it. No surprise, especially when he did it to everyone else.
"Well I can see you're fine, guess there's no need to show some sympathy." Skylar rolled her eyes and turned away.
"I don't need your sympathy." He said, trying to make her stop. He was surprised by her words. She turned to him and shrugged.
"Alright." And she went to continue.
"Can you believe he turned me into a ferret?" Draco snapped. "My father's furious—"
"And let me guess, he's going to try and get Moody fired." Skylar sighed. "Just like you tried with Hagrid last year and attempted to get Buckbeak killed. A repetitive cycle that never ends."
Draco stared at her.
"Oh come on Draco, you're so repetitive, you're always mocking Ron for being poor, and you make fun of his mother only to get mad when Harry does it to you, cause that's not hypocritical, you're always threatening to tell your father, like you can't fight your own battles, you're predictable. And it's all so unnecessary." She thought. "I mean, what do you gain from it? You got turned into a ferret. Was it worth it?"
He turned his gaze down to his parchment as his lip curled in annoyance.
Skylar watched him before she sighed. "Whatever then." And she left the library and the Slytherin boy.
She had noticed it at the Quidditch World Cup, when he'd been in the Top Box with his parents. For an instant, she had heard that Draco Malfoy had been envious of the Weasleys and Rosenwalds for one simple purpose, they all got to go to the Cup together, and he watched them interact with one another, while Draco, had no one.
She supposed that when you were all alone and your father was always harping on you, it would get to you. Not that that excused Draco and his behaviour, he was downright rude all the time and he had no one but himself to blame for such an outcome.
And yet, the more he insulted, the more Skylar just felt bad for him.
The next two days passed without great incident, unless you counted Neville melting his sixth cauldron in Potions. Professor Snape, who seemed to have attained new levels of vindictiveness 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.
"You know why Snape's in such a foul mood, don't you?" said Ron to Harry as they and Skylar watched Hermione teaching Neville a Scouring Charm to remove the frog guts from under his fingernails.
"Yeah," said Harry. "Moody."
It was common knowledge that Snape really wanted the Dark Arts job, and he had now failed to get it for the fourth year running. Snape had disliked all of their previous Dark Arts teachers, and shown it — but he seemed strangely wary of displaying overt animosity to Mad-Eye Moody. Indeed, whenever Harry saw the two of them together — at mealtimes, or when they passed in the corridors — he had the distinct impression that Snape was avoiding Moody's eye, whether magical or normal.
"I reckon Snape's a bit scared of him, you know," Harry said thoughtfully.
"Imagine if Moody turned Snape into a horned toad," said Ron, his eyes misting over, "and bounced him all around his dungeon…"
"I think a war would break out." Skylar muttered.
"Hey, Sky, had your lesson with Moody yet?" Stephen asked as he joined them in the corridor.
"Not yet, Thursday."
"Oh he's brilliant."
"So we've heard." Skylar nodded. "Don't rub it in that you've already had a lesson though, kay." She said and he chuckled at her, raising his hands in apology.
The Gryffindor fourth years were looking forward to Moody's first lesson so much that they arrived early on Thursday lunchtime and queued up outside his classroom before the bell had even rung. The only person missing was Hermione, who turned up just in time for the lesson.
"Been in the —"
"Library." Harry finished her sentence for her. "C'mon, quick, or we won't get decent seats."
They hurried into four chairs right in front of the teacher's desk, took out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, unusually quiet. Soon they heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. They could just see his clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath his robes.
"You can put those away," he growled, stumping over to his desk and sitting down, "those books. You won't need them."
They returned the books to their bags, Ron looking excited.
Moody took out a register, shook his long mane of grizzled grey hair out of his twisted and scarred face, and began to call out names, his normal eye moving steadily down the list while his magical eye swivelled around, fixing upon each student as he or she answered.
Skylar looked at him curiously as she felt the block of an occlumens coming from the man. No surprise that a great Auror would be so skilled.
"Right then," he said, when 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?"
There was a general murmur of assent.
"But you're behind — very behind — on dealing with curses," said Moody. "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; Ron looked extremely apprehensive, but after a moment Moody smiled. 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.
"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody said. "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."
He gave a harsh laugh, and then 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 jumped and blushed. She had been showing Parvati a 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.
"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, Skylar's and Hermione's. Moody pointed at Ron, though his magical eye was still fixed on Lavender.
"Er," said Ron tentatively, "my dad told me about one… Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"
"Ah, yes," said Moody appreciatively. "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 felt Ron recoil slightly next to him — 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 and Skylar, who was staring at the spider with a grimace on her face. She didn't like where this was going.
"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"
The laughter died away almost instantly.
"Total control," said Moody quietly 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…"
Ron gave an involuntary shudder.
"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," said Moody, and it was clear he was talking about the days in which Voldemort had been all-powerful. "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 barked, and everyone jumped.
Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar.
"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Hermione's and Skylar's hands flew into the air again and so, to 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.
"Yes?" said Moody, his magical eye rolling right over to fix on Neville.
"There's one — the Cruciatus Curse," said Neville in a small but distinct voice.
Moody was looking very intently at Neville, this time with both eyes.
"Your name's Longbottom?" he said, his magical eye swooping down to check the register again.
Neville nodded nervously, but Moody made no further inquiries. Skylar believed Moody would know what had happened to Neville's parents, being an Ex-Auror. Not many people knew Neville's history, or why he was raised by his grandmother, rather than his very skilled Auror parents.
Neville's parents had been tortured with the Cruciatus Curse until they lost their minds, not long after You-Know-Who met his downfall at Harry's place where he lost his parents. It explained why Neville knew the curse.
Turning back to the class at large, Moody 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," said Moody. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," he said, pointing his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!"
The spider swelled. It was now larger than a tarantula. Abandoning all pretence, 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 if it had been given voice, it would have been screaming. Skylar turned away from the spider and her eyes set on Neville. Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently —
"Stop it!" Hermione said shrilly.
Neville's hands were clenched upon the desk in front of him, his knuckles white, his eyes wide and horrified.
Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed, but it continued to twitch.
"Reducio," Moody muttered, and the spider shrank back to its proper size. He put it back into the jar.
"Pain," said Moody softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse… That one was very popular once too."
And that left only one forbidden curse left.
"Right… anyone know any others?"
Skylar couldn't put her hand up this time and it was Hermione's hand that rose, shaking slightly as, for the third time, she raised it into the air.
"Yes?" said Moody, looking at her.
"Avada Kedavra," Hermione whispered.
Several people looked uneasily around at her, including Ron.
"Ah," said Moody, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "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 there was a sudden thrill of foreboding.
"Avada Kedavra!" Moody roared.
There was a flash of blinding green light and Skylar closed her eyes as there was 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.
"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 he's sitting right in front of me."
Moody stared down at Harry as both of his eyes focused onto him. Everyone else in the room was staring at him too and Harry tried to ignore it by staring at the blackboard.
Moody started speaking again, taking his eyes from Harry and drawing everyone else's as well. Skylar placed a hand on Harry's as he was realising what it must have been like to have that curse used on his parents. He glanced at her but she was watching 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!" he roared, and the whole class jumped again.
"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 practise constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Get out your quills… copy this down…"