Chapter Ten: Torture to insanity? Nah…
The next morning the storm had blown itself out, leaving only clouds behind. While the fourth years were inspecting their new schedules, Harish and the twins had their heads bent together, discussing way to magically age themselves.
"We still have Care of Magical Creatures with the Gryffindors," Draco muttered. Daphne and Hermione groaned.
Harish finally looked at his own schedule.
"Arithmancy this afternoon," he said. "But this morning we have potions down in the dungeons."
"And Defense Against the Dark Arts right afterwards!" the twins chirped.
"But look at this!" George exclaimed happily. "We've got a free period now…and after break…and after lunch!"
"Excellent!" both he and Fred finished together.
So after lunch they went down to the dungeons and sat on a green couch in the common room. Harish leaned back, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. The twins pulled out more order forms, putting the finishing touches on.
"So how will we hoodwink the impartial judge?" Fred asked.
"Aging potion is always worth a shot," Harish replied.
The other two nodded.
After their free period had ended, they headed to Potions. Snape had them brew the Draught of Living Death. Then they had break and another free period, as George had proclaimed earlier. Then, the three of them had Defense Against the Dark Arts. They finally left the dungeons and headed for the other side of the castle.
Once inside the classroom, they pulled out their books and chose seats at the back of the classroom. Soon they heard Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor and he entered the room, looking just as strange as ever.
"You can put those away," he growled, stumping over to his desk and sitting down, "those books. You won't need them."
They returned their books to their bags and sat impatiently. Moody took out a register, shook his long mane of grizzled hair out of his twisted face, and called out names. His normal eye moved steadily down the list while his magical eye swiveled around, fixing on each student as he or she answered. Harish noticed that once he had finished, the blue eye fixed on him and remained there for some time.
"Right then," he said. "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in defense."
There was a general murmur of assent.
"But you haven't had much experience in offence. Namely—dealing with curses. 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—"
"Why aren't you staying?" Terrance Higgs asked.
"Special favour to Dumbledore…"he replied. "One year, and then back to my 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 counter-curses and leave it at that." As he said this, Harish sat up straighter. Did this mean they would be learning about more than defence garbage this year? Moody continued after a pause, "You need to know what you're going to be up against. How are you supposed to defend yourselves 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 not put that stick of chewing gum under your desk, Mr. Pucey."
Adrian stopped, his hand was underneath the desk.
"That old codger can see straight through wood," he muttered, causing a few of them to laugh.
"So…" Moody said, pretending as though he hadn't heard. "Do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by Wizarding law?"
Several people raised their hands. Harish and the twins were among them.
"Weasley," Moody said, pointing to George.
"My dad told me about one…" he said. "The Imperius Curse?"
"Ah, yes," Moody said appreciatively. "Your father would know all about 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. The professor reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Imperio!"
The spider leapt from his hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing 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 a tap dance.
Every was laughing 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," Moody said quietly. "I could make it jump out the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats…Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse. 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.
Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar.
"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Everyone there knew another one, probably at least from seeing it being performed by Harish five years previous. Finally, one of the girls raised their hands.
"Yes?" Moody asked, his magical eye rolling over to fix on her.
"There's one—the Cruciatus Curse," she replied in a shaky voice.
Moody got another spider from the jar and placed it on the desktop, where it remained motionless.
"The Cruciatus Curse," he said. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea." He pointed his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!" The spider swelled to the size of a tarantula. "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 they were all sure that it would have been screaming had it had a voice. Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently. Some students were covering their eyes, looking away, or watching Moody instead of the spider. Harish watched the spider, however. He seemed to be the only one either brave or horrible enough to watch the creature being tortured.
Finally Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed, twitching every now and then. He shrunk it back to its original size and tipped it into the jar.
"Pain," Moody said softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse…That one was very popular too."
"Right…anyone know any others?"
Harish raised his hand. Both of Moody's eyes fixed on him.
"Yes?" he asked.
"The Killing Curse," he replied evenly.
"Yes, the last and the worst. Avada Kedavra…the Killing Curse."
With his magical eye still remaining on Harish, Moody turned his normal one to the jar and pulled the last spider out. It scuttled frantically across the wooden surface as Moody raised his wand, and cried, "Avada Kedavra!"
There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound. Instantly the spider was dead. Harish vaguely wondered if that was what it had been like when his real parents had been killed. He forcefully pushed that thought from his mind. It had been a time of war. Voldemort had simply done what he had to, to protect himself.
Moody swept the dead spider off the desk and onto the floor.
"Not nice," he said. "Not pleasant. And there's no counter-curse. There's no blocking it. No one has ever been known to survive it. This curse needs a powerful bit of magic behind it—you could get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, but 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 counter-curse, why am I showing you? 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 again and the whole class jumped.
"Now…those three curses—Killing Curse, Imperius, and Cruciatus. The use of any one of them on another human being could result in a one way ticket to 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 never ceasing, constant vigilance…"
Once class had let out, the three teens went down to the Great Hall for lunch. The others were already there. As Fred slid into his seat, he said, "Man. Moody's something. How cool is he?"
"Beyond cool," George replied, plopping himself down.
"Super cool," Harish added, squeezing between them.
"What's he like?" Draco asked.
"I'm not sure. Certainly not like any of the ones we've had before."
"He doesn't mind showing us things we ought to know."
"He's been there, man."
After a final free period, they went to Arithmancy and then turned in for the day.