Chapter 5

A/N: Thanks for reading! Reviews are always welcome.

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"Out of jail?" cried Polyxena. "But he went in yesterday! I thought the Ministry was desperate to put Death Eaters away, especially with that Scrimgeour fellow in charge. Some bloke from Hufflepuff who was a year or two behind me in school just went to Azkaban, and I'd give one of my own fingers that he wasn't following the Dark Lord." She paused, biting her lower lip. "And I wouldn't bet a limb that my father isn't doing thus, finger or no finger."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled at her. "Nor would I," he said kindly, holding up his withered, blackened right hand. "But I will tell you that your father wrote me straightaway to inform me of the wand that chose Harry Potter."

"'The wand that chose Harry Potter.' I'll bet he phrased it just like that, too. He knows perfectly well that if I wanted to use Alastor's wand or your wand, I could. It might not work quite as well, but there is such a thing as a hand-me-down wand." Polyxena was firm, but allowed, "Perhaps that's why he never wanted to leave his wand shop to my care. Do you think that the Voldster is keeping my father prisoner to make a new wand that will choose him? Is that possible to do? It must be; I broke my wand when I was in fifth year, and Papa replaced it for me. No two wands are the same," she finished, uncomfortably aware that she had babbled on like an encyclopedia of wandmaking.

Moody's brows shot up, widening his beady eye. "Interesting. Very Ravenclaw. It's worth looking into, at least."

"I agree." Nodding, Dumbledore stood. "Sorry to dismiss you, but I have another appointment. You're welcome to stay in the castle rather than Hogsmeade. I believe there's a spare room in the staff quarters yet."

With an appreciative nod, Moody said, "We will, Albus. Be safer, at least." As though he had reminded himself, he did a quick scan of the room.

"Thank you very much," added Polyxena as they made their way from the office. "Do you still remember where the staff quarters are?" she asked of Moody when they were once again standing before the stone gargoyle.

Moody glowered and growled, "I was dragged there in a locked trunk, barley alive and under the Imperius Curse. Somehow I forgot about cartography."

Blushing, Polyxena nodded and glanced around the wide, tapestried hallway. "Someone's bound to happen along. Oh, look! There's the sexy man."

"The which?"

"Oh, um, your colleague, Severus, but look. He's busy." Hiding a grin, Polyxena watched surreptitiously as Snape snogged the face off a head of bushy hair in Gryffindor robes. Lucky girl, she thought wryly. Hogwarts must have some sort of Hormone Heightening Spell cast over it.

Moody merely snorted. "Severus Snape, a two-faced traitor if there ever was one. I wouldn't be surprised if he up and killed Dumbledore someday."

"That's ridiculous!" exclaimed his companion, edging away from the passionate couple. "Kill Dumbledore? That man will outlive us all, I'm sure of it."

"Authority figures make the best targets," admonished Moody. "And there's no blocking the Killing Curse."

"You're a regular old Hugo Whittier, aren't you?" she laughed delightedly.

"No use sidestepping the truth. It's hard to be vigilant wearing rose colored glasses."

Shaking her head, Polyxena said with a sigh, "Let's just go to the Great Hall. It's about time for supper."

Moody shook his head. "I brought a few rations with me. I don't trust that house-elf in the kitchens. Winky. Her master was the one who stole my identity."

"You're afraid that on the off chance you may have possibly stopped by, there's a plot to poison you in full view of the students and staff? And this death vendetta is held by someone called Winky? Come on; we're going to eat." Polyxena strode ahead, leaving him no choice but to follow her.

The throng of students filling the Great Hall nearly overwhelmed the ex-Auror and his self-appointed charge. Ravenclaws, Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Slytherins poured through the great, arched doorway in a sea of black that reminded Polyxena of an ant colony. Never before had she seen the dining area from the vantage point of the staff table: the talking, laughing masses trying to set one another on fire and, she noted with a sickened grimace at a red-headed boy, stuff as many sausages into their mouths as humanly possible.

"Weasley's brother," grunted Moody when he saw her staring. "He'll choke to death long before he gets hexed. There's his friend, Potter."

Polyxena narrowed her eyes at a rather unremarkable boy with messy black hair and glasses. "So that's the 'Chosen One', is it? You know him? Is he a good wizard?"

"He's a Gryffindor," said Moody with a slight shrug, as though this explained everything. "Doesn't think about consequences, just acts."

Smiling, she replied, "I'm terrified to hear your description for Ravenclaw." Taking a final sip of pumpkin juice fortified by whatever had been in the flask, she asked coyly, "And what house were you in, Alastor? You never said."

A pause stretched on so long that she thought he wasn't going to answer, but he finally muttered, "Slytherin."

Polyxena let out a shriek of laughter. "The Dark house! Bloody hell, that's the funniest thing I've heard all year. No wonder you can think like a Dark wizard."

Lowering his head to inspect his treacle tart for poisons, Moody said uncomfortably, "According to the Sorting Hat, I'm 'cunning' and 'quick to save my own neck.'"

"It probably didn't know what to make of you."

Moody let out a rare laugh. "I was up there a full six minutes. Longest six minutes of my life, aside from all that time in Crouch's steamer trunk."

At that point, the plates began to disappear, and the students shuffled off to start their essays. Out of the corner of her eye, Polyxena glimpsed her old Head of House and cried joyfully,

"Professor Flitwick!"

"Polyxena Ollivander!" he squeaked. (Polyxena and Moody had long dispensed with their disguises.) "One of my best Charms students! What brings you back to Hogwarts?"

"We had an interview with Dumbledore this afternoon," she explained, gesturing to include Mad-Eye. "About my father, you know."

"Dreadful business!" chirped Flitwick.

"Yes," agreed Polyxena with the proper show of sadness. "Would you be so kind as to show us the staff quarters? Dumbledore has offered us rooms here for the night."

"Of course!" He stood quickly, knocking over a few of the cushions he sat on. "This way!"

Polyxena leaned toward Alastor. "Unless of course, you'd like to sleep down in your old dungeon common room."

Moody exhaled a breath of air and growled, "That's enough out of you."

Flitwick led them out the door, into the entrance hall, and up six flights of marble stairs. Before they, and in particular Moody, could regain their ability to breathe, the Charms professor turned down a long, narrow corridor that ended in yet more stairs, a tiny, dark, twisting staircase that led to a portrait of three water nymphs and a couple of satyrs at a river.

"Bitterwort!" squeaked Flitwick, and the picture swung forward. "Fifth door on the right!" He motioned Moody and Polyxena inside and set off once again, presumably for his office.

Moody grabbed Polyxena's arm before she could set off down the hallway. "Wait. Could be Death Eaters."

"Inside Hogwarts? That's as ridiculous as your 'Dumbledore's Death' prophecy."

Pulling a Sneakoscope, a Foe-Glass, and a Dark Detector from his satchel, Moody went straight to work. When his instruments registered no evil activity, he inspected each and every door with his magical eye and cast some spell over the room that Polyxena assumed he'd learned as an Auror. When Mad-Eye finally pronounced the room free of Dark wizards, he led Polyxena to the door Flitwick had indicated and opened it cautiously, wand at the ready, brandishing his Secrecy Sensor like a weapon, and using the eye to look under the bed, in the bathtub, and in the wardrobe.

"I'd hate to see you in someplace we didn't already know was perfectly safe," remarked Polyxena.

"There's no such thing as perfectly safe," he replied, as she'd known he would. "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

"Right. So I can take this room, and you can have... What other room did he say?" Her voice rose nervously as she glanced at the single four-poster against the far wall.

"He didn't. And as I recall, Dumbledore said 'room' singular, not 'rooms' plural."

"I... but... I'm a... and you're a... Unless you can transfigure an armoire into a fold out sofa, this is bloody well not going to work."

"Safety in numbers," growled Moody. "But there wasn't much call for transfiguring beds at the Auror Office."

Polyxena's eyes darted as fast as her companion's magical one. "Well, one of us is going to have to sleep on the floor." She looked down. The floor was hard stone covered by a single Oriental rug. "Take the bed," she urged. "You're missing limbs."

"We're both sleeping in the damn bed," he ground out. "Do you think I had time for this kind of nonsense out in the field, not knowing whether I was going to live or die?"

"Something tells me you slept underneath a cloak propped up by a stick, keeping your wand at the ready in case a squirrel, who was really an unregistered Animagus Death Eater in disguise happened by to eat an acorn, which was really a Horcrux made by Voldemort, and by 'eat,' I mean 'specially enchant to make indestructible.' Gods above, no wonder you were a Slytherin."

Alastor narrowed both his eyes at her. "How do you know about Horcruxes?"

"Father, of course. He'd been a Ravenclaw like me, so he read a great deal. I think the Dark Lord is bound to have one. He got Avada'd, and he didn't die."

With a thoughtful nod, Moody said appreciatively, "Interesting suggestion."

"Thank you." She glanced toward the spacious bathroom. "I'll just change then."

When Polyxena returned, Moody was already in the bed, puffing away at his pipe and staring at a piece of paper that she'd seen him pull from his pocket. He wore a nondescript flannel nightshirt, and she noticed that his wooden leg was propped up beside the nightstand.

"It's dangerous to smoke in bed," she said haughtily, tossing her hair as she stole timidly around to the other side of the four-poster. "Actually, you know what? I forgot, I've got some work I have to do yet for... for... work." Her feet edged back, tripping over the hem of her white nightgown until Moody grunted,

"Enough, girl."

Polyxena resignedly pulled back the edge of the blanket and lowered herself so close to the edge of the mattress, she promptly fell on the floor. Hastily and with blushing cheeks, she scrambled up and sat gingerly beside Moody. "Who are they?" The paper in his hands had turned out to be a very old, tattered photograph. In spite of herself, she edged over, across the imaginary line she had drawn to bisect the bed, and squinted at the smiling witches and wizards. "Your family?"

"Yeah, you might say that. Original Order," he growled, "from back during the First War. Me." He pointed. "And the Weasleys. Dumbledore." When Moody had finished naming everyone in the photograph, he said, "Most all of them are dead. About half, I'd say. Or insane from the Cruciatus, like the Longbottoms. Poor bastards."

"Bloody hell." Polyxena traced a scar on Moody's left cheek with her slender finger. "No wonder you're so fucking paranoid. I didn't realize... You carry this around with you?"

He gave a half shrug. "Yeah, well. I found it last year with my old Invisibility Cloak."

"Look how happy they are here," she remarked sadly. "And for most of them to end up dead... You were lucky."

Moody arched the brow over his magical eye. "Depends on your definition of 'lucky,' I suppose."

With a laugh, Polyxena amended, "You may be right about that. But, you know, I think it's very admirable that you didn't go about turning Unforgivables on the Death Eaters after that, even though you were allowed." Her lips twisted into a wry grin. "Molly told me all about you."

Uncomfortably, Moody mumbled, "Don't... I wouldn't say... If I'd gotten a chance at Barty Crouch's son, things might have been different." He shook his head, as though coming out of a daze and set the photograph aside. "No spell can reawaken the dead."

Ever pragmatic (aside from her Diagon Alley sobbing fit), Polyxena nodded sagely. "That's certainly true." Looking up into his eyes, real and magical, she said gently, "But it's sweet of you to remember them."

Mad-Eye gave a snort of laughter. "I don't think I've ever been called 'sweet' before."

"Well, I've never slept in a bed with a bloke before," replied Polyxena tensely, "so I guess we're even." She felt him staring at her. "No, not even Bill, so don't ask. We had two awful minutes on the Astronomy Tower, and that was it for me at Hogwarts. After school, I got too busy with work, and anyhow, I live with my mum, so I never... " Her cheeks pinkened. "Rowena's rack! Did you put Veritaserum in my pumpkin juice? Why am I telling you this?"

"You know why," he growled. "The Amortentia."

"The Amortentia," she sighed.

"If it's any consolation, I smelled sherry, watermelon, and hair potion."

Polyxena felt a flicker of something curling in her stomach and spiraling upward like the Amortentia's steam. "I... I see." She licked her lips with a dry tongue. "That's... something." She inched forward, moving back across her invisible line, and touched a hand to his cheek. The musky scent she had recognized in the potion invaded her nostrils and cut off any remaining non-primal brain function. In that spirit, she closed the gap between them and pressed her lips cautiously against his. She felt his fingers thread through her hair as the kiss deepened to a dizzying heat that she couldn't have really imagined at their first meeting.

She broke away first and panted, "You're much better at this than Weasley." After a pause, she continued in a timid whisper, "Alastor, I think... I want... something else. More." Crossing her arms over her chest, she drew the thin, cotton nightgown over her head and leaned slowly back into the feather pillows.

It wasn't that he was worried about outperforming Bill Weasley (Hell, he could fall asleep at the wheel and still be a better lay than Weasley), but he started at the sight of Polyxena's pale white flesh against the crimson sheets (Dumbledore's house pride seemed to extend to interior decorating), her small breasts thrust in the air, and her passion glazed eyes gazing up at him as if to say, 'What are you waiting for?'

"Nothing," he said aloud and lowered himself to kiss her again.

"Ow!"

"I haven't done anything yet."

"My hair." Sheepishly, she wriggled away and swept her ebony mane to one side. "Take off that ridiculous thing." Polyxena seized two fistfuls of flannel and dragged the nightshirt over his head. Well, she tried. One of the buttons got stuck, but they managed eventually.

He ran his palms over her bare breasts, teasing the firm, pink nipples with his thumb, and watched the mix of desire and curiosity on her face. If her mother looked anything like her at all, he couldn't blame old Ollivander for seducing a teenager.

Polyxena's hands traveled over his back, exploring every scar and contour and probably deciding whether she really wanted to sleep with him after all. "Oh, Alastor," she sighed. Apparently, she did, but, then again, he had moved his mouth over her breasts, biting them and teasing her with his tongue. Brushing his hair out of the way, she pulled him back up to kiss her mouth and felt what she'd decided to call his 'Throbbing Manhood' jutting against her damp, sticky thigh. At least she hoped it was his TM. With Alastor, it could very well be a Secrecy Sensor.

She figured she'd better check, so she moved her hand down beneath the blankets and closed her long fingers around it. Nope, definitely not a Secrecy Sensor, not unless he groaned with pleasure every time someone touched his Dark detection devices. She ran her fingers experimentally down the shaft, stroking him with her thumb until he took her by the wrist and growled,

"Too much. Keep doing that, and I'll pull a Weasley." Moving his fingers away from her hand, he moved one over her swollen clit in a steady rhythm and slid another into her wetness.

"Oh, gods," she gasped. "Keep doing that, and I'll pull a Weasley."

Grinning (more) wickedly (than usual), he replied, "You will, will you?" He increased the pressure and ran his tongue over the sensitive spot on her neck until he felt her muscles clench around his finger and heard her breathy little moans.

"That... was... interesting," she said a moment or two later. "Very nice, but I thought you wanted to sleep with me for real."

"I do." He looked down at her eager face. "'Interesting.' Ungrateful wench." Taking care not to pull her hair again, he positioned himself on top of her and nudged her thighs apart with his knee. "Damn. Where's my wand?"

"It's sort of poking into my... "

"I meant my actual wand," he grumbled drolly. "There's a certain charm that needs cast."

"It's all right," she assured him. "I'm on The Potion. You know, just in case." Polyxena sensed that her vigilance about birth control had turned him on because he thrust deeply into her, moving with deliberate strokes until she came, dragging a groan from her throat and arching her back against his now feverish pace. He followed her a few minutes later, and they collapsed in a boneless heap.

After a few minutes, she raised her head groggily and said, "Alastor, I should probably tell you that I'm a Death Eater."

"What?" He stiffened and not at all in a good way.

"Only joking. But thanks for not transfiguring the armoire."

"My pleasure." Moody smirked. "Now go to sleep. We have a wandmaker to search for tomorrow."