The next morning, Eloise made sure she woke up early enough so she might have a chance of getting Marietta up early enough to actually be on time to their first class of the day, Defense Against the Dark Arts. Eloise was curious to see what the new teacher, Moody, would be like. He had stormed in during Dumbledore's welcome speech at the start-of-term feast, something unheard of at Hogwarts. Moody had scared a lot of people already because of the way he looked- his face was covered in scars, a chunk of his nose was missing, and to top it all off, he had one electric blue eye that could see through anything alongside his one regular eye, hence his nickname, Mad-Eye Moody.
"Eloise? You awake?" Marietta croaked groggily.
Eloise threw her covers off and sat up, stretching. "Yeah... I wanted to be up extra early so we could get good seats for Moody's class. We have him first thing after breakfast."
"Oh yeah," Marietta said, rubbing her eyes sleepily, "I probably shouldn't have stayed up so late last night, but..."
"But what?"
"Oh, nothing..." Marietta said dreamily.
"Been doing some late-night snogging? Come on, you can't hide anything from me- I know you too well," Eloise said.
"Fine, I admit it... but he's such a good kisser. And so bloody gorgeous..." Marietta was clearly remembering last night as she brushed her fingers against her lips.
"Well come on, snap out of it. And be ready in fifteen minutes so we can rush to breakfast as usual? Oh, I mean an hour... We don't want to break our record of being late to our first class of the day," Eloise said mock-seriously, watching for Marietta's reaction.
"Make it ten minutes," Marietta said guiltily, "and anyway, we weren't really late."
A short ten minutes later, the two friends were walking down to breakfast, chatting about anything and everything that came to mind, from Patrick to Ron and how he was such a git to how Alice, Lucy and Renny were even bigger gits to how the Evil Crones (Alice, Lucy and Renny) should be the ones doing extra disembowelment detentions for Snape and, finally, to Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"I wonder what Mad-Eye's going to be like? I heard he really knows his stuff," Marietta said thoughtfully.
"He'd have to, with that many scars. Seriously, though, I think he sounds kind of senile... I know a lot of people questioned Dumbledore's judgement when he hired Moody. I guess he can't do any permanent damage, though," Eloise said.
"Why not?"
"Didn't you know?" Eloise asked, jumping a trick step. "He's only staying for one year. I heard he made some kind of deal with Dumbledore."
"Hmmm..." Marietta said thoughtfully, "I wonder why he would do that."
"I dunno... Well, here we are."
The girls took walked into the Great Hall and took their usual seats at the Hufflepuff table. Just as they sat down, a tall, good-looking boy walked over to Marietta and Eloise from the Gryffindor table.
"Hi," he said, shaking hands with both Eloise and Marietta, "I'm James Knight." James smiled, his dark, long hair falling just above his gorgeous blue eyes.
Marietta and Eloise glanced at each other curiously, each thinking, "What is he doing here?"
"I'm Marietta," Marietta said.
"I'm Eloise."
"My friend told me about what happened the other day in Herbology, and I just want to say I'm really sorry about what Professor Sprout and Ron said about your... you know... acne." Eloise blushed slightly, remembering how she had rushed out of the class in tears. "You know, I used to have acne worse than you do, but I had a friend get it off for me... Nearly cost me my nose too." Eloise smiled shyly, feeling slightly better. "Anyway, I just wanted to say that even though I don't know Ron, I think he's a total git."
Eloise was shocked but pleased that someone who didn't even know her had actually sided with her. "Thanks," she said, smiling.
"Only the truth," James replied, "See you around?"
"Of course."
As soon as James had sat back down at the Gryffindor table, Marietta turned excitedly to Eloise.
"Wow, that was amazing," Marietta told her friend.
"Yeah, he was gorgeous," Eloise acknowledged.
"No, that's not what I meant... not that it's not true. I meant that was amazing how, well, how cute you looked talking to him. It was like you were completely transformed or something!"
"Yeah, I felt pretty good, too," Eloise said, turning around to glance at James laughing with his friends at the Gryffindor table. "It was just so nice to actually have half a conversation with someone who didn't know me and didn't have any reason to be nice to me."
Marietta smiled at the look on her friend's face. "He seems really nice. You know, you should talk to him again sometime."
Eloise grinned. "I plan to. Well, we better grab some toast and go... I want to be early for Moody's class, and it's... let's see," he glanced at her watch. "Oh no! We only have five minutes to get there if we want to be a full fifteen minutes early!" She stood up hurriedly and began grabbing as much toast as she could carry and still be able to carry her books.
"Whoa, you don't have to be in that much of a hurry. I mean, you can't be late for being early," Marietta said, relaxed.
"Yes I do and yes I can- and you need to hurry up!" Eloise dashed out of the Great Hall, Marietta rolling her eyes and following her.
There were still roughly ten minutes before class was due to start when Eloise and Marietta arrived at the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, yet half the class was already there. Eloise and Marietta slipped into seats as close to the front as they could get, which turned out to be about the third row.
"Look- there's Patrick!" Eloise grinned at Marietta, gesturing towards the boy just coming in the door.
"Shut it!" Marietta looked rather embarrassed, as she had been staring in that direction. "You know, I could be teasing you about James, but I'm not, so you owe me."
Eloise rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, it's not like he likes me or anything. I mean, who would? Especially if they were that good-looking. He's got to have plenty of girls after him."
"That doesn't mean a thing and you know it." Marietta showed every sign of continuing, but Moody walked in, and everyone hurried to get out their books, not wanting to miss a thing.
Moody cleared his throat. "You can put all those books away. Defense Against the Dark Arts isn't any good learned out of a book." The students glanced at each other, surprised.
"I know you've all been very well trained in dealing with magical creatures, but as far as I can tell, you haven't learned hardly anything about curses. Is that correct?"
The students muttered their assent.
"So, today we will be studying the Unforgivable Curses. Anyone have an idea what those are?" Eloise's hand shot up.
"Midgen?"
"An Unforgivable Curse is actually a classification of curse. The three Unforgivable Curses are the Cruciatus Curse, the Imperius Curse, and Avada Kedavra, otherwise known as the Killing Curse. The Cruciatus Curse-" Eloise would have continued, but Professor Moody cut her off.
"Very good... Five points to Hufflepuff." Eloise beamed as Moody continued, "Also, the Unforgivable Curses are punished with a life sentence in Azkaban, not something to be taken lightly. Now, I am a firm believer that students need to see something to learn about it best, so I have decided to show you the three Unforgivable Curses"
A quavering Ravenclaw's hand raised in the air in the back. "Professor?"
"Yes, Mr. Burchett?"
"Professor, if the Unforgivable Curses are punished with a life sentence in Azkaban, why are you showing them to us?"
"Good question- it's because I think you need to know what it looks like. You need to be prepared. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" The class jumped. "We will be starting with the Cruciatus Curse." Moody drew a jar with three spiders in it from under his desk. "I'll be using these spiders to show you, but they need to be a bit bigger for you to really get the idea of what these curses do. Engorgio!" Moody enlarged each one of the spiders, and several students looked like they were beginning to regret that the seats they had chosen were so close to the front.
Moody ignored the students' reactions and continued, "As Miss Midgen was saying, the Cruciatus Curse is a torture curse. It causes pain that is intolerable, worse than anything you could possibly imagine. The incantation for the Cruciatus Curse is Crucio, and I'm not telling you this so you can try it out on your enemies. Every one of you could point your wands at me and say 'Avada Kedavra' and I wouldn't get so much as a scratch- the Unforgivable Curses take incredible power. I'm telling you because you need to know. You also need to pay attention when I'm speaking, Miss Millen." Marietta jumped and blushed. She had been doodling a M + P in a heart on the corner of her parchment. "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Moody shouted again, drawing a spider out of the jar. "That said, here is the Cruciatus Curse." He pointed his wand at the spider and screamed, "Crucio!" The spider writhed and scrabbled on its back. Though there was no sound, you could tell the spider was in immense pain. Several students looked like they were about to throw up. Moody lifted his wand and the spider stopped moving, limp. He brushed it into the dustbin.
Moody followed with the Imperius Curse, under which students performed a variety of tricks such as break dancing on top of a table, rapping a love song about Moaning Myrtle, hopping about the room on one hand, and other various things unlikely under normal circumstances. Not one of the students was able to resist the curse even slightly. After all the students had taken their turn, Moody raised a hand for silence.
"You might think the Imperius Curse is funny, but there's nothing funny about having absolutely no control over yourself. I don't imagine you'd be laughing if I was a Death Eater forcing you to murder your best friend, would you?" The class was quiet. "No, I didn't think so. Moving on, the Avada Kedavra curse is really quite simple to explain. It is the Death Curse, and no one has ever survived it- the exception, of course, being Harry Potter. You might ask why I'm showing it to you if there's no escaping it, but as I said before, you need to know. So, Avada Kedavra!" There was a flash of green light and the spider rolled over on its back, dead. Then, the bell rang. Everyone hurried out of class, and just as they got out the door, Marietta turned to Eloise.
"That was amazing," Marietta breathed. "How he pointed his wand at the spider and it just died, just like that. The Cruciatus Curse was a bit creepy, though. Poor spider."
"Yeah," Eloise agreed, "it was. No matter what he said about the Imperius Curse, I still think that Ravenclaw singing about Moaning Myrtle was absolutely brilliant. He really knows what he's doing," she said in awe. Just then, Patrick tapped Marietta on the shoulder.
"Marietta?" Patrick looked a bit nervous.
"Yes?" Marietta smiled.
"Um, fancy a walk on the grounds?" Noticing the look on Eloise's face, he added, "Sorry, Eloise, but I need to talk to Marietta alone."
Marietta saw Patrick's seriousness and began to look worried. "Sure, I guess. I'll have to cut class..."
"Oh no, if you'd rather go later-" Patrick shifted nervously.
"Please. After lunch? I have Trelawney, she's useless."
"Sure. See you then." Patrick hurried off.
"I wonder what that was all about?" Marietta said curiously.
Eloise Midgen and the Acute Acne by eowyngirl
Chapter Notes: Disclaimer: Hello everyone- I'm not Jo. This isn't mine. Sorry.
A/N: I had fun writing the scene with Moody and I hope I portrayed him accurately- please leave a review to let me know how I'm doing! Also, thanks to my wonderful beta, MollyWeasley. I don't know what I'd do without her.