When Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody up and quit the Ministry, he'd done it for the passion in Minerva McGonagall's voice as she defended Sirius Black in the corridor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But the truth, if pressed to tell it, was that he'd been near enough to being asked to step down by the Ministry for Magic at the time anyway and he'd found a noble time of which to one-up and beat them to it.

Serves'em right, the bastards, trying to oust him after how many damned years of his life he'd given up to the Ministry? Years -- and his leg and eye, too of course.

Someone in the Ministry, and he wasn't sure who, had begun talkin' about him, saying he had done all sorts of mad things, spreading rumors that his mantra of constant vigilance had started to become more of an obsessive paranoia that, coupled with compulsive behavior, had supposedly led Mad-Eye into a plethora of misadventures that had tongues wagging and eyes narrowing as he walked down the corridors of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and twice as much so when he trotted through the Auror Training Center and all the wee'uns still getting their fightin' legs under them would titter and whisper.

But Mad-Eye had all his faculties, whatever the rumors said, and, if nothing else, he had the reassurance that at least two of his favorite people believed that still. One of them being Nymphadora Tonks , who Mad-Eye felt a nearly paternal pride in, and the other Albus Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard alive in the world.  When you've got Dumbledore on your side, Mad-Eye told himself often, there wasn't much which could come up against you with a fightin' chance. And Albus Dumbledore had such a lot of confidence in Mad-Eye that he had personally come to the house not a week prior and invited Alastor to teach the Defense Against the Dark Arts classes at Hogwarts, in lieu of spending his retirement being an old layabout in his house.

Alastor Moody had acted gruff about it when Dumbledore made the offer, griping and moaning about how arduous the task would be - "Done it once already, haven't I? Don't think for a minute I don't remember trying' at keeping those kids tame and just how impossible that was!" - but honestly, Moody was excited about it, whatever he might say. Not the least much because he'd get to see Minerva McGonagall and Filius Flitwick everyday, those old school friends of his, and drill the idea of CONSTANT VIGILANCE into the minds of yet another generation of witches and wizards.

Including the famous Harry Potter.

Who was precisely the person Tonks was in the middle of talking about right that very moment.

"He looks so exactly like his father, you'll swear you're lookin' at James Potter himself!" Tonks was sitting opposite Mad-Eye at his kitchen table the night before he was scheduled to leave for Hogwarts School for the start of term. Tonks sat, hugging one knee to her chest as she ate fish fingers and chips from the platter of them before her on the table. Her inability to sit like a human being in any given chair was one of the things about her that most amused Mad-Eye - and one of the things he grumped at her about most often.

"Bleeding hell, will you get your feet off the chair and sit normal for one time in your life?" his voice was rough, interrupting her story, and Tonks put her leg down.

"You'll see him when you get to Hogwarts to teach," she said, "You won't believe your eyes; think you've transported back to 1981, you will. Or else that you're seein' a ghost, I swear, I couldn't believe my eyes." Tonks leaned forward and wagged a fish finger at Mad-Eye as she spoke, "But you've got big shoes to fill," she said sternly, "Remus Lupin is absolutely brilliant - the kids mostly loved him all about Hogwarts, and who could blame'm? It's a whole damn shame that he isn't still there... It's that damned Snape and his mouth is what it is. Remus deserved better." She sat back, flushed a bit about the nose.

Mad-Eye gave her a funny look, then shook his head, "But he's a werewolf! Teaching at a school! Can't have that, you know you can't."

"Don't say it like that!"

"Like what?" He raised a bushy eyebrow at her and shoved in a couple chips, which he chewed on one side of his mouth the way a cow chews cud. His magical eye swiveled about, looking through his refrigerator while his regular eye stared steadily at Tonks.

"Like you're a racist old wanker when we both know you're not!" Tonks said, "It isn't as though he's Greyback or something! He's the least werewolfy werewolf that ever lived. And you know it! You've known Remus even longer than I have, so don't go actin' like you're some anti-werewolf arsehole." Tonks paused, then continued with her punch line, "We both already know you're just the regular sort of arsehole."

"Mhphm," Mad-Eye muttered.

"Garden variety, really," Tonks added, biting the fish finger.

Mad-Eye rolled his good eye, "You could be in trouble talking to your superiors like that."

"Well, luckily, you aren't my superior any more," she said with a grin, "So I can talk to you however I wish, can't I?" She nipped off the end of her fish finger with a flourish of amused mischief glinting in her eyes.

Mad-Eye grumbled and started to get up, struggling to move his prosthetic. Tonks popped off her seat. "What do you need, and I'll get it for you sir?"

"Ketchup, these bloody fish fingers are dry."

"Ew, ketchup on fish fingers? You need tartare." 

"I'll eat it as I want it," he grumbled. 

She flicked her wand and the fridge banged open, all the bottles and jars clinking together with the force of it. "Ack, sorry!" she gasped. The jar of ketchup came flying from the fridge. Luckily, she was used to things coming faster and slightly off the trajectory that she'd intended them to when she accioed items and she caught the jar reflexively before it sailed past. The fridge door banged shut again and the bottles and jars rattled noisily from within.

Tonks handed him the ketchup, but made a face as he clunked a pool of it from the glass bottle with the heel of his hand and swept the fish finger through it. Her nose crunched up as she watched him eat it. 

"Now tell me about the bloody World Cup," he demanded, "You say that bastard Barty Crouch found the elf?"

Tonks nodded, "Yes, in the woods with Harry Potter's wand, which she'd used to cast the Dark Mark, he reckoned. Sacked her on the spot, sent her off with the prettiest little dress and pinafore socks you ever saw. If it wasn't so tragic, it might've been adorable." Tonks shook her head sadly, letting a heavy sigh fall from her lips.

"But why the bleedin' hell does a house elf want to be castin' a damned Mark for? How's it learn the spell if it's not a Death Eater's elf?" Mad-Eye asked, banging his finger tip against the wood table persistently. "That's what I want to know!"

"Didn't think of that," Tonks admitted. "But Mr. Crouch said Winky's been a bit funny since Mrs. Crouch died, so maybe she's been in mischief when he isn't home during the day. He does work very long hours at the Ministry, like you used to do."

Mad-Eye's mouth twitched with annoyance and looked down at his fish fingers with both eyes. "I suppose that bastard's got himself right comfortable in my old office by now."

"He's not exactly a feet-up-on-the-desk sort of guy, but he seems fairly well situated," Tonks admitted. "He took on Charlie's brother Percy as an assistant. You remember Charlie?"

"The Dragon kid, yeah." Mad-Eye nodded. Charlie had once spent near to a half hour telling Mad-Eye about a dragon breed that was often used to make magical eyes like the one he had and how the properties of the beast was what made the eye see through objects. Mad-Eye had suffered through the whole spiel on account of Nymphadora Tonks, who had stomped his toe each time he'd tried to interrupt Charlie Weasley. Charlie had finally been forced to come to an end of his rambling when the commencement for Tonks's graduating class at the Auror Training Center had begun and he'd been summonsed onto the plinth to begin the presentation of the certificates, badges, and obligatory handshakes.

Tonks looked pleased that Mad-Eye remembered Charlie - as though anyone could forget the lad - and she went on, "Percy Weasley's a bit more uptight than Charlie, but not as obsessed with dragons. Of course, I doubt even dragons are as obsessed with dragons as he is."

"Most likely not," Mad-Eye muttered. Then, back to the topic of the incident at the World Cup, "They're certain it was the elf?"

"As certain as anyone could be," Tonks said, shrugging. She finished off the last of the fish fingers and chips on her plate, then, chewing, added, "Had the wand in her hand and the priori revealed it was the wand what did the spell."

Mad-Eye huffed and shook his head, "Such a bleedin' odd thing. Somethin' about it just don't add up."

Tonks shrugged.

"Mark my words, something's off," Mad-Eye repeated.

Tonks waved her wand to clear off her dish and checked the watch on her wrist, "Jimminey Crickets, look at the time!" She sighed, "Well, old man, I'll miss you while you're gone to Hogwarts. But I'm sure you'll be splendid. Do write me? You know I love a good owl." She grinned.

"And you know I won't remember to write one," Mad-Eye said gruffly.

Tonks sighed, "You're such a killjoy, Mad-Eye, I swear. It's a wonder anyone likes you!" She smiled as she said it, then, "Seriously, though, I wish you'd been Defense teacher when I was at school! But then again, you wouldn't have been the head of the ATC if you had been, and I'll be thankful til the day I die that you were that while I was there."

"Course you are," he said, "You got a proper trainin'." He got up and saw her to the door, his wood leg clunk-clunk-clunking across the floor as he walked heavily. 

Tonks waved and ducked off through the dark, narrowly missing his garbage-eating dust bins, and pirouetted her way down the gravel car park that held no vehicle, and he watched as she spun and disapparated off. Bleedin' girl couldn't even walk like a normal human, he thought, shaking his head.

Mad-Eye groaned, his prosthetic aching and he slammed the door shut, limped through the house and sat himself down in an old chair in front of the fire, clicking on an old wizarding radio in the corner with his wand. The sound of the nasally news correspondent wizard from the Prophet filled the room, chattering on about the World Cup incident, quoting Rita Skeeter's latest article on the horror of the event. Mad-Eye unscrewed the wooden leg from the stump of his knee, groaning with the pain and the relief of it, and rested the leg against the couch beside him as he rubbed the stump with a palm full of cream he kept in a jar on the coffee table.

"...immediately presented with clothes. Crouch insists he doesn't know what the elf might've been up to, saying that he was keen to launch an investigation, but that at the moment there were several more important things on in the wizarding world than house elves gone mad. Daily Prophet reporter-investigator Rita Skeeter says that Crouch nearly bit off her nose when she mentioned the on-going search for notorious murderer Sirius Black, whose latest lead had sent aurors to the area of Liverpool, after a muggle woman sighted Black --"

Mad-Eye shook his head, "Imbeciles, the lot of them..." he leaned back into the cushions and closed his eyes, his mind ruminating on the enigma that was the actions of old Bartemius Crouch's house elf.

He must've fallen asleep for it was quite some time later when he woke with a start, an odd feeling crackling through him. He sat forward and reached for his wand, his ears pricked, magical eye swiveling about, searching corners of the dark room and even the other rooms in the house. He flicked off the radio, which was now playing some racket that was more of a cacophony than music. He listened closely.

Mad-Eye pushed himself up from the couch. He waved a wand for a crutch he kept leaned against the wall, not wanting to take the time to put on the prosthetic. Carefully, clutching his wand in his free hand, he leaned on the crutch and moved toward the kitchen, his magical eye picking up something in the shadow by the dustbins just outside the door. Probably that gods-damned dog that belonged next door. That ruddy man always let the dog out the back door to do it's business 'round four in the morning and that bleeder was always into Mad-Eye's yard, snapping after his old tom cat and causing a general disruption.

He'd had to magic his dustbins to eat garbage because of that bleedin' dog. He'd had enough of finding it had nosed it's way through his rubbish looking for bits of left over dinner, so he simply made the bins eat the trash so it didn't sit and entice the idiot creature to come over... Knowing Tonks, she'd probably missed the bloody bin when she threw the rubbish away after dinner, she was so clumsy... That bloody dog had probably made right for those bins the moment he came out the door.

Bleedin' disrespectful bastard that neighbor man was. That's right, that's what the bloody world lacked today was respect! Mad-Eye would give 'im a what-for piece of his mind, he grumbled to himself, struggling along on his crutch, wand at the ready, planning to hit that beast with a good stinger to the arse if it was in his rubbish bins, teach'im a lesson, teach'im to stay out of those bins before they ate the dog and he got accused of snuffing a mutt.

He banged open the door, thinking it would shock the dog, but found the bins perfectly in tact, the carpark completely empty, and the world still bathed in shadow. He blinked in disoriented surprise and glanced at his watch; it barely was even half three.

"So much for Constant Vigilance, 'ey, Mad-Eye?" breathed a voice and Mad-Eye looked up only just in time to see a dust bin lid blasting toward his head.