m of
his hand so that they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered,
"Imperio!"
The spider leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing
backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then
did a back flip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to
cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its
hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.
Everyone was laughing - everyone except Moody.
"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to
you?"
The laughter died away almost instantly.
"Total control," said Moody quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll
over and over. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself
down one of your throats. . ."
Ron gave an involuntary shudder.
"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the
Imperius Curse," said Moody, and Harry knew he was talking about the days in
which Voldemort had been all-powerful. "Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort
out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.
"The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real
strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you
can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked, and everyone jumped.
Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar.
"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Hermione's hand flew into the air again and so, to Harry's slight surprise, did
Neville's. The only class in which Neville usually volunteered information was
139
Herbology which was easily his best subject. Neville looked surprised at his own
daring.
"Yes?" said Moody, his magical eye rolling right over to fix on Neville.
"There's one - the Cruciatus Curse," said Neville in a small but distinct voice.
Moody was looking very intently at Neville, this time with both eyes.
"Your name's Longbottom?" he said, his magical eye swooping down to check the
register again.
Neville nodded nervously, but Moody made no further inquiries. Turning back to
the class at large, he reached into the jar for the next spider and placed it upon the
desktop, where it remained motionless, apparently too scared to move.
"The Cruciatus Curse," said Moody. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the
idea," he said, pointing his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!"
The spider swelled. It was now larger than a tarantula. Abandoning all pretense,
Ron pushed his chair backward, as far away from Moody's desk as possible.
Moody raised his wand again, pointed it at the spider, and muttered, "Crucio!"
At once, the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch
horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but Harry was sure
that if it could have given voice, it would have been screaming. Moody did not
remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently - "Stop
it!" Hermione said shrilly."
Harry looked around at her. She was looking, not at the spider, but at Neville, and
Harry, following her gaze, saw that Neville's hands were clenched upon the desk
in front of him, his knuckles white, his eyes wide and horrified.
Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed, but it continued to twitch.
"Reducio," Moody muttered, and the spider shrank back to its proper size. He put
it back into the jar.
"Pain," said Moody softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture
someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse. . . . That one was very popular
once too.
"Right. . . anyone know any others?"
Harry looked around. From the looks on everyone's faces, he guessed they were all
wondering what was going to happen to the last spider. Hermione's hand shook
slightly as, for the third time, she raised it into the air.
"Yes?" said Moody, looking at her.
140
"Avada Kedavra," Hermione whispered.
Several people looked uneasily around at her, including Ron.
"Ah," said Moody, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "Yes, the last
and worst. Avada Kedavra. .. the Killing Curse."
He put his hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming,
the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade
Moody's fingers, but he trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop. It started to
scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.
Moody raised his wand, and Harry felt a sudden thrill of foreboding.
"Avada Kedavra!" Moody roared.
There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast,
invisible something was soaring through the air - instantaneously the spider rolled
over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead. Several of the students
stifled cries; Ron had thrown himself backward and almost toppled off his seat as
the spider skidded toward him.
Moody swept the dead spider off the desk onto the floor.
"Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no
blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in
front of me."
Harry felt his face redden as Moody's eyes (both of them) looked into his own. He
could feel everyone else looking around at him too. Harry stared at the blank
blackboard as though fascinated by it, but not really seeing it at all....
So that was how his parents had died. . . exactly like that spider. Had they been
unblemished and unmarked too? Had they simply seen the flash of green light and
heard the rush of speeding death, before life was wiped from their bodies?
Harry had been picturing his parents' deaths over and over again for three years
now, ever since he'd found out they had been murdered, ever since he'd found out
what had happened that night: Wormtail had betrayed his parents' whereabouts to
Voldemort, who had come to find them at their cottage. How Voldemort had
killed Harry's father first. How James Potter had tried to hold him off, while he
shouted at his wife to take Harry and run. . . Voldemort had advanced on Lily
Potter, told her to move aside so that he could kill Harry.. . how she had begged
him to kill her instead, refused to stop shielding her son.. . and so Voldemort had
murdered her too, before turning his wand on Harry.
Harry knew these details because he had heard his parents' voices when he had
fought the dementors last year - for that was the terrible power of the dementors:
to force their victims to relive the worst memories of their lives, and drown,
powerless, in their own despair.
141
Moody was speaking again, from a great distance, it seemed to Harry. With a
massive effort, he pulled himself back to the present and listened to what Moody
was saying.
"Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it - you could
all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt
I'd get so much as a nosebleed. But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to teach you
how to do it.
"Now, if there's no countercurse, why am I showing you? Because you've got to
know. You've got to appreciate what the worst is. You don't want to find yourself
in a situation where you're facing it. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he roared, and
the whole class jumped again.
"Now. . . those three curses - Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus - are known
as the Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being
is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban. That's what you're up against. That's
what I've got to teach you to fight. You need preparing. You need arming. But
most of all, you need to practice constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Get out your
quills. . . copy this down. . . ."
They spent the rest of the lesson taking notes on each of the Unforgivable Curses.
No one spoke until the bell rang - but when Moody had dismissed them and they
had left the classroom, a torrent of talk burst forth. Most people were discussing
the curses in awed voices - "Did you see it twitch?" "- and when he killed it - just
like that!"
They were talking about the lesson, Harry thought, as though it had been some sort
of spectacular show, but he hadn't found it very entertaining - and nor, it seemed,
had Hermione.
"Hurry up," she said tensely to Harry and Ron.
"Not the ruddy library again?" said Ron.
"No," said Hermione curtly, pointing up a side passage. "Neville." Neville was
standing alone, halfway up the passage, staring at the stone wall opposite him with
the same horrified, wide-eyed look he had worn when Moody had demonstrated
the Cruciatus Curse.
"Neville?" Hermione said gently.
Neville looked around.
"Oh hello," he said, his voice much higher than usual. "Interesting lesson, wasn't
it? I wonder what's for dinner, I'm - I'm starving, aren't you?"
"Neville, are you all right?" said Hermione.
"Oh yes, I'm fine," Neville gabbled in the same unnaturally high voice. "Very
142
interesting dinner - I mean lesson - what's for eating?"
Ron gave Harry a startled look.
"Neville, what - ?"
But an odd clunking noise sounded behind them, and they turned to see Professor
Moody limping toward them. All four of them fell silent, watching him
apprehensively, but when he spoke, it was in a much lower and gentler growl than
they had yet heard.
"It's all right, sonny," he said to Neville. "Why don't you come up to my office?
Come on. . . we can have a cup of tea. . . ."
Neville looked even more frightened at the prospect of tea with Moody. He neither
moved nor spoke. Moody turned his magical eye upon Harry.
"You all right, are you, Potter?"
"Yes," said Harry, almost defiantly.
Moody's blue eye quivered slightly in its socket as it surveyed Harry. Then he
said, "You've got to know. It seems harsh, maybe, but you've got to know. No
point pretending. . . well.. . come 