Happy weekend to all of you! This has been the longest week of my life, so I hope you are all hanging in there! I also have rediscovered how to use a line break with fanfiction's weird format, so God bless for that.
Bookcozy: Fred and Nessa are the best! Also, yes, Cormac was horrible in the books/movies as well. Hermione says she "escaped" him under the mistletoe in both, I believe, and she calls him vile in the movie, I think. Plus, he ruins Quidditch at some point in the sixth book, I think? Ah, Nessa…over the top, I agree. But we can't make poor Georgie the only stupid, emotional one. I totally understand the desire, of course, given everything she's been through so far, but boy oh boy. Perhaps a different approach would work better, but we'll see how that goes ;). Also, I think we'll see more of her strength/power as Voldemort emerges. She hasn't had much opportunity to use her magic in a ton of settings at this point. More to come in this one, for sure! Also, it is hard to figure out how to write her practice sessions without it being repetitive or boring, so I'm still working on that portion LOL.
Lastly, the fact that Fred Weasley is dead in REAL LIFE CANON…I can't handle it. Poor George, for seriously. I thought I'd coped with it, but then I saw something online where JKR said George could never cast a Patronus again after Fred died? Like girl, please don't tell me that! I'm afraid of the 7th book honestly. I live under the delusion that he isn't dead. I can't.
Chapter Ten
The next two days passed without great incident, at least when compared to Monday. Unless you counted the awkward tension that surrounded their friend group.
Neither she or the twins had said anything to each other about their argument at the beginning of the week, instead choosing to go on as though everything were normal. Despite the fact that none of them had really wavered on their stance on the issue; Nessa still did not agree with them trying to enter and still felt a great deal of anxiety about the thought of them doing so; the twins didn't much care for her opinion on the issue and had no intention of pausing their plans to fool the impartial judge.
They sat together at meal times and occasionally within the common room, Tori keeping the peace as much as she was able when they were all together, but Nessa spent the majority of their time together silent or working on homework, and when she did speak her voice was merely polite if she had to talk to either one of them. The twins refused to bring up the tournament at all and had taken to whispering and plotting at times when Nessa was not around to scold them, sitting in the furthest corner of the common room with Lee and sending her glances while she worked or stopping abruptly when she and Tori joined their group.
She didn't bother mentioning to either of them that they were being horribly obvious about the fact that they were still scheming — she was already far too deep in homework and prefect duties that she could hardly think straight as it was, and yelling at the two of them after spending the entire day scolding younger students sounded like the absolute last thing she wanted to be doing.
By the time Thursday morning rolled around, she was already wishing for the weekend with some asinine hope that next week would somehow be better. She pretended she didn't see the twins and Lee rushing to hide a piece of parchment when she sat down and didn't bother saying anything to them as she made herself a bowl of cereal.
She was truly exhausted at this point and it was only the fourth day back. She'd had Astronomy the night before, mixed with her current running schedule with Fred (which was entirely awkward because neither of them spoke to each other at all), so she'd barely had any sleep at all. Not to mention her coursework. She'd sort of hoped that people were being dramatic about fifth-year being a nightmare, but she was only four days deep and she already wanted to go home. Her professors were all giving a dreadful amount of homework, coupled with a nice anxiety-inducing speech at the beginning of every class about the importance of O.W.L. year. They also seemed to be grading much more harshly than they would have normally, and she was already sick of it. Transfiguration was going to be a nightmare this year and had been the cause of a great deal of her stress the last two days.
Even Tori didn't appear to be totally at her best. They'd slept in today, so her best friend had not even bothered applying her regular face of makeup and was in no mood to play mediator for the twins today, instead glaring at them both over breakfast any time they opened their mouths to say something to either one of them.
Nessa was half asleep when the usual rush of sound above them signaled the arrival of the morning owls. She was so deep in her own misery, thinking longingly of her bed and how much she missed it, that it took her several long seconds to realize that there was a large, brown owl sitting directly in front of her, holding out its leg to her expectantly. Another several seconds before she startled and took the letter from him with a muttered apology — an apology it didn't appear to accept because it ruffled its feathers importantly and nipped her hard on the finger before taking off.
She glared after it as she opened the letter before her, recognizing Remus' handwriting on the envelope.
Vanessa,
I apologize for getting back to you so late — I was hoping to catch you before you returned to school for the year, but the last full moon was more exhausting than I anticipated. I didn't have the ingredients to make my usual potion, so I've been recovering for a few weeks. Before you worry — all is well.
Padfoot has written to me in the last few weeks, however, and he advised that Harry's scar has been hurting him of late? He is very concerned about this, and I cannot say that I disagree with him on this. There have been strange whispers since the World Cup, and I can't help but worry about you and Harry. Has his scar hurt any time before? Has he spoken with Madam Pomfrey? Is there any cause for concern in this case? I assume that if there is anyone who would know if we should be worried, it would be you.
As it is, I believe that Padfoot will be making the journey back in your direction as a precaution. I think it best that we refer to him in this way while he remains so close, to avoid speculation if owls are intercepted.
He also mentioned that Tori has not been responding to any of his letters. How is she? I have been reminding him to remember that this is a difficult situation for her and to remain patient, but any insight you could provide would give him peace of mind.
I know this is your O.W.L. year, so I am sure you are studying hard — I quite remember how terrible that year was myself. Don't work yourself too hard and remember to take time for yourself — you are very bright, and the year will be over before you know it. I also understand that there is quite the exciting event happening at Hogwarts this year — take some time to enjoy it! I wish I could be there to see a bit of it myself.
Talk to you soon,
Remus
"Everything okay?" Tori asked when Nessa didn't say anything after reading the letter.
Nessa wasn't entirely sure how to respond. Remus had always been open with her about his transformation and about the murmurs he heard out in the Wizarding World, despite her proneness to worrying. She appreciated that, truthfully — that he didn't coddle her as if she were a child or too young to understand the implications of his life.
She still didn't like knowing these things regardless. Every time he said he didn't have the ingredients for the Wolfsbane Potion, she suspected what he really meant was that he couldn't afford them. He'd had two jobs since leaving Hogwarts, both of which paid him very little, and brewing the potion was difficult on its own without the expense that the Ministry placed on its production. Buying the ingredients on their own and brewing it oneself was just as expensive, not to mention dangerous if done improperly. And Remus, while good at a great many things, was apparently not very skilled in potion making.
She hated it for him. She wished there was something more she could do for him, wished there was a cure so that she could spare him the hardship altogether. Wished that the Ministry would do everyone a favor and take their heads out of their asses long enough to realize that their job was to protect everyone in the Wizarding World and not just themselves.
Cowards, the whole lot of them.
"It's nothing," Nessa responded, frowning at the parchment in front of her. "Remus is just having a difficult time of it now that he doesn't work here. He didn't have the ingredients to make himself a potion last month —"
" — which is code for didn't have the money," Tori said, sighing sadly. "I'll never forgive Snape for making him leave."
Nessa looked up at the staff table to her greasy-haired professor, who had once been one of her favorites. She'd spent a great deal of time defending him to her friends, but at the moment, she couldn't find it within her to disagree.
"He says that —" Nessa hesitated, giving Tori a cautious glance. "He says that Si — Padfoot," she corrected because Lee was still sitting near them, "is coming back this way."
Tori's hand jerked and knocked over her glass of pumpkin juice by accident. Fred muttered a spell to clean up the mess and gave the two of them an odd look, turning from his conversation with George and Lee to listen to their conversation instead.
"Why is he doing that?"
Tori's face gave nothing away, her tone just as blank, as if she were merely discussing her course schedule or flying conditions. Her entire body was rigid, however, and the grip on her fork was so tight that her knuckles had gone white, her hand shaking a little as she took a bite of her scrambled eggs.
"Harry told him about his scar," Nessa said cautiously. "Remus said he's worried and wants to be closer. There are…strange whispers…he says, since the World Cup. Neither of them seem keen that Harry is having issues so close to that."
Tori was silent for a long moment and Fred and George were looking at her as if they half expected her to lose her head at the breakfast table. Lee just looked entirely confused.
"That…makes sense," was all Tori said, avoiding the concerned looks from all of her friends.
"You haven't been responding to his letters, have you?" Nessa said softly.
Tori stood abruptly, flinging her backpack over her shoulder.
"We should go," her voice forcibly bright. "We can't be late for Defense or Moody might turn us into a toad."
She didn't even wait for a response before taking off for the double doors. Nessa watched her sadly, with a soft sigh.
"She isn't going to talk about it," Fred said, watching her leave himself.
Nessa was irritated by this response for some reason. The twins avoided talking to Tori about her issues for as long as they could avoid getting away with it and Nessa found this entirely unhelpful.
"Thanks for the advice," she snapped before she could stop herself. "The two of you have bigger concerns with the tournament, so you should get back to it. I'll take care of Tori myself."
Fred and George recoiled at this remark, and she might have felt worse, except she was too tired and frustrated to care about the fact that that statement was entirely too cruel and unwarranted. Instead, she just threw her bag over her shoulder and rushed after Tori before either of them could say anything to her in response.
By the time she'd caught up to her, Tori was already waiting outside the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
"What took you so long?" she said with an eye roll. "Fred and George said Moody is cool, and you're going to make us have to sit in the back. Hurry up!"
Nessa rolled her eyes instead of responding, and pushed her into the classroom. They may have been among the last few to arrive, but they still managed to fight their way to the front of the class and took out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, the room unusually quiet. Everyone in the school had heard about how cool Moody's first class had been and there wasn't a single student left who wasn't excited to see what he could do.
Not even Tori, who was only minutes before having an emotional crisis, appeared to care about anything other than class starting. Soon they heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps making their way down the spiraling staircase from his office. He looked just as strange and frightening as he ever had — his rolling, whirring blue eye and 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."
Nessa and Tori shared a look as they put them back in their bags — the only other time they'd been told this had been when Professor Lupin had been teaching and it had been a particularly exciting lesson. Less so for Nessa by the end, but still worthwhile before that.
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. Nessa could not explain why her heart raced when it settled on her for a longer second than it had on anyone else.
"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 got a thorough grounding in tackling Dark creatures —- some grounding in hex and curse deflection, is that right?"
There was a general murmur of assent.
"But you're still 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. And I'd like to see for myself just how prepared you are at deflecting spells. I've got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark magic before I go back to my quiet retirement."
Nessa found this statement odd in itself, but couldn't quite put her finger on why. Although her mind wondered why Dumbledore would believe it necessary to have an Auror teach them if there was no need to. Unless maybe he couldn't find anyone else to take the job — which, given the previous years, was likely.
"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 next 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 do it nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful."
Nessa did not like this speech at all. On the contrary, she actually thought she might have preferred the one on how important her upcoming exams would be instead.
"So…do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by Wizarding law?"
Nessa knew, but did not raise her hand, a sudden dread settling in her bones and making her body feel heavy. She'd spent too much time reading about the first War in an attempt to get some understanding of what her parents must have faced and fought before they'd died. She'd known very little about their deaths when she'd first arrived, not having wanted to ask McGonagall when she'd come to explain her acceptance to the school to her.
She'd been young then…too naive to realize that there were likely some things that she didn't want to know. That there were some spells that no one should ever know about.
Several other hands rose tentatively into the air, however. Moody pointed at Katie Bell, who looked nervous as she answered, "The Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them will —"
" — earn you a one way ticket to Azkaban," Moody nodded, grabbing a piece of chalk from his desk and writing UNFORGIVABLE CURSES, and numbering below these words 1 - 3. "Correct. There are three Unforgivable Curses — each of which will earn you a life sentence in Azkaban if used on a fellow human being. These are the curses 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." No one moved as he stared out at all of them, his magical eye whirring constantly. "Now, who can name one of these such curses?"
Cormac McLaggen was the one to answer next, his voice timid for the first time since Nessa had ever known him.
"The Imperius Curse?"
"Ah, yes," said Moody appreciatively. "Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."
Moody walked heavily on his mismatched feet from the chalkboard to his desk drawer. He opened it and took out a glass jar. Nessa let her chair legs scrape loudly against the floor as she shot backward in an attempt to put distance between herself and the desk in front of her. Some of the Slytherins snickered at her, but she was too busy eyeing the jar closely to care.
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 all could see it. Nessa's hands tightened compulsively on her knees as she tried to convince herself not to make a run for it. Moody then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Engorgio!"
Tori slapped her hand over Nessa's thigh to keep her from making a run for it when the spider tripled in size. Fred and George had not once mentioned spiders in their talk of the class, and she was suddenly feeling a little less badly that she'd been so cruel to them this morning. The next time Moody pointed his wand at the spider, he 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.
It was grotesque. Even her dislike for them did not spare her the pity of watching something have so little control over its own faculties. But everyone else was laughing — everyone except her and 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.
"What should I have her do next?" he said, and if Nessa wasn't entirely mistaken there was a sick sort of gleam in that one, beady, black eye. It was there only a moment before it disappeared, but it made her want to shudder all the same. He jerked his wand again, so that the spider was pressed flat against the nearest window, its eight legs shaking as if attempting to fight whatever it was being told to do next, "Jump out the window?" Another jerk and it hovered above a pail of water precariously, "Drown herself?" Another jerk and it landed back on Moody's desk. "Throw itself down one of your throats…"
The silence in the room was loud now, her own breathing sounding too loud in her ears. No one moved as Moody continued.
"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," said Moody, and Nessa knew he was talking about the days in which Voldemort had been all-powerful. Some of those wizards had been forced to act on his behalf, a cruelty and a nightmare that many of them had been unable to cope with upon waking up when the man controlling them had fallen. Others — like Lucius Malfoy — had lied. "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.
Everyone jumped, the horror of the previous show of cruelty completely forgotten for the moment.
"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Adelaide Murton's hand flew into the air, her eyes catching Vanessa's when Moody called on her to speak. The two of them had avoided each other for the entire week, Nessa happy to pretend that she hadn't noticed the crueler girl had returned from her suspension.
Adelaide smiled at her cruelly as she spoke next, "The Killing Curse."
Nessa did not back down from her stare, even as her body tensed at the mention of the one that gave her nightmares. Several people in the classroom looked uneasily around at Murton, but no one spoke. Nessa's gaze only broke from hers when Moody moved to grab another spider from the jar. This one scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, as if it had seen its sister being played with like she was nothing more than a toy.
"Ah," said Moody, a slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "Avada Kedavra…the Killing Curse. The worst of the lot."
He placed the spider upon his desktop, and watched momentarily as it tried to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface. Moody raised his wand, and Nessa felt the dread build until she could feel bile in the back of her throat, watching the spider try desperately to escape with no idea what was coming next.
"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; Tori jumped and swore under her breath; Nessa could feel Murton looking at her still, but her gaze remained, frozen and unmoving, on the spider that would never move again.
A flash of green…a body on the floor, glasses askew…another blinding green light around the edges of a shut door…an explosion…unfathomable silence…
She blinked quickly through the images that haunted her nightmares, trying to stay within the present and focus on the spider before her. She followed it when Moody swept the dead spider off the desk onto the floor, and she could not explain why that action alone made her want to cry. Why it felt like the ultimate disrespect.
"Not nice," Moody said calmly, as if he had not traumatized a number of students. "Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it…and his sister is sitting right in front of me."
Nessa did not move or speak, her entire body trembling, when everyone in the room turned to stare at her. She stared ahead, at the lifeless body of a spider that she'd have sooner run away from on any other occasion, and tried to pretend like she couldn't see or remember what Moody was talking about.
"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."
Nessa knew, what he really meant, was that it was a spell that required a certain amount of anger, a blinding rage. It needed a certain disregard for human life. Power had nothing to do with it — casting an Unforgivable Curse had to have intent of the cruelest kind. No one could cast the spell with its intended effect unless they really meant it.
"But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to teach you how to do it. But 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. "Who knows the last one?"
Whether because they didn't know or because they were too stunned or frightened to say it, Nessa could not be sure, but she wasn't volunteering the last one. The one that she felt was far, far worse than the Killing Curse.
Moody reached into the glass jar again, apparently not at all fazed by the lack of response. The last spider, as if knowing what was coming next, ran desperately around the bottom of the jar, but it was no use. Moody caught it, enlarged it, and then clunked forward until he was standing directly in front of Nessa, who had not moved since the last curse had been spoken.
She didn't make eye contact with him when he set that final spider, apparently too afraid to move, on the desk in front of her. She did not recoil or move away from that spider as she normally might have. She didn't raise her gaze as her professor stood before her in silence.
Tori was rigid in the chair next to her, her hand shaking violently on her leg, where she'd placed it before the horror had even begun unfolding and had not moved it since.
"Miss Potter, what's the final curse?"
Nessa could feel herself shaking, tried hard not to look at her best friend, tried to ignore the welling in her eyes at the question, knowing very well what would happen next to a creature that was completely unable to fight back.
She refused to participate in this cruelty. So she kept her gaze fixed and unwavering on her desktop where that spider stood, still as a statue, as if hoping no one would notice it if it didn't move. And she shook her head once — an adamant refusal.
But Moody did not move, and no one else in the room appeared to want to say it aloud.
"The Cruciatus Curse."
Nessa shook harder at the broken whisper that sounded next to her, and couldn't decide if it was worse that Tori had been the one to answer because of her own refusal.
"Pain," said Moody softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse…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. Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider, which Nessa was not aware had the capability to make any noise, began uttering a horrible squeaking as if the pain had altered its physical being so much that it had learned to scream. He still did not remove his wand as it began to shudder and jerk more violently, its legs shriveling in on itself —
"Stop it," Tori said, her voice shaking. When Moody did not immediately yield, she stood abruptly, knocking her chair backwards. "STOP IT!"
Nessa watched as the spider's legs relaxed immediately, but it continued to twitch, even when the spell had been severed.
The silence in the room was horrible and heavy, as Moody looked at Tori and she looked back at him, her entire body shaking from the effort she was making to control the fury that was clear on her face. Before he could say anything, Tori had turned and raced out of the room, leaving her belongings behind.
Nessa rose with no hesitation, trying to catch herself on the desk because her legs felt like jelly.
"Excuse me," she muttered, without looking at Moody, and grabbed hers and Tori's bags and raced after her.
Moody didn't stop her when she left, but she could hear him continuing the lecture as if nothing had happened at all. By the time she had reached the end of the corridor, she could not see any sign of Tori.
There was a momentary panic as she spun in a circle, wondering where she could have possibly gone in such a short period of time, and which direction she should look next, when a group of second-years came scuttling around the corner, looking terrified.
"What? What's wrong?" she said immediately.
"Someone's throwing curses in the trophy room," one of them said as they raced past her.
Nessa swore violently and took off at a run in the direction that the second-years had appeared from. There was no one in the corridor when she reached it and based on the level of noise that was coming from inside the room, she didn't entirely blame anyone for making a run from it.
She hesitated a moment before the door, taking a deep breath, and praying for the best before she pushed it open. She screamed and ducked immediately when a bright flash of red nearly hit her, and ricocheted in the corridor behind her before she could close the door.
"Christ, Victoria, you can't just curse anyone who comes in here!" she said sharply. "You nearly took my head off!"
The curses stopped flying at the sound of her voice, but Tori's face was a mask of rage the likes of which Nessa had never seen before. Not even when she'd been trying to kill Peter Pettigrew the year before. She was shaking still, her grip on her wand so tight that her knuckles were white and popping, a sort of crazed look in her eyes.
"What does he think he's doing?" she said, her voice shaking with rage. "Showing children spells like that? People think that that's cool? Watching something be tortured? THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE COOL, VANESSA?"
Nessa really didn't know what to say to that because clearly it was anything but cool. It was anything but okay, but Tori would be impossible to reason with when she was this worked up. The fact that Fred and George had not been smart enough to know that a demonstration of that magnitude would be a trigger for Tori was beyond any level of stupidity that Nessa had ever known.
"What does Dumbledore think he's playing at?" Tori yelled again, her chest heaving with breaths that were close to hyperventilation. "Hiring someone who has no regard for how those spells look to children? For fuck's sake, did he just think —"
"Tori, you have to calm down!" Nessa interrupted loudly because Tori's wand was sparking dangerously.
"I can't calm down!" Tori yelled back. "I'm pissed off! I'm — I'm angry! I can't think straight and I need to break something or — or —"
Nessa startled at these words as if a lightbulb had clicked in her head. The trophy case nearest her was the only one that Tori had shattered in her blinding rage — somehow — and Nessa reached down to grab one of the trophies and concentrated hard on the image in her head as she waved her wand over it.
She grimaced at the sight of it because it was shorter than she was certain it was supposed to be and had been made of wood rather than metal, but the shape of it looked right, so it would do. Holding her hands up, she walked over to Tori, and forcibly wrapped her hand around the base of it.
"What the hell is this?" Tori snapped, looking down at it in confusion. "Is this supposed to be a Beater's bat because it's atrocious —"
"It's a baseball bat," Nessa said, ripping Tori's wand out of her hand. "Well, it's close enough to one anyway. Muggles use them to play sports."
"And what, exactly, am I supposed to do with this?"
"You're angry," Nessa said. "I can't talk to you like this and you can't just go about flinging curses around and scaring second-years out of their wits. So this is plan B — you break whatever you want with that thing and then you have to calm down, clear?" Tori stared at her for a long moment and then back down at the bat in her hand before nodding and raising it above her head. "WAIT!" Nessa said in alarm. "Wait until I back up, at least! You already tried to kill me once today."
Nessa really could not have decided what about the next fifteen minutes of her life was worse — trying not to think about the fact that Tori wasn't entirely wrong in being as angry as she was because she also did not understand what reason they had for teaching them magic of that caliber; trying not to be worried that Tori would hurt herself when she was swinging the bat so violently that everything around her shattered in an explosion of noise; wondering how the hell she'd explain this if a professor came walking into the room at the sound of all of the noise; or the moment that Fred, George, and Lee came racing into the room with their wands raised as if they half expected someone to be being murdered.
Other than her obvious concern for her best friend, who was so deep in releasing her rage that she didn't even notice anyone else had come into the room at all, she was leaning more towards having the three people she least wanted to see come waltzing into the room. Because why in the hell did they always turn up when she least needed them to? And how did it happen that way? Were they following them or something?
"DON'T!" Nessa yelled across the room, over the sound of shattering glass when Tori broke another crystal trophy case.
Fred, looking entirely alarmed, had moved to do God only knew what to get Tori to stop swinging the bat in her hand. As if he wouldn't lose his head completely if he got too close to her while she was swinging it around like an enraged lunatic.
Sometimes Nessa was entirely certain that saying the twins were intelligent was a lapse in her own judgment.
"What do you mean, don't?" Fred yelled back, looking at her as if she'd gone mad. "What the hell is wrong with her? She's going to break half the trophy room!"
Nessa huffed because he just couldn't trust her with a single thing, could he? Looking to make sure she was still well outside Tori's path of destruction, she walked across the room, her shoes crunching in the glass that was scattered across the floor.
"She's pissed off obviously," Nessa said petulantly. "But she's fine, so feel free to go away."
"Fine," Fred said incredulously. "This is fine to you? What happened?"
"What happened is that you three morons told her that Moody was 'cool' for using Unforgivable Curses as though her mother hadn't been tortured, is what happened," she snapped. Fred and George winced and Lee grimaced. "So it's either you let her break the trophy cases or I let her break your heads. Your choice."
There was a long moment of hesitation before Lee spoke.
"I'm going to go watch the corridor and make sure no one comes down this way," he said.
"Good idea," Nessa said, rolling her eyes and turning again to face Tori, who, thankfully, was starting to slow in her swinging.
She had much more stamina than Nessa had really thought, and it was still horrible to watch the rage, knowing that once it disappeared, the real reason for her emotional break would become much more obvious. Tori used anger to hide a great number of her emotions, but despair was the worst of them.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Fred said, watching anxiously as Tori released her pent up rage on some glass trophy that was sitting outside a case on a nearby table.
"Not entirely," Nessa admitted. "But she almost took my head off throwing curses around, so this is the best I've got."
"And — er — what happens when she runs out of things to break?" George asked, one eye on her and the other on Tori.
"Then she will."
Nessa was not stupid. Tori wasn't angry — or at least not mostly angry. What she really was, was heartbroken. The anger was merely a mask to hide behind, a state of denial that Tori was very good at hiding behind. In most cases, Nessa was sure that the anger was able to mask the emotional break entirely, if not stave it off completely.
But Nessa had never once seen this level of rage from Tori before. And she had a horrible, foreboding feeling that that would make the despair much, much worse than it would have been normally. And, really, Nessa couldn't blame her for that — this was more than just a mere slight, but a response to a trauma that was unfathomable.
There was only a minute or two longer before the rage appeared to have dimmed enough for Tori to regain enough of her mental faculties to look around and realize what she'd done. Three-quarters of the room had been destroyed, the floor covered in shattered glass and crystal, trophies dented and thrown about haphazardly. The silence after that bout of destruction was ringing, as if her ears were confused and still remembering the previous noise. Tori stood in the middle of the destruction, her arm totally limp with the bat in her hand. She was panting harshly, covered in sweat, and didn't appear totally aware of the fact that there were other people in the room.
Nessa held her arm out to prevent Fred from getting any closer to her. It was hard telling sometimes if Tori's rage had dissipated for good or was just a momentary pause before she worked herself up again.
"I didn't know spiders could scream," Tori said eventually. She was panting still, but her voice was…dead sounding. Dull. "Did you know they could scream like that?"
Nessa had no idea what she was supposed to say to that. Nothing she said would make it any easier to process. The sight was burned into her retinas at this point.
"No," she said, opting for the obvious answer because the question was more redundant than anything else.
"How bad does it have to hurt for something that isn't supposed to be able to scream — to make it scream anyway?"
Nessa really didn't want to know the answer to that question. She wasn't entirely sure that she could stomach the answer herself. And she was certain as well that Tori already knew that answer herself. However that spider had reacted could not be anywhere close to as horrible as the reaction of her mother under the same conditions.
But Tori didn't appear to need an answer anyway. She merely let the bat fall from her hands and watched it roll away before she fell to her knees. The CRACK of her knees on the stone floor made Nessa wince in sympathy, the sound of the glass crunching beneath her as the sobbing started.
Nessa had no idea what to do for her at this point, other than to sink to the ground next to her, envelope her in a hug, and wait out the despair. It was somehow better and worse than her breakdown the previous year had been. There was no panic, no hyperventilation, this time around. No screaming. The sobbing was more cathartic than hysterical. But it was horrible all the same — Tori was so rarely anything other than carefree that hearing despair from her was painful to witness. And there was no amount of relief that she could really provide her — not for this. The pain would be ever present, no matter what she said or did.
By the time the sobbing had stopped, Nessa was crying too, her knees were aching, the glass beneath digging into her skin through the pants of her uniform. Tori didn't move even after the breakdown had passed, as if the contact was somehow necessary for her to remain in control, so Nessa didn't bother pulling back.
"He talks about it like he expects us to be attacked tomorrow," Tori said eventually, her voice raspy from crying. "Why would he — why would Dumbledore — think that we need to know that now?"
Nessa had thought it herself and had decided she didn't want to know the answer. Remus' letter about hearing strange whispers was still ringing in her head, Professor Trelawney's prediction always sleeping in the back of her mind, Bertha Jorkins' disappearance, Moody's odd language and appearance at the school…
She didn't like it. Not a single one of the signs was giving her any sort of comfort, even if she could explain away Moody's appearance with the knowledge that filling the DADA position was getting harder and harder by the year.
"I don't know," she said honestly. "He attacked his dustbins over the summer though, so there's a good chance he's just paranoid."
"People thought that was cool, Nessa," Tori said again, her voice breaking. "Watching something be forced to contort itself, watching something be tortured, watching something be killed….they talked about it like it was something to be in awe of."
Nessa couldn't quite explain that interest to herself — she could chalk it up to being too young to understand the implications, maybe. A sort of naivety because they had not experienced the fear or pain that that magic could inflict on a person themselves and assumed that they never would. A sort of morbid curiosity that humans had — in the same way that they found true crime documentaries or stories entertaining, maybe.
"I don't think that's how they really meant it, Tori," Nessa said. "I think they just think it's cool that Moody knows what the spells look like from experience fighting them."
"It isn't cool," Tori insisted. "Any of it. That the spells exist, that people use them, that Moody showed it to us as if seeing it is really supposed to make much difference. People shouldn't be talking about things that have ruined lives as if it's awe-inspiring."
"No, they shouldn't," Nessa agreed with a sad sigh. "But they probably assume that they'll never be in the position to know personally, if they don't already. And, unfortunately, sometimes people need to experience something themselves to grasp the full magnitude. For their sakes, I hope they never do."
"I wish I didn't know," Tori said brokenly.
Nessa wished that too. Reading and seeing it had been entirely different. Knowing it existed, knowing it was what had happened to her parents and watching it happen in front of her were entirely different. Bigger and more disturbing, an image that would be painted in her mind's eye for the rest of her life in the same way the memory of her parents' deaths were.
It was sick and twisted and she hated it for herself, for her brother, for Tori. It was unfair that such cruelty existed in the world.
She rested her forehead against Tori's and closed her eyes.
"I wish you didn't either," she whispered brokenly. "If I could spare any of you from knowing that, I would. It wasn't cool or awe-inspiring or anything in between. It's horrible and disgusting and there's no excuse for that level of cruelty."
"It was hours that she dealt with that level of pain, Nessa," Tori whispered back. "Hours. How could she have done that and not broken?"
"Because she loved you," Nessa said as if this were entirely obvious. "Sometimes the alternative is more painful than the actual physical pain. Your mother was brave for what she did to protect you."
"So was yours," Tori whispered, opening her eyes to look at her. The grief was painful, but the understanding in her eyes was worse. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I — I'm fine," she said, blinking away the tears that were attempting to make themselves known again. "I'd rather have not had the demonstration, all things considered, but I — it's nothing I didn't already know."
She wished her brain would allow the grief to be that rational. There was such tightness in her chest at the reminder that she knew she'd cry again when she was alone. She also knew that that flash of green would appear in her nightmares for at least a week. But her parents' deaths had been quick and painless — she took comfort in knowing that. Her best friend needed the comfort more than she did.
"Fred and George said it was cool," Tori said again.
"Fred and George are stupid," Nessa said immediately.
"Very stupid," they said in unison from behind her.
Tori and Nessa jumped, forgetting entirely that there were other people in the room with them. Fred and George looked wholly uncomfortable by the show of emotion in front of them, and a little guilty for having said anything at all about their opinion on the subject. Truthfully, Nessa was not entirely sure they'd put much thought into the impact it would have on their friends to begin with — much as she loved them, the two of them had lived far better, safer, happier lives than she and Tori. Sometimes she envied them for that — for the privilege of ignorance that it gave them.
"When did they get here?" Tori said in alarm, pulling away from Nessa and wiping the back of her hands across her face as if it would help her save face when they'd seen her crying her eyes out already.
Nessa rolled her eyes.
"When you were breaking things —"
"Might have scared Lee a bit, actually," Fred said casually, his gaze still locked on Tori, concern still lighting the blue of his eyes.
"And by Lee, he means him," Nessa said with a roll of her eyes.
George snorted when Fred huffed next to him.
"This stuff can be fixed, right?" Tori said, eyeing the disaster around her.
"I have no idea," Nessa said, eyeing some of the trophies that had been dented. "I severely hope so."
Tori looked at her for a long moment before she burst into laughter.
"You're a horrible prefect," Tori gasped through her sudden hysteria. "How are we going to explain this to McGonagall if we can't?"
Nessa grimaced.
"We make a run for it and pretend to be surprised when the teachers ask," Nessa said after a long moment of consideration.
"The Fred and George approach," Tori said seriously, wiping her eyes again. "I'd like to point out that they get caught every time —"
"It is not every time!" George said indignantly. "Most times, maybe, but not every time."
"Just because they can't prove it was you, doesn't mean they don't know it was you," Tori said with an eye roll. "Who in the hell else would sneak a niffler into the trophy room?"
"Hagrid, for one thing," George said stubbornly.
"And it wasn't a niffler," said Fred huffily. "It was a Knarl."
"Is that better?"
"Well, it's more original!" Fred said. "You're the one who wanted to put a niffler in here —"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Tori said indignantly. "A niffler makes much more sense! They like shiny objects. Knarls eat daisies — which in case you two dunderheads haven't noticed, are not inside the trophy room."
"It means that you're predictable, is what it means," Fred said with a smirk, crossing his arms across his chest. Tori shot to her feet with growing indignance. "And the Knarl destroyed half the room looking for food, so obviously it worked —"
"I'd hardly call sheer dumb luck as working —"
"And it bit Snape on the leg when he offered it those daisies," George remarked suddenly, watching Tori and his brother closely as they glared at each other.
Nessa rolled her eyes at the three of them, tuning them out completely as they kept bickering. Fred and George may not be particularly fond of having emotional conversations with Tori, but they had an uncanny ability to distract her with jokes and bickering. Fred in particular had a gift for distracting her mind with something else, and Nessa would like to have told him to stop except it worked for Tori. At least during the day anyway. She'd likely end up staying in the twins' dormitory tonight as she normally did when she was too distraught to sleep on her own. Nessa had no idea what she and Fred talked about in the moments before she went to sleep, but she assumed whatever emotional conversations they had together occurred at that point and not any time sooner.
Nessa left the two of them to their weird relationship and looked around at the destruction around her. Waving her wand and muttering, "Reparo!", she sighed in relief when she watched the shattered glass and crystal repair itself like the pieces of a puzzle, the dented trophies popped back into place, and went soaring back to their original shelves. She had to wave her wand several times before she could get the room back to its normal pristine, sparkling condition.
The relief of knowing she wouldn't have to tell McGonagall that she'd let Tori destroy everything in sight was overwhelming.
"Are you alright?"
Nessa jumped half a foot in the air at the sound of George's voice behind her.
Turning to look at him, he was eyeing her carefully, his expression carefully blank despite the concern in his eyes. Nessa stared at him for a long moment — it had been horribly awkward between them for the last few days and neither one of them appeared to know how to resolve the issue. Something that greatly confused her because they'd had fights as friends and been fine, but somehow fighting as a couple felt weirder and more awkward.
"I'm fine," she lied after a moment's hesitation.
It wasn't something she was particularly proud of, but getting into an emotional conversation with George when they would just revert back to arguing about the tournament tomorrow felt too confusing for her to deal with at the moment.
He looked at her for a long moment, clearly not believing this response, and opened his mouth to reply, but Tori had paused in her bickering with Fred and spoke to Nessa before he could push.
"You should warn Harry," she said.
Nessa tore her gaze from George's to look at her best friend, who was clearly giving her some form of an out from her conversation with George. It was a moment's consideration before she decided that it was an escape that she did want for the time being.
"Right," she said casually. "I'll go find him. You need to get those notes from Katie because I'm pretty sure Moody kept teaching after we left."
Tori snorted.
"His concern for our well-being is touching."
Nessa didn't bother responding to this. Something about Alastor Moody made her uncomfortable, and today's class had certainly not helped with that.
The only issue was that she couldn't figure out what exactly bothered her about him.
Moody weirds me out, honestly. The fact that he smiled while he was using Unforgivable Curses feels like a sign on its own that he was not who he said he was. The fact that Harry did not find that weird at all is proof positive that he's dense as a doorknob.
Emotional one for this one. Tori's past always hurts to write.
Up next: Career Advice and an apology (not from Nessa or George, sorry, loves)