Harry's first couple of days back at Hogwarts were not as exciting as he had hoped they would be.
Harry had planned on holding Quidditch Tryouts and filling the open spots. Instead, he was told quidditch had canceled for the entire year. Which made Harry wonder if Dumbledore did it just to ruin his first year as Captain or not. He would say it was awfully petty, even for the old man, but it was the same guy who watched Harry cry in front of a mirror when he was eleven. So he wouldn't put anything past him.
Then Harry also planned on finding out how the Triwizard Champions would be chosen. Instead, Snape had either ignored or threatened him every time Harry tried asking.
All in all, not the return he had planned on having.
There was a new tension in Slytherin that he could pick at if he wanted, if he got too bored. A few of the older students are wary around him, but they just glared and whispered- none of them were brave enough to outright attack the Heir of Slytherin. And as long as they keep their hands and wands to themselves, they weren't bothering Harry any. He was a far cry from the nervous first year who got jinxed in the halls, and the other Slytherins knew it by then. Draco said the ones who glared and whispered are the students whose parents or close relatives are Death Eaters. The future Death Eaters, he called them.
Theo and Draco had been helping Harry come up with plans to recruit those students away from their parents' paths and towards his own.
'They think the Dark Lord promises power and prestige and a 'purer world', Draco explained over tea and some posh little sandwiches at his manor. 'You have to show them that you are the power, you are the prestige.'
'And a purer world?' Harry asked, his brow raised, daring Draco to say that next.
'Show them that magic is the purity,' Theo said. 'Muggleborn or not, magic is what makes us special and better than muggles.'
'But wizards are tired of hiding from muggles,' Draco waved a sandwich around to emphasize his point. 'They're not special like we are. Why should we hide?'
Harry thought hard about that. Why should they hide from muggles? Muggles weren't special, weren't strong. They were weak and ignorant and mean. Why should they hide?
'So we recruit the Slytherin's,' Harry said instead. 'Keep them from joining Timmy and get them on my side.'
'We don't recruit,' Theo said with a thoughtful look. 'We make them beg to join you.' Harry had liked that idea quite a bit. So they started planning.
The Contessa and Susan both had different views on where the power lied in the upcoming fights.
'How many people do you think are on Dumbledore's side?' Susan asked one afternoon before school started. They were laying side by side on a hill behind her house lazily watching the river beneath the sun. 'A dozen? Two dozen? More?'
'I dunno,' Harry said honestly. 'Snape says Timmy and Dumbledore both have 'inner circles' but then they have bigger groups of people who agree with them. So it's hard to say, isn't it?'
'I think we need to get them away from him,' Susan said bluntly. 'I know Auntie fought on his side last time, but there wasn't a third side then, was there?'
'Nope,' Harry turned his head and grinned at her. 'It's a brand new side. Malfoy calls it the grey side.'
'So let's drag Dumbledore's people to it,' she said. 'Start with your godfather and Lupin. They were in the Order last time, weren't they? Make sure they won't be again. We both know Timmy's coming back. We have to be ready.'
So Harry wrote a letter to Black, asking him to meet up in Hogsmeade when they have their first weekend in October. He even said he could bring Lupin. If they were a package deal, like he was with his friends, then he'd suck it up and 'play nice'.
Then the Contessa took Harry shopping in Italy the last weekend of summer. She said he needed to 'dress the part', whatever that meant.
'You are an Heir twice over and a powerful leader,' she hummed while she threw posh robes and clothes at Harry. 'You will need to look more prestigioso for your foreign allies, yes?'
'What foreign allies?' Harry grunted as he hastily hid a pair of silk pants she casually handed him under the trousers and shirts in his arms.
'The ones you will gain this year, my Meraviglia,' she said warmly. 'There will be foreign schools assembling at Hogwarts this year, no?'
'Suppose so,' Harry agreed.
'Elocution dearest,' she chided him gently. 'The British are obsessed with 'dark and light', the French will not care for this. They only care about potenza, and you have that, do you not? My Meraviglia?'
Harry didn't know much Italian, only bits and pieces here and there, but he knew what 'potenza' meant, and he had that. So they planned for approaches with the foreign schools. Which apparently involved a lot of 'being charming'. And no, the Contessa said he can't just make Blaise do it.
Which sucked.
The Contessa also made Harry try on and buy what seemed to be half the store, which also sucked, but he figured her advice was worth the nightmare of shopping.
But none of these ideas could even be put in action until the Tournament started. And none of his own personal plans for Hogwarts were panning out. So all in all, it was a dull first few days in terms of plots and plans.
His classes have been interesting at least. Not quite enough to make up for the general boredom, but at least they weren't too terrible.
In Herbology they started working with a disgusting new plant that even had Susan cringing away from it.
"This is a Bubotubers," Sprout said, introducing the new plant. "You will collect the pus in these bottles. Wear your dragon-hide gloves; it can do funny things to the skin when undiluted, bubotuber pus."
Squeezing the black tube like plants was disgusting, but the popping sound they made when you squished the pus out was satisfying. And the yellow pus was thick and smelled like petrol but Sprout swore it was used in medicines for the Hospital Wing.
"This'll keep Madam Pomfrey happy," said Sprout, stoppering the last bottle with a cork. "An excellent remedy for the more stubborn forms of acne, bubotuber pus. Should stop students resorting to desperate measures to rid themselves of pimples."
"Like poor Eloise Midgen," said Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff, in a hushed voice. "She tried to curse hers off."
"Silly girl," said Sprout, shaking her head. "But Madam Pomfrey fixed her nose back on in the end."
Harry personally thought Midgen, a Ravenclaw in his year, still had a crooked nose. But he supposed maybe she liked it that way.
Hagrid had also elevated himself just slightly in Harry's opinion when he introduced the most brilliant creature Harry had ever seen before.
"Blast-Ended Skrewts," Hagrid said proudly, surrounded by several open crates.
They looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. There were about a hundred of them in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a very powerful smell of rotting fish. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches.
"On'y jus' hatched," said Hagrid cheerfully, "so yeh'll be able ter raise 'em yerselves! Thought we'd make a bit of a project of it!"
"Why on Earth would we want to raise those things?" Draco said, a pinched expression on his face.
"Shh," Harry shushed him. Anything Hagrid called 'blast ended' clearly meant they would explode or blow up other things- which was wicked.
"Good man Harry," Hagrid said with a sparkly eyed nod towards where Harry had hushed Draco. "Now, yeh'll wan' ter try 'em on a few diff'rent things — I've never had 'em before, not sure what they'll go fer — I got ant eggs an' frog livers an' a bit o' grass snake — just try 'em out with a bit of each."
Harry immediately scooped up a bit of each and his friends followed behind more slowly as he approached the Skrewts. On the bright side, the Skrewts didn't seem to hate Harry like other animals did. On the down side, they didn't seem to have mouths either so trying to feed them was pointless.
The Skrewts became Harry's new favorite animal in the world though when after ten minutes one of them exploded its end and burnt Dean Thomas' hand.
"Why are we even trying to feed them?" Thomas demanded angrily as he sucked on the burn on his hand. "They're disgusting and pointless!"
"They're weapons," Harry said, happily trying to pet one of them. "Suppose they just proved that by burning you, didn't they?"
"Just what Harry needs," Hermione whispered to Ron. "More weapons."
As they trooped back up to the castle Harry let out a happy sigh.
"Finally, finally, Hagrid brings an interesting creature. D'you reckon they'll get any bigger?" he asked Draco.
"I expect they'll be monstrous once Hagrid figures out what they eat," Theo cut in. "And then they'll swarm the grounds and kill half the students."
"You think?" Harry asked.
"Don't sound so eager," Hermione said curtly. "Honestly Harry. You'd think you want just constant chaos."
"He does," Theo, Ron, and Draco all said. Harry just shrugged. He thought the Skrewts were interesting. Or at least, they had potential to be interesting.
Of course, nothing except for putting a Skrewt in the classroom would ever make Divination interesting. Harry asked Snape if he could drop it, but he said not until after his fifth year.
Trelawney started their first class off with another doomed 'prediction' about Harry.
"The thing you fear is not baseless," she whispered to Harry loudly enough for the entire class to hear. "The thing that troubles your soul, it is indeed a true worry you should have."
"You think Dumbledore did cancel Quidditch on purpose just to irritate me then?" Harry asked.
"What?" Trelawney drew herself up shortly, her blurry gaze shifting to confusion. "No dear, the thing that is troubling your very soul."
"It is troubling my soul," Harry said stoutly.
Harry counted it as a win when Trelawney actually scowled at him before slamming a book on the table he shared with Ron, Neville, and Blaise.
"She's going to snap and hit you with a sherry bottle one day," Neville snickered. "I dunno why she keeps picking on you when she knows you're just going to say something wild."
"It's not wild to be mad about Quidditch," Ron defended him. "Dumbledore's a git."
"Unless you guys find a way to enter the Tournament," Blaise said with a small grin. "Then he won't be."
"No he will be," Harry said. "But if I don't get in the tournament and I can't play Quidditch then I'm gonna let Sue catch his office on fire."
The other boys snickered at that until they were interrupted by Trelawney clearing her throat pointedly.
"Am I correct in saying you were conceived under the baleful influence of Saturn?" she asked Harry.
"Probably the influence of whiskey," Harry said politely. "My parents were 19 when they got pregnant with me, weren't they? My godfather said I was a 'happy accident' they made during a wild party."
Blaise chuckled quietly, and Neville ducked beneath the table to hide his laughter. Harry just kept up his polite smile.
"No, no. The planetary influence of Saturn," Trelawney said with another frown. "I was saying that Saturn was surely in a position of power in the heavens at the moment of your conception... Your dark hair... your mean stature... tragic losses so young in life... I think I am right in saying, my dear, that you were born in midwinter?"
"Oh absolutely," Harry said. "Yeah it was a real cold midwinter July when I was born."
Ron laughed so hard that he got tears in his eyes and for the first time ever Trelawney assigned detention to the four of them for that evening.
"I don't understand how I got roped in to your detention," Neville was still complaining as they headed to dinner after class.
"The absolutely poor decision on our part by choosing to sit with Harry," Blaise said with a sympathetic pat on Neville's shoulder. "Of course she did assign us to our Heads, so Snape will probably let us do homework or something."
"I've got McGonagall," Neville reminded them. "She'll have me doing lines."
"Bad luck there mate," Ron said.
They joined their other friends at dinner and listened as they filled them in on the classes they didn't share.
As much as Harry didn't like wasting his time in Divinatjon, it still sounded loads better than Arithmacy.
"And Professor Vector didn't even assign us any homework," Hermione said with a smug look at Neville's homework planner after the most boring rant about the subject Harry had ever heard.
"That's because Professor Vector spends all his time in the pub when he's done with classes," Fred laughed, walking up to their table and squeezing himself in between Hermione and Theo.
Which Harry thought was pretty brave since Theo studied his fork as if he might stab Fred with it.
"Any of you lot had Moody yet?" Fred winked at Harry, intentionally ignoring Hermione's hateful glare.
"The boys and I have him tomorrow," Susan checked her schedule.
"We don't until Wednesday," Neville said with a shy grin at Hermione.
"I had him this morning," Luna piped up with. Luna spent so much time with their group that Harry honestly forgot she was a year behind them most of the time. Just this morning in Charms, Harry had looked for Luna's familiar silvery blonde hair when Hermione walked in.
"What's he like then?" Harry asked Fred.
"You're going to like him Darlin', he's wicked brilliant and super interesting," Fred said with a wide smile.
"He's a fuckin cop," Harry said flatly. "Can't be that great, can he?"
"But he wasn't a good cop, was he?" Neville said. "I heard he was always breaking the rules to catch Dark Wizards."
Harry snorted at that. It wasn't a big surprise that Moody was just another cop who thought he was too good to follow the rules.
"I think you'll like him," Luna agreed with Fred. "He's like us."
"Completely mad?" Harry grinned at Luna. They'd decided if everyone thought they were mad then they should just embrace it. Luna's goal for the year was to get out of at least one punishment by saying: 'It's not my fault Professor, I'm mad'. Harry told her to do it to Snape, but she refused to act up in his class since it could be so dangerous.
"Absolutely insane," Luna agreed serenely.
"That's why they call him Mad-Eye Moody," Susan said. "Auntie says he was one of the most successful Aurors with the worst write up rate."
"He's a much better teacher than Lockhart was," Fred said. "Plus he's got loads of cool stories from when he was an auror."
"I think it'd be cool to be an auror," Ron said.
"Don't you dare," Harry warned him. "I'll disown you if you become a cop."
"Aurors are highly respected," Hermione said in the sniffy tone she takes on sometimes when she's offended. "I think Ron would be excellent at it."
"Or you can be the assistant to the Vice Minister of Magic," Susan offered Ron with a grin. "That sounds way better."
"Do we have a Vice Minister of Magic?" Fred asked, stealing a couple of rolls off Theo's plate and juggling it while Harry laughed at his nonsense.
"Harry's making Susan her own position when he's the minister," Draco explained with a huff. "Even though some of us would be much better Vice Ministers."
"Sue was here first," Harry shrugged. "First come first serve. You can have Bagman's job. Then you can just deal with Quidditch stuff all the time?"
Draco perked up at that but Harry didn't miss the way Fred flexed his hand irritably at the mention of Bagman. He studied Fred for a moment, trying to decide what could be so annoying about Bagman when Blaise stood up and reminded Harry and Ron about their detention.
"Yeah," Harry pushed his plate away and grabbed his bag. "Suppose we should get to that."
The three of them trooped down to the dungeons, in unusually good moods considering they were going to detention. Blaise knocked on the classroom door at precisely 7:00.
"Come in," Snape called.
They went inside and Harry immediately moved for his usual seat up in front of Snape's desk.
"We have detention with you," he said brightly. "First ever to get detention from Trelawney."
"It's not supposed to be an achievement," Blaise snorted, taking a spot beside Harry while Ron sat on his opposite side.
"It sorta is though," Ron shrugged.
"It is not," Snape said with a roll of his eyes. "How did you manage to get Sybill to assign you detention?"
Ron and Blaise both pointed at Harry who glared at them in return.
"Snitches get stitches," he murmured.
"What's stitches?" Blaise asked.
"And why are giving them to snitches?" Ron added.
Fuckin purebloods.
"He means that it is terribly un-Slytherin of you to immediately sell out your housemate," Snape said. "Although I find myself unsurprised to learn that Harry has caused this detention."
"Trelawney asked if I was born in winter and I said yeah, a real fuckin cold July." Harry grinned at Snape. He'd stopped making any real effort to stop Harry's language ages ago, now he just curses along with him and it's brill. It's like Harry's the one changing Snape's outlook on life for once.
"Wonderful. Did you bring homework?" Snape asked, only smirking slightly at Harry's explanation.
"Yes sir," Blaise said.
"Do that then," Snape waved his hand and pulled his stack of parchments back towards himself. "Homework, no talking, leave me alone, and then you may leave in an hour."
Harry shared smug looks with the other boys as they pulled their Charms homework out of their bags. He hoped Neville's detention wasn't too bad. It was a shame Snape wasn't his Head of House as well.
The four of them all worked on their own work quietly, the only sound was the scratching of the quills and Harry's whispered requests for Blaise to check some of his spelling. When they only had twenty minutes remaining, there was a curt knock on the classroom door before it was thrown roughly open.
Moody came clunking in, pulling along Benjamin Macnair of all people.
"Moody," Snape said, getting to his feet. "What can I do for you?" Harry saw the tightening of Snape's shoulders, the only sign of his agitation. But if Snape was showing any sign at all of agitation, then it had to be pretty strong.
Snape doesn't like Moody.
Just another reason not to like the man no matter how wicked Fred says he is.
"I caught this one-" Moody shook Macnair by his robe collar sharply. "Hexing some younger students when their backs were turned. Minerva said to bring him to you."
Harry watched the way the two men glared at each other and abandoned his homework in favor of grabbing his knife in his pocket. If Moody attacked Snape then Harry would attack Moody.
Simple.
"I believe I can deal with it," Snape said tersely. "He is one of mine."
"Is he?" Moody asked, his fake eye spinning in its socket until it rested on Harry. A move that wasn't unnoticed by Snape or Harry himself. "Seems like you have your hands full. I wouldn't mind taking Macnair here for detention." He all but spat Macnair's name, which was an interesting reaction.
"I just said I would handle it," Snape said, his dark eyes narrowing. "Unless you believe me to be incompetent?"
Moody let out a sharp bark of laughter and let go of Macnair to take a step closer to Snape.
"You're a lot of things, Severus Snape," he growled. "It would be a shame if you were incompetent as a Professor on top of them, wouldn't it?"
"Heard you're a lot of things too," Harry cut in with a sneer. "Cop who can't follow your own rules, yeah?"
"That's another detention Potter," Snape said with a severe look at Harry. It was his 'shut your mouth right now' look, but Moody wasn't going to come in here and insult Snape.
"No, let's hear this," Moody turned and focused on Harry with both eyes. "You're sticking up for him then? Is he a good person? A good guardian?"
"Snape's the best person I've ever met," Harry glared at Moody. He wasn't worried about pissing Moody off. Snape wouldn't let him attack Harry. "Better than an auror with the longest history of write ups ever, ain't he? How come you didn't go to jail for that, huh? Don't have to follow the rules when you're a cop?"
Moody didn't reply to that, he just watched Harry for a long, silent, moment before he laughed shortly and clapped his hands together.
"You've got him good and taught, don't you Snape?" he said, still watching Harry. "I guess you're one of those rare law abiding Slytherin's then?"
Harry thought that was awfully rude to say in front of Ron and Blaise, both of whom were actually law abiding Slytherin's.
"About as law abiding as you, Officer," he sneered.
"Potter, enough," Snape said sharply. "Moody if that is all?"
Moody smiled coolly as Harry glared at him.
"For now," he finally said. "I'll be seeing you around Snape. Potter."
Snape waited until Moody left before turning his attention to Macnair.
"Detention tomorrow evening at 7, go."
As soon as the door closed behind Macnair, Blaise started snickering.
"Merlin Harry, you really don't know when to shut up, do you?"
"He does not," Snape agreed. His eyes sharp on Harry. "Ronald, Blaise- dismissed. Harry, remain behind."
Harry slumped in his seat and crossed his arms.
"That was both unnecessary and incredibly foolish," Snape hissed at him once they were alone. "You would do well to not go out of your way to taunt Alastor Moody."
"Then he would do well not to come in to your classroom and insult you," Harry said.
"Moody can make your life incredibly difficult Harry," Snape said, his eyes warm but his tone serious. "He is very close to Albus and his causes."
"You mean the Headmaster who hates me?" Harry laughed. "Then Moody's going to hate me anyway, so who cares what I say to him?"
"What did we discuss over the holidays? What is the worst possible outcome of you making an outright enemy of Alastor Moody?"
"Worst possible? He kills me," Harry said immediately.
"You believe death is the worst possible outcome?" Snape asked.
Harry thought hard about that.
"Wellll, I guess worst case, as in the absolute worst thing that could ever possibly happen, is if Moody put all you guys in Azkaban and found a way to remove my magic so I couldn't break you all back out. That would be worst case. But I don't think that's really likely, do you?"
Snape summoned a pain relieving potion, which Harry figured meant he said something wrong.
"My hope is that by the time you graduate you have learned the incredibly valuable lesson of keeping your mouth shut," Snape sighed. "Go."
Harry shrugged and gathered his stuff up. If Snape didn't like his worst case scenario then that was his problem.
It did cheer Harry up to remember that his worst case scenario was unlikely when he finally had Defense the next day.
"You can put your books away," Moody growled when the class filled in. "You won't be needing them today."
Harry and Susan exchanged looks at that. That's what Lupin said last year too then he made them all face a boggart.
Moody pulled out a roster and started calling names. He paused and gave a few students looks, like Theo and Draco, which Harry bristled at.
"He makes one move and I'll curse the rest of his nose off," Susan muttered. Harry just nodded in agreement.
"Right then," Moody 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 —"
"Are you not staying sir?" Daphne Greengrass asked him.
"No," Moody said, an odd grin on his face. "Just the one year, special favor to Dumbledore."
"Good," Harry muttered.
"So," Moody clapped his hands together and looked around the room. "The Ministry thinks you should only be learning counter curses in Fourth Year. They don't want you to see what a real dark curse is until Sixth year, I think that's bureaucratic nonsense."
Harry perked up in his seat at that. He actually didn't think of how a cop who broke the rules might turn in to a teacher who did too.
"I'd say most of you already know some pretty dark curses, eh Nott?"
Theo looked surprised at that and Harry scowled harshly at Moody.
"What a git," Susan muttered angrily.
"What was that Miss Bones?" Moody asked, his magic eye now fixed on Susan.
"Nothing sir," Susan said politely with her sharp smile that was Harry's favorite.
Moody kept his magic eye fixed on Susan but went on teaching.
"Which curses are most heavily punished by the Ministry?" Moody asked.
"The ones they don't forgive," Harry drawled, barely resisting adding a 'duh' for good measure.
Moody's magical blue eye swirled from Susan to Harry and he gave him what would almost be considered a confused look.
"What would those be Potter?"
"Imperio, Crucio, and Avada Kedavra," Harry said.
"He would know," Macmillan said softly. Harry smiled at Macmillan, storing that comment away for later.
Moody gave Harry another puzzled frown before he clumped behind his desk and pulled out a jar. Harry sat up to see better and saw that there were three large black spiders scuttling around the jar. In the seat in front of Susan, Ron leaned as far back in his chair and let out a quiet kind of whimper. Susan sighed a long suffering sound before quickly switching Ron seats while Moody was getting one of the spiders out.
Moody sat the spider on the desk up front and pointed his wand at it.
"Alright then, we'll start with the first one Potter listed, Imperio!"
The spider began doing flips and tricks. The Hufflepuffs, except for Susan, all laughed at the acrobatic arachnid. Harry, Susan, and the other Slytherin's watched in silence. Harry didn't know if they were all thinking what he was, but it made him sick to imagine someone forcing him to do things he didn't want to. All he ever wanted to do was be free. And Imperio was the opposite of freedom, it was magical enslavement.
"Think it's funny?" Moody asked the Hufflepuffs when he ended the spell. "You think it would be a laugh to be forced to bend to someone else's will? I could make this spider do anything. Drown itself, jump out the window, attack its fellow spiders. Anything."
Harry shuddered as the Hufflepuffs quickly quit laughing. He'd rather die than have that happen. No choices, nothing.
"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 Timmy 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. Of course the Ministry doesn't always get it right, does it?" he added softly with another look at Draco.
"I don't think Draco was crawling around cursing muggles in a nappie, was he?"
Harry expected that from Susan. Maybe even Theo. He didn't expect Ron to be the one glaring up at Moody for the implied insult to their friend.
Moody fixed both his eyes on Ron.
"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody said. "Your father got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago..."
"Shame," Theo muttered.
"Is there a way to fight the Imperious Curse?" Harry interrupted quickly before Moody could turn his eyes on Theo. He didn't want to ask the man anything if he could help it, but he needed to know. If there was, then he needed to learn it.
"Strong mental fortitude," Moody said. "I'll be teaching you all that next lesson. But now, next- the Cruciatus Curse."
Harry looked at Draco in front of him and saw he looked tense. He grit his teeth and slowly reached out and patted Draco's shoulder to try and console him.
The startled look Draco gave him at the action made Harry wonder if he'd done it wrong.
"Watch carefully," Moody growled as he pulled another spider out of the jar and pointed his wand at it. "Crucio!"
The spider in his hand curled its legs up in on itself and twitched over and over. Harry winced in sympathy. That spell hurt worse than anything he'd ever experienced. Harry had nearly bit his tongue right in half trying to keep quiet when Avery got him with it on the first night.
Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed, but it continued to twitch.
"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."
"That's why it works when I say I want someone to hurt," Harry whispered to Ron. He hadn't actually realized until now what his magic was doing when he commanded it to do that.
Ron was still rather pale, probably because of the spiders, but he nodded.
"Did it hurt?" he asked softly.
"A bit," Harry shrugged. Ron might be one of his, but he wasn't going to admit to anyone that it was the worst pain he'd ever experienced. He'd take another knife to the leg over that.
"Last one now," Moody said, a lopsided smile twisting his face. "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.
Harry leaned forward, a thrill going through him as he knew what was coming. Sure enough-
"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. 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 this room."
"Fuck off," Harry hissed in Parsletongue when the whole class swiveled in their seats to stare at Harry. Moody started at Harry's hiss, which was funny because why would an auror be scared of Parsletongue?
Wixen were just afraid of things they didn't understand.
"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," Moody laughed. Theo turned in his seat and smirked at Harry, who grinned back. Even if Moody was wrong about if Harry could do it or not, it was nice hearing that only powerful wixen could do it.
"But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to teach you how to do it," Moody continued, his magic eye fixed on Harry still. "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!"
Harry hadn't meant to. Honestly. And he knew Snape was going to kill him when he found out. But when Moody shouted at them- Harry instinctively jumped to his feet, flexed his left hand, and sent a stunner at Moody.
Who blocked it in the quickest defensive move Harry had ever seen.
The rest of the class seemed to hold its breath while Moody dissolved his shield and stared at Harry. Moody's jaw was partly hanging open and he looked shocked.
Oh Harry was absolutely dead.
"That- that right there- is excellent instincts," Moody finally said with a slow couple of claps. "Where'd you learn to duel Potter?"
"Taught myself, didn't I?" Harry said, still standing and holding his knife tightly in his pocket with his right hand.
Moody had clapped, as if he was impressed for some reason, but Harry wasn't going to drop his guard just yet.
"Stay behind after class Potter," Moody barked before turning his attention to the rest of the room. "Now, listen up. The use of any one of those curses on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban."
By Harry's calculations he'd earned at least six life sentences.
"That's what you're up against," Moody said. "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.
"Want me to wait?" Blaise whispered beneath the chatter while Harry's other friends stalled by the classroom door.
"Nah, go ahead," Harry said. It wasn't that it was unlikely of Moody to attack him, the first two defense professors had tried to kill him, but he probably wouldn't do it in the middle of the classroom in broad daylight.
Harry got up from his seat and walked up to Moody's desk where the man was waiting in his seat.
"Have a seat Potter," he said.
"I'd rather stand if it's all the same to you," Harry said lightly.
"Smart lad," Moody said with an approving nod. "You're a sharp one, aren't you?"
Harry didn't think that sounded like a compliment so he just shrugged. Moody leaned forward and studied Harry closely with both eyes.
"Tell me lad, how do you like Slytherin?"
Harry was caught off guard by such a random question.
"It's brill, isn't it?" he shrugged again. "Course I've never been in another house so maybe they're just as good."
Moody grinned again at that.
"All about equality then, eh?"
Harry got the feeling they weren't talking about houses anymore.
"I don't think people's pasts are nearly as interesting as their futures, are they?" Harry said.
"So you believe in a second chance?" Moody asked shrewdly. "Because you know there are some marks that never wash off laddie."
"Depends I suppose," Harry said, ignoring the obvious jab about the Dark Marks. "Is that all sir?"
"No," Moody growled. "How'd you like to duel sometime? See how good you are? Bet Dumbledore couldn't complain about that, could he? Help you train for what's coming."
"If I'm involved in it then Dumbledore's likely to complain," Harry said coolly. "And the last defense professor who offered to duel me had Timmy in the back of his head, didn't he? So no, I'd rather not."
Moody's real eye bulged when Harry mentioned Timmy.
"Timmy?" he rasped out. He reached down for his hip flask and took a long drink while he kept one eye on Harry.
"Timmy Riddle, he likes to be called Voldemort," Harry smiled when Moody sputtered at Timmy's code name.
Some big brave Dark Wizard catcher, he scoffed.
"You dueled the Dark Lord?" Moody asked in a harsh whisper.
Harry kept a tight hold on his knife as he tilted his head and considered Moody carefully.
"You weren't much of an Auror at all, were you?" Harry eventually grinned.
Moody gave Harry a slow grin of his own.
"You're dismissed Potter."
Harry shrugged and backed up from the desk carefully darting around desks and chairs while keeping an eye on Moody.
"I'd prefer you not try and kill me," he said once he felt the door behind him. "Last few blokes who came here and tried to kill me didn't have real happy endings, ya know?"
"You're threatening me?" Moody asked. He didn't look offended, only mildly amused. Which in itself was rather amusing. Especially since half of Harry's gang could tell him that Harry personally killed Quirrell and Lockhart and got rid of Lupin.
Harry gave Moody one of Susan's polite smiles.
"Course not. I just like knowing where I stand with people. So if you're planning on killing me, I figured you'd like a heads up that I'm hard to kill."
Harry left the classroom right after that, but he heard Moody's barking laughter in the corridor from the other side of the closed door.
He shook his head when he spotted Blaise leaning against the wall outside the classroom and twirling his wand casually.
"Finished threatening our new teacher?" Blaise asked.
"Didnt threaten him," Harry corrected him as they walked towards the Great Hall to grab lunch. "I think... I think I'm going to recruit him."
Blaise gave Harry a sideways look at that but Harry didn't mind.
Luna was right, Moody was mad.
Fred was right too, he definitely was interesting.
But Harry saw how quick he blocked Harry's spell. And he knew Moody wasn't as 'light' as Dumbledore might think his 'friend' was. He'd never heard anyone outside of either former Death Eaters, current Death Eaters, or kids of Death Eaters call Timmy 'the Dark Lord'.
So Moody had to be smart to have everyone tricked.
Harry reconsidered his previous thoughts on the man. A cop who didn't follow the rules was still a former cop who knew all the rules. He was a guy who wasn't worried about playing dirty and breaking the rules to get what he wants- which meant he was someone who would be good to have on Harry's side.