Mad-Eye Moody's wooden leg thumped against the classroom floor, and like a hammer broke through the tension that had followed the question.
Another thump followed, and another, as Moody walked to the unfortunate who had asked and bent forward. His one beady eye stared with such intensity that the rest of the class had to look away, but for the one who was caught helplessly, prey not daring to let out a breath lest it catch and betray a hint of weakness. The other eye, electric blue and oversized, swept across the room. Left to right, right to left, then back and behind, flashing white, before coming around again in a frenzied loop.
Moody nodded. "Brave one, are you? Or just stupid, no self-control."
Dark eye followed blue in looking over the classroom. The class shrank back, imperceptibly but to him, and he laughed.
"No harm in it, eh? That's what I'm here for, so you can learn from my mistakes." A stubby finger, a pinky chopped off at the tip, came up to point at the mistake he was referring to. His magical eye, spinning away to avoid the accusation.
The finger turned to point at the class, which didn't dare to do the same. "You think it was a great battle? Something you'd find in the kind of history books Binns should be having you read. Well you're all wrong. We were just hunting down a creature, nothing more, when I made a mistake.
"We'd been after it for a while. Chasing through its hovel of a home. It'd stopped throwing spells at us and just run, been running for minutes. Let me tell you, chasing down some cracked dark wannabe through piles of trash, bits of failed enchantments? It wears on you. I had my partner behind me holding up a shield, what was going to happen? A killing curse, hah! The rat wasn't enough of a wizard to tickle me with one -"
Mad-Eye paused to take a breath, and the class steeled their ears in preparation for his favorite phrase, but it didn't come. Instead he continued muttering more quietly, almost talking to himself.
"Fool I was, deserved it, really." Mad-Eye turned back, walking to his desk and leaning against it heavily. For a moment his age showed, then he snapped back up.
"The next thing I knew, the wards fell, and there was a crack behind us. Bastard could have run, but tried to kill us. Bloody minded savage, but that's what too much dark arts gets you. His first spell took my partner in the back, I looked instead of dodged, and turned to take the second spell right in the face." The scars around Moody's mouth pulled upwards. "Gouging curse, nasty stuff, but not made for killing, is it? Who can tell me what it does?"
One person raised their hand, looking around to make sure nobody else knew the answer.
"Anthony?" Moody called.
"It - it's for maiming enemies," Anthony said hesitantly, waiting to see if he was on the right track. Moody nodded as encouragingly as he could be said to. "Right, because it doesn't heal," Anthony continued. "It gouges, uh, removes what it hits, and that can't be healed back. You need to, uh, excise the area around the curse and leave it to," he glanced at Moody's scars, "heal the skin back there."
"Correct, a point to Ravenclaw," Moody said.
He scratched at the skin around his blue eye while he continued, even quieter than before. "Got my partner in the back. He never walked again. I saw the curse fly at me and closed my eyes like some wet-behind-the-ears trainee. And do you know what I saw when I opened my eyes?"
Nobody raised their hand.(edited)
. "I saw that bastard about to cast another spell, so I stopped him." His wand mimed a horizontal slash, the movement for a cutting curse. Moody didn't so much smile as bare his teeth. "Don't need your legs in Azkaban.
"The gouging curse, ha! Stupid curse for a stupid dark wizard, it doesn't kill, only incapacitates if your aim is good. It just hurts. I looked around and saw my partner on the floor and my first thought was relief. Not that he was alive, no, I was relieved that I'd gotten lucky.
"The curse missed me."
Moody still smiled. "What do you see when you close your eyes?"
The class shifted uncomfortably and the silence grew louder until someone finally blurted out "nothing, sir."
"Wrong!" Moody snapped.
"You see darkness. You see the back of your eyelid, eh? But if you lose your eye - that's when you see nothing. I didn't notice a thing until I reached for my partner and missed, and then the pain came to me.
Moody leaned forward, his voice intent and quiet. "You don't think about what you can't see." His finger, again, pointed at his blue eye, which spun to look through the back of his head. "Through the back of your head, that's where you see nothing. That's why a worthless dark creature apparated behind you can still take your eye. And that's why," he whispered, and the class leaned forward as one to catch his words -
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"
Everyone jumped, chairs and desks rattled, at the back of the class one boy who'd been leaning back in his chair fell, and grabbed desperately for his neighbor to steady himself.
They settled, and again it was quiet. Then Moody said "not complaining about the time now, are you? Class dismissed," and the room was filled with frenzied packing and a rush of students out the door, all avoiding the brooding, scarred figure leaned against the teacher's desk.