-- constant vigilance --

alastor "al" moody. she/they. insurgent.

[insurgentmoody-blog]

millicentbrontide‌:

She takes a sip from her glass followed quickly by a long drink that nearly drains it. It has been, after all, a long couple of days. And letting her guard down around Al comes more naturally than maybe it should. They already know who she is; they already know the atrocities she has committed and why, and they have not turned from her in disgust. They are not turned off by her brusque nature and stern tone. She’ll never take it for granted again: the ability to simply be without constantly contemplating who she is and how she’s being perceived. How to maintain a consistent image, how to control what others interpret.

Nobody’ll ever control what Alastor Moody thinks or sees. Bloody Auror’s got a sight no Seer could ever claim. First Shacklebolt, now Lupin. Shacklebolt was still holding his own, somehow; he’d been young, too, when he took up his position. And Scotland’s government was, somehow, still standing.

“You’ll have to ask him,” she answers, amused at the idea. “If I did, it wasn’t intentional.” She contemplates Al, the positioning of their leg, the scars they have no doubt suffered. The things we carry. Millicent considers mentioning her own injury, not for the first time. It’s not a subject easily broached. Admitting weakness or mistake never is.

“He’s not made to be a general, but he’s taken the role anyway.” Millicent could see it in his eyes, even through a mirror. Lupin might be the leader now, but he doesn’t have the natural ambition to lead. That doesn’t make him a less effective leader, necessarily. Even a reluctant man can take charge of the right team “He accepted my terms readily enough, but I have my concerns about Albus’ young pawns-turned-kings.”

“Believe it or not, you can be quite the intimidating force, even when you’re not being intentional about it,” they chuckle. Joking aside, they were confident Lupin had been able to hold his own against the formidable witch. If he didn’t then they doubted they’d even be here in the first place. Millicent wouldn’t have backed a different horse unless she had enough cause to believe it had more of a chance to win than the other. 

“He seems to have no ambition to extend his leadership role beyond the Insurgency,” they muse, “when all this is said and done, I honestly think he will try to return to his normal life. I don’t think he’ll be able to- not if he does what Albus couldn’t, but that does seem to be his intention.” Reluctant leaders weren’t always the best in the end, despite what all the fairy tales say, sometimes a little bit of ambition can carry a person far. Here though, they think it might work to their advantage- especially with Millicent’s eyes still set so directly on the throne. 

“As do I- which is partially why I joined him as early as I did,” they confess, and they forgot how good it felt to do so. There weren’t many in the Order Al felt comfortable enough to lower their guard around, Kinglsey, Millicent- and even Augustus to an extent, were the only ones to hold such a claim. “If his rebellion was going to hold any weight, then he was going to need names larger than his own backing him. And I’d much rather one of those names be my own, where I can help guide the ship, than watch it sink before it even left the harbor.” 

Lupin wasn’t flawless, they knew that, but they did think his Insurgency was their ticket finally out of this mess of a war. The Order, and more so Albus, had allowed it to drag on for far too long. As much as acquiring the spies was a strategic move, it was also a means to finally free them from the prison Albus had left them to rot in. “I wouldn’t have sent him your way unless I was confident he could help you,” they add, the confident air in their tone dropping to something more sincere as they look over to her, “You have to know that.” 

[insurgentmoody-blog]

amelixbones‌:

Amelia dropped into a seat as Moody told her what happened just a few days ago. Death Eaters in Scotland… Nothing and nowhere was safe, not really, but Amelia had gotten into the habit of thinking of Scotland as safe. As untouched by Death Eaters, at least. “They didn’t see Fletcher or Marlene, right?” Amelia asked, more reflex than anything else. If they had, surely she would have been alerted somehow. Surely the Order would be in turmoil (Surely, neither Fletcher nor Marlene would still be alive.).

Amelia scrubbed at her face and then nodded along with Moody’s warnings. “No, no, of course.” She enjoyed relative freedom across the border thanks to her work, but she would want to be a bit more careful, a bit more aware, if there were Death Eaters milling about Scotland. Something clenched in her stomach and she thought about Ted and Andromeda, about Narcissa back in their lives… 

“Thanks,” she said, delayed. “For letting me know.” Communication to and from spies was difficult at best. Amelia took the offered glass with murmured thanks. “Not really,” she answered, feeling like a child, feeling useless. “They all celebrated that, seemed to think it was a major hurdle cleared.” She could still remember raising a champagne toast – ostensible celebrating Dumbledore’s life, but she knew what they were really marking. “There’s the Ball, though, Riddle’s thing he has every year? That’s coming up, at the Malfoy’s, and I’m hoping to learn something there, if I can.” She bit her lip and tried not to think of herself as a hopeless spy.

“I guess things have sort of…fallen apart at the seams a little bit. Since Dumbledore….”

“As far as we know, no,” they replied, praying they were correct in their assumption. If they had been spotted then there was no use in waiting to take them out later on, Marlene and Fletcher had already spread word of the incident. No, whatever was going on here Al was certain it was still not known to the Death Eaters yet they’d been spotted at all. Their was power in that knowledge, something they could hold to their favor- Al just needed to find out how still. 

“Of course,” they nodded in earnest. Somehow they’d beaten Kingsley to the punch with their news, which set them at an advantage. If one day they hoped to bring Amelia closer to their side, have them be the first she took her news to, then they were going to have to do the same first. “Have their been any murmurs on that end about how he died? Has everyone seemed to accept the fact it was natural cause, or are they being coy about it?” It was a shot in the dark but they figured they’d ask.

Her next comment opened the window for them to dig their hooks into her deeper, but they cautioned themself from doing so too quickly. Her Order ties were stronger than Millicent’s, and were going to be far more difficult to unravel. She could still be of use to them now where she was, but if they wanted to officially pull her into their ranks it was going to take more time than just this one meeting. 

“They have,” they replied, face falling slightly, “and I’m sorry you and the others on the other side of the border have had to bear the brunt of those consequences.”

[kssitbetter]

It’s a form of violence, in the way that we look at women and how we expect them to look and be - for what sake? Not health, not survival, no enjoyment of life but just so you could look pretty. I’m constantly telling girls all the time, ‘Everything’s airbrushed, everything’s retouched. None of us look like that.

[insurgentmoody-blog]

location: fletcher residence 

date/time: oct 29, afternoon 

status: closed to @narciss-a

Al normally wasn’t one to go back on promises. She preferred to keep a reputation that her word was her bond, given only to those who she saw truly deserved the right to it. So when Andromeda asked her to keep a distance from her sister, Al had obeyed, keeping her ever vigilant eye on the witch, but nothing more than that. That slowly began to change though as the weeks wore on, and things began to shift further and further away from their favor in this war. It was when they found young Portia Hawthorne petrified when she finally decided to break her promise to the older Black sister. 

She’d been watching her long enough to know when the best time was to stop by, when Fletcher would be Merlin knows where, and her boy would be down for a nap after a filling lunch. Despite her preparations she still couldn’t fight off the nagging worry though that she wouldn’t be alone, as Al gave a quick knock on the door. That worry soon faded though as her gaze fell on to the sharp features of none other than Lucius Malfoy’s vanishing bride. 

“Hello, Mrs. Malfoy,” she greeted, a smirk cutting across her features as she leaned onto her cane. “I figured it was high time we had a little chat- you are free, aren’t you?” The question had been more stated as a fact, letting Narcissa know she had been watching her these past weeks as she hid in the smuggler’s den. 

[insurgentmoody-blog]

pcterpcttigrew‌:

He didn’t doubt her agreement; he had a feeling that of everyone, she would’ve been the one of the most outright in the Order to admit just how much she’d liked to have punched him in the face for what he’d done. And he doesn’t blame her, of course, in fact, it felt a little wrong that the worst he’d gotten so far was just a stunning curse to the shoulder blades, and not anything else. But he only just woke back up, after all, and he wasn’t going to count her out on that front just yet.

“Eh, turns out most people don’t trust traitors, even if you were traitor-ing to their benefit,” he said with a little mock sigh, as if it was news to him. It was the truth, after all, they hadn’t exactly been jumping to let him in on things, even if they’d been eager to trap him there and turn him against his friends. The question she landed on to start, though, made him grow more serious again.

“You’ve gotta understand, he’s the one who had me go over there, he’s the one who asked me to renounce the muggle in my blood, renounce my own mom, to find him information, the sort of stuff someone as high up as Sirius couldn’t get without seeming nosy, the sort they’d only give to someone they thought was too stupid to understand,” Peter explained, shaking his head. “He didn’t force me to take the Mark, but he knew how weak I was. When they realized I was a spy, they tortured me until I couldn’t take it; I wasn’t strong enough to give up my life, like the others. And they made me believe that somehow it might be better, to at least be seen. They saw the worst of me, and gave it space to grow. Seeing what they thought of me, seeing the way these horrifying people laughed at what I’d done to you all, it wore me down, made me want any chance to fix things; I wanted to leave, but I was too afraid to die. And the thing is…Riddle didn’t use what I gave him, so I thought, maybe, if I got back, and told Dumbledore before he had the chance to, maybe I could change things, maybe I could start to fix the mess I’d made. So I had to try. And if I die instead, well, I deserve it, don’t I?”

Al had always been a private person by nature, having been raised by aurors, she learned early on that the less people knew about you the safer you were. And so she made a point to keep the most private parts of herself locked away, carefully hidden under a meticulously kept, calculating and withdrawn exterior. The true nature of her heart, far softer than she would have preferred, was by far her greatest secret. Augustus saw glimpses of it, when she took her role as caregiver to something more closer to that of a parent. Peter had gotten awfully close to seeing it then, as he began to talk of the horrors that awaited him after Albus had sent him over the border. 

Suddenly, as she looked at him, she no longer saw the twenty-eight your old adult that sat before her, but rather the seventeen year old kid she first met all those years ago. Face stiffening, she strengthened the grip on her wand as he continued. She could feel her blood beginning to boil, not for what Peter had done precisely, but rather because he’d been put into the situation he was in the first place. Had Albus honestly thought that out of all the halfbloods in their ranks that Pettrigrew was the best candidate for what seemed to be a fool’s errand? For a moment she wondered if Peter defecting had been Albus’s plan all long, that somehow he knew what would happen in the very beginning. A few years ago she would have laughed at the very thought, but now, as she learned more and more of the various pieces to the wizard’s so called “great plan” it seemed more and more like a possibility. 

“You said it, not me,” she replied with a sigh, the venom in her tone being replaced with something more akin to exhaustion. “You said Riddle didn’t use what you told him, what was it exactly? Safe house information, names of Order members? How do you know for sure he never used it?” 

[catesblnchett]

“It’s a form of violence, in the way that we look at women and how we expect them to look and be — for what sake? Not health, not survival, not enjoyment of life but just so you could look pretty. I’m constantly telling girls all the time everything’s airbrushed, everything’s retouched. None of us look like that.”

[insurgentmoody-blog]

pcterpcttigrew‌:

The only positive about his presence spreading around as more common knowledge was that it meant he didn’t necessarily have to stay a rat at all times. It was easier, yes, less likely to be stopped, less stares, but eating as a rat was never nearly as satisfying as eating as a human. And the good news was that most of the students had no idea who he was, except for one of many strange, new adults who had been around the castle since Dumbledore’s passing, so they didn’t do much, but look at him curiously. He’d had a nice afternoon snack, thanks to the kind, nonjudgemental house elves who still remembered him from better days, and was heading back to his makeshift home, when there was suddenly a rippling pain square in the center of his back, and he was done.

He woke, confused, and ready to panic, assuming he’d been found, assuming he was about to wake to more of the torture he’d been subjected to when he’d first been found a spy, but instead a familiar voice hit his ears, a familiar place coming into view. A different kind of panic, instinct to transform and run immediately quelled with her words, and the dozens of yellow eyes on him, ready to pounce. Peter shifted so that he could take in the image of none other than Moody, sitting there, her wand pointed at him, his own now being set next to her. He pushed himself up to sitting awkwardly, flinching at the pain from the stunning curse, and held his hands out, as if to say he was an open book. No use in a making such a powerful wix have any more reason to hate him.

“Moody, real good to see you. I’ve missed that mug of yours. I don’t know what kind of information you think I have, but I promise I was low enough on the totem pole no one told me anything, I might as well have been shining pureblood shoes over there. Still,” he started, pointedly, “I’d rather not be dinner, so you got me. I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know. Dumbledore, rest his soul, he was planning to let you all know I was here, give me the chance to fix things. Fuckin’ kicked it before he got the word out, though. So kinda been trying to lay low.”

“I can honestly say I have missed missed your’s too, Pettigrew,” she nodded, her smirk not leaving her features as she continued to point her wand in his direction. After he’d first left the Order, she’d had dreams of this moment, and all the delightful ways she could make him pay for the damage his treason no doubt had brought. And it would be easy, especially now, with him sitting only feet away from her, the flock of raptors overhead keeping him where he was at, to carry out that revenge. And perhaps one day, when she was of the right mood, and less sober, maybe she’d do just that, for now though she wanted something else from him. 

“Now, don’t sell yourself short, even the lowest of the low aren’t completely oblivious to the workings on of those above them.” Although she didn’t think he’d been Riddle’s right hand man at any point during his allegiance to the group, she also didn’t quite believe his own claims of obscurity. He’d been an Order member, one from the original group of teenagers Albus had wrangled into the cause. He’d have been a golden goose for Riddle. 

“Well then let’s start with you and Albus then, and we can go from there.” She’d had so many things she wanted to ask him, some more personally related than others, but first she needed to know why he was there in the first place. “How did all of this start exactly? What, did you just get tired of playing big bad Death Eater, and decided to call up daddy and ask him to take you home? Life of a radical blood purist not exactly what you thought it’d be?”

[insurgentmoody-blog]

amelixbones‌:

If she was honest, Amelia had felt a little relieved when the letter from Alastor Moody came. It didn’t say much, just an invitation to talk, really, but it was enough of a lifeline to give her some hope. Moody had been in the Order, started the Scottish Aurors – they are the definition of action, of planning, to Amelia. She loves the Order, trusts King with all her heart, but she needs to know what to do next.

If anyone might have an idea, it would be Moody.

So she apparated like usual, found her way to Moody’s home and, without much hesitation or second thought, rang the bell. At the call from inside, Amelia let herself in and tried not to leap at the auror with their questions. She wasn’t going to pledge allegiance to the Insurgency, nothing close to that, but she was eager to hear what Moody has to say, what their ideas might be. 

“No,” Amelia answered, waving her hand with some dismissal. “None at all. I’ve had clearance to pass through for years.” A little shrug at that. It was a privilege she tried not to overstep on, lest anyone get suspicious, start tracking her comings and goings a bit more closely. But for now, popping into Scotland every now and then was necessary for the Wizengamot, and so she could afford to dart out to clandestine meetings as well. 

“What about here?” she asked, shoulders still a little tight, back straight. “Nothing new, right?”

Her reply to their question, casual in the way she described how little of a risk the journey was for her, told Al she hadn’t yet heard of the Death Eater sightings. It made since, Amelia may have been a spy, her surname one of the twenty-eight deeming her blood “pure”, but she had no mark inked into her arm. Her stance in the wizengamot gave her some sensitive intel, but not all of it. 

“I’m afraid yes,” they nod, looking up to her. “Fletcher and McKinnon spotted a pair of Death Eaters along the border a couple days ago. We don’t know who they were exactly, or their purpose for coming over yet, but I doubt they were returning from holiday.” They knew Amelia couldn’t do much with the information but worry about it, she didn’t have the connections available to her to look into the matter, but they figured if they wanted to build her trust in them, then transparency was the key. 

“Even with your clearance I’d start watching where you cross closely, just to avoid suspicion.” They knew she could handle herself, she wouldn’t be still alive if she couldn’t, but after everything that’d happened in the last couple months they couldn’t help but throw the warning out there. 

Taking a seat in the worn leather couch that took up the majority of their living room, they leaned forward, grabbing the bottle of firewhisky that sat on the coffee table in front of it that also held two glass tumblers. After pouring one glass they held it up, to see if she wanted it before asking, “Have you noticed much on your end? I’m sure it’s had to have been tough after Albus.” 

[insurgentmoody-blog]

millicentbrontide‌:

“Kill you, definitely.”

Several months into being friends with Alastor Moody, around the time Millicent realized she was friends with Alastor Moody, she’d figured out what being friends with Alastor Moody meant. It had started with a threat–you’ll be staring at the piss-yellow walls of the ATC for the rest of your goddamn career–and somehow sustained itself despite the inter-office rivalries between the Aurors and DMAC. The kind of friendship that sometimes involved heated words exchanged over custody of a scene or pursuit of a wix who hadn’t been declared Dark yet, but was halfway to the classification. Arguing with Alastor Moody was often the best mental workout Millicent got all month (and, though she’d never admit it back then, the most fun).

Millicent twisted her wand in her fingers, and another wine glass jumped out of the cabinet to join the first one in her hand. How Al made it through her wards was a burning question, but Millicent knew already that she’d never have an answer to that–this wasn’t the first time the smug Auror had slipped in through a metaphorical back door and grinned cheekily while Millicent checked her security system. They’d even had the confidence to reassure her it was a solid system, which was infuriating in its implications. Millicent had increased the wards since Al’s last visit and still here they were, clever as you please, proverbial cat with its cream and mouse too.

The least they deserved for their stunt was a glass of wine, and Millicent gestured them into the sitting room to set the glasses down and pour. The part of her soul that was ground down from serving Minister Riddle all week brightened up a bit, having a wanted criminal relaxing with a glass of wine in her flat. Of all the wanted criminals in her life, Al was probably the best company.

“I met your cub,” Millicent said, voice taking on a different timbre than she usually employed. Not as harsh; sounding less like the sharpened edge of a knife and more like the silk wrapped around it. Almost conversational and close to casual. “Or–pup, actually.” She descended into a chair opposite the one Al chose and regarded her friend. “Younger than I anticipated, given your glowing review.”

“Well if anyone could, I’m sure it would be you, Madame Undersecretary,” Al chuckled, before pulling themself up from where they sat and followed her into the sitting room. While all the smoke and mirrors of their entry into her home was fun, they did look forward to a time when it wouldn’t be needed. It’d been a decade since they were last able to walk around England freely, and they’d found themself missing the country and those within it the more they were away from it. 

Slipping into the first chair they reach, they lean back casually, shifting their leg so that the prosthetic was extended out comfortably. When the conversation shifted to that of their newfound shared interest, they grin at the nickname. Pup- a fitting one, given the man’s age, but watching Millicent they can tell it’s not precisely a critique. He’d made an impression on her, enough so that she felt comfortable shifting her loyalty from Dumbledore’s crumbling group to the gamble Lupin’s still was. Al’s name made it less risky of one, but a gamble it still was, especially for someone such as Millicent. Should the Insurgency fail then she would be stranded in Riddle’s regime without a back-up plan. Al just prayed their own gamble in trusting in the wolf wouldn’t lead them all down the path of self destruction. 

“You think he’s young now,” they huffed a laugh, “he was seventeen when I first joined the Order- as well as about half its original members.” Shaking their head they took a sip of the wine. They could easily spend an hour dissecting everything they took issue with in the Order, but that’ wasn’t why they were there. Millicent had already defected, had thrown the weight her name and position carried behind their new leader. And it was him that brought them their that night. 

“But yes,” they nodded, “he is young, younger than most in his position, but I think he’s who we need right now. Someone younger, who is not afraid to do what needs to be done, and has suffered not only under Greyback’s hand, but Albus’s as well. He knows the cost of failure here.” It wasn’t often they went out of their way to talk so highly of someone, and while they did still have doubts about Lupin, they wanted him to exceed. 

“What did you make of him though?” they ask, before adding, “Didn’t scare the poor kid too bad I hope.” 

[insurgentmoody-blog]

location: hogwarts owlery

date/time: october 21

status: closed to @pcterpcttigrew​

She had been meaning to track down Pettigrew ever since Lupin first mentioned his reappearance. Lupin had seemed to believe the defector’s newfound residency within Hogwart’s was that of a genuine desire to flee rather than to spy. Al had been of a similar belief as well, if Riddle was going to send over a spy, Pettigrew certainly wasn’t the wisest of decisions. After his treachery there wouldn’t be many who would think to give him sensitive information of any kind, let alone anything Riddle would be interested in. And so Al left the rat near the bottom of her to-do list for the days following- that was until what Fletcher and McKinnon came across at the border. 

It proved surprisingly easy to track down the AWOL Death Eater, then again when a new adult turned up around the school it certainly didn’t go unnoticed- especially when the students in question were teenagers and the adult was young and not so bad on the eyes. He had been walking away from her when she finally tracked him down, and so had no idea of the stunning curse she sent sailing in his direction until it landed square between his shoulders. Twenty minutes later she sat idly on a ledge in the owlery, wand pointed at his limp form until she caught sight of movement. 

“I’d stay right where you are, if I were you,” she cautioned, eyes flickering around to the dozens of birds of prey that lined the room, all curious as to who the newcomers were. “They seem rather docile now, but that’ll change fast once something small and furry should suddenly appear.” Continuing to aim her wand at him, she used her free hand to pull out his own from where she’d deposited it in her coat pocket, and sat it down beside her. “But you won’t need to worry about them at all” she shrugged, “all you need to do is answer my questions honestly, and you’ll be back before dinner- and I do mean your’s, not their’s,” a smirk graced her lips as she looked back up to the owlery’s residents. 

[insurgentmoody-blog]

date/time: October 22nd, evening 

location:Moody Residence 

status: @amelixbones​

It’d been two days since the Death Eater sightings, and with still so little to go on in in terms of why and who specifically, Al had found their already set resolve to get the Insurgency where it needed to be only strengthen. They’d yet to hear any more updates from Lupin on how his spy acquisitions had been going, and with time now seemingly not on their side, Al decided to do a little bit of work on their own. Amelia Bones had been another ministry spy they’d been aware for some time, her relationship with the wolves was what initially caught their interest. Trying to find a way to pit the wolves against their masters had been an idea of their’s for some time. Albus’s attempts at anything with the pack had failed hopelessly once Lupin had been found out. They didn’t want to align with Greyback’s group of ferals though, but rather set into motion something that was bound to happen anyway over time. All Al was wanting to do was speed up the clock a little. 

Their letter to Amelia had been vague, partially for the sake of security, but more so because they wanted to get a feel for her first before mentioning anything about the werewolves to her. Her allegiance to the Order, and more so King, would create a bit of a minefield to carefully walk around. The challenge though was what made it all the more exciting, even if they couldn’t push her into questioning her allegiance with the Order, if they could plant the seed of their idea for the wolves, it would still help their cause down the line. 

When the doorbell rang, they called her inside, the wards having already been down for that very occasion. “You have any trouble at the border?”, they greeted her, curious to see what (if any) changes had occurred in the last couple days. 

[insurgentmoody-blog]

millicentbrontide‌:

When: 13 October, late evening Where: Millicent’s home Who: @insurgentmoody

She comes home late every day. It’s part of politics, being seen coming in early and leaving late, ensuring nobody knows your schedule, giving off the impression of being ever present and never ceasing. Especially someone like Millicent Bagnold. Senior Undersecretary. Minister Riddle’s red right hand, an expression hard enough to break diamond, the quirk of an eyebrow enough to send menial employees scrambling for the nearest exit. She has spent a decade perfecting this. Millicent the monster. Sneering as she signs documents that might as well be death warrants. Riddle’s trusted second, no real power of her own, lapping up what she can in his wake and pretending to be satisfied.

She is never satisfied. It’s not that she wants power–it’s not just that she wants power–Millicent knows that being Minister is not a dictatorship like Riddle pretends it is. She’s watched the position shift in his hands, watched him gather the strings around his thin fingers and twist and pull until it is all in his grasp. It makes her sick. His regime is a perversion of any half-decent government. It’s not functional, first of all, not stable–it’s a thousand vibrating glasses stacked atop one another, waiting for one of them to shatter and bring the whole lot down. A game of Exploding Snap played with human lives.

And she is part of it. She’s instrumental to it. Oh, she agreed, she knew what she would have to do, but that doesn’t make it easy. Or bearable. Sometimes she feels this curse snaking along her side is a punishment for what she’s done–or the rotten part of her soul reaching outward, showing her how black she has become on the inside. She is not satisfied with the role she has. It does not suit her: standing just behind, just below, the silent mouth of a body of spies. If all goes well, nobody will ever know what she did, what she was.

Every day, she pulls her own strings and passes paperwork along to be lost, ensures the springing of locks and the overlooking of neighborhoods, prepares the right legal terms to tie up investigations, throws enough flattery and reports of successes to Riddle’s desk to keep him fat with satisfaction long enough to buy time between plans. Nothing she does is enough to make up for what she enables at Riddle’s side, but it’s something, it’s effective, and it’s been ten years and she’s very, very good at it.

That doesn’t make it the job she is meant for.

Millicent is inside now, steps away from letting her guard down, checking her wards and traps and reassuring herself nobody has been inside in her absence. She doesn’t keep much here–nothing that would incriminate her, no pictures of the family she denounced, only things that would support the story of her life now. But the threat of someone finding her out–from either side, really, one of Dumbledore’s secret spies investigating her work with Riddle or a Death Eater intent upon a coup–is enough for Millicent to keep her suspicions stoked, encouraged in her mind by the amused thought that she’s not as paranoid as Moody, not yet.

She’s pulling a bottle of white wine from the fridge and crossing the kitchen back to her study when the shifting of shadows in the corner of the room sends an immediate panicked jolt through her system. Pain forgotten, her wand is drawn, a spell half-spoken on her lips before the figure is revealed.

Even then, Millicent doesn’t lower her wand. They are mired in paranoia, both of them, and this person might look like Millicent’s old friend, and only three people in the world know how to get past Millicent’s wards without alerting her (and one of them is dead, now, and one of them wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if he felt it necessary), but she can’t be certain. “What were the first words I spoke to you on our first assignment?” she demands, expression shrewd, watching for any sign of deception. She’d been the Head of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes back then, and Alastor a fresh Auror, entirely intact still. An imposter could maybe discover the details of their first assignment together, but only Alastor would know the jibes they shared in the locked office arguing over which department got control over the scene.

Lupin’s success in adding Millicent to their ever growing list of allies, had been probably their largest victory yet. Al had been fairly confident he’d manage it, if he couldn’t it would have only proven to be a fairly large red flag given the fact Al had given her the recommendation themself. They’d practically wrapped the Undersecretary up in a red ribbon and dropped her in his lap, but they would still voice the alliance as Remus’s victory. He needed to look strong, capable of handling people such as Millicent whose loyalty always came with conditions. They were fine giving the win to him, that didn’t mean though they still didn’t want to pop in on Millicent, if only to see how the young wolf did during his first significant meeting into enemy lines since he became their leader. 

When it came to their own meeting with the witch, Al decided to take more covert measures, finding far too much pleasure in throwing Millicent off guard. Their ability to cross the border by use of an animagus had remained their little secret, something they could keep to themself and themself only. It was better if most were unaware they could cross the border when certain circumstances called for it, and they made sure those circumstances were few and far between- such as right now. Millicent’s wards- a lengthy series, each magical lock more complex than the last, was the biggest challenge, but not one they couldn’t manage. They wonder to themself, as they alter the last ward to allow their presence inside, if some how Millicent purposefully added wards she knew Al could crack if given enough time to. That maybe, perhaps, she delighted in these little unexpected meetings as much as Al had? 

The house is still empty by the time they get themself inside, taking a seat at the kitchen table they decide to wait there until she gets back, sitting in the pitch black with only what little moonlight raining in from the windows as light. Millicent appears not much later, the way she moves about, carefree with her carefully constructed walls seemingly down, tells Al she hasn’t noticed their presence. They wonder how long they could sit there until she discovered them, although they were far too impatient for that game. Shifting in their seat, their shadow alters the way the moonlight reflected on the table, the movement instantly drawling Millicent’s gaze towards the dark corner of the room they were in. When the flash of wandlight reveals their face, they smirk, clearly pleased with themself. 

Her question, one involving a time that seemed a millennia ago, pulls a small chuckle up from their chest. “Pretty sure it was something to the effect that if I screwed it up for you, I would be stuck behind a desk, staring at the four walls of the Apparation Test Centre for the rest of my career." Who would have guessed that that initial meeting, a brief exchange of jibes and carefully worded threats, would lead the two of them here, one an Undersecretary to the Minister, and the other an enemy of the Ministry themself. 

Looking between the bottle of wine in Millicent’s one hand, and the raised wand in the other, they ask, brow arched in amusement, “So, have you decided it’s worth killing me yet, or are you finally going to offer me a glass?”

[augustustheyounger]

insurgentmoody‌:

“I think there’s probably quite a bit of us, that feels the same, in one way or another,” she admitted. Dumbledore wasn’t a leader who left much open for choice, you either did as he instructed or not be included at all. It was his game and his rules, there had been no other alternative before now. There was a reason why, after all, so many seemed attached to this brazen idea of Lupin’s, to break free from the group that had taken up so much of their lives, and forge ahead in a new path for themselves. 

She wished things could have been different for Augustus, but she figured they were better than the alternative he would have had in Britain. Sometimes she still caught herself, wondering what would have become of him in Riddle’s regime. Would he have been able to take up arms against those he was living among now, or would he have refused, only to later become a cautionary tale for the others’ who dare try to flee from the Dark Lords’ ranks? She knew there was no use in worrying over the hypothetical, but the questions persisted in her mind regardless. 

“Yes, and no,” she chuckled faintly at his statement. “It has been a little chaotic these last ten years. So it’s not like you’ve had much time to even think beyond the here and now.” Now he did though, they both did. For her, Dumbledore’s death meant she was free to choose someone else to throw her allegiance behind, for Augustus it meant finally having that choice at all. “You’ve got the breathing room to do that now though, you’ve served your time in the Order already, so you won’t get any push from me one way or the other.” Leaning onto her cane she nodded her head towards the door. “Except for now, because if we don’t head out soon, we’re going to miss all those long dull speeches everyone always does at these things.” 

He let out a breath, slow and maybe a little surprised, actually thinking about it for a second. In all his own panic at suddenly being without instruction, suddenly having the freedom to make his own choice, he hadn’t let himself think about what this was going to do to everyone else, besides in a purely logistical, sending reports back, sort of way. But these people, whether he should or not, he cared about all of them, and so many of them had been put in similar positions. Odd to think now they were all free to make their choices

It made him wonder if they would give him that benefit, if the time came where he could come clean, finally choose to be on their side.

Everything was too hazy, too raw and emotional to properly pour through so easily, especially not just now, as they faced the bookend of the moment, something that would make it even realer, that this was the new reality. And with no word from the other side, today felt a lot more final than it might’ve otherwise. It felt like the beginning of a countdown, as if the moment he was laid in the ground, Augustus’s own time would start running out. But for now, he was allowed to mourn. They all were.

“Alright, alright, breathing room after the funeral, point taken,” he scoffed, shaking his head fondly. He started towards the door, just stopping at the doorway to turn back and look at her. Somehow it was hard to contain the hint of sentimentality, even if it was hidden in a layer of sarcasm. “I appreciate it, you know, all of it. Even these stupid, too small dress robes.”

[insurgentmoody-blog]

rcmu-s‌:

He was grateful, for Alastor’s help. More than he could say. That she had chosen to leave the Order and join him had been a surprise, but now that he had really spoken to her about it, he understood: it wasn’t the same reasons he had, the hopelessness and the hurt. For her, it was something else, something just as valuable as his own anger. Restlessness. She wanted to do something, and Dumbledore had kept her still for too long. 

He was also grateful for her honesty. He’d soured on secrets, and he’d spent too long living amidst suspicion, everyone talking behind everyone else’s backs. But even still, even knowing she was the type to be upfront, the question that finally left her mouth surprised him. Did he do it? 

It takes him a surprised second to process the question fully, to let himself accept what she was really asking him, what she thought he might confess to. Did he kill Dumbledore? 

It wasn’t outlandish. He’d had thoughts, before– in his worst moments, body torn apart by the full moon so soon after his recovery that his skin hadn’t even fully finished stitching itself back together before the transformation tore it apart again. Or alone in Scotland, on the nights he watched Sirius shake and sob and try so hard not to admit that this was harder than it should have been. He’d wished the worst on the old man, cursed his name and raged against him. He’d shouted and threatened his fair share of times.

But he’d never once thought of killing him.

Maybe because a part of him knew what they’d be left with, if he did: this chaos, everything falling apart around them so soon after he had planted this seed he was trying so hard to grow. 

     ‘No,’ he said, firm but not sharp. A fact. If she wanted to find whoever had killed Dumbledore, she’d need to look further, and he’d give herself the space and the resources if she thought the answers would be useful. 

“Okay,” she nodded her head, glad he didn’t appear angry at the question. His answer seemed genuine, and she chose to believe it as such. She would have understood him if he had, although if he had it would be serve as a warning for the type of leader he would become. If he would have been capable of doing that in a heat of passion, or even as a desire to build something new from the ashes Albus’s death would have left behind, it would only be a precursor to future reckless decisions down the line. Remus had seemed to take advantage of the elder man’s death, but he didn’t appear to have caused it. 

“You should get used to that question though,” she added, leaning back, a hint of a smile growing on her lips, “The bigger this group gets, the more people you’ll piss off, and the more people you piss off, the more questions will get asked about the timing of its creation. We knew Albus enough to see the bastard beneath the gray beard and half-moon spectacles.There are still plenty of others though who have him up on pedestal, and would see this group as a disgrace to his memory.” 

That all would have to be a problem though for another time, when they were big enough to drawl that kind of attention to themselves. For now they needed to continue forging ahead, see if they could pick up the lost spies Albus had left behind, and go from there. Looking down to her watch, she shrugged her shoulders, “The others will be coming soon so we should be getting ready. If you need anything before our next meeting, you know how to reach me.” 

[insurgentmoody-blog]

dromed-a‌:

Not silly at all, but Andromeda still felt it sometimes. Maybe it was something the world engrained in her young, that her dreams and wants and worries and reasons were sillier than everyone elses. Even if no one else thought it, there was still a little voice in her head telling her it was true. 

It’s still a comfort to hear why Al is in this, their reasons from straying away from the warm embrace of Albus’ leadership. Al didn’t strike them as the kind of person content to sit around and let other people make the decisions, to never have a real say and to never know the reasons. “It doesn’t feel like he wanted to protect us, that’s all I can say.” It’s a soft musing, thinking back on Remus and Sirius and the scars they’re going to wear forever. The damage and the trauma and the weight of it. She can never excuse the fact that Albus asked children to do such terrible things. 

She’s almost easing into it all, the oddness of the meeting, the strangeness of sitting and talking like this. But she has to smile when it finally comes out, the casual mention of Narcissa. Of course. Of course Al wants to talk about this. The snake in their lions den. 

     “A lot different from hers, too.” She says, and its mild and easy on the air. She’s the only one here who needs to trust Narcissa, and she hopes beyond hope that she’s right to do so. “She won’t let Draco turn out like him, at the very least. It’s a path he isn’t going to get the chance to walk down.” It’s more honest than Al deserves, Andromeda thinks. But that’s the easiest way to play this game, before she asks, firm: “Just leave Narcissa to me, okay? Don’t try drag her into this, going forward.” 

“It must have been her’s too at one point or another,” they replied, getting more daring with the bluntness of their words. “She married him, chose Lucius Malfoy out of all the others to build a life with, a future with. If she didn’t see his desired future as her own then why start a family with him?” Their words were a challenge, a challenge to her to convince them that she was right about her sister, that despite everything and after years of reaping the benefits of Riddle’s rule, suddenly Narcissa decided to leave all of that behind to couch surf with a five year old in tow. 

“I never planned to drag her into anything,” they shook their head, smiling faintly at the teeth the other Black sister was beginning to show. Good, they thought to themself, she was going to need them as more and more people found out about Lucius’s runaway wife hiding out among them.

“I’m not Albus,” they added, “I’m not interested in recruiting against someone’s will.” They weren’t quite sure if that’s what Andromeda meant by her comment, but figured they might as well get that point across now rather than later. “What I’ll always be interested though is when a defector suddenly appears, whether they’re a blood relative of someone or not, questions still have to be asked, even if they’re intentions appear as true as they claim them to be.” 

[insurgentmoody-blog]

kingsleyshacklebclt‌:

“Don’t tell me that this,” Kingsley replies, making a sweeping gesture around the Headmaster’s office, “is what scares you, of all the places.” The tiniest smile plays at his lips, despite the day, despite the conversation. Al has always been able to make Kingsley relax, to soften his edges, in a way nobody else could. It helps that she is one of the few that he trusts completely. If their time as Aurors is what brought them together as colleagues, it is the war and everything that’s followed that has made her a confidante. 

As a teenager, Kingsley always had difficulty finding people with whom to match wits, his intelligence, his drive, and certainly his boyhood arrogance making him hard to keep up with, but Al never seemed to have any trouble. In fact, as the years have passed by, Kingsley thinks he is the one who has to keep up with her, now. He doesn’t much mind.

“If only we could be that lucky,” Kingsley says with a small, humorless laugh. Wishfully, foolishly, he’s had the same thought more times than he can count. After his chat with Sirius he rifled through Dumbledore’s things for nearly an hour, searching for anything that might be helpful. Unsurprisingly, he found nothing. They’ve been left, quite definitively, with nothing.

“I met with Sirius, earlier today,” Kingsley says aloud. It’s an attempt to focus on what they do have rather than what they don’t, an approach that’s become increasingly difficult. He never was very good at looking on the bright side, and things are looking darker every day. 

“He seemed…” Kingsley searches for the right word. He knows Sirius is a capable Wizard, despite his anxieties, “overwhelmed. To say the least. It appears Dumbledore didn’t give him much direction, either. Now he’s stuck in London with a Dark Mark on his arm and no plan.” He looks expectantly at Al, hoping for some insight. He needs it, desperately.

Dumbledore’s death had proven to be a double-edged sword so far. It’d given her the freedom to break free finally, to cut the strings he’d tugged and twisted on her for so long. On the other hand, it’d left everything else in complete disarray. How long would they have to recover from his absence before they were able to move ahead in this war on their own? He’d left so many fragmented pieces in the wake of his death, so many questions left unanswered. It was hard to see sitting there then, the defeated look clear in Kingsley’s eyes, how they were ever going to rebuild from there. 

For her she’d hoped to find those answers in the Insurgency, a fresh start and a fresh perspective on how they were going to finally end this damned war. For Kingsley though, she knew that answer was going to be far more difficult. 

“I had a feeling he’d be one of the first to reach out,” she nodded. The eldest Black had more connections in Scotland than the average spy, so she was sure he was eager to finally be given reprieve from the nightmare that had to have been his life for the last decade. 

“He won’t be the last one coming to you either, I’m sure,” she added, “the spies are the ones who’ve suffered the most from all of this. They’ve been left in enemy territory, and probably afraid they’ll be stranded there.” They need guidance, is what she wanted to say, someone to give them new orders. She didn’t want Kingsley to misinterpret her words though, to think she was meaning for him to become the new little voice in their ear. She wanted that job herself if she could manage it. 

“I am surprised though that he came to you and not Lupin,” she mused, trying to work out the meaning behind that action herself. “If the spies are looking for direction he could be the one to provide it for them.” ‘He’, not ‘she’ or ‘they’. So far she’d kept her new allegiance to the group from Kingsley, although she knew she was going to need to tell him some time or another. First though, she wanted to get a gauge on what all he thought about this budding little group of rebels. 

[insurgentmoody-blog]

augustustheyounger‌:

Considering the idea that this confusion might last forever was horrifying. He knew, in the back of his mind, that that couldn’t be the case for him. What he needed was to know why his father had stopped writing, he needed to know if it was related to Dumbledore’s death. Once he knew that, he’d have his own choice ahead of him, yes, but at least perhaps he could move forward. Until then, though, Al was right, as she often was. He nodded, looking away from her, anywhere but in her eyes. He didn’t like feeling this way, so vulnerable, like it was easy to read how hard this was for him, even if she wasn’t fully aware of the reasons why.

But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? That was how things were with Al. She knew him, in ways no one else did, in ways he didn’t want anyone else to, if he still wanted to do his job right. He had tried so hard to do what his father had asked, but his father hadn’t anticipated what it would mean to abandon a child in another country, hadn’t anticipated that someone else might step up and become what he had never been. And somehow, that took precedent over anything he had been trying to do. It was so horribly human, he wished he could scrub it away. It would be easier, if he hadn’t been set up to get so attached. Here he was, though, mourning the death of a man he didn’t know if he should consider an enemy or a hero, admitting that confusion to a person he very well considered a parent.

More proof of that, in her admission of working things out. She might have been trying to start something new with Remus and the many others dissatisfied with Dumbledore’s methods, but it was still complicated for her, too. And here she was, acknowledging that it was complicated for him, and would be, for a while. The idea of something being his own choice was jarring, to say the least. And even more jarring, was someone he respected, someone he looked up to, telling him that he could be the one to make the choice when the time came. “Feels weird, thinking I’m allowed to choose now…” he muttered, adjusting his robes a little, mostly for something to do with his hands. There was a pause, before he dared to go on, too honest.

“I’ve never really…I dunno, guess I’ve, like, never really thought about what I want. Kind of fucked up, in a way, isn’t it?” Augustus said, with a humorless laugh. It was dangerous, to tread so closely to truth, but he couldn’t help himself, not when he felt so raw. 

“I think there’s probably quite a bit of us, that feels the same, in one way or another,” she admitted. Dumbledore wasn’t a leader who left much open for choice, you either did as he instructed or not be included at all. It was his game and his rules, there had been no other alternative before now. There was a reason why, after all, so many seemed attached to this brazen idea of Lupin’s, to break free from the group that had taken up so much of their lives, and forge ahead in a new path for themselves. 

She wished things could have been different for Augustus, but she figured they were better than the alternative he would have had in Britain. Sometimes she still caught herself, wondering what would have become of him in Riddle’s regime. Would he have been able to take up arms against those he was living among now, or would he have refused, only to later become a cautionary tale for the others’ who dare try to flee from the Dark Lords’ ranks? She knew there was no use in worrying over the hypothetical, but the questions persisted in her mind regardless. 

“Yes, and no,” she chuckled faintly at his statement. “It has been a little chaotic these last ten years. So it’s not like you’ve had much time to even think beyond the here and now.” Now he did though, they both did. For her, Dumbledore’s death meant she was free to choose someone else to throw her allegiance behind, for Augustus it meant finally having that choice at all. “You’ve got the breathing room to do that now though, you’ve served your time in the Order already, so you won’t get any push from me one way or the other.” Leaning onto her cane she nodded her head towards the door. “Except for now, because if we don’t head out soon, we’re going to miss all those long dull speeches everyone always does at these things.”