✗ 32 years old
✗ Pureblood
✗ Member of The Order
✗ Code 4
( tw: dementia / alzheimer’s, family death )
“Fear drives the mills of modern man; fear keeps us all in line; fear of those foreigners, fear of their crimes. Is this the life we really want?”
It has never been a bad thing to be afraid. Alastor hasn’t always understood that, of course. He had to learn it, the same as he believes everyone else should. And who better to learn it from than Kennedy Moody - his single mother, a bloodtraitor with a child out of wedlock who didn’t have the patience or lack of self respect to bend to the will of others?
He was a month away from turning five, and his mother caught him lighting a night time candle that he’d been secretly storing underneath his bed. When his mother asked him what he was doing, Al was filled with shame and put his hands behind his back, shrugging and making a sound that could have only meant “I dunno”. It took some prying and a couple outlandish lies before she finally got him to reluctantly admit that he lit a candle every night because he was afraid of the dark. He closed his eyes tight and leaned back, as if he had been physically slapped in the face, and after a moment of stunned silence, he peeked, just to see that his mother was not laughing at all.
On the contrary, she looked quite serious. “Al,” she said softly, “why didn’t you tell me?” He tried to explain that he couldn’t tell anyone because it was too embarrassing, that none of the other boys were afraid of the dark, and that he was almost five and he shouldn’t be afraid of anything anymore and he didn’t want anyone to know that he was a ‘scaredy cat’. She wouldn’t hear any of it. Instead, she kneeled in front of him so she was his height, put her hands on either side of his face and said, “Alastor Moody, everyone is afraid. Anyone who says they aren’t afraid is either lying or very dangerous. He tried to accuse her of not being afraid of anything, and she only smiled and said, “I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m afraid of fire. I’m afraid of drowning. I’m terrified of geese. And you know what? I’m kind of afraid of the dark, too. I think a candle is a great idea. It’s the best way to see that there’s nothing lurking in the dark.”
She tucked Al into bed that night and lit his candle for him. At the door she turned back around and told him, “Remember, Al - no monsters can get you if you stay vigilant.” Alastor slept soundly, and kept a candle in his room until he went to Hogwarts (where he liked to keep a candle at his bedside). Knowing that even his mother - the strongest, bravest, most wonderful person he’s ever known - was afraid made it easier for him to accept his own fear, and stop hiding it in shame.
It’s this philosophy that convinced him he was going to be sorted into Gryffindor, his mother’s house, without a moment’s pause - but he was surprised to find that when the Sorting Hat was placed on his head, it almost immediately shouted “RAVENCLAW”. It probably would have if it hadn’t detected Al’s trepidition and intensity. He begged the hat to put him in Gryffindor, but the Hat was as adamant as he was. You’re clever, the hat said, you’re smart, you value intelligence. You value creativity and sticking together and working through problems. You would excel around Ravenclaws who can challenge you, in a house that will help you become the person you want to be. But Alastor was more stubborn than the hat ever suspected, and in the end, he won. The hat was not happy about it, and Al was grateful the hat would remain just a hat, and they’d never have to interact again.
Alastor did just fine in Gryffindor, though truth be told, he probably would have done just fine in any house - probably because he came to believe that the house doesn’t determine the person, nor do the stereotypes determine the house. He made the most of his time at Hogwarts and the most of his time in Gryffindor and he got more out of it than anyone - most of all the sorting hat - would have expected. It probably helped that he was as ready as most of his classmates to fight anyone who really deserved it, and he sort of turned into a schoolhouse vigilante, especially as he got taller and stronger. He was all but a personal body guard to anyone who needed it, willing to sacrifice a few good detentions in exchange for clocking a blood supremicist in the jaw.
All of that made Auror training obvious. All of that made Auror training easy. He excelled faster than anyone his age, and despite being asked more than once to become a hit wizard, he stood his ground where he was at, and it all came down to the fact that he was saving lives - or at least trying to. What no one ever knew was that Kennedy Moody was a nurse at St. Mungo’s, and she made him swear on his life that he would never become a Hit Wizard simply due to the fact that they had reserved beds just for them at the hospital. “Any job that reserves a bed for you at the hospital,” Kennedy said, “is not a job worth taking, and if you do, I’ll put you in it myself.”
Al started to notice the change when he turned twenty-five. It was just little things at first - the name of a distant cousin, the date - barely enough to notice, really. But Alastor was careful and, as his mother told him to be when he was so small, he was always vigilant. He forced her to go to the doctor despite her objections, holding onto the sliver of hope that he was reading too much into things and it was all in his head.
His mother was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s at the age of fifty-five. He moved her into his flat at the start, but over the next two years her symptoms worsened until she needed to be transferred to St. Mungo’s, where they would give her the constant care that he couldn’t give her. By then he’d been promoted to Head Auror and set aside money constantly to ensure she got the best care St. Mungo’s had to offer for the rest of her life. He visited her nearly every day, missing only on the occasion one of his missions took him somewhere unexpected or forced him to stay away from any friends or loved ones for a while. But when he was home, he was at her side - reading her books out loud and looking at old childhood pictures, talking about what’s been going on in the world, practicing handwriting in a large notebook he bought for her.
She died in her sleep three years later, when Al was twenty-eight. He was sitting with her when she died, holding her hand and reading from Beedle the Bard (which had always been Kennedy Moody’s favorite story collection). That was, without a doubt, the hardest year of his life. It felt like the world had stopped spinning and the sun had receded farther away into the depths of space, and when everything kept going on around him, he got angry. Kennedy Moody had died - how dare everyone go on, how dare they not feel the horrible absence of the most remarkable woman who ever lived? How dare they not feel incapacitated by her sudden disappearance from the world? He was quieter that year than ever before, and people noticed, but only those closest to him knew exactly why. He didn’t advertise his mother’s illness, and he didn’t want to advertise her death. He wanted people to think of her as the woman who raised him all by herself. Kennedy Moody would never have wanted to be pitied, and that was the least that Al could see to after she died.
Alastor was a good auror - one of the best the Ministry had ever seen - but that wasn’t enough to save his job or overshadow his reputation as a bloodtraitor and Order-supporter. He was added to the list of Ministry workers let go for his outspoken beliefs. He finds himself almost regretting not quitting before they got a chance to do it, but at the end of the day, his ability to help people that even the “new Ministry” wanted to harm mattered more than his pride. So he let them fire him, and uses his newfound unemploymet to continue what he set out to do. He’s not hired muscle - he doesn’t believe in doing what’s right for money - but he is one of the most shamelessly impatient Code 4′s around.
↳ Played by: Scully
↳ Faceclaim: Jason Momoa
