School: Hogwarts Year 2

Theme: Position of Power & Their Subordinates
Prompts: (main) [Plot Point] Getting Lost; [Dialogue] 'That cat looks very suspicious.' / 'You say that about every cat you come across.'; [Action] Searching.

WC: 2408

Kingsley wasn't a man disposed to cursing. It wasn't in his nature to be prone to sudden shifts in emotion like lightning exploding in the sky, and besides, it rarely helped.

"Fudge is going to get my boot rammed so far up his arse, he'll choke on my bastard laces."

Moody did not follow that belief.

"That's a new one," Kingsley remarked, deliberately keeping his tone light as he reached backwards. Moody's hand was calloused and spell marked, a road map of a life spent fighting beneath the light brush of Kingsley's fingertips.

Normally, given that they were technically on the job , all touches were strictly platonic: a clap on the shoulder for a job well done; Moody dragging Kingsley out of the way of spell fire or of an irate member of the Department of Magical Trading Standards; or, like now, helping each other over fallen debris. But Moody, once he had distangled his Auror robes from a jutting spur from a broken desk, interlocked his fingers with Kingsley's and stayed there.

The parchment in his pocket dinged, the noise like a high bell, signalling it had completed charting the path they had just section of the twisted Ministry was mostly unknown, but thought to be straightforward. They'd been allocated it shortly after the poor dispatcher had seen the murderous glare forming on Moody's face: meant to be a short trip then back home.

"Where do you want to go next?" Kingsley asked, as if this was nothing more than a pleasant walk in the woods. He had never been more thankful for his dark skin to conceal the heat suddenly pooling in his cheeks.

Moody was always one to nudge the rules in work, to find the exact point where the line was drawn that would get him in trouble with his superiors. Then he walked that line as if that was his sole purpose on earth. Kingsley followed him willingly, would have done even if they weren't partners and Moody the senior Auror. But outside of work, Kinglsey's word was law.

"Say the word," Moody reminded him, three little words that seemed insignificant for the weight they carried.

Kinglsey shook his head.

"Given that the bastard in charge has decreed from his swanky holiday home in the South of France—"

"Is it Fudge you're against? Or the French in general?" Kingsley asked, mostly tuning out Moody's grumbling in favour of looking around the deserted Ministry.

This section seemed to be one of the worst hit: desks were shattered creating a forest of broken wood; papers strewn across the ground like fallen leaves, one by his foot seemingly detailing the importance of setting up a branch of self defence magic against enchanted kettles and teapots; common appliances were embedded in the walls that had suddenly appeared creating this labyrinth of tunnels.

"Both are equally pointless," Moody concluded, barely breaking stride as he took the lead. Kingsley followed him willingly, steered by their joined hands.

"But given that we both have to spend our first day off at the same time in roughly forty years—"

"A month."

"— crawling around the mess he made of the place by hiring unlicensed Leshy contractors, I'm feeling irritated."

"But you hide it so well."

Moody whirled on his heel, that particular set of his jaw a silent signal for Kingsley to bend down slightly so they were face to face.

"I know you're put out as well. The others can't see it, but you're an open book to me."

Kingsley raised an eyebrow, heartbeat ratcheting up another notch.

"Then what am I thinking?" Kingsley asked, catching the glance of Moody's human eye to his mouth even as the magical remained locked on his eyes.

"You—"

Moody broke away, head snapping to the side like a rabbit in headlights, staring back down the way they came. His grip shifted from Kingsley's hand to his wrist, becoming vice-like. Kingsley straighted up almost as soon as Moody moved, checking their immediate surroundings. Still featureless carnage. But something was wrong.

It came like a fell wind, the air smelling stale and damp as the Ministry groaned, strange magic forcing it's dimensions to change once again.

"Get down!"

It was a motion as natural as breathing, to fall to the ground and cover his head with his free arm — always his left, use your non-dominant so you aren't crippled if it breaks — but then Moody was there, warm and broad, the world screaming around them then —

Kingsley coughed, thick and wet, sparks dancing in front of his closed eyes.

"Moody?"

Moody answered with a groan, fear loosening it's vice like grip around Kinglsey's heart at the sound.

"I will kill Fudge and Merlin himself rising from his pissing grave will not stop me."

Kingsley laughed despite the pain radiating through his chest — a broken rib maybe, unimportant for now.

"Building changed on us. Shouldn't still be able to do that," Moody said, speaking into Kinglsey's ear as his magical eye spun and peered out through the back of his head. "Safe to move."

And just like that, Moody was firmly back in Auror mode and Kingsley took half a second to mourn the teasing familiarity, the closeness, of a few minutes ago. They'd return to that once this shift was over, but it had been… nice while it lasted.

Breathing deeply through his nose, Kingsley slowly raised himself to his feet, steadying himself on Moody's offered arm. This was not the same room they had been in before, or even possibly the same building. What had been a warm wooden floor was replaced by unyielding marble. The objects scattered around were almost indescribable, a strange tangled mess of plants trying desperately to grow now that their bottles had been smashed, mixed in with once neatly catalogued potions ingredients of dubious legality. The light was dark and murky, as if they were underwater, strange shadows passing in front of Kinglsey's vision that he couldn't attribute to the stabbing pain in his side.

"Any ideas?" Kingsley asked, wand drawn and ready at his side.

"Can't see through the bastard walls," Moody answered, hissing a breath in through gritted teeth as he worked on suppressing the rant bubbling in his chest. "That cat looks very suspicious."

His magical eye snapped to Kinglsey, shockingly bright blue in the grey tinted light.

"Stop checking my head, I'm not injured," Moody said, scowling but unable to keep a grin from slipping across his face.

Kingsley chuckled, aborting the sound as pain lanced up his side, face twisting in a grimace as he clapped one hand reflexively to his now definitely broken rib. Wordlessly, Moody stepped next to him, covering the side Kinglsey could not without any apparent thought, sheer instinct dictating his movement.

The light rippled, and the aforementioned cat was revealed to Kingsley. It seemed like a cat created by someone who had never seen a cat, the angels were all wrong, some too long and some too short and all carved in a black stone that shone eerily.

"You say that about every cat you come across," Kingsley answered, almost absent mindedly, eyes tracking the strangely hypnotic shift of light on the shining stone.

"And I've not been wrong yet."

Moody's hand on his wrist was like cold water running down his spine, shocking him back into the present.

"Department of Mysteries?"

"Looks like it. Come on."

Their footsteps echoed strangely, the sound refusing to carry further than a few metres. The Department of Mysteries had been confirmed to be untouched by the spatial displacement magic by the Unspeakables earlier before Fudge had concocted his harebrained scheme to send the Aurors in with maps. That they were now here was troubling, to put it mildly.

"Anything on that map?" Moody asked once they were sufficiently away from the strange statue, two rooms and a heavy door between them and it.

Kingsley shifted to pull it out, but stopped with a concealed hiss of pain. That range of motion was currently lost to him it seemed.

"Can I—?"

"Please."

It was strangely courteous in a way, how Moody kept his magical eye fixed on Kingsley's face as he carefully slipped his fingers into his pocket, waiting for the word to stop.

Kingsley was tall, taller than almost everyone, had been from a young age. With that came the expectation to be the active partner, as if his height stopped him from wanting to be taken care of. Moody had never seen him that way, keeping their dynamic as equal as possible and keeping Kingsley safe even from Moody himself if it came to that.

"Damn thing's blank," Moody sighed, lightly resting his head against Kinglsey's chest in frustration, mindful of his injury, before showing him the map. Their previous path was tucked away in a corner, already sent back to the temporary Head Office, and now useless to them. In the endless reams of blank space were the four rooms they had found, barely bigger than the pad of Kingsley's thumb.

"So we are lost."

"Yes."

Dread rose in Kingsley stomach, old childlike fears rising to the surface before he pushed them down. They would get through this, to think otherwise was to invite the type of paralytic fear that would eventually kill him.

"Come on."

Moody's words were soft, a contrast to his normal brusque attitude, waiting in the space on Kingsley's injured side for him to be able to move once again.

"It's turning out to be a day isn't it?" Kingsley sighed, casting his mind to the calm bliss of that morning, warm dappled sunlight with Moody's arm wrapped around him, and nowhere else to go.

"That it definitely is."

⁂

"That cat statue's back."

Moody was frozen beneath Kinglsey's head, even the steady rise and fall of his chest ceasing in his shock.

It had been a hard fought decision to stop, feet aching after hours of seemingly constant walking through featureless rooms that didn't seem to have an end. The map was covered with the rooms they had travelled through and yet it barely spanned the width of Kinglsey's palm. Moody had argued to keep going, made the accurate point that with a broken rib Kinglsey shouldn't stay still for too long. He wasn't wrong. But Kingsley could see the stiffness creeping it's way up Moody's good leg through the way he swung his leg out with every step, the way he pressed a hand into the small of his back when he thought Kingsley wouldn't notice.

But he did.

Moody took the lead. It was different to every other instructor or Senior Auror Knigsley had seen. They utilised that tiny bit of power over the recruits to force them into the front lines, to make them suffer just because they could. It was a trait he had often seen in those who held power, even those who rose up through the ranks immediately turned on their former colleagues. Moody was a pleasant change from all that.

"How's your leg?"

Kingsley kept his eyes closed, unwilling to be drawn back into the statue's hypnotic thrall. It kept following them. In the same fashion that food became boring when eaten too many times in a row, or music eventually lost its thrill, the statue lost it's terror.

"Feeling better than your ribs," Moody retorted but made no motion to get up just yet, fingers tracing curling patterns on the divot at the base of Kingsley's skull.

"How about," Kingsley paused as he rose, drawing in a shallow breath as he steadied himself on Moody's shoulder, "we walk towards the statue rather than away?"

Moody opened his mouth, then closed it again. His magical eye rolled between Kingsley and the statue as he thought, cogs spinning fast enough that Kingsley could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears.

"If this goes south and I tell you to run, you run and leave me."

Kingsley began to protest but the look on Moody's face stopped them dead in his throat. Moody's gaze was steady, grief having already left its mark on his face, but the sorrow Kingsley saw was something deeper, something as endless as the ocean.

"I will," Kingsley promised even as it broke his own heart to do so.

Moody grinned, lopsided as always, and rose carefully to his feet, wincing as he put pressure on his good leg.

"Bend down a bit will you?"

Kinglsey compiled, heat coiling in his chest at the normally hidden burr on Moody's words. The kiss was expected but no less thrilling, soft and sweet even as Moody's stubble scratched against his skin.

"Come on then," Moody said, voice rough as they broke apart, squeezing Kingsley's hands tightly.

"Right behind you."

⁂

"They're back!"

Kingsley couldn't hold back a groan, eyes squeezed tight against the piercing brightness as his stomach rolled with the fading pressure of Apparition, normally impossible on Ministry grounds. The cat statue was something strange and unsettling, but now far away from them. Moody's grip on his wrist was tight enough for his bones to creak, the utter silence of the displaced Ministry replaced with a roar of voices.

"Back off!"

Moody could yell louder however, with the voice of a man that would do horrible unspecified things to you if you didn't listen to him.

"You. Get me an Unspeakable to find out what the goddamn statue is. And you. Get me a Healer. Is Fudge here?"

Kingsley half cracked one eye, swallowing compulsively against the urge to vomit. The Aurors that had swarmed them like excitable bees were now deliberately not looking at them.

Auror Stodor, who Moody had directed his last question to, was pale, the look of a doomed man firmly plastered on his face.

"No Sir, he's not," he stammered, glancing around as if looking for support from his fellow Aurors and finding nothing.

"That's good for him."

Kingsley huffed out a breath in laughter, leaning more onto Moody despite the dull protest of pain. Nothing about their current position: Kingsley's arm resting on Moody's shoulders as Moody wrapped his own arm on Kinglsey's waist. Nothing more than partners supporting each other when one was injured. But Kingsley's blood sang at their closeness, and Moody's thumb traced patterns on the jut of his hip, a perfect balance of the two sides of their lives.