I met Amy when she was in her first year at Hogwarts. Her name was Amy Mizuno then, Amy of the Water. She was brilliant but not bookish, open and friendly but not naive. She was an asset to Ravenclaw, though she tended to be a bossy when she was tired. It was this bossiness that first attracted Mad-Eye's attention. He was a freshly- sorted Ravenclaw who had been ordered to sit down by a green-eyed witch only a year his senior. He sat, but not before calling her "Miss Perfect Prefect." Alastor called her by that moniker and tormented her with pranks until the day he began Auror training.

Though Amy's marks and character were good enough for Auror, she chose to become a curse-breaker for Gringotts. During her training, she worked as a cleaning woman for the Auror Training Corps to pay her way. Alastor resumed tormenting Amy the day he arrived. He put snakes under his bed, rigged buckets of potion his door, sent her curses in envelopes marked with her lovers' return addresses. Creating trouble for Amy on the courting scene was a favorite trick of his.

She hated him, and he returned the emotion, or so it seemed. Only Alastor's young friend Arthur Weasley recognized the flirting for what it was. When he suggested that Amy and Alastor marry, they hexed him so badly he spent a full week in St. Mungo's. To everyone but Arthur's surprise, Amy and Alastor married five years later.

Amy was part of the Order, both for her curse-breaking skills and for the fact her grandmother was the niece of the Emperor of Wizarding Japan. Japanese royal patronage and support was a great help in fighting Voldemort. Her unfailing devotion was also a great help, though for different reasons.

Though a member of the Order, she never allowed us to take her picture. She insisted on staying behind the camera, taking our group photo herself. Alastor never complained. He had their wedding photo, taken with Muggle film and developer so Amy's photographic self couldn't hide behind the frame. He kept in his pocket every day, only removing it to set it on his trunk at night. She kept his picture in a locket around her neck, removing it only to bathe. Like Arthur and Molly, Amy and Alastor's constant affection reminded us of what we were fighting for, even when our other couple, Frank and Alice, fell.

After Voldemort was defeated by young Harry and his mother, the Moodys settled, enjoying the peace they'd contributed to. Amy trained her successor Bill Weasley and retired. I know Alastor's post-war paranoia has been hard on her, but Amy never showed any signs of wanting to leave. Not even when Barty Crouch Jr. posed as her husband. I can only imagine what Amy went through that year, as her husband of over thirty years suddenly stopped speaking or writing to her... as he left the picture of her behind when he left for Hogwarts.

I wish she had written me, asking why her husband no longer loved her. If she had, I would have been warned of the impostor, I would have known to investigate... But it was not to be. To think that if Amy's determination not to burden me with her personal affairs had not been so great Cedric might still be alive. Such cruel twists of fate.

I hope that an even crueler twist is not in our future.

Harry met Mrs. Moody first. Hedwig had been hurt by a hawk of some sort, and so he hadn't written for a few days. Mrs. Moody had been sent to investigate, dressed in a Muggle pantsuit. Harry hadn't even suspected Mrs. Moody was a witch until she greeted him, something most Muggles never did.

After being assured Harry's pause in communication was only due to Hedwig's injury, Mrs. Moody was rudely escorted to the door. Harry told me that Amy sealed her identity as a wizard by offering to buy him an ice cream. He said that he almost fell over when she introduced herself. To tell the truth, I was as surprised as Harry to find that Mad-Eye Moody was married - he's just so untrusting.

Later that summer, Amy led the Advance Guard to pick Harry up and bring him to the Order's new headquarters at 37 A Wimpole Street. Mad- Eye was waiting for her. She greeted him with a very affectionate kiss that prompted Mrs. Weasley to tell them to go to their room and provoked a piercing wolf-whistle from Tonks. That kiss was Ron's first introduction to the concept of Mad-Eye's matrimony. He took it well, uttering only a shocked, "she must be a saint to be married to him!"

I didn't have to step on his foot, Ginny did it for me.

Mrs. Moody rode with us on the train to Hogwarts. It was a good thing she did: fourteen dementors attacked us, too many for Harry to handle on his own. She also demonstrated that dementors have another weakness - they cannot cross running water unless they carry grave dirt in pouches around their necks. Destroy the pouches, run across a river brige, and you've purchased yourself precious time.

Once at Hogwarts, Mrs. Moody took the empty seat at the High Table. She was our Defense Against Dark Arts teacher that year, up until February. Then the unthinkable happened. Voldemort stormed Hogwarts. It was a Hogsmeade weekend, but Mrs. Moody got all the students inside at the cost of her own capture.

Voldemort tortured her in front of the Hogwarts gates every night. Only a teacher could open the main gates, and until those gates opened, Voldemort could not enter. Her will held for five solid nights, until Mad-Eye arrived on a thestral. Dumbledore hadn't told him what happened, he tried to break the news gently when Moody arrived.

Mad-Eye didn't take it well.

He didn't open the gates, he jumped over them. Like Abaddon, the Angel of the Apocalypse, he descended on the Death Eaters. Mad-Eye killed forty-three Death Eaters and drove Voldemort away. The Dark Lord couldn't face a man that no longer feared, no longer cared to preserve his own life. He couldn't face a man who acted solely by the force Voldemort hated most, love.

Mad-Eye didn't return to the school with his wife, only her corpse. There wasn't a mark on her. Voldemort's last act before withdrawing had been Amy Moody's death, making his enemy pay a dear price for victory.

It was like she was sleeping as he carried her to the front steps. He sank to his knees before the steps, a lost paladin praying for a miracle. It didn't come. Moody buried his face in his wife's white hair and held his wife's cooling body in his arms. Silent tears coursed down his cheek and pooled in the gouge in his nose. It was the only time I'd seen Moody truly helpless and without hope.

Afterward, there wasn't any spirit in Moody's one dark eye. Professor Dumbledore let the half-man that remained go, not knowing that Moody would join his wife a few days later. Or maybe Dumbledore did know, and understood. After all, he's been half a man once himself. And sometimes, half isn't better than none.

Owari

For those who are confused: The first half is narrated by Dumbledore, the second half by Hermione. The archetype was star-crossed.