#𝙰𝙻𝙰𝚂𝚃𝚁𝙴𝙳. is a private multi muse roleplay blog for alastor ‘ mad - eye ’ moody & emmeline vance venkatesan that is primarily headcanon - based as imagined by ellie ( she + her , 25 , gmt ) .
rodolphus couldn't help but do a lap around the manor, checking on the perimeters, he would never actually escape being an auror, so when he finds himself amongst alastor moody, he isn't surprised. he looks over at his once mentor and nods his head. "didn't think. you'd be here." he says with a smirk, reaching out to one of the floating trays and taking a drink of it. he hadn't even had a full glass yet, people kept pulling him away. "are you enjoying yourself?" he asks, he knew that he wasn't. perhaps alastor was here for the same reason that he was : politics. it's what it always went down to.
alastor loathed events such as these, gilded and glamorous but so flimsy at masking their true purpose and ensuring people saw it as anything less than a grand farce, but he could not deny the security measures employed were flawless. he had spent much of his first hour there ignoring the social niceties required of him after greeting those required of him, a not small donation burning a hole in his pocket with gnashed teeth. he blows out a breath, doing his level best to appear as though he wished for the company of absolutely nobody. "where else would i be?" he glances out of the corner of his eye to his former protege, now boss, leaving unsaid that if he actually had the choice - he would rather be literally anywhere else. he glances down at his drink before answering, the only glass he will allow himself still half-full. "... the alcohol is good, at least. are you?" he was playing nice, or as nice as he was capable of being, in the name of politics, though anyone who truly knew him could see right through the facade - though that number was few.
the slow dying embers of a campfire, the beating of wings so loud and so large that it flattens all nearby vegetation, feeling more at home outside than indoors, the softness of a sweater, magic so strong you can taste it on the tip of your tongue, running barefoot in the tall grass, a bleeding heart wide open to the world, the crackling of a radio in the still night, hope as the thing with feathers that never stops singing
extended dossier. pinterest. playlist (under co.)
full name — emmeline jaya venkatesan
nickname(s) — emme, emmy
name meaning — emmeline: industrious; work; hard-working; peaceful home; unceasing; vigorous; brave. jaya: victory; victorious; the goddess durga. venkatesan: lord of venkata; lord vishnu; lord krishna.
age — twenty eight
date of birth — october 5
place of birth — merionethshire, wales
star sign — libra sun, cancer moon, gemini ascendant
current location — maentwrog, merionethshire
gender — cis woman
pronouns — she/her
sexual orientation — questioning ( more than likely queer )
religion — raised hindu
occupation — magizoologist
education level — hogwarts; scamander apprenticeship
family — sarala venkatesan ( mother; alive ), murali jayakumar ( father; unknown )
finances — [shrugs] woman of mystery (grew up poor to middling class)
spoken languages — welsh, english, some tamil
boggart — voldemort surviving dragonfire
patronus — dragonfly. the dragonfly is steeped in illusionary magic. the abilities to create a strong, almost "hypnotic" outer shell for the world, see beneath your own illusion and those of others, and gain strong mental clarity are common traits of the dragonfly. It is also a messenger, carrying with it messages from the past, far distances, and the spiritual realm. dragonflies are representative of what it means to be light, reflective, and full of joy - in all senses of the words. dragonfly medicine tends to be very emotional and passionate, often accompanying a great revelation or discovery of self.wand — a thin branch of alder, fragile to the eye despite possessing a phoenix tail feather for a core, swishy in the air and 10 & 3/4 inches in length. alder, an unusually unyielding wood, sought owners not similar in temper but those who were helpful, considerate and most likeable, and is best suited to non-verbal spellwork as a loyal helpmate that is exceptional at protection against outside forces. phoenix feathers often show their own initiative, and are the hardest of the cores to tame and personalise. this is emmeline's second wand; she tried this wand at age 16 and it wasn't quite the right fit — yet. combined, alder and phoenix feather were suitable for a witch or wizard who would make their mark on this world.
1950 is a year of too many surprises for sarala venkatesan, but emmeline is by far the most welcome of them. the cold, the near winter temperatures and bone chilling wind, is a novelty at first, and then seems something cruel to a woman who has only known sweltering heat and little subsidation. october brings with it many things that sarala is entirely unaccustomed to, the swell of her belly foreign to her eyes even after months and months of growing it on her own, but even with her regrets piling up after leaving home so unceremoniously, she cannot regret it when she gives birth in the local hospital to a dark haired baby girl who cries and cries and cries.
wales is where they've settled - though not exactly by choice. america was too far, the money that sarala had made by selling her own belongings, the gold and silver jewellery which she had been given flogged for what wound up being much less than it was worth, and settling in london meant being entirely too close to cousins who would know her by description, and staying in india was entirely untenable.
emmeline knew little of her mother's struggle. all she knew was that it was often too cold and all she had was her mother: they shared the same bed, the too small rickety frame and slim mattress that was no good for a young mother, let alone her baby. it was a blessing - or perhaps the magic in emmeline responding to the situation already and preventing her from being so - that she was not a sickly baby.
regardless, emmeline was a happy baby, and sarala brought her everywhere. it was odd, at first, to be stared at in the village when she wore her out and about, but soon the stares were accompanied by smiles, helping hands in the grocery store and finally, finally, a job offer suited to her strengths. sarala was not accustomed to having almost no money, or to having to work - she was the only daughter of a man who had spared no expense in sending her to private school and then arranging her unwanted marriage when she fell pregnant.
but she made it work, because she knew she had to. the local stables needed someone with experience with horses - and despite her lack of paperwork (or maybe simply out of pity), the owner decided to give her a chance. afterwards, she never looked back. a love of animals, of all things that grow, had been fostered in sarala from a young age - and she wanted to pass that onto her daughter.
emmeline grew up surrounded by nature. to say that their home was rural was an understatement - but she knew nothing different, and wanted for nothing as she grew and her mother gained confidence. the horses her mother tended to each day were some of her first friends, even if she couldn't speak the same language as them. the fields behind her and her mother's rented house were her first playground, the birds that flew overhead the first beings she fed from the palm of her hands, the flowers along the roadside the ones she tended to when people were less than careful.
she was seven before she realized how very strange it was that she didn't have a father. or that, well, if she did, he did a very good job of remaining invisible to her eyes. everybody else had a father - everybody else had two parents to go home to, whether they were happy about it or not. when she finally questioned sarala about it, safe under the duvet of her bed, sarala knew it was time to tell her the truth.
it was no secret that they were different; they didn't look anything like any of the other residents, and sarala's accent wasn't anything like emmeline's but for the warmth of it. but emmeline had never questioned that this is where they were from, that this rural town in wales was where her mother had grown up. finding out that she was actually from a place called madurai, had brothers and parents and yes, emmeline's father lived there, too.
emmeline wasn't blind to how merely stating the facts hurt her mother. there was a wound that had never healed at their treatment of her, the rejection of emmeline's father solidified when her parents immediate response was to lambast her and then arrange a swift marriage to a much older man who would not protest the existence of her child. she made the decision then, that she didn't need to know anymore. knowing that she did have a father was comfort enough - she didn't need anything more than that.
sarala was dumbfounded by emmeline's easy acceptance and her lack of pushing in the aftermath, but soon she was entirely distracted. emmeline hadn't exactly hid her burgeoning magical abilities, not from the world of nature which she often found solace in, but they were entirely dumbfounding on first sight to her mother. the discovery that she could make objects float, and even ensure that they did things she was meant to be doing - like brushing her hair or packing her few toys away, rattled sarala - who had no explanation for any of it.
it was a long wait, one that was nearly untenable to weather without any actual answers, before she got any sort of satisfaction on that front. even as baffled as she was, there was very little fear associated with it. she trusted her daughter, who cried when she discovered that bees died when they stung and often had sugar water waiting for any bee in need, and knew that she wouldn't hurt anyone - not even a fly.
by the time her hogwarts letter saw fit to arrive, sarala treated her daughter's magic as little more than a quirk - just another thing to love, even if it did occasionally drive her around the bend when she did the dishes with a wave of her hand rather than by hand. mcgonagall's arrival, however, was one that really set the cat among the pigeons.
the thing is: emmeline had had plans. she was going to study for her a-levels, and then apply to veterinary school, and open up her own practice - work with the farms in the area, save the local wildlife where she could, rehabilitate those that needed it. those dreams all got shelved the minute mcgonagall turned up on their doorstep, a parchment clutched in her hand and glasses perched on her nose. that's not to say there isn't joy in her discovery that there are more like her, but there's a mourning, too.
the magical world is fantastical. there is so much wonder, so many things that emmeline had thought were myths live, still, hidden away by magic. merlin - myrddin - was real. the second she steps foot there, she feels the belonging she only felt out in the fields, in the forests, in the clearings and on top of the cliffs: like she was home. sarala knows she can't deny her daughter this, even if part of her wishes she could be that selfish.
the train to hogwarts is only the second time she'd been on one: the first had been the train to london, from which the neighbors had turned out in droves, waving from the platform and yelling well wishes for her journey to her new private school. it's nerve-wracking, and terrifying, and she cries in the bathroom when she's supposed to be getting changed until someone knocks and she knows they're there.
ravenclaw is the hat's only choice. she would have suited hufflepuff, he muses in her ear, but that was not what she needed. the house of the lions would be too much - too caustic, too loud, much too chaotic for a soul like hers, no matter how brave she is - and slytherin was a non-starter. she would find safety, solitude and the knowledge she sorely desires in that ivory tower.
of all of the classes, care of magical creatures is the one she thrives in. (herbology is another, but anybody who spent as much as five minutes with her, would know the reason why.) friends and foes alike share exasperation over her single-minded obsession, her refusal to damn magical animals as evil or undeserving of care. even her head of house knows what her career choice will be before he asks, a wry smile lingering: a magizoologist, sir. just like newt scamander.
her years at hogwarts mostly pass unscathed, though she sees others who do not, and offers them what little help she can. a shoulder to cry on here, a handkerchief there, a stroll in the morning sun or a whispered word in the ear of someone better equipped to help. when graduation comes, emmeline slips between the worlds, refusing to leave her mother behind - until she hears back from the apprenticeship posting she'd replied to months earlier.
the scamander family have a long and storied legacy. or, well, they have two legacies, depending on which family line is followed. emmeline, ever the magical creature enthusiast, follows newt's - and is rewarded with the apprenticeship of her dreams. she spends the next two years hopping from country to country, sending postcards and owls - exotic and otherwise - home, to anyone who she thinks will read her ramblings.
and when she comes home, newly minted with a mastery, the world has changed. it's like her old neighbour used to say - a watched pot never boils, until it's boiling over. the energy is different. there's a wariness to people, a slowly creeping foreboding. everybody's getting tetchier, rumors adding fuel to the fire to the point that even emmeline cannot ignore it.
for now, she sits and she watches. two years have past, and the rumors have slowly begun to crystalize into truths that are hard to ignore, and even harder to swallow. the wizarding world keeps getting drawn back to darkness, as if circling a drain, and emmeline knows instinctively that it's only a matter of time before she's dragged into it. if not for her noted inability to hold a grudge, then for her blood status - both a secret and entirely otherwise.
(but watching can only last so long. inaction can only be accepted for so long, by herself and by the masses, and the order needs people like her. people who don't strike suspicion when they're at one end of the country one day and at the other the next. and emmeline knows herself: she has a bleeding heart, and the order is the only organisation with which she can attempt to preserve it instead of breaking it.)
empty glass tumblers shattering as they hit the wall, a pendant burning raw the flesh of your chest, the swinging lamp flickering above your head, coffee stained mugs stacked precariously in the sink, a smoking pile of tarot cards, always sitting with your back to the wall, tending to injuries on your own, a war maker and an idol bundled under writhing skin.
extended dossier. pinterest. playlist.
full name — alastor hermengilde moody
nickname(s) — mad - eye, al, stor
name meaning — alastor: defender of man; avenger; he who does not forget; tormentor; one who suffers from divine vengeance; epithet of zeus. hermenegilde: immense treasure; big; width; to be valid. moody: proud; haughty; angry; fierce; bold; brave; rash.
age — fourty eight
date of birth — july 14
place of birth — isle of skye
star sign — cancer sun, pisces moon, virgo ascendant
current location — ministry of magic, level 1
gender — cis man
pronouns — he/him
sexual orientation — bisexual, likely closeted but i also think he simply doesn't care who knows, he just doesn't advertise
religion — agnostic
occupation — senior auror, department of magical law enforcement ( senior training officer, auror academy )
education level — hogwarts; auror training
family — aonghus moody ( father; deceased ), catalina moody ( mother; deceased ), malcolm moody ( older brother; deceased ), aileen moody ( younger half-sister and pseudo daughter; alive )
finances — comfortable, lives frugally
spoken languages — spanish, english, romanian, german, french, latin
boggart — his sister and niece under the cruciatus curse
patronus — bull. bulls symbolise fertility, strength and masculinity - qualities that those with a bull patronus are rarely short of. stubbornness is another often found trait - bulls are physically imposing, muscular and large, though this is not always the case for those blessed with such a patronus. largely thought of as reliable protectors, persons with a bull patronus are usually dedicated individuals who are fiercely protective of those close to them. it is not uncommon for bulls to possess their own moral code or acting in ways that suggest normal morality simply doesn't apply - bulls are fighters, and anyone foolish enough to attempt harm upon a person under their care is unlikely to come out unscathed.
wand — aspen with a dragon heartstring core, a length of 11 inches exactly and no more, noted to be unyielding. a wand for revolutionaries, or so the wand wood says, those that are often strong-minded and determined - a good match, in any case, as dragon heartstrings are the most prone to accidents, being somewhat temperamental.
tw: death of a child, infidelity
alastor moody was born knowing his destiny. it mattered little that his mother fretted and insisted that he could be whoever he wanted to be, that he did not need to follow his father into the fire. it did not matter that he had an older brother, one entirely capable of shouldering the heavy burden that was the moody legacy. he knew that he would be an auror, like his father before him, like he knew there were stars in the night sky and the ground beneath his feet. nothing could stop him once he'd made up his mind - which he had, all of three years of age, hands smeared with apple and strawberry jam, that he would dive right into the belly of the beast.
his childhood was a happy one, despite all odds, right up until the moment everything went wrong. his father had never been absent - not in the way that people thought, the way that they all believed - but he was busy, and busy men get tired, and when they get tired, they get careless. it isn't his fault that the contact poison on his robes gets smeared all over the hands of his eldest son, but it also is. when malcolm dies, alastor is there — too young but too stubborn to shy away as he should.
it's a tragedy. the poison burns slow — not even the healers brought in from st. mungo's know how to stem it, and they have days - precious days that dwindle to hours and then minutes and then... the moody family is shattered. his mother, once bright eyed and bold as brass, wilts like a tarnished rose in the light of day. his father, once as tall as any skyscraper, now seems as small as the ants on the hills beside their kitchen window.
from that moment on, alastor may as well not have a father. gone forever is the man that laughed and beamed with pride when the glass bookcase in his office shatters at a touch of his clammy hand. in his place is a stranger, a ghost, one who slips away day by day until the distance is insurmountable. all he has is his mother, the hodge-podge collection of moody aunts and uncles, the distant relatives who chose a path other than the one he seems determined to still follow.
(he tells himself that it's enough, a lie that tastes like ash on his tongue, until he can no longer recall with great certainty the sound of his father's voice, the twinkle of his eye, the steadiness of his hands on his back when he taught him how to fly — and it's not a lie anymore. it simply is.)
they never divorce. alastor doesn't even know what the word means until he reaches 16, a first year at hogwarts who feels so out of his depth at the notion but for the creeping feeling of wrongness at the state of his parents' marriage. his mother withers, and then blooms again, in a seemingly constant state of reinvention in the wake of her own grief. she clings to alastor, who never begrudges her, even during the screaming matches about him still wanting to be like his father. (or nothing like him.)
his mother moves on, as slow as it comes over years and years. his father never does. alastor later knows with dark clarity that his father never recovered, and never would, from his own part in malcolm's death. but his mother never leaves. she stays in that old house, the one that she had fallen in love with as she had with aonghus, so long ago now, and stays a moody, stays her son's mother instead of running.
she is the only one there to see him off to hogwarts — a stilted letter the only evidence that aonghus even remembers the date, even remembers what alastor being 16 means — but alastor only cares about the strength of his mother's hug, the way she smiles with pride and fixes his stray curls. it matters not to alastor that his father is missing, his head held high and his spine straight, but the whispers start there and never cease.
his time at hogwarts begins with a hat stall — the possibly moth infested scrap of leather dithering, hemming and hawing over the possibilities as if alastor were a puzzle he were desperate to solve. slytherin or hufflepuff, it asks him, a curious lilt to their gravelly voice. (he is ambitious, but never for ambition's sake. not for money, or privilege, or power, and no proclamation that the house could make him great has any effect on him: he needs no other's help, he already knows he will be, because he must be. but the house of the badgers gives him pause. duty is important. loyalty to that duty and never shirking it is even more so, though it sours his tongue to remember that was something his father used to say before — and the hat laughs.)
his time at hogwarts all boils down to his end goal — becoming an auror. everything else is almost redundant, a passing fancy that he will not succumb to no matter how much he wants to in the moment. he tells his head of house so, that everyone knows he is going to be an auror, and is granted one of merrythought's rare full body sighs as he grumbles at her prodding reminder that he is only human, and back-up plans are important. (that part of it is now about spiting his father, about being better than him, goes unsaid.)
he is in his fifth year when it happens. he thinks it's his father, when dumbledore calls him to his office, calm and stately. he braces himself for the impact, for the announcement that his father had gotten himself killed, but it never comes. instead, it's something worse. his mother, his mother, was attacked in broad daylight. petty revenge, dumbledore says with kind eyes, revenge that has failed in it's purpose.
his mother still lives. so, too, does the baby that had dwelled in the swell of her belly — the baby that both of them know is not his father's even if she will carry his name until she takes another. but they cannot leave st. mungo's, and alastor, in the middle of term of his o.w.l. years, cannot leave hogwarts. he is twenty years old, all but a man grown, but he feels like a child again, that same helplessness choking his senses as he held his brother's hand and felt him go.
they look at him with pity, until he reminds them all he is a moody, and has no need of it. when he leaves hogwarts that year, he brings them both home. it is different, seeing his mother so frail, and not just emotionally — the healers, tones as hushed as possible, told him that her magic was irreparably damaged. the price that she had paid for her baby to be born, wailing and so alive. alastor hates it. he hates knowing that his mother will never recover, no matter how she insists that she is fine, that she will be fine, that they will all be just fine. (aonghus never visits. alastor curses his name.)
alastor collects his o.w.l.s and then his n.e.w.t.s., all the while knowing that time is running out. his mother's hold on her magic grows more precarious by the day, until her wand does nothing but lay inert in her hands, and he can do nothing but watch her mourn that integral part of herself. aileen the baby grows like a weed, the second of his guests at graduation, until she's suddenly not a baby anymore, though will always be in the framing of his mind.
auror training isn't easy. it's the hardest thing alastor's ever done, even if others on the outside don't believe it when he says it, but he's come too far — lost too much — to stop now. and when he sees his father in the halls, he holds his tongue, as though the man is a stranger — which he is. he fills his time outside of it with visits to the park with aileen, with cooking for his mother and burning letters composed out of anger he had thought lost to his teenage years.
he's been an auror for two years when his mother finally, mercifully, slips away from the land of the living, and suddenly — suddenly, all he has is aileen. he tells himself she is all he needs, and that he is all she needs, until the belief is ironclad in his mind. the adjustment period is hell. others present would say that alastor spent a solid year looking as if he was sleeping in a ditch every night, and maybe that's what raising a grieving eight year old with a penchant for burning things got him. (he regrets none of it. not even having to go to work for half a year with missing eyebrows that won't grow back.)
aonghus dies the following year. he isn't even afforded the courtesy of a letter from the ministry, although he's not sure that his father would have even been bold enough to write down his son's name as next of kin despite the obvious relation — but reads it in the morning edition of the daily prophet. he attends the funeral, though aileen doesn't, too young to even remember who aonghus is, or is supposed to be — and spends the ceremony standing at the back, listening to the sermon he knows is full of lies.
between work as an auror and raising aileen, alastor has little free time for anything else — not that he wants there to be. great swathes of time disappear, and before alastor knows it, aileen is sixteen, too much like him (he can hear his mother laughing at him), and off to hogwarts. he fills the void suddenly opened in his life with more work, ignoring the busybodies and the gossips and the journalists who never know when to keep their noses out, his casefiles piling higher and higher as the days go by.
by the time aileen graduates in 1972, alastor has seen three different head aurors come and go, laughed the department head out of his own office at the insinuation that alastor would be perfect for such a role (he'd end up gutting the program from the inside out, making it harder and harder until it fit his own expectations and nobody else's and nobody would forgive him for such a thing —) and had more than one relationship fall apart into ash in the palm of his hands.
trust in his fellow wizard eroded slowly over the years. the curse of an auror, in many ways, is to see the world as the darkest of the dark do, and to know that man is a moral animal — but there is little that man can not be persuaded to do. he has seen too much, done too much, beheld too much blood on his own hands — though always justified — to pretend that the world is all fairies and rainbows and roses.
alastor has been an auror for a very long time, longer than many he sees on the streets have been alive. all he sees is the world around him darkening. some would call it paranoia, but he merely calls it using his senses: a war is brewing right under their noses, and there are those that are willfully blind, and those that are not but are still too young to understand the stakes and those that he knows will fall to darkness. he is just one man, and despite the mythos that surrounds dumbledore, he is, too.
(it matters not how many times he has lived, nor any hypothetical knowledge of his fate. alastor, at his core, will always remain who he is: a man who finds more comfort in times of war than in times of peace, a man who will never let go of his belief in right and wrong, a man who would rather die than be passive.)
“I did not want to think about people. I wanted the trees, the scents and colours, the shifting shadows of the wood, which spoke a language I understood. I wished I could simply disappear in it, live like a bird or a fox through the winter, and leave the things I had glimpsed to resolve themselves without me.”
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