Malfoy, 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 forward 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 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 . . .”
Harry and Hermione both laughed, and Hermione began doling beef casserole onto each of their plates.
“He could have really hurt Malfoy, though,” she 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 made an impatient noise and began to eat at top speed again.
“Don’t tell me you’re going back to the library this evening?” said Harry, watching her.
“Got to,” said Hermione thickly. “Loads to do.”
“But you told us Professor Vector —”
“It’s not schoolwork,” she said. Within five minutes, she had cleared her plate and departed. No sooner had she gone than her seat was taken by Fred Weasley.
“Moody!” he said. “How cool is he?”
“Beyond cool,” said George, sitting down opposite Fred.
“Supercool,” said the twins’ best friend, Lee Jordan, sliding into the seat beside George. “We had him this afternoon,” he told Harry and Ron.
“What was it like?” said Harry eagerly.
Fred, George, and Lee exchanged looks full of meaning.
“Never had a lesson like it,” said Fred.
“He knows, man,” said Lee.
“Knows what?” said Ron, leaning forward.
“Knows what it’s like to be out there doing it,” said George impressively.
“Doing what?” said Harry.
“Fighting the Dark Arts,” said Fred.
“He’s seen it all,” said George.
“’Mazing,” said Lee.
Ron dived into his bag for his schedule.
“We haven’t got him till Thursday!” he said in a disappointed voice.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE UNFORGIVABLE CURSES
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 vindictiveness 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 as they watched Hermione teaching Neville a Scouring Charm to remove the toad 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 Harry 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.
“I reckon Snape’s a bit scared of him, you know,” Harry said thoughtfully.
“Imagine if Moody turned Snape into a horned toad,” said Ron, his eyes misting over, “and bounced him all around his dungeon. . . .”
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.” Harry finished her sentence for her. “C’mon, quick, or we won’t get decent seats.”
They hurried into three 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, Ron 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 —”