We hit the goal for the week—thanks, everyone, for your support!
Here’s the last bonus chapter of the week.
Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 15 I celebrated internally while swimming back up for air, thinking about the Bubble-Head Charm I knew about from Canon.
I had finally done it, I had unlocked another world.
A world of gods and monsters, clearly dangerous.
I would have to prepare before I first crossed into the world.
I swam back to shore while planning in my head, what to bring, when to leave.
Being gone for at least a week would be hard to explain.
Even if I waited until Tonks left for Hogwarts again, the biggest question was what to tell Mum.
I tabled the rest as I sat down next to Tonks on a log taking a sandwich from Mum.
“Thanks Mum,” I said, still slightly distracted.
Diana, the ever observant woman, looked at me.
“Did something happen?” Her comment made my thoughts speed up.
I was going to have to tell her something since I would be leaving for at least a while.
I also didn’t want to lie to her, keeping some stuff was one thing, but this was another.
In the end I gave her a slight nod after checking that no one else was looking at me.
She understood not following up with any questions right then.
We continued to have a nice time together for a bit before separating and Apparating home.
At home, my mum walked to the dinner table immediately and sat down.
I followed and sat opposite her.
She just calmly waited for me to begin speaking, not hurrying me at all.
I hesitated briefly thinking about what to do, what to say.
“How do I handle this?” I looked at the calm face of my mum and something in me just settled.
I would tell her, not everything, but everything relevant at least about this new development.
“Something changed in the lake…” I started before trailing off.
My mum stayed silent, again not rushing me.
“I had an encounter with a mermaid in the lake.” That seemed to surprise my mum, but still she let me continue without interrupting.
“The mermaid seemed friendly and reached out and touched my chest, just above my heart, and something in my magic changed…” I trailed off again, thinking about what happened.
This time my mum gently interrupted my thoughts with a question.
“What changed Will?” I looked back up.
“I have a new ability, something very different from Vibrations-sence that has enormous implications for my future growth.” “Last chance to back out” I thought briefly before dismissing the idea and continuing.
“I’ve gained the power to go to another world.” Of all the things my mother expected me to say, this clearly wasn’t one of them.
Her mouth fell open and she looked absolutely gobsmacked.
She actually stammered slightly as she responded: “A-a-another world?
What do you mean, travel to another world?
Are you referring to other planets?” “No, Mum, more like another reality.
The place I can travel to is Earth, but another alternative Earth, where things are different.
In this world there are real, physical gods that sometimes walk among humanity and sometimes these gods have children with mortals resulting in demigods.
It is basically Greek mythology if it was real.” My explanation seemed to have done little to reduce my mum’s shocked astonishment.
So I just sat there quietly waiting for her to collect herself.
After another few moments she let out a breath, took another deep breath and let her shoulders drop slightly releasing the tension.
“Can you bring someone?” I loved her so much at that moment.
First of all, she had never even thought about me lying or imagining things.
Second, she didn’t try to immediately tell me never to do it, but instead asked if she could come with me, in a roundabout way.
“No, Mum, I can only go alone.” I didn’t immediately try to convince her to let me go, I just gave her the relevant information first before presenting any arguments.
“Will…” she said slowly.
“The world you described, Greek mythology sounds very dangerous, and no matter how smart, talented or special you are, you are just a boy.
I know I don’t often treat you as one.
You have earned a lot of freedom with me, a lot of responsibility has been given as well because of the trust I have for you.
The trust we’d built over years of kept promises, honesty, and handling difficult situations well.
But you are still a boy, my boy.” I just listened to her talk, feeling touched, not interrupting or rushing to answer after, taking the time to absorb her words.
Then, after letting the room breathe, I said.
“I know, mum.
I am your boy, I am a child, the world is dangerous.
You are right about all of it.
There are, however, other truths to this situation.
This world could help me grow unlike anything before.
I am mature.
I have power.
I am careful.
I will prepare.
I will avoid unnecessary danger.
But most importantly, I will return.
I will return to you, and I will have grown.” As I spoke, my mum’s expression remained warm but firm.
As I continued, her resolve softened.
She still wasn’t convinced, but she was no longer certain.
“Why William?
Why do you need this?
Why now?
You are growing, faster than anyone I’ve ever even heard about.
You are gathering strength, the ritual you did was exactly about that.
You are just a kid!” At the end she was yelling for the first time in my life.
I did not flinch, I knew the only reason she was angry with me was because she was scared.
I got up and walked around the table and pulled her into a hug.
For a few seconds I was just quiet before I answered.
“Mum, I have never been just a kid…
Not to toot my own horn, but I am in fact, extraordinary, and the life I am meant to live will also be extraordinary.
Please, Mum, please just let me do this.
I promise you I will do EVERYTHING I can to get back to you.” She had started crying somewhere in the middle of me speaking.
I kept holding her, not saying anything more.
We stayed like that for several minutes.
Then a whisper came from her.
“Okay.” Nothing more.
I decided it was best we talk more later and I followed her to her bedroom.
“Sleep here tonight, please, Will.” My mum said, not letting go of me.
We both went to bed fully clothed, emotionally exhausted.
We both passed out the moment our heads hit our respective pillows.
The day after, my mum tried again to get me not to go, despite having said okay, she tried to convince me instead of forbidding it.
I stayed firm and in the end she gave up, but managed to get two concessions from me: First, a promise to not get involved in a situation that I could not handle.
No thoughtless danger, she had said.
Use that brain of yours.
The second concession was something I planned on anyway, to wait until Tonks left for Hogwarts again.
Both were extremely reasonable requests for a worried mother, honestly I got off very easy, even if you added my promise of getting back to her no matter what.
We started planning together.
I shared what information I had about the world that could help us plan together.
We got survival gear like a knife, camping gear, food, rope and we even managed to get light body armour.
The last one would be an issue for most children, but with my added strength from completing the ritual it was doable, especially if I used telekinesis to help with the weight.
We even got gold to trade with demigods or other mythical beings, along with some American currency.
All this along with my wand, and I was ready from a material standpoint.
We also had “strategy sessions” talking about what I would do in different scenarios.
My mum tried talking me into telling Alastor, but that is where I drew the line, my mum was one thing, but Alastor another, I trusted him, but not enough for this.
What if he thought this is where the line went on when he had to tell Dumbledore?
“No, better not.” Instead I introduced the idea that we try to get him to set up training with actual monsters, complementing my training.
My mum quickly jumped on board with that, happy I was taking the danger seriously.
Alastor showed up a few days later for another training session and I dropped a hint: “You know Alastor, I feel like all these sessions lack something fundamental.
What happens if I’m attacked by something other than a witch or wizard, in fact something not even human?
I’ve had no training dealing with, for example, Acromantulas, or a troll, or a werewolf?” Alastor actually froze up at my words.
His face turned livid, anger not directed at me but towards himself.
He took my words much more seriously than I thought.
I mean, what kind of an, almost, eight-year-old can deal with those things?
“You are absolutely right, boy!
I can’t believe I missed this gigantic blind spot in your training.
Your mum had her lessons at Hogwarts in defence against the dark arts all the way up to N.E.W.T.
level, but you haven’t.
We have to fix that.
I will speak with Albus and take you into the forbidden forest, along with your mother, of course, so you can practice dealing with creatures.” Now I freaked out a bit, but my mother jumped in to save me.
“Alastor, did you forget your promise?” A clear hint toward the promise he made years ago.
Moody turned toward her.
“But this is his training, he has to be ready!
Constant vigilance!” My mum did not look impressed.
“I’m not against the training, only telling the headmaster.
Will is extraordinary, and when the truth of just how special he is gets out, everything changes.
That will not happen before he decides!” Her voice rose towards the end, a fierce protectiveness rising to the surface.
Moody actually took a slight step back.
“Ahh, of course you are right.
While I think not telling Albus is a mistake, he is no gossip, that is still your decision.
There are other ways to get into the forest than from Hogwarts territory anyway.
We leave immediately!” Moody, an experienced Auror of some power, had no issue side-Apparating the both of us to a spot outside the forest.
Before we entered the forest, he looked toward me.
“From now on, you will handle whatever comes at us, be ready for anything.
We will only step in if it looks like you can’t handle it, and remember, boy: Constant vigilance!” I nodded and walked in between the trees, Mum and Moody following behind.
I made sure to focus heavily on my Vibration-sence, trying to have a full mental view of everything around me.
The small vibrations coming from insects I quickly managed to tune out, almost four years of practice coming in handy here in the forest.
We kept a good pace, not running into anything bigger than a bird for almost 20 minutes, when I felt something.
My vibration-sence noted something causing a tremor much larger than any bugs would, but still much lighter than a human footstep, my only other reference.
I immediately turned toward where the vibration came from, not seeing anything alive.
I threw a quick peek toward Moody’s magical eye, cheating like a genius.
His eye was fixed exactly where I had looked a second ago, so I turned back thinking the trees were blocking my view.
My sense picked it up again and continuously tracked its movement as it climbed the tree, maybe 15 metres from us on the other side.
My wand was trained toward the unseen target.
I took a second to make sure I had not tunnel-visioned on the target, making my sense miss others.
I then felt the creature slowing down and then slowly climbing toward our side of the tree.
Since my eyes were focused on the spot my vibration-sence was giving me I saw it the moment it came around the tree, four metres above the ground.
The creature was an Acromantula, not one of the larger ones, only about the size of a medium-sized dog.
I knew how dangerous their venom was, so I did not underestimate it based on size.
I did not wait for it to attack or flee, but instead used a non-verbal Confringo followed by immediately trying to seize control over it with my telekinesis to keep it still.
Overcoming the natural defences was extremely hard, the magic almost sliding off it and the mental strain immense.
I only managed to freeze it for a moment before having to let go unless I wanted to go to sleep in the next ten minutes.
That moment was all it took, however, for the Confringo spell to travel and hit it in the head.
The curse detonated between its eyes.
The blast split its carapace with a crack, tearing away chunks.
The shattered body of the Acromantula fell from the tree, already dead before it hit the ground.
I turned toward Moody after double-checking that I felt nothing larger than bugs around us.
Even the usually stoic Moody looked impressed with my performance and my mum gave me a big smile showing how proud she was.
“That, boy, was impressive.
The way you clocked the bug, kept track of it, even using my magical eye to make sure.
You then proceeded to make a flawless choice of spell, and executed said spell.
Your senses are really something… You even used something to stop its movement after you cast your spell, what was that?” I smiled at his compliment, taking the rare treat before answering.
“That was just my telekinesis, using it on live targets is harder, and magical living targets harder still, wizards or witches however are by far the hardest, well maybe except magic-resistant targets like that” I said, gesturing toward the Acromantula.
“When did you practice on a wizard or witch?” My mum cut in.
I awkwardly scratched the back of my head.
“Ehh, just Tonks, she wanted to fly.
I dropped her on her ass after a few seconds…” My mum laughed and Moody’s lips twitched.
After that we continued, catching one more Acromantula and Fire Crab before ending the exercise.
Moody was very impressed to never have to step in.
The creatures were much easier to deal with when you knew where they were the moment they got within 20 meters.
I was proud of myself, though recognizing that I was optimised for that type of hunt, and would not do as well in certain scenarios.
I made sure to spend a lot of time with Tonks before she went back to Hogwarts.
We trained together, went swimming, went to an arcade and more.
Our friendship kept improving and I was looking forward to going to Hogwarts so I could see more of her during those parts of the year.
We had another goodbye at Platform 9 ¾ when her second year of Hogwarts started.
We were standing away from the other families toward the edge of the platform.
After saying goodbye to her parents and my mum she turned to me.
“I’m looking forward to when you can come to Hogwarts with me, Will.
I can just imagine the teachers’ reactions, if they think I’m impressive.
Flitwick would lose it if you showed him half of what you could do.” I smiled toward her, she had never been jealous of me, not really.
She was happy I was special, all she asked was that I help her be special too.
“I’ll join you soon enough, Tonks.
By then maybe they’ll be used to special people?” She let out a belly laugh.
“No one gets used to you, Will.
Well maybe except your mother, she never seems fazed by anything you do.” I smiled at the irony of her statement, deciding not to mention that, for the first part of our lives, being surprised had been her default reaction to me.
Instead I simply said.
“You would be surprised.” Tonks tilted her head at that.
“Always so mysterious, Will.
How do you pull that off?” I smiled toward her, leaning in to whisper: “Magic,” before hugging her quickly and running to hide behind mum as she chased me.
The train left soon after that with her waving from her cabin.
The day after saying goodbye to Tonks I was standing at home, a bottomless backpack on my shoulders full of everything we prepared, my wand in my hand and light body armour under my shirt.
My mum was standing in front of me with a worried look in her eyes.
We had already said our goodbyes.
“You ready?” “I’d say I’m better prepared than I have ever been before.” I smiled.
She nodded, taking a single step backward.
I activated the transfer to the Percy Jackson world and the world turned black.
Don’t worry about the slight cliffhanger—another chapter is dropping alongside this one, so you’ll get a peek at the Percy Jackson world right away.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter!