Liars

“What’s in the Shadows”

Winter, 1980

Alastor Moody did not consider himself mad.

He knew what they said, knew that they thought he had gone very close to the Darkness himself in the fighting of it. He did not agree.

The last three years had taken much out of him. He rarely looked in the mirror anymore. “If I wanted to see a stranger through glass,” he growled at the young Auror trainee who had asked, “I’d stare out a window.”

She had giggled and gone off to tell her friends what he had said, had whispered that he wasn’t all that scary up close but so ugly!

The next week she had been dead. Moody had found her head along with those of the Muggles she had been trying to save. The Dark Mark had burned high overhead, visible even in the growing dawn.

Albus looked shocked to see his old friend again when they met for the Wizengamot. “Alastor,” the older wizard said, and his old professor was obviously sad to see the way he now looked. “You’ve changed, my friend.”

Alastor shrugged one shoulder. He was more lopsided in general now, and tended to move that way. “Some people rot from the inside out,” he said with a jerk towards Crouch. “I’m just doing it the other way around.”

“Preferable in the extreme,” the older man agreed. “Shall we proceed?”

Moody clunked after him, in some ways relishing the way that the good wizards and witches turned to stare at him. That’s right, he thought savagely, stare at the Auror who’s given everything so you can sleep safe and sound in your beds. Go ahead, stare. Affecting an air of supreme unconcern, Moody heaved himself into the seat next to Albus, who gracefully alighted on the bench.

The trial made him sick. It was a mockery of justice made solid. Lucius Malfoy stood in front of the Wizengamot, spinning a tearful story of his tragic life under the (conveniently unprovable) Imperius Curse. He was the very picture of handsome repentance and remorse, capping his tale off with his “gesture” of absolution, a generous gift of gold. “Slimy bastard,” Alastor growled. “Thinks he can buy justice, does he?”

Very quietly, with just a hint of bitterness, Albus said, “He may be correct, Alastor,” as the Wizengamot ruled for him--by a very slim margin. Alastor and Albus had both voted against, and were overruled.

Alastor caught the Death Eater’s gaze as the blond man walked out, and he caught the hint of a sneer on that coldly handsome face. Moody let his lips part just slightly in a sort of growl, seeing the man he had brought to justice removed from it by careful application of funds. “Rotten from the inside out, that one,” he muttered, and Albus took hold of his arm with long fingers.

“Come, Alastor,” he said quietly. “There’s nothing more to be done.” He led his friend up the elevator, into an area from which they could safely apparate.

For the first time in half a year, Alastor saw the turrets of Hogwarts Castle rising out of the horizon. Even Crouch, it turned out, had decided that Moody needed a day off, and was just as unyielding in demanding that he take one as he was in every other aspect of his life.

As they drew closer, however, Alastor knew there was something wrong. His wand was in his hand before he knew why, before he registered even the complete word “threat,” pointing at the darkened trees on the edge of the grounds. A Stunning spell was out of his wand before he identified the object or person moving about, much to Albus’s surprise.

Limping heavily over to the area where the spell had hit, Alastor looked around. “Only a bird,” he reported. “Could’ve sworn I saw something bigger. Maybe someone’s still hiding there.”

“Alastor,” Albus said quietly, “We are within the grounds of Hogwarts. I assure you, nothing could have--”

“They might have penetrated the defenses,” Moody insisted. “Only last week there was another attack on the McKinnons, you heard it, and we thought we’d shielded their place to a fare-thee-well! I was there, Albus!” He did not say what was really bothering him, did not want to admit it had affected him so deeply, but knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it in much longer.

“I know you were, my friend.” Albus’s eyes were sad, and fortunately not indulgent or patronizing. Old friend or not, old Professor or not, Alastor would have hexed him he he had seen any sign of either emotion. Dumbledore sighed. “Perhaps before we go to the castle you would prefer a drink at The Three Broomsticks?”

Moody shook his head. “No thanks. I carry my own drink now,” he said, patting his hip flask. “Ever since that oleander incident with the Minister.” He shuddered at the memory. He had been the one to find the man, covered in blood and sweat and vomit and other substances to which he didn’t want to put names, obviously having thrashed around in the fluids for at least an hour. The leaves had been dried and ground, and placed in the Minister’s nightly cup of chamomile tea. That was the end of tea for Moody that he hadn’t grown, picked, dried, boiled, steeped, and drunk himself in the privacy of his own home.

“Of course,” Albus said readily, and turned to walk up to the castle, Moody limping along behind him, cursing his bad leg.

“I am rather gratified to notice,” Dumbledore said as they ascended the stairs, “that your first instinct was to use a Stunning spell, as it would have been ages ago. I have heard somewhat unsettling things trickling out of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”

Moody frowned more deeply at the mention. “Yeah, Crouch is thinking of authorizing Unforgiveables soon,” he admitted, then looked sharply at his old Headmaster. “You expected me to use them? Just like that?”

Dumbledore held up his long-fingered hands in a gesture of peace. “I never intimated anything of the sort. I was merely pleased to see that the mania of better-dead-than-alive hasn’t yet extended to all those I once taught.”

“Don’t go heaping praises on me yet,” Moody growled. “I’ve killed my share of Death Eaters.”

“Not if you could help it, or so I hear.”

Moody choked off his next response because there were children around now, children who didn’t need to see him break down with the guilt that he had been carrying for the last week that might have torn him apart if he let it. Instead, he let the comment go.

Abruptly, Dumbledore stopped in his tracks. “Well, I highly doubt you followed me here to speak of nothing more than the trial,” he said briskly. “Shall I leave you here for the time being?”

With a start, Moody realized that they were right outside of Minerva’s office. He had suspected Albus knew of the two of them for years, but this was the first proof he had received. “Yeah, all right,” he agreed. “Keep that long nose out of trouble.”

“Difficult, but possible,” the Headmaster said with a smile, then strode off to his own office.

When Moody pushed the door open, Minerva was a cat.

He locked the door behind himself, walked heavily into the room and sat down in her comfortable office chair as she morphed quickly back into a human woman, looking shocked at his appearance.

“Alastor?” she asked in incredulity. “What are you doing here?”

“Why were you a cat?” he retorted. “Were you investigating something? Was it a trap?” Almost compulsively, he flicked his wand at the door to lock it again.

“I was looking for a lost quill,” she said in amusement. “My vision is much better, especially in low light, in my Animagus form.”

“Wish I’d thought to become an Animagus,” Moody said darkly. “Being able to slip around undetected could’ve come in handy a few times.” Thinking of the most recent time he could have used such a power hurt, and he pushed the feeling away.

“Yes, well, I somehow doubt you would have the patience for it,” she muttered. She turned to face him then, and the two of them locked eyes for the first time in half a year.

He was not by nature a self-conscious man, which was a good thing. As it were, the only vanity he had was for his abilities, not his looks. Still, Minerva’s look of dismay wasn’t helping him feel any better.

She had changed, too. She was not how he remembered her, not quite. She was taller somehow, and looked both sadder and stricter, and her eyes and mouth were far more lined than they had been. There was something hard behind her eyes that he had never seen before.

They stared for long minutes, neither daring to move.

Then all of a sudden she was in his arms, and he was kissing her with everything he was, his hand not caressing her body but holding her face. She was trembling, and he pulled her down on top of his lap, grunting a little as she sat on his stump.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, and he shut her up by kissing her again, feeling that somehow, everything would be all right as long as he was kissing her. As long as their lips were touching, nothing could hurt them.

Neither of them seemed in a hurry to move the exchange along any farther, and they kissed languidly for several minutes without breaking. He knew that his fervor and his desperation were either mirrored in her or infecting her, because she clung to him just as tightly as he to her.

There was a loud “BANG” from outside the door, and Moody leapt to his feet, wand still in his hand, dumping Minerva unceremoniously on the floor. The door flew open in time for him to see a couple of young boys run off, laughing, having tipped over a suit of armor. He was about to fire off a curse when Minerva grabbed his wrist. “Alastor!” she shrieked, “those are students!”

His heart was still beating fast, blood and adrenaline pumping quickly through his veins in an advanced state of awareness, as he watched the boys disappear around a corner.

Minerva shut the door with a slam and turned to face him. “Alastor, you cannot go around hexing everyone that startles you!”

“They might not have been students,” he muttered, eyes darkly moving around the room. “They could have been in disguise, could have been covering up--”

“They were students!” she shouted. “Can’t you put down your wand for one moment? The first time you’ve seen me in months?”

He shook his head almost compulsively. “No, Minerva, I can’t. Because every time I do, someone gets hurt. Someone gets killed.” He turned away from her, muttering, “I thought you would understand.”

“Why?” She looked pained, though he wasn’t sure of the reason.

“They were your students, weren’t they?” They had come to it at last, the subject he had been trying not to bring up all day.

Comprehension did not dawn instantly on her face. “Who, those boys? Of course they--”

“Not them.”

She went silent, finally realizing what he was talking about. It hadn’t hit him again quite yet, though he knew it was only a matter of time. “So,” she said finally, when the silence had stretched on long enough, “it’s true, then?”

He nodded, and she staggered a little, as if weakened. “I had heard rumors,” she said softly, “but I didn’t want to believe them.” She sat down, looking up at him through watery eyes behind her spectacles. “Were you there?”

It was the question he hated. Neither answer was good, but he always thought a negative was worse. “No. I found Dolohov, two weeks ago. We dueled.” Surprisingly, Moody had walked away without further scars from the encounter, though he knew Dolohov was carrying a few now. “Then Rosier and Wilkes showed up, and...” he sighed. “I’d been tracking them for six months. I called Frank, went after them, left Dolohov to the Prewett brothers.”

“Antonin Dolohov did that?” Her voice was hardly above a whisper. “By himself?”

Moody laughed humorlessly. “Dolohov, kill Gideon and Fabian Prewett? No. He had help,” he said bitterly. “Four other Death Eaters, never found out who. In a fair fight they’d have wiped the floor with the Dark bastards.” Killing Rosier, seeing Frank take Wilkes down, had been cold comfort once they had found out what had happened in their absence. “We found them,” he added harshly in an almost-croak, “Me and Frank.” It had been worse than finding the Minister after the oleander, because he had known Gideon and Fabian, had trained them, and to see the expressions on their faces in that deserted warehouse...

Minerva’s hand touched his forearm, and he jerked in surprise, then relaxed. It was getting harder and harder for him to “switch off,” as it were. She ran her fingers lightly through his hair, then brushed over his face.

He hissed when she touched his nose, and she pulled back. “Was that Dolohov?” she asked in a whisper, indicating the large chunk that was missing.

“Rosier,” he corrected. “Not quite as quick as I used to be before I lost the leg.” He thumped his wooden leg, creating a hollow ‘thunk.’

Minerva raised her eyebrows. “Is your leg hollow, Alastor?”

He grinned, a little sheepishly. “Yeah, it is. Well, part of it.” With some difficulty and a grunt of pain, he managed to take off the leg and put it on the desk. Taking out his wand, he tapped it twice, then removed a little hidden compartment that had just been revealed. From it, he drew out three small vials and a stone.

“What...” she breathed, then held each up to the light in turn. “An antidote to Veritaserum?” she guessed at the dark green vial, to which he nodded. She held up the red one. “An Awakening Draft?” she guessed, and again he nodded. It was the most powerful potion for alertness that he had the skill to make. The totally clear vial seemed to puzzle her, and she passed over it for the moment to pick up the stone. “A bezoar?” At his nod, she seemed to realize what the clear vial was.

“Don’t!” he growled as she moved as if to uncork it. “If anyone but me opens that...well, you just shouldn’t open that.”

“Alastor,” she said quietly, “is this what I think it is?”

He nodded. It was his just-in-case potion, the one he never wanted to use. “Even a whiff will knock you out. One sip...” He shrugged. “Easier death than the Prewetts got. Better than Benjy Fenwick. At least it’s quick, and painless. And I’d rather take it than be captured by their lot any day of the year.”

She looked pained at the notion of him using such a thing, but merely nodded, replacing the four little items back into their hiding place. She moved to replace his wooden leg, but he motioned her to put it back down. “Leave it,” he said gruffly. “Good to relax.”

Minerva laughed a little then, undoubtedly at the notion of him relaxing. She was, actually, the only person with whom he would relax, which made his task for the afternoon all the more difficult. She moved behind him, and he forced his muscles not to tense just from having her so close. It had been a while. Her hands move onto his shoulders, fingers as bony as he had ever accused them of being, and he groaned as they worked into the stiff muscles of his neck. “Good,” he gasped out, eyes rolling back into his head in utter relief as she thoroughly worked away the tension that had been building up in his shoulders for the past thirty years. She had last done this for him a decade earlier, when she had still been spending summers in his house. “Do you remember our summers together, Minerva?” he asked almost softly.

Her fingers did not pause in their ministrations. “I do. The last one was only two years ago, before you went after the Lestranges.”

“I remember going after them,” he admitted, “but I don’t remember the summer before that.” He groaned as she worked out a particularly stubborn knot. “I know they’re saying I’m mad--”

“You’re not mad,” she cut him off. “You’re overworked, run down, stressed beyond belief and permanently injured to boot--”

“We call that ‘crippled,’” he interrupted her in turn, and gasped as she dug her thumb harder into his spine.

“Injured,” she repeated in a threatening tone, “not to mention all the emotional trauma you’ve been through, but you’re certainly not mad.” Working a bit lower on his back now she added, “Calling you mad would be giving you an excuse, and I for one am unwilling to do that.”

“I killed Rosier,” he confessed. “Looked him in the eyes and ended his life. Not the only one. Just the last one.” Telling her about it felt good, so he continued as she skillfully removed the knots from his back. “I killed Avery a few years ago. Never told you.”

Her fingers stilled. “I hadn’t heard...”

“Not your student,” he said quickly, “his father. One of Voldemort’s first Death Eaters, back when we thought they were called ‘Knights of Wallaburga’ or something.”

She started up again, and he sighed. “I almost killed Karkaroff. Spent six months tracking him down, and I wanted revenge. Didn’t take it, though. Hardest thing I ever did.” He started telling her the little things now, the stupid things that no one else knew about. “I killed a dog three months ago, just because it wandered into my yard and set the alarms off, blasted it before I could think. I held a Muggle at wand-point for three hours because I thought she was a Death Eater in disguise. I spent three days rereading the March seventh issue of the Daily Prophet because I thought there was a concealed code in the recipes section.” His voice was rising now, the words either being torn or forced from him, he couldn’t tell which. “I had to replace my refrigerator because I put one too many anti-intruder jinxes on the old one and it exploded. I smashed my birthday present apart because it looked like a basilisk egg. Minerva, I’m--”

“Shh!” Her arms were around him then, stopping the flow of his words and the shaking of his shoulders. She stroked his head with trembling fingers, as well as his shoulders and arms, until he finally stopped shaking “You aren’t going mad,” she said soothingly. “You’ve seen too much, is all. Anyone else would be the same way. Except of course that if anyone else got themselves into such a state, they would be begging for a vacation instead of trying to work even now!”

Her reproving tone made him laugh a little, albeit weakly. He sobered up quickly, as he always did nowadays. “The truth of it,” he said slowly, not wanting to give voice to his feelings but unable to stop himself, “is that I’m not sure we can win.”

She was silent, and he knew she was thinking the same thing. “He’s gathering followers faster than I can track them down. The worst part is that we have to be careful bringing them in, but they kill all of us they want. Minerva, you and Albus are the only people I know who haven’t been attacked by him outright yet, and that’s more luck than anything.”

“Luck and the fact that you won’t let me come to your home in the summers anymore,” she added.

“You’re too vulnerable there. I’m too vulnerable there. Got to keep moving whenever I can.”

Minerva looked disapprovingly down at him with her “Professor face.” “Alastor, I am quite capable of taking care of myself. I am a member of the Order of the Phoenix in my own right, and a more than adequately skilled witch, if I do say so myself. Professor Dumbledore places his trust in me, and--”

“Merlin’s beard, Minerva,” Alastor growled. “You think I’m doing this because I don’t think you can take care of yourself?”

“I think you’re behaving ridiculously, if that’s what you mean,” she said irritably. “You are an Auror, and I understand that you may have been under so much pressure that you’re jumping at shadows that don’t exist--”

“Don’t exist??” he bellowed, and she only flinched a little. “Shadows that don’t exist? Tell that to my missing leg, Minerva. Tell that to Gideon and Fabian Prewett! Don’t exist!”

“You have lost control of yourself!” she shouted, raising her voice almost to match his. “You can’t save everyone, Alastor Moody!”

He glared at her, and a tiny voice in his head said that even now he’d like to mount her on the table. He pushed that away and growled instead, “You don’t understand. You can’t understand. That’s why I have to do this.”

“And what,” she asked in a voice like brittle glass, “exactly are you doing?”

“Ending this!” he roared.

For the third time in as many minutes, the two stared at each other in silence. Minerva was the first to break it, turning towards her desk and straightening a few scrolls that had been piled there by over-hasty students. “I see,” she said carefully, not looking at him. “Well. I suppose you had better be off, then.” She handed him his wooden leg, still not meeting his eyes. “Death Eaters won’t catch themselves, will they?” She strode off along the classroom, straightening tables as she went, finally stopping to stand in front of an open cupboard, obviously not looking for anything in particular except a diversion.

It’s better this way, he told himself. If they were no longer together (as together as they had ever been, anyway), she couldn’t be used against him as a target. There had been an attempt two years previous, the last time he had invited her to his house for the summer. Whether it was aimed at him or at her, he couldn’t take the chance again. He attached the leg firmly to his stump, and clunked heavily out of her office without a backward glance.

Two days later, his left eye was plucked out of his head.

One year later, they met briefly at Lily and James Potter’s funeral.

They did not see each other again for over a decade.