I don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters


People called Alastor Moody many things. They called him a hero. They called him old and frightening and past his prime, which is just a polite way of saying old. Some called him a genius, and some called him mad. Still others called him a mad genius. These claims were all at least somewhat true, but everyone forgot one very important thing:

Alastor Moody was a man. And tonight he was not in Knockturn Alley because it was a known area for criminal activity and he was a brilliant dedicated auror. He was there because he was a man.

The woman he used, Holly, she was a woman in every sense of the word, but she was still something more. She was his ideal, or at least as close to his ideal that a woman in Holly's profession could get. She was also the closest to his ideal that Mad-Eye could get. Her curves were actually curvy, not like most of the girls in the alley, who were usually either too damn thin or too damn big. Her freckles grazed every inch of her body Moody had seen, and he had seen every inch of her body.

But Holly's best features were her eyes. Before he had found Holly, Mad-Eye rarely used a girl more than once; there would always be something wrong in her eyes. Some were clearly disgusted with him for his appearance. Some were clearly disgusted with themselves for fucking a man who looked like him. Some just looked dead; there was no light in their eyes. They were the worst. But Holly's eyes crinkled with a smile at an inside joke she had with the world. Not once had she looked at him any differently than she did anyone else. There was no disgust in those hazel orbs, just the same amusement with which she looked at everything.

The only time Holly's eyes weren't smiling were when they were closed with ecstasy as Mad-Eye pounded into her. Moody was her ideal as much as she was his. In any profession, a consumer who makes you love your job is one you want to hold onto, and Moody was a good consumer. Maybe he was mad, maybe he was paranoid, maybe he was old, but Holly didn't care. He was kind to her. Rarely had she been with a man who treated her like an actual human being, not a sex toy. And Moody was good. Good enough to make Holly actually love her job. It wasn't that often that a man could make her scream from a simple fuck, but Moody did it almost every night they were together. It was as if they fit together perfectly.

Holly liked him; she liked him enough to enjoy sucking him off. She liked him enough to want him to say her name, not just during sex, but before and after too. She liked him enough to look past the scars and the leg and the nose and even the eye. Hell, she liked him enough to almost accept payment—almost. He liked her enough that he would have insisted on paying her.

She was special. After they were done, sometimes Moody would sit at the edge of the bed, trapped in the memories of what he had done and what had been done to him. Moody didn't cry; he never cried. But he would shake. He'd shake so violently that his metal leg would pound against the floor. She could make it better. She would kneel behind him, her arms wrapped around him. She'd hold him until the shaking stopped and his breathing mellowed. On the nights when he was alone, nothing could calm him down as well, not even a bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey. Mad-Eye usually couldn't stand relying on anybody, but for some reason, he let himself need her. She was his hero. He might fight dark magic every day, but she fought a much more potent darkness.

Alastor Moody was a man. Like all men, he had needs. Like all men, he had demons. And like some very lucky, very few men, he had someone who could make him forget those demons, all for twelve sickles an hour.