Constant Vigilance
by Bethany Reese

Alastor Moody awoke with a start to a loud, piercing whistle echoing in 
his ears.  Within a moment he had registered that his Sneakoscope was the 
source of the wailing.  He jumped out of bed, or rather, hastily threw 
his good leg over the side letting his wooden one follow, and walked as 
briskly as his stiff legs would allow him to his bureau.  Moody picked up 
the large, crystal spinning top and hastily opened a drawer.  He shoved 
the Sneakoscope under a pile of robes and snaped the drawer shut behind it. 

Moody fell still and pricked his ears for a sound.  But the Sneakoscope 
continued to wail, only partially muffled by the clothes lying above it, 
and no other sound was audible.  Moody hurriedly flung the drawer open 
again, grabbing the Sneakoscope.  He flipped it expertly over in his hands 
and turned a small, almost invisible, glass dial and the wailing slowly 
ceased.  But, barely a second later, the piercing cry began to grow again 
as if some invisible hand were turning the dial in the opposite direction.  
In a final attempt to silence the object, Moody held the Sneakoscope high 
over his head and dropped it to the floor, sending a large crack down its 
side, stopping the whistling abruptly.  

Again, Moody fell still and his muscles tensed as he strained to hear 
any unusual sound.  But he heard nothing.  He furrowed his brow, which 
made his already gnarled and crooked features even more unnatural looking.  
His one small, beetle-like eye stood fixed on the window in front of him, 
straining to see through the darkness.  Meanwhile, his other eye, a large, 
blue one, had swiveled back into his head and was scanning the hallway 
outside his closed bedroom door behind him. 

Moody stood silent for several minutes; his brain seemed to be on fast 
forward, remembering every tick of the trade he had learned during his 
days as a Auror.  Sayings like 'Never underestimate your opponent' and 
'Anything could be a trap' kept flashing across his mind.  And then, there 
was an incredibly faint click, so faint in fact, that had Moody not been 
standing completely still, he never would have heard it.  But he heard 
it nonetheless.

He jerked his head around and fixed both eyes upon his door, listening 
hard, should the noise repeat itself.  He slowly turned his body around, 
every fiber in him alive with a sort of nervous excitement.  Very slowly, 
he began creeping toward the doorway and reached a contorted hand to the 
knob.  He rotated the handle and pulled the door open noiselessly.  With 
his normal eye, Moody peered down the dark and deserted hall, while his 
blue eye danced in its socket, quickly glancing in every direction for 
any sign of movement in the rooms beyond.  

Then, quite suddenly, there was the groan of wood shifting under pressure 
and Moody jerked his head toward the sound.  He reached inside the deep 
pocket of his robes and swiftly drew out his wand.  Clutching it firmly 
and pointing it downward, he breathed, "Lumos!" and a thin ray of light 
shot from the wand's end and hit the floor.  

Quivering with nervous anticipation, he started to walk fixedly down the 
corridor, doing his best to silence the clunk, clunk, clunk of his wooden 
leg.  As he approached the first door to his left, he stopped and swept 
the room behind it with his magical eye.  Only after he was sure it was 
empty did he continue down the passageway.  He looked beyond the walls of 
each room he passed, but he saw nothing unnatural behind any of them.  

As he neared the end of the hallway, he was perplexed that he couldn't 
generate a clear view of the interior of the closet on the right.  There 
seemed to be a kind of thin fog pervading the space.  Cautiously approaching 
the closet door, he suddenly became aware of a humanoid silhouette in the 
drawing room across the way.  His every sense insisted the figure harbored 
malevolent intentions.  Extinguishing his wand, he stood directly in front 
of the door which held in it a decorative stained-glass panel.  Now his 
normal eye confirmed the presence of a short, abnormally skinny man.  Moody 
readied his wand and carefully pulled the knob toward him to avoid a tell-
tale click.  He slowly twisted it, holding his breath.  Briefly he held 
the door at the ready, clutching his wand even more firmly, then, with an 
explosive burst of energy, threw the door open and bellowed, "STUPIFY!"  
A jet of burning red light burst from the tip of his wand and sped 
harmlessly through empty air, striking the far wall with a steaming hiss.

Impossibly, the room was quite empty.

Too late, Moody sensed something immediately behind him and heard a 
relaxed voice intone, "Entwinericus." Moody felt his limbs relentlessly 
bound by thin, snake-like cords.  He struggled against them but fell 
forward, overbalanced, with a breath jolting thud.  A gentle push of a 
foot rolled him onto his back.  The ghost-like face that loomed above 
him was none other than...

"Bartemius Crouch!  It can't be.  You... you put up the vision shield 
in the closet, you were hidden there.  But it couldn't have been you in 
the other room."

Crouch bent his face closer to Moody, and with a small, sneering smile, 
answered in one word, "Stupify."  And Moody's world went black.

As Crouch began to drag Moody's limp body toward a large trunk, a small, 
furry creature emerged from the drawing room and scurried down the length 
of the hall.  Dodging quickly through the bedroom, his long, worm-like 
tail brushed against the damaged Sneakoscope, which gave a futile whoop 
of warning that quickly died away.