Chapter 1

It was a rather warm and quiet summer evening and the last remnants of the sun could be seen on the horizon. Some birds were softly chirping their songs and the last bees were buzzing around before making their final way home. Several elderly people were sitting on their patio, enjoying the last rays of sunshine while nursing various beverages.

Many people would describe the scene as pure paradise - the pinnacle of a nice summer day. However, for Alastor Moody it was not. Far from it. In fact he loathed those quiet uneventful days with a passion, because it meant he had nothing to do.

Not for the first time he had cursed himself for retiring from his job as an Auror. As exhausting as it had been to work for the Ministry of Magic, it had at least never been boring. Not like this personal little hellhole he had moved to. Spending his days watering some flowers and chatting with some old geezers was hardly something he would consider worthwhile.

At least I won't be here for long anymore, he quietly thought.

He would have never thought he would be relieved to teach magic to some young brats. However, when his old friend Albus Dumbledore had approached him a couple days ago, asking if he would consider teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts he jumped at the opportunity to escape his monotonous everyday life. And who knew, maybe he would end up enjoying his role as professor? He had certainly liked his job as teacher at the Auror academy. How could't he? There was hardly anything more satisfying than yelling at the new recruits and hitting them with stingers if they didn't comply fast enough.

He took a sip of his scotch and grinned to himself at the memories.

Ah, yes those were the days…

There was however a little voice in his head asking himself why Albus had asked him of all people to teach. After all he had been called many things during his time - paranoid, mad, disrespectful, …. It was admittedly quite a long and unflattering list of adjectives. Point was that no one in their right mind would ask him to teach young children. Albus must have been truly desperate to find a professor.

All of a sudden he felt the subtle magical nudge from his secondary set of alarms around his property notifying him about an intruder.

Looks like I'm getting some action sooner than I thought!

He carefully sat down his glass and slowly drew his wand with a cruel smile plastered across his face. Maybe people weren't so far off when they labeled him a lunatic.

A normal man of his age would have been terrified of an attempted burglary. However he was no ordinary man. With his various missing body parts and scarred face, his appearance alone would make most people run away and the mere mention of his name usually made crooks all around the British Isles rethink their life choices. And rightfully so.

The intruder either did not know into which house he was breaking in or he was really stupid. He had to hand it to him though, not many people would be able to disable his primary wards. However those were only a diversion, something that would give an intruder something to do and lure them in a false sense of security. The next couple of wards were much better hidden and only a professional curse breaker might even notice them.

The intruder obviously hadn't.

Moody had his wand carefully trained on the wooden backdoor of his house. His artificial eye, capable of seeing through walls, rolled around in his socket and meticulously scanned his surroundings. It was an old habit from his active days as an Auror. You can never be too careful, right?

Within a moment his thought had proved to be true. Because there was no one behind the door. Instead he noticed a small movement on his left side, almost like a glint in the air.

Fucking invisibility cloaks!

Having no time to raise a shield, he barely managed to jump to the side before a red spell hit the spot where he had been standing before. Unfortunately, the second red bolt hit him straight in the chest, knocked the air out of his lungs and sent him flying through the air, behind his kitchen counter.

Groaning, he checked for his wand and swore as he had apparently dropped it. A bit of blood was dripping down the side of his head.

Great unarmed and probably a concussion to boot…

When he sat up the squeaking sound of wood indicated that the kitchen drawer behind him had been smashed by the impact. So with no other weapon available he reached behind himself and picked out a large chunk of wood and waited. His attacker was approaching his position and slowly peaked around the corner. Thanks to his eye Moody knew exactly where he would appear beforehand and the piece of wood he had thrown hit his attacker right in the face, who let out a pained yell.

Male, maybe in his thirties…

But right now Moody didn't care a bit about that though and with the speed of a much younger man than he appeared to be jumped to his feet ducked under a bright yellow spell and tackled the unknown assailant to the ground.

Due to his age his attacker had an obvious edge in terms of physical strength and speed. Therefore Alastor was hardly surprised that the man managed to get on top of him. However it was obvious that his assailant had little hand combat experience and Moody, with his age and previous profession, knew just about every dirty trick in the book. When the intruder punched him in the face, the old Auror barely even noticed it. As the fist was raised for another strike, Moody grinned evilly.

"You hit like a little girl." Moody growled and kneed him with his prosthetic leg in the groin.

His assailant started to let out a high pitched squeal - at least until Moody fist knocked half of his teeth out and sent him sprawling to the ground.

With his attacker temporarily disabled he managed to take a good look at him. The invisibility cloak or whatever charm he had used to hide his presence had worn of during the fight. However his face was hidden behind a white mask, so he didn't know who it was. Strangely not even his artificial eye could see through it.

Right now that was inconsequential, it was his right arm that gained his attention. Beneath the robe, dark magic was flickering around. The signature was all too familiar to him. The Dark Mark. The symbol of lord Voldemort's most loyal followers.

"Well I'll be damned…" he murmured and wandlessly summoned his wand back in his hand.

But just as he grasped the wooden stick and prepared to cast some bindings on his assailant he heard a rat squeaking behind him. Which was strange on its own because his entire property was surrounded with a pest control ward.

It got even more strange when a second later, a man stood there instead of a rat.

What the…?!

Then there was an ear deafening sound and once again Moody was thrown back into the kitchen drawer.

When he got up his attacker was already gone.

"...Four cracked ribs, two of them broken, multiple torn muscles, a dislocated shoulder and a grade two concussion. Not to mention quite a large hematoma on your back." Healer Carter huffed and sternly pointed her finger at him "Really Alastor! I thought you would go easy in your retirement but this very much reminds me of the days when you were still on active duty!"

Moody grimaced from his bed. He knew the witch and her temper rather well. During his career as Auror he had been injured more than he would like to admit and as Abigail Carter was one of the few healers responsible for the DMLE, he had found himself quite often under her "tender" care.

Dungeon master Carter was the nickname his fellow Aurors had given her. Not that anyone had the balls to call her that.

"Dittany for your back and you will drink those two potions until the start of next week..." she said and handed him two big flasks.

Okay doesn't sound so bad…

"And we will keep you here for the next three days!" she continued.

…Fuck!

"You hear me mister? Merlin knows you´d just get into trouble again on your own!"

"Yes Abby…" he sighed obediently.

Great three days in the infirmary! This day can't get any worse.

She answered with another stern glare.

The sound of two people talking outside the hospital room suddenly made them turn their heads towards the entrance door.

"Right this way Professor." said the young Auror, who was in charge of his attack.

An elderly man chuckled "Just Albus please. I haven't been your professor in quite a while Richard."

Moody groaned. This day seemed to get worse by the minute. Of course he had to come… Although Albus Dumbledore was one of the few people he would call a friend, with his mysterious and eccentric ways he could also be a royal pain in the ass. He was already frustrated enough and facing the aged headmaster didn't appeal to him one bit.

He looked at Abigail pleadingly.

Please don't send them in!

She just smirked at him and yelled "You can come in gentlemen! The door is open!"

Moody growled and gave the healer a glare.

"Alastor!" said the old man dressed in his ever colorful robes and entered the room "My friend! How are you?"

He only gave Dumbledore a sour look as he sat down on the chair next to his bed.

"Ah, not so well I take it?"

„I'm in the bloody hospital! How do you think I am?!"

The headmaster raised his hands placatingly „Now, now Alastor. I was merely being polite."

More like being a manipulative old git!

He snorted „Yea, right… pull another one Albus. You came here to ask me about the Deatheaters, not to be polite."

Dumbledore pouted but then continued in his merry tone „Ah, but tell me, why can't I do both at the same time?"

Moody sighed, it was as always, pointless to argue with the man.

"Some Death Eater punks managed to get to drop on me. Must be getting old.. To be honest my pride hurts more than anything else." the Auror finally admitted after staring at Dumbledore for almost a minute quietly.

The headmaster of Hogwarts frowned and nodded slowly. Then he stood up from his chair and looked at Abigail and the other Auror "Would you two mind to step outside for a moment?"

The pair merely shrugged and left the room without a word. It was clear that Dumbledore had only asked and not commanded for the sake of politeness.

Once they had left the old man waved with his wand and Moody struggled to suppress a shiver as he felt powerful privacy charms surrounding them.

"I was wondering… you always talk about the intruders - plural - so more than one?"

"Yes, at least two. Knocked one out, but then out of nowhere another one appeared behind me."

"I see… Were you able to identify them?"

Moody frowned. A big advantage of his artificial eye was that it could see through almost everything. Walls, cheap invisibility cloaks, disillusionment and obscuring charms - hardly anything could be hidden from him. In the previous war the masks of the Death Eaters were also not able to keep their identity hidden from him. But his attackers had somehow managed to hide their faces and even more impressively kept themselves invisible long enough to sneak up on him.

"No idea how they did it. But I couldn't see through their masks. I also don't know how they managed to sneak up on me. Maybe I'm getting old…"

Dumbledore chuckled and shook his head "No, I'm sure you are as vigilant as ever. I highly doubt that two run of the mill Death Eaters figured out how to trick you on their own. They must have had help from someone." Then he paused dramatically, "I think you know who I mean."

Of course he knew who his friend was talking about. He had on more than one occasion expressed his opinion that the Dark Lord had never truly died on that fateful night. If he was involved it would explain how they had managed to hide from him. Such advanced magic was surely within the possible for such an experienced wizard.

Still he had a hard time believing that out of all the people he would target him. It made little sense to him.

"Voldemort?" he snorted. "You really think he is the mastermind behind this? Come one Albus. He had 13 years to come up with a grand plan and then he goes for me, a retired Auror, out of all people? Shouldn't he be more worried about taking you out first? His biggest adversary? Not that I think I'm very low on his hit list, but I'm for sure not a priority target. You and Bones and maybe Potter, sure. But me? Why?"

Dumbledore looked at him deep in thought and after a while said "Indeed a good question. But tell me: If they just wanted to kill you, why did they resort to such relatively harmless spells? Maybe it was never the intention to kill you in the first place. And that only assures me that it is Voldemort who is pulling the strings here."

Moody's one eye widened.

As a matter of fact the Death Eaters had not used a single lethal spell in their fight. Not once. The first one had been an overpowered disarming charm, which still blasted him through half the room, but not a killing curse or anything like that.

Was it possible that they had not intended to take him out but capture him? But for what?

As a hostage? As a bait? No, there were other people who would be far easier to capture and more useful than him.

Intel? No, also not very likely. His high security clearance had been taken away when Fudge became Minister, so any information he had was most likely already outdated.

So what did they have to gain?

And then it dawned him - Hogwarts! Albus had coerced him to take over the DADA position for a year. Had they captured him, they could have used him to enter the castle, where two high profile targets, Dumbledore and Potter were just waiting for them on the silver platter.

"Polyjuice…! They could have pretended to be me and gotten into Hogwarts. Well within striking distance."

"Yes. I fear that was their intention…" Dumbledore mussed "Fortunately Voldemort has played his hand. If it is his intention to get into the castle, he will most likely try to find another way. We might be able to use this to our advantage."

Moody grinned "Sounds like you have a plan."

Dumbledore shook his head "Not yet, but with your help I'm sure we can come up with something."

I guess retirement is over sooner than I thought.

"Well if those bastards want a war, we´ll give them one. Tell me what you know."