I love this passage, and have shown it to several people. It brings several levels of “If you thought you were clever and paying attention, then you really should have thought of this.”
When Alastor Moody had lost his eye, he had commandeered the services of a most erudite Ravenclaw, Samuel H. Lyall, whom Moody mistrusted slightly less than average because Moody had refrained from reporting him as an unregistered werewolf; and he had paid Lyall to compile a list of every known magical eye, and every known hint to their location.
When Moody had gotten the list back, he hadn’t bothered reading most of it; because at the top of the list was the Eye of Vance, dating back to an era before Hogwarts, and currently in the possession of a powerful Dark Wizard ruling over some tiny forgotten hellhole that wasn’t in Britain or anywhere else he’d have to worry about silly rules.
That was how Alastor Moody had lost his left foot and acquired the Eye of Vance, and how the oppressed souls of Urulat had been liberated for a period of around two weeks before another Dark Wizard moved in on the power vacuum.
He’d considered going after the Left Foot of Vance next, but had decided against it after he realized that would be just what they were expecting.
Now Mad-Eye Moody was turning slowly, always turning, surveying the graveyard of Little Hangleton. It should have been a lot gloomier, that place, but in the broad daylight it seemed like nothing but a grassy place marked by ordinary tombstones, demarcated by the chained twists of fragile, easily climbable metal that Muggles used instead of wards. (Moody could not comprehend what the Muggles were thinking on that score, if they were pretending to have wards, or what, and he had decided not to ask whether Muggle criminals respected the pretense.)
Moody didn’t actually need to turn to survey the graveyard.
The Eye of Vance saw the full globe of the world in every direction around him, no matter where it was pointing.
But there was no particular reason to let a former Death Eater like Severus Snape know that.
Sometimes people called Moody ‘paranoid’.
Moody always told them to survive a hundred years of hunting Dark Wizards and then get back to him about that.
Mad-Eye Moody had once worked out how long it had taken him, in retrospect, to achieve what he now considered a decent level of caution—weighed up how much experience it had taken him to get good instead of lucky—and had begun to suspect that most people died before they got there. Moody had once expressed this thought to Lyall, who had done some ciphering and figuring, and told him that a typical Dark Wizard hunter would die, on average, eight and a half times along the way to becoming ‘paranoid’. This explained a great deal, assuming Lyall wasn’t lying.
Yesterday, Albus Dumbledore had told Mad-Eye Moody that the Dark Lord had used unspeakable dark arts to survive the death of his body, and was now awake and abroad, seeking to regain his power and begin the Wizarding War anew.
Someone else might have reacted with incredulity.
“I can’t believe you lot never told me about this resurrection thing,” Mad-Eye Moody said with considerable acerbity. “D’you realize how long it’ll take me to do the grave of every ancestor of every Dark Wizard I’ve ever killed who could’ve been smart enough to make a horcrux? You’re not just now doing this one, are you?”
“I redose this one every year,” Severus Snape said calmly, uncapping the third flask of what the man had claimed would be seventeen bottles, and beginning to wave his wand over it. “The other ancestral graves we’ve been able to locate were poisoned with only the long-lasting substances, since some of us have less free time than yourself.”
Moody watched the fluid spiraling out of the vial and vanishing, to appear within the bones where marrow had once been. “But you think it’s worth the effort of the trap, instead of just Vanishing the bones.”
“He does have other avenues to life, should he perceive this one blocked,” Snape said dryly, uncapping a fourth bottle. “And before you ask, it must be the original grave, the place of first burial, the bone removed during the ritual and not before. Thus he cannot have retrieved it earlier; and also there is no point in substituting the skeleton of a weaker ancestor. He would notice it had lost all potency.”
“Who else knows about this trap?” Moody demanded.
“You. Me. The Headmaster. No one else.”
Moody snorted. “Pfah. Did Albus tell Amelia, Bartemius, and that McGonagall woman about the resurrection ritual?”
“Yes—”
“If Voldie finds out that Albus knows about the resurrection ritual and that Albus told them, Voldie’ll figure that Albus told me, and Voldie knows I’d think of this.” Moody shook his head in disgust. “What’re these other ways Voldie could come back to life?”
Snape’s hand paused on the fifth bottle (it was all Disillusioned, of course, the whole operation was Disillusioned, but that meant less than nothing to Moody, it just marked you in his Eye’s sight as trying-to-hide), and the former Death Eater said, “You don’t need to know.”
“You’re learning, son,” said Moody with mild approval. “What’s in the bottles?”
Snape opened the fifth bottle, gestured with his wand to begin the substance flowing toward the grave, and said, “This one? A Muggle narcotic called LSD. A conversation yesterday put me in mind of Muggle things, and LSD seemed the most interesting option, so I hurried to obtain some. If it is incorporated into the resurrection potion, I suspect its effects will be permanent.”
“What does it do?” said Moody.
“It is said that the effects are impossible to describe to anyone who has not used it,” drawled Snape, “and I have not used it.”
Moody nodded approval as Snape opened the sixth flask. “What about that one?”
“Love potion.”
“Love potion? ” said Moody.
“Not of the standard sort. It is meant to trigger a two-way bond with an unbearably sweet Veela woman named Verdandi who the Headmaster hopes might be able to redeem even him, if they truly loved each other.”
“Gah! ” said Moody. “That bloody sentimental fool—”
“Agreed,” Severus Snape said calmly, his attention focused on his work.
“Tell me you’ve at least got some Malaclaw venom in there.”
“Second flask.”
“Iocane powder.”
“Either the fourteenth or fifteenth bottle.”
“Bahl’s Stupefaction,” Moody said, naming an extremely addictive narcotic with interesting side effects on people with Slytherin tendencies; Moody had once seen an addicted Dark Wizard go to ridiculous lengths to get a victim to lay hands on a certain exact portkey, instead of just having someone toss the target a trapped Knut on their next visit to town; and after going to all that work, the addict had gone to the further effort to lay a second Portus, on the same portkey, which had, on a second touch, transported the victim back to safety. To this day, even taking the drug into account, Moody could not imagine what could have possibly been going through the man’s mind at the time he had cast the second Portus.
“Tenth vial,” said Snape.
“Basilisk venom,” offered Moody.
“What? ” spat Snape. “Snake venom is a positive component of the resurrection potion! Not to mention that it would dissolve the bone and all the other substances! And where would we even get—”
“Calm down, son, I was just checking to see if you could be trusted.”
Mad-Eye Moody continued his (secretly unnecessary) slow turning, surveying the graveyard, and the Potions Master continued pouring.
“Hold on,” Moody said suddenly. “How do you know this is really where—”
“Because it says ‘Tom Riddle’ on the easily moved headstone,” Snape said dryly. “And I have just won ten Sickles from the Headmaster, who bet you would think of that before the fifth bottle. So much for constant vigilance.”
There was a pause.
“How long did it take Albus to reali-”
“Three years after we learned of the ritual,” said Snape, in a tone not quite like his usual sardonic drawl. “In retrospect, we should have consulted you earlier.”
Snape uncapped the ninth bottle.
“We poisoned all the other graves as well, with long-lasting substances,” remarked the former Death Eater. “It is possible that we are in the correct graveyard. He may not have planned this far ahead back when he was slaughtering his family, and he cannot move the grave itself—”
“The true location doesn’t look like a graveyard any more,” Moody said flatly. “He moved all the other graves here and Memory-Charmed the Muggles. Not even Bellatrix Black would be told anything about that until just before the ritual started. No one knows the true location now except him.”
I love this passage, and have shown it to several people. It brings several levels of “If you thought you were clever and paying attention, then you really should have thought of this.”
“CONSTANT VIGILANCE” (1467 words):
Aftermath, Alastor Moody and Severus Snape:
When Alastor Moody had lost his eye, he had commandeered the services of a most erudite Ravenclaw, Samuel H. Lyall, whom Moody mistrusted slightly less than average because Moody had refrained from reporting him as an unregistered werewolf; and he had paid Lyall to compile a list of every known magical eye, and every known hint to their location.
When Moody had gotten the list back, he hadn’t bothered reading most of it; because at the top of the list was the Eye of Vance, dating back to an era before Hogwarts, and currently in the possession of a powerful Dark Wizard ruling over some tiny forgotten hellhole that wasn’t in Britain or anywhere else he’d have to worry about silly rules.
That was how Alastor Moody had lost his left foot and acquired the Eye of Vance, and how the oppressed souls of Urulat had been liberated for a period of around two weeks before another Dark Wizard moved in on the power vacuum.
He’d considered going after the Left Foot of Vance next, but had decided against it after he realized that would be just what they were expecting.
Now Mad-Eye Moody was turning slowly, always turning, surveying the graveyard of Little Hangleton. It should have been a lot gloomier, that place, but in the broad daylight it seemed like nothing but a grassy place marked by ordinary tombstones, demarcated by the chained twists of fragile, easily climbable metal that Muggles used instead of wards. (Moody could not comprehend what the Muggles were thinking on that score, if they were pretending to have wards, or what, and he had decided not to ask whether Muggle criminals respected the pretense.)
Moody didn’t actually need to turn to survey the graveyard.
The Eye of Vance saw the full globe of the world in every direction around him, no matter where it was pointing.
But there was no particular reason to let a former Death Eater like Severus Snape know that.
Sometimes people called Moody ‘paranoid’.
Moody always told them to survive a hundred years of hunting Dark Wizards and then get back to him about that.
Mad-Eye Moody had once worked out how long it had taken him, in retrospect, to achieve what he now considered a decent level of caution—weighed up how much experience it had taken him to get good instead of lucky—and had begun to suspect that most people died before they got there. Moody had once expressed this thought to Lyall, who had done some ciphering and figuring, and told him that a typical Dark Wizard hunter would die, on average, eight and a half times along the way to becoming ‘paranoid’. This explained a great deal, assuming Lyall wasn’t lying.
Yesterday, Albus Dumbledore had told Mad-Eye Moody that the Dark Lord had used unspeakable dark arts to survive the death of his body, and was now awake and abroad, seeking to regain his power and begin the Wizarding War anew.
Someone else might have reacted with incredulity.
“I can’t believe you lot never told me about this resurrection thing,” Mad-Eye Moody said with considerable acerbity. “D’you realize how long it’ll take me to do the grave of every ancestor of every Dark Wizard I’ve ever killed who could’ve been smart enough to make a horcrux? You’re not just now doing this one, are you?”
“I redose this one every year,” Severus Snape said calmly, uncapping the third flask of what the man had claimed would be seventeen bottles, and beginning to wave his wand over it. “The other ancestral graves we’ve been able to locate were poisoned with only the long-lasting substances, since some of us have less free time than yourself.”
Moody watched the fluid spiraling out of the vial and vanishing, to appear within the bones where marrow had once been. “But you think it’s worth the effort of the trap, instead of just Vanishing the bones.”
“He does have other avenues to life, should he perceive this one blocked,” Snape said dryly, uncapping a fourth bottle. “And before you ask, it must be the original grave, the place of first burial, the bone removed during the ritual and not before. Thus he cannot have retrieved it earlier; and also there is no point in substituting the skeleton of a weaker ancestor. He would notice it had lost all potency.”
“Who else knows about this trap?” Moody demanded.
“You. Me. The Headmaster. No one else.”
Moody snorted. “Pfah. Did Albus tell Amelia, Bartemius, and that McGonagall woman about the resurrection ritual?”
“Yes—”
“If Voldie finds out that Albus knows about the resurrection ritual and that Albus told them, Voldie’ll figure that Albus told me, and Voldie knows I’d think of this.” Moody shook his head in disgust. “What’re these other ways Voldie could come back to life?”
Snape’s hand paused on the fifth bottle (it was all Disillusioned, of course, the whole operation was Disillusioned, but that meant less than nothing to Moody, it just marked you in his Eye’s sight as trying-to-hide), and the former Death Eater said, “You don’t need to know.”
“You’re learning, son,” said Moody with mild approval. “What’s in the bottles?”
Snape opened the fifth bottle, gestured with his wand to begin the substance flowing toward the grave, and said, “This one? A Muggle narcotic called LSD. A conversation yesterday put me in mind of Muggle things, and LSD seemed the most interesting option, so I hurried to obtain some. If it is incorporated into the resurrection potion, I suspect its effects will be permanent.”
“What does it do?” said Moody.
“It is said that the effects are impossible to describe to anyone who has not used it,” drawled Snape, “and I have not used it.”
Moody nodded approval as Snape opened the sixth flask. “What about that one?”
“Love potion.”
“Love potion? ” said Moody.
“Not of the standard sort. It is meant to trigger a two-way bond with an unbearably sweet Veela woman named Verdandi who the Headmaster hopes might be able to redeem even him, if they truly loved each other.”
“Gah! ” said Moody. “That bloody sentimental fool—”
“Agreed,” Severus Snape said calmly, his attention focused on his work.
“Tell me you’ve at least got some Malaclaw venom in there.”
“Second flask.”
“Iocane powder.”
“Either the fourteenth or fifteenth bottle.”
“Bahl’s Stupefaction,” Moody said, naming an extremely addictive narcotic with interesting side effects on people with Slytherin tendencies; Moody had once seen an addicted Dark Wizard go to ridiculous lengths to get a victim to lay hands on a certain exact portkey, instead of just having someone toss the target a trapped Knut on their next visit to town; and after going to all that work, the addict had gone to the further effort to lay a second Portus, on the same portkey, which had, on a second touch, transported the victim back to safety. To this day, even taking the drug into account, Moody could not imagine what could have possibly been going through the man’s mind at the time he had cast the second Portus.
“Tenth vial,” said Snape.
“Basilisk venom,” offered Moody.
“What? ” spat Snape. “Snake venom is a positive component of the resurrection potion! Not to mention that it would dissolve the bone and all the other substances! And where would we even get—”
“Calm down, son, I was just checking to see if you could be trusted.”
Mad-Eye Moody continued his (secretly unnecessary) slow turning, surveying the graveyard, and the Potions Master continued pouring.
“Hold on,” Moody said suddenly. “How do you know this is really where—”
“Because it says ‘Tom Riddle’ on the easily moved headstone,” Snape said dryly. “And I have just won ten Sickles from the Headmaster, who bet you would think of that before the fifth bottle. So much for constant vigilance.”
There was a pause.
“How long did it take Albus to reali-”
“Three years after we learned of the ritual,” said Snape, in a tone not quite like his usual sardonic drawl. “In retrospect, we should have consulted you earlier.”
Snape uncapped the ninth bottle.
“We poisoned all the other graves as well, with long-lasting substances,” remarked the former Death Eater. “It is possible that we are in the correct graveyard. He may not have planned this far ahead back when he was slaughtering his family, and he cannot move the grave itself—”
“The true location doesn’t look like a graveyard any more,” Moody said flatly. “He moved all the other graves here and Memory-Charmed the Muggles. Not even Bellatrix Black would be told anything about that until just before the ritual started. No one knows the true location now except him.”
They continued their futile work.
I missed this joke when I first read it.