The Room: Part 1

Cold hard stone. Four walls. Porcelain white paint. Home.

That had been all there was really. The four porcelain walls of the room. That had been his home. That had been his life.

Legosi had grown attached to them. His walls that is. For they are all he has ever known. He could trace and locate every crevice of those surfaces blindfolded. He had even given them names. For they were the only constants in his life, and constants were friends, and friends needed names.

Sometimes, when the mortician would come in, particularly upset with his progress, and punish him for his shortcomings, he would have dreams. Despite how many draughts of dreamless sleep potions he was given, to stop him from crying into the night, he would dream. Of a vast expanse. A a small cottage, surrounded by what he thought was an ocean of tulips. Of a smile. Of an embrace. Of eyes filled with such warmth that even his sleeping form would wail into his pillow. And of those eyes, now hollow, devoid of all it's compassion, looking through him, swaying from an unknown motion.

ooooo000ooooo

It had all started to change a year from now. He had always been given books to read from the mortician. They started from basics children's stories, to growing levels of complexity. By the time he was 8, he was learning of history and societal composition. Of apparent realities of a world of magic hidden within a world of the mundane.

By the time he was 8, he was being given various books pertaining to magic. For some reason, he was expected to perform the feats he had studied upon but had never shown any aptitude for any of it. Much to the growing dismay and annoyance of the Mortician. And to his increased beatings.

However, this apparent hostility changed the day he received a letter, granting him admission into a school of some sorts. Which expected him to learn and perform magic.

The prospect of such exited the child to no end. How could it not? For as long as he could remember, Legosi had longed to see the wonders he had read about from the books he had been given. Longed to see the mountains made of ice, the fire water, endless fields of sands and the oceans of saltwater. He had always wanted to befriend other children like himself, to tell them about his constants, his walls. But... won't going to Hogwarts mean leaving his constants behind?

The realization troubled. So much so that it would not let him sleep. As he lay restless, in his favoured corner of the room agonizing at the thought of separation, he would hear something that would go onto define his life.

BOOM!

The familiar tranquillity of the room would be permanently disturbed by deafening roar of an explosion splitting stone open. Every inch of the room shook with reverberated shock waves. Beyond self preservation, Legosi first thought was of absolute dismay when he realized that his constants had begun to crack.

ooooo000ooooo

"Are you sure that's the place the letter was delivered too?" asked Moody. "The tracking spell we placed on it says!" said Shacklebolt.

It was supposed to be his day off, Dumbledore had called him in for some important business. But they never got to discussing it. When he entered his office, Dumbledore was approving invitation letters to new students. Even though it was just a sideways glance, Moody's eye zoomed it the moment it saw the name of the student: Legosi Fleck.

It had been his first case after being promoted to Senior Detective, investigating the murders of Benjamin and Mary Fleck. It was a gruesome one, the husband was hit with a curse he had never seen before, the healers couldn't detect any brain activity and pronounced him dead. Yet, it was nothing compared to the wife. Poor woman wwas charred beyond recognition, all that remained was her charred skeletal remains. But the boy, Legosi, his body was never found. He too was pronounced dead, with it being assumed that whoever attacked the family had likely... well he didn't even want to think about it.

But this changes everything. How could a boy declared dead 7 years ago be picked by the school to Hogwarts. Excusing himself from the headmaster, he had borrowed the letter and with approval, placed a tracking spell on it. He then picked up Shacklebolt and followed it to a small children's clinic just north of Southampton.

That was midday. Moody wanted to head straight in, but Shacklebolt insisted on doing more detective work. They checked the obituaries and found that the hospital had an alarming fatality rate. But it was the only affordable hospital for miles that the majority of its customers, residents of a nearby Afghan ghetto, could afford. What was even more alarming was their discovery that the clinic operated as an unregistered abortion centre under the books.

"Do we have enough reason now?" demanded Moody. Ignoring his partner, Shacklebolt cast a spell to check for presence of preexisting magic. "An extension spell... Doesn't look good.. We should have enough cause to enter" commented Shacklebolt.

Alarmed, Moody cast a mandatory detect life spell; what he found truly broke his heart. There was only living entity in the entire premises, and judging by its life force it is that of an adult male. The boy they had come to save was dead.

"Fuck you Kingsley! Fuck you! We could have saved the lad!" furious Moody drew his wand, its tip glowing with a menacing scarlet hue.

"Wait! Alastor, don't..."

"CONFRIGO MAXIMA!"

ooooo000ooooo

What a turn of events! An invitation from Hogwarts? Incredible! And just when he was beginning to loose faith in the boy and ready to relegate him to his long list of failures. Although he must admit, he was beginning to worry; despite showing incredible promise in recollecting and understanding magical theory, he still hadn't shown an ounce of any actual magic. He was beginning to think that the boy might indeed have been a squib.

But there were more pressing matter at hand. The presence of the letter gave him just enough time to fully condition the boy to the way he wanted him to behave in the outside world. Over the last 7 years, ever since he purchased him from the Alchemist, he had carefully educated and conditioned him to exactly what he needed. Till now, he could very well prove to be his biggest asset. He had a lot to do. Arrange his school supplies, implant the necessary memories to account for his lack childhood, and perhaps an unbreakable now to ensure that the boy wouldn't speak. There are of course, far too many variables to account for on the outside.

With the boy gone, it would mean that he could once again increase the scale of his abortion practices. Of course a fetus wasn't as useful as an infant corpse, yet they still offered several elements of much use to his experiments. He was running out of fetal hearts, so the timing was indeed incredibly beneficial. He would of course have to send out the information into the town again.

Peeking at his watch he realised that it was time for his customary check of his supplies before his evening experiments. Lets see, the aforementioned fetal hearts, sheep's bladder, troll fat...

His potions chamber shook with the impact of the incredulous blast, knocking him off his feat, and jars in his supply cabinets onto the floor. Before he could even register the impact of the first explosion,there was another, then another. The roof of his chamber started collapsing; instinctively he took evasive action. His ears was ringing, from the sound from the explosions or from his unending wails from loosing all his supplies in the collapse, he couldn't tell. Whoever cost him literally years worth of supplies was going to pay.

ooooo000ooooo

This was so unlike Moody, Shacklebolt wandered. He was normally the rational one of the two. He had only seen him use that use the modified blasting curse on a handful of occasions. What was more absurd was seeing him rush into the building he had just attacked. He had no plan on attending his funeral, at least not this early, and as he was clearly not listening to reason all he could do was follow.

He was only few paces away innitially, yet lost him in the smoke and debris of the collapsing building. Yet that was enough for him to find Moody in a heated duel when he did. Whoever they were up against had Alastor on his back foot the near inhuman speed of his casting. Moving almost instinctively, Kingsley flanked the manic opponent, drawing his fire and allowing Moody to cast the disarming spell. What happened next was the last thing they were expecting.

Swatting away a stunning spell from Kingsley with his bare hand as if it was nothing, he split open his offhand's forearm and ripped out his ulna with another bone regrowing almost instantaneously; the ulna in his arm transforming into another wand.

ooooo000ooooo

Far too stunned by what he had just seen, Kingley was couldn't react in time to a stunning hex and was sent through a crumbling wall into another room. "Confrigo!" The blasting curse hit the manic caster right on his temple as he was admiring his handiwork on Shacklebolt. The room was filled with the smell of burning flesh as the castor stared blankly at moody with what was left of his now melting eyes. Yet to the Auror's shock, just like his arm, his face started to heal; burned flesh was replaced by pale wrinkled skin, his previously empty sockets now housing a pare of ashen yet distant eye.

"You shouldn't have done that," the voice was almost remorseful, as if he had just been wailing. "You shouldn't have done that..." He goes on to repeat, this time more to himself then anything else. Another confrigo blasts against his torso, having the exact same effect. "It won't work... You should know that by now..."

With that, he launched a barrage of offensive spells with such speed that the Auror could barely defend. One spell deflected of Moody and crashed into the crumbling ceiling, causing it to come down on the duellists. Moody once again again had to take evasive action, whilst still deflecting blasting hexes from his opponent who kept on the assault despite debris coming down on him. One such hex was so powerful that it broke through his defences and burned half of Moody's face. What's more, Moody's wand's tip had come of from the last hex, rendering him defenceless. His opponent took advantage of that as his next hex, blasted Moody's leg of.

Now running purely on instinct and self preservation, Moody apparated right in from the manic castor sunk the now sharp edge of his wooden wand into his abdomen.

The remnants of the crumbling structure, reverberated with the inhuman wails of its owner, as is both him and his home mourned each other's death.

The last thing Moody could register before passing out from his wounds was his defeated opponent bursting into aches.

oooo000oooo

Pain. Right now, that's all that registered. Slightly tilting his head, Moody could see the fluids that were draining into him. Turning it a little more, Shacklebolt and Savage came into view. "My friend.. It is good to see you awake," commented Shacklebolt.

All Moody could manage, was a pained groan. "I think you should tell him, will ease his recovery at least somewhat," said Savage.

"The boy Moody, you didn't fail him. He's alive. We found him alive," said Shacklebolt, with the warmest smile he could mange.

"Aarghhmn..." was all Moody could manage. Yet, despite his mind numbing pain, and the prospect of now permanently being a cripple, Moody managed a smile before drifting back to sleep.

ooooo000ooooo

A/N: Here's another chapter. Innitially this chapter was supposed to be twice as big, but i decided to cap it off with Moody since he ended up taking such a big role in it. Like Savage I had no intention of making him a major player in the story, yet he just took over. I'll likely have part 2 up in a week.

Also, I am unsure on an upload schedule. I have 3 hours of free time a week, so I'll normally upload what I can cover in a week. This story will likely be about 100k words if I maintain the current style I am using. Please tell me how you feel. Take care and stay safe.