they were studying stars, planets, and their movements. although, ron did make an inappropriate joke that lead professor trelawney to assign them mass amounts of homework. hermione was gloating about not having any homework from arithmacy.

elara's dearest cousin, draco, had found them and started insulting ron's family -- as he usually does. before elara could say anything, harry started firing insults so magnificent that she thought she could've kissed him.

"don't you dare insult my mother, potter."

"keep your fat mouth shut, then," said harry, turning away.

BANG!

several people screamed — elara felt something white-hot graze the side of her face — she heard a second loud BANG, and a roar that echoed through the entrance hall.

"OH NO YOU DON'T, LADDIE!"

elara spun around. professor moody was limping down the marble staircase. his wand was out and it was pointing right at a pure white ferret, which was shivering on the stone-flagged floor, exactly where malfoy had been standing.

"oh my god," elara whispered in amazement.

there was a terrified silence in the entrance hall. nobody but moody was moving a muscle. moody turned to look at harry and elara — at least, his normal eye was looking at them; the other one was pointing into the back of his head.

"did he get you?" moody growled. his voice was low and gravelly.

"he missed me," said harry, "but he almost got lara."

"LEAVE IT!" moody shouted.

"leave — what?" elara said, bewildered.

"not you — him!" moody growled, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at crabbe, who had just frozen, about to pick up the white ferret. it seemed that moody's rolling eye was magical and could see out of the back of his head.

moody started to limp toward crabbe, goyle, and the ferret, which gave a terrified squeak and took off, streaking toward the dungeons.

"i don't think so!" roared moody, pointing his wand at the ferret again — it flew ten feet into the air, fell with a smack to the floor, and then bounced upward once more.

"i don't like people who attack when their opponent's back's turned," growled moody as the ferret bounced higher and higher, squealing in pain. "stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do. . . ."

elara watched with her mouth open. this was most certainly the best day ever. the ferret flew through the air, its legs and tail flailing helplessly.

"never — do — that — again —" said moody, speaking each word as the ferret hit the stone floor and bounced upward again.

"professor moody!" said a shocked voice.

professor mcgonagall was coming down the marble staircase with her arms full of books.

"hello, professor mcgonagall," said moody calmly, bouncing the ferret still higher.

"what — what are you doing?" said professor mcgonagall, her eyes following the bouncing ferret's progress through the air.

"teaching," said moody.

"teach — moody, is that a student?" shrieked professor mcgonagall, the books spilling out of her arms.

"yep," said moody.

"no!" cried professor mcgonagall, running down the stairs and pulling out her wand; a moment later, with a loud snapping noise, draco malfoy had reappeared, lying in a heap on the floor with his sleek blond hair all over his now brilliantly pink face. he got to his feet, wincing.

"moody, we never use transfiguration as a punishment!" said professor mcgonagall weakly. "surely professor dumbledore told you that?"

"he might've mentioned it, yeah," said moody, scratching his chin unconcernedly, "but i thought a good sharp shock —"

"we give detentions, moody! or speak to the offender's head of house!"

"i'll do that, then," said moody, staring at draco with great dislike.

draco, whose pale eyes were still watering with pain and humiliation, looked malevolently up at moody and muttered something in which the words "my father" were distinguishable.

"oh yeah?" said moody quietly, limping forward a few steps, the dull clunk of his wooden leg echoing around the hall. "well, i know your father of old, boy. . . . you tell him moody's keeping a close eye on his son . . . you tell him that from me. . . . now, your head of house'll be snape, will it?"

"yes," said malfoy resentfully.

"another old friend," growled moody. "i've been looking for- ward to a chat with old snape. . . . come on, you. . . ."

and he seized malfoy's upper arm and marched him off toward the dungeons.

professor mcgonagall stared anxiously after them for a few moments, then waved her wand at her fallen books, causing them to soar up into the air and back into her arms.

"don't talk to me," ron said quietly to harry, elara, and hermione as they sat down at the gryffindor table a few minutes later, surrounded by excited talk on all sides about what had just happened.

"why not?" said hermione in surprise.

"because i want to fix that in my memory forever," said ron, his eyes closed and an uplifted expression on his face. "draco malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret . . ."

elara closed her eyes too, revealing in the fresh memory of draco bouncing up and down as a little ferret. maybe that'd be the memory she called on from now on to cast a patronus. she looked down, and her wish bracelet was still adorned on her left arm.

guess that wasn't my wish coming true then, thought elara.

"he could have really hurt malfoy, though," hermione said. "it was good, really, that professor mcgonagall stopped it —"

"hermione!" said ron furiously, his eyes snapping open again, "you're ruining the best moment of my life!"

hermione began to eat at top speed for the second evening in a row, claiming she had tons to do, although it wasn't homework.

the next two days passed without great incident, unless you counted neville melting his sixth cauldron in potions. professor snape, who seemed to have attained new levels of vindictive- ness over the summer, gave neville detention, and neville returned from it in a state of nervous collapse, having been made to disembowel a barrel full of horned toads.

"you know why snape's in such a foul mood, don't you?" said ron to harry and elara as they watched hermione teaching neville a scouring Charm to remove the frog guts from under his fingernails.

"yeah," said harry. "moody."

it was common knowledge that snape really wanted the dark arts job, and he had now failed to get it for the fourth year running. snape had disliked all of their previous dark arts teachers, and shown it — but he seemed strangely wary of displaying overt animosity to mad-eye moody. indeed, whenever elara saw the two of them together — at mealtimes, or when they passed in the corridors — he had the distinct impression that snape was avoiding moody's eye, whether magical or normal.

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." elara finished her sentence for her. "c'mon, hurry, or we won't get good seats."

they hurried into four 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, harry 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 elara 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 dumbledore. . . . 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. you need to put that away, miss brown, when I'm talking."

lavender jumped and blushed. she had been showing parvati her completed horoscope under the desk. apparently moody's magical eye could see through solid wood, as well as out of the back of his head.

"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. elara daren't but her hand up. moody pointed at ron, though his magical eye was still fixed on lavender.

"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. elara saw ron recoil slightly — ron hated spiders.

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 elara 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 elara's 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. it took elara a moment to realize what curse he had his hand raised for. elara blanched, and prayed moody wouldn't call on him.

"yes?" said moody, his magical eye rolling right over to fix on neville.

shit.

"there's one — the cruciatus curse," said neville in a small but distinct voice.

elara's stomach tightened and she felt she might throw up. her hand curled around the edge of the seat uncomfortably. moody was looking very intently between neville and elara, 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!"

it was horrible. elara's stomach twisted in a swirl of emotions. the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently. her grip on the chair grew stronger, as she stared at the spider. elara glanced at neville, who looked more uncomfortable then she did.

stop, stop, this has to stop -- i can't take this, neville can't take this.

"stop it!" came elara's authoritative voice. all heads moved to look at her.

her hands were clenched so tightly on the desks's edge that elara thought she might cut herself, or that the very least, get a splinter. moody stared at her for a moment, before easing the curse of the spider. all elara could think of was her mum and dad using the cruciates curse on neville's parents, on so many innocent people. her stomach clenched and she felt she might double over and paint the floor with her vomit.

"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."

he said that, staring right at elara, who wished for nothing more than for the floor to swallow her up right there and then.

"right . . . anyone know any others?"

elara didn't look around. she slumped her in desk, letting her mess of black hair hide her face. she knew this one too. the cruciates curse was her mum's favorite, and this next one was her dad's. it was embarrassing, and it disgusted elara that two human beings could be so emotionless so as to murder and torture people in cold blood.

hermione raised her hand next to elara. it was shaking ever so slightly.

"yes?" said moody, looking at her.

"avada kedavra," hermione whispered.

even the incantation sounded evil. elara refused to look up.

"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. elara couldn't help but lift her head up. she felt as if someone had grabbed her neck and forced her to face what she was trying so hard to hide from.

"avada kedavra!" moody roared.

in the instant the spider died, something felt very, very off. she didn't know whether it was that moody smiled when he talked about the most horrible of curses, or that moody, an ex-auror, a dark wizard catcher, seemed to take even the slightest bit of joy in muttering the incantation. but, everyone had a darker side to them.

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.