Giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,

That goddess blind,

That stands upon the rolling restless stone.

 

– Shakespeare (Henry V, 3.3.27), Pistol to Fluellen

 

~~~~

 

Ed and Hermione were walking to the first Defence Against the Dark arts class of the year, Hermione had just returned from her COMC class, in which Hagrid introduced the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Since the start of the year, Hermione had been carefully sticking close to Ed, whenever he planned to stay at a place for a long time, Hermione will be there, the boy didn’t mind though, he honestly liked her company, she was always rambling about random things around him, which he thought was cute.

“What are you going to do with Crouch Jr.?” She asked, holding Ed’s right hand while holding her book in the other.

“Honestly, I don’t know.” Ed stated. “I wanted to make his life here hard… but I just don’t know how I will do that…”

“Well, we’ll think of something…” she mumbled. “Anyway, have you read about the book I gave you?”

Ed frowned. “The one about Stockholm syndrome?”

“Yep.” She nodded.

“I’ve finished it, what about it?”

“It’s a bit similar to the house elves don’t you think?”

Ed groaned. “Are you serious right now Hermione?”

“What? I’m just commenting about the similarities between the Stockholm syndrome and the house elves line of thinking.”

“House elves' psychology and human psychology are totally different.” Ed pointed out.

“But the basis are the same.” Hermione added.

“It’s not the same.” Ed refuted. “Darling, do you want me to explain that story I told you a year ago? About the BDSM couple?”

Hermione blushed at this. “It- That was different!” she stuttered. “Like you said, House elves' psychology and human psychology are totally different.”

Ed frowned, not liking that she used his own words against him. “You like to act clever are you?”

Hermione smiled victoriously, but Ed instantly shut her down.

“Stockholm syndrome’s victims originally held negative feelings towards their captor, but gradually developed positive feelings, while the actors of my analogy were a married couple, meaning that they already have love towards each other, and express it using ‘that’ method. House elves are born to serve their master, sometimes they have negative feelings towards them, most times they have positive feelings towards the master, like I said last year, you can’t rip away someone’s happiness, Hermione.”

“But there are some house elves that didn’t like their masters.” Hermione pointed out.

“There are, and you can save them if you can, but remember, house elves are parasites, they siphon magic from their master and the master’s family, so if you take their bond towards their masters, they will die slowly.”

“But-”

“Honestly Hermione, how do you feel if I forbid you from entering the library because I thought it wasn’t good for you? Because you need to socialize more?”

Hermione went quiet. “I would be mad at you.”

“Because I took away your happiness.” Ed nodded. “That’s how the house elves probably feel if you force them to abandon their culture.”

Hermione sighed, “Well alright, I’ll just try to find house elves that didn’t like how they are now…”

Ed nodded in agreement. “Good.”

The two then walked inside the DADA class, inside, there were already a couple of people much to Hermione’s surprise.

“Huh… I thought we were supposed to be the first ones…” Hermione commented.

“Looks like there will be more competitors for the first place in the rankings Hermione.” Ed winked at the girl, which made her roll her eyes.

“The first place will always be you, I’ve come to accept it at this point, the second place though… it belongs to me.”

Ed chuckled. “You’re cute when you’re competitive, you know?”

Hermione blushed at the comment. “That came out of nowhere…”

“Get used to it.” Ed winked again, which made the girl groan.

The class had already noticed Ed’s and Hermione’s present, and suddenly, a girl that Ed had met in the train, called him out.

“Hey Ed!” she called him.

Hermione and Ed turned to the source of the voice, and saw that it was Megan Jones again, which made Hermione frown.

Ed just smiled at the girl however, but didn’t approach her.

The girl, insisting on talking to him, stood up, and approached Ed instead.

“Don’t ignore me, you prat.” Megan giggled as she approached Ed, making Hermione practically fuming, as Romilda acted familiar towards Ed.

“Um… Hi…” Ed said awkwardly.

“You want to sit with me?” Romilda asked Ed, she was side eyeing Hermione the whole time, ignoring her entirely.

“Um… I’m sorry… but I’m with Hermione…”

Megan instantly frowned, while Hermione was smiling victoriously.

“I was going to talk to you about my cousin, Gwenog, I hear you’re testing an experimental broom.” She added, which made Ed frown.

“How did you know that?” Ed asked suspiciously. “The only one who knows is me, Richard, and the ones who used it for testing…” he continued.

“Well, Weasley filled me in on that, I owled my aunt and she’s interested in hearing about this ‘experimental broom’ of yours.” She said,

‘Fucking Weasley, if only he signed an NDA…’ he thought, cursing the redhead. He then put up a smile and said. “Well, I will contact your aunt if I ever need it.”

“You don’t have to contact her… you can talk to me about it, how about you can ditch the bookworm and sit with me?” Megan continued, not caring about the insult.

Now, Ed was frowning. Megan had said the wrong words. “I already said no Jones, are you deaf?” Ed stated coldly, which made Megan freeze and gulped, surprised at the sudden change of attitude.

Ed didn’t wait for Megan to answer and just grabbed Hermione’s hand and sat in the corner of the room, making sure to stay away from Megan as far as possible.

“What happened to you? You’re usually not like this around strangers…” Hermione asked Ed curiously, happy at his cold attitude towards Megan, but curious nonetheless.

“Don’t forget Hermione, I’m a bookworm too.” Ed pointed out, which made Hermione shake her head in amusement.

“Why are we sitting at the back though…” Hermione mumbled.

“You want to sit near Jones?” Ed questioned, and Hermione just shut up. “Thought so.” He smirked. “And tell Ron to shut up about the company or I’ll sue his family for leaking a secret. I should’ve given him a magical contract or something…”

“Well, I’ll talk to him later.” She nodded.

“By the way Hermione, do you want to come with me this evening?” Ed changed the topic.

“What do you want to do?” Hermione asked, curious.

“Horcrux hunting.” Ed simply said.

“I’ll go.” Hermione instantly answered.

“Alright then, I’ll wait for you at midnight.”

A couple of minutes later, the class started to fill in, with the last student to enter the class being Harry and Ron. Then, Moody walked down the office of the DADA professor, limping his way to the Professor’s table in front of the class.

“Right then.” He announced himself, although he didn’t really need to as the entire class were looking at him while he was limping down the stairs. “I’ve got a letter from Professor Lupin about your progress in the study, basic defence against creatures… not bad.”

He then eyed every single student in the class with his magical eye, with Ed being the longest that he stared on. “But you’re behind… very behind. Now, I’ve got one year to make you all catch up.”

“You aren’t staying?” Ron questioned the professor.

“The deal is one year Mr. Weasley.” Moody answered. “One year and I’ll be out of here, enjoying my quiet retirement.”

He gave a hearty and hard laugh to the class, but nobody laughed with him. A couple of seconds later, Moody stopped, and went straight into the class.

“Right, curses…” he said. “They come in many shapes and forms… Now, according to the ministry, you’re supposed to be learning counter curses this year, but Professor Dumbledore and I thought it would be ideal to show you the curses that you will be up against…”

“I’m sorry Professor… but what do you mean ‘show’?”

“I’ll be performing the curses of course.” Moody roughly said. He eyed the class again, watching every movement of the students. “Do any of you know the curse that if you perform it, you will be heavily punished.”

Several hands shot up in the air, including Hermione, but she was ignored. Instead, Moody eyed the boy beside her, who wasn't even raising his hand.

“Aldrich, do you know it?” he roughly spoke.

Ed frowned at this. “The unforgivable curse sir.” Ed answered. “It’ll earn you one way ticket to-”

“-Azkaban! Correct.” Moody cut him off. “Do you know what the unforgivable curse Aldrich is?”

“It contains three curses.” Ed answered.

“One of them is…?”

“One of them is the Imperious curse…”

“Oh yeah…” Moody said. “It gave the ministry a hell of trouble, Mr. Weasley’s father can testify that…”

Moody then put out a spider and put it on the table, he aimed his wand at the poor thing, and shouted. “Imperio!”

He then waved his wand, and the spider started to tap dance, which made the students laugh. Moody continued to toy with it like a maniac, making Ed frown.

“You think it’s funny do you?” Moody said to the laughing students. “What if I did this to you?”

The laughter then died down instantly.

“Total control.” Moody said. “I could make you jump out a window, or drown yourself…”

The atmosphere turned gloomy by the second.

“Even though it is hard, it can be fought.” Moody continued. “I will be teaching you how to do it… but in the real world… you need to have CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” he yelled to the class, which made the mood tense.

He eyed the class for a while, before transfixing his eye to Neville, who was looking down at his book.

“Mr. Longbottom, do you know the next unforgivable curse?” he asked quietly.

Neville thought about it and went paler by the minute. “T-There’s the C-Cruciatus curse…”

“Yes…” Moody spoke. He pointed his wand at the spider again and shouted. “Crucio!”

The spider then produced a loud shrieking sound, it made Neville really uncomfortable, to the point that he’s covering his ears. Moody though, didn’t stop and continued to torture to the poor spider.

“You can stop now Professor.” Ed suddenly spoke in a calm yet commanding tone.

Moody snapped out of his torturing bliss, and looked back at the students, averting his gaze carefully as he cancelled the spell. “Pain. Unimaginable pain.”

“Anybody know the last one?” Moody quickly averted the topic, though the damage had been done, Neville is quite disturbed. “Granger, you know the last one.”

Hermione had a cold gaze, it wasn’t like in the books where she’s uncomfortable saying the curse, and she says it lightly. “It’s Avada Kedavra.” She said,

“The killing curse.” Moody nodded, he pointed his wand at the spider again and shouted. “Avada Kedavra!” a burst of green light shot to the spider, killing it instantly.

“Instant kill, no blood, no scream, only death.” Moody said. “Not nice, not pleasant, no counter-curse either… there have only been two cases that a living being can survive it… one is sitting right with us…” he said, looking at Harry, which made the boy gulp. “And the other one… as you might have heard, the mysterious creature that attacks the dark wizards at the world cup…” Now he was staring at Ed.

“Why am I showing you all this?” Moody asked. “So you can expect the words when it comes to battling dark wizards, and the most important of all CONSTANT VIGILANCE! I will teach you how to fight, how to counter it, how to avoid it, and write it down.”

All of them then spend the rest of the lesson writing down Moody’s words on unforgivable curses, Ed saw that Neville was uncomfortable the entire time, as well as a lot of the students.

Once the bell rang, signalling the end of the period, everybody quickly got out, the fastest being Neville.

“I’ll talk to Neville.” Hermione suddenly said. “He looks petrified…”

Ed smiled at the girl. “Sure Hermione, go on without me…”

“What do you want to do?” Hermione suspiciously asked.

“Nothing, just a quick chat.” Ed said, and the girl just hummed reluctantly, exiting the room.

Ed then walked to Moody, who was tidying his desk. “Hello Professor.”

Moody eyed Ed before averting his gaze once more to the desk. “What are you doing here Aldrich? Don’t you have a class to go to?”

Ed smiled. “That’s a good scare tactic isn’t it? Reminding the students of the cruelty of the death eaters using the unforgivable curses…” Ed said, ignoring the question of Moody.

Moody flinched a bit hearing Ed’s words, but quickly recollected himself. “I did it to give all of you the general idea of the curses, not scare you.” He grumbled.

Ed chuckled. “Sure Professor, I’ll see you next class.” Ed then walked out of the room, making Moody frowned.

“Sharp kid…” Moody mumbled. “A threat to the plan…”

Meanwhile, Ed was now sitting besides a traumatized Neville. Ed had call Dobby to make them some tea to calm the boy.

“Don’t think about it Neville, I understand that you don’t want to talk about it, but you have to be strong.” Ed patted the boy’s back, which made him nod.

“I also have a Herbology book, magical this time, you want to see it? It’s quite complete I think.” Ed continued, offering the boy.

“I- I’d like to…”

Ed smiled. “Good Neville, don’t be afraid.” Ed said. “Being afraid is human, accept it, walk through it.” Ed patted Neville’s shoulder, and then walked to the dorm room to fetch the book.