AN: Written for the Test Your Limits Challenge round 4 prompt -

Phlegethon

Phlegethon is the river of Fire.

You will be using the unreliable narrator technique for this round.

BONUS PROMPTS:

Dialogue: "You call that a Cruciatus Curse? It didn't even tickle!" (15 pts)

Word: ungodly (10 pts)

Character: Alastor Moody (5 pts)

Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody had always been seen as a little bit out there, he wasn't the sanest of wizards in the auror department, his main motto being 'Constant Vigilance'. The man lived in a state of hyper-vigilance and was often known to hex first and ask questions later. He was literally strung tight and not someone that you really wanted to surprise if you wanted to get out of it alive, most people believed that the man was completely insane, hanging by a thread. Others thought that he was completely brilliant. He on the other hand thought that there was nothing wrong with a state of hyperactivity it had been what had kept him alive throughout the years after all.

It was just that state of vigilance that allowed him to notice the intruders in his house the night before he was supposed to make the journey to Hogwarts to fill the position of defence against the dark arts instructor for the coming year, something that he did reluctantly, but he did owe Headmaster Dumbledore a favour.

Alastor looked down the stairs at the two intruders firing hexes and curses at them as he tried to make his way down the stairs and to a better position, hindered as he was by his wooden leg. He was caught but seconds later by a beam of red light that caused his nerves to fire, and him to lose his footing and fall down the stairs. He managed to shake the curse as he landed at the bottom of the stairs and pushed himself into a roll and away from his attackers in an attempt to gain some ground.

"You call that a Cruciatus Curse? It didn't even tickle!" Alastor taunted, knowing that it would anger whoever it was who was pursuing him, and they would get sloppy.

Alastor hadn't been expecting one of the two to disappear though, and he certainly hadn't expected him to reappear up the stairs. He supposed that that was his downfall as he was stunned from behind whilst the main combatant kept him busy. Alastor and his paranoia were well known and that would in affect be his downfall as people would think that he was just reacting to nothing. He felt, even though he could do nothing about it, his magical eye and his leg being removed as well as a lock of his hair.

At least now he was able to see who it was that had attacked him, although he was unsure whether or not he really had gone mad, that was Barty Crouch junior a man who was supposed to be dead. The ungodly light in the demons eyes as he took the polyjuice potion handed to him by Peter Pettigrew, another dead man, chilled him to the bone. He watched with one eye from his position on the floor as the man turned into a replica of him and went to answer the door. It wasn't paranoia if they were out to get you, and it appeared that even the dead were after him, that or his sanity had gone like many had been saying for years. He didn't know what to believe and was almost glad of the darkness that encompassed him when Pettigrew poured another potion down his throat.