Avada could not quite understand what he was seeing.
Originally, the reason Barty Crouch Jr. had managed to escape his father's control was because, when Bartemius Crouch Sr. took him to watch the Quidditch World Cup, he had secretly freed himself, then cast the Dark Mark into the sky and drawn Voldemort's attention. Only then were he found by Peter Pettigrew and Voldemort, and after they subdued old Barty with ease, he was rescued. And the reason he had been able to impersonate Moody was because he and Pettigrew had launched a well-timed sneak attack on that unfortunate old Auror...
But what about this time?
Voldemort had been completely sealed away years ago. Peter Pettigrew alone was absolutely no match for the former Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, let alone that legendary Auror. And according to what his classmates had just told him, this year's Quidditch World Cup had gone almost perfectly smoothly. Forget the Dark Mark—even the troublemakers from the original story had been nowhere to be seen.
And most importantly...
This time, Peter Pettigrew was Dumbledore's man!
No matter what mission the big fish Pettigrew had hooked might have assigned him, he should have informed Dumbledore immediately. And no matter how one looked at it, Dumbledore did not seem like the sort of person who would knowingly ignore an old friend being locked half-dead inside a trunk.
So why, in the one place that should least have followed the original plot, had events still overlapped so bizarrely?
How had Barty Jr. gotten out? How had Moody been defeated? Did Dumbledore know that the old friend before him was a fake???
"Ah, what a coincidence... My apologies, everyone. It seems I will have to break my word a little and say a few more things before dinner begins."
Dumbledore lowered his outstretched arms, then casually stroked his beard.
"Please allow me to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Professor Alastor Moody!"
At that moment, a probably unprecedentedly strange scene appeared in the Great Hall of Hogwarts.
All the lower-year students sitting farther back at the four house tables had gone completely silent, seemingly stunned by Moody's bizarre appearance. None of them applauded. They simply stared at him without blinking. Meanwhile, the upper-year students seated closer to the front exploded into wild applause after a brief silence, some of them even springing to their feet...
"Moody! Mad-Eye Moody!!"
"He's this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?! Merlin's beard, he's going to teach us personally?!"
"Oh no, I only got an E in Defense Against the Dark Arts on my O.W.L.s last year... am I even qualified for his advanced class?"
A whole crowd of upper-year students shouted noisily, while the younger students in the back looked utterly baffled, having no idea why their seniors were reacting so strongly. Moody himself, however, seemed utterly unmoved. He ignored the large jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, instead reaching into his traveling cloak and pulling out a curved flask, from which he took a long silent drink. As he raised his arm to drink, the cloak dragging on the floor lifted a few inches, revealing beneath the table part of a carved wooden leg ending in a clawed foot.
"Ahem."
Dumbledore cleared his throat, quieting the hall somewhat.
"It seems quite a few of you have already recognized him."
He smiled as he looked over the many students before him—they were still staring blankly at Mad-Eye Moody.
"That's right. This is none other than the legendary Auror Alastor Moody, the man who practically filled half of Azkaban by himself. His achievements and abilities require no excessive introduction, and his teaching ability is equally reassuring. Quite a number of outstanding young Aurors have come from under his instruction."
"I believe that under his guidance this year, you will gain richer knowledge and more rigorous training than ever before, laying an incomparably solid foundation for your futures... Well then, that will be all for now. So here is the final word—"
With a cheerful wave of his hand, Dumbledore declared, "Eat!"
"This is absolutely unbelievable!"
Normally reserved, Cedric completely broke character, clutching his knife and fork as though his life depended on them. The moment his plate was suddenly filled with food, he began devouring it like he was venting his emotions, mumbling around a mouthful of food, "Alastor Moody is going to be my Defense Against the Dark Arts professor!!"
"When I was little, my dad used to tell me stories about him practically every day... Back then I thought he was basically omnipotent, the kind of person who would throw Voldemort into Azkaban if he showed up. But by the time I was old enough to go mooch lunch in the Ministry cafeteria with my dad, he'd already retired... This is the first time I've ever seen him in person!"
"Oh right, Ken, you're Muggle-born, right? Do you know who Alastor Moody is?"
"What kind of question is that... How could I not know?"
Avada nearly laughed the food out of his mouth.
"Studied Defense Against the Dark Arts for five years and never heard of Alastor Moody? What kind of person would that be? Just the combat techniques he pioneered and the practical case studies he contributed would be enough to fill an entire book!"
He was not surprised Cedric was so excited. In the era when Cedric had been a child, someone like Alastor Moody had practically been a household heroic icon.
That had been shortly after Voldemort's fall, when the remnants of the Death Eaters still had not been fully rounded up. At the time, people could curse Voldemort openly with almost no fear of retaliation, and the Ministry of Magic was in urgent need of a few heroic figures to inspire the public after a brutal war. So naturally, the battle-scarred and highly decorated Moody became the obvious choice for public praise.
He had genuinely rendered enormous service to magical society, even permanently sacrificing parts of his face and body in the process. And he had just happened to emerge right at the peak of the postwar publicity wave. As a result, with the Ministry actively promoting him and wizards sincerely admiring him, Alastor Moody's name had once been known by absolutely everyone...
There were even rumors that his retirement had something to do with all of that—he simply could not stand going out for lunch and having to shake hands and take photos with more than twenty people every single time.
So for people like Cedric, who had grown up listening to stories about this hero, not jumping up on the spot at the sight of Alastor Moody was already remarkably restrained—hadn't a few of the Gryffindors at the front practically rushed forward with parchment and quills already? Even now they were still being scolded by Professor McGonagall.
'I wonder what they'll think once the truth comes out in the end...'
Avada stuffed delicious food into his mouth in large bites while thinking silently to himself.
'Though to be fair, Barty Crouch Jr. really didn't have many flaws. His teaching ability really was excellent—even if the real Moody had come to teach, the result probably wouldn't have been much different from Barty's.'
'Right... should I tell Dumbledore later that this Moody is fake? What if he really doesn't know? Anyway, he's probably already guessed eighty or ninety percent of what my abilities are...'
(End of Chapter)