They told him he had to retire. They said he had gotten too old, too paranoid; that he was starting to see and hear things that weren’t there and that he was mistaking everyday occurrences for attacks. All in all, they believed he had taken one too many jinxes to the head. There wasn’t anything wrong with his brain, they just wanted to get rid of him, he had ticked off too many people and many believed things would be easier if he was just ‘out of the way’. They forced retirement upon him, stating that it was for ‘the best’. Perhaps there was a small grain of truth in their ramblings; true he could no longer move noiselessly with his wooden leg; and true his tracking, duelling and stealth skills were severely compromised due to his lack of two functioning lower limbs, but that did not mean that his mind had slowed and become disabled or faulty. Feigning concern, they said that they had his ‘best interests’ at heart, saying that he should enjoy more time with his remaining limbs instead of ‘running the risk of losing more’. That was a bunch of dragon dung, lies cooked up to use as an excuse. None of them cared about his lost limbs, as long as he continued to capture Death Eaters. The Ministry felt that their best Auror losing a limb was a worthy price to pay to have another dark wizard incarcerated.

No, the truth of the matter was that Alastor Moody had just seen too much. He was so much associated with a wizarding war that everyone just wanted to forget. Thirteen years had passed and his face still served as a reminder of an old world they did not like to think about. Voldemort was gone. His supporters imprisoned. Harry Potter had saved them all. The world was safe. Dragon dung the whole lot of it - DRAGON DUNG! They were all fools, all naive, blind idiots; lulled into a false sense of security by the heroics of a one-year-old. They could delude themselves all they wanted, but the truth was that The Dark Lord would rise again, make no mistake about it, Moody had been saying it for years, it was only a matter of time.

Moody had given the Auror Office the best years of his life and, what was more, he had even given them his left leg, his right eye and half his nose, and not to mention pretty much seventy percent of his actual skin. He had sacrificed a great many things during his tenure in Auror robes, then, once old Gawain Pringle retired, they got a new head of the department: one Rufus Scrimgeour and Moody was simply discarded like last week’s old, yellowed newspaper. ‘Restructuring’ they called it, ‘bringing in new blood’, ‘revamping the whole Auror Office’. All his years of service had counted for nothing. They had simply given him a card and a bottle of Fire-whiskey and told him to be on his way. Oh, how he hated it.

Half the cells in Azkaban were full because of him. He never killed, if he could avoid it, always brought his quarry in alive where possible. When they had given the Aurors new powers (that was their pathetic code for permission to use Unforgivable Curses), Moody never resorted to such means, because that would mean stooping to the level of the enemy and he was better than that, he was always better than that. He was of the old breed; the consummate survivor, the warrior, the mastermind; he never cursed first and asked questions later, like one Bartemius Crouch. Moody always did things his way, which may not have been the easiest or the most practical way, but it certainly was the right one.

He could track down the most elusive Death Eaters, ones that others had failed to apprehend, even after months of trying. He had an eye for the tiny details of a crime scene that most over looked. He could read a person by their expression and tell if they were lying or not, simply by looking at them. He could smell a crime in the making and could read occurring events in a way no one else could. He could see the connection between mundane things; how they all added up to something sinister no one suspected. He saw everything and missed nothing. It was his blessing and his curse.

He also had a real eye for talent. Every kid that he had picked to be under his charge always rose through the ranks of the department quickly. He could spot the skills, the talent, and the mind that made one a true Auror. He saw things in kids others did not and when others called him mad or insane for consenting to take on a new recruit that others believed useless, Moody always proved such critics wrong. Take young Tonks for an example, no one wanted her in the Auror Office on account of her own clumsiness and inability to stay on her feet at the best of times, but Moody had looked passed all that, in her he saw courage, bravery, a cunning and clever mind and a real talent for concealment and disguise. Tonks thought like an Auror, she could make the same connections as he could between happenings and events, she looked passed the ordinary and saw the tiny details others disregarded. None of the other senior Aurors wanted young Tonks in their ranks, but Moody took her, Moody taught her and now she was his real protégé, rising up through the ranks of the department as he had expected her to. But she was his last. Retirement had been thrust upon him soon after she had completed training. Moody was robbed of the chance to watch her become the brilliant Auror he knew she was.

Retirement didn’t suit Moody. He was born to be in the thick of the action. He was made to catch dark witches and wizards. He had a considerable talent for blending into his surroundings and becoming truly invisible at will. He had a knack for gaining entry to impenetrable buildings. He had the uncanny ability to spot booby-traps, uncover plots and see through a ruse as though it were glass. He was made to be an Auror. He thought like an Auror. He acted like an Auror. He even looked like an Auror. He was an Auror at heart, pure and simple. His place was on the battle field or else in his study pouring over documents and reports as his brain worked feverishly, searching for an unseen clue or a connection between events. He was not designed for a life of leisure. It bored him. There was no thrill or excitement. His brain needed problems, needed puzzles, needed mysteries and he found himself growing increasingly more restless and agitated the longer he spent without such stimulants.

He had offered to stay on as a consultant, but Scrimgeour wouldn’t have it. The new head claimed that old Mad-Eye would be more of a hindrance than a help, more of a liability than an asset. Experience amounts to nothing if people think you’re a nutter. He had also offered to stay and train new recruits; but Mr-New-Head thought it unwise, feeling Moody’s experience was no longer valuable, and instead of aiding young Aurors he would hinder them, making them fear constant attack at every second of every day and making them see enemies where there were none. But Scrimgeour didn’t understand; he had been stuck behind a desk for too long, to survive in these troubling times one needed constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Voldemort was not gone. He would rise again and everyone needed to be ready when that day came.

Young Tonks and Shacklebolt visited him often, called in on their way to or from crime scenes. Sometimes they called in to see how he was doing, but other times they dropped by to ask his opinion on difficult cases or to enquire if he could make a connection between murders or disappearances that they could not. He had a real fondness for the pair of them; that is until they started advising him to take a long holiday or get a real hobby or just leave the damn house. He had hobbies, loads of them. He liked reading - that was a hobby, wasn’t it? He read all the newspapers and all the wizard magazines. He picked them apart, dissected them for information, for secret codes even. He read them backwards, read them upside down and sometimes he only read every second word or the first word or letter of each line. In short he was looking for any information, in code or otherwise, that would help track down Voldemort’s old supporters or help predict a murder or disappearance. He also liked reading over his old cases, in the hope of solving new mysteries, like the one’s Shacklebolt and young Tonks were working to decipher. They always brought him new cases, not necessarily because they needed help with them, but more because they saw how frustratingly bored he was, how he lacked both friends and ‘proper’ hobbies and how his mind craved stimulation. All that and the fact that the way he dissected the newspaper everyday really unnerved them for some unknown reason.

Moody didn’t need friends, the only people that interested him were the ones he was trying to hunt down and imprison. Normal people bored him; he found their careless attitude to security exasperating, their small talk unexciting and their mundane minds frustratingly slow. But to say he had no friends was a lie. He had two friends, well four if you wanted to get technical or two friends and two close (now former) colleagues if you wanted to get really technical. But whatever way you want to put it, these four were the only people he trusted. First was Albus Dumbledore, head of the Order of the Phoenix, leader of the rebellion against Voldemort, ever the orator for all outsiders, ever the true voice of reason in a world of chaos and ever the content headmaster of Hogwarts who refused power for the sake of power. Second was his (now former) colleague, Kingsley Shacklebolt, the talented, level-headed Auror and future Head of the Department once everyone came to sense and saw passed Scrimgeour’s accolades to the clueless crup he had become. Third was his protégé, young Nymphadora Tonks, clumsy but brilliant. And last was the werewolf, Remus Lupin.

Now, you might think him mad for trusting a werewolf, and you’re probably right, but Lupin was different. Moody had first met the werewolf when the latter was merely a boy fresh out of school. Both had fought side by side for Dumbledore as members of the Order of the Phoenix. At first Moody was deeply mistrustful of the werewolf, but over time he made many interesting observations. Lupin was cautious and careful, extremely brave, uncommonly loyal and exceptionally clever. He had the makings of an Auror, but, due to what he was, the lad could never become one. What intrigued Moody most about Lupin was that he never embraced the monster, never, in fact he became the polar opposite: he was severely self-deprecating on the werewolf front. He feared what he became at the full moon and as such could never embrace the wolf. Fear kept him safe, kept him in control of himself. He was a man that used fear to his advantage and Moody liked that, really liked that.

Lupin never killed opponents; he always stunned them, always without exception. He respected life and his own power to take it away. Killing was what monsters did and Lupin refused to be dragged down to that level. He was also remarkably even-tempered and cool in a crisis. He commanded himself well, he did not wear his heart on his sleeve and he knew how to keep secrets. He was kind and caring, two traits that usually Moody saw as weaknesses, but for Lupin they were his greatest strengths. Lupin was thin and pale, but that didn’t matter in the slightest because if he had your back in battle, you were going to be alright. He was a good ally to have, one of the best. He was a werewolf, but Moody would trust him with his life regardless.

When the war had ended, Moody was drawn to Lupin a way he had been drawn to no other. Lupin was the ever outsider. He was a werewolf stuck in a prejudiced society. Also, the war had taken from him the only people who had seen passed his condition to the man behind it. He was lost and alone without them. Moody was drawn to him for that reason. For all his skills and talents, Moody lacked friends and Lupin provided that human contact that truly kept old Mad-Eye from becoming a completely obsessed, reclusive Auror with a puzzle-complex.

He visited Lupin often; every Tuesday evening, like clockwork since the Potters had died, except when Tuesday fell on the full moon of course. At first he did it out of pity. He did not like the idea of Lupin being alone as he was afraid of what dark space such isolation would bring the man into, but Lupin was always stronger than that. He was the consummate survivor, like Moody. They did not do anything on these Tuesday evenings except talk; pure and simple conversation, that was all. It was only when Lupin took the DADA job at Hogwarts and was no longer available for Tuesday evening visits that Moody realised how much he depended on his friendship, how much it actually meant to him, course, he would never tell Lupin that. Never. But he thought Lupin knew, Moody had given him a super-sensitive, highly advanced, limited-edition Sneakoscope for his birthday and if that didn’t say: you’re my friend, I care, Moody didn’t know what did. But it wasn’t just the friendship that was important to Moody; it was the fact that Tuesday was the only evening he physically left the house. He didn’t like leaving, unless he had a reason. Death Eaters could infiltrate his home and ransack it while he was gone, possibly poison all the food in the cupboards, or set a trap for him or maybe cast spying jinxes to monitor his movements. No, he would not venture outside unless he had to, and he only had to for work and on Tuesday evenings when he visited his werewolf friend.

But Moody would be abandoning Lupin now, for tomorrow he was off to take the very job Lupin had vacated. Moody was going to Hogwarts to teach kids how to defend themselves against what was really out there. It was a once off favour to Dumbledore, and had anyone else asked, Moody would have answered them with a flat: no. Sitting behind a desk never appealed to Moody. He was not keen on the Hogwarts job, mostly because he would be teaching kids, kids who ranged drastically in magical ability. He was used to being surrounded by the elite - the very best of the best (Aurors in other words). To cope with weak students he would need a patience he did not really possess. Then there were all those ministry restrictions, dictating what he could and could not teach. They would drive him mad.

Moreover, all his Dark Detectors would go haywire, picking up kid’s stuff; lies about not doing homework, lies about being out of bounds, lies about seeing the ghost of Merlin haunting a broom cupboard on the sixth floor, which was complete balderdash, because Merlin was in fact still alive, he was just devoting his life to guarding Excalibur from dark wizards, and Moody had all the evidence to prove it. But no one believed him. He was just another nutter with a conspiracy theory, and people wondered why Moody didn’t like being around other people? There’s your answer: idiots the whole lot of them. Anyway, all Merlin related evidence aside; his defences would be considerably lessoned at Hogwarts. He would not be able to prepare his own meals anymore, and would have to put his faith in the Hogwarts House Elves. He didn’t like that in the slightest. Then there was all the back talk, the kids that just did not care about the subject and the fact that he would come face to face with the off-spring of known Death Eaters, the ones that had escaped Azkaban. If there was one thing he did not need was constant reminders that the enemy were still out there, biding their time, waiting to strike and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Yes, teaching in that school did not appeal to him, but he was so damn bored that it was starting to look attractive. All that and the fact that there was some very strange stuff happening of late: a Muggle-man disappearing near Voldemort’s father’s house, Bertha Jorkins vanishing without a trace in the last place Voldemort was said to have been hiding, that and the Dark Mark resurfacing and Igor Karkaroff, Mr-Annoying-Snivelling-Cowardly-Death-Eater-Number-Twenty-One, returning to Britain. All this pointed to one thing: Voldemort’s return, and Dumbledore agreed with him on this one, so there was no playing the ‘Old Mad-Eye is gone in the head’ card. Things felt like they did last time The Dark Lord came to power: disappearances, possible murders, strange happenings, old skeletons jumping out of the long-forgotten wardrobes. As much as Moody disliked the idea of teaching snot-nosed little buggers about jinxes, hexes, curses, dark creatures and Death Eaters, even he could not deny that it was going to be an interesting year, the very thing he needed considering retirement was driving him mad. Dumbledore sensed that something was brewing and he wanted an extra pair of eyes at Hogwarts and there weren’t any eyes better than those of Alastor Moody.

A sudden noise, like the creaking of floor-boards, jerked Moody from his thoughts. He sat bolt up-right, his electric-blue magical eye whizzing and his wand held aloft. Moody pulled himself out of his armchair and got to his feet. He could not see what had made the noise. He glanced at his Sneakoscopes, but they were balanced motionless on their points. He looked into his Foe-Glass which he had propped up on the mantelpiece, but there was nothing in it, aside from the usual indiscernible white figures swirling menacingly in its depths. They didn’t bother him, unless he saw the white’s of their eyes, then he knew he was in real trouble. His magical eye did another sweep of the room and the rooms beyond and above. It was a dead useful little trick, being about to see through walls thanks to his magical eye. It was better than having a normal eye, aside from the fact that it looked ostentatious and grotesque, which only added to his rather insane appearance, prompting people to refer to him by the nickname ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody. Mad-Eye or not, Moody didn’t like dismissing the sound he had heard as the work of a draft, or perhaps a mouse, because that was exactly what an intruder would want him to think. Moody glanced at his pocket watch. It was late, but there was nothing for it, he would have to search each and every room before he turned in. He wasn’t going to leave anything to chance - CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Moody began to creep as quietly as his wooden leg would allow him from room to room. He didn’t turn on the lights, in case that alerted the possible intruder to the fact that Moody was searching for them. Moody just gripped his well-used wand tightly in his scarred hand, ready to strike when necessary. His magical eye scanned each room he entered from top to bottom, as did his normal eye because you can never be too reliant on magical prosthesis. His ears were completely in-tune to his surroundings, ready to pin-point the source of any disturbance. Moody moved as silently as he could around his house, his heart beat slow and almost silent. It had taken him years to control it as such, making it stop beating those loud, fast, frantic beats that would surely give him away in pressured situations.

Moody would be the first to tell you that you could learn a lot about a person from simply looking closely at them. If he was to read and analyse himself, he would discern that he had seen the true horrors of war, and one look at his visage would validate that. His face was so horribly scarred that it looked like a piece of charred wood that some blind artist decided to carve into what he thought was a face. Each scar told a story though; each one was earned over a long career of fighting against dark magic and those who used it.

Furthermore, Moody’s one remaining normal eye confirmed all the horrors he had seen. It was small, dark and beady and was moulded into such a shape after a lifetime of squinting through the darkness, fog and/or smoke that was commonly found in battle. His stare was hard and cold, showing how he had been completely de-sensitised to violence. Nothing disturbed him anymore. His face betrayed none of his feelings or thoughts. He was hardened by war, physically and mentally. He had lost his left leg. It had been cursed off by dark magic, the kind that prevented any sort of rehabilitation. Where his good, loyal leg used to be was a fake wooden leg, one that gave away his position with a dull clunk on every second step he took. To compensate, he had to use a long staff to help him walk, which he resented as it made him feel weak, exposed and vulnerable.

Finally, in addition to all these observations, he would notice that he was rarely seen out of his long, dirty travelling coat. It had many pockets full of antidotes to fast-acting poisons, maps of various parts of the country, a hip-flask, two week’s worth of rations, a small Sneakoscope, parchment, quills, strange optical devices, machines that popped and fizzed and several bottles of dittany. He lived in his coat. He did not like to take it off and leave it unattended as someone could sabotage his antidotes or place a tracking device in it. No, he never took off his coat because he knew that while he was wearing it, he would be ready to face any trouble or danger coming his way. He was a soldier who had seen the true terror of war and that was written all over his body.

Moreover, it was not only your appearance which revealed valuable information about you, your house, your actual living space, had many stories to tell. As Moody snuck around, still searching his rooms, he thought about what they said about him. Firstly, the rooms showed that he had a well ordered mind. The house was exceptionally messy. The wallpaper was old and peeling in every room, and dust clung to it in clumps. Books, parchment, newspapers and reports were scattered all over the floor in most rooms, and all over every table or counter-space there was. Robes, shoes, cloaks and socks were rolled in balls in trunks. Strange contraptions, odd machines, spinning orbs and bizarre beings trapped in jars sat perched precariously atop large piles of parchment. Yet, despite the sheer mess that would certainly cause those people with obsessive cleaning disorders to die, Moody still knew where everything was, and could find anything he wanted quickly and effortlessly. He remembered where everything was and he lost nothing. After all, one man’s mess was another’s filing system.

The second thing Moody’s home revealed about his character was that he left absolutely nothing to chance. A large telescope device hung just above the back of the front door, which allowed Moody to look carefully at whoever was in the garden. It flashed red if the caller’s body temperature rose even slightly (usually a sign of lies) and it scanned over the person, searching for even the slightest drop of spilled Polyjuice Potion (which indicated imposters posing as one of Moody’s four friends). Also, several Sneakoscopes stood sentinel at either side of the door frame. The door had no less than ten locks, all requiring a complex spell to unlock. In every room there were at least two highly sensitive Sneakoscopes sitting on window sills or on book shelves. His large Foe-Glass spent the daylight hours on the mantelpiece in the sitting room, and the hours of darkness on the wall in his bedroom. He had enough supplies in the pockets of his travelling coat to last him a fortnight living rough. His magical trunk had seven locks on it, each opening a different compartment, and the seventh contained a spell bunker which could withstand most jinxes and hexes, and could only be opened by the key holder. He didn’t have a back door as it made his house easier to break into and all his windows were locked and covered with the most advanced security spells. In short, his house was impregnable. No one could get inside.

The third thing that his house publicised was that only the truly deserving gained his trust. Upon closer examination, the door revealed that only four people (excluding Moody himself) were allowed to be admitted: Dumbledore, Shacklebolt, young Tonks and Lupin. The door was trained to recognise their hands and finger prints and no one else’s. And once they had answered three security questions (from a long list of about 120) the door would let them in. No one else could be admitted, unless they were accompanied by Moody himself. Only the truly deserving had Moody’s trust.

And finally, the last thing Moody’s house exposed about him was that he had an undying obsession with puzzles. The walls of his sitting room, his kitchen, his bedroom and his spare room were covered in pictures of Death Eaters, old newspaper clippings and large maps of various towns and cities across the country. Different coloured pins were littered at various intervals on these maps; marking various sightings of elusive Death Eaters, places where bodies were found or last known sightings of people who had disappeared. These pins were all joined together with an intricate spider-web of thread. Black thread indicated murder. Red thread displayed disappearances. Green thread meant under surveillance. Purple thread showed suspected foul play. And finally silver thread meant Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

To an outsider the whole thing gave the impression that the room belonged to a giant colour-loving spider, not a human being, but to those who knew how to read it, they highlighted the connections between every mysterious thing that had happened in Britain for the last thirty years. In addition to this, various photos of Death Eaters, fugitives and other dark wizards were scattered across the walls as well. They leered at Moody with their wild, mad grins. Some were laughing insanely, others were fighting bonds, and others still were staring with a dangerous, murderous glint in their eyes. Moody would spend hours staring at them, hoping to spot something in their appearance that may indicate where they were or what they were up to.

After about an hour and a half of searching his house with a fine tooth comb, Moody found nothing out of the ordinary, aside from a mouse, not an Animagus, just a normal mouse, housing itself between several old books on the Dark Arts. Moody picked up his Foe-Glass and climbed the stairs to go to bed, turning on his security spells with a flick of his wand as he did so. He stored his all important travelling coat in his trunk for safe keeping and then gazed around the room. He had all his packing for Hogwarts to do in the morning. There was no way he was packing up all his Dark Detectors now, what if someone came to attack him in the middle of the night? He would have no warning. No, he would pack everything tomorrow. His rolled his eyes at the thought of having to disable all the Dark Detectors he was bringing with him so he could pack them away safely for travelling. It would be boring and it would take hours.

Nevertheless, he changed into his pyjamas, took off his wooden leg, placed it in his holder and got into bed. He took his magical eye out of its socket and placed it in a glass of clean water he had conjured with his wand. He then turned off the light. He lay in the darkness, completely alert for a long time. Suddenly, his door creaked. Moody sat bolt upright and snatched his wand out from under his pillow, pointing it at the door as his magical eye gave the whole house a sweeping glance. All his Sneakoscopes were still. He then spotted the curtains quivering slightly in the darkness. He got out of bed to investigate. It was just a draft seeping in through one of the loose seals on the window frame. But how did the seal around the window become loose? Was it simple wear and tear or was it foul play? Moody spent the next quarter of an hour examining the window seal and only went back to bed when he was certain that its looseness was nothing more than simple deterioration. He lay back down in the darkness, and slowly, very slowly, he drifted into a troubled sleep.

Several hours later, Moody awoke experiencing something akin to a heart attack. He was violently pulled from his slumber by the sound of pretty much every Sneakoscope he owned lighting up and going off. The sound was deafening and the light was so blinding that it burnt the image of his bedroom onto his retinas. He groped blindly for his magical eye. In his haste he knocked the glass it was in to the floor. The eye rolled away into the mass of books and parchment. Cursing, he pulled out his wand and summoned the eye to him. He grasped it and popped it into its socket. Immediately his magical eye searched all the rooms below, while his normal eye focused on helping him attach his wooden leg. He then looked into his Foe-Glass, two figures stood in it, clear as day: the faking-his-own-death-Animagus Peter Pettigrew and - and, Moody did not believe what he was seeing: Barty Crouch’s son.

But that was impossible, his ever rational mind told him fiercely, Crouch is dead, died twelve years ago in Azkaban.

Suddenly, there was a sound like cannon fire. Moody’s magical eye locked the source instantaneously: a large section of his sitting room wall had just been blown apart and two hooded men were entering. Moody could not believe what he was witnessing. His house was impenetrable. He had taken every precaution. He had added every security measure under the sun. He had thought of every possible entry point and fortified all weak areas. No one could break through his defences, no one.

There was another blast. Moody pulled himself to his feet. He was slow, so slow, his joints and limbs were aching, protesting against being awoken and moved so suddenly. Moody hated the fact that he was so slow; this was not a time to be slow. He limped to the bedroom door and pulled it open, leaving his staff behind; it would only hinder him in battle. Gripping his wand tightly, he staggered to the stairs, just as the intruders entered the hall. His Sneakoscopes continued to flash and howl.

He fired a stunning spell at the first intruder. The figure dodged it, and fired a hex back at him. He ducked behind the banister just in time to avoid it. He needed to get down the stairs. If he stayed up here he would be trapped for sure. With a speed akin to a much younger man, his head darted over the ramparts of his stairs. He flicked his wand and all the books, newspapers and parchment lying in piles on the floor in the sitting room below flew into the air, launching themselves at the intruders, and more importantly, drawing their attention away from Moody.

Taking advantage of all the confusion and his opponents’ distraction, the Auror hobbled down the stairs as fast as his wooden leg would allow. The Sneakoscopes were still going off everywhere. He could not hear a thing over their din. One of the intruders was shouting at the other, but what he was saying Moody could not discern. Instead Moody attempted to stun the shorter of the pair, Pettigrew, but missed. Realising he was being attacked; Pettigrew pointed his wand at the stairs and shouted something. Almost instantly, the steps beneath Moody’s feet caved, turning into a slide. The legs went from under Moody and he fell down the stairs, knocking off both banister and wall in vain attempts to slow down the speed of his fall. He hit the floor at the end of the stairs hard. He lay in a heap, struggling for air as the breath had been knocked out of him. His head and all his other remaining limbs were throbbing with pain and he had definitely broken a bone, but right now he could not tell which as there were too many pain signals being fired at his brain all at once.

With an immense effort, Moody pulled himself up off the floor. His head was spinning. He staggered into the wall, colliding with it painfully. His vision was blurred. His magical eye was spinning around and around without his volition. There was a flash of light and the shelf above Moody’s head cracked, sending half a book-shop avalanching down on top if him. His head felt like it had been split in two. He had no idea why he wasn’t unconscious. The smell of books smothered him. His lungs inhaled dust. Pointing his wand blindly, he blasted the cave of books off himself. He stood up again. His magical eye had stopped spinning. The parchment was still swirling around Crouch and Pettigrew, like a paper hurricane.

Moody was in the hall. He was face to face with his opponents. It was two on one, not exactly fair but he had duelled and beaten far more before. Moody aimed a stunning spell at Pettigrew, again he dodged it. Growing frustrated, Crouch flicked his wand and all the flying pieces of parchment suddenly burst into flame, turning black and crispy; their ends looking like gnarled talons, before they disappeared, filling the room with black smoke as they did so. Moody sent stunning spell after stunning spell at the intruders. They blocked each one in turn, while firing back their own. Moody evaded them without any great difficulty. He tired to vary his arsenal, using the body-bind curse, and the Confundus Charm, in the hope hitting one of his attackers, who would, in turn, get confused and turn on the other instead. The Sneakoscopes continued to wail, sending blazing sparks of light around the house. Such flashing lights illuminated the room from different angles, casting a series of very menacing shadows that moved suddenly as the source of light changed. Moody kept mistaking the shadows for Pettigrew and Crouch. Several times he fired hexes at these shadows, achieving nothing, aside from blowing a hole in his wall or else smashing one of his possessions.

Dust swirled in the air from colliding spells. The loud cacophony of bangs and crashes punctuated the shrieking of the Sneakoscopes. Danger hung in the room like a kind of crude, intoxicating smell. The debris of Moody’s life soared into the air: books, broken Sneakoscopes, plates, cups, smashed lenses, spinning optical devices, chairs, a large carriage clock and the kitchen sink. Chaos had full reign. Moody did not know where his opponents were. He was casting spells blindly, hoping to hit a target. His magical eye could see through walls, invisibility cloaks and even the back of his own head, but it could not see through fog, smoke or dust-clouds, like the one now encasing the lower storey of his house.

A flash of blue light hit Moody in the side of the head. He fell down for that third time that night, his head smashing into the ground. He was briefly unconscious. When he awoke, he saw Crouch stepping tentatively towards him. Moody rolled over and pointed his wand at the candelabra on the wall, which flew straight at Crouch, the man dived side ways to avoid it. Moody crawled behind his upturned couch, hoping for a small respite so he could gather his thoughts. There is a pause. The dust began to settle. The Sneakoscopes continued to roar, the sound pounding in Moody’s head.

Moody’s whole body was shaking. The side of his head was bleeding profusely. His wrist was definitely broken. His nose was bleeding too. Moody had no recollection of being hit in the nose at all. He brain felt sluggish and slow. His magical eye would not stop spinning. He felt dizzy. He did not understand how Crouch could be alive. He had died in Azkaban. The Dementors had buried him there. Dementors can’t see though, they can only sense people, so it would have been all too easy to switch places with another prisoner when the opportune moment arose. What was more, Moody did not understand what Crouch and Pettigrew wanted with him. He was a retiree with unlimited leisure time. He didn’t have any useful information or anything that could be valuable to Voldemort. Maybe the Death Eaters, like the Auror Office, just wanted him out of the way.

“You’ve fought bravely, Moody,� shouted Crouch, panting heavily. “But you are injured - just come out - and we will end this - quickly.�

The taunt of asking him to surrender seemed to galvanise Moody, tearing him from his thoughts and making his brain catch up with the rest of him. Give up? Him? Never! If he was to die, he would do so fighting, do so defending himself until the very last ounce of strength had been removed from his body. He was Alastor Moody. He didn’t give up. He fought on, always, until the end, and if today was his end, so be it. He was an Auror, he would never stop fighting those who attempted to take his freedom and his life from him. He expected nothing less of himself than that.

Moody managed to focus his magical eye. He looked through the couch he was currently crouching behind. Pettigrew was trembling in a corner, hiding behind the over turned kitchen table. The wall dividing sitting room and kitchen had crumpled. Water was spraying out from the broken kitchen pipes where the sink used to be. Crouch was standing in the middle of the sitting room, his wand pointed directly at Moody. Old Mad-Eye was cornered. He would need something big and impressive to get out of this one. Sparks began igniting into being in his mind. Fires of thought erupted, their rushing flames joining together, mapping the intricate structure of a plan.

With the agility of someone half his age, Moody darted out from behind the couch, pointed his wand at his overturned kitchen table and sent it straight at Crouch. It collided with the Death Eater, sandwiching him between it and the wall. The sheer force with which the table struck caused its legs to become wedged in the bricks. Crouch was trapped. Moody turned his attention then to Pettigrew, who was scrambling to his feet.

Moody stood up, his magical eye still fixed on Crouch. He pointed his wand at Pettigrew and bellowed: “Expelliarmus!� Pettigrew’s wand flew through the air and landed somewhere in the debris of Moody’s demolished sitting room. Pettigrew stood trembling in the corner. He had no wand. He was completely at Moody’s mercy. Again, Moody pointed his wand at the Death Eater but this time he shouted: “Incarcerus!� Large cords flew out of Moody’s wand, they snaked around Pettigrew, tying him up, locking him in their embrace.

Moody limped towards Crouch, his magical eye now fixed on Pettigrew. Crouch was struggling to extract his wand. It was stuck, like him, between table and wall. Moody pointed his wand directly between Crouch’s eyes.

“Don’t move, scum,� Moody barked. He focused his attention on Crouch, his magical eye flitting back and forth from Crouch’s trapped wand to Pettigrew tied up in the corner. No one moved for a moment. The sound of the Sneakoscopes pierced the air, their flashing lights making the demolished sitting room look like the lair of some insane, shadowy demon. The slow clock of water droplets from the broken pipes in the kitchen could just be heard amongst the din of the Sneakoscopes. They were like a timer, counting down the seconds that Crouch had left as a free Death Eater.

“Now I’m giving you the chance to give yourself up,� Moody growled, his wand pointed at his trapped intruder, his normal leering. “You have fought your fight and are beaten.�

Crouch simply laughed, he threw his head back and just laughed.

The sound goaded Moody into action. The stunning spell was on his lips, he was about to strike when, suddenly, Pettigrew vanished. He couldn’t have Disapparated, Moody had Anti-Disapparation jinxes set up on his house to prevent such escapes. He must have transformed, Moody deduced quickly, cottoning on to what was happening. He did not like not knowing where Pettigrew was, the cowardly bugger would probably attack when Moody’s back was turned. His magical scanned everywhere to find the little rat. It located Pettigrew’s wand in a corner, before it located the rat standing beside it.

“Oh no you don’t, laddie!� barked Moody, allowing his wand and both his eyes to shift from Crouch to Pettigrew.

Several things happened at once. Moody sent a full-body bind curse at Pettigrew, but the rodent miraculously evaded it by wedging itself between two Encyclopaedias. Then suddenly, Pettigrew was a man again and seizing his wand, he sent a hex straight at Moody’s wooden leg, just as Crouch, taking advantage of Moody’s lapse of concentration, extracted his wand from between table and wall and uttered a disarming charm. Moody’s wooden leg was blasted off at exactly the same moment as his wand flew out of his hand. Moody crumpled to the floor, hitting it hard with his knees. It felt like his remaining knee-cap had been cleaved in two. Crouch extracted himself from behind the table and pointed his wand at Moody, immobilising him in that kneeling position. The Death Eater laughed at the sight. Moody was going to die on his knees. Moody didn’t like that. He struggled, but he had no means to overcome the spell without a wand. Crouch observed him for a moment. Pettigrew was standing just left of Moody’s shoulder. Both Death Eaters had their wands raised, pointed straight at the former-Auror’s heart.

They had brought the Great Alastor Moody to his knees. There was nothing old Mad-Eye could to about it. Panting heavily from the strain of his last battle, all he could do was wait. Moody knew what was coming next: the unblockable, unstoppable Avada Kedavra. He did not understand why they were here to kill him. That was the puzzle he could not solve. For all his precautions and calculations, he never saw this ending coming. He was going to die, right here, right now. And not only was he going to die on his knees in front of his attackers like some snivelling coward, but he was going to die with the knowledge that there was one puzzle, one mystery he would never solve. Moody wanted to die gloriously in battle, not on his knees with one puzzle left to be deciphered. There was no glory or heroism in this death. His fighting was done. His puzzle solving days had come to an end. All that remained now was death, the thing itself. There was no glory, no heroics, no last ditch attempts at defence, there was just the last physical act: dying.

Moody’s heart was beating in his chest, ever calm, ever silent. His head, wrist and knees were throbbing, having little heart-beats of their own. He saw Crouch smile vindictively. Pettigrew looked nervous and frightened, cowering slightly behind his considerably more talented comrade. The Death Eaters in the photos on the walls laughed at Moody. A chilling breeze blew in through the hole in the sitting room wall. The Sneakoscopes continued to flash and spin, their deafening shrieks barely registering in Moody’s brain. He thought of Dumbledore with his long silver beard, of Shacklebolt with his deep voice, of young Tonks with her ostentatious pink hair and finally of Lupin with his patched robes and pale face.

There was a flash of red light.

Then the world just came to a sudden, silent and dark stop as Moody's body fell from his knees to the floor and his mind was forced into unconsciousness.

The Great Alastor Moody had been defeated; for the first time in his life, a Death Eater had gotten the best of him. Oh, how he hated it.