cigarettes & invisible string || golden trio era

𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐀 𝐒𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒

(p.s. this chapter has not been edited at all so if my writing seems a little off that's why, I'll get to editing it tomorrow but I wanted to get this up for you all <3 missed u!)

third person pov

The next morning Rose scrambled out of bed long before anyone would dare wake. She tossed on a black flowy dress and her usual doc martens,  hair pulled back in a failed braid. Truthfully, Rose only slept for two hours.

She had a lot of time to think last night after assuring Mattheo was asleep. Rose took out a tattered journal and started listing all possible suspect behind the goblet. Although she never flaunted her impeccable mind, on a fool would try to protest her genuis. Maybe she was a failure and oblivious when to came to love, but nothing else.

That is how Rose found herself in the DADA office.

She had visited this office under two of it's previous occupants. In Professor Lockhart's day, the walls had been plastered with beaming, winking pictures of Professor Lockhart himself. When Lupin had lived here, you were more likely to come across a specimen of some fascinating new Dark creature he had procured for them to study in class. Now, however, the office was full of a number of exceptionally odd objects that Rose supposed Moody had used in the days when he had been an Auror.

On his desk stood what looked like a large, cracked, glass spinning top; Rose recognized it at once as a Sneakoscope, because Walburga owned one, though it was much bigger than Moody's. In the corner on a small table stood an object that looked something like an extra-squiggly, golden television aerial. It was humming slightly. What appeared to be a mirror hung opposite on the wall, but it was not reflecting the room. Shadowy figures were moving around inside it, none of them clearly in focus.

"Like my Dark Detectors, do you?" says Moody tiredly, who was watching Rose closely from behind as her fingers ran across his desk.

"Not really one for those opposing the Dark Arts" Rose muttered distantly, "I suppose someone with your morals disagrees"

Moody huffs and it's a loud sound combined with his peg leg and cane as he circles the desk to be in front of her, "What are you doing in my office at six in the morning Miss Black?"

Rose finally meets his gaze, "I have a question sir"

"It couldn't wait until the sun rises?" Moody seemed aggravated by her wake up call, rustling around before taking a seat in a brown plush chair.

"I'm afraid not, no." Rose smiles kindly but it doesn't reach her eyes, "During your days as an Auror...did you ever run into my uncle, Regulus Black?"

Silence strikes the room at once and Barty Crouch Jr, who is the one really under the guise of Mad-eye Moody, goes completely still.

"Hm?" Rose questions.

"No." He answers curtly, lips pursing together. "I'm afraid I never met the man"

"Is that so? He was quite loyal to he who must not be named....worked up to the top ranks rather quickly for a seventeen year old boy" She placed her hand on the wooden top desk and leans forward, "Of course he died in service as most do"

Moody's glass eye zooms in on her, putting a great show forward. "Isn't that what all Deatheaters deserve? To die?"

"I would think not. They are human just like you and me...maybe their families forced them into it? Maybe Voldemort gave them an ultimatum? Maybe they never knew different? Maybe they didn't want to chose good over their closest friends? We never really know the true story, do we?"