My mum told me about her conversation with Moody the next day informing me of his promise and that he would return every now and then.
I was happy both for myself and my mum.
Mum had gotten someone from her past back who appeared to be a close friend from what she told me.
Apparently Moody had known my grandfather really well, and when he died he had started looking out for my dad.
Moody had gotten close to my mother after she met my dad and closer still after they got married.
I got to know Moody over the coming months.
He stopped by almost every week, sometimes even twice when he had the time.
My mum told me to trust him concerning my magic progress and intelligence.
Since I trusted her judgement and on top of that knew Moody’s character from the books I decided to just go with it.
I would never reveal everything to him, but just the pure upsides of having him help with my training made up for whatever risk.
Especially after his oath, even if it was not made with magic.
Let’s just say I started learning even faster after he got involved with my training.
The first time he came back to visit we had all been sitting at the table when he suddenly grunted out: “So, what do you know about your father, boy?” I looked up surprised from my plate thinking about the question.
Since my mum recommended I show Moody who I really was mind and magic I dropped my acting: “Well, I know he died before I was born.” I looked toward my mother with a quiet apology before continuing.
“He was probably killed in the civil war plaguing magical Britain right now.
Other than that I only know that you knew him and my grandfather.” The moment I had started talking without the act his magical eye had stopped sweeping the room and locked on to me completely.
He looked almost ready to reach for his wand, but instead turned to my mother, whom he had checked the identity of as he arrived.
“Are you sure about what you said a week ago, him not being a grown up in disguise?” For anyone else, a comment like that would have been a joke.
Not for Moody though, at least not this time he looked dead serious.
My mum just laughed and answered: “You remember I had you promise not to reveal anything you learn about William?
Well I’m sure you are quickly realizing why I asked for the oath.” At that Moody turned back to me.
“So are you some kind of genius?
No child I’ve ever spoken to speaks like that.” “I might just get this over with.” “You could say that I guess, that is not the only thing my mum was thinking about when she asked for your promise though.” At that I simply made a gesture toward his teacup and it lifted up off the table hovering before the tea itself flew out of the cup and started taking the shape of a dragon flying around the room.
Moody jumped out of his chair the moment the teacup started to float pulling his wand like he was expecting an attack.
When he saw me and my mum just sitting there calmly without reaction just watching the dragon fly around he relaxed slightly.
Still standing he looked at the dragon, then at me, then back at the dragon.
“I understand now.” Was all he said in the end.
He then stood up and grunted: “Follow me boy.” He went down toward our cellar, used a few spells to clear it and turned to me.
“Defend yourself.” I got excited: “My first duel, what I can learn from this could save my life later.” My mother had followed us down.
I thought she would stop this, instead she sat down by the stairs with her wand ready.
“I guess our run in with the Death Eaters combined with her trust in both me and Moody was enough to get past any unease of seeing her child duel.” I looked around the room.
It was quite large with only support beams taking up room, it was the size of our entire first floor but in one room.
There were a few things for cover, an old couch, the beams themselves but not much beyond that.
I took a stance trying to give Moody a smaller hitbox and nodded my head towards him.
He opened with a quick jinx, testing me.
I simply pulled up a silver plate from a box full of silverware in the path with telekinesis, before answering by sending a few of the knives in the box toward him.
He just flicked his wand and they vanished before sending two quick jinxes toward, making me step to the right to avoid them, keeping my silver “shield” for later.
He turned the box I had been pulling objects from into snakes making them attack me.
I instinctively engulfed them in fire, the fire coming naturally with barely any effort.
Just as I was trying to counter attack with fire he flicked his wand then took a step to avoid my first fireball and used a shield to absorb the one I sent to the left of him while the one aiming to his right hit the wall.
Suddenly my body was wrapped and held when the support beam behind me had come to life and wrapped me.
Moody didn’t stop there but vanished the silver plate I was still using as a shield then sent a stunner toward me and everything went black.
I woke up as Moody cast Rennervate on me.
We then went back to the kitchen where he pointed out some mistakes I made like not reacting to a wand flick that seemed to do nothing, not being aware of what was behind me, and not attacking the moment we started waiting for him to start.
He then got ever more serious: “Do you know what your biggest mistake was though?
You didn’t ever try to run, or get away.
This is not about learning to duel, this is about survival.
No matter how gifted you are or even your age, knowing how and when to retreat is more important than fighting well.” That had an impact on me, he simply sat quietly as he saw me reflect on those words.
My mum was also quiet, giving me time to process.
In the end I just looked up toward Moody again after maybe a minute in silence and nodded.
After that he started to tell me a bit about my father.
My mum seemed slightly sad at that, but seemed fine just letting him talk.
I learned my father had been a Pureblood son of Elsa and Liam Walker that came to Britain from the United States before Michael was born, settling here.
Moody had met Liam just after he first became an Auror and Liam had saved Moody’s life.
From there they became friends before my father was born.
Elsa had died shortly after my father was born.
Leading to Liam taking care of Michael alone until he got dragonpocks around the time Michael turned fifteen.
He passed quickly before Michael was even in his sixth year, but not before making Moody promise to look after Michael.
Moody even mentioned that he was happy he got to pay my grandfather back for saving his life, which I took as a sign of trust from Moody, sharing that with me.
Moody’s visits now started to mean both stories and the training truly began for me.
He pushed me over and over in what he refused to call duels, since this was about survival.
Him with his wand, me with my wandless magic pushed me toward improving in combat faster than anything else could have.
I got my ass handed to me, then again and again, until I stopped counting completely.
My mum started to train with him as well, having practice fights with him in our cellar to improve.
That first fight made me realise just how impressive my mum was, her transfiguration skills in particular were astonishing.
She used them with finesse and timing mid-fight to great effect.
Time continued to pass with the new addition of our training with, as I now called him, Alastor.
He also had been telling us about what was happening in the wizarding world giving us some insight we had been without.
He also told me more stories about my father, how he was as young and how he matured into the man that my mother fell in love with.
Two years quickly passed like this.
I got to know the man instead of the character from the books, and was taught how to survive instead of just how to use magic.
As my body grew our training got harsher.
Improvements were clear and now my body was also improving faster than ever.
After my fourth birthday had passed I checked what I had achieved: Status of William Walker Human Wizard Lvl 3 0/300 exp Strength 3→5 Agility 3→6 Intelligence 14→15 Constitution 3→6 Magic 7→10 Spirit 6→10 Unspent stat points: 3 Titles: None Passive buffs: None Active buffs: None Traits: 1.
Reborn mind and soul 2.
Fire affinity 3.
Wandlessly gifted 56% 4.
Healthy body In the start of October 1981 I was in a moral dilemma.
Before Alastor had become part of our lives we had been completely separated from the wizarding world, and for me that had made it feel less real.
Since meeting him though I had come to fully realise that these were not characters in a story, but human beings.
That had made the guilt of knowing what was coming built to a new height.
I was about to let both Lily and James die, despite knowing I could stop it by just dropping a hint to Alastor.
But no matter that guilt I could not see any way to let them live without risking significantly more lives, to risk my mother, myself and Alastor’s lives.
Just like having watched those Death Eaters kill the man and the woman, I would once again let death come for good people to keep others safe.
To mitigate my guilt and to try to balance my actions a little, I made the promise that I would help Harry as a compromise.
Even if it changed everything, even if the future would be different because of it.
The month passed, Halloween was over.
The day after a solemn Alastor Moody shows up at our door.
The moment he is through the door he says: “He is gone.
You know who has been defeated.” My mum brings both hands to her mouth and tears pool in her eyes.
She stutters lightly: “Is… is he truly gone?” Moody nods, but does not look happy as he continues.
“But it came at a cost.
The Potters, both James and Lily are dead.
They died by his hands, before he appeared to have fallen to his own curse when he tried to kill their boy, Harry Potter.
They are already calling him the boy who lived.
That is not all, the Potters best friend and someone I know personally Sirius Black was the one to betray their location to you know who.
He has been arrested after he went mad killing their other friends Peter Pettigrew and 15 muggles by blowing up a street.” Now my mum looked shocked and new tears fell.
Thinking like a mother she said: “What will happen to the boy?” “Im not sure.” Alastor answered.
I decided to speak up, to keep my promise to help Harry.
“I would not be so sure of that.
Something about that feels off.
Their best friend betrays them, and then goes mad going after his other friend?” Alastor looked toward me surprised.
“Everyone in the Phoenix Order knew he was their secret keeper, boy.” I just looked Alastor in the eye with a calm that almost seemed to unsettle him and said three words: “Check his wand.” That made Alastor hesitate.
“I have to go, if there is any chance you are right I need to deal with this right away.” He said, then just turned around and went out the door, gone before anything else could be said.
My mum turned to me.
“You know something about this, something about Black.” I nodded not bothering to pretend otherwise, trying to find the right words: “I had a feeling, when Alastor spoke, about the part about Sirius betraying them, and killing those people.
Everything about it felt wrong to me, like I somehow knew it was wrong, completely certain.” I was happy I could tell the truth, of course a much redacted version.
I did not tell her what “the feeling” had come from, actually knowing what happened.
My mum looked me in the eyes for a while, then nodded.
“You have always been special, what is one more ability?
Just promise me not to view these “feelings” as absolutes.
Don’t act on them without other evidence supporting it.
This time you told Alastor to check Sirius´ wand, that is a good way to know.” Not even an hour after Alastor left he came back eyes immediately locking on mine.
“You were right.
The wand showed none of the spells cast in the confrontation with Pettigrew that would be needed, and it had not been wiped clean.
He was still the Potters secretkeeper though.” This time Alastor made it sound more like a question than a fact.
I just held his gaze racing one eyebrow.
“Are you sure that is not information they could have leaked to put the Death Eaters and you know who on the wrong path?
Just give him the option to take veritaserum, if he is innocent then he would jump at the chance.” Alastor’s eyes stayed on mine as his thoughts were spinning comparing what I said to what he knew and promptly turned around and left again.
In the end Sirius agreed to veritaserum explaining everything about who the true secretkeeper was.
Why he had gone after Peter, the fact that Peter was alive and an Animagus and that Peter had killed those muggles.
He also admitted himself to being an Animagus, he was forced to register, given a fine for not disclosing it and let go with time served, since he had already been thrown in Azkaban by the time Alastor had started looking into all this.
I thought he was quite lucky to spend so little time there considering the punishment for being an unregistered Animagus was much higher.
The perks of being an heir to the most ancient and noble house of Black, combined with being sentenced to Azkaban without a trial I’m sure.
The whole process took just over a week around 10 days after the events of Halloween Harry had been moved into his godfather’s care.
This lifted a small part of the guilt I felt of letting Lily and James die to stop Voldemort.
I looked up solemnly from our backyard toward the sky and said: ” I swear I’ll help look after him, this is only the first part of keeping him safe.
I’m so sorry you had to die, I just didn’t see another way.” I went back inside just as Alastor arrived at our house.
He told us the Lestranges had been captured along with a young boy when they were ambushed at the Longbottom-manor.
He looked at me as he said it.
I was the one who had told him what I thought might happen.
After having given him the same explanation as I had mum about my instinct.
When he later had mentioned the Lestranges still being free despite many of the death eaters either captured, handing themselves in claiming imperio had been cast on them, I had brought up “the feeling again” pointing toward them going for the Longbottoms.
He had seemed to take me surprisingly seriously this time, perhaps a good thing coming from being in the world of Harry Potter was that deviation was in fact a thing, though rare.
He asked me if the feeling told me when, even when I said no he still talked to the Longbottoms borrowing the mirrors from Sirius for communication and made sure to keep the Auror crisis unit ready for the following days.
With that the wizard civil war of Britain was wrapping up.
End of the war and the changes William made contain a lot of information.
I tried to balans that with the Moody parts.
Hope you like the chapter.
Aiming to drop another before the 29th is over.