I hobbled up to the teacher's table in the great hall, trying to look as though I was used to my body and the way I moved. The key word in this sentence is hobbled. I was quite literally using my staff to pull my along every few inches and I tried to force my good leg to carry the weight of my new fake one. It was impossible. That stupid peg leg just weighed me down, limp as a dead body and it simply did not want to part with the floor. It was like trying to carry a whining toddler who had collapsed on the floor. I must have been going three inches every thirty seconds and the endless number of silent eyes glued on me in shock and puzzlement didn't help.
Confound it! Why the bloody hell couldn't the miserable old coot have just used a damn wheelchair? For somebody who was extremely paranoid about enemies attacking him from every which way, he seemed to be worried for nothing. At the rate he must have moved, it would have been completely easy for anybody to aim and shoot a killing curse at him. They wouldn't have to worry too much about missing their target.
Finally...finally I made it to the teacher's table. With some difficulty, I managed to struggle into my chair and sit down. I forced myself to ignore the eyes still glued on me and began to eat. The school would probably stared at me in silence throughout the remainder of the feast had Dumbledore gotten up and announced my (or should I say Moody's) taking on the post of the Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher. According to legend, no teacher had ever lasted for more than a year. I grinned a secret grin. I certainly would not be breaking the tradition.
Nobody clapped after Dumbledore introduced me. I felt the tiniest twinge of offense but I smothered it. I wasn't here to win the hearts of all these snot nosed little redcaps. I was here on a mission.
Finally after Dumbledore completed his speech,ending it with the announcement of the Tri-Wizard Cup (I nearly giggled when he mentioned that part) the idiotic little nitwits averted their eyes from me and began to chatter inanely at one another. I wanted to shout at them to shut the bloody hell up and crucify the lot of them. I was seconds away from pulling out my (or should I say Moody's)wand.
I managed to pry myself away from the kids using the thought that I would blow my cover this way and that my Master wouldn't appreciate my thwarting the mission before it even started. Afterwards...
I surveyed the Great Hall in manner similar to a guard dog. If I was going to be Moody for the next nine months, I'd better start mimicking his movements. Just to be safe.
My head had rotated about ninety degrees when the realization finally dawned on me that I was in Hogwarts for the first time in years. I had thought (quite sensibly) that I had left it and all of it's idiotic muggle teachings behind the moment I stepped on the train home in the summer.
And then, I saw him.
I knew it was him before my eyes even acknowledged it. I knew it was him before I even saw him. I knew it was him before I even remembered who he was.
I'm not talking in the sense of divination either. It wasn't particularly hard to realize it was him. Black hair, scrawny frame, glasses, and of course the signature lightning shaped scar on his forehead. The filthy scar that he adorned on his head as a smug, conceited gloating reminder to everybody of how he managed to defeat my master.
But (and I pray my master never learns this) but it wasn't the scar that made,me want to shriek until I was hoarse with rage. It wasn't the scar that made me want to lunge at thebrat and tear him limb from limb. It wasn't the scar that made me want to whip out my wand and crucify the little demon child and watch him writhe and shriek and beg for mercy in vain.
It was the eyes.
Those filthy slimy disgusting eyes the color of my Regulus's very own house. How dare he flaunt my baby's house color. How dare he sport it, a mocking gloating irony in his bringing down the greatest wizard to ever be in that house. How dare he look so happy and calm and how dare he talk with his friends all happy and smiling. He didn't deserve to be happy and smiling. He didn't deserve any of that!
I forced myself to look away from the filthy b monster and instinctively took another swig of , politicize potion. The first to keep myself from drawing suspicion or rushing at the little ruffians in a rage, the second to remind myself that I was Moody now, in the hopes that it would somehow force my true self back into dormancy. I could not blow my cover now. I MUST put aside my own feelings for the. time being. Letting even the slightest Barty out would bring down the entire operation and the Dark Lord would not want that.
Besides, the Dark Lord was the one who had to kill the little grindylow.
But all throughout the feast, I could feel my rage simmering deep down inside me, volatile, angry, ready to burst out of me at any given moment. I could blow my cover in seconds. Like magma in a volcano.
To make matters so worse, this fanned attachable eyeball I had strapped s to my skull was whizzing every which way but loose. How the he'll could the old coot go on a day-to-day basis without getting sick to his stomach every ten minutes. I could see steadily out of one eye and out my other, everything was a blurred, spinning mess. My brain couldn't make heads or tail of what was going on with my eyeballs and I was feeling faint with dizziness and frustration.
To top it all off the fucking eyeball kept landing on the little goblin and would stay immobile for a few seconds. Just as I finally registered the image of him in my mind, the eye would start spinning again. And the sight it landed on when it stood still was the brat. Every. Bloody. Time. It was like I was being whirled around in a mist and every time it cleared up, I would see the little wanker and his smug little the more I saw him, the more I wanted to kill him. And I was trying NOT to do that. But it was so hard. I felt like I was in a giant whirlpool, desperately trying to escape, but I was getting pulled into it deeper and closer to the center, the more I struggled. Had the past twelve years of my Life been exactly like this, I'd have lost it then and there. All throughout the feast I was trying to keep myself from throttling the fucking atrocity. It took every ounce of my concentration. I didn't even notice the arrival of the Beaxbaton carriage or the Durmstrang ship.
And all throughout the while, pounding inside me repeatedly like a hammer was the thought that "It's all your fault. It's all your fault. It's all your fault. It's all your are the reason that me and my Regulus could never be together. You are the reason that I will never see him again. You are the reason that he disappeared off of the face of the earth. You are the reason that I spent all those years in confinement, unable to tell up from down when I should have spent them holding him in my arms. You are the reason that the dementors sucked out every happy memory I had of him, in Azkaban, unable to find solace in them. You are the reason that I spent a whole year unable to remember the joy I felt stroking his ink-black hair out of his eyes. You are the reason that I couldn't remember holding his hand when he was scared. You are the reason that I couldn't even find comfort in my memories because I was too zonked out by the imperious curse to think straight. The vaguest, most swiftly fleeting thought of him was obtained after tough strenous concentrating and willpower and that is your fault.
Do you know what it's like to spend over. A decade unable to think about your sweetheart even though it's the one thing you want from your god-awful you know what it's like to not even be able to say or remember your shining star's name be cause your mind is forced into a haze and you can't get out of it? Do you know what it's like to just remember only a few months ago, about all the times he let you bathe him and wash his beautiful body? You don't know. You don't know anything.
It's all your goddamn fault. Everything is your fault. If you hadn't vanquished the Dark Lord, Regulus wouldn't have gotten captured by those fucking aurors who probably killed him off simply because they didn't want to overcrowding Azkaban. Regulus vanished the night Voldemort went missing. I know that those aurors or the stupid Order of the Phoenix got their hands on him and killed him. I KNOW. And it's all your fault too. If you hadn't gotten rid of Voldemort, hen Regulus would still be alive. I KNOW HE WOULD BE! We'd still be living in that flat in the city (It's your fault that I can't even remember it's name was due to being impoverished for so long) If it wasn't for you, me and my Regulus would spent our days holding hands and nights nestled in each other's arms. If it weren't for you, maybe me and my Regulus could have even started a family. I had no idea how we were going to get our hands on kids, but Regulus was sure that we would find a way. He was so optimistic. So hopeful. I miss that about him. I miss everything about him.
Why did you take away my Regulus from me? Why did you do that? What did I ever do to you? You had a loving mother and father and a nice home in Godric's Hollow. All I had was my Regulus. He was my everything. And you took him from me. It is your fault that I couldn't even feel his beautiful name on my tongue for all these years.
One thing is certain Harry Potter. You won't be wearing that smug little grin by the end of the year. The Dark Lord will be back. And everything will go back to the way it was. And let's see you try to win against an enemy now? You'll be dead Potter. And I will dance on your shallow grave. Because I will finally have compensation for what I lost.