 turned," growled
Moody as the ferret bounced higher and higher, squealing in pain. "Stinking,
cowardly, scummy thing to do..."
The ferret flew through the air, its legs and tail flailing helplessly.
"Never - do - that - again -" said Moody, speaking each word as the ferret hit the
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stone floor and bounced upward again.
"Professor Moody!" said a shocked voice.
Professor McGonagall was coming down the marble staircase with her arms full of
books.
"Hello, Professor McGonagall," said Moody calmly, bouncing the ferret still
higher.
"What - what are you doing?" said Professor McGonagall, her eyes following the
bouncing ferret's progress through the air.
"Teaching," said Moody.
"Teach - Moody, is that a student?" shrieked Professor McGonagall, the books
spilling out of her arms.
"Yep," said Moody.
"No!" cried Professor McGonagall, running down the stairs and pulling out her
wand; a moment later, with a loud snapping noise, Draco Malfoy had reappeared,
lying in a heap on the floor with his sleek blond hair all over his now brilliantly
pink face. He got to his feet, wincing.
"Moody, we never use Transfiguration as a punishment!" said Professor
McGonagall wealdy. "Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that?"
"He might've mentioned it, yeah," said Moody, scratching his chin unconcernedly,
"but I thought a good sharp shock -"
"We give detentions, Moody! Or speak to the offender's Head of House!"
"I'll do that, then," said Moody, staring at Malfoy with great dislike.
Malfoy, whose pale eyes were still watering with pain and humiliation, looked
malevolently up at Moody and muttered something in which the words "my
father" were distinguishable.
"Oh yeah?" said Moody quietly, limping forward a few steps, the dull clunk of his
wooden leg echoing around the hall. "Well, I know your father of old, boy... . You
tell him Moody's keeping a close eye on his son. . . you tell him that from me. . . .
Now, your Head of House'll be Snape, will it?"
"Yes," said Malfoy resentfully.
"Another old friend," growled Moody. "I've been looking forward to a chat with
old Snape. . . . Come on, you. . ."
And he seized Malfoy's upper arm and marched him off toward the dungeons.
Professor McGonagall stared anxiously after them for a few moments, then waved
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her wand at her fallen books, causing them to soar up into the air and back into her
arms.
"Don't talk to me," Ron said quietly to Harry and Hermione as they sat down at the
Gryffindor table a few minutes later, surrounded by excited talk on all sides about
what had just happened.
"Why not?" said Hermione in surprise.
"Because I want to fix that in my memory forever," said Ron, his eyes closed and
an uplifted expression on his face. "Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret."
Harry and Hermione both laughed, and Hermione began doling beef casserole
onto each of their plates.
"He could have really hurt Malfoy, though," she said. "It was good, really, that
Professor McGonagall stopped it -"
"Hermione!" said Ron furiously, his eyes snapping open again, "you're ruining the
best moment of my life!"
Hermione made an impatient noise and began to eat at top speed again.
"Don't tell me you're going back to the library this evening?" said Harry, watching
her.
"Got to," said Hermione thickly. "Loads to do."
"But you told us Professor Vector -"
"It's not schoolwork," she said. Within five minutes, she had cleared her plate and
departed. No sooner had she gone than her seat was taken by Fred Weasley.
"Moody!" he said. "How cool is he?"
"Beyond cool," said George, sitting down opposite Fred. "Supercool," said the
twins' best friend, Lee Jordan, sliding into the seat beside George. "We had him
this afternoon," he told Harry and Ron.
"What was it like?" said Harry eagerly.
Fred, George, and Lee exchanged looks full of meaning.
"Never had a lesson like it," said Fred.
"He knows, man," said Lee.
"Knows what?" said Ron, leaning forward.
"Knows what it's like to be out there doing it," said George impressively.
"Doing what?" said Harry.
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"Fighting the Dark Arts," said Fred.
"He's seen it all," said George.
"Mazing," said Lee.
Ron dived into his bag for his schedule.
"We haven't got him till Thursday!" he said in a disappointed voice.
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN - THE UNFORGIVABLE CURSES
The next two days passed without great incident, unless you counted Neville
melting his sixth cauldron in Potions. Professor Snape, who seemed to have
attained new levels of vindictiveness over the summer, gave Nevihle detention,
and Neville returned from it in a state of nervous collapse, having been made to
disembowel a barrel full of horned toads.
"You know why Snape's in such a foul mood, don't you?" said Ron to Harry as
they watched Hermione teaching Neville a Scouring Charm to remove the frog
guts from under his fingernails.
"Yeah," said Harry. "Moody."
It was common knowledge that Snape really wanted the Dark Arts job, and he had
now failed to get it for the fourth year running. Snape had disliked all of their
previous Dark Arts teachers, and shown it - but he seemed strangely wary of
displaying overt animosity to Mad-Eye Moody. Indeed, whenever Harry saw the
two of them together - at mealtimes, or when they passed in the corridors - he had
the distinct impression that Snape was avoiding Moody's eye, whether magical or
normal.
"I reckon Snape's a bit scared of him, you know," Harry said thoughtfully.
"Imagine if Moody turned Snape into a horned toad," said Ron, his eyes misting
over, "and bounced him all around his dungeon..."
The Gryffindor fourth years were looking forward to Moody's first lesson so much
that they arrived early on Thursday lunchtime and queued up outside his
classroom before the bell had even rung. The only person missing was Hermione,
who turned up just in time for the lesson.
"Been in the -"
"Library." Harry finished her sentence for her. "C'mon, quick, or we won't get
decent seats."
They hurried into three chairs right in front of the teacher's desk, took out their
copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, unusually
quiet. Soon they heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the
corridor, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. They
could just see his clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath his robes.
"You can put those away," he growled, stumping over to his desk and sitting
down, "those books. You won't need them."
They returned the books to their bags, Ron looking excited.
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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?" Ron blurted out.
Moody's magical eye spun around to stare at Ron; Ron looked extremely
apprehensive, but after a moment Moody smiled - the first time Harry had seen
him do so. The effect was to make his heavily scarred face look more twisted and
contorted than ever, but it was nevertheless good to know that he ever did
anything as friendly as smile. Ron looked deeply relieved.
"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, eh?" Moody said. "Your father got me out of a
very tight corner a few days ago. .. . Yeah, I'm staying just the one year. Special
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?"
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Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Ron's and Hermione's. Moody
pointed at Ron, though his magical eye was still fixed on Lavender.
"Er," said Ron tentatively, "my dad told me about one.. . . Is it called the Imperius
Curse, or something?"
"Ah, yes," said Moody appreciatively. "Your father would know that one. Gave
the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."
Moody got heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a
glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. Harry felt Ron
recoil slightly next to him - Ron hated spiders.
Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the pal