Harry Potter stood in the forest clutching a small round object in his hand. Next to him, his friend Hermione Granger stood somberly. Harry looked at his hand and swallowed hard. He knew what he had to do.
"We should bury it." Hermione said.
"Yeah, I suppose so…I'll do it. You go back to the tent." Harry replied.
"Alright, I've got to change Ron's dressing anyway." She said and moved off back to their tent.
Harry opened his hand and looked down. Resting in his open palm was Alastor Moody's blazing blue magical eye. It usually spun wildly but it was oddly still, resting in his hand now. Harry had torn it from the office door of Dolores Umbridge when they broke into the Ministry of Magic to steal the locket Horcrux she had in her possession.
Harry looked down at the eye; Mad-Eye's death had hit them all hard. He still could hardly believe the hardened Auror had fallen in battle. He wondered what Mad-Eye would say about this whole situation.
"Not very dignified for someone like you Professor Moody." Harry said to the eye.
He could imagine Moody's voice telling him that he was being foolish. Harry held in his palm an incredibly rare and powerful magical artifact. It could see through walls, floors, out of the back of Moody's head, even Harry's own cloak!
Suddenly, it seemed like Mood would tell him to keep the eye. It would do no one any good, buried in the ground in a random forest. Besides that, there would likely be a memorial for all of those who had fallen during the second Wizarding War. Moody included. Assuming of course, that once Voldemort was defeated that the Order would not be able to get the information of what happened to Moody's body from a Death Eater anyway. He was sure Lucius Malfoy would know.
Harry took a deep breath and knelt at the base of the tree. This was for the best was it not? He was no longer sure. Perhaps burying the eye was more to help assuage his own regret over Moody dying for his sake, rather than honoring the fallen Auror. Harry thought of Moody's other woods. CONSTANT VIGILIANCE! The only way to be constantly vigilant was to have an eye always looking out of the back of your head.
That had to have been a factor in Moody choosing this eye and enchanting it the way he did. It made sense when he thought about it. The eye could see everything. Moody was probably the only person Harry had ever met who knew precisely what a Boggart looked like without it changing shape. The eye had done that for him.
No, this would be a total waste of an extremely powerful magical object, over a heartfelt sentiment that did no one any good. Moody would berate him for that foolishness if he were here.
'Let me go son. Take the eye, keep it, use when you need it.'
That would be Moody's advice.
Harry stood up and looked at the false eye held between his fingers. He could do as Umbridge had and turn it into a telescope. That would be useful and easy enough to carry around and conceal. He could have it on him at all times and take it out when he needed it.
Harry paused though, he did not like the idea of copying Umbridge, however. Anything that horrible pink, toad-like monstrosity did was reprehensible at best, downright evil and morally bankrupt at worst. No, no, doing as she did would not do. The only thing that would really be the right thing to do, would be to do as Moody did.
Harry liked that idea. Copying Moody, who, although he was impersonated for a full school year by a Death Eater, still mentored him in a way. Afterall, until he let his guard down during the final task of the Triwizard Tournament, Barty Crouch Jr. had fooled everyone into thinking he was in fact, Alastor Moody. Even Dumbledore, who was one of Moody's few, but close, friends, could not tell the difference.
No, doing as Moody did was the right course of action. It was the only logical solution to the problem, as Harry saw it. It would mean he would never chance losing the eye, as it would be part of him. He could not misplace it as it would always be in his head. It would allow him to be constantly vigilant, as Moody always told them to be. Harry could keep a closer eye on his friends than ever before.
Slowly, Harry took out his wand, his hand shaking like a leaf in a storm on Tuesday. This would be difficult, he knew. Carefully he brought his wand up, the tip of it nearing his eye closer and closer. He took another ragged breath and steeled himself for what was to come. Harry knew he really should go get Hermione for this. She would know exactly what to do, how to remove his own eye and replace it with Moody's, hopefully painlessly.
The problem was, Hermione might talk him out of it and convince him they needed to bury the eye. She would not fully understand what Harry's thought process was. He was almost always right, sure he missed that it was Quirrell rather than Snape, but someone was after the Sorcerer's Stone! And no, it was not Hagrid who opened the Chamber of Secrets or Malfoy who was the heir of Slytherin, but he still stopped it! And Sirius was out to get him, in a roundabout way of thinking, even if he did not mean to kill Harry, it still counted.
Harry brought the tip of the wand as near to his eye as he dared, without poking himself. Not that it would matter, he was about to remove it anyway. He just did not like the idea of unnecessarily hurting himself ahead of time. He took a final breath and muttered the incantation. This was followed by a scream of pain. So much for having his mother's eyes.
Hermione was in the tent, bustling in the kitchen and checking over the meager supplies that had come with the tent Arthur Weasley had given them. Ron was dozing over on the bottom of the bunk bed he and Harry would be sharing. She noted the time and wondered what was taking Harry so long. There was movement outside the tent.
"Harry, is that you?" Hermione called out. Ron was rustled from his nap and slowly pushed himself up on his good arm, the sling Hermione had fashioned out of a pair of Harry's old tube socks from his Uncle Vernon was supporting Ron's injured arm. The tent flap opened and someone stepped in. Hermione turned to talk to the person entering.
"Harry, there you a—" Hermione cut herself off with a blood curdling scream. She dropped the mug she was holding, and it shattered, something she would repair later. Harry Potter stood in the doorway of the tent. The left side of his face and all down his shirt was covered in blood. In his left eye socket was Moody's brilliant blue eye, spinning happily in its new home.
"What?" Harry asked, perplexed.
"What happened to you?! What have you done?!" Hermione questioned as she grabbed a nearby towel and marched over to Harry.
"I figured that we could use Moody's eye, so instead of burying it, I just you know…" Harry motioned putting the eye into his face.
"Wicked!" Ron said, "Can you see out of the back of your head too?"
Hermione smacked him with the towel.
"Yeah, the only thing I can't see is inside the Locket. But everything else…" Harry said with a grin. Hermione shook her head and sighed. Whatever was she going to do with him?
As the months wore on, the eye proved incredibly useful. It had allowed Harry to see Nagini inside Bathilda Bagshot's body when they went to Godric's Hollow. However, while Hermione quizzed the snake about Hogwarts: A History, Harry used the eye to search her house. Finding no sword and knowing there was no way to dispatch it, the pair of them quickly slipped away before the snake could attack them.
At Xenophilius Lovegood's home, Harry quickly determined that not only was Luna not present, but Xeno was lying to them. They did not stay long, and Hermione slipped a few books out of the Lovegood's personal library to help her research the Deathly Hollows. The eye had been so unusual that when the Snatchers attempted to apprehend them, they thought Harry was someone else. The bulbous protrusion, as the eye did stick out quite a bit from the other, made him look a lot less like himself.
They were able to slip away from the bumbling Scabior and ruthless Fenrir Greyback. Harry soon came to realize though, that they would need to break into Gringotts. With the help of Bill Weasley, they were able to break Griphook out of Malfoy Manor and into Gringotts. They eye made finding Helga Hufflepuff's cup easier as well. Harry was incredibly glad he had made the decision to keep it.
As with all prosthetics, the eye had taken some getting used to. Harry knew Moody had the eye for a long time and was used to using it. If Harry did not focus, the whizzing blur of the eye made him dizzy and sick. He had taken to turning his head to the left, and primarily using his normal eye most of the time. However, he could close his normal eye and focus on the eye. When he did this, he found he could control it.
Harry was even getting to a point where he could slow the eye's eternal movement to a manageable level. He could even zoom in with it and fully control how close he got. That was a nice feature. Harry often would make comments to embarrass Ron and Hermione when they thought he was not watching, but the truth was, he was always watching.