Hermione was slowly losing her mind. Each day seemed longer and more torturous than the day before.
It was Thursday, and she didn't know if she was excited to blow him early or not.
Being that close might be too painful.
Parvati kept giving her increasingly concerned looks every day, and when she was about to leave the room to visit Lucifer...
She was awake and seemed to want to say something.
"What?!" she snapped.
Parvati shook her head. "You look like hell, Hermione. When are you sleeping with him again?"
"Not till Friday," she replied tersely.
She stared at the bushy-haired girl.
"What about now?"
"Morning blow job, it's a habit by now..."
"???"
"Does that also mean you can't come till Friday?"
"Yes," she answered with a corresponding blush.
"You're not going to make it."
Her glare pierced Parvati's head, "Of course I will!"
"Okay," she muttered placatingly. "But if you don't want other girls here to get suspicious, I suggest you tone it down with them."
Hermione's jaw clenched. She was right, but she was just so damn tense.
After taking a deep breath, she nodded. "I know. I'm sorry. It's not your fault. I don't mean to be such a bitch."
Parvati wasn't used to Hermione apologizing to her. "I didn't take it personally. I'd be pretty edgy if I couldn't come for five days too."
Hermione stared at the floor with a distant expression, moments later she just left the room quietly.
xxxxxx
Two days of no progress on finding anything out about House-Elves greatly frustrated Hermione's mood even more.
It was like the information just didn't exist, but without checking the Restricted Section, she would never know for sure.
Lucifer had got fed up and decided that Thursday night, he was taking a look through the Restricted Section.
She was in the Library that morning with Lucifer, restraining herself from publically humping his leg.
Blushing, Hermione looked down at her book and tried to read. It was impossible.
The chair rocked her plug deeper every time she moved her hips. The wet spot on her knickers was growing every minute.
She now boldly stared at Lucifer's
robes which covered far too much of him; she had to use her imagination to see beneath.
Staring blankly, Hermione followed his journey around the Library to see if he could just get Madam Pince to get any book on House-Elves in the Restricted Section out for him.
But she wasn't having it and they were arguing back and forth quietly.
Hermione couldn't help but laugh quietly at the thought of him arguing with a frail old woman, who argued back just as viciously.
He had come back a little later, letting out an exasperated sigh as he sat down.
"That miserable old bat isn't budging, I wonder if she even knows for sure if there are any books or not on the subject... tonight after Dinner I plan to go into the Restricted Section, I feel like we are just wasting time..."
"I know, we aren't making any headway with this, and it bothers me," Hermione answered him, letting out her own sigh.
"The only reason this information would either not exist, or be incredibly difficult to find would be if-"
"-Someone wanted it left unfound... I just can't imagine who nowadays would continue that trend of leaving it hidden... House-Elves, assuming they are treated with respect, don't complain about the work they do... but that would take centuries or millennia to be absorbed into their mindset... something like that just doesn't happen overnight, or even over a year, generations of House Elf families would have to be taught that..." Lucifer was trying to rack his brain around.
"I know someone who might be helpful..." he said, unsure if he wanted Hermione to know...
"Who?" She asked, practically jumping at the chance to speed this along.
"Well... the problem is, I don't know if he would answer me, he's all the way back at Silver City..."
"A-Are you... are you talking about..." Hermione was already talking in a whisper, but she lowered her voice even more, barely making an audible noise, "Your o-older brother?"
"Yeah... he must be in Heaven, but I don't know how to ask him for his help especially after our fight...."
Their dilemma was problematic at best, and unsolvable at worst.
"He knew about existence of the Wizarding World, if you can find a way to ask him for his help, that would be marvelous, Lucifer," Hermione was smiling at him.
"If I do, I'll let you know," he smiled back and they continued their aimless reading for the time being.
xxxxxx
After a short Lunch that day, they had gone to the Library, but instead of looking through books, they just worked on Homework that wasn't due until the following week.
They both managed to get a fair bit done, which would free up their weekend to get Defense Homework done, and whatever was assigned tomorrow.
Just as the bell for Lunch Period ended, Hermione and Lucifer both hurried towards the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
Not wanting to miss a second of Moody's class.
Hermione was excited, but just to see how he taught, not really the class itself.
She saw that Lucifer was really excited, even if he didn't show it much.
With Alastor Moody being an Ex-Auror, and one of the best Auror's the Ministry ever had, she knew that Lucifer was excited to see what a man like Moody could show them.
They ended up being the last two to arrive, "Sorry, been in the-"
"Library," Harry finished Hermione's sentence for her, "Come on, quick, or we won't get decent seats."
They hurried to four seats near the front of the classroom, Hermione sitting on Lucifer's right side, and they took out their books for class.
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection.
They all waited patiently, unusually quiet, but Hermione saw Lucifer with his elbows on his desk, his eyes were closed.
He leaned forward on the desk and looked peaceful.
She also noticed he hadn't taken his book out.
Hermione was about to talk to him about that when they heard the familiar clunking of a Wooden leg coming down the corridor.
Pretty soon, Moody entered the room, looking strange and frightening as ever.
"You can put those away," he said and Hermione looked at Lucifer, wondering how he knew Professor Moody wouldn't want their books out.
Moody sat down at the teacher's desk, "Those books, you won't need them."
Everyone put their books away and Hermione noticed it was a similar thing to last year.
Hermione saw that Ron looked extra 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 went down the list as expected, but his large blue eye went to each student as they answered their name.
He stopped ever so briefly on both Lucifer and Harry, Hermione noticed, and when he was done with the register, he got right to it.
"Right then, I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you've had a pretty thorough understanding in tackling Dark Creatures - you've covered Boggarts, Red Caps, Kappas, Hinkypunks, Grindylows, and Werewolves, is that right?"
A general murmur of agreement was heard.
Lucifer stayed quiet, though.
xxxxxx
"But you're behind - very behind - on dealing with curses," Moody said, "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-"
"What, aren't you staying?" Ron blurted out.
Moody's magical eye spun around to glare at Ron, who was looking extremely apprehensive, from what Hermione could tell.
After a moment, Moody gave a wry smile.
It was the first Hermione had seen him smile since he arrived, and it looked out of place on his scarred Visage.
"You'll be Arthur Weasley's son, yeah?" Moody asked him, and Ron nodded.
"Your father helped me in a right spot of trouble a little while back... yeah, I'm staying just the one year. A special favor to Dumbledore. One Year, and then it's back to my quiet retirement."
He gave a harsh, gravelly laugh and clapped his hands together, looking ready to get started.
"So - straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you Counter-Curses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like if you're not in Sixth Year."
"You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it until then, but Professor Dumbledore has got a higher opinion of your nerves. He reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen?" Moody's voice was getting louder and more gruff.
"A Witch or Wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you isn't going to explain what it's going to do to you. He or She's not going to be polite and in your face about it. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Miss Brown, while I'm talking!"
Lavender had jumped and had reddened cheeks from being caught.
From what Hermione could tell, she was showing Parvati a horoscope or something, but she couldn't tell from how far away Lavender was.
"Mr. Morningstar, are you listening, or sleeping?" Moody asked Lucifer, as his eyes were still closed.
"Hanging on every word, Professor Moody," he said, opening his eyes finally to look at the man himself.
"Dumbledore said you were American, but I didn't believe it myself until just now," Moody gave a wry, crooked smile.
"So, do any of you know which Curses are most heavily punishable by Wizarding Law?"
Lucifer's hand shot up, as did Hermione's and Ron's, she glanced over and saw that his sleeve fell down, revealing the minor scars on his arm, he didn't put glamour for.
'He must not care if people see them...' She thought to herself.
Moody ended up pointing at Ron, "Er," he said, as though he didn't expect to be called on, "my dad told me about one... Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"
"Ah, yes," Moody said appreciatively, "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."
Lucifer knew immediately he was talking about the last time Voldemort was terrorizing the British Isles.
Moody got heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a glass jar.
Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it.
Lucifer caught movement out of his eyes and he saw Ron recoil at the sight of the spiders - he did hate them after all.
Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the Spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it clearly.
He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, "Imperio!"
The spider suddenly leapt from Moody's scarred hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze.
It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a backflip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk.
It then began to cartwheel in circles, then Moody jerked his wand and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.
Everyone was laughing at the spider - everyone except for Moody, and Lucifer.
That did not go unnoticed by Hermione, who stopped laughing immediately.
"Think it's funny, do you?" He growled his question towards them, "you'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"
The rest of the laughter died away almost instantly.
"Total control," Moody said quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over around the table.
"I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats..." Ron gave an involuntary shudder at that, Hermione saw out of her peripheral.
"Years back, there were a lot of Witches and Wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," Mood said gruffly, "Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.
"The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better to avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" He suddenly barked, causing everyone but Lucifer to jump.
He picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar. "Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Lucifer saw Hermione's hand shoot up again. He didn't bother raising his hand that time, he saw no reason to.
"Yes?" He heard Moody say, but it was not Hermione that Moody had called on.
"There's one - the Cruciatus Curse..." Lucifer heard Neville say from behind him, his voice was small but distinct.
Moody seemed to be looking very intently at Neville with both of his eyes.
"Your name's Longbottom?" He asked, his magical eye swooping down to check the register again.
Neville nodded nervously, but Moody made no further inquiries.
Turning back to the class at large, he reached into the jar for the next spider and placed it upon the desk, where it remained motionless, apparently too scared to move.
"The Cruciatus Curse..." Moody said, looking at the spider, "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," he said quietly, pointing his wand at the spider, "Engorgio!"
The Spider swelled to a size that was considerably larger than a Tarantula, but just barely smaller than a Chihuahua.
Lucifer suddenly heard the skidding of a chair, and he looked and saw Ron had scooted his chair back away from Moody's desk as much as he possibly could.
Moody pointed his wand at the now massive spider and muttered, "Crucio!"
Lucifer just watched as the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side.
He couldn't hear anything, obviously, but if he could, he'd imagine the most agonizing, head-splitting, heartbreaking scream possible would be heard right then.
Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently as the pain no doubt got to be more and more unbearable.
"Stop it!" Hermione suddenly said in a shrilly voice right beside him.
He glanced at her, and he saw that she was looking at Neville.
He too looked at the round-faced boy and saw that his hands were clenched upon the desk in front of him, his knuckles white, his eyes wide and horrified.
Moody lifted his wand and the spider relaxed immediately, occasional spasm from the post-Curse use.
"Reducio," Moody said and the spider shrank back to the normal size, before being thrown back into the jar.
"Pain," he said softly, "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse... That one was very popular at one time too." Moody then placed both eyes upon Hermione.
"So, Miss Granger, perhaps you'd like to tell me the last Unforgivable Curse?"
Hermione shook her head, a few tears having rolled down her eyes.
Just before Moody could goad her into saying it, Lucifer said it for them both.
"Avada Kedavra," his voice was clear for the whole classroom to hear.
Moody looked at him with both eyes.
"The Killing Curse," he said and looked at Moody with both eyes.
"The last... and worst..." he returned to the spiders and took the last one out.
It had tried to make itself as small as possible, seemingly knowing what was about to happen.
When it was on the desk, it began scuttling away frantically across the wooden surface.
Moody aimed his wand and spoke the very words Lucifer had seconds ago.
"Avada Kedavra!" He roared, and Hermione's eyes twitched reactively.
The last time she'd heard the Curse from Lucifer, who proved himself to be an immortal being, that changed her life upside down....
Lucifer obviously didn't have a problem saying it himself, he didn't know why Moody saying it bothered him.
Hermione looked away just as the green spell had hit the spider.
She was doing everything she could to keep herself from breaking; she couldn't believe how barbaric Moody was.
xxxxxx
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