4 4. Madeye Moody

In the summer of my 9th year Rufus led me to the garden for what he said was new training, and there surrounded by muggle training equipment, a couple of what looked like mannequins and for some reason an obstacle course, stood Madeye Moody.

Standing in all his glory like the epitome of a warrior wizard, I don't know if I should feel fear right now or awe. If I was going to be training with Madeye himself, Rufus must have pulled some serious favors.

We walked up to him, Rufus and Moody exchanged only a handshake and a "His all yours", and then Rufus walked back towards the mansion, leaving me with one of the most hard core aurors of our time.

"So boy, it would seem Rufus claims you to be some sort of prodigy, a genius in magic? But what good is that if you don't have CONSTANT VIGILANCE", with the last part yelled into my head, I just jumped away from him in freight, he is a scary son of a bitch! Moody was just grinning at me, and slowly he put his hand in his cloak, and pulled out his wand, his face splitting in a wide horrifying grin, "Let's start this, we will start out with fitness, dodging and battle awareness, and the great part of it, is it's all in one glories combined exercise, you will run around trying not to get hit by me, when you can go 5 minutes without being hit, you will pass and we will continue with proper magic. Now BEGIN".

And that was how the next 6 month of hell started, every day I would report to the garden, and without a word of warning, Moody started to fire spell after spell at me, and I would try to dodge, run and generally avoid getting hit by his stunners, stingers and other less than harmful, but still painful magic. 5 hours a day, since he quickly discovered I had way higher stamina than I should have. But I did improve immensely, I learned to properly dodge magic, and since I wasn't allowed to fire back,( the fact I didn't really know any real combat spells, might have something to do with it as well). I learned to hide as well, Moody prepared traps, ambushes, and even flew around on his broom while I ran for my life.

2 months in, I was finally able to Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge my way out of Moody's reach. Of Course if he had used any actual combat spells instead of the harmless but painful spells he shot at me, I would have lasted less than three generous seconds, of which he constantly reminded me.

Starting the third month, I was given a spare wand from Rufus, and taught the three spells, the Sumerian Simple Strike Hex (Mahasu) (, which makes a ping noise whenever it hits something, useless for anything but target practice), and the Knockback Jinx (Flipendo) which knocks a target back, and the Impediment Jinx (Impedimenta), which slows or stops the target for a vital moment.

Moody looked at me while he pushed forward one of the dummies, it had a wand in its hand and a target on its chest. "You will first be fighting only a single dummy, it will be casting a low powered stinging hex at you, so you must try not to get hit, while also trying to hit it in the chest".

I stood ready with the wand in a proper dueling stance, which Moody had shown me, and as he set the signal, the dummy immediately fired at me, and I jumped to the side rolling on the ground and fired the striking hex at the dummy, but it went wide and didn't come close to hitting, and I was rewarded with a burning pain on my arm, from the stinging hex.

"Focus boy! You need to be aware, even if you miss or make a mistake, you cannot just stand there like a pig for the slaughter! AGAIN!".

Hitting a target, even though it was stationary in the beginning, is way harder than it seems. It took me a lot of pain to finally start hitting my target.

Another two weeks went by with this pace before I was able to combine knockbacks and the Impediment jinx into the mix.

I knew of chaining spells together, but Moody hadn't taught me any of that yet.

When I was able to beat the one dummy, he just pulled in another, and another, and another…

Let's just say, I got hurt a lot.

Rufus meanwhile was watching this unfold, he had started to really care for me, and even though he knew I was enjoying myself, as I had told him multiple times, he couldn't stop worrying, I was only 9 after all. But as the months went by, and I kept at it, and even Madeye Moody telling him how much of a freak I was, I was way more powerful than I should be, I had way more stamina than I should have, and I was persistent like none he had seen before. That did seem to calm him some, so he went back to finding more books for me, and thinking about the future of what he could do for me.

He made sure I kept up with my schooling, even though it was frustratingly boring to be in a Muggle School, but I did see his point, from his perspective I didn't socialize a lot and needed the people skills to survive and thrive in this world.

I told Hermione of some of my training, she thought it was horrible, and kids shouldn't be training like that. Typical Hermione stuff.

A year went by, and Moody started to duel me, he of course lowered his abilities and the magic he used, but he taught me Expelliarmus, and as a test he also taught me Protego.

Protego is a much harder spell to use, since it requires focus, and you need to be mindful of the spells that are being cast at you, it doesn't protect against all, mostly only Jinxes and the smaller stuff of the dark arts. Anything truly powerful and it went right through or simply smashed it. Besides the difficulty of actually casting it and timing it, it was a very draining spell to use.

He told me that it was unheard of being able to cast Protego at my age, most students were able to cast the weak version of it in their third year, but I was able to cast the full version at only age 10.

With my upgraded arsenal I started to practice the spells I had learned wandlessly, it takes real intent and knowledge of the spell being used, but it did come easier to me than using the wand for some reason, it might be because the wand itself fits me badly, but I started to incorporate it into the training.

The first time I used it, I nearly caught Moody by surprise.

We were standing ready as always in our dueling stances, and yes he did tell me that dueling stances are of limited use when it comes to actual combat, but they were a good start. As the duel started I first cast the striking hex, followed by the Impediment jinx and a knockback, but Moody simple swatted the first two away and simple stepped to the side on the third, he grinned at me at that infuriating grin I know he always uses to tease me, "Come on Thomas, you can do better than that! How about if I do this?", and he started to fire two stunners, three jinxes and an Expelliarmus at me at the same time it took me to fire my three, he was wicked fast! All the while he circled me slowly, I dodged the first two stunners, swatted the first jinx almost successfully away, it still stung my hand, and the two jinxes I jumped to the side barely escaping them, but unable to get away from the disarming spell, I cast a quick Protego, and finally at the same time cast a wandless Expelliarmus at him, it didn't actually touch him, since he just stepped to the side making it miss by a mile. But he did laugh and congratulate me, and then he sent three stunners at me in a row. I can't say it enough, he is a badass!

By the time my 11nth birthday was coming around, and after almost two years of dueling, I had not hit him a single time! Whenever I got faster, he simply upped his game, when I started throwing more wandless at him, he simply dodged or swatted them away like slow flying flies. And if I tried to outrun him, flank him or anything like it, he simply started to transfigure the ground around him or under me. I can't wait to get to his level!