Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Graham Chapman was speaking to John Burke about one of his cases (which may have been connected to Alecto Carrow, which was the reason for the consult) when they heard it. They went absolutely silent and looked at each other.

They both knew that sound.

Some said it was the sound of Justice.

Others said it was the sound of Doom.

But the Aurors who had been mentored by Mad-Eye Moody knew it as something else entirely.

It was the sound of Alastor Animosus Moody's best wooden leg. Something was up.

Mad-Eye stumped by the two aurors and nodded his greetings, and proceeded past Burke's office in the general direction of Potter's. He stopped at the secretary's desk and looked at her imperiously. "I'm here to see Potter," he told her, in a way that left very little to the imagination as to what could happen if she tried to get in his way.

Lorelai blinked in surprise at Mad-Eye Moody.

She moved quickly to Harry's door and stuck her head in without even knocking. "Alastor Moody is here to see you, sir."

What was HE doing here? Mother would not like this. Not at all. This was not good. Moody paid attention to the things others would overlook. There was a reason Mother had not started serious work on her plans until after this man's second retirement.

Blinking a bit in surprise, Harry rose from his desk. He had no idea why Moody would be coming to see him. He hadn't had an appointment, not that he needed one. Making his way to the door, he pulled it open and grinned slightly at the much older man. "Moody." He pushed the door open further. "Come in."

Mad-Eye entered the office and closed the door behind him. He immediately began scanning the room with his eye for listening devices. After identifying three that he knew weren't his, he spoke, "So, Potter. Have you taken lunch yet?"

He pointed to the walls, then to his ear, and then held up three fingers.

Eyebrows furrowing, Harry nodded. "Not yet. I'm rather starved, though."

"Excellent. Any place in particular that you'd like to go?"

"What do you say we wander around London and happen upon something?" If there were people listening into his office, which you should have checked for you stupid git, he didn't want to clue them in on where they'd be going.

Moody grinned. He liked it when people thought like he did. "Sounds like a good plan. Shall we?" He motioned to the door.

Grabbing his jacket off his chair and shrugging into it, Harry nodded. He opened the door and grinned slightly at Lorelai. "We're heading to lunch. I'll be back later." Lorelai stood, but Harry kept moving. You've gotten far too comfortable, Potter. Once they were in the hallway, Harry slowed to let Moody catch up with him. "I bet you coming back to the Ministry has a few eyebrows raised. Haven't you already retired twice now?"

He chuckled. "You should have seen Burke and Chapman's faces when I came through here just now. I think Eric the guard was going to mess his pants, and your secretary was looking a bit panicked."

"Well, it's not every day Mad-Eye Moody makes a visit at the Ministry for lunch." Harry laughed. "Though, I can't say I wouldn't mind a personal visit, but I get the feeling this isn't just me buying you lunch."

"Who said anything about you buying me lunch? I was going to buy you lunch." As they reached the atrium, he asked, "So... Tell me, Potter. Do you like green eggs and ham?"

Harry racked his brain. It'd been so long since he'd been around Moody, he'd forgotten the right words. That could prove very bad for him. Eyes widening, hoping that he remembered the phrases correctly, he turned to Moody. "I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs and ham."

"Close enough. I think we'd better stick to Muggle establishments for this particular meeting... Meet you in front of the Leaky Cauldron?" He reached into his pocket and pulled on an eye patch, and then replaced his bowler hat.

Nodding, Harry made his way to the apparition point. Appearing in front of the Leaky, Harry waited for Moody to arrive. Knowing the retired Auror, he'd probably apparated three other places before coming here, just to put someone off his trail.

Moody popped into existence around the corner from where he'd told Potter to meet him, and went to join the younger man. "All right," he said, looking around, decided on the Mexican place down the road a ways. There seemed to be a lot of business, which spoke of the quality of the food and the level of background noise that could mask their conversation. "Any objections to Mexican?"

"None," Harry said, nodding as Moody led the way. He hadn't had Mexican in a while. Actually, he hadn't been out in a while. Luna and Harry tended to eat in most nights, usually because he didn't want to deal with the public. Sometimes because he didn't want to share her. "How are you feeling? Your tractor making you sore?"

"La Perla it is, then." He started walking down the pavement toward the restaurant. "I'm still as spry as I was five years ago, thank Merlin. And no, the tractor doesn't make me sore. Riding in the hay wagon, on the other hand... Well. Let's just say that my great-great grandsons are punks and leave it at that, shall we? They're not allowed to drive the tractors any more."

Harry laughed. He'd always enjoyed being around Moody, when he was actually Moody, that is. It was hard to picture the man driving around a field on a tractor, but it was funny to try. "I can't believe they even want to, knowing how much you love your farming. They had to have known they'd not live up."

"I'm not actually doing much of it any longer... My son and his sons handle most of the day to day activities. I just use baling hay as punishment for the wayward children who come in late and pissed out of their minds and wake me up." He chuckled in a sinister fashion and continued, "It's not fun working the wagon with a hangover when granddad's got the tractor in four-high and the baler's spitting them out once every fifteen seconds or so."

They arrived at the restaurant and went inside. The hostess seated them in the corner where Moody could see the door, and he asked Harry a question. "So, how's Lovegood?"

Harry turned and looked at Moody sharply, smacking his shin against a chair as he passed. Muttering curses under his breath, Harry took the seat across from the retired Auror with a frown. It made sense that Moody would know about Luna. Moody knew about everything. "Fine. Tired. Working. Why?"

"Just curious. We were talking about me and mine, so I thought we could spread the wealth a bit."

Unsure whether Luna was his quite yet, Harry nodded. "I take it there is a reason behind this visit?" He knew Moody was never truly retired when he said he was. The man always had his ear, so to speak, to the ground, listening and waiting for something to come up. As much as he'd like to enjoy the fact that one of the best Aurors Harry had ever known wanted to have lunch with him, it most likely did not bode well.

"Several," he replied. Before he could elaborate, the waitress came over and took their drink orders. Watching her depart, Moody continued. "It seems that we have a problem."

"Oh?" So it begins.

Moody had to tread carefully... He wasn't completely sure that Potter wasn't one of them. "Tell me, Potter. Does the phrase 'Liberi de Sanctamonia' mean anything to you?"

The grizzled old man watched Harry's face closely.

Harry let out a breath. "I've heard some things. Dean Thomas has talked about it to me. I don't... I've heard things. I take you have as well?"

That was not exactly the answer that Moody had been expecting. Maybe the kid was not as oblivious as he'd heard.

"You might say that," he responded.

"There are things that don't make sense to me," Harry began. He got the feeling Hestia had wanted to talk to him about it from time to time, but has hesitated. He supposed it did sound rather paranoid. "People getting cases taken from them for no reason, others getting cases that are way out of their grasp." He looked over at Moody. "You think something's happening?"

Moody just smiled.

"I do."

Harry wasn't sure what Moody wanted him to say. He didn't get the feeling needling the man would help. "Do you plan on doing something about it?"

Moody was a little bit surprised. This was easier than he'd thought it would be. "That, my friend, is up to you."

Eyes widening, Harry grabbed the glass of water that had been placed in front of him. "How is that?"

"I understand that you're a little thin on the ground these days. You're running most of the department yourself with the help of your secretary and one assistant. Is that correct?"

"I actually don't have an assistant anymore." Harry frowned. It hadn't gone right the first time, and he wasn't going to go down that road again. "I get a lot of help from the other Aurors. Hestia and Kings and Tonks. But we could always use more Aurors. Why?"

Moody grinned again. "That's true. You could always use more Aurors."

"Do you have someone you want me to recruit?" If Moody trusted someone, then they had to be good. The whole department could use another set of eyes.

The old copper could see that the cagey route wasn't going to work; the kid was as oblivious as he'd heard. Merlin help them all. "Let's say that I do. He has extensive experience in the capture of dark wizards, is adept at defensive magic and muggle defensive methods, knows the law like the back of his hand, and has trained -- in one capacity or another -- five sixths of the active auror corps. Would you be interested in someone like that?"

Oh. Right. "Well, yeah," Harry took another sip of his water, "as long as he hasn't retired twice already and wants to come back. It'd just look desperate and no one wants that."

"Well... you know how it is. Desperate times call for desperate measures." He thanked the waitress when she brought their drinks. After they placed their meal orders, Moody continued. "We've got something big coming in, and if we don't nip it in the bud, it'll bite us in the arse. Besides... If I'd known I'd live this long, I'd have waited to retire."

He went on to convey what he knew of the Liberi, and what he suspected of its level of insinuation into the government and society in general.

When he'd finished with that, he then said, "Which brings us to you, Harry."

Having it laid out there for him made Harry angry. "Me. Harry Potter, the boy puppet, you mean." He'd been deluding himself, thinking that maybe, just maybe, even though he hadn't been the right person for the job, that he could at least do it. He'd tried hard to do it. Had gotten into a very large row with one of his best friends over him being able to do the job. "What are we supposed to do? If they've infiltrated as far as you think, it'd be a whole new war. One where quiet is an understatement."

Moody sighed. "Right now, we can't do anything. For the most part, they've gotten away with it because they've covered their tracks. Megan Jones is still whole at this very moment because of them. That Greengrass bint that you lot had in the cells a while back? Frightened out of her skull of them. And you know what the best part of all of this is? You've been set up to take the blame for whatever it is that they have planned -- and believe me, it'll be one bloody fucking nightmare. It'd be one thing if you were just some random kid, but you're the sodding Boy Who Lived TWICE and champion of all that is good and wonderful in wizarding Britain. Imagine what a coup it would be if Harry Potter was sent to Azkaban for gross negligence or some other bollocks -- or better yet -- Kissed on trumped-up charges."

"That's not even taking into account the muggleborns and half bloods. Sooner or later, they will have had enough and shrug off the pureblood oppressors and I really don't want to have to fill out the paperwork on THAT massacre."

Moody looked at the younger man. "Do you want to get out of this with your reputation and career intact?"

"I don't give a damn about my reputation. I don't want to sit by and watch something happen when I could have had the chance to do something about it." He should have done something when Dean said something, but it was just an idea, just a thought. He'd tried to keep his eyes open for anything suspicious, but with all his duties, he'd been so bogged down.

Good Boy. "All right. I've already spoken to Hestia and Tonks about this, and we've agreed that a meeting of the old crowd is in order. I'm going to send an owl to Remus and get him rolling on contacting the others, and in the meantime, I think I'd be most useful if I came back to work. I'll need to have the Wizengamot days off -- as you are aware -- but my time is otherwise unspoken for at the present."

"Of course," Harry said without reservation. "If you're sure you're up for it," he said with a small grin.

"Excellent," Moody beamed. "On a partially-related topic... Might I make a suggestion on a semi-official basis?"

Harry turned to look at Moody with a small smile. "I'm all ears." He had no problem taking advice and suggestions from people he respected, especially now that he knew this was big enough that he'd need all the help he could get. Maybe he's been in denial, not wanting to see the signs. The last war felt like it had just ended. He didn't want to believe another one could be starting so soon. Well, you know what they say. Want in one hand...

"You need a Head Auror. You've got Arthur managing things on a day to day basis down in Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, you've got that new Dolohov chit in Improper Use of Magic, and you've got wossname..." Moody snapped his fingers in rapid succession. "Bennett as Head Hitwizard, but there hasn't been a Head Auror since Robards was Department Head. Secretly, I think that it's because LeGrot is a control freak."

"Except when she's handing cases off to idiots, you mean. Then she's all about 'go team go'. Tonks was less than thrilled. I would have been angry too." Harry frowned. "Do you think Kingsley would be up for it?" He knew Kingsley knew how to do the job. He just wasn't sure if the older man held a grudge because he'd been passed over for the job originally.

"Either Kingsley or Hestia. Everyone else is, if you'll forgive my bluntness, too young, too stupid, too impatient, or too much of a crotchety old bastard." He indicated himself at that last bit. "As for the handing off of cases... That's just another way of being in control."

"True." Harry didn't mind the idea of Kingsley taking over some of the daily Head duties. If that were the case, Harry might actually have a chance to get in some field time. Maybe even go a few rounds in the training room. He smiled as their food was set in front of them. Not realizing how hungry he must have been, Harry looked over at Moody with a grin. "You should come out of retirement more often."



[Synopsis: Moody takes Harry out to Lunch and wrangles his job back. He also lets Harry know what he does about the Liberi.]