Quidditch Reserve League, Season 1, Round 2: Song Lyrics
Position: Chaser 3
Prompt: "Drink the poison lightly
'Cause there are deeper and darker things than you
I know, 'cause I've been there too."
- I'm Not The One, 3oh!3
Optional Prompts: Dialogue: "I can honestly say that I do not care.", Less than perfect, Who we were
Word Count: 1,071
~End of Author's Notes~
Alastor grumbled as the door to his office creaked open and introduced him to his guest before he'd so much as laid an eye on them. The scent of lilies permeated the otherwise stale air of the room, heavy steps announced their presence, and, when he did look, their scarlet robe announced their presence as loudly as a mandrake.
"Good day, Auror Moody!" the young woman bowed to him and flashed a winning smile. Or it would have been if the game were being run by anyone but Mad-Eye. "My name is Belinda Braga, and might I say it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance!"
Alastor let his quill fall on the parchment and leaned back in his chair, his eye whizzing this way and that.
"Fifteen."
"Not for a few years, now!" Belinda winked.
"Oh, really." Alastor smacked his lips. "Seventeen, and you're wrong. Sit down." He gestured at the simple wooden chair on the other side of his desk. Simple was all he needed; plain wooden drawers, plain wooden bookshelves filled with plain things, just the way he liked it. Too much frivolity and anyone could hide anything, but he'd be damned if he was going to give someone a chance to hide a Doxy in an office fern. "That's the number of ways I could have killed you in the last twelve seconds and had a damn good chance of managing it."
Belinda paled, then smiled again.
"You made that number up."
Alastor grunted. At least she wasn't entirely stupid.
"And you might, Sir, but you're the greatest Auror of all time! I doubt there are many Dark Wizards that have straight Es in every class at Hogwarts, including Arithmancy and Care of Magical Creatures." Belinda flicked her perfectly-groomed locks backward. "Unlike yours truly."
"I can honestly say that I do not care. And neither will any Dark Wizards, or the creatures they've ensorcelled, or the traps they've laid. They'll have smelled that perfume a mile away if they haven't spotted you dressed like a strawberry from two towns over." Alastor gave her a once-over. "Let me guess, Gryffindor?"
"Nothing wrong with Gryffindor, Sir!" Belinda ran a hand down the front of her robe as if a crease had somehow formed in the five steps since she entered. "A little house pride never did anyone any harm."
Alastor regarded Belinda, then reached below the desk. There was the sound of something twisting, something popping, and then he tossed his wooden leg over the top of his desk. Belinda caught it just before it hit her in the face, so she had good reflexes at least. He leaned back, propped his leg up on the desk so the stump was clear as day.
"Look at it," Alastor growled at the young Auror, as he pulled up his trouser leg to expose where his flesh ended and wood would have begun. "You know how this happened, Miss Braga?"
"N-No, Sir." Belinda cleared her throat. "In the war?"
"No, you don't, because only a damned idiot would announce how they got beat," Alastor replied. "You say I'm the greatest, well, let me tell you, this is proof that I'm less than perfect. And I've tried all my life to be. I dress to blend in even if I've packed my backup invisibility cloak and my backup for my backup. I smell like wherever I'm headed even if it's just a cemetery to pick up a kid who thinks they can read one book from the restricted section and bring their parents back, and when I approach, I make sure they can't hear so much as boots on grass. So let me ask you something, Miss Braga: How insulting do you think I find it when you waltz in here with an attitude like that and act like you'll be able to take the Killing Curse on the chin and reflect it with little more than bravado and an almost fanatical devotion to a faction from your school?"
"I-It's not just Hogwarts, Sir. I just want to help protect the Ministry," Belinda said with an increasingly-strained smile. "For the Minister and the Ministry's employees and everyone who counts on us to defend them." She looked down at the prosthetic in her hands. "Can I please put this down now?"
"On the desk." Alastor pulled his leg back and let Belinda put down the fake one. "You've heard a lot of stories about the noble and unrivaled Aurors, I bet. Ministry's bravest soldiers. Tales about me taking down half a coven of dark Witches and a Horntail and still got home in time for tea?"
"Yes..." Belinda's lips twisted uncertainly. "Are they not true?"
"That one is, but that's not the point." Alastor jabbed his finger on his desk. "You ought to be careful about how much of that you believe, Miss Braga. Too much of it and you start to think like you clearly have. You start to think all it takes is a brave heart and a good wand is enough to take on all the horrors in the world. Well, it's not true. I've seen better witches and wizards than me die and I count myself lucky just to have survived this far, because that's what it is. Not hope, not character, but cunning, and luck. Who we were then, who you are now, might have believed otherwise, but we were fools to just as you're a fool to think it now."
Belinda wasn't crying, he gave her that much. But he didn't need his prosthetic eye to see her sweating, see her fidgeting, see how she shifted in her seat. Which was good; it meant he was getting through to her.
"Then teach me."
"Pardon?" Alastor's eyebrows shot up his gnarled head.
"Teach me, Sir. You know more about this than I do, and you wouldn't be telling me this if you didn't want me to listen."
"Fair logic." Alastor shrugged as he grabbed his prosthetic. "Get yourself dressed in something more practical, wash that damned perfume off, and meet me in the lobby in fifteen minutes. If you can get within twenty-five feet without me noticing, you'll get a prize." He locked his leg back in place.
"What kind of prize?" Belinda hurried to stand up, her eyes darting to the door.
"I won't jinx you off your feet in front of all our colleagues. Now go!"