How Alestor Moody Lost An Eye and Gained His Sight

by E.T. Amory

Here is a possible Alastor in his younger days. How do we really know he needs that glass eye? And even without Voldemort around, there always must be some evil to vanquish. My thanks to LillyRose for her contribution of the character Wisteria.

How Alestor Moody Lost His Eye and Gained His Sight

Kiev

February 5, 1966

The nurse opened the curtains today. The sunlight hurts my eye. Not the good one. The missing one. Albus says that's to be expected, missing limbs and sensory organs often have what are called "ghost sensations" even years after they're gone. Ghost sensations, eh Albus? That's a funny one, I said. He just patted my shoulder, gave some instructions to the nurse, and left.

Is it a ghost sensation when I see that night in Leningrad played back over and over in the darkness? That hole in my head, just a ragged socket that will scar over with time, sees it all as clearly as if it was happening before me. The mansion with its family tomb, the Countess... and Alexei, the way his eyes widened with surprise when the dagger bit into his spine... Ghost sensation, indeed, Albus. One would think you'd know to choose your words better.

Leningrad

December 20, 1965

An auror was always on duty. Alestor Moody reminded himself of that fact as he buttoned his onyx-and-ruby cufflinks. His shirt-front was crisp and immaculate, as crisp and immaculate as the young auror's movements as he dressed. The black silk bowtie yielded easily to him, tied around his collar with almost mathematical precision. He snapped the lapels of his tuxedo sharply as he donned the jacket, then narrowed his eyes at his reflection. Good. Almost too good. In spite of his dark good looks, most women were put off by his almost compulsive perfectionism. He shrugged and grinned, and knew that his vivid blue eyes and that angular, predatory grin would make up for a lot.

He was lucky, his mind operated in the tracks of an auror by instinct, by habit, by long training and natural inclination. There was plenty here to distract him. Only assigned here a year ago, he loved this city already. It was so beautiful at any time of year, but especially now, during the winter holidays of the Muggles, it looked like a fairy-tale and everyone in the wizarding world was caught up in the social season. Such elegance the people had here. He threw a red-and-black tartan cloak around his shoulders and swept from the room.

Through the hall window he could see the warm lights of the row of houses down his street, a whole street of houses just like his, tall, ridiculously narrow townhouses each with its own old-fashioned charm. He called out.

"Alexei! Alexei, damn it, man, we're going to be late, and the Countess will never forgive..."

A radiant foil to Alestor's dark features, Alexei Svetlov emerged from his room smiling with benevolent tolerance at his partner's impatience. Long, straight hair like shimmering platinum, eyes of blue Russian ice, Alexei moved with fluid grace in his pale gray slacks and sweater. The invitation from the Countess said "black-tie", but Alexei gave little or no heed to society convention, and society loved him for it. His ethereal, androgynous beauty won him admirers wherever he went. Only Alestor and the Ministry knew his exquisite exterior covered a strategic mind like a steel trap. Together, the two of them couldn't help but turn heads. A rumor that they were lovers had begun to circulate, started no doubt by the Countess, whose main vice appeared to be a passionate love of gossip. The two aurors did nothing to dispel this rumor; it was certainly a useful cover for two young agents of the Ministry.

Alexei's pale eyes caught the light shining up from the street. "Well then, my friend," he spoke. His voice was ermine and balalaikas. "We'd better go. We wouldn't want to upset the old dear." He smiled as they made their way out into the frosty, crystalline air.

Kiev

February 6, 1966

Albus brought me an eye-patch. It's a little black swatch of silk with a cord to hold it on. Until then, I hadn't given much thought to how I must look. The Skele-Gro was able to reconstruct my shattered cheekbone and the protrusion of my skull which forms my brow. By some miracle of positioning and trajectory my hearing in my left ear remained intact. But the eyeball itself had been almost completely disintegrated. Inside the socket there's just a shredded mess of soft tissues, connective stuff, dead nerve endings. Who knows what all else.

I scowled at him with my good eye.

"It adds quite the air of mystery," he said, smiling. "Really, Alestor, it's quite dashing."

I tossed it into his lap and sulked. "You wear it then."

He just got up and placed the eye-patch in its little box on the bedside table, patted me (which he does a lot, and in exactly the same way every time), and left.

I don't know why he keeps coming to see me, since I pretty much act like a total and complete bastard most of the time.

Leningrad

December 20, 1965

The Countess von Tempske was an enigma, but such a pleasant one that those who were drawn in to her social circle rarely bothered to try puzzling her out. Whether she was truly a Countess at all was up for debate, though rarely discussed. It was assumed by most that she was not even Russian, while some were firmly convinced she could be nothing else. One thing was certain to all: she was the grandest, most elegantly lavish hostess Leningrad had seen since before the Revolution. The most eminent minds and most notorious personalities filled her salon on a regular weekly basis, and her holiday extravaganzas were talked about for years afterwards.

To Alestor and Alexei, one other tidbit of information, handed down from the files of the Ministry, was known about the Countess: she was a Dark Witch. Since their arrival in Leningrad, they had carefully worked their way into her acquaintance. It wasn't difficult. The Ministry had provided them with the contacts and the cover they needed. It was, at first, all about the social connections the two young men could claim, but soon Alestor's rakish charm and Alexei's beauty and unpredictable quirkiness made them an indispensable part of the Countess' cadre. Alexei especially became her pet, a beautiful ornament which she wore like a jewel on her arm.

One could not say Alestor and Alexei's mission to gather information on the Countess was an unpleasant job.

Tonight, something was in the air. As the two men walked across the park to the von Tempske mansion, their tension increased. In Alestor, it manifested as an increased fussiness. He adjusted his perfectly straight tie and pulled his gloves off, smoothed them, and put them on again. Alexei's frosty gaze simply seemed, if possible, sharper than ever. A month ago, with the excuse of absconding from the other guests for a romantic tryst, the pair had discovered the family tomb below the house. The magical emanations from one crypt were easily noticeable to the trained aurors, but there was, then, no sign of what caused the dark energies, energies which caused Alexei to tremble as he stood in the wand-lit stone room, energies which made Alestor swallow hard and mutter, "Bloody hell..."

For a month, the energies in the house grew darker and stronger. The Countess continued hosting her weekly salon but she seemed vague and preoccupied. The servants, usually models of impeccable professionalism and skill, were skittish, and a week ago Monsieur duChamps, the Countess' butler for sixteen years, quit without notice. Even the Countess' young daughter, an icily silent and formal six-year-old named Wisteria, seemed agitated. She was restless. While she had for months followed Alestor about with fascinated admiration, she now could not be still among the guests and would disappear to wander the house the moment her mother's back was turned. References were made in conversation to three house-guests who were staying with the Countess, but whom no one ever saw, and who concluded their visit only days ago. A month of delicate questioning, careful observation, and well-placed bribes had garnered the two aurors only this much: tonight, something was happening.

Kiev

February 9, 1966

I know they're worried about my mind. Why else would they keep me in here so long? They told me at first they were "exploring possibilities" for repairing my eye, but I know they know the time for that is gone. They know I know they know. Heh. Still, they do a lot of tests, reflexes, reactions. Deep, probing, personal questions about my feelings. About Alexei. But no one tells me anything.

Finally, I just shut up. I don't want to talk about all this. Then they pulled out the big guns. They called Dumbledore.

He makes me get out of bed. He makes me walk around the grounds, which is a bitch, you will know, if you've ever been in Kiev in February.

"I'm not going back," I said. "It's over."

Nothing phases him. "Come now, Alestor. I've every confidence that you still have what it takes to be quite a superlative auror."

He makes me tired, so instead of shouting, I just stopped under a tree and pointed at my eye. Or at what used to be my eye.

"In case you haven't noticed, Albus, my eye is gone." He also makes me want to tell him everything. Damn those hospital psychologists. They must have known that. So their insidious plan worked. Damn them. Damn Albus Dumbledore. "I just can't do it, Albus. I'm a liability to the Ministry, and to the Order. How can I ever be sure I won't... won't make some mistake, miss something, not see something I should have seen?"

There was ice lining the tree branches. I watched it while Albus watched me. After a while he just smiled and nodded and patted me. "We'll talk some more tomorrow, Alestor. Let's go back inside. Whoo!" He pulled his cloak around him tighter. "Kiev in February!" He chuckled.

Leningrad

December 20, 1965

"The tsar loves Chocolate Frogs," Alexei purred into the small intercom by the door. Humor took the edge off his nervousness and he winked over his shoulder as he preceded Alestor into the dazzlingly-lit hall. The new butler, in receipt of the password which kept the Countess' Muggle neighbors at bay, removed their cloaks silently and bustled officiously away.

Alexei leaned toward Alestor and whispered, "Why doesn't she use house elves like everyone else?" Alestor just shook his head and grinned. Alexei had built his reputation here on saying the things everyone else just thought. Now his partner was just getting into character.

"DAH-lings!" The exclamation boomed from the top of the stairs. The Countess never greeted her own guests upon arrival, preferring to preside elegantly in state, and receive them as they came to her. Her closest friends vied actively for the privilege of welcoming guests admitted to the house. Tonight it was Ivan Halecsy. A rotund, pink Hungarian breeder of Arabian horses, Ivan was called "Uncle Ivan" by all the young women they knew, and "Lala" by all the young men. The dancing light from the golden chandeliers glinted off Ivan's bright gold tuxedo, the fluttering white frills of his vast shirtfront, the gems and gold which flashed on his hands. His round, pink face gleamed with rapturous delight as he descended the stairs toward them, arms outflung. Lala Halecsy had been trying to get one or both of them alone ever since their first visit to the Countess'. Every one of her inner circle of friends had interposed themselves at least once to come to Alestor or Alexei's rescue. But now it seemed they were on their own. The beaming, ebullient Lala sashayed up to them and they endured the embrace which he flung about both of them at once, while he repeated with little-diminished enthusiasm, "Dah-lings! Dah-lings!"

Lala concluded with an appreciative, squeezy pat on Alestor's bottom and stood back, gazing at them with delight. The pat was not the sign of favoritism it might seem, for Lala worshipped Alexei. He would venture such a coarseness with Alestor the rustic Scotsman, but he wouldn't dream of taking such a liberty with the cool, ethereal Russian.

"Lala, how lovely to see you," Alexei breathed, the cool silver of his voice and form contrasting with the bright white-and-gold around them. Alestor stared at Alexei, as his partner greeted Lala with grace and kindness.

"Oh, dah-lings, just look at you two! I must say it, I simply must: how divine it would be to see you two exquisite young things stretched out across my..." Lala went on. Alestor tuned him out and suspected Alexei had done the same. Well, he thought, one thing could be said for Lala Halecsy: he got right to the point.

As Lala took them each by an arm and escorted them from the hall, Alestor concentrated on the feel of the house. He wished he could take out his wand, but for now he would have to rely on his perceptions and instincts. The brilliant light and burnished gold of the hall seemed too bright, frenetic, almost feverish, as if it struggled to cover... something. As they left the hall and entered the great salon, the undercurrent intensified, and Alestor realized the strange, eldritch energy exuded most strongly from one corner, where the Countess and her closest cronies sat as if holding court. Alexei reached behind Lala to lightly tap Alestor on the back; so he felt it too. Then Alestor realized Lala had stopped talking, the litany of harmlessly obscene activities he hoped to enjoy with the two young men dying on his lips. Both aurors felt the shift in Lala's thoughts and turned to look with concern at their escort. The huge Hungarian's face twisted into a sinister leer and his words became a low, evil laugh. It lasted less than a moment, and suddenly all was well again. Lala's frightening laugh was his usual jolly chuckle again, and he was steering his two charges through the languidly chatting crowd toward the Countess.

Kiev

February 10, 1966

I cracked, damn him. I don't know how he does it. He's just there, he doesn't even say anything, and the next thing you know you can't keep it inside any more.

"It's not the eye, Albus." It made me shake, just to say it, to say his name. "It's Alexei."

He said, "Mmm," and went on arranging some winter lilies in a vase on the windowsill. I supposed he must have brought them from Hogwarts. Lilies like that didn't grow in Kiev in February. I went over and stood beside him, placing my hands flat on the sill to stop them shaking.

"I had to do it, Albus. But... I can't make a choice like that again." In the snow outside, in the crystal ice hanging from the trees, I saw Alexei's pale hair, his ice-blue eyes. I was crying now. But just from one eye. "Don't make me do that again, Albus. Don't make me..."

It was a messy scene. He hugged me. I let him. I cried a lot. I should have known he wouldn't leave me alone about it. He didn't.

Leningrad

December 20, 1965

If Alestor was surprised, it was imperceptible to any but Alexei. Beside the Countess, ensconced in a heavy antique wing-chair, was Albus Dumbledore. The Hogwarts Headmaster turned his piercing gaze on the two aurors as they approached their hostess. He made no sign of recognition, and Alestor picked up the ruse smoothly.

It was hard for Alestor to decide if the atmosphere of the salon was an improvement over the hall or not. He could feel the rest of the house distinctly now, it's ancient rooms and the weight of its space and history seeming to bear down on him. The dark energy pooled here around the Countess, and there was nothing to disguise it. While Alexei moved forward to greet the Countess, Alestor scanned the little knot of guests around her. Dumbledore, of course. To the Countess' left was seated Lady Black, and beside her was Desdemona Malfoy. The two witches were as beautiful and inseparable as Alestor and Alexei, and they were fixtures in the Countess' salon this season. Alestor bowed slightly to both, and flashed Desdemona a devilish grin, mainly because she had come to expect it from him. Standing to the Countess' right, between her and Dumbledore, was Vicentio di Scorci, the Potions genius from Rome. If Alestor had been inclined to be genuinely friendly with anyone here, it would have been Vicentio. The wizard was brilliant, fascinating, funny, and surprisingly genuine in his manner.

Shrinking behind the Countess' left shoulder was the little girl, Wisteria. She looked pale, her eyes fixed in a stare somewhere beyond Alestor's right ear. Two little spots of red flared on her cheeks. Alestor caught her eye and stepped forward. He reached out to place the back of his hand against the child's cheek, her feverish appearance worried him. But Wisteria jerked back from his reach as if he had tried to strike her. Alestor smiled in a manner he hoped was reassuring.

"You look pale, my dear. Do you feel all right?" The child whispered something about being tired, then fell silent. Alestor had seen her withdraw from others' touch before. When Alexei had once reached for her in friendly play, she had skittered backward, watching him wide-eyed, wary. But what Alestor saw in her eyes, felt in her mind now, was not simple wariness; it was fear, razor-sharp and shrill. What the hell was going on in this house?

A strange, almost erotic thrill uncoiled somewhere deep in Alestor's gut, and he could tell that it ran through the assembled company. A strong expectancy and visceral excitement infused the guests, and for reasons Alestor couldn't quite grasp they seemed to be connected with Alexei. The Countess smiled cordially at Alestor as she drew Alexei to her side.

"Attend me," she commanded, in a voice low enough for just the three of them, but imperious enough to be undeniable. Alestor fell in step on her other side as she took Alexei's arm and she led them across the salon to a deep, drapery-shrouded recess lined with rich stained glass windows. As they passed on their way, Alestor could feel envious stares from Desdemona and Lady Black, and a look of sharp watchfulness from Dumbledore. The Countess turned to them in the recess, her raven-black hair and cream-pale skin thrown into high relief against the jewel-tones of the glass, and Alestor marked the change in her appearance. Normally cool and elegant, gracious but emotionless, tonight the Countess' eyes were bright and her smile concealed a keen anticipation. She bowed her head between the three of them, drawing close, and spoke confidingly.

"My dears," she cooed. "You know it has been one year since I first had the pleasure of having you among my guests. And so you must allow me to have my little whims." She drew from some obscure place amidst her gown two small packages. "A little gift to my friends, my two beautiful boys." On anyone else it would sound overly-effusive, but as far as the aurors could tell, she really talked like that. And somehow no one was ever made uncomfortable by it. It just fit her.

"This is just like you, Countess," Alestor murmured, smiling urbanely. "Generous to a fault. Shall we open them now?"

"Oh, of course," she protested. "You must open them, of course. Don't think I'd allow you to deprive me of the delight of being present for the occasion."

Alexei's eyes met Alestor's. The boxes were identical, small and dove-gray, tied with amber-colored silk ribbon. A mild magical emanation issued from each, some minor enchantment perceptible to the aurors. Alestor pulled the ribbon from his box and lifted the lid. Inside was a glass vial containing a blue-white pearly liquid. The Countess smiled eagerly.

"An invisibility potion," she whispered. "Oh, Alestor my sweet, don't think I don't see how you watch every little thing. Now," she almost giggled, and Alestor couldn't help staring at her, it was so completely unlike anything she had ever said or done, "Now, you can observe... unobserved."

He lifted the box with its vial and turned it in the light, as if admiring. Now... this would be useful. With genuine pleasure he thanked the Countess. Alexei in the meantime had opened his box to find within a small amulet of rich blue stone, lapis perhaps. The stone, opaque, nonetheless held a certain vibrancy, a strange liveliness as it gleamed. It was very beautiful. It's long, silver chain slithered from behind it as Alexei lifted it and held it to his chest. His eyes danced like a child's and he reached down and swiftly planted a kiss on the Countess' gloved hand. She drew back and tried to look stern.

"Really, darling." But she was smiling.

Kiev

February 11, 1966

"Sensory compensation," Dumbledore said smoothly.

"Hm?" I looked up from my book and squinted at him with my good eye.

He explained, "Often, when one sense is lost or diminished, the others become more acute, to compensate."

I stared at him. He knew as well as I did the results of the tests after tests they had subjected me to. The eyesight in my good eye was unchanged. My depth perception was a little iffy. My hearing was the same as ever.

"Just what sense exactly do you think has been enhanced, Albus? My sense of smell?" Snide. Rude. He didn't bat an eyelash. He never did. He leaned over toward me in his chair and sniffed delicately, audibly.

"Come to think of it, Alestor, you do smell rather better."

I flipped him off. He laughed. Maybe he thinks I'm regaining my sense of humor.

Maybe I am.

Leningrad

December 20, 1965

The next free moment found Alestor and Alexei secreted together in the bathroom. For all the lavishly spacious appointments of the house, the bathrooms were notoriously small, and Alestor perched on the edge of the commode while Alexei hopped up and seated himself on a counter-top. Alexei flicked his wand in a curling spiral around them both, creating a barrier of silence. With the two gifts laid carefully on a towel spread across Alestor's lap, that being really the only free surface that remained, the two aurors commenced those careful and minute detections and examinations for which they had been so assiduously trained. Alestor was waving his wand slowly over the potion bottle, producing the thin, misty radiance exuded by potions under detection, when suddenly the two young men were not alone in the room. Alestor barely escaped falling backward into the toilet as he was jostled by the sudden appearance of Albus Dumbledore.

"Ah!" exclaimed the old wizard. "I thought I would find you two here. Rumors about your, ahm, relationship notwithstanding, one can always count on the Ministry's agents to find a handy bathroom for doing their detections. Well!" He clapped his hands briskly as the two young aurors stared at him, "Have you found anything interesting?"

Alexei leaned back against the mirror and watched, quiet, while Alestor gestured at the necklace and potion.

"They seem to be exactly as she said," Alestor explained. "But it's hard to get a read on anything in this house, with that…" he gestured vaguely back toward the salon, "that… emanation dominating every bit of energy." He shook his head and peered at Dumbledore.

The Hogwarts Headmaster nodded and picked up the items from Alestor's lap. "Allow me to examine them, dear boy. I came to find you, because I thought I just might be able to help."

Alestor didn't know if Dumbledore meant he'd come to the bathroom to help them, or that he'd come all the way to Leningrad to do so. Either way, Alestor was slightly miffed. He knew perfectly well how to do his job. Was the Ministry questioning his ability? A thousand questions, most of them unreasonably paranoid, filtered through Alestor's mind as he watched Albus examine the items. The old mage cast a number of detection spells, and then shrugged, sighed, and smiled at Alexei and Alestor. He handed them back the objects.

"You are, of course, quite correct in your assessment," Dumbledore pronounced. "These items are precisely what the Countess has said they are: an invisibility potion, and an amulet which has simply been enchanted to radiate a rather attractive vitality. Well!" He smiled brightly at the two aurors. "Now I can get to the matter I really came for." He began to feel about in his robes, searching for something. "No, not there, now, where did I, oh yes, no… ah!"

Alestor watched with amazement. Could Albus Dumbledore really, possibly, be so absent-minded? Alexei caught his eye over Dumbledore's shoulder. The Russian was smirking and shaking his head.

Dumbledore found what he was looking for. From somewhere in his robes he drew a short, heavy-looking dagger. Alestor eyed it appraisingly. The hilt was blocky, gaudy with gems and gold filigree. The ornamentation disguised several inscriptions in a magical language unfamiliar to Alestor, but they glowed faintly, even now, without any detection upon them at all. Powerful. The blade, however, was devoid of any ornamentation, not even a runnel. It was of dead-grey metal which absorbed rather than reflected the light around it. It looked ancient. Alexei had stopped smirking, and he and Alestor looked in some wonderment at the old wizard. Dumbledore peered at them gravely from under his bushy eyebrows.

"This," he spoke softly, "is perhaps the one thing that can serve you in what is to come."

"What is to come?" Alexei asked slowly. "Do you know, then, what is happening?"

Dumbledore's lips compressed until they disappeared altogether amid his beard. He shook his head. "I do not know for certain. But… but I have heard certain whisperings…"

Alestor began to speak, but Dumbledore held up a hand.

"If it is as I suspect, the only thing we can do is go forth as planned. If not…" he shrugged. "Then you will not need this dagger, and we can all go home after tonight."

Dumbledore held the dagger up under the lights above the mirror. The gems flashed, and the magical glow of the blade was slightly lost in the bright light. "There is a power moving in this house, growing. No. Incubating. Waiting to gain enough strength to act on its own. She feeds it," he gestured toward the salon and the Countess. "She and her… friends. You know it, you've felt it growing these last few months." The two young men nodded, listening intently now. Dumbledore turned the dagger under the light so that the gems glinted brightly. "With this, you can destroy it. Possibly. It will depend very much on how much power it has gained, how much autonomy it has achieved. It is vulnerable to very little when it is non-corporeal, but it is also very limited. I suspect…" he peered at Alestor and Alexei gravely. "I suspect they will attempt to help it gain a material form."

Alexei moved like a cat. He took the dagger from Dumbledore's hand. "Then we will just have to find it first, eh Alestor?" He grinned at his partner. His smile was like a shark, like a predator, like the keen edge of the dagger. Alestor felt his own predatory instincts fueled by this new information and by Alexei's intensity.

Dumbledore had already turned to go when Alestor spoke. "Thank you, Albus."

The old wizard paused, but did not look around. His voice was soft. "Just be safe, my friends." He waved his wand and disappeared.

Kiev

February 12, 1966

I was sitting up in bed. Albus was in a chair by my feet. He was reading me items from the Daily Prophet. A Chocolate Frog made a desperate bid for freedom and leaped from Albus' hand toward the headboard of my bed. It prepared to spring to the windowsill. Without looking up from the crossword, I reached behind me and snagged it out of the air as it leapt. I handed it back to Albus. He didn't say anything, but I knew he was watching me.

I looked up at him. "What?" Impatient.

Then he did something I never expected. He asked a simple and direct question.

"Alestor," he spoke kindly, "why don't you come back to the Ministry, come back to the Order? We need you, now more than ever."

"Voldemort?" I asked.

"Voldemort," he affirmed. "He is just beginning to gather a following, but..."

It was my turn to stare, to sit watching this man who had been my mentor, the man who saved my life. The man, said a contrary little voice, that made you choose between a victory over the Dark Lord or Alexei. I shook my head, and stuffed a Chocolate Frog in my mouth.

"Albus," I explained, for the first time addressing the subject without tears or rage or broody silence. "Albus, I can't. Look, it was my oversight that... that got Alexei possessed. If I had detected the magic in that bauble from the Countess..." I shook my head and drank some water. The sweet chocolate was just making me sick.

"I know, aurors make mistakes. It happens. You can't catch everything, and if you do overlook something then you pay the price and you go on. You learn from it and you don't let it stop you. I know that, Albus, I do." My voice was pleading now, and I looked up at his kind face. "And Albus, if that was all it was, I'd be back at the Ministry tomorrow. But that's not all it is."

I pulled the bandages off my face and looked at him. The fresh air actually felt kind of good on my socket. He looked back, as calm as ever, and laid a hand on my feet. I took a deep breath. "If I had to make that decision again, I could make it. I could if I had to. But I won't deliberately increase the odds by putting myself out there when I'm not up to scratch! I can't, Albus. It's irresponsible."

He patted my feet. "You sell yourself short, Alestor," he said. His voice sounded tired. "Your eyesight is the least of the gifts you brought to the Order." He rose and left, taking his Daily Prophet with him. He left the Chocolate Frogs, but I wasn't hungry.

Leningrad

December 20, 1965

In the cloakroom Alestor dropped the potion into a concealed pocket of his cloak. Alexei donned the amulet while Alestor cast a spell upon their cloaks. If anyone should handle them, the aurors would know. Alestor tucked the dagger in its sheath in the back of his waistband. They returned to the salon.

The party was taking on a slightly different character, one that Alexei and Alestor recognized and in the past viewed with some amusement. Tonight, it only made them more tightly-wound. As the peripheral acquaintances of the Countess drifted from the house, as the hour wore on, the laughter of those remaining became richer somehow, taunting in a way. Glances burned, and eyes flashed. The few remaining guests, the Countess' close circle and the two aurors among them, adjourned to a vast room at the back of the house, one that always amazed Alestor. It was a lofty, cavernous atrium of glass, filled with small trees and plants, flowering shrubs and trickling streams. At night, it was like an enchanted faerie-wood, with winged candles flitting through the air and diaphanous mists drifting and shredding away. It worked a strange effect on the guests, inhibitions dropped away, and it became hard to discern fantasy from reality. The group, as always when they came here, separated and re-combined as they wandered and darted through the foliage. A strange music was drifting on the plant-freshened air. Alestor paused beside a fountain at the juncture of two paths and caught Alexei's eye as his partner glided past on the arm of the Countess. A moment later a low, barely-controlled laugh shivered through the trees. Desdemona ran past, her elaborate hair-do loosened now, the long black mane tumbling around her shoulders. She was caught up sharply as she collided with Vicentio, who stepped from a bank of flowers and caught her up in his arms. She kissed him. Her eyes were wide and wild, her gaze lancing into Alestor's over Vicentio's shoulder. The kiss was fleeting. Both Desdemona and Vicentio disappeared from sight. The next time Alestor saw her, she was clustered in a tight, conspiratorial circle around Alexei with Lady Black and the Countess. From somewhere, Alestor heard Lala's jolly laugh.

Alestor sat on the edge of the fountain. He sipped a glass of honeysuckle champagne. He'd seen the Countess' parties go this way before. Usually they ended with the guests pairing off and disappearing into the mansion's many bedrooms. Once in a while the night concluded with a rather conventional orgy, but it never matched the heightened tension and wildness of the hours in the atrium. Alestor didn't know if it was drugs, or magic, or just the exquisite honeysuckle champagne, but something visceral, elemental, thrummed upon the nerves here. Even he was hard-pressed not to cast aside his jacket and shirt and dart through the trees. A young, cat-lithe man as beautifully dark as Alexei was fair ran past in just such a semi-clothed state.

"One of Lala's," Alestor thought, remembering meeting the youth at a gala for the ballet. The dancer spun past him, pirouetting with grace and the peculiar elegant power of the male ballet dancer. His hand brushed through the fountain's cascade, then across Alestor's shoulders, and then he was gone.

"Give them half-an-hour or so," Alestor thought. The elemental pulse of the music had intensified, someone was singing a high, eerie song in a strange language when a prickle at the back of Alestor's awareness told him someone was touching his cloak. He stood. Lady Black spun through the foliage toward him and collapsed in his arms. For a moment, he thought she had really fainted, but he saw her peering languidly at him from under heavy-lidded eyes. He chuckled, righted her, and withdrew, taking the opportunity to ease from the room.

No one was in the cloakroom. He rifled his cloak quickly, and found the source of the disturbance. A note was tucked in the inside breast pocket. He opened it. Reading the hastily-scrawled message, his ears reddened, and if he had not been alone he would have blushed, or perhaps laughed. The language was, well, shocking. Even Lala would have been impressed. It was signed 'Desdemona'. Alestor shook his head and tucked the note back in his pocket. Deciding now would be the time to check out the house, he searched the secret pocket for the invisibility potion. It was still there, undetected by whoever had delivered Desdemona's note. He removed the little spirally glass stopper and drank the potion.

He realized his mistake immediately.

His fingers were lengthening, lengthening, they reached the door of the cloakroom even though he was lying on the floor ten feet away. Then his mind focused slightly. He was, indeed, lying on the floor where he had fallen, but his fingers now appeared normal. At least for the moment. The potion… He could not focus his mind, and the room around him refused to stay the same size. He had no idea how long he'd been lying there, but he had a feeling it was only a few minutes. He sat up and managed to climb to his feet by gripping the hanging cloak nearest him. Flaming purple velvet with snow-leopard trim…

"Must be Lala's," he thought.

Once upright, he staggered from the cloakroom into the gold-and-white hall. The chandeliers had been dimmed. He waited a moment, just breathing, trying to steady himself. He was pretty sure he was standing up straight, but the stairs curved up and away from him at an impossible angle, and the archway to the salon seemed impossibly distant. The shadows thrown by the chandeliers twisted sinuously about him, and he felt consciousness slipping again.

"Alexei," he choked, but he wasn't sure what sounds actually came out of his mouth. Where was Alexei? What were they doing in this mansion? A thought of the Countess drifted through his mind. From up the stairs, or perhaps from the back of the house he heard a low, rich woman's laugh. He stumbled up the first few steps, then the stairs turned upside down on him, and he slid to the floor. He lay there still for a moment, with the thought of climbing the stairs throbbing in his head like a pulsing neon sign in his brain. He had forgotten why he wanted to get up the stairs, but he grabbed the thought and clung to it, desperate for some one thing which would stay fixed in his mind. He crawled up, step by step. Already his thoughts were wandering. He mused upon the chandeliers, which seemed like strange drooping flowers.

At the landing, he pulled himself up on the banister. A long hall extended from him. It had at its end a stained-glass window much like that in the salon, and the colors from the lights behind it shimmered and seemed to pulse behind his eyes. The light was dim. Shadows shredded off from the walls and pooled around him, hovered menacingly over him. The hall lengthened and dipped perilously, but he made his way along it. Suddenly, a hand shot from the gaping darkness of a doorway on his right, a white hand with strangely long fingers. They wrapped around his wrist and he was pulled into the dark of a room. He stumbled. He could not resist, and he was not sure he should. His awareness, like the light, was dimming again.

"Alexei?" he managed. The darkness laughed, low and rich.

He wondered if his soul had left his body. He seemed to float suspended in pools of hot liquid pleasure. He could not fix for long on any of the images in his mind. Stark shadow-streaked whiteness of a woman's body. Lush softness of black silk or black hair drawn across his face. The pinch and grate of teeth upon his shoulder and a gut-shivering, sinuous weight across his hips. He knew, very dimly and distantly, that he had to try to find some focus, but as soon as he did, as soon as some one feature of his companion or the room grasped his attention, the pain-mingled pleasure throbbed through him, washed over him, and he could not struggle up from it. Usually, he didn't even want to. The night deepened.

Alestor awoke suddenly. His mind flared sharply with bright, crystalline awareness. He could not quite remember the last, what, few hours? But he knew without question or obscurity that he had been under the influence of a mind-altering drug. But his senses now were razor-edged and acute, seeming even more so than usual. There was one strange note to this awareness, a sharp desperation and fear that flooded into him, and a sense of profound urgency. A voice echoed in his head, but he was not completely certain he was hearing it with his ears.

"Wake up… oh, please, wake up!"

The smell of sex was heavy in the room, and the bed beneath his back was rumpled and hot. He could feel his cool nakedness and the bunched folds of his clothes under him, the hard curve of the dagger under the small of his back. He still felt a weight atop of him, no longer across his groin but astride his chest, and hands, small cool hands, pressing down on his shoulders. Skin on skin at his sides had a strange, electric feel, pleasurable but agitating, like unharnessed magical energy. He opened his eyes.

And scrambled back, startled. It was the child, the little girl, Wisteria. She was astride his belly in her long, filmy nightdress, leaning into his face, her deep blue eyes just huge dark smudges in her little white face. For a moment he wondered with alarm, "Oh, gods… what have I done?" But he shook his head. Desdemona. He remembered her low laugh, her curtain of dark hair. The way her thighs felt under his hands. No, the shadowy lover of his drug-induced stupor was gone. Now the child had come in her stead. Little Wisteria was whispering, over and over, a thin, whimpering whisper, and before he even made sense of the words, he knew the desperation he felt was coming from her, flooding into him through those small cool hands, her little bare legs.

"Take me with you… please… take me with you…"

Kiev

February 13, 1966

Is it in bad taste to tell a man who saved your life to piss off?

Leningrad

December 21, 1965

The child had noticed he was awake. He reached to lift her from his belly, but she slipped off him nimbly as a little squirrel and stood by the bed. So deep was her agitation that she made no notice of his nakedness as he grabbed his clothes and yanked them on. She kept right on whispering as he peered at her sideways in the dark room.

"They're coming, hurry, oh, hurry! Please, we must leave here, they'll come back for me, I wanted Lala, but he never came, he never came, they've taken him, oh please, we must go, we must hurry!"

He was concerned for her, clearly the child had been subject to some terrible ordeal. When he squatted before her and frowned into her face, he noticed the ripped nightgown, and an angry red weal across her neck, as if a necklace had been yanked forcibly from around it. He was struggling to make sense of her urgent whispers, trying to formulate the most direct questions, when one phrase galvanized him.

"They've taken him," she had said. Alestor knew she spoke of Alexei, he didn't even have to ask. But now what? He could not leave the child here alone. They would certainly search for her here, knowing he himself had been left in this room. He discarded possibility after possibility, all the while in a fevered fear for Alexei. Protect the innocent, he thought. But who was the innocent? Wisteria? Alexei? Finally he determined to find a secure place to hide her. She trotted at his side as he strode into the hall. From the landing above the entry-hall he could hear voices, strangely low, like chanting. Unable to determine their source, he turned to Wisteria.

"Back stairs?"

She nodded and now it was she who led him. They came into a narrow hall at the back of the house, with door after door on the left and a bank of windows on the right. At its end a flight of stairs descended to the left, and another to the right. She pointed.

"There," she whispered. "That's where they took him."

Almost reflexively, Alestor moved slightly closer to the dark stairway, then recoiled. A viscous pulse of putrid energy coursed over him at the head of the stairs. He leaned against the wall, willing his stomach to stop heaving and his heart to stop pounding. Wisteria just looked at him as if his reaction was no surprise to her. Then she turned and pattered down the other stairs. Alestor followed, descending two flights of the narrow stairs, finding himself in a vast kitchen one level below the main floor of the house. It was quiet, but a rapid bustle was in progress. The room was full of house elves, and there was a residue of magic hanging in the air, the tail-end of a glamour spell. Alestor looked around at the house elves, now without the illusion of human servants upon them. He almost chuckled. It would give Alexei a laugh to learn of it. But he frowned when he realized the house elves were hurrying about silently, packing every item in the kitchens carefully and rapidly, as if for a hasty departure on a long trip.

Wisteria had scurried through the kitchen to a corner cabinet and flung wide the door. Alestor caught up to her just as she scrambled inside. Within the small nook was yet another door, on the back wall. She opened this as well and scooted inside like a little mouse. Once the little door snapped shut behind her, it was virtually invisible. Alestor heard a voice approaching: Lala. The child had wanted her big, jolly friend, but could Alestor trust him? Better safe than sorry, he thought, and with his wand produced the illusion of a precarious jumble of pots and pans in the cupboard, in front of Wisteria's secret hiding place. Lala entered the kitchen, looking around. Spotting Alestor, he hurried over, but he was smiling.

"Ah, my dear, have you seen little Wisteria?"

Alestor turned and scanned the kitchen. "Not recently," he replied calmly. "What I really want is another bottle of that honeysuckle champagne." He grinned at Lala. "You don't know where she keeps them, do you?"

Lala waved an impatient hand toward a cooling cabinet. "There."

Alestor snagged a bottle from the cabinet and turned to raise it in salute to Lala when the huge man spoke again.

"Now, you'd better get back upstairs." It could have been a simple admonition for Alestor to return to the party, but there was a strange undercurrent of urgency in Lala's voice. Alestor would have liked to continue the conversation, to draw Lala out, to find out what the old lecher really knew about what was happening here. But there was no time. Alexei. He turned and bounded up the stairs.

The thought echoed again through his head, "Protect the innocent." Irritated, he shrugged the thought away. "I've already done all I can for the girl," he argued with himself. And knew even as he did so that the innocent in danger was not Wisteria. Whatever she had been through was over for the moment, and now Alexei needed him.

Alestor reached the head of the stairs leading down into darkness where he had been shaken by that vile surge of energy. He took long enough to cast several spells on himself, the most powerful mind-protecting spells he knew. Illuminating his wand with the barest glow of light, he started down.

Kiev

February 15, 1966

Albus doesn't ask me about Alexei anymore. In fact, he doesn't talk to me about what happened that night at all. But I feel like I'm back in training, back at Hogwarts. He drills me constantly. Spell combinations. Martial arts. Trap detection. Occlumency.

I tell him he's wasting his time. But I can't bring myself to refuse to cooperate. I just keep remembering the way he looked, that bright blue light that came out of his wand, deflecting the Disruption spell that would have taken off my head instead of just blasting my eye. I just keep thinking of what I owe him, and it won't quite let me go. It doesn't stop me from bitching constantly, though.

He's only ever lost his patience with me once. He dropped his wand into his pocket and looked at me with a sort of pinched expression. He shook his head and then looked sad.

"You are blind, Alestor. But not in the way you think." He walked away.

He didn't even pat me.

Leningrad

December 21, 1965

There was light. Alestor extinguished his wand. He could smell candle-wax and a sharp herbal smell, covering something like burnt iron and putrefaction. And he could hear voices. Chants in an ancient, eldritch language floated up to him as he crept silently down into the crypts, working the flickering shadows of candlelight for all the concealment they could provide. He could recognize Desdemona's low voice, and the Countess'. There were others, male and female. He must have come at the climax of their ritual. The chant spiraled upward in intensity. From his place on the stairs, Alestor felt his muscles tense as if wound tightly. The sound of the chant, the droning melody of the ancient words, seemed to worm its way into his flesh. His skin shivered on him as if some unclean thing was crawling beneath it and he found it hard to breathe, not from lack of breath, but as if he were hyperventilating. The effort to remain still was overwhelming, and he fought an unreasoning desire to either flee up the stairs or to clamber down them and throw his own voice into the chant.

The mantra spiraled higher and higher, louder and louder. It ended suddenly with a wild howl that turned Alestor's insides to ice, and that he could barely believe issued from human throats. A bright flash of light passed over and through him. Then there was a quick bustle of movement. The Countess' voice cut sharply through the heavy pall of dark energy which filled the crypts.

"Now, we must make haste. Desdemona, see to the packing. We must be gone before daylight." She seemed to hesitate a moment, and Alestor thought he detected the slightest note of fear in her voice, fear and awe. "The Dark One will need to recuperate. We have done all we can for him. He must awaken as he will."

A brief note of inarticulate protest came from one of her companions and the Countess quelled it with a tone of deep, perverse eagerness. "Do not fear, he will find us. When he awakens, he will come to us. Now go! Vicentio! Find my daughter."

Alestor drew upon all the skills he had, blending into the shadows until they could have climbed the stairs right past him and not noticed. There was an odd rattling sound, the swish of skirts on the ancient stone floors and footsteps receding. Then silence. Alestor crouched on the stairs and listened, throwing his awareness outward, straining to pick up any sense of life. There was something. Breathing. Something breathing. Slowly he descended the stairs. When he finally got to the bottom and his view opened out, he stared. He had to catch himself quickly to stifle the quick hiss of in-taken breath that was almost forced out of him in surprise.

When he and Alexei had explored this crypt a month ago, it had been devoid of occupants. Smooth, clean gray stone was all around then, the great pillars of stone were dusty as was the floor, and the only sign of anything wrong about the place had been the low, heavy pulse of dark energy throbbing on the air. Now the crypts looked like a different place. He moved cautiously down a narrow passage between two banks of tombs. The first thing Alestor noticed was the crunch and clatter and treacherous footing of bones under his feet. There were thousands of them lining the floors of the crypt. He could even see a number of mostly-intact skeletons. Human skeletons. Small ones. Blood festooned the bones here. Alestor turned his head and stared. At eye-level, here upon the wall, was a bloody handprint, smeared and still glistening wet. He shut out the thoughts that threatened to follow, concentrating only on gathering information and observing, staying aware of any threat to come. About twenty feet down the passage opened into a large central chamber. He could see the corner of a large stone altar, and many candles in sconces on the walls and on stands. It was from this central chamber that the pulse of breath issued, and the rank smell of blood, and something darker, infinitely darker.

Just inside the passageway before the chamber, Alestor could see a hunched form. He didn't think for more than a moment that one of the Countess' circle had remained behind. The magic signature from the form was fading rapidly, almost gone, and the attitude of limp lifelessness was unmistakable. It wasn't Alexei, Alestor knew. As he drew close to the body the dark hair and chiseled face of Lala's young friend from the ballet came to view. He was slumped against the wall, almost as if intentionally reclined there. His dark eyes were huge in his white, white face. Drained white, Alestor thought. His throat was cut in a gaping gash from ear to ear. The slash hinged open like a wide, second grin below the shocked fear of his face. He was so covered with blood it took Alestor a moment to realize his chest cavity was torn open. A trail of the already-congealing and darkening liquid led in spatters to a wide puddle on the floor by the altar. They had killed him there, Alestor decided, then dumped his body here in the passage. Gingerly, he stepped past the dancer's body and into the main chamber.

The light was quite good here. Though a strange, almost tangible darkness was pulsing in the room, the many candles held it at bay. Alestor forced himself to scan the room methodically, to take note of entrances, locations of possible concealment, traps, security or observation spells, escape routes, even though all he wanted to do was run to the altar, run to Alexei. The bones had been cleared back to the walls in this large room. The stone floor was clean except for the dancer's blood. Across from him a stairway ascended into darkness where the Countess and her companions had departed. Alexei lay on the altar. He was naked except for the amulet of blue stone. His skin was covered in tiny red-black marks, runes or symbols of some sort. His chest rose and fell slowly, as if he was asleep, and he appeared uninjured. Above his head sat a small silver bowl which appeared to contain the liquid in which the symbols had been drawn, mostly blood, Alestor thought, but something else too. By one still arm lay a short wand of black wood. By the other was a round disk of silver metal with small inscriptions on it. At his feet gleamed a moist red lump of tissue, the dancer's heart. The amulet itself was glowing intensely now, not with an attractive vibrance but with a pulsing, throbbing beat that had thinned to an acid green color. The glow was strong. It radiated from the amulet and seemed to swath Alexei's body, giving his skin a sick, green pallor. When Alestor stepped into the room, the green glow seemed to coalesce around the amulet, then send snaky tendrils forth in the auror's direction, not touching him, but probing the air, sensing.

And there was the fear. Alestor had never felt anything like it. It wasn't just the nausea that had assailed him at the top of the stairs. It wasn't just the unease that had run in his veins since entering the crypt a month ago. This was a primal urge to run, something that triggered a most ancient part of his brain. Only the thought that Alexei still lived in that unconscious body kept him from turning and fleeing the house forever. Moving swiftly and cat-light, Alestor crossed to the altar and lifted Alexei, drawing his shoulders and torso from the stone slab. The Russian opened his eyes.

Acid green, burning green where once had gleamed Alexei's frosty blue. Alestor involuntarily released his hold, but Alexei did not fall back. Instead, he grinned, and raised himself to sit up, his legs dangling from the edge of the altar. He found the wand, lifted it, surveyed it with curious interest. Alestor caught his breath.

"Alexei…" he meant to whisper, but the word required a force behind it to get it out, his throat felt closed. His partner's name came out as a strangled cry, and it echoed around them, bouncing off the stone and the bones. Alestor didn't know what made him hesitate. Anyone looking on would have long ago guessed that the being with the acid green eyes, the subject of the Countess' dark ritual, was no longer Alexei. But dim hope, some refusal to believe his partner was lost, caused Alestor to speak Alexei's name, and to look on as the thing stood, its feet contacting the floor firmly. There was no hesitation in its movements, though they were somewhat slow and careful, as if the new inhabitant of Alexei's lithe frame was testing its capabilities. It lifted its head, the long curtain of bright hair falling back from a face which looked up at Alestor with a grin the young auror could only describe as pure evil. The shock and fear prodded him again, and this time he listened, leaping suddenly aside and behind a pillar. A bolt of black-shadowed green energy seared past him from the other's wand and blasted a chunk from the staircase behind him.

"The amulet," he thought. He had to get it off of Alexei. He took a moment to calm his thoughts, then spun from behind the pillar, crossing the floor to the possessed Alexei in two swift, clean strides. He was off the floor; his boot-soles thudded into Alexei's chest as he raised his wand and fired off a bolt of energy.

"Risus totalis!" he huffed , but the paralyzing energy from his wand went wide, streaking in a luminous red arc past the vile green bolt with which Alexei's possessor had countered. For some time they struggled, closing and drawing back, calling on both magical firepower and the strength and speed of their bodies. Beams and jolts of magical energy darted through the crypt. The dull thump of limb upon limb filled the room, kicks and blows parried and countered. The thing in Alexei's body adapted rapidly, and Alestor suspected it could use the information in Alexei's mind, his fighting skills and magical knowledge. To Alestor, this meant one thing: Alexei was still in there.

Alestor dropped his guard. If he could lure the thing in… The possessing spirit saw Alestor's lag, mistook it for an accident and lunged forward. Alestor moved, darting in under the taller body's guard and grabbed the amulet. He screamed. Green light skirled up his arm and his body shivered from head to toe like a tree in a hurricane. His mind was filled and overwhelmed with the vile darkness which seemed to flood into him from the amulet. He fell back, panting like a man just saved from drowning, tiny whimpers issuing from his throat. The being lifted its wand. Alestor could see it, but his comprehension of his surroundings was slow to resolve, his mind was struggling to re-engage after the horror of the darkness. The being was powerful. It needed no verbal incantation. Alestor looked up, finally focusing on his adversary. A sparking green jolt issued from the tip of the wand and streaked toward a spot right between Alestor's eyes.

There was a voice, bold and powerful, and another flash almost instantly following. A blazing arc of blue light collided with the green, sending it slightly off-course. The two energies mingled and crossed. Alestor saw Albus Dumbledore in the archway of the staircase, tall and imperious, looking nothing like the absent-minded and amiable old wizard he had talked with earlier. He had the briefest of intervals to register what was happening before the bolt of magic hit him in the side of the head.

Alestor was spun backward by the force of the bolt. He had to remain conscious, Dumbledore's appearance would surprise the evil being, but would not stop it for long. There was something distinctly wrong with his eyesight, but he could not pause to take stock. Turning back, he saw Alexei's body charging at him, he saw another shimmer of magic cascade from Dumbledore's wand and wrap around the creature. The creature jerked, it's toxic-green eyes widening, then it fell forward into Alestor's arms. It struggled to lift its wand.

"The dagger! The dagger!" Dumbledore was calling out frantically.

Alestor whipped the strange magical blade from its sheath. For a moment the ancient weapon held the gaze of both auror and adversary. Then Alestor, without hesitation, sank the dagger into Alexei's spine, just below the curve of the skull. A wild, keening shriek filled the air, rising and howling upward. A wind swirled into being, catching the eldritch green emanations that were flooding out of Alexei's open mouth, his ears, his nose. They twisted and spiraled in the rushing wind, taking on the shape of a huge howling face. Dumbledore was shouting, but Alestor could hear nothing over the banshee-howl and the rush of the violent wind. As suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. Alestor looked down at the body in his arms. The amulet was dull now, completely flat and lifeless. The eyelids fluttered. The eyes had lost the vile green glow, dulling to smoky, dark black. But now they lightened. Snowfields and endless sky seemed to lighten in them as the pale blue returned, and Alexei gazed deeply into Alestor's eyes for an instant. Then even that icy blue was dulled, and the body of his partner went limp in his arms.

Alestor collapsed to his knees, but he would not let go of Alexei. He watched his friend's pale face, closed the dead eyes. Drops of blood fell from the edge of his own jaw and stained the pale hair. There was not a lot of blood. The jolt of magic energy that had torn away the top corner of Alestor's face had also neatly cauterized most of the wound. Tissue shock had set in, so there was little pain, only a heavy weight, as if a large and cold stone had lodged in the side of his head. Alestor felt Dumbledore's hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the old wizard, his hand twining absently in Alexei's long hair. Then his body and mind took pity upon him, and went mercifully unconscious.

Kiev

February 24, 1966

They are sending me home. You'd think I'd be overjoyed. But Edinburgh in February is not substantially nicer than Kiev. In truth, I'm a bit at a loose end. Here, I had a nice, secure routine set up: wake up, have my eye dressed, eat, go through drills with Dumbledore for a few hours. Read. Sleep. Eat again. What will I do at home?

What will I do, ever?

I was sitting on my bed looking out at the snow. You'd think the view would be monotonous, but it wasn't. Every day the snow would melt just a tiny bit, then re-freeze overnight, or new snow would fall. It was like seeing a brand new different landscape every day. Mostly, in the shapes, I saw Alexei. Once I saw the little girl, Wisteria. Now it was just snow.

Suddenly, I was moving. My body pistoned forward, low. I spun, arms sweeping upward. There was a dark streak, an impact of body on body, the scrape of something narrow and hard against my cheek and then past. I felt a shivering burst in my empty socket, and my good eye was briefly flash-blinded by a blue blaze of energy which streaked toward the ceiling. The magic burst left a coruscating blue light along the plaster, and little flakes of paint fell pattering to the floor. The light bulb popped.

Albus Dumbledore was in my arms, held tight in a headlock I learned from Alexei. Moscow street fighting. My right hand was clamped like a vise around his wrist, forcing his wand up and away from me. The blue energy was still shimmering from the end of his wand.

Damn. I knew he was there. I felt him. Behind me, magically silenced. I didn't just feel him, I saw him, with my mind I saw him, and I knew exactly what he was going to try. I didn't have to think about reacting, I just moved. Because I saw him.

"Yes, Alestor," he chuckled. He sounded like I had just given a pleasingly insightful answer in Charms class. I let him go. He pocketed the wand and looked at me. I looked back.

Albus Dumbledore had expended considerable effort making sure Alestor Moody did not get his head blown off by a disruption spell. He had traveled to Leningrad, and Kiev. In February. He wasn't about to see the most promising young auror in the Ministry give up.

He knew his work was done when Alestor's body lunged from the bed. Standing now, bent awkwardly from the unfamiliar hold in which the auror gripped him, Albus knew Alestor would understand the gift he had been given. The Headmaster straightened, lowering his wand arm as Alestor released him.

"He's good," Albus thought. "He's really good... scary-good. But he still has a trick or two to learn." He smiled as he withdrew the second wand from its ready position at Alestor's gut. It slipped up the old Headmaster's sleeve as if by itself, completely undetected by the younger wizard.

Kiev

February 24, 1966 (continued)

There didn't seem to be a lot to say. Albus broke the silence.

"See you down at the Ministry on Monday?" He looked at me over those funky little glasses.

"Yes," I said.

"Mm," he said, and picked up my case. He went downstairs.

I looked around to see if I forgot anything. The lilies I left for the nurse. I opened the drawer of the bedside table. Inside was the little cardboard box with the eye-patch. I took it out, put it on. I looked in the mirror. I put on my cloak, then turned back and looked in the mirror again.

He was right... It was dashing.