Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [4]

⚡️ Chapter 17 ⚡️

A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black travelling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swivelled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. Vega was among them, her eyes trained curiously on him.

The person lowered his hood and shook out a long mane of grizzled dark grey hair, and then began to walk up toward the teachers' table. A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step. He reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore.

Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling.

Hermione gasped.

The lightning had thrown the man's face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any they had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel.

Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the man's eyes that made him frightening. One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue in colour.

The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye – and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man's head, so that all they could see was whiteness. This all made it obvious to Vega that it was –

"That's Mad-Eye Moody – Alastor Moody," Vega told her three friends in a low voice. "What is he doing here all of a sudden?" She now wondered if she should've really written a letter to Dora.

Alastor Moody reached Dumbledore, and he stretched out a hand that was quite as badly scarred as his face. Dumbledore shook it lightly, muttering words that Vega could not hear from here. But from what she could figure out from reading Dumbledore's lips, he was making some inquiry about his arrival – but Moody shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone that she didn't see.

Dumbledore nodded and gestured Moody to the empty seat on his right-hand side.

Vega continued to watch him as Moody sat down, shook his mane of dark grey hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat.

It was clear that he was still a bit paranoid, and she could see that although his normal eye was fized upon the sausages, the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students. It wasn't surprising for Vega, but she wondered why he was here in the first place.

"May I introduce our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?" Dumbledore asked brightly into the silence, and Vega's jaw dropped. "Professor Moody,"

It was usual for new staff members to be greeted with applause, but none of the staff or students clapped. Well, except for Dumbledore, Hagrid, and somewhat Vega, who all put their hands together and applauded. The sound echoed dismally into the silence and they stopped fairly quickly.

Everyone else seemed too transfixed by Moody's bizarre appearance to do more than stare at him. Vega rubbed her face, feeling strange that they were going to be taught by none other than Moody.

"Moody?" Harry muttered to Vega and Ron. "Mad-Eye Moody? The one your dad went to help this morning?" He looked at the black-haired girl. "Your cousin worked under him, right?"

"Must be," Ron said in awe.

"That's Alastor Moody, yes," Vega answered. "I met him recently when I went with Dora to the Ministry. But I wasn't aware he was going to be here. I'll ask Dora about it,"