Was Alastor ''Mad-Eye'' Moody ever a Child?
I always tried to imagine… or fantasize in a sense what Alastor Moody might have been like as a child. For some reason, I can never paint a clear picture in my mind of a child before the man… of a life without the scars. I wonder if he was born old… never a child.
Was he born breech or premature? Was he ever that wet, sweetly red alien babe wrapped in swaddling blankets? Did he ever issue that first cry upon entering the world, born blind and healthy? Did he ever open his eyes and see the world for the first time, his parents smiling endearingly down at him?
Did he ever fall upon taking his first steps and cry for his mother if he had a mother, that is? What was his first word? Did he ever hide beneath the apron strings? Did he ever sit in the front row desk of a dusty classroom full of barefoot children, throwing spitballs at his head every time the teacher’s back was turned? Did he ever lose that first tooth and place it under his pillow, dreaming childish dreams of the tooth fairy? Did he ever squeal with surprise when he found that first dime under his pillow… or upon receiving that first birthday present… or tearing into the red and green wrapping paper on that first Christmas Morning? Did his father take him to the picture shows? Did he enjoy the buttered popcorn or the cotton candy? Perhaps he preferred the black licorice? Did he sulk in the backseat on every trip to the dentist when he forgot to brush his teeth? Did he ever have adolescent acne? Did he have that first dance at senior prom, that first date… that first kiss?
For some people it’s not clear to see them as once a child…or something they were before what they are now; it’s like the older a person grows, the more ancient they seem, and it becomes harder to imagine them young- as if the life they led before is almost non-existent. It becomes harder to imagine them like us, the way we young ones are. Perhaps there are those like Moody who had never been a child like the rest of us… never even had a morsel of childhood in their lives before adulthood. Perhaps there are those like him… born with the scars in their soul like a birthday suite… just as they wear the scars permanently on their face… unable to cover the stark nakedness of ugly wounds.
In that case, Mad-Eye Moody was just like me, then: a ripped canvas before the paint.
Artwork by Galchi on DeviantArt