Alastor opened his eyes, glanced at his watch, groaned, and then rolled out of bed. He padded over to his dresser and pulled out the clothes he would be wearing for work. He had just pulled a sweater over his head when the love of his life, Emilie Thompson shuffled her way into the room, saw he was dressed and groaned.

"No. No! I just got home, you can't be going out! I forbid it!" she seized his waist as though intending to physically keep him there.

Alastor chuckled tiredly and kissed her once "I have to go to work" he breathed, smiling softly while he tried to disentangle himself from her arms, but she just held on more tightly.

"Stay with me, come on you hate your job anyway" she pleaded, seizing his wrists and dragging him over to the bed.

He tried not to smile "No Emilie, you hate my job. I happen to love being a curse breaker."

Emilie snorted "how boring, why would you want to be a curse breaker when you can be an Auror like me" she pouted exaggeratedly at him "you know you'd love it if you gave it a chance. Come on! Sign up; you have the grades for it, and the skill. Then you could work the same shifts with me and we'd actually be able to see each other!"

Alastor smiled indulgently at her, finally freeing his wrists but returned his hands to cup her face "And that's exactly why I'm not doing it" for a moment Emilie looked hurt but Alastor only smiled, kissed her briefly then whispered in her ear "because I'd never be able to keep my hands off you."

He grinned at her blush before making a run for the front door.

It didn't work. She caught up to him. She always did.

"Just stay home today" she said between kisses "call in sick."

"I can't" he answered "run out of usable excuses." He lifted her up so his back was to the door, but he didn't let her go.

By the time she had finished kissing him and attempting to coax him back to bed so he could sing her to sleep, Alastor was thoroughly late. With a quick, I love you and a peck on the cheek, Alastor disappeared out the doorway.

It was nearly midnight when Alastor was finally released from work. He had been given the worst tasks for being late and it had taken him hours longer to complete them than it would have if he had been working a normal shift.

As soon as he'd apparated onto the street he knew something was wrong.

There was an electricity in the air and Alastor's heart began pounding painfully in his chest, his stomach clenching in horrible anticipation as he walked mechanically towards his home.

He was barely functioning when the green light in the sky tinged his pale skin as the colour and hope drained out of him.

There were already Aurors at the scene when he arrived, he knew most of them from visiting Emilie at work, they didn't even try to stop him from walking right into the house, feeling as though his body was moving on its own, heading straight for the bedroom and kneeling by the bed where Emilie lay.

She didn't look peaceful, in fact she looked as though she had been sleeping and woke up seconds before she was murdered.

Alastor stared at her pale, lifeless face feeling only deep sorrow and loss. He didn't know what to do. What was life without her?

He knew she would have told him to move on but the thought of anyone touching him, of being in love with anyone else, made him feel nauseous.

And then it was all gone, all his pain and the happiness he had once felt with Emilie was washed away, leaving only cold anger and bitterness.

Alastor Moody, the warm-hearted, joking curse breaker, who fully intended to marry Emilie Thompson, died that day, right alongside the love of his life.

He built a hard detached wall around himself so nobody could get to him and he would never have to feel the way he did when he saw the dark mark taint the night sky and knew what it meant.

This was the beginning of his trust issues.

He trained as an Auror in order to catch the scum that killed his Emilie only to his surprise he was rather good at it. Very good, in fact.

And, even more shocking, he was fair too.

He never killed unless absolutely necessary, even with the worst of the worst.

He knew it was because of Emilie.

Because he loved her more than he hated them.

Alastor thought he would never care about anybody ever again but one person managed to break his armour, one person managed to slip in and make him care about her like she was his own.

She was like a daughter to him.

His protégée, Nymphadora Tonks.

And, once she'd managed to break through, he hoped like hell that he would never have to live to see the day she died.