Harry's luck had never been on the right side of good, best he could tell. As he rode the train to Hogwarts with Hermione and Neville at his side he hoped for a quiet year. He had heard the rumors of something happening at Hogwarts this year, though Sirius found great amusement in not telling him what exactly it was. Harry knew that more than likely he would be caught up in whatever bullshit they had come up with rather he liked it or not, but that didn't stop him from hoping. He hoped at the very least that he could make it through the train ride without incident but as he watched the blond-haired boy open the door and invite himself in along with his two cronies, he knew that plan was shot.
"Whadda you want Malfoy?"
"Nothing much, Potter. Just checking to see how you were doing after your run in at the game. I see you didn't take long to replace Weasley. I dunno which is worse, the filthy blood traitor or the squib. I suppose the squib is an upgrade since at least he smells like he wipes his ass, which is more than we could say about Wea-"
Malfoy didn't make it any further before he was doubled over in pain, gasping for air. Crabbe and Goyle looked stunned; they hadn't even seen anyone move. Before they were able to make any sense of the situation, they found themselves blasted backwards out of the compartment with the door latched separating them from their boss.
Malfoy sputtered for a moment before regaining his composure and coming up with his wand drawn. Before he could utter a syllable though, the wand was ripped from his hand and he felt something grab his throat and cut off his air once again before lifting him into the air and slamming his back into the wall. He turned and made eye contact with Harry finally, only to notice his hair blowing about in an invisible breeze and his eyes nearly glowing with power. He had no wand drawn.
By this point the goons on the outside realized the trouble and were beating on the door and trying to pry it open to no avail. With a glance from Harry at the window, the thumping noise went silent. He then drew his wand and walked to stand face to face with Draco, who was now turning a slight purple from his lack of oxygen.
"I'll say this once and only this once Malfoy. You can spread the words back to your cronies and to your parents, and to the dark lord himself if you so please, it makes no difference to me." Harry backed up a step and let Malfoy down until his feet were on the floor and he began gasping for air. "You have insulted me and my friends for the last time. Ron is dead because of Voldemort and his followers, and I WILL have revenge on him. I will kill Pettigrew and Voldemort and anyone who gets in my way. Now get the fuck out of my face and search deep inside yourself and make a decision; there are only 2 choices from here. Are you with me, or are you against me?"
With that Malfoy felt the grip on his throat release and the thudding from outside became audible once again. He would normally spat off something about telling his father but he felt a sense of self preservation wash over him and he decided that right now wasn't the time and he left the compartment without another word.
Hermione had scooted to the corner of their compartment and had a worried look glued on her face; Neville had similarly scooted to the opposite corner but wore a forced neutral expression.
"Umm, thanks mate for sticking up for me. I'm sorry he said those terrible things; it's not right to speak ill of the dead." Neville said in a quiet but decently firm voice.
Harry couldn't think of a reply so he just patted Neville on the shoulder before sitting back down beside Hermione and leaning over to rest his head on her shoulder. The large bit of accidental- no it wasn't accidental, maybe uncontrolled? Yea. The large bit of uncontrolled magic had his head pounding.
"Are you okay Harry?" Hermione said softly.
"Yea. Just a headache from losing control there. Sorry to scare you like that."
"No, no, it's quite alright. I was pretty peeved too; you just beat me to the punch. That git deserves it, and who knows maybe it will scare him straight."
"I hope so…" Harry trailed off for a moment. "I don't know that I'll ever call him a friend but the less enemies I have the better off we are."
"I gotta say, it's better on him to avoid being your enemy. That power you just unleashed would probably even worry Professor Dumbledore a bit. I nearly wet myself for a minute there." Neville chimed in with a chuckle.
"I don't think it was quite at Dumbledore's level yet." Harry replied with his own chuckle. "He's the strongest wizard since Merlin himself."
"Maybe let's not figure out anytime soon though." Hermione added. "I don't want to see you hurt like this."
"Yea. I need to train. I felt how much raw power was there just now; I need to be able to harness and control that if Voldemort is really coming back. I won't let anyone else get hurt because of me."
XXX XXXXX XXXXXXX
That night in the great hall, once everyone was finished eating, Albus Dumbledore got to his feet again. The buzz of chatter filling the Hall ceased almost at once, so that only the howling wind and pounding rain could be heard.
"So!" said Dumbledore, smiling around at them all. "Now that we are all fed and watered, I must once more ask for your attention, while I give out a few notices."
"Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees, and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch's office, if anybody would like to check it. "
The corners of Dumbledore's mouth twitched. He continued, "As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year.
"It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year. "
"What?" Harry gasped. He looked around at Fred and George, his fellow members of the Quidditch team. They were mouthing soundlessly at Dumbledore, apparently too appalled to speak. Dumbledore went on, "This is due to a series of events that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, I am sure you will all enjoy the changes immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts -"
But at that moment, there was a deafening rumble of thunder and the doors of the Great Hall banged open.
A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. He lowered his hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, then began to walk up toward the teachers' table.
A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step. He reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling. Hermione gasped.
The lightning had thrown the man's face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any Harry had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the man's eyes that made him frightening.
One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye - and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man's head, so that all they could see was whiteness.
The stranger reached Dumbledore. He stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face, and Dumbledore shook it, muttering words Harry couldn't hear. He seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured the man to the empty seat on his right-hand side.
The stranger sat down, shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students.
"May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. "Professor Moody. "
It was usual for new staff members to be greeted with applause, but none of the staff or students chapped except Dumbledore and Hagrid, who both put their hands together and applauded, but the sound echoed dismally into the silence, and they stopped fairly quickly. Everyone else seemed too transfixed by Moody's bizarre appearance to do more than stare at him.
"Moody?" Harry muttered mostly to himself. He then directed his mumbles at the table. "Mad-Eye Moody? The auror? Sirius has told me of him, he's practically a legend!"
"Must be," said Neville in a low, awed voice.
"What happened to him?" Hermione whispered. "What happened to his face?"
"Dunno," One of the twins-probably Fred- whispered back, watching Moody with fascination.
Moody seemed totally indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it. As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and Harry saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg, ending in a clawed foot.
Dumbledore cleared his throat.
"As I was saying," he said, smiling at the sea of students before him, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Mad-Eye Moody, "we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year.
"You're JOKING!" said Fred Weasley loudly.
The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody's arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.
"I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," he said, "though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar. "
Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.
Properly chastised, the Headmaster finished his speech and dismissed the students to bed with no further incidents.
XXX XXXXX XXXXXXX
Nothing of note happened until that Thursday, when the group had their first DADA class. Harry and Hermione found a pair of 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, Hermione looking puzzled.
Moody took out a register, shook his long mane of grizzled gray 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 swiveled around, fixing upon each student as he or she answered.
"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?" Someone in the back blurted out.
Moody's magical eye spun around to stare towards the back of the class. "As a matter of fact, no. 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.
"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.
"So… do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"
Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Harry and Hermione's. Moody pointed at towards the back again, though his magical eye was still fixed on Lavender.
"You there- Malfoy. Name one!" Harry doubted Malfoy had a hand in the air, but Moody called him out anyways.
"The Imperius." Malfoy slowly drawled out.
"Ah, yes," said Moody dryly. "Of course that would be your choice. Your father would know all about that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."
Harry thought he could detect of bit of resentment wrapped up in the sentence but played it off.
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.
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 back flip, 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.
"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. . . "
Harry noticed Neville shudder off to his side.
"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," said Moody, and Harry knew he was talking about the days in which Voldemort had been all-powerful. "Some job for the Ministry that was, 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 hand flew into the air again and so, to 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.
"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.
Harry willed himself not to react to the curse. He had, in fact, used it on another person on the night of the quidditch cup. He knew that aurors were allowed a certain amount of freedom when performing their duties, but he didn't figure it applied to a thirteen year old in a fight, no matter the reason.
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. 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.
"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.
Moody raised his wand again and pointed it at the spider. Harry noticed Neville was pale faced and his knuckles were white from clenching his desk so hard as Moody 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 Harry was 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 -
"Stop it!" Hermione said shrilly. "
Harry looked around at her. She was looking, not at the spider, but at Neville, and Harry, following her gaze, saw that Neville's eyes were wide and horrified, obviously fighting back tears and he looked on the verge of passing out.
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."
"Right. . . anyone know any others?"
Harry looked around. From the looks on everyone's faces, he 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.
"Yes?" said Moody, looking at her.
"Avada Kedavra," Hermione whispered.
Several people looked uneasily around at her.
"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 Harry felt a sudden thrill of foreboding.
"Avada Kedavra!" Moody roared.
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.
Moody swept the dead spider off the desk onto the floor.
"Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. There's no countercurse, and no shield charm will block it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of me. "
Harry felt his face redden as Moody's eyes (both of them) looked into his own. He could feel everyone else looking around at him too. Harry stared at the blank blackboard as though fascinated by it, but not really seeing it at all. . . .
So that was how his 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?
Harry had been picturing his parents' deaths over and over again for three years now, ever since he'd found out they had been murdered, ever since he'd found out what had happened that night: Wormtail had betrayed his parents' whereabouts to Voldemort, who had come to find them at their cottage. How Voldemort had killed Harry's father first. How James Potter had tried to hold him off, while he shouted at his wife to take Harry and run. . . Voldemort had advanced on Lily Potter, told her to move aside so that he could kill Harry. . . how she had begged him to kill her instead, refused to stop shielding her son. . . and so Voldemort had murdered her too, before turning his wand on Harry. . . .
Harry knew these details because he had heard his parents' voices when he 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. With a massive effort, he pulled himself back to the present and listened to what Moody was saying.
"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 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 - "Did you see it twitch?" "- and when he killed it - just like that!"
They were talking about the lesson, Harry thought, as though it had been some sort of spectacular show, but he hadn't found it very entertaining - and nor, it seemed, had Hermione.
"Hurry up," she said tensely to Harry.
"Not the ruddy library again?"
"No," said Hermione curtly, pointing up a side passage. "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.
"You okay mate?" Harry said softly as they neared him.
"Uhh… yea… fine." Neville choked out.
"You don't sound fine, what's the matter?" Hermione added.
"Well, uhh… The Cruciatus is the curse that was used on my parents and… I just…" He trailed off there with some tears gathering in his eyes.
Harry had heard of Neville's parents from Sirius, but never in great detail and he had never forwarded it along to Hermione. He stepped a bit closer and put a hand on Neville's shoulder.
"I know it's tough." Harry paused for a moment, thinking of his parents and then of Ron. "My parents were killed with the killing curse, and we had to see it used on Ron." He paused again and rubbed his eyes to keep tears from forming. "But it's better to see it now and learn to defend it so that you can protect yourselves and others. If you wanna make your Gran proud that's how to do it. Train and be prepared to stand up to anyone who wishes you harm be it bully or death-eater."
"God damn Potter, I don't think I could have said it any better myself!" Moody barked as he joined the group.
All three of them jumped in surprise when they heard his loud voice, a stiff contrast from the rather soft tones they had been using. After processing what he had said, Hermione wanted to admonish him for the language but didn't think it wise.
Before anyone had a chance to respond he continued. "How would you lot like to join me for some tea in my office. I'd like to have a word with Longbottom and Potter." At least his voice was much softer now.
When the group arrived in Moody's office there was already tea sitting on his desk, probably courtesy of the house elves. Once everyone had their glass, Moody's with something from his flask mixed in, he began to speak again. "Now then, the reason I wanted to speak to you- Longbottom, are you okay? You were looking worse for wear after that demonstration."
"Yes sir. It's just my parents and the Cruciatus…" Neville replied softly.
"Aye, I know all about that. Right in the height of the war. Tis a fate I wouldn't wish on anybody. Now I know it brought up some sour memories but it's a necessary evil. Trouble is brewing again, and I want to be sure the lot of you are prepared for it, especially the ones who gravitate towards Potter."
"Why me, sir?" Harry asked him curiously.
"As you well know Voldemort" he paused while Neville and Hermione cringed. "Don't be afraid of the name! All that'll do is give him more power over you! Now as I was saying; Voldemort tried to kill you and failed at it. Presumably that means he'll be back to finish the job and likely be more pissed than before."
It made good sense to all of them. Harry had already had a couple of run-ins with Voldemort in his first and second years and with a death eater his third, so he was well aware that trouble tended to follow him.
"I understand, Potter, that you asked Dumbledore for extra training?" Moody asked.