Moody apparently ignored Ron's nonsense, glanced at him once, then hurried away on his wooden legs.
Ron let out a slow sigh of relief, then felt that he had lost face by looking scared, so he lowered his voice and explained to Harry and the others.
As Ivan stared at Moody's receding back, he suddenly remembered that Moody's self-exploded teaching period was exactly one year, in line with the curse that Voldemort had placed on him.
Was it a coincidence?
Or is Dumbledore trying to find a way to escape Voldemort's curse on Defence Against the Dark Arts students?
After all, the greatest effect of this curse was to prevent each professor from teaching for more than a year, and all the accidents were mere derivatives of this goal.
If Moody himself had left after a year, the curse might not have been so against him…
In that case, Moody might be able to leave the post as safely as Lupin.
…
Nothing happened at the castle for the next few weeks, and Harry forgot all about his dream, as he was overwhelmed by the weight of his classes.
Especially Moody's Defence Against the Dark Arts class!
The legendary old Auror divided each lesson into two parts, first teaching some dark magic or defensive techniques of common offensive magic, and then exciting practical drills.
The selected students were instructed by Moody to follow the instructions given in class to break the spell he had personally cast, and if any of them performed poorly, he showed no mercy and lashed out at them.
Even so, Moody's lessons were very popular.
There were, after all, very few practical practical lessons, not to mention the many useful defensive skills that were taught in Defence Against the Dark Arts.
However, to the annoyance of the young wizards and witches, Moody left behind a number of after-school assignments, often asking them to provide a method of self-defence in a given situation.
However, it was impossible to write anything down, as Moody would slap people around in class to test the practicality of this method.
For example, during one of his after-school assignments on how to defend against the Tarantella Charm, Seamus had an idea that he could roll away and then rush up to his opponent and break their nose with a quick punch.
However, during practical practice, Seamus was hit by Moody's charm before he could roll over, and ended up having his leg broken after he had to tap-dance for most of the lesson.
As a result, everyone took Defence Against the Dark Arts classes in a constant cycle of fear of being called out and anticipation of being teased.
"So how do we deal with the Disarming Charm and put up obstacles? But I wrote about that last time. How about cover? Hide under a table? Jesus, what if Professor Moody spots me this time?"
In the morning, in the Gryffindor Lounge, Ron watched the after-school homework crash, particularly as Moody forbade them to write similar defences too often.
"Ivan, can you show us how you wrote it?" Harry asked, turning to Ivan for his answer.
"Are you sure you want to copy my homework?" Ivan asked with a strange look on his face.
Harry and Ron immediately rushed over to take a look, and their faces immediately turned red with embarrassment. It was written casually: "We should cast the Disarming Charm more quickly to counter our opponents."
"You can do that?" Harry looked at Ivan, speechless.
"When have my methods ever failed me?" Ivan asked, shrugging as he covered up his workbook and prepared to hand it in the next day.
Harry and Ron looked at each other and finally sighed in frustration. This was the reason why they were devastated every time. They could not even copy the defensive methods that Ivan had written.
In the beginning, Ivan tried to save trouble by only having the Armor Charm on his list of ways to deal with the situation.
It was only when Moody couldn't bear it any longer and ordered them not to write the same thing every time that Yvonne gave up on the all-purpose defensive charm and gave increasingly nonsensical answers because she didn't want to waste her brainpower.
For example, if they were attacked by Dark Wizards, they should be subdued and sent to Azkaban immediately.
If you kill your opponent early, you can effectively remove the threat they pose, etc…
Not to mention that they thought it was nonsense, even Moody thought so, but after a little personal sparring in class, Moody had to admit that Ivan's methods worked.
So much so that during a recent Defence Against the Dark Arts class, Moody used Ivan as an assistant to test the others on offensive magic.
Unable to get help from Ivan, Harry and Ron turned to Hermione for help, but she didn't give them any face at all, slamming her workbook shut and glaring at them.
"You should figure it out yourself. Professor Moody said in class that we can't expect people to protect us!"
The two of them were at their wits' end and could only lower their heads and think hard.
Seeing Harry and Ron's distress, Ivan shook his head to himself. With such a good teacher as Moody, there was no hope for them if they did not study hard!
Moody was definitely the most competent Defence Against the Dark Arts professor he had ever seen, even more so than Lupin!
After all, Moody was much more severe and efficient, forcing the students to grow up quickly.
If one studied for an entire year, one would not be considered a particularly good fighter, but one would at least be able to protect themselves from unexpected situations.
Moody's radicalisation was, of course, presumably due to Dumbledore's secret instructions.
The only thing that surprised Ivan was that Moody didn't call everyone up to see if they could resist the Imperius Curse.
It made sense, however, as Barty Crouch Junior must have made it a personal quiz against Harry to see how different he was from the rest of the world and to see how he could overcome the Unforgivable Curses.
It took the best part of an hour for Ron and Harry to finally finish Moody's homework, and then they made their way to the Great Hall to enjoy their lunch.
When they arrived at the entrance hall, they were surprised to find a large group of students gathered around a large notice that had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase.
"What happened?" Ron asked curiously.
Ivan pushed his way inside and saw that a notice had been placed on the wall regarding the Triwizard Tournament, in which Beauxbatons and Durmstrang's representatives were scheduled to arrive at six o'clock on Friday, October 30th.
(PS: Chapter 2 is later, around eleven.)