(no subject)
Gene's first few weeks at Hogwarts go about as well as he'd expected them to. It's pretty obvious to everybody that he's not suited to the life of a wizard; he just hopes the people in charge figure it out soon and pitch him out on his ear before he has to go through much more of this. The classes are just as dull as they were back home - the only saving grace is the distinct lack of mathematics, but that's more than compensated for by having to write loads of essays. He especially hates the quills they make them use - he figures pens and pencils were invented for a bloody reason, that reason being because quills are a complete pain in the arse.
He's started fighting - not that he ever really stopped fighting, not since he was old enough to dole out punches to the other lads on the street - and he spends half his time being lectured in one professor's office or another. (They've stopped turning him over to his Head of House, figuring that Dumbledore's entirely too lenient on him.) All his free time is spent in detention, but that doesn't deter him in the slightest. These wizard kids are a soft lot, unsurprisingly, and they're always surprised when he tackles them instead of throwing some hex or another at them, which is their first option. (In fact, he's contemplated breaking their wands over their heads no few times.)
His latest fight is with a load of older Slytherins - fourth or fifth year, he thinks - there's about four of them against him, and it's in no way a fair fight, but it took him about five minutes with the Slytherins in his year to learn that 'mudblood' was not a good thing to be called. Since then, he's taken it upon himself to teach them that it's not a good thing to call him. All the boys are bigger than he is; he suspects they're Quidditch players, and while he wouldn't have thought before that riding around on a bloody broomstick was exercise, they're better-muscled than most kids here. Still, he fights gamely - never let it be said that Gene Hunt backed down from a fight - even through the curses on him. He seems to have a skill for resisting curses, as Professor Merrythought discovered in a joint session of Defence against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins.
Defence against the Dark Arts is basically the only thing he's good at here - it surprises even him, to be honest. He's not completely bollocks at Charms or Transfiguration, but everything else is a hopeless mess, particularly Herbology and Potions. He hates Potions especially; Professor Slughorn plays favorites like it's going out of style, and Gene suspects that even if he didn't melt cauldrons on a regular basis, the man would still hate him for being commoner than dirt. Dumbledore's the only professor here who seems to like him, and that, he figures, is because Professor Dumbledore likes everyone. (He's still pretty sure the man is a poofter, but even though he offers him lemon drops every time he's in his office, he hasn't done anything to make him suspicious; Gene can cope with it as long as he isn't a kiddie fiddler.)
One of the bastards has got him in his grasp, pinning his arms down, and Gene blindly jerks his head up to hit him in the face. He smiles a little when he hears the crunch of bone and a muffled curse; the idiot drops his wand as well as Gene, and he takes the opportunity to kick it behind a nearby statue. Getting rid of his opponents' wands is the key to fighting here.
"Oi!" Someone else wades into the fight - not a professor, they always stop the fighting with spells - and Gene hopes it's not another Slytherin. Five against one is just unfair. The boy looks to be a couple years older than he is; Gene thinks he's seen him in the common room a couple times. Most of the Gryffindors don't like him, but fighting against Slytherin, he's learnt, is a matter of honor. It's quite a lot easier with two people, as it turns out, particularly when the other actually knows spells to use against them. Gene decides to keep one occupied by bashing his head against the wall repeatedly - at least till the other three run off.
"Bloody mental, you are." The other boy speaks with a thick Scottish accent, running a hand through his curly red-blond hair. "Goin' after four of them without a wand. That's Riddle's gang, y'know, not that it matters much."
"Riddle?"
"Tom Riddle - Slytherin Prefect, all the professors think he's golden. I don't give a rat's arse for him, personally. Don't think Dumbledore does, either, which'd make him the only one here, I expect. I'm Moody, by the way - Alastor Moody." He offers Gene a hand. "Riddle doesn't like Muggle-borns much, either."
"Yeah, him an' th' rest o' Slytherin 'ouse," Gene remarks sarcastically. He pinches his bleeding nose with one hand, shaking Moody's hand with the other. "Gene Hunt."
"Heard talk o' you," Moody agrees. "Everybody thinks you're a nutter. Can't say I disagree now, though." He gives Gene a good-natured grin. "They had it coming, though. Call you a Mudblood?"
Gene nods sullenly. He's well aware the rest of Gryffindor talks about him behind his back - nutter is probably the most polite thing they say. Even his own House doesn't like him, and that's practically like signing your own death warrant here at Hogwarts.
"Most people would probably tell you that it's best to ignore 'em when they do that - they're trying to get your goat, and it works every time." Moody pauses and waves his wand at Gene's nose, staunching the bleeding. "Me, I think that someone ought to show them that they can't get away with that sort of thing. It's not unusual for them to treat first year Gryffindors like crap, but stooping that low - well, not surprising for Slytherin, but not exactly acceptable in wizard society. Heard whispers about that lot in particular - bit fond of the Dark Arts, they are. Not Riddle, of course."
"'Course not," Gene agrees readily, though he hasn't heard much about Riddle. "Seems like they think his shit don't stink."
"Got a foul mouth on you for a kid." Even though Moody's clearly still a kid himself - barely thirteen, is Gene's guess - he still talks with the air of someone older and wiser. "But yeah, you're right. Nott and Rosier and Lestrange, though, they're a nasty bunch. They'd probably be at Durmstrang if the continent wasn't such a mess right now."
This was the first Gene had heard of - presumably - other wizarding schools. "Yeah?"
"Durmstrang's probably lousy with Grindelwald's supporters - y'know, the dark wizard chap overrunning things over there?" He was right to assume that Gene was ignorant of wizarding current events; he was pretty sure that Hitler was a more important threat at the moment.
"Not workin' with Hitler, is 'e?"
Luckily, Moody seemed to be one of the few people who was actually aware there was a Muggle war going on. "Can't imagine he would stoop to that. Grindelwald - like most dark wizards - hates Muggles with a passion, thinks they aren't even human and ought to be rounded up and either slaughtered or put in camps."
"Sounds like a nice bloke," Gene commented, locating his wand on the floor - where he'd thrown it aside - and shoving it into a pocket of his robes.
"Yeah, and they probably agree with him. Some of the pure-blood families here do, though they wouldn't admit it openly. Not mine - more of the Slytherins. Only reason why Grindelwald hasn't tried to gather supporters over here, some reckon, is because he's afraid of Dumbledore." Moody shrugged, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. "Dark wizards are cowards, y'see, they only want to act if they've got a crowd to hide in."
"Not so different from Muggle blighters, then." Gene knew quite a lot about lowlife and scum - he'd wanted to be a copper when he grew up. Still did, though he wasn't sure how going to Hogwarts might change that. He'd practically cut his eyeteeth on watching Westerns in the cinema whenever he could scrounge up the money for a ticket - and often sneaking in when he couldn't - and had always admired the sheriffs in the movies. These dark wizards sounded like an unpleasant lot, but they needed to be dealt with, and he was glad he'd been fighting with them now.
"Suppose not. You heard of Aurors, Gene?" Like Moody really needed to ask, Gene thought, because it should have been bloody obvious that he didn't know a damn thing about the wizarding world. He shook his head anyway. "They're dark wizard catchers - hunt 'em down and stop them from hurting innocent people. That's the other thing, they like to hurt people weaker than they are, which probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to you, if you were fighting four Slytherins at once. I'd quite like to be an Auror someday - I think you might have the personality for it, too."
"If I don't get expelled from this ruddy place first." Or run away, he added mentally, though running away wasn't quite an option when you were in the middle of the Scottish Highlands. "Or fail all my exams."
"Yeah, well, there's that," Moody agreed, grinning. "Still. Ask Dumbledore about it sometime when you're up in front of him for giving Slytherins hell."
"I'll do that."
He's started fighting - not that he ever really stopped fighting, not since he was old enough to dole out punches to the other lads on the street - and he spends half his time being lectured in one professor's office or another. (They've stopped turning him over to his Head of House, figuring that Dumbledore's entirely too lenient on him.) All his free time is spent in detention, but that doesn't deter him in the slightest. These wizard kids are a soft lot, unsurprisingly, and they're always surprised when he tackles them instead of throwing some hex or another at them, which is their first option. (In fact, he's contemplated breaking their wands over their heads no few times.)
His latest fight is with a load of older Slytherins - fourth or fifth year, he thinks - there's about four of them against him, and it's in no way a fair fight, but it took him about five minutes with the Slytherins in his year to learn that 'mudblood' was not a good thing to be called. Since then, he's taken it upon himself to teach them that it's not a good thing to call him. All the boys are bigger than he is; he suspects they're Quidditch players, and while he wouldn't have thought before that riding around on a bloody broomstick was exercise, they're better-muscled than most kids here. Still, he fights gamely - never let it be said that Gene Hunt backed down from a fight - even through the curses on him. He seems to have a skill for resisting curses, as Professor Merrythought discovered in a joint session of Defence against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins.
Defence against the Dark Arts is basically the only thing he's good at here - it surprises even him, to be honest. He's not completely bollocks at Charms or Transfiguration, but everything else is a hopeless mess, particularly Herbology and Potions. He hates Potions especially; Professor Slughorn plays favorites like it's going out of style, and Gene suspects that even if he didn't melt cauldrons on a regular basis, the man would still hate him for being commoner than dirt. Dumbledore's the only professor here who seems to like him, and that, he figures, is because Professor Dumbledore likes everyone. (He's still pretty sure the man is a poofter, but even though he offers him lemon drops every time he's in his office, he hasn't done anything to make him suspicious; Gene can cope with it as long as he isn't a kiddie fiddler.)
One of the bastards has got him in his grasp, pinning his arms down, and Gene blindly jerks his head up to hit him in the face. He smiles a little when he hears the crunch of bone and a muffled curse; the idiot drops his wand as well as Gene, and he takes the opportunity to kick it behind a nearby statue. Getting rid of his opponents' wands is the key to fighting here.
"Oi!" Someone else wades into the fight - not a professor, they always stop the fighting with spells - and Gene hopes it's not another Slytherin. Five against one is just unfair. The boy looks to be a couple years older than he is; Gene thinks he's seen him in the common room a couple times. Most of the Gryffindors don't like him, but fighting against Slytherin, he's learnt, is a matter of honor. It's quite a lot easier with two people, as it turns out, particularly when the other actually knows spells to use against them. Gene decides to keep one occupied by bashing his head against the wall repeatedly - at least till the other three run off.
"Bloody mental, you are." The other boy speaks with a thick Scottish accent, running a hand through his curly red-blond hair. "Goin' after four of them without a wand. That's Riddle's gang, y'know, not that it matters much."
"Riddle?"
"Tom Riddle - Slytherin Prefect, all the professors think he's golden. I don't give a rat's arse for him, personally. Don't think Dumbledore does, either, which'd make him the only one here, I expect. I'm Moody, by the way - Alastor Moody." He offers Gene a hand. "Riddle doesn't like Muggle-borns much, either."
"Yeah, him an' th' rest o' Slytherin 'ouse," Gene remarks sarcastically. He pinches his bleeding nose with one hand, shaking Moody's hand with the other. "Gene Hunt."
"Heard talk o' you," Moody agrees. "Everybody thinks you're a nutter. Can't say I disagree now, though." He gives Gene a good-natured grin. "They had it coming, though. Call you a Mudblood?"
Gene nods sullenly. He's well aware the rest of Gryffindor talks about him behind his back - nutter is probably the most polite thing they say. Even his own House doesn't like him, and that's practically like signing your own death warrant here at Hogwarts.
"Most people would probably tell you that it's best to ignore 'em when they do that - they're trying to get your goat, and it works every time." Moody pauses and waves his wand at Gene's nose, staunching the bleeding. "Me, I think that someone ought to show them that they can't get away with that sort of thing. It's not unusual for them to treat first year Gryffindors like crap, but stooping that low - well, not surprising for Slytherin, but not exactly acceptable in wizard society. Heard whispers about that lot in particular - bit fond of the Dark Arts, they are. Not Riddle, of course."
"'Course not," Gene agrees readily, though he hasn't heard much about Riddle. "Seems like they think his shit don't stink."
"Got a foul mouth on you for a kid." Even though Moody's clearly still a kid himself - barely thirteen, is Gene's guess - he still talks with the air of someone older and wiser. "But yeah, you're right. Nott and Rosier and Lestrange, though, they're a nasty bunch. They'd probably be at Durmstrang if the continent wasn't such a mess right now."
This was the first Gene had heard of - presumably - other wizarding schools. "Yeah?"
"Durmstrang's probably lousy with Grindelwald's supporters - y'know, the dark wizard chap overrunning things over there?" He was right to assume that Gene was ignorant of wizarding current events; he was pretty sure that Hitler was a more important threat at the moment.
"Not workin' with Hitler, is 'e?"
Luckily, Moody seemed to be one of the few people who was actually aware there was a Muggle war going on. "Can't imagine he would stoop to that. Grindelwald - like most dark wizards - hates Muggles with a passion, thinks they aren't even human and ought to be rounded up and either slaughtered or put in camps."
"Sounds like a nice bloke," Gene commented, locating his wand on the floor - where he'd thrown it aside - and shoving it into a pocket of his robes.
"Yeah, and they probably agree with him. Some of the pure-blood families here do, though they wouldn't admit it openly. Not mine - more of the Slytherins. Only reason why Grindelwald hasn't tried to gather supporters over here, some reckon, is because he's afraid of Dumbledore." Moody shrugged, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. "Dark wizards are cowards, y'see, they only want to act if they've got a crowd to hide in."
"Not so different from Muggle blighters, then." Gene knew quite a lot about lowlife and scum - he'd wanted to be a copper when he grew up. Still did, though he wasn't sure how going to Hogwarts might change that. He'd practically cut his eyeteeth on watching Westerns in the cinema whenever he could scrounge up the money for a ticket - and often sneaking in when he couldn't - and had always admired the sheriffs in the movies. These dark wizards sounded like an unpleasant lot, but they needed to be dealt with, and he was glad he'd been fighting with them now.
"Suppose not. You heard of Aurors, Gene?" Like Moody really needed to ask, Gene thought, because it should have been bloody obvious that he didn't know a damn thing about the wizarding world. He shook his head anyway. "They're dark wizard catchers - hunt 'em down and stop them from hurting innocent people. That's the other thing, they like to hurt people weaker than they are, which probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to you, if you were fighting four Slytherins at once. I'd quite like to be an Auror someday - I think you might have the personality for it, too."
"If I don't get expelled from this ruddy place first." Or run away, he added mentally, though running away wasn't quite an option when you were in the middle of the Scottish Highlands. "Or fail all my exams."
"Yeah, well, there's that," Moody agreed, grinning. "Still. Ask Dumbledore about it sometime when you're up in front of him for giving Slytherins hell."
"I'll do that."