The storm had blown itself out by the following morning, though the ceiling in the Great Hall was still gloomy; heavy clouds of pewter gray swirled overhead as they examined their new course schedules at breakfast. A few seats along, Fred, George, and Lee Jordan were discussing magical methods of aging themselves and bluffing their way into the Triwizard Tournament.
"Today's not bad. . . outside all morning," said Tonks who was running her finger down the Monday column of his schedule. "Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures. . ." There was a sudden rustling noise above them, and a hundred owls came soaring through the open windows carrying the morning mail. A large tawny owl soared down to Neville and deposited a parcel into his lap – Neville almost always forgot to pack something. On the other side of the Hall Draco Malfoy's eagle owl had landed on his shoulder, carrying what looked like his usual supply of sweets and cakes from home.
Today Professor Sprout showing the class the ugliest plants Ryan had ever seen. Indeed, they looked less like plants than thick, black, giant slugs, protruding vertically out of the soil. Each was squirming slightly and had a number of large, shiny swellings upon it, which appeared to be full of liquid.
"Bubotubers," Professor Sprout told them briskly. "They need squeezing. You will collect the pus -"
"The what?" said Daphne, sounding revolted.
"Pus, Greengrass, pus," said Professor Sprout, "and it's extremely valuable, so don't waste it. You will collect the pus, I say, in these bottles. Wear your dragon-hide gloves; it can do funny things to the skin when undiluted, bubotuber pus. " Of course you all know Ryan was going to take some the word extremely valuable ringing in his ears. his new title was [lord of thieves] he had basically stolen over 2 billion gp from the Malfoy's and other death eaters. There was no stopping this bad habit so he just accepted it. Squeezing the bubotubers was disgusting, but oddly satisfying. As each swelling was popped, a large amount of thick yellowish-green liquid burst forth, which smelled strongly of petrol. They caught it in the bottles as Professor Sprout had indicated, and by the end of the lesson had collected several pints. Ryan stored a few in his gate away from view of everyone. "This'll keep Madam Pomfrey happy," said Professor 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 Professor Sprout, shaking her head. "But Madam Pomfrey fixed her nose back on in the end. " A booming bell echoed from the castle across the wet grounds, signaling the end of the lesson, and the class separated; the Hufflepuffs climbing the stone steps for Transfiguration, and the Gryffindors heading in the other direction, down the sloping lawn toward Hagrid's small wooden cabin, which stood on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Hagrid was standing outside his hut, one hand on the collar of his enormous black boarhound, Fang. There were several open wooden crates on the ground at his feet, and Fang was whimpering and straining at his collar, apparently keen to investigate the contents more closely. As they drew nearer, an odd rattling noise reached their ears, punctuated by what sounded like minor explosions.
"Mornin'!" Hagrid said, grinning "Be'er wait fer the Slytherins, they won' want ter miss this – Blast-Ended Skrewts!"
"Come again?" said Tonks .
Hagrid pointed down into the crates.
"Eurgh!" squealed Daphne, jumping backward.
"Eurgh" just about summed up the Blast-Ended Skrewts in Ryan's opinion. 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. These lovely creatures were a crossbreed between fire crabs and Manticores Ryan pocketed 3 of each gender to the kingdom like anyone would even miss them.
"On'y jus' hatched," said Hagrid proudly, "so yeh'll be able ter raise 'em yerselves! Thought we'd make a bit of a project of it! Yer jus' feedin' 'em today. 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. "
"Hagrid they feed on blood" said Ryan as he cut his palm open and dripped a little bit the screwt latched onto his hand and started suckling on the blood like a big leech.
The girls paled and the boys all backed away as the screwts circled Ryan like some kind of God of worship and started latching onto him. "come feed my minions muhahaha" everyone looked at him like he was insane. he had to stop them before he was sucked dry and not in a good way. after he took a blood replenishing potion he suggested to Hagrid to find a way to get blood bags or something similar the only reason he knew they fed on blood was the kingdom he also snagged a few more when everyone wasn't looking he knew these things were dangerous and could become lethal of raised right.
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. " Ryan finished her sentence for her. "C'mon, quick, or we won't get decent seats. "
They hurried into 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, looking excited. 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 Ryan 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 Dumbledor. . . . 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. "So. . . do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"
Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Ron's and Hermione's. Moody pointed at Ron.
"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. Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Imperio!"
The spider leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a back flip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.
Everyone was laughing – everyone except Moody.
"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"
The laughter died away almost instantly.
"Total control," said Moody quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats. . . "
Ron gave an involuntary shudder.
"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," said Moody, and Ryan 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 the classes slight surprise, did Neville's. The only class in which Neville usually volunteered information was Herbology which was easily his best subject. Neville looked surprised at his own daring.
"Yes?" said Moody, his magical eye rolling right over to fix on Neville.
"There's one – the Cruciatus Curse," said Neville in a small but distinct voice.
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. 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?"
From the looks on everyone's faces, they were all wondering what was going to happen to the last spider. Hermione's hand shook slightly as, for the third time, she raised it into the air.
"Yes?" said Moody, looking at her.
"Avada Kedavra," Hermione whispered.
Several people looked uneasily around at her.
"Ah," said Moody, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "Yes, the last and worst. Avada Kedavra. . . . the Killing Curse. " He put his hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody's fingers, but he trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop. It started to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.
Moody raised his wand, and Harry felt a sudden thrill of foreboding.
"Avada Kedavra!" Moody roared.
There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible something was soaring through the air – instantaneously the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead. Several of the students stifled cries; 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.