"Treasured"
byChristine Anderson
aka Lilly Malfoy

The thing he's realized about treasured possessions over the years is that they make easy, tempting targets. Attach too much sentiment to a material thing, and people will find a way to use it against you. A hex placed on a favorite hat or an old jumper can do a lot of damage. He's seen it happen, and it's not pretty. It's sure as hell not the way that he wants to go.

He prefers not to hold onto things longer than he needs them. Not only can a prized possession be cursed and returned, but, even worse, such an item might also be taken and kept. Moody shudders even to think what his enemies could do with something like that. The kind of spells that can be cast using that sort of sympathetic magic... No, he has always thought it best not to prize too greatly any one thing.

He doesn't trust new things, either. Going shopping has always been a chore, what with the stares and the muttered comments they think he can't possibly have heard. But it's always worse when he needs things like boots (well, he thinks with a chuckle, boot, singular, is more like it) and so he puts it off as long as possible. Too long, really.

It was a while before he really trusted that boot, and it'll be a while before he trusts the one that will someday replace it.

There are things he can't get by without, but he doesn't treasure them. He needs them, and there are days when that need makes him hate them. He couldn't see worth a damn after he lost his eye, until the magical replacement came along, and without the wooden leg, he'd never walk another step, no matter how slow or shaky that step might be. He needs these things, could not do half of what he does without them, and yet most of the time he wishes they weren't there.

It infuriates him to no end that these things which are so necessary to him, these things which are a part of him, for all that they can be detached, were worn for all those months by someone who is the absolute antithesis of everything Moody is, everything he has ever believed in. Intellectually, he knows that Crouch wouldn't have cursed the leg or the eye while he was wearing them, and he never had time to do it before he was caught, but it galls Moody to no end to have to wear these things after scum like that has done so. He feels as if Crouch has befouled them in some imperceptible yet crucial way.

A friend, a healer, has offered more than once to have either or both items replaced, but Moody has flatly refused him. No matter how much it incenses and enrages him that Crouch had taken what was his and worn it all that time, the fact remains that these things are his, and he'll be damned if he'll give them up so easily. He has far too much pride not to reclaim them as his own.

What he'll never tell his friend- what he never has to say- is that after all these years he's grown far too used to his leg, his eye, to ever accept replacements if he does not absolutely have to.

In a way he can't stand these things, but they are his, have been his a long time, and while he'll never treasure them, he'll always appreciate what they have enabled him to do, which otherwise he might never have been able to do again.

He knows he shouldn't treasure anything, that such emotional attachments to objects are incredibly dangerous. But he can't help being proud of a few things he owns, can't help but appreciate them. The cloak and badge which mark him an Auror, still and even to this day, the blue Auror's cloak with its spells of protection and warding woven into every thread, the silver badge with its ages-old signs and sigils. The marks of his craft which for so many long years have told him who he is... These things he prizes, these things he values, because he has earned them. They are not treasures to be locked away, however, but tools to be worn and carried and used.

His wand and his staff, too, are such things. A witch or wizard has no more important or necessary tools than these, which allow the practice of the magical craft. The wand is traditional, standard, and it has its uses. In some ways, though, Moody is more partial to his staff. Few who see an old man leaning upon a walking stick would ever believe that it could be used as a weapon- he must need it too much for support and balance, surely? Seldom do they expect, either, that it could be a magical as well as a mundane weapon.

Moody has spent a lifetime dealing with others' misconceptions. Sometimes he fights them, railing at their stupidity, and when he needs to he plays upon those misconceptions, takes advantage of them. Few wizards recall that the wand evolved from the staff, but Alastor Moody has never forgotten, and he's carried his staff openly in times and in places where a bared wand carried in his hand would never have been tolerated.

After everything he's been through, he greatly dislikes going unarmed, and with his staff he seldom has to.

He treasures that peace of mind nearly more than anything else.

But it's not any of these things that he treasures most, not really. What Moody values most in the world is, in fact, not a thing at all. He treasures most the fact that he is no longer alone. Of all the twists and turns his life has taken over the years, this is the most unexpected, and the one he treasures most. He treasures the presence in his life of someone who loves him and cares for him unconditionally. He treasures the existence of Penelope Clearwater- his lover, his partner, his everything.