Just Like Me
By: ChoCedric
He knows what people say about him behind his back, hears the muttered behind-the-hand comments as he walks past. Old. Paranoid. Incredibly bitter. Doesn't know the difference between a friendly greeting and attempted murder.
Well, he thinks as he clumps down the streets on his wooden leg, his magical eye whizzing about whilst surveying his surroundings, he's been made that way by chance and fate. He was a key player in the war with Grindelwald - most of it took place abroad, but he was one of those who was called to help out. And because of that, he was forced to bury his entire family: a wife and two beautiful children, a thirteen-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter who, by Merlin, didn't deserve to die. And they died because he was a fool, because he trusted too easily, because he was betrayed by someone he thought was a friend.
After that experience, he became just what people still say about him: hardened and bitter. He doesn't trust anyone, is quick to raise his wand and blast someone to pieces, and yells "constant vigilance!" so loudly it causes those around him to flinch. After a while he was nicknamed Mad-Eye Moody, and it stuck so much that he even began to refer to himself as such.
But it still isn't enough, he thinks to himself as he wakes up, fully coming back to himself after his long stint in his own magical trunk. When he learns that a seventeen-year-old boy, Diggory, has been killed, Harry Potter was kidnapped right off of school grounds, and the Dark Lord Voldemort is back, he feels the bitterness and guilt surge up, more potent than it's been since the days right after the murder of his family. He desperately wants to apologize to Diggory's parents, to tell them he was a fool, an old fool who's losing his touch, but he's a bloody coward - he can't face them. If he did, and if he saw Diggory's body, he knows he'll see his own son in the young boy's face, see his own grief reflected in his parents' eyes. He can't do it, he just can't.
He doesn't want to face Harry either, but he is forced to. When he sees him, he is reminded of himself in his younger years - he sees the haunted look in his eyes, the wariness, the sadness, the guilt. As they fly off towards Grimmauld Place for the first time, the only thought pervading his mind is this: Don't take all this guilt and blame on yourself, Harry. The adults, like myself, should have seen this coming. Whatever you do, whatever happens, don't you dare, don't you DARE, end up like me. Old, cranky, bitter Mad-Eye Moody.