Chapter 517: Moody's First Lesson

The storm had blown over by the next morning, though the ceiling of the Great Hall remained gloomy.

Heavy clouds of gray pewter swirled overhead as Ivan and Colin arrived in the Great Hall.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were examining their new schedules at breakfast.

Of course, it was mainly Hermione doing the talking while Harry and Ron listened.

A few seats down the hall, Fred, George and Lee Jordan were discussing magical methods of aging and bluffing in the Triwizard Tournament.

In fact, all the young wizards in the Great Hall were discussing this topic.

Older wizards of the right age are all secretly complacent, and each one had a good feeling that he was about to become a champion.

"Good morning, Ivan, Colin, I just heard about your schedule from Hermione; it's really good!" said Harry, waving to Ivan and Colin, who sat down. "Your first class is with Mad-Eye Moody. That must be great."

"Yeah, my course schedule is a bit worse!" said Ron, who was running his finger down the Monday column of his schedule. "Look at this morning. Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures...damn, we're still on with the Slytherins!"

"Double Divination this afternoon." Harry grumbled, looking down. Divination was his least favorite subject, aside from Potions. Professor Trelawney was still predicting Harry's death, which he found very annoying.

"It's not until Friday afternoon that we have Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and that's after we have Potions all morning." Ron continued and read, "That's too bad.... Why can't we have this class on Monday like we did in third year?"

Harry nodded as well and agreed with Ron.

If they knew Moody intended to use dark magic as some of the Unforgivable Curses on the students, Ivan wondered if they would be so eager for his class.

"Ivan, here is your schedule. I've magically marked the lessons and will remind you of them automatically." Hermione handed him the schedule. "So you won't be late when you're too engrossed reading in the library..."

"Thank you!" Ivan put the timetable in his bag.

Compared to last term, he also had a lot of courses this year.

He took Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, and Ancient Runes Study, and Colin chose the same one.

"Hermione, I notice you're eating again," Ron said, watching Hermione add jam to her toast.

"I've decided there are better ways to take a stand on elven rights," Hermione said proudly.

"Yeah...and you were hungry," Ron said, smiling.

Either way, it was good that Hermione took the initiative to eat.... Otherwise, Ivan would have to ask Dobby to prepare food for the two of them separately.

After a while, while they were discussing what creatures Hagrid would show them in this year's Care of Magical Creatures class, Hedwig flew into the Great Hall with a piece of mail. It was a package from Sirius.

She sent Harry lots of sweets for everyone, which made him especially happy.

On the first day of school, the owls brought many things that the young wizards had forgotten at home.

Over time, this had become a school tradition, owl mail from home.

For the first time, Harry received a package at that time, giving him the warm feeling of having a home.

After breakfast, the students went to their different classes separately.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were going to the outside greenhouse for Herbology, and Ivan and Colin were going to Defense Against the Dark Arts on the second floor.

When they both arrived, they found that the classroom was already full of students.

Everyone was in a good mood and looking forward to Moody's course. It was the first time in the last few years.

Ginny had arrived early, and she held the two chairs right in front of the professor's desk; they hurried to sit down.

In the classroom, the atmosphere was exceptionally quiet, and everyone pulled out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited.

Soon they heard Moody's distinctive footsteps coming down the hallway, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. They could see his clawed wooden foot sticking out from under his robes.

"You can put that away," he growled, walked over to his desk and sat down, "Those books... You won't need them. I don't need those things in my class - get the wands out!"

The young wizards returned the books to their bags, and were very excited.

Based on past experience, pulling out the wands meant that this course was going to be very interesting.

A few seconds later, Moody pulled out a register, shook his long mane of gray hair from his twisted, scarred face, and began calling out names, his normal eye moving steadily down the list as his magical eye swiveled around, fixing on each student as he responded.

"At that point," he said, as the last person declared himself present, "I have received a letter from my predecessor, and I know something about your current progress.... Although you have accumulated some foundation in dealing with dark creatures, you still lack real combat experience and have not seen real dark magic. This is the most crucial thing. "

His magic eye turned quickly, and Moody reworded what he had told Ivan last night.

He told everyone to be ready and alert.

"So... do any of you know which curses are most severely punished by wizarding law?"

Ivan sighed. This guy was ready to use Unforgivable Curses on the class.

No one in the class responded, and the young wizards seemed frightened by Moody's teaching theories.

They looked at each other uneasily, and finally focused on Ivan, waiting for him to answer the question.

"Mason, answer!" said Moody. After confirming that no one would answer, he shouted Ivan's name directly.

"Professor, there are many spells that the Ministry of Magic forbids wizards to cast.... At present, there are about ten thousand legal documents still in effect. They go back thousands of years, with tens of thousands of incantations. "Ivan replied, "The details are unknown, but once these curses are discovered, they will be severely punished by the Ministry of Magic. I made a simple categorization of these black magic spells, which can be divided into Curses, Horcruxes, Necromancy, Summoning Evil Spirits, family blood magic, and magic that directly illegally alters the bodies of humans and magical animals. Of course, this is not all, and.... "

The classroom was silent, and everyone stared at Ivan in surprise, their mouths open wide enough to swallow an egg.