A few days later people from the Order came to visit Alastor. Partly he thought he could do with company, partly he felt like telling them to leave him alone. One evening Dumbledore came rather late with a bag in his hand and a funny expression. 'Alastor, I've got something for you,' he said. 'Do you remember James's store of things whose use no one knew?'

'How could I forget?' asked Alastor. 'I haven't seen all of them, and that's good, or I would probably have had to arrest him. But what does that have to do with me?'

'Look,' said Dumbledore. He produced something out of his bag, and Alastor stared for a moment. It was a wooden leg and a staff.

'If you think so,' he said. He shook his head. 'Won't win the marathon either, then … Nothing new, all remaining as it was.'

'There's one more thing,' said Dumbledore. 'I think I was the only one who knew it existed, it still works, I tried it.' He handed Alastor a small red box, which he opened carefully. Alastor looked inside it, then snapped it shut.

'Are you trying to make fun of me?' he asked darkly.

'Nothing is further from my mind, and you should know that,' replied Dumbledore.

'I'm sorry,' said Alastor and meant it. 'What do you mean when you say "It works" and "I tried it"?'

'Simply that I've known this object to function and that I made sure it still does before I brought it here,' replied Dumbledore.

'And how?' asked Alastor, not entirely convinced. 'Do I have to swallow it?'

'That wouldn't be a good idea,' said Dumbledore. 'Place it on your hand.' Alastor opened the box again. Inside it there was something that looked like a large electric blue eye. He took it out of its bed and placed it in the palm of his hand.

He didn't believe it, but he perceived his surroundings as if one of his eyes had somehow ended up near his chest. He closed his fingers around the thing and the enhanced vision faded. 'Sirius and James made this when Alice's left eye was injured and the Healers thought she might lose it.' Alastor laughed wildly. Alice Longbottom had not lost her eye, but only a short time later she had been tortured into insanity by Sirius's cousin.

'And you want me to accept that thing from a traitor,' he said darkly.

'James helped,' said Dumbledore simply. 'It's enough for me to believe there are no jinxes. Anyway, this was designed to be worn.'

'I've misheard that, you didn't say I shall wear that, did you?' asked Alastor. When Dumbledore only raised his eyebrows again, he grinned. 'Well, maybe I'll become next year's Bugbear of the Year,' he said. He removed the eye patch and pressed the electric blue object to the socket below. He expected resistance and pain, but neither came. His wounds had healed so far, but the thing was a lot larger than an eye normally was. He felt it sliding into the socket with an odd slurping sound. For a moment Alastor thought his vision was normal again, but when he looked in the direction of the desk where Dumbledore had placed the hand mirror, he realized it wasn't. His hands dug into the sheets and he didn't move for a few seconds.

'Are you all right?' asked Dumbledore, looking alarmed.

'You have no idea what this thing does, have you?' asked Alastor in a hushed voice. He could move the magical eye independently and focussed it on Dumbledore. 'I can see through you,' he whispered.

'I wouldn't know what you mean,' said Dumbledore, and Alastor shook his head fiercely.

'Literally, man!' he exclaimed. 'I see through you onto the table!' He tried again, this time attempting to see beyond the wall. There was Minerva McGonagall staring into a book without reading, Lupin sitting on the windowsill, Snape scowling at no one in particular as he stood behind Catherine Highpit, who was leaning against him with her eyes closed, and finally her cousin Sarah, sitting on a table and staring into space. They were not in the Order, but Sarah had only finished Auror training and Catherine had been his student for two years. Both looked worried. 'There are Minerva, Remus, the cousins, and Snape,' said Alastor, pointing at the wall. Dumbledore stared at him for a moment.

'Are you telling me you see them there in the next room?' he asked.

'Snape's leaving,' replied Alastor. 'Maybe you'd better … Forget it, you'll never stop trusting him. This man could mean your demise, I tell you that.'

'A good sign that you do, it means you are going back to normal.' Alastor gestured towards the table. 'Let me see,' he said. Dumbledore handed him the mirror again, and this time Alastor was able to bear what he saw. 'Bugbear of the Century, I daresay,' he muttered. His face was grotesquely scarred and would remain so, and the eye didn't exactly add to his beauty. His face had always been asymmetric, but now he wasn't sure if he still looked human. 'What d'you think, can I walk?'

'I think you need rest,' said Dumbledore kindly, but Alastor shook his head.

'This lot think I'm dying, don't they?' Dumbledore remained silent, and Alastor sat up, staring right at him. 'Tell me the truth, will I survive this? Or are you just trying to keep me cheerful through my last three days?'

'You will live,' said Dumbledore. 'If you decide now that you want to die you will have to take the matter into your own hands.'

'Do I look like a man who is likely to commit suicide?' asked Alastor, then he laughed. 'Well, probably I do. You didn't bother telling them that I'll be fine, did you?'

'You didn't bother showing any sign of recovering,' retorted Dumbledore. 'You've never shown self-pity when I was near, but with them around you must have, for they are sure that you are so badly damaged that you won't make it through the night.'

'Time to show them the contrary, then,' said Alastor with determination. 'I think it's time for me to learn to walk.'

Ϡ

It took Alastor far less time to be able to walk properly than he thought in the beginning. After a few weeks he remembered something that had slipped from his mind in all his personal trouble: The note that had gone to Urania Gallows. One afternoon he approached Dumbledore with a look serious enough to let him lay aside his quill at once. 'I've got to tell you something,' said Alastor darkly.

'What is it?' asked Dumbledore.

'That night when … I mean, we received a note that we should go to the Coldingham Monastery, as you know,' he said carefully, and Dumbledore nodded. 'I saw that note. Saw the handwriting. It's unmistakably Mundungus Fletcher's.' Dumbledore stared at him for a moment.

'Alastor, that is impossible,' he said.

'I wouldn't have thought he'd do such a thing either,' replied Alastor, 'but I do know his scrawl.' Dumbledore nodded slowly.

'Wait a minute, he'll be there in a second,' he said and dashed out of the office. Alastor didn't like the thought that someone of their own ranks should have betrayed them yet again, but it was obvious. He didn't have much time to ponder on it, though, because after a short time Dumbledore returned with Fletcher and Snape in his wake.

'I'm alive and I intend to remain so,' said Alastor darkly, glaring at Fletcher. He felt a strange kind of cold fury but he mastered it.

'I hope so, Alastor,' said Fletcher uncertainly, and Alastor laughed. Dumbledore was making tea somewhere at the back of his office and returned with a tray that held four cups.

'Sit down, all of you,' he said. 'Take a cup, there you go.' He placed one of the cups before each of them. 'I'll interpret it as a personal insult if you refuse to take tea from me,' he told Alastor. They drank in silence, and Alastor started to wonder what this was all about. Finally Dumbledore exchanged a small glance with Snape, who gave a curt nod. 'Mundungus, I need to ask you something,' he said then. 'Do you have any idea who might have been in the house the night Alastor here was attacked?' Fletcher shook his head, looking confused. 'Have you sent the Auror department a warning?'

'No, I haven't,' said Fletcher bluntly. 'I've never heard anything about that shack there before I heard what happened to him.' Alastor frowned. Did Dumbledore think he'd admit easily that he had tried to rid the world of one more Auror? Dumbledore looked at Snape.

'Severus, are you sure you …'

'Professor, I do know what I am doing,' he said darkly. Alastor had no doubt about that, but it didn't make Snape more trustworthy. He was a Death Eater, they had proof for that, and Dumbledore trusted him deeply without telling anyone why.

'Good,' said Dumbledore. 'Did you talk with any strangers?'

'Yes, but I have no clue who they were,' replied Fletcher.

'Did they make you write that note?' asked Alastor. Fletcher didn't answer, and Alastor grabbed his left arm. 'Did they force you to send a note to the Ministry?' Fletcher let out an alarming wail.

'Alastor, don't, you'll kill him!' Dumbledore called, and Alastor let go. He glared at Fletcher.

'Imperius coupled with a barrier against Truthfinders,' he growled. The only reasonable answer to this was that Dumbledore had poured Veritaserum in Fletcher's tea. 'Great.' Fletcher gave him a frightened look. 'Sorry,' he grunted. 'Fine, we'll never know then.' He pressed his fingers to his forehead where a terrible headache was building.

'Truthfinder?' asked Fletcher, sounding hurt. 'You give me Veritaserum because this drunk thinks I am after him?' Alastor jumped to his feet, which was a mistake. He could just stop himself falling over and sank back into his chair with a groan. Dumbledore looked worried.

'You think I'm a drunk, do you?' Alastor asked wildly, fighting down the pain in what remained of his left leg. 'You watch out, Fletcher. I've backed you up at the Ministry more than once because you had your fingers where they don't belong. So be careful of whom you accuse to be a drunk. I'd like to see you try and walk with a wooden leg when you're drunken.' Fletcher cringed.

'I didn't mean to offend you,' he said, and Alastor laughed.

'Well, thanks for your flattery, then,' he said. 'Could I have a glass, Albus?' Dumbledore nodded, summoning an empty glass from a shelf. Snape was silent in his seat, watching with mild interest. Somehow Alastor didn't like his seeing members of the Order – he was sure Snape knew of its existence, even if he wasn't in it officially – having a row, but he knew Fletcher well enough to decide not to let him leave the room before he had made himself clear, unless he wanted rumours spreading as fast as a wildfire. He was even more dangerous than Urania Gallows would ever have been, because she had had much more sense. He took the hipflask he carried with him from inside his robes and poured its contents into the glass. It was a dark yellowish fluid. Alastor shoved it into Fletcher's hand. 'Drink,' he commanded. 'Come on, I'm hardly poisoning myself, drink.' Fletcher sipped a drop of it and went green in the face. 'Expected this to be whiskey, did you?' asked Alastor, and Fletcher nodded. 'Don't mistake me for yourself.'

'That's damn bitter, what is it?' asked Fletcher and Alastor grinned. He placed it before Snape.

'What is it?' Alastor asked him. 'You're supposed to know that, aren't you?' Snape looked at him without answering. 'Is that man too arrogant to talk to anyone else but you?' Alastor asked Dumbledore.

'He is not,' replied Snape. 'He is wondering whether it is at all possible to overdose this.' He took the glass and sniffed. 'But I think it's thin enough not to do any harm.'

'What is it? D'you know?' Snape nodded. Fletcher looked uncomfortable and Dumbledore smiled.

'It's water with a bit of Dittany, which makes Veritaserum useless, and I think you may have ground a bezoar into it as well,' said Snape finally. Alastor gave Fletcher a truly frightening leer.

'I tell you this only once,' he said. 'Accuse me of anything and you will get into Azkaban faster than you can say thief.' He looked at Dumbledore. 'Thanks for your patience. Didn't help much, but it was an attempt.' He stared at Snape for a moment. 'Thank you for your assistance,' he said. 'You know I do not trust you, and I know you do not mind. Keep your head down and you're in no trouble.'

'This will do, Alastor,' said Dumbledore kindly but with determination. 'You need rest, you haven't recovered yet.'

'And I never will,' said Alastor gloomily, allowing himself to be steered out of Dumbledore's office.