Chapter 12: Mo
He had long given up trying to get a good night's sleep.
It was a hard thing for him to do naturally. If your life's motto is "Constant Vigilance", then you would no doubt agree that sleeping is the single most worst time for you to practise that motto. You leave yourself utterly and totally exposed, not something that you want to do if you can help it.
Add to it that it had about two years back that he had been attacked when he had tried to get some shut-eye.
Good luck trying to convince him that he needed to get some sleep at the very least.
Moody stared out of the window in his room. Naturally the window was designed and charmed so that he had an excellent view of everything that happened outside, but nothing of the inside could even be seen. In fact, the window could not even be seen from the outside. All they saw was a continuous wall that ran from floor to ceiling with no openings.
And in the rare even that somehow a Muggle made his way into his room (which should be nigh impossible with all the security features that Moody had set up), he wouldn't be able to see a window either. To the visitor, it would be only all walls, with just the door to enter and leave the premises and no other means of moving about.
And this is how Moody liked it.
The intruder alarms were fairly advanced as well, containing a Caterwauling charm, a Stunner fired at the intruder from wands placed at different vantage points in the room among others. Yet, the last time round despite having all this he had still been attacked, in his own place.
And that had driven Moody crazy. As it was, the grizzled ex-Auror was already the very height of paranoia. But the Moody post the Triwizrd Tournament was about a hundred times more paranoid than before.
The paranoia had helped him survive all these years.
Hopefully it would suffice for at least a few more.
At least be enough to last until he had freed the wizarding world of the Death Eater scum.
He wrinkled his nose (or what was left of it) in disgust. He loathed them. With every fibre and cell in his body he hated the Death Eaters.
Them and their stupid leader. You Know Who. He Who Must Not Be Named. Voldemort
Moody could remember the panic and frenzy that abounded in the days of Grindelwald. When Dumbledore had finally taken him down, it seemed that the peace that had been won after a long fight would last for a long time.
But that hadn't been the case.
Voldemort had entered, and while the bulk of Grindelwald's attack wasn't focused on Britain, Voldemort's was. In fact, Voldemort seemed to be hell-bent on destroying as much as he could in Britain and had caused more damage in a couple of months than what Grindelwald had managed in years.
It had been as thought he had shifted from one nightmare to another.
And Moody had hated it.
Hated that he had had to fight everyday for his survival.
Hated that the bulk of the wizarding world was a spineless bunch of nincompoops who wouldn't stand up against tyrants.
Hated that he had to live in constant paranoia.
And it was this hate that fuelled him when he fought those lackeys of the self-proclaimed Dark Lords.
He had no compunctions in using harsher methods to deal with them. Oh, he wasn't dark, that he was sure of. He had not intention of ever using the Unforgivables or other darker curses for no reason.
But if it came down to saving himself and his group, then he cared little for the title of the curses.
And that was the fundamental difference between him and Albus.
He shook his head as he thought of his friend, Albus Dumbledore. The man was a definitely a great wizard and in general was a good role model for most people.
But in Moody's eyes, he lacked the guts to take difficult decisions when the situation demanded it.
Oh, Albus would willingly sacrifice himself if he thought it was the best course of action. It wasn't the question of a leader walking the talk. That Albus could do.
What Albus couldn't do was to meet force with force.
And to Moody that was about as fundamental a message as could be given to the enemies.
If you didn't meet force with force, then you would be perceived as weak. You would be seen as someone who would keep bowing and taking up the punishment as if you were a masochist. And the force would increase with time each time.
But if you did meet force with force, then it would put fear into the heart of the enemy. They would understand that if they fought you, there was a chance that they wouldn't be returning homes tonight, alive.
And that was usually a big deterrent in keeping them from muscling their way through.
Which was how Moody had developed such a fearsome reputation.
He was merciless in his battles. He knew this, his opponent knew this.
And while it made the duels all the more difficult, it also ensured that one party got the message loud and clear.
Moody continued to see through the window. Rather his original human eye did (he couldn't call it his good eye as the other eye was more useful), while the other eye, the one that had gotten him his name of "Mad-Eye" whizzed around, continuously scanning and checking on any possible threats.
The one mistake that he had done the last time was to remove the "mad eye" before going to sleep. And it had costed him big time.
This time round that wasn't going to happen. He would always be wearing it, always paying attention to its warnings as it looked through his surroundings.
Moody's thoughts drifted to the events at the Ministry and naturally that led to the thoughts of Sirius. He had always liked the Marauder, for he seemed to be the few, who even after being schooled at Dumbledore's institution, still retained enough pragmatism to realize when force was a necessity. The lad had not been trained directly by Moody, but that wasn't surprising as Moody took in a very select few, and usually those who already had a few years of experience under their belts. Sirius though had been barely out of Hogwarts for a couple of years when the whole fiasco occurred. And he had never gotten a chance to fulfil his dream of becoming an Auror.
He had seen the man in action, having had to do so as Black had been considered to be Voldemort's right hand man and consequently, was always studied for his techniques in case they had to take him down at some point later.
And while technique wasn't the best, it was good.
And it was effective.
Black had held off a fair few during the Ministry fiasco. Moody had been considering training him as well, in addition to working with Nymphadora Tonks (let her even try to get the drop on him just because he used her full name). While they had been good and effective, Black's skills were obviously rusty, the result of having been locked up for too long without having any practise.
And with the result that it often messed up one's sense of timing.
Often with fatalistic outcomes.
Just like what had happened to Black himself.
Moody shook his head. He had told people for years to remove that goddamn Veil from the dais. He had told them so many times, from the time he had had two normal human eyes, a full nose and two normal feet.
He had told them again and again, that it was a disaster just waiting to happen.
He had told them again and again, that if they wanted to perform public executions, they could then bring out the Veil to the room.
But no.
They had refused to listen to him. They had laughed at his suggestion and had sarcastically asked him if his paranoia was getting the better of him.
And now they had lost someone because of that mistake.
Oh, Moody wasn't sympathizing with Black. It had been Black's foolishness to play around, and that too with Bellatrix Lestrange of all people that had pushed him through the Veil.
No, Black had chosen the singularly worst point of time to joke around and with the stupidest person (with the exception of Voldemort) as well.
The result was that he was dead.
But that wasn't what was troubling Moody.
He knew Black thought himself to have pretty good showmanship and that all of what he had done on the dais near the Veil was part of that. One didn't need to look at Sirius to know where he was. His voice, sharp like a dog's bark could be heard around the room.
And so at any point of time, even if Moody had both eyes on his targets (ahead, behind or to his sides), he had always managed to pick up what Sirius was doing.
He had just finished putting down one of them, not permanently, but sufficiently strongly that they were down for the count, when he heard Potter scream.
Whirling around, he turned around just in time to see two things happening: Lupin racing down and preventing Potter from sprinting to his godfather, and Sirius falling through the Veil
The expression on Sirius' face though, perplexed Moody greatly.
Yes, there was surprise but it morphed gradually to resignation and just before he fell through, Moody could have sworn he had seen a small smile on Sirius' lips
_
A/N: Couldn't upload yesterday as the site was down when I checked it. Sorry about that.