Darius got over his emotional outburst about the Triwizard Tournament quickly enough. What else would you expect from someone at the level of a Master Occlumens? He was able to rein in his emotions and find a more constructive outlet for them. He began using his free time in the library and find out as much as he could about the competition and how it was run in the other schools. The new rules and events would favor the other schools more and even if Hogwarts was the one organizing the event, Darius wouldn’t put it past either of the other two school headmaster/mistress to slip the information to their student.

Thankfully, his other worry came to naught. Moody was exactly who he said he was and not some DE in disguise. He had though that he had avoided the event completely by having Barty Jr. arrested in the summer but the Ministry managed to bungle even that. The man had somehow escaped and was at large again. Darius had no doubt he was already by Voldemort’s side. He could only sigh with relief that they hadn’t had the chance to take out Moody himself. He would feel a lot safer since Moody was going to be around this time. The man was tough as nails and a hell of a combatant.

The days after the announcement slipped by impossibly fast. The castle seemed to have a palpable aura of excitement and tension in the air. After all, term started in September and the delegates from the other two schools would be here at October end, putting a gap of less than two whole months before their arrival.

Classes still progressed as per usual though. Darius had naturally qualified for all his OWLs subjects, but he prudently chose not to take all the subjects for his sixth year. After all, a few of them were totally unnecessary for him and he was eager to take one of the additional subjects offered in the sixth and seventh years. Although a lot of those subjects, such as alchemy, enchanting, artificing, warding, rituals etc. were no longer offered at the school, the books for them were still available to interested students and the exams could be given at the Ministry as well. He was going to pick up Alchemy and Rituals at the very least. He was already gaining proficiency in warding and enchanting and warding and the goblins had promised to send him some of their less secret books in exchange for adequate payment for the same. It was solely due to his recognition as a warrior that they offered even that much, wizards were not easily given even that.

The subjects he had chosen to continue were Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, DADA, herbology, Study of Ancient Runes and CoMC. He was going to drop History of Magic, Astronomy and Arithmancy. He had thought to drop Herbology and CoMC but he supposed they would come in handy during his trip around the world. Astronomy only found use in Rituals and he knew enough of the basics to get on. The same went for Arithmancy, after a certain point every arithmancer worth their salt was expected to make their own way in the subject. And there was no need to even speak of History of Magic, the subject was pure rubbish, he could easily learn more from Madam Perenelle in one sitting with her than in a whole term of learning HoM at Hogwarts.

It was Moody’s first class today and Darius was mighty curious about how it would go. He knew it was the real Moody and not the fake this time, he checked using the Marauder’s map. So, it was highly unlikely that he would be using the Unforgivables on students. Darius had no idea how he had gotten it by the headmaster in canon, but it was impossible to do so without being sent to Azkaban, no matter what the situation. And Moody was a hardcore hunter of Dark wizards, he would never stoop to using the unforgivable. Dark curses, maybe, but not the unforgivables! Dumbledore must be really slipping if this swept past his notice. The geriatric old fool should have retired a long time ago. The man was the headmaster of Hogwarts, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, three full-time positions.

Moody swept into the class with his usual fast limp and grim face, but the only thing Darius noticed when he saw the man, was just how much the man had endured. The man’s face was pockmarked, scarred and missing an eye not to mention the rest of the injuries on his body. In a profession where casualties are on e of the highest, it was a darn impressive thing to see him live to this age and be so successful in capturing so many dark wizards. He has the scars to go along with it, but that just shows how much the man has lived through and still come out fighting.

“Right! Now that everyone is here, let’s get started!” Moody said after taking attendance.

“I have seen the records of the past teachers of this class and I say they all did a piss-poor job of preparing you for the big bad world out there. Except Lupin, I suppose. He was a more than adequate instructor, but he dealt mainly in Dark or dangerous creatures only.

Now, you people are in 6th year, so few of the things you will be learning about are curses and anti-curses, dueling and non-verbal casting. All three topics are inter-related and have some sort of bearing on each other.”

The class was almost frothing at the mouth and eager to begin on them. And why wouldn’t they? Most of the teachers we get are less than useless and here was a man who had walked through hellish situations and survived. He would probably be able to help them more than all their teachers put together.

“Right, I am given to understand that there has been a fairly successful dueling club since the last couple of years. And you would be the brains behind the idea, Icarus?”

“Yes, sir! I started the club to teach the younger ones how to fight. It’s kind of snowballed from there and we have kept it up since then. And the sole credit doesn’t belong to me, Lee and the Weasley twins from our year were equally responsible for setting it up.”

“Good laddie, if only more people understood the need. Listen up, all of you, this lad has understood a very simple truth. It’s that at the end of the day, the one you can trust the most to keep your hide safe is yourself. Don’t be waiting around for the Aurors or hit-wizards when there is trouble, first at least try to defend yourself.

You have no idea how many times I have seen DEs just walking through the streets terrorizing people and firing spells while they just cower and try to hide. But what they don’t understand is that each one of these terrorists is outnumbered ten to one and just using their fear to keep them at bay. If the bystanders could overcome their fear for a few moments, it would be more than enough to make pincushions out of them all.”

After that rather spirited speech he gave the class some time to absorb it while he went back behind his desk.

“Now, I’ve got a list of some of the common darker spells which are used by dark wizards and their effects. I’ll teach you to identify them and deal with them in the even you are on the other side of one.

Now, everyone knows about the three unforgivable, so I won’t spend much time talking about it. It has the big three, the Cruciatus, the Imperius and the Killing curse. A spell to torture you, utterly control you and to kill you instantaneously.

The blasting curse, confringo. It is used to blow up stuff in a loud and flashy manner and generally used to make a statement.

The disintegration or reductor curse, reducto. A much subtler spell than the previous one but which can be used to destroy objects or people just as well.

The bludgeoning curse, impactus. A very simple and underrated curse which can be deadly when used right.

There is the Flagrante curse, flagrate, which uses searing heat to cause pain.

The dark cutting charm, secare. Makes it very difficult to heal because of the dark residual magic. Many Aurors lost their lives due to not getting adequate medical attention in time.

Then there is the bone-breaker, ossum confractus. A deadly spell and very painful spell used to incapacitate the enemy.

I know that there are many shields out there but keep in mind that there are spells made just for the sake of destroying those shields as well. The confractus shield breaker would break you any low or mid-level shield and the next curse would take you down while you’re panicking.

There are a hell of a lot more curses out there. Even I wouldn’t say that I know about even half of them, but these are the ones commonly used by Dark wizards. And a lot of the other spells used by them are just variations of these.”

The students in the class were taking down notes almost frantically. They were told the effects of the spell, color, best defense against it and so much more.

“Alright, that’s done for today. I will see you again next week and I and you to be capable of recognizing any of these spells at a glance. Homework is to read up on non-verbal spells, that is what we’ll be doing the next week. Good day.”

And Moody hobbled out of the class. Darius was slowly packing up his things as he thought about the class. For sure, it was one of the best classes in DADA he had had yet. And the topics were a lot more in line with him than Lupin’s were. He was going to enjoy himself a lot this year.