The Real and Fake Moody

After dinner, Clara told Rowle she had a headache and was going back early to rest.

She didn't go to her dormitory.

She sat in a corner of the common room until curfew. After the last Hufflepuff had yawned and gone back to the dormitory, she stood, took a deep breath, and pushed open the round wooden door.

Merlin help her, this was the first time in her life she'd ever sneaked out at night. She hoped Filch wouldn't catch her.

The corridor was dark, lit only by the dim yellow glow of a few torches on the walls, their flames close to dying. Clara's shadow stretched long and twisted against the stone wall. She didn't know where she was going, only that she had a vague idea-perhaps she needed to visit the library's Restricted Section. Maybe she could find something there.

If she was going to find out how to stop all this, she at least needed to know a little more about her enemy, You-Know-Who. A lot more.

But what would be in the Restricted Section? An Introduction to Dark Magic? How to Defeat a Bad Guy You Don't Know? She didn't even know what she was looking for. Clara chewed these thoughts over in her head and came to a very Hufflepuff conclusion: she'd think about it once she got to the library.

Then she realized she was lost.

She stood in a completely unfamiliar corridor. The doors on either side looked identical, and the portraits on the walls were all dozing, snoring softly. She seemed to have taken a staircase that moved on its own and made a wrong turn, ending up somewhere she'd never been before. Clara began to regret it—she was a Hufflepuff whose social circle was limited to a few friends in her own house. She didn't even know her way around at night, so what made her think she could uncover some earth-shattering secret?

Just as she was about to retrace her steps, she heard footsteps.

They were heavy and regular, accompanied by a strange tapping, like wood striking stone.

Clara's blood ran cold.

Mad-Eye Moody.

She recognized the sound at once. Only one person in all of Hogwarts had a wooden leg that struck the floor like that.

Clara didn't have time to wonder why Moody was in this part of the castle after curfew. Her body reacted first, darting into a recessed alcove beside her and pressing tightly against the cold stone wall.

The footsteps drew closer. Tap, tap, tap.

Clara held her breath, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest. She cautiously peeked around the edge of the alcove.

A figure was approaching from the end of the corridor.

First came the wooden leg, then the old traveling cloak, then the scarred face. It was Mad-Eye Moody. He was walking quickly, his magical eye spinning wildly as it swept the corridor in every direction. Clara hastily pulled her head back, her heart nearly leaping into her throat.

The footsteps stopped.

Clara heard a low, indistinct groan, as if someone were trying to muffle the sound of pain. Then came another sound—a voice she couldn't quite make out, hoarse and faint, as if speaking to Moody.

She heard Moody say, "Master."

But Moody had been the only person in the corridor just now.

Clara peeked out again, and saw one of the strangest sights of her life.

Moody pulled a curved flask from a hidden pocket. He tipped his head back and took a large swig. His whole body shuddered violently—and then his face began to change. The scars faded, his skin tightened, and the false eye slid out of its socket. He fumbled to press it back in, but his face had already changed.

The scarred old man's face became that of someone she'd never seen before. He had light brown hair, his chin was trembling, and he was sweating all over. He looked young, and very, very nervous.

Clara bit down hard on the back of her hand to keep from making a sound.

Polyjuice Potion. She'd read about it in Advanced Potion-Making. Someone was impersonating Mad-Eye Moody.

The young man's hands were shaking as he put away the curved flask-Clara saw a drop of cloudy liquid still clinging to it—and pulled another bottle from his cloak. He tipped his head back and drank. His body shuddered violently again, and the skin of his face reshaped itself like melting wax. Scars crept back one by one, his nose collapsed, and the false eye spun wildly.

Mad-Eye Moody was back.

Clara felt her heart was beating so loudly that the whole corridor could hear it.

Moody—no, the person impersonating Moody-wiped the sweat from his face. His wooden leg struck the floor again as he walked on and came around the end of the corridor, getting closer and closer to her.

She couldn't stay here.

Fake Moody was walking toward her, the sound of his wooden leg striking the floor growing closer. If she stayed any longer, he would find her. Clara slipped out of the alcove, crouched low, and ran down the corridor in the opposite direction. She didn't dare look back, didn't dare make a sound, didn't even dare breathe. She just ran as hard as she could, turning one corner, then another.

Then she ran into a dead end.

At the end of the corridor hung a tapestry of Trolls clubbing Barnabas the Barmy, and opposite it was a blank stone wall.

Behind her, Fake Moody had probably noticed someone else was there. The wooden leg struck the floor faster and faster.

She was finished. She was going to die here. A Hufflepuff struck by a curse, found lying in a Seventh Floor corridor by Filch the next morning, with no one knowing why she was there or what had happened to her. Then she would wake up on June twenty-fourth right on schedule—if she could still wake up.

What if time didn't rewind this time? What if being killed by a curse meant she really died? What if she spent the rest of her life lying in a ward at St. Mungo's?

The footsteps were already close, probably only one turn away. She could hear Fake Moody's heavy breathing and the faint clicking of his magical eye as it turned.

Clara closed her eyes.

She didn't want to die. She didn't want to become a patient at St. Mungo's who couldn't speak. She had tried so many times, failed so many times, and hadn't even gotten an "I believe you" from Cedric. She still had tomorrow, and someone to save, even if there were countless tomorrows after that one, even if she could never escape this loop.

I need somewhere to hide.

The thought struck her like lightning.

I need somewhere to hide.

Merlin, but where was there to hide in this corridor?

The footsteps behind her grew clearer. Clara felt unsteady on her feet and could only pace blindly.

Suddenly, a door slowly emerged from the white stone wall.

Clara didn't have time to think. She shoved the door open, rushed inside, and closed it behind her. She leaned against it, gasping for breath.

Outside, the sound of the wooden leg striking the floor drew closer, then stopped.

Silence.

Clara clamped a hand over her mouth, not daring to make a sound even as she breathed, though she knew Fake Moody couldn't see the door. She could hear her heart drumming wildly in her chest and could imagine the magical eye turning in every direction outside, sweeping every corner of the corridor.

After a long time, the wooden leg sounded again. Tap, tap, tap. It gradually receded until it vanished altogether at the end of the corridor.

Clara slid down the door and sat on the floor, trembling all over.

It took her a while to find the strength to raise her head and look around the place she'd entered.

It was a vast room. "Vast" wasn't even enough to describe it. It was like a warehouse that had been abandoned for centuries, its lofty ceiling lost in the dim light. Mountains of discarded objects rose from the floor as far as she could see, forming narrow lanes. There was stuff everywhere-battered furniture, towers of old books, rusty swords and knives, statues covered in thick dust, and bottles and jars with unknown contents. The air smelled of old wood and dust, and the only sound in the silence was her own breathing.

Where is this?

There seemed to be no mention of this place in the school's history.

Clara slowly got to her feet and made her way through a gap between the piles of objects.

She didn't know how long she walked. She passed through lane after lane formed by heaps of discarded things, and what she saw grew stranger and stranger—a cracked Vanishing Cabinet, a cauldron stuffed with old textbooks, a very old-looking flying broomstick, and a human skeleton lying crookedly with a dusty old top hat on its head.

Then she stopped in front of a mirror.

It was an enormous full-length mirror, its frame carved with intricate vine patterns. Its surface was unbelievably clean, utterly out of place among the thickly dust-covered objects around it. A line of writing she couldn't understand was engraved at the top.

Clara stood in front of the mirror and saw herself.

But not just herself.

In the mirror, she stood on the Quidditch Pitch under bright sunshine, holding a box and smiling happily. Cedric stood beside her, his gray-blue eyes curving more gently than in all the countless times she'd stolen glances at him.

Clara's breath caught.

She knew it. She'd read about this mirror in a book.

The Mirror of Erised.

"What I want..."

Her voice broke in her throat. Suddenly, she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She'd thought what she wanted was to save him. She'd told herself a thousand, ten thousand times that she was doing all this because she couldn't stand by and watch him die. But this mirror, this mirror that never lied, showed more than just him alive.

It showed him standing with her.

It showed him seeing her.

She wasn't so selfless after all.

She had tried countless times, tried until she was nearly mad, until she was numb, until she could barely even feel that she liked him anymore. But the mirror told her, no, you're lying. What you desire most, deep in your heart, isn't justice or so-called heroism. It's for him to turn and look at you.

Clara stood before the mirror, watching Cedric smile at her in its reflection. The Clara in the mirror was smiling so happily, in a way she never had in her life.

At last, her eyes grew wet.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, not knowing whether she was saying it to Cedric or to herself. "I'm sorry. I'm greedy."

Tears fell onto the dust-covered floor.

She stood there for a long time. At last, she took a deep breath, scrubbed her face hard with the back of her hand, and forced herself to turn away.

She couldn't keep looking. She hadn't come in here to look at a mirror. She'd come here to hide from Fake Moody, and Fake Moody... Something suddenly clicked into place in Clara's mind.

Fake Moody. Polyjuice Potion. A curved flask. "Master." The Triwizard Tournament.

It was him.

Whatever Fake Moody was planning, it had to have something to do with tomorrow's tournament, and with You-Know-Who's return. He'd infiltrated Hogwarts for an entire school year for the sake of tomorrow night. And Cedric had died during tomorrow's tournament—she didn't know exactly what had happened or what Fake Moody had done, but the two things couldn't be unrelated.

For Polyjuice Potion to work, it needed hair from the person being impersonated. That meant the real Moody had to be alive, and finding him was probably the key to breaking through.

She didn't know the details, but she already knew enough. Fake Moody had drunk Polyjuice Potion, communicated with his "master," and must have done something in tomorrow's tournament. She'd seen it with her own eyes. She could go and tell Dumbledore, without having to say anything more about foreknowledge. She only needed to tell him what she'd seen while sneaking out tonight.

She didn't expect Dumbledore to believe a student's word immediately, but Dumbledore was Dumbledore. He wouldn't ignore it. He would investigate, and as long as he did, he was sure to discover where the real Moody was being held. That would probably expose the plot.

Clara sat down on the floor with her back against the door and began to think. A roll of parchment and a quill soon appeared beside her. She went over every detail of what she'd seen that night in her head, then listed them on the parchment to make sure she wouldn't leave anything out in front of Dumbledore.

Polyjuice Potion, the curved flask, the young face she'd never seen before, and that word: "Master."