discontinued, re-write titled "Mind Over Matter".
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❞𝐘𝐨𝐮❜𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞. . .❞
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Liliana Granger never sought out the adventures of life, she'd grown comfortable in what she knew and applied...
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"S-P-E-W!"
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.
"Seems like Snape's prone to explode any of these days now," noted Atlas.
"You know why he's in such an awful mood, don't you?" said Ron to Atlas and Harry as they watched Hermione and Liliana teaching Neville a Scourging Charm to remove the frog guts from under his fingernails.
"Yeah," answered Harry. "Moody."
Atlas rolled his eyes. "Always jealous, Snape, isn't he?"
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 noted thoughtfully.
"Who wouldn't be?" reasoned Atlas. He shuddered slightly, whispering, "His magical eye stares right into your soul."
"Not like Snape has one though," acknowledged Ron, shrugging. "Imagine if Moody turned Snape into a horned toad," his eyes misted 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 Liliana assured would turn up before class started; she 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 five 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.
