A new semester brought a fresh atmosphere to Hogwarts, and the students found the entire month of September rather pleasant.
It might sound a little unkind, but ever since Snape resigned and the young, beautiful teaching assistant, Ms. Ivanna Collins, took over his classes, Potions had transformed from a terrifyingly dangerous subject into one that students genuinely looked forward to.
When Snape was teaching, only the students of Slytherin House anticipated Potions lessons. Their professor was also their Head of House, which meant they were effectively on the same team and received preferential treatment. He was considerably harsher toward the other three houses, especially Gryffindor.
To be fair, Snape's professional knowledge and competence as a teacher were beyond reproach. His educational philosophy, however, was somewhat narrow-minded.
Wizarding society was an odd mixture of traditional and modern values. There were families like the Weasleys, who respected their children, and rigid, old-fashioned families like the Malfoys and Blacks. Magical education included both traditional apprenticeships and correspondence courses. The essential difference lay in how the teacher regarded the student, as an obedient source of free labor or as an independent individual with thoughts and feelings of their own.
Snape was a highly capable teacher with a terrible temper.
Most Hogwarts professors were both competent and good-tempered, which made Snape stand out as a negative example. In reality, compared to an incompetent teacher like Quirrell, Snape was perfectly qualified for the job. Although he was cold and sharp-tongued, he never physically punished any student, not even Harry Potter.
Lily, who was currently going by the name Ivanna Collins, continued to maintain her secret identity. The wizarding world probably wasn't ready to accept a miracle like the resurrection of the dead.
She had retained all her enthusiasm and was thoroughly devoted to her students. Gentler than Professor McGonagall, she possessed a maternal warmth that seemed to have seeped into her very bones during the long years she had spent dead, as though making up for all the motherly affection she had never been able to give. Her speech also carried an unmistakable air of intelligence and refinement.
Combining the cheerful freshness of a twenty-year-old woman with the patience and tolerance of a mother in her thirties, she was practically impossible to dislike.
This year, Defense Against the Dark Arts had acquired yet another new professor.
Unfortunately, he belonged to the category of highly capable teachers with terrible tempers. By now, there wasn't a student who didn't miss Ms. Moonshadow.
But some things were as inevitable as the rain. The curse on this particular teaching position seemed impossible to dispel, and welcoming a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had practically become an annual tradition at the start-of-term feast.
Mad-Eye Moody gave the entire student body a small taste of the horrors of war the moment he appeared.
During the First Wizarding War, he had lost an eye, a leg, and a chunk of flesh from his nose. These disfigurements left a profound impression on everyone.
The reason he was called Mad-Eye was primarily his extraordinary artificial eye. This magical device was essentially an automated surveillance system with X-ray vision, providing an exceptionally comprehensive field of view. It could even count the individual hairs on the back of his head.
Not even the Invisibility Cloak, one of the Deathly Hallows, could escape its gaze.
Fortunately, the magical eye had been designed with a restriction preventing it from seeing through people's clothing. Otherwise, Dumbledore would never have allowed Moody to join the faculty.
Anyone who possessed an eye like that was either obsessed with invading other people's privacy or profoundly concerned about their own personal safety.
Mad-Eye Moody belonged to the latter category.
He had once been Britain's finest Auror, but his extreme paranoia, combined with his advancing age, had eventually led to his dismissal from the Ministry of Magic. Since then, he had found it difficult to reintegrate into ordinary society.
People living in an era of peace didn't particularly enjoy hearing an old man constantly shouting warnings about war.
As a member of the Order of the Phoenix, Moody's circumstances had not escaped Dumbledore's attention. The old headmaster had therefore offered him a teaching position, providing the retired Ministry employee with a respectable occupation.
Moody, however, insisted that he would teach for only one year before returning to his retirement.
Not long after the semester began, Harry and his old nemesis Draco engaged in their customary exchange of insults.
Their verbal sparring quickly escalated into a magical confrontation.
Draco was the first to draw his wand, unleashing a merciless [Reducto] that whistled past Harry's ear and blasted a beautiful tapestry hanging in the new campus corridor to pieces.
Harry gave his wrist a slight flick, and the wand concealed in the leather holster on his forearm slid naturally into his palm.
Hundreds of vicious curses flashed through his mind, each one practically waiting on the tip of his tongue.
In the end, however, he settled for the perfectly ordinary [Expelliarmus].
The spell was powerful enough to send Draco tumbling across the floor.
Beside him, his good buddy Ron grabbed a suit of knight's plate armor standing along the corridor.
With a bizarre battle cry, he hurled the seventy-pound metal shell through the air, knocking Draco's two cronies off their feet.
The entire confrontation lasted only a moment.
Draco had been disarmed, while his two companions lay sprawled on the floor, groaning helplessly.
It was a crushing defeat.
"What are you doing?!"
Mad-Eye Moody happened to come limping around the corner just in time to witness the scene, and he immediately let out a furious roar.
Draco's eyes darted around before he hurriedly accused Harry.
"Harry Potter attacked us!"
"LIES!" Moody bellowed. "You think you can fool me? You little bastard! I'll examine your wands, and we'll see exactly who attacked first!"
Without even approaching them, he cast [Prior Incantato] on Harry's and Draco's wands from a distance.
"What's your name? Do you have any idea what happens when you cast [Reducto] at a fellow student? Were you trying to kill him?!"
Mad-Eye leaned right into Draco's face and roared at him.
"Would you like to experience [Reducto] yourself? If Dumbledore hadn't forbidden me from using Transfiguration to punish students, I'd turn you into a skunk and bounce you around until you learned your lesson! DO YOU HEAR ME?!"
Draco staggered back two steps, his face deathly pale.
"What's going on here?"
Professor McGonagall appeared on the staircase, carrying a stack of books and walking alongside Lily.
"I'm educating the students," Mad-Eye Moody explained casually.
"I heard someone threatening to use Transfiguration to punish a student. You wouldn't actually do that, would you?" McGonagall asked hesitantly.
"Of course, of course. I simply haven't had the opportunity, that's all. You can't afford to let your guard down for a moment around certain little brats from certain families."
Moody's fierce, uncompromising attitude toward wrongdoing earned Ron's considerable admiration.
The fact that Draco looked as though he'd just swallowed a fly made the whole situation even more satisfying.
Lily cast Harry a questioning glance.
The boy shook his head slightly, indicating that he was unharmed.
Reassured, she turned her attention to Mad-Eye, studying him with curiosity.
Moody's magical eye, which had been spinning wildly in its socket, suddenly fixed itself on Lily with an intimidating glare.
She immediately felt a pang of anxiety.
The magic maintaining her false appearance had been cast by Lily herself. Both its effectiveness and duration were considerably inferior to the disguise Skyl had originally provided her with.
It probably wouldn't withstand the magical eye's penetrating gaze.
Yet Moody said nothing.
He simply turned around and walked away.
Once the professors had departed, Ron began talking animatedly.
"Did you hear that? Professor Moody's practically the embodiment of righteousness! A shining example of moral virtue! No wonder he's the greatest Auror of the modern era. He certainly knows how to deal with evil. I hope he brings every last evildoer to justice!"
Harry nodded absentmindedly.
Something about the professor still struck him as peculiar.
Moody's mental state didn't resemble that of a genuinely unhinged man. There seemed to be a considerable element of performance involved, judging by his exaggerated threats and blustering.
Of course, it was also possible that Moody respected Dumbledore enough to strictly maintain the standards expected of a professor.
Harry gave Draco one final glance.
"If you're still unhappy about what happened, I'll see you at the Dueling Club."
"Hah! Who's afraid of you?"
Draco muttered under his breath, continuing to badmouth Moody.
Ever since his father had been expelled from the Hogwarts Board of Governors, the boy could no longer threaten professors with dismissal or impeachment.
It seemed the Malfoy family had truly fallen on hard times by his generation.
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