Trigger warnings: strong mentions of PTSD, and alcohol consumption.
Thanks so much to Bellwhether2.0 for betaing.
1
Someone was following him. Alastor Moody knew. He always knew. He recognized the signs the second the shadow first appeared behind him on the walls of the ill-lit, narrow back street. He had drunk two shots of Muggle rum and had not kept count of the empty beer tankards in front of him before he left the pub to go home. But his senses were still in working order.
He tried to tell himself that he was just imagining it – it would not have been the first time. But the suspicion was too strong. Someone was lurking in the dark. He knew.
A robber? An assassin?
His wand was in the pocket of his Muggle trucker jacket. Not too difficult to reach, but the gesture might alert his opponent. Better to pretend that he had not seen the warning signs yet. Not until he made sure that there was only one person following him. There might be multiple attackers. Best to prepare for the worst.
He was close to a dark street corner, and he decided to make his move there. The walls would hide him from view, and he could face one attacker at a time. As soon as he turned the corner, he stopped and hid behind the rain gutter.
He left his wand in his jacket pocket. He needed to see the person or persons following him before resigning himself to using curses. He really did not need the hassle of an investigation for using spells outside the magical community if it was just a lousy Muggle thief hounding him. He kept a big hunting knife attached to his belt, covered by the frayed denim jacket he had found behind a dumpster last week. He decided that the hunting knife was the wiser choice, for now. After removing the knife from its sheath, he waited.
The shadow was not the product of his imagination. Now he could hear steps. Someone was coming in his direction. When his enemy stepped out on the street, looking left and right, searching for him, he grabbed the person, dragging them behind the rain gutter in a split second. With one hand, he held his captive, with the other, the knife, ready to use if the need arose.
It was a woman. A pale forty-something with an emerald green robe covering her whole body, and most of her head. He pushed her against the stone wall with so much force that her hood fell off, rolling down on her shoulders. It revealed her blonde, elaborate curls. The lipstick she wore was as blinding red as her fake nails.
"Rita Skeeter?" he grunted the name, rendered immobile by surprise. He was not expecting to recognize the person following him. There were no familiar faces in his life anymore. None.
Even if she was just a nosy journalist he barely knew, it felt like a punch to the stomach to see someone from his past. From a past he erased completely. Or so he believed. He would have been happier to encounter a bunch of Muggle street thugs.
Her reply was unintelligible. More like a wheezy breath. He realized that he was holding her throat with his lower arm against the bricks, with a violence that kept choking her. He let go.
They only met three or four times in person. Just for a minute or two, for a couple of journalistic questions. At the moment, he could only recall the last time. At least, he believed that was the last time, but because of his head injury, sometimes his brain was acting up, mixing up memories. Anyway, that must have been the last time they had a real conversation. He had been invited by Dumbledore to teach at Hogwarts, and she asked him whether he felt prepared for the job. Her Quick-Quotes Quill was scribbling away in the background even though he had not even had the chance to speak yet. He did not like the tone of her question, and suspected that she was angling for a reply that might signal his incompatibility with teaching children – like a mention of medieval torture devices to reduce mischief, or acidic potions to deal with tricksters. He did his best to give her the most uninteresting stock-answers possible. He never knew what became of her article – or whether she published it at all – since he had to face much bigger problems afterwards.
"Long time no see," she said with a cold smile, recovering fast after his brief chokehold. "But luckily, there are things that never change – like your impeccable charm."
He did not feel like joining in her game of sarcasm.
"Are you out of your mind?" he barked at her. "Why are you following me? I could have cursed you!"
"How have you been?" She was still playing her part.
"You don't give a damn how I have been." He turned, and started walking away, putting away his hunting knife. "Just leave me alone."
She was faster than his bad leg could ever be, and one second later, was standing in his way.
"Why are you hiding?" Her words were quick and deadly like the sting of a manticore. But she was completely off the mark this time.
"If you think there is a story behind all this, you are badly mistaken." He would have laughed at her if he was capable, but it was a skill he had long lost along the way. "I'm not hiding, I just want to be left alone. Now let me through."
He pushed her aside – something he would otherwise not have done to a lady, but in his opinion, a merciless hackette like her was anything but. He attempted to walk away once more. He did not think she could say something – literally, anything – that could make him turn back to her; there was nothing left to unsettle him. But she did.
"Were you trying to hide from the final battle?" Her question was fake-innocent. Even her intonation turned girly and soft. "I mean, anyone with your universal trust issues might drop off the radar once or twice. More than understandable. It's just that unfortunate timing that you left everyone to fend for themselves in the middle of the biggest crisis... Of course, you deserved some time to relax a bit, didn't you? I can only hope that my readers will see that too."
The freshest scars crisscrossing his skull started pulsing with an inner tension. His head felt like it might explode. Or more like implode. Collapsing inward into a heap of bone and flesh. The perfume she wore was way too intense. Sweet, overly-sensual, cloying. He rubbed his temple, and tried to suppress the headache, at least to a level that he could focus on his surroundings. But the rage came from deep within, untamed, and raw – it was less easy to control. "Are you calling me a coward?"
"Oh, no... not really. I can absolutely see the point of recuperating. I'm just wondering how this will look in my article."
"I suffered a head injury! I was comatose for eight weeks. I had to relearn how to eat, drink, or walk." When he realized that his anger made him give away personal information, even if somewhat vague, it was too late. Depraved woman. "When I finally got back on my feet, the battle was over."
"I see."
"You don't believe me."
"This is not about me believing you. More like, people may speculate where you have disappeared all this time, missing in action... pretending to be dead. And when I publish my article, they will read about you being perfectly alive. Back to your health, and out and about like nothing had happened. They might get the wrong idea."
"How did you find me?"
"It's my job to investigate," she gave an evasive reply. "And my readers have the right to know the results of my inquiry."
"Why would anyone read about me? I'm not news-worthy anymore. Not even by your standard."
She was good. Really good. She had not even batted an eyelash when hearing the finishing insult.
"Well, Mr Moody, trust me I can make you the star of the news for a few days if I want. It all depends on my phrasing of your situation, don't you think?"
He knew she was right. And she would not have a single qualm about dragging a decorated war-hero through the mud if it could give her a couple of columns in one of the bigger newspapers of the Wizarding World.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, pressing his fingers to his throbbing temples.
"To give you a chance." She was standing in his way again.
"A chance to what?"
"To tell the world your side of the story."
"What story? Are you unemployed? Or how else could you be desperate enough to go after bitter, crippled ex-Aurors who have zero news value?"
"I'm working on a project."
"Nice for you. Now let me go."
"This may be of interest to you."
"You and your projects are none of my concern."
"Are you sure you don't want to take part in it?"
He decided that it was time to curse her. He pulled his wand from his jacket. "This is the final warning I'll give you: get out of my way."
She lifted her hands up in the air in mock-surrender. "As you wish, I'm leaving. Personally, it pains me to think that after reading my future article, everybody is going to believe that Alastor Moody, our great warrior and protector, had fled, and hid away instead of preparing for the most important fight against Voldemort and his Death Eaters. But it's your choice."
Her derisive tone of voice gave her total lack of real feelings away.
He knew he should have left her there long before, without talking to her at all. Now his head hurt too much to make a clear decision, his badly-healed skull was close to smothering all the thoughts in his brain, and the last remnants of his pride hurt with a burning sensation he did not know he was still capable of feeling. This was his legacy. The last thing he left to the world. This is how people will remember him!
He had to give her something.
"Not now." Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to see that he was in no condition to be interviewed on the spot. He was way too drunk to handle trick questions. "Come here tomorrow, same time. I'll answer your questions."
She should have at least had the decency to look humble after her sudden success. But no, she beamed, a smug, victorious smile just for him. "Perfect, Mr Moody. I'll leave you to it now. Have a nice evening. And, oh, you might want to give some thought to the way you want to present yourself tomorrow for the interview."
He did not reply to her last sentence, and tried hard not to dwell on what exactly she had meant. He knew there were more than enough reasons for her hinting at his deplorable state.
Suddenly, he did not want to think at all. He wanted to lie on the dust-stained mattress of his half-empty bungalow, and think nothing. Especially not remember. Just to have a night of sound sleep. However, he knew that his wish was futile. After meeting her, his nightmares were going to return with a vengeance. He could already feel the dull anticipation of blood, gore, and restless hours. Waking up, and then dozing off to another horror, again, and again, and again.
Why couldn't she have just left him alone? Why had she had to reappear from his past? He hated her for it. More than for her cruel words, or her irritating, garish, red-painted smile.
She disappeared among the dark shadows of the streets, but even after she was long gone, he could still feel the syrupy overdose of her perfume in his nostrils, and the mark her presence left on his equilibrium.
