Into the Light

Into the Light

He had been left in the darkness for so long that it no longer mattered. He could manage to make out the shadowy shape of his captor in the inky blackness whenever he came to visit him. He could watch the other wizard limp through the dark toward him, not lighting his wand nor even a lamp, but knowing, probably by means of the Imperious Curse or some other deviltry, exactly where he was. Of course, he had not moved in days ... or was it weeks now? He thought it could have been longer. He watched the shadow draw back his claw shaped-foot to kick him and found himself unable to brace for the blow.

~

Alastor Moody’s eyelids snapped open. He was breathing hard. It was strangely and unexpectedly bright where he was currently lying, positioned on his side with his good leg beneath him. He closed both eyelids, shielding his eye against the light while noticing that his magical eye was still missing.

The kick he had been expecting never came. Instead there was a warm hand on his stomach, slipped beneath the soft, overly large nightshirt he was wearing and resting gently against the flat plain of his shrunken stomach. There was also an arm beneath his head, supporting him better than a pillow ever could. He realized that he was lying in a bed, one that he recognized, and someone was lying behind him, cradling him against them. He started to turn.

“Just lie still, Alastor. You aren’t in any condition to be moving about just yet,” said a voice that he knew instantly.

He relaxed somewhat and opened his eye just a bit, trying to grow accustomed to the light.

“Albus ...” said Moody as the hand on his stomach moved in a slow, caressing circular motion. Everything he suddenly thought he wanted to say died at his lips. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “for all of this.”

“You can hardly take credit for all of this, Alastor. In fact, I don’t think you deserve any at all. This ... has been coming for a long time now. Inevitable, if you ask me. It has very little to do with you at all,” said Dumbledore calmly.

Alastor was silent as Albus’s lips touched his clenched jaw, brushing over his stubbly cheek and finding his lips in their own time. He could scarcely return the kiss, but he was grateful that Albus didn’t sound disappointed or angry with him. He squeezed his eyes closed again and savored the kiss with its familiar hint of lemon.

“Did that Death Eater impostor hurt anyone?” Alastor asked as the soft lips of his long time lover and friend slowly trailed away from his own lips again, moving back up his cheek and allowing him to speak.

“There will be plenty of time to talk about that later,” said Albus in a firm voice that he could both hear and feel. Alastor remembered that tone from when he was a student. There was no arguing with that tone.

“What month is it, Albus?” he questioned.

“June,” the other wizard replied more gently.

“He fooled everyone for the better part of a year then?” Moody was incredulous. He could hardly believe it had been so long. The days, nights, weeks, and even months were confused in his mind. The time had passed in a hateful blur of darkness and curse-induced fog. He felt Albus sigh softly at the question.

“I’m afraid so,” admitted Dumbledore, sounding very weary as he confessed that to Alastor. “Crouch was a very good actor.”

“He had help,” said Moody with a soft, slightly derisive snort that was accompanied by a pang of guilt.

“You shouldn’t say such things, Alastor. You were under the Imperious Curse. You cannot be held accountable for anything that you may have told him,” said Albus, placing a gentle kiss on his neck.

Alastor nodded slightly. He understood that on a purely intellectual level, but he could remembering lying on the cold, dirty floor of his trunk and almost happily answering questions for that Death Eater scum. So many questions too. So much aid given to the enemy. He suppressed a sob of anger at his own weakness. Albus drew him closer and hushed him.

“Albus, I never meant ...”

“Of course, you didn’t, Alastor. I know that,” Albus assured him.

“I would rather have died than ...” Alastor started to say, but suddenly a hand caught him by the chin. Fingers, long and delicate, but very strong too, pressed over his lips to stop him from speaking.

“Don’t say such things,” said Albus forcefully. “For all that has happened, the thing I am most grateful for are the lives that were not lost. Yours ranks very high among them.”

He kissed Albus’s fingertips in reply and closed his eye against the tears. He felt foolish and helpless, but comforted too by the presence of the wizard he had loved for most of his life.

“Do you know everything that happened?” Alastor asked as Albus removed his hand from his face and slipped it beneath his nightshirt again. Just that one touch was nearly enough to make him cry in earnest. So tender, so reassuring, so utterly undeserved.

“Enough, I believe,” answered Dumbledore gravely. “Madam Pomfrey informed me of the extent of your injuries. I am sorry, Alastor, for everything that you went through. I’ll never be able to make it up to you ...”

“You are. Right now,” said Alastor, and despite the shame that he felt, despite the fact that he wished the mediwitch had not told Albus anything, he meant that. But how much easier would it have been if Albus didn’t know that that monster had beaten and starved him? He squeezed his eye closed against the tears as Albus rested his head against his short hair.

“Do you want anything? Just name it and I’ll see to it,” said Albus.

“I’m fine,” said Alastor, though it was far from the truth. “Do you know where my other eye is by any chance?” he asked after a hesitant pause. He sniffled softly despite himself.

“It’s in a cup on night table. I thought it wise to have it disinfected,” Albus replied. “Your leg is being refurbished by Filch, the school caretaker, as Crouch didn’t take especially good care of it.”

“Thank you.”

“Not at all. It is the least I can do,” said Albus quite easily. “Is there anything else?” he asked him.

Alastor took a deep breath, which he was certain Albus felt him take because the older man began caressing his stomach and lower chest again with firm, slow strokes that he knew were meant to soothe him. He almost couldn’t ask the question. But he had know. He couldn’t live without knowing.

“Did you ever ... kiss him, Albus?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitating, without even trying to dissemble or excuse his actions.

His tone was quietly apologetic, but mostly matter-of-fact. The gentle massage stopped for a moment. Alastor imagined that it was because Albus was waiting to see if he felt hurt or betrayed. Truthfully, he was neither, knowing how effective Polyjuice could be as a disguise, among other things. When Alastor didn’t move or attempt to push him away, Albus resumed what had been doing.

“Did you sleep with him?” asked Moody.

“Alastor, you know how badly I wanted you here with me. I must confess that that desire may have been part of my undoing. Perhaps it blinded me to things I would have noticed otherwise,” said Albus in an even more apologetic tone. “Yes, I am afraid that I did sleep with him,” he confessed.

“You couldn’t tell the difference between us even then?” asked Alastor, feeling a twinge of disappointment that was overshadowed by the indignation he felt on Albus’s behalf. That was the worst sort of trickery.

“I’m afraid not, though sometimes I would get the feeling that something was ... wrong ... somehow. But I could never figure out what.” He felt Albus heave a sigh at that.

“You never Legilimenced him then? To be sure that nothing was amiss.”

“You know that I would never Legilimence you, Alastor. I would never betray your trust in me like that. Not ever. Though ... because of that, I have betrayed you in other ways. I am truly sorry, Alastor.”

“He was a good actor,” said Alastor before slowly, and with some effort, turning onto his back.

He lifted his face to see Albus looking down at him with tears shining in his brilliant blue eyes. He wasn’t wearing his spectacles, so there was no way to miss the sheen of the tears nor the profoundly sad expression that went with them.

“Yes, he was,” agreed Albus, blinking away the tears without letting them fall. Sometimes his emotional strength still amazed Alastor even after so many years. For a moment he envied him.

“Legilimence me,” he told the other wizard.

“Why, Alastor? We’ve been here for hours. If you were using Polyjuice, it would have worn off long before now,” said Albus, sounding slightly baffled as he removed his hand from Moody’s nightshirt.

“I want you to know that it’s all right to do it should anything like this ever happen again. I want you to know that you have my permission. Now just do it before I lose my nerve,” said Alastor, clenching his jaw and continuing to look up at him.

Albus shook his head and brushed his knuckles over Alastor’s cheek. “I won’t. But if in the future there comes a time when I feel that I should, I’ll remember what you’ve said here and now, and I will do it then.” He paused for a moment before adding quietly, “I don’t think I could stand seeing what happened to you.”

Alastor considered that for a moment and said, “Then that’s fair enough, I suppose.”

Sometimes there was just no arguing with Albus. And sometimes that was maddening, but at other times, it was one of the things he loved most about him -- his strength and determination, his plain Gryffindor stubbornness.

“Do you think you could manage to eat something now? Poppy gave you some nutritive potions. I’m not sure if you remember. But she quite insistent that you should have some real food as soon as possible,” Albus informed him.

“I’m not very hungry,” said Alastor. He frowned to himself as he realized that he couldn’t remember being in the hospital wing at all.

“A bit of soup? Toast and tea?” said Albus, trying to tempt him with something simple that Alastor could manage.

“What time is it?” he asked, glancing toward the closed and shuttered window of the bedroom.

“Just after nine o’clock ... in the evening,” Albus told him. “Perfect time for a late supper, if you ask me. The house elves would be only too happy to whip something up.”

Albus gently stroked the side of Alastor’s face as he hesitated. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but more than that, he didn’t want Albus to leave him, not even for just long enough to summon a house elf. He had been alone for so long in that cold, dark room in his trunk. He didn’t want to be alone again, not yet, not even for a few minutes.

“Perhaps later,” said Alastor hesitantly.

“All right, but I will hold you to that. You must eat to recover your strength,” said Albus with a very stern expression on his face that Alastor knew quite well. “Who knows what we will soon have ahead of us,” he added with a sigh.

“Another war, probably even more terrible than the last,” said Alastor softly, shuddering involuntarily at the thought. A grim confidence accompanied those words. Everything he had seen and heard over his months of captivity, little though it was, assured him of that.

“Try not to think of that just yet. We will weather the storm, just as we did before. It will not be easy, we both know that, but we are also both survivors,” said Albus in a calm and reassuring tone.

“If you say so,” said Alastor, though he had his misgivings. He already feared for his lover’s safety in the days to come. Not for himself so much now, but certainly for brave, lion-hearted Albus.

“I do,” he said with a very slight twinkle in his eyes.

He leaned down and kissed Alastor softly on the forehead before drawing the smaller man into his arms. Alastor rested his head against Albus’s chest and wrapped an arm around him. Despite everything that had happened, he found comfort in this, in the fact that even after Crouch’s trickery and deception, that Albus still treated him precisely the same as before. He closed his eyes for a moment and listened to his lover’s heart beating beneath the soft, warm fabric of his pajamas. Albus stroked his gray hair and kissed him again.

“You should rest now, I think. This has been very trying for you. Madam Pomfrey would be most upset if I exhausted you. It’s the last thing I want as well,” said Albus into his ear.

Alastor nodded slightly as Albus pulled the covers closer around them and dimmed lights. He did not extinguish them, however, and Alastor was grateful for that. After so long in the darkness of his trunk, he wasn’t sure he would ever like the dark again, though it had never frightened him before, not even as a child.

“I love you,” Alastor whispered.

Albus lifted his chin with his fingertips and captured Alastor’s lips with his own in an ardent, half-desperate kiss that made Alastor’s toes curl from the heat of it. But the kiss also brought with it the realization of how much he had missed during his captivity. Tears formed at the corner of his eye as he squeezed it shut. Albus made a soft hushing sound as he kissed Alastor’s cheek too.

“I love you too, Alastor. Very much, in fact,” he assured him.

“I know that,” he replied. “I just ... just realized how much I missed you.”

Alastor laid his head against his lover’s chest again as Albus rubbed his back in a soothing manner. He closed his eyes and began to relax. He heard Albus whisper what sounded like an incantation and felt a sleepy, but blissful sensation pour through his body, taking the weight from his limbs and filling him with a comfortable warmth, not unlike the warmth of Albus’s kiss. He moved closer to Albus and smiled as he began to drowse.

“Just rest now, Alastor, just rest,” murmured Albus into his ear as he nodded off in the security of his lover’s arms.

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