C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N THE UNFORGIVABLE CURSES he next two days passed without great incident, unless you T counted Neville melting his sixth cauldron in Potions. Pro- fessor Snape, who seemed to have attained new levels of vindictive- ness over the summer, gave Neville detention, and Neville returned from it in a state of nervous collapse, having been made to disem- bowel a barrel full of horned toads. “You know why Snape’s in such a foul mood, don’t you?” said Ron to Harry as they watched Hermione teaching Neville a Scour- ing Charm to remove the frog guts from under his fingernails. “Yeah,” said Harry. “Moody.” It was common knowledge that Snape really wanted the Dark Arts job, and he had now failed to get it for the fourth year run- ning. 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 ‘ 209 ‘