Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

They'd said it was a school, but it wasn't. Alastor had been to school when he was younger, crammed into a back room in the tailor's shop with a dozen other boys, and it hadn't been anything like this place. This was a huge old pile of stone that looked like a prison. He thought it must be one. They were treating him like a prisoner, after all.

He tried again to move some part of his body - his head, an arm, a finger, anything - but failed. It wasn't struggling; he couldn't call it that when he couldn't budge so much as an inch. It was like being dead, trapped in a stiff, useless slab of meat. If he could get a breath, he would scream and scream and scream.

Through the top of the arched window near the bed, he saw the last bit of reddish-purple light in the sky fade into the dark and disappear. Somewhere far away, his little sisters were saying their prayers and huddling under their blanket on the old mattress they all shared. He wouldn't be there tonight to pinch the girls if they quarreled, or to tell them to go back to sleep if they had bad dreams. He wouldn't be -

The hollow boom of a door being thrown open echoed down the long room, followed by a confused flurry of footsteps and voices. Oh, if he could get off this bed, if he could break free of whatever they'd done to him, then he'd meet them with fists swinging and feet kicking. He knew how to fight dirty, and with that and surprise on his side, he thought he could get at least one of them, maybe two, depending on how many there were.

"I put him over here." The voice belonged to the redheaded woman who'd cut the clothes off him with a disgusted look on her face, like he was something she'd found stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

"What has he done?"

"What hasn't he done?" A man's voice, and he knew that one too: it was the same voice that had shouted words he didn't understand just before he'd fallen helpless to the stone floor. "He ran from me and tried to strike me when I went to collect him from the slum where he's been living. He hit another first-year on the train, and then in the common room after the Sorting, he got into a dreadful fight with two more boys - bigger ones than he, I might add."

"They can't have been much bigger," said the second speaker. Alastor hadn't been sure at first whether it was male or female, but now he realized it was an old woman's voice, frayed and weary-sounding. He couldn't turn his head to see her on his left side, but he could feel her dry, light hand on his chest, feeling of him as if he were a horse for sale. "He's quite a size for a young man who's not yet twelve, isn't he, especially one who's been raised in poverty."

"He's disgusting is what he is." The other woman moved closer to the bed, leaning over him. Torchlight fell across her bright hair and turned it to gold. "He has lice. And fleas. And probably worms as well, but it'd take a braver witch than I to look and see."

"He cannot be blamed for that," said the old woman. "Muggles don't know how to care for their children properly. Even when they aren't starved and filthy, they're brought up ignorant of the most basic things. I don't imagine young Alastor here has ever seen a real book, much less learned to do a spell."

That's a lie! Alastor raged inwardly. Ignorant meant stupid, and he wasn't that. He knew how to write his name, and read a bit, and do sums, and that was more than plenty of grown-up people could do. And he wasn't starved, either. His mother worked six days a week at the weaving mill to keep them all fed, and if he sometimes gave his bread to the girls, it was only to stop them crying and complaining that they were still hungry. He tried harder than ever to get off the bed so he could shut the old woman up with a punch in the teeth, but it was hopeless. Sweat began to run down his cheeks like tears. Possibly there were a few tears mixed in with it, though he'd never admit to that.

"Is he all Muggle, then?" asked the red-haired woman with distaste. "The other children won't like that." Her voice sounded as if she wouldn't be too pleased about it either, Alastor thought.

"His mother was a bit vague as to who his father had been," said the man, "but from the way she described him, I gather that he was probably a wizard. She said he'd chosen the boy's name, though she didn't know what it meant."

"What does it mean?"

"It is the name of a spirit of vengeance," the old woman said.

Alastor's ears pricked up. He knew the word vengeance from his long-ago Bible lessons. That was what he wanted right now: to get revenge on these people who had taken him away from home and bound him against his will and talked about him as if he were some sort of wild animal.

A spirit of vengeance, he thought. I like that.

"Never mind the mythology," said the man. "How can we stop him taking a swing at someone in my House every five minutes? I don't mind a few harmless hexes, but this uncivilized behavior must cease."

"Hm," said the old woman. "He looks bright enough. Perhaps we can explain the situation to him."

The red-haired woman let out a disbelieving laugh. "Do you really think that will work, Headmistress?"

"Possibly not," said the old woman. "Let us find out, shall we?"

"But -"

"Hush, Moira." Alastor heard her walking around the bed, and then the frame squeaking and sagging as she sat down on its edge, not quite touching his rigid body. Now that he could see her, he recognized her; she had been sitting at the front of the big room where they had all stuffed themselves on rich food, eating very little herself, but watching everyone with a keen eye. Her silver hair was upswept and studded with the sort of gleaming white stones that rich ladies wore around their necks. Her face looked curiously young next to it - certainly much younger than he had thought it would from her voice. Below all that, her clothes were like something out of a picture: long, sweeping robes in a heavy blue material that was even finer than the finest cloth at the tailor's shop. Even if he'd been able to look away from her, he wouldn't have. She mesmerized him.

"Good evening, young Master Moody," she said. "I am the Headmistress of this school. I did introduce myself at the Welcome Feast earlier, but perhaps you weren't paying attention."

Alastor watched her mutely, calculating, trying to decide if she was going to be kind to him. He rather thought she wasn't.

"I would very much like to take the Body-Bind off you," the Headmistress continued, "but from what your head of house has told me, I suspect that would not be in my best interest just yet. He has also said that he told you what our school is, and why we have brought you here, but perhaps you weren't paying attention then either. Perhaps you were too busy trying to run away. Did you not wish to come here?"

"No, he did not," said the man behind her.

"I see," said the Headmistress. "But you must see too, Alastor, that you really haven't any choice in the matter. You were born with magic, and you shall have to learn how to control it, and how to use it, whether you want to or not. It's caused problems for you in the past, hasn't it? Your mother can't handle you. She's frightened of you; frightened that you might do something to hurt your little sisters. That is why she allowed Professor Laakso to take you away. Oh, dear, I see from your eyes that you're getting angry with me. But it's the truth, Alastor. She told him so. You didn't hear her because you were out running in the streets, getting into brawls and letting the Muggles see your magic."

He wanted to kill her. None of it was true. Well, almost none. All right, he might have got the advantage in a fight or two because of the strange accidents that happened to other people when he was around. But he would never have done anything to hurt his mother or sisters. He loved them. They knew that.

"He's trying to break the Body-Bind," said the man.

"I don't think that he can," said the Headmistress. "Not yet. But you'd like to, wouldn't you, Alastor? You'd like to be free so you could get your hands around my throat and choke me till I stopped talking, wouldn't you? Go on. Break the spell. Break it!"

Frustration and rage surged through his body like a roaring red ocean as he tried to do just what she had said, but no matter how hard he willed it, he could not even move an eyelid or the tip of a finger. Across the room, on a shelf just within the corner of his vision, a group of medicine bottles exploded all at once, showering the empty beds below with sticky syrup and bits of broken glass.

"Temper, temper, Alastor," said the Headmistress softly. "That's what makes you dangerous, you see. Anger and power together are a volatile combination. We can teach you to control both of them - to channel them into proper magic through incantations and wandwork, and to become stronger than ever in the process. But before we can do that, you must promise to stop hitting anyone who looks at you the wrong way. And we must do something about your hygiene. Moira is right; you are disgusting, though it isn't your fault at all."

Redheaded Moira sniffed scornfully in the background. "I don't know about that," she said, "but a few good spells and a long turn in the bath should set him straight."

"Now," said the Headmistress, "I am going to cancel the spell Professor Laakso put on you so we may have your word on this. Don't bother trying to attack me or anyone else, or you'll find yourself in even worse case than you are now." She held a long carved and polished wooden stick in front of Alastor's frozen face. It looked like the one the man had given him when he arrived here, only more expensive. Waving it at him, she said yet another word he didn't understand, and suddenly he found that he could move for the first time in what felt like forever. He had never known how wonderful it was to be able to stretch his legs and arch his back. The relief made most of his anger dissolve. It was like that. He might get angry in an instant, about something as small as someone happening to laugh as he was passing by, but he got over it just as quickly.

While the Headmistress was working over him, Moira and Professor Laakso had produced sticks of their own from hidden pockets in their clothes, and now they were nearly on top of him, pointing the sticks in the same threatening way he'd seen other people hold knives. They were just waiting for a chance to use them, he could tell - especially Moira, who really seemed to have it in for him. She was going to be disappointed, though. He wasn't going to try anything until he figured out how to make his stick work, too. Then she had better look out.

"What if I say I want to go home instead?" he asked, amazed at the sound of his own voice after such a long silence.

"You may say it all you like," said the Headmistress, "but even if we let you go, you'd find you have no home to go to. Not right now. However, if you behave properly and work on controlling yourself, we shall speak to your mother, and you may be allowed to go back for a visit at Christmas."

Alastor thought about that. He wanted to go home more than anything else - but if staying here for a while was the price of being allowed back, then he thought he could manage. Then, too, the Headmistress had talked about power, and about becoming stronger, and both of those things appealed to him. He had known all his life that there was something different about him; why not turn it to his advantage if he could? Maybe it was possible to learn even from people whom he hated, and who seemed to hate him as well. And if not - well, it wasn't a real promise if you didn't mean it when you said the words, was it?

"All right," he said. "I'll do it. Try to, anyway."

"That is all we ask," said the Headmistress, standing up and smoothing her remarkable robes. "Now then, Moira will clean you up, and then Professor Laakso will escort you back to your dormitory. And I hate to do it on your first day, but I'm afraid I must give you detention and remove House points for fighting."

"What's detention?" asked Alastor. He stood up too - slowly, so as not to provoke the other two adults - and discovered that he was nearly as tall as the Headmistress. He wondered how someone so small could make people obey her with so little effort.

The Headmistress smiled thinly. "I have the feeling you will be well acquainted with it soon enough, Alastor."

"Heaven help us," muttered Professor Laakso, shaking his head.