Author's Note:

Hi, how's everyone been? I hope you guys are hanging on alright. Managing my gastritis without my usual runs aside, the most I can complain about is my youngest brother coordinating an online game of mahjong loudly in the living room in the middle of the night. My complaints are mere trifles compared to what others have to face, I'm sure. I haven't gotten the hang of the third arc's plot yet, but I think I can upload a few intermezzo chapters for a bit for now to entertain and distract even for a moment. Have a good read and stay safe and well everyone!

'-

63 Intermezzo - Alastor Moody I

The experience of one Alastor Moody, Auror, during the Hogsmeade Crisis and beyond, consisting mostly of his encounters with two unusual Hogwarts students. Snippets of Hermione's shift in St. Mungo's A&E in two Saturdays. A conversation between Hermione and Tom.

(Summary applies to both intermezzo chapters titled 'Alastor Moody')

'-

The 17th of October wasn't a good day for Alastor Moody.

He had left the Ministry the moment the panicked woman who rushed in finished her report, only spending a little more time to bark orders to his underlings and ensuring that someone would continue passing the news to Director Bones, by flooing to his house if necessary. It was a good thing that he habitually checked on his office on Saturdays, because as good as the Aurors manning the place was, he wasn't sure they were prepared for something like this.

The attack at Hogsmeade really could have been worse, Moody thought, cursing the new Aurors who didn't even think on checking their wards when the number of calls into the DMLE seemed to have dropped in frequency to zero, only too glad for their momentary peace. Bloody idiots. That had almost never happened in his experience, not even on Saturday mornings. He had already mentally assigned them to the graveyard shift for at least the next week, probably two, and he knew that Director Bones would easily sign that order.

They were lucky that the attack wasn't any worse, though it galled him to know that the Aurors had missed most of the fight and was now practically the clean-up team. Albus' assuring pats on the shoulder and Orpheus nod of how they 'had it under control' almost rouse the fury he felt towards his underlings yet again, but he managed to hold it back. That was supposed to be their job.

The fastest wand and most dedicated mind of wizarding Britain my arse.

A part of him was also trying to think up about setting up stealth attacks and infiltration exercises into the Ministry to ensure that the rookies were more alert, but he set that aside for now. It wasn't what he needed to focus on, as he was about to meet one of the enigmas of the day. The room in front of him was one set aside in Hogshead Inn for precisely these types of impromptu interviews.

The brass handle turned under his hand and he pushed the door open.

Alastor had started assessing the student the moment he walked into the room. The student had entered before him and he was now observing the view outside the window. The young wizard turned around when he heard the door open.

Two teachers had brought in the hidden shooter, but both said that it was two students who had disarmed him. Two students. He'd thought that Albus and Orpheus were joking and was just holding back his bark of laughter, but one continued to look grave while the other concerned. He knew then that they were telling the truth. The witch of the two was actually the young healing talent raising a commotion in St. Mungo's recently, backed by the famously-demanding Madam Álava, so perhaps there was something more to her after all—what with rumours of her being a refugee from Europe. There might've been things she'd seen and done that she wasn't too enthusiastic to jaw on about.

The wizard, however…

"Mr. Riddle?" Alastor called.

"Yes, that would be me."

He didn't offer him a hand to shake. Young Riddle simply nodded back in greeting, unaffected by the apparent discourtesy.

The student was too slick for Alastor to trust immediately. Tom Riddle was like any other pureblooded brats he'd seen since his Hogwarts days. It didn't matter that the brat came from his House—considering that the worst pricks came from there, that label should actually be treated as a warning instead. If it wasn't for Riddle's unfamiliar last name, he wouldn't have guessed the boy had at least one parent that wasn't magical.

"Why don't you take a seat, Mr. Riddle?" Alastor said. He didn't make it sound as if it was optional.

"Why, certainly."

Riddle sat down with ease as if he'd wanted to do that all along. Moody decided to stay standing, walking around this small tea room.

Underneath the dust and grime, Riddle's clothes were still more impeccable than even Alastor managed in his Hogwarts days. It accentuated his handsome profile very well, and even his tousled hair was just so. He inwardly grimaced at his own reflexive distrust from it. He could've secured a patron already or three. He's certainly not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

"Why did you decide to enter Hogsmeade?" The Auror asked.

"Hermione was going to go and check whether I went with her or not—you see, she's too caring. It was safer if we both go." He answered.

"You didn't try to stop her?"

Riddle chuckled. "Hermione? Oh, she knows her own mind and she knows the risks. She's not exactly inexperienced at in this, Mr. Moody."

Based on the rumours about her, of her background, he could see why it might be true. There young wizard's calm attitude, however, made his Auror instinct twitch. Something was just a little off…

"And you went—what for? To keep the little lady safe? Be the hero she needed?" He chose to go with a casually dismissive tone.

"She needed someone to watch her back, yes."

"You let her walk into a place with an active attacker with a muggle weapon. Do you actually hate her that much?" He asked, askance, exaggerating his disbelief.

A flicker of something in his eyes, but too fast to read before it disappeared again.

"She knows the risk. This isn't the first Grindelwald attack she had to weather."

Riddle's tone didn't change. It was still even; his dark eyes were placid even as they met Alastor's. He recalled that the young wizard even carefully checked his tie in one of the mirrors in the hallways before he walked here, as Alastor had been surreptitiously observing him from a distance. That realisation coalesced in his mind. He's not even worried.

"Not the first, you say?" Alastor asked.

"As far as I know, she's the only survivor from the British wizarding circle of Kopervik. I'm sure you can find out the rest of the details yourself, Mr. Moody." His diction was precise, perfect. Alastor forced himself to look beyond the image he presented. The student's quiet confidence would give most people pause.

"You're not afraid she'd be hurt? Nobody knows how many attackers were there at the beginning."

"There is a higher probability of her being hurt if I'm not by her side. I went."

"It was a gamble, Mr. Riddle, and an unnecessary one." He warned, staring the student down from his standing position.

"It's not as if the Aurors were coming at that time, was it?" Riddle replied mildly.

Ah, here are his fangs. He might be polite but he was not a pushover. Alastor loomed forward.

"So, you were rescuing the damsel after all, Mr. Riddle."

A light cough. "Not really, no. Hermione can take care of herself, but a second wand arm and a lookout can only help. I'd have preferred to go straight back to Hogwarts, perhaps inform the teachers. Yet life doesn't always give us the easy choices." His tone was that of mild boredom, a feat considering their topic.

Riddle's only concession to their height difference was a slight glance upwards, the tilt of his face barely moving. That there was less than a foot between their faces didn't make the student move back even the slightest. Not one to easily give ground, are you?

Alastor pulled back and grinned. That flash of intense annoyance crossing the student's face just now was that of a predator.

Now we know what you are, Mr. Riddle.

"It does, doesn't it?" Alastor casually agreed as he took the seat across the table, more relaxed than he'd been since he first entered. He unrolled a scroll and floated a verbatim quill over it.

"Right, let's start this interview from the beginning properly. This is Investigating Auror Alastor Moody in Hogsmeade at 3 PM. I'm interviewing Hogwarts student Tom Riddle as an eyewitness to today's attack on Hogsmeade. Mr. Riddle, please state your full name and identity in your own words."

"My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle and I'm a fifth-year Hogwarts prefect from Slytherin House…"

'-

Alastor had weighed Tom Riddle within five minutes of the interview.

The conversation after that was only a matter of filling in the details. The Hogwarts prefect was self-assured and it did not change when Alastor's questions were more pointed and suspecting. He might have mistaken it as the result of a privileged background, but his patience spoke otherwise.

He had yet to let Alastor rile him.

It did not matter whether Alastor was questioning his manhood for simply following Curie when she decided to head towards the screams, said in a too-knowing tone that he understood the drive to be a hero. Riddle deflected that easily, saying that he valued his life more than being a martyr with a sardonic gaze, casually saying that he has a mere common man's worth of valour instead of one that can rival Heracles.

Alastor had even tried the rather unsavoury angle of imitating what the blinkered Blakeshaw would've done; Alastor wondered aloud whether it's really possible for a Hogwarts student to manage all that. (For all of Alastor's questionable methods, he was not slimy enough to outright question anyone's ability just based on blood).

Riddle shrugged away and said that perhaps he wasn't managing it as well as it seemed.

"Who would know? It's not as if it's a good idea to let your housemates know how weak you are, is it, Mr. Moody?"

"Your housemates are like that, are they?" He asked back causally.

"You would know. You speak just like them the moment you came in; throwing barbs, casually probing for a weakness." Riddle replied, dark blue eyes meeting his gaze head on. He did not even bother to put his words as a question, laying them as a statement instead.

"I'm a mere Auror doing his job, Mr. Riddle." Alastor didn't hold back his slight grin at that.

"I'm sure you are." Came the dry reply.

The boy's canny enough to suss out that I'm probably from the same House. He was certainly amused; he did not always have the opportunity to sit across someone who had at least two brain cells left to rub together.

Other than the occasional flashes of annoyance in the prefect's face or posture that was readable to an interrogator like him as time goes, Tom Riddle kept his calm demeanour and even his ruddy look-at-me, aren't-I-perfectly-relaxed sitting position. Any pureblood heir would've burst a vessel by now and demanded to contact their father or the family retainer, probably some experienced legal magister.

After ten minutes, Alastor was grudgingly impressed that he did let off the pressure slightly. Only slightly, mind you. No sense in giving the boy a clue to his thoughts.

Not one to run off when things gets tough, is he?

There were several rookie Aurors that Alastor could name that would benefit from learning from Tom Riddle.

After their interview, he managed to invite himself on Albus' table during lunch to get more information on this Riddle boy. It had taken him several years after he graduated, and certainly after he'd gotten into the groove of being an Auror that he could bring himself to call his former professor by his first name. Albus had insisted on it for a while too. It was much easier to do so with Orpheus, as he'd only took up the post of the Head of Ravenclaw House a few years into Alastor's time in Hogwarts.

"So, can anyone give me a précis on Tom Riddle?"

He pretended not to see the flash of worry on the professor's face and heard just what he'd expected.

Perfect student with outstanding scores across the board. Excellent prefect, even though this is his first year as one. Helpful. Charming. Polite. He had made many friends across his House, his year mates, and even beyond them.

"Sounds like the type of student every teacher wants." Alastor said this sarcastically. Albus, however, was unusually brief in his reply.

"Quite."

"What, no defence of the oh-so-nice student?"

The Auror noticed the tension in Albus' smile just then.

"Oh, you know how it is, Alastor. He's not in my House. I'm hardly as well-informed of the particularities of his character as his Head of House."

Albus, claiming that there was no way for him to know a student well simply because he was in a different house? That's something short of a miracle. Albus made it his business to know every student of note that had passed under him. Alastor had snorted wordlessly at the reply, but asked nothing more. If Albus clammed up, well, it was simply time to find his information from somewhere else. There was no forcing the Transfiguration Master.

Orpheus huffed from where he was sitting to Albus' right.

"Don't mind him, Alastor. He's trying to politely tell you that he doesn't wish to speak ill of such a stellar student."

"I said nothing of the sort," Albus defended himself.

"Perhaps not, but your intention is the same. Heaven forfend that you ever put in a good word for him," the blond astronomy professor continued as he turned his attention back to Moody. "Tom Riddle is simply very Slytherin in his ambition. Surely you know such character? Not that it's even a surprise, what with his background. I would think that he'd like to escape that."

Ah, yes, that muggle background that he'd heard of in passing earlier. The Auror leaned forward.

"What of his background?"

"He's a muggleborn orphan," Dexter began, and he soon continued with a tale of woe that was almost Dickensian in scale. An orphan whose wardrobe was half second-hand, who did not quite fit the magical world at the beginning. How did he turn to the young wizard I saw?

"He's very…polished, though, not what I expected of a muggleborn student at all." Alastor started.

"Very pureblood, you mean," Albus murmured.

Alastor grinned. "I was trying to avoid stereotyping." Albus twitched, something that was satisfying to see.

"Touché."

"That is all thanks to his circle of friends," Orpheus answered. He thought he could hear Albus mutter 'followers' under his breath. Orpheus merely gazed heavenward and let out a long-suffering sigh. He had a feeling that this was an old and familiar topic of discussion for them.

"Yes, he's charismatic and he has them under his spell, but I still think they are also his friends. I suppose he's practically adopted in by his coterie. Of course, you're better of asking Horace for more details. He is the Slytherin's Head of House and he'd be joining us sometime soon."

He was trouble, this Riddle. Alastor knew exactly what type that was—the sort of Slytherin that rose to the top. Tom Riddle would have subdued enough of his rivals inside his house to be able to get other purebloods to follow. That was simply how the House worked.

Riddle was a dagger inside a beautiful silken sheath. The last smile you see before a killing blow.

Moody would swear he could feel the shadow of future headaches haunting him just then, born from gut instinct and experience with such Slytherins. He rubbed his temples after he'd finished his own lunch and bid the two Head of Houses farewells. Slughorn he can always meet later—he was always enthusiastic to see a former student.

Just what I need. Another bloody up-and-coming politician that would calmly cut his way through the Ministry in a few more years, stirring the pot with infighting. Inwardly, he huffed with aversion. Another person to make my job harder than it is.

That was why, even as he asked Orpheus to send Hermione Curie to talk to him at his table at the corner of Hogshead Inn's dining room, a bubble of sound-proofing charm cast already, his expectations were low.

If Riddle was the slick politician in the making who could stifle any indication of his actual sentiment in front of Alastor, he could guess what Hermione Curie would be like. Sure, someone's patronage probably generated that flattering piece on the front page of the Prophet for her, but even the Prophet does not rumourmonger without actual sources and events. Curie was definitely a talented witch for her age.

An ambitious overachiever like Riddle would not have accepted anyone less for his possible partner.

Oh, Riddle would not have admitted it, would have dismissed the question out of hand with a chuckle, a disarming smile, before simply moving on unbothered. He was not besotted, Alastor knew—he could recognise the lovesick from a mile away now. Yet something was there, even if Riddle himself might not be prepared to admit it to himself yet. It was there in his pride of her easy competence; in the easy way he dismissed the other students he'd encountered during the Hogsmeade attack just then by saying that they 'didn't hold a candle to Hermione's talent'.

Of how it was an extremely logical conclusion to take that he was best served to simply continue investigating Hogsmeade with only Hermione and without anyone else. Not Crouch, the sixth-year Gryffindor prefect he'd met earlier, and not any of the adults either.

Mr. Riddle had his heart set on someone even if his head might not know it yet. Something deeper than mere lovesickness.

This, in return, piqued his curiosity about Hermione Curie. What sort of witch would have captured the interest of an over-achieving political operator in the making like Tom Riddle?

The Auror could already see her in his mind's eye. Friendly and yet genteel, her very air would be that of a lady—the perfect politician's wife. She would have impeccable poise, with kind and polite words hiding her brilliant mind most of the time—because a measly bureaucrat of a wizard would easily get peeved at a younger witch that was smarter than him that someone of her intelligence would know how to tone down her ability too and act all nice and demure. That was the most effective way to get people's guards down around them.

Hell, he knew several excellent Aurors who happen to be witches who did the same around certain superiors. He supposed that Curie would watch him with the same care and scrutiny that Riddle did, with sweet talk and sweet nothings. Their interview would probably be just as tediously drawn out and guarded as his interview with Riddle.

Alastor sighed and rubbed his bristly chin.

There was no avoiding the routine, though.

His musings continued as he waited for her arrival in the room. Riddle's distaff counterpart would be a diamond; encased within the elegant cut, she would be bright, hard and sharp. Above all, she would be just as perfect—

"Ah, you must be Mr. Moody!"

The bright tone pulled him out of his thoughts and he paused to ensure that he was staring at the correct person.

"Miss Curie?" He hazarded.

"Yes, that's me."

Her confidence was all he had expected, though her genuinely warm smile surprised him—he had expected a polished but charming one, but this was only a slight difference. She was pretty enough, but surprisingly not to the level of extraordinary beauty he'd expected that Riddle would demand of any woman close enough to him.

Everything else, however…

There were tiny splatters on her right sleeve as well as parts of her torso. That colour…old blood, unless she'd been carving a particularly stubborn roasted leg in her best togs. She offered her hand, he politely bowed over it. Calloused. No stranger to hard work and didn't care to hide it. Her hands were clean, but there was the occasional spot or three on her arm of the same shade of the sleeve spatter.

"You've been busy, Miss Curie?" He opened a line of conversation.

She shrugged. "Oh, you know how it is. I'm the first person with medical training on the spot. That means I have to do something for all the shooting victims."

It was not fake nonchalance—she truly did not think much of it. She did not say much else, stopping her answer short instead of turning it into an opportunity to showcase her ability and performance.

"Quite a change of plans for your Saturday agenda, isn't it, picking up all the wounded and bloody people?" Alastor asked with studied casualness. "This must be hell on your social schedule."

Curie's smile was tighter. "Yes. My Saturday is still much better than any of theirs, though. I can still walk away on my own power."

That was not just annoyance. Curiously enough, the attack angered her.

Hmm, that's rather Gryffindor-ish of her.

Her dress was nice but not one from the exclusive fashion houses that only allow people to walk in by recommendation (and how such recommendation brings no guarantee on the ability to buy anything yet). With her voluminous hair (probably from the static of many strong spells), she was the last thing from impeccable. Yet she was certainly effective.

"Well, they're just unlucky that way, aren't they?" His answer was light and glib.

Curie was quiet for a moment except for a subtle tension across her jaw before she suddenly smiled. Her gaze never left his in the meantime.

"Does the DMLE actually measure the time the Aurors take to respond to a developing emergency situation? If no measurement is done from time to time, well, nobody can say for certain whether it has improved or actually…deteriorate, right?"

The young witch didn't even try to couch her criticism with platitudes first, or tried to butter him up with compliments, which was what a well-bred lady would have done.

No, not just a diamond. Curie is the last thing from decorative. She wasn't even a knife—she was halberd, functional and effective, cutting through shoulders and limbs without a second thought.

Alastor couldn't stop his snort, the hint of an aborted chuckle.

Curie narrowed her eyes slightly at him and he waved a hand at that.

"I just lost a bet with myself, don't mind me."

"What bet was it?" Her smile was not in the neighbourhood of friendly.

"I had thought that Tom Riddle would've wanted to go out with some Little Miss Perfect. Seems like he has more personality than I credit him with." Alastor bluntly replied as he met her gaze head on. She was unexpected, this Ravenclaw witch that had as many claws as a lion.

Curie huffed, her cheeks reddening, but she settled easily into the chair across the table from him. Instead of bristling or even hiding any feeling of offence, Hermione Curie was unruffled and unbothered. She was even-keeled in a different way than Riddle; she easily matched his maturity. It was nice to know that he wasn't completely wrong in his profile of her, at least.

"Yes, he just hides dissatisfaction so well from strangers. Particularly nosey Aurors who knows nothing about him and yet assumes so much already."

Curie's smile was amused this time. He let out a rough bark of laughter.

"Nosey Aurors is a redundant term, Miss Curie. It's practically our job to snoop." He answered.

"Ah, well, I know it's really difficult, but I do try to be polite." The edge in her words was anything but.

"What a coincidence, I do too!" His reply was cheerful and unbearably dense. There was a slight tic to her expression that he found entertaining. "I'll ask almost everything that comes to my mind now. Hopefully, there would be no need for further interviews if this one is comprehensive enough."

"Please, Mr. Moody, I may like a free lunch as much as the next person, but I never expect it."

The dryness in her tone implied that she had a far better idea of what the life was like than the average young witch. That world-weariness of hers was slightly harder to account for in one so young. Where did she come from, again? It all comes down to her past in Europe, doesn't it?

He was not so curious anymore, though. What little of war he'd seen, it had been enough for him to not wish to see more.

"Really, the DMLE will do our best in this investigation." He replied.

"If they don't, I'd worry about the British Wizarding World." She said as easily. The uninitiated might have thought she was being nice. He knew better.

Moody didn't take it as a personal slight. Hermione's answer was something he added to his mental note of her person. His grin grew wider as he unrolled a scroll on the table and floated a verbatim pen over it. When he flashed that many teeth, the new recruits usually started to duck out of his sight, in case he had yet another interesting training idea he'd drag all of them into. Not knowing that, she was of course unfazed.

"Very well, then, let's start this interview from the beginning. Your full name and identity, Miss Curie?"

"My name is Hermione Sophia Curie. I've just recently transferred into Hogwarts and Sorted into the Ravenclaw House as a fifth-year…"

Moody was only too happy at being wrong. No, interviewing her was very unlike interviewing Riddle, other than how just like with him, he could see her intelligence with every answer she gave. If she thought he'd insulted somebody undeservedly, she was not one to let it go without correcting him about it. Usually, this came around because he acted as if he underestimated Riddle.

"Why are you so certain that he wouldn't have simply backed away once he realised that the attack was more serious than he had guessed?" Alastor asked.

"He wouldn't, you know." Curie said.

"Wouldn't? Why, because he loves you?" He needled, watching the teenager.

The brunette snorted. "He doesn't."

His raised eyebrow was the only expression of surprise that he allowed to show. Curie did not even look the slightest bit concerned as she said that. It was a rather unexpected trait that he noted down.

"It's just that Tom is thorough when he'd decided on a goal or action. If he said he'd do it, he'd see it to the end. Besides, I'm sure that he doesn't think that a mere muggle or three would be enough to stop him." Her voice was conversational even as her words were frank.

"Are you implying that he's so self-confident, so narcissistic?"

"I'm not implying it. I'm saying it. I know what he's like, Mr. Moody." Her words were blunter than a sledgehammer.

And Alastor couldn't help but chuckle at that. To him, she was far more entertaining than Riddle and the interview passed in no time between them—he'd never bothered to put on airs or play games in front of her since she'd never bothered to hold back her experience or her opinion. She seemed to have found him somewhat amusing as well, for some reason, for he realised later on as he observed her chat with several of her lecturers that she'd been nowhere as blunt with them as she had with him. Now, he could actually read the slight twitch or discomfort in her face whenever someone was over-praising Riddle.

The two students were unexpectedly interesting, and he resolved to keep track of them from time to time, out of curiosity.

'-

It was right in the middle of the Hogsmeade Crisis when Dexter informed Hermione that there was someone who had wanted to talk to her at a corner table in Hogshead Inn. One of the things that had surprised her was seeing how young Moody looked.

Oh, he was older than her, that much was obvious, in his twenties, or early thirties if she had to give an upper bound. Yet he looked more akin to a worker who had dragged themselves home from the pub in the small hours of the morning than the paranoid, grumpy old hermit she could recall better in her flashes of memories. It was there in the shadows under his eyes, his bleary-eyed expression and a beard that seemed to be the result of lack of maintenance than any conscious effort. His hair was as dark as it was thick, and the lopsided way he carelessly flopped his hat on his head reminded her more of cowboy hats placed at a rakish angle in old westerns.

Still, that feeling of warmth, as if she was actually meeting an old friend, was a welcome reprieve in the tiring day. If her greeting was a little more friendly than a stranger would expect, she didn't think twice about it.

"Ah, you must be Mr. Moody!"

"Miss Curie?" He sounded mildly surprised for some reason.

"Yes, that's me." She confirmed.

Handsome wasn't a word most people would easily choose to describe him, but he already had the charisma that could force people to follow his orders. His eyes were sharp and assessing from the moment he looked up as he scanned her quickly. It barely perturbed her; it was something Moody just did, and apparently the habit started early.

"You've been busy, Miss Curie?" He asked.

Hermione realised then that he might have been trying to reach her earlier, but she'd been unavailable for one reason or another, including her lunch with Tom. She shrugged.

"Oh, you know how it is. I'm the first person with medical training on the spot. That means I have to do something for all the shooting victims."

Their eyes met and she could see that he was waiting for something that didn't come—not that she knew what. She simply blinked.

"Quite a change of plans for your Saturday agenda, isn't it, picking up all the wounded and bloody people?" Alastor asked with a casual air she didn't think he felt. "This must be hell on your social schedule."

The interview went on a little less familiar than she'd been expecting, and Moody sharper. That she was expecting it to be familiar in the first place was something she chalked up to foolishness, and probably not a little fatigue. It was no surprise that he would treat her like a stranger, and that he would prick and needle as he asked his questions. She knew his interviewing style well, which was why she had instantly answered him the same way she answered the old Moody that she could remember; bluntly and to the point. It would amuse him enough that he'd follow suit instead of trying to weave circles around her that she was currently not in the mood for.

Her assessment of his later character was already applicable now, it would seem, for their conversation went on in a more-or-less friendly basis.

"This is going to do wonders for your reputation, isn't it? Little Miss Nightingale, and now one of the heroes of Hogsmeade?" Moody idly commented.

"Or it would just make me little old muggleborn me more visible, which translates to having a larger bull's eye painted on my back." She answered in a tone just as bland. "Not that I'm unfamiliar with that feeling."

"You make it sound like the wizarding world is so dangerous," he mused.

"You make it sound like we're not currently in a war," she answered, "where Grindelwald had clearly fired the opening salvo against Britain."

He nodded, mildly impressed with her concern. "Excellent awareness."

"It's actually just common sense. Which, unfortunately, isn't actually all that common."

And that earned her another shark-like grin. She simply replied it with a smile of her own.

The pointed comments and fishing conversations were simply how Moody worked, if he didn't outright just throw Harry's Auror gear at his head and then saying that they had a raid to go to. Or perhaps dropping in at Ron who'd fallen into a micro sleep at his desk and then suddenly describing a situation that needed handling and challenging Ron to come up with a plan for it on the spot. In five or ten minutes, he'd be dragging the redhead out of the office to go with him to handle practically the same situation he'd described. She couldn't remember when Moody ever did casual or easy.

Then she was back at Hogwarts and the intensity of her schedule and Tom's plans hit her like a tropical storm as The Society started with a bang, and she did not remember her encounter with him for a while yet.

'-

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