Hadrian Silverwood, Moody's Apprentice

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter Universe or characters

Author's note: Just a bit of a story that got typed.

Hadrian's eyes snapped open, panting as he remembered that he was not dying from voldemort's attacks, a baslisk bite, a dragon, the lake, the last task in the triwizard tournament, dementars, or anything else before he traveled to this alternate dimension and becoming a nine year old.

At that time he had woken up to concerned blue eyes, making Hadrian, then called Harry, immediately think of Sirus. In his delirium Harry had asked, "Am I dead for good this time?" This had made the stranger very alarmed but also interested,

"You've died before?"

Harry chuckled without humor, "Probably a couple of times. Met my parents once for a few minutes. Death and I have an interesting relationship. After all, I'm seeing you again Sirus." Harry yawned, "Remember? You fell." before falling asleep again.

Not very long after Harry became aware that he was in fact alive, his memories started returning and became very depressed until Harry discovered that the date was 1995(?). Upon perceiving that Harry was a wizard, the man known as Runner Silverwood adopted Harry. Part of the process was an examination by a mediwizard, who removed bindings on Harry's magic. Runner, the mediwizard, and Harry's new older brother were sickened by the length and near-fatalness of the list of Hadrian's injuries. After finding out that Harry had survived all three unforgivables and a basilisk bite, the older Silverwoods made the mediwizard swear on his magic to never tell about Harry's survival just in case whoever had tried to kill him so often couldn't find him. When Harry was adopted, his name was changed to Hadrian. Then, much to everyone's surprise, not only did Hadrian's features' change with the potion, but his magic changed slightly too.

Hadrian waited, his (animalgous) form barely blinking as he kept surveillance for the third day in the row. The polijuiced death eater was too busy 'helping' Dumbledore for the second task of the tournament. Tomorrow... tomorrow Hadrian would rescue his godfather's friend. The invisible snake curled up in the rafters for the night, his eyes always watching and his ears always listening to both the death eater and his trunk.

The sun grew slowly brighter and brighter until the imposter woke up, drank more polijuice and was on his way, unaware that an inactivated tracking potion had been poured into the shower and onto his clothes in small amounts in these past few days. It had been really tricky and frustrating to accomplish in his amaligous form, as being human would set off the wards, but it had been worth it. Hadrian activated the potion with a parseltongue spell as Barty jr. left the room. Hadrian dipped his tail into his undetectible expanded pouch and pulled out a map the spell was anchored to. It was both a more advanced but simplified version of the Maurader's map. It was a more complete version of the layout of the castle, but instead of 'mapping' everyone in the castle, it only followed the person whom the spell was tied to and listed whoever they talked to or whatever they did on the parchment connected to the map's spells. Hadrian used parseltongue to set up an alert if the death eater approached his rooms again. Satisfied, Hadrian got to work on the trunk, drawing runes with his magic through his tail. The priority was to destroy the wards and security spells around the trunk, but the struggle was to keep the imposter from noticing and that what that meant was to by-pass the wards and spells and whatever else with the least amount of destruction. In his missing older brother's words, "Better to finesse than bulldoze, when seeking, but better to bulldoze than be time-crunched." Hadrian couldn't be distracted by emotion at this point, but still reaffirmed his promise to find out what happened to his last family member in his mind as he drew the last few runes. The shimmering gold field that surrounded the trunk made Hadrian relax in satisfaction. Hadrian took a deep breath and carefully opened the trunk. It was a good thing he was a somewhat magical snake; otherwise, he would have been crushed by the lid. Then it wouldn't have mattered that he bypassed the spells and runes on the trunk. Hadrian mused as he curled his tail around the map and slithered into the trunk, carefully descending the ladder.

Well... Moody was a mess. And it was just Hadrian's luck to find him awake and fighting Barty's imperious curse. The man was understandably more paranoid and distrusting than usual, but it really made his rescue slower. Oh, well. Hadrian turned human and just used the time to create a passable duplicate clone of Moody using transfiguration, runes, parseltounge spells, and extra hair Hadrian had snatched meticulously from Barty's stash of Moody's hair. At most it would last two weeks, but more likely to be destroyed in a couple of rough days if the fanatical death eater got suspicious. The replica also served as the final proof to Moody that Hadrian truly was his respected colleague's godson. The runemaster had passed on his unsurpassed knowledge only to his sons.

"How is Runner?" Moody asked with a grunt as Hadrian helped the auror throw off the the rest of the imperious curse.

"Dead." Hadrian answered shortly, "Rogue villains and a death eater."

Moody hissed in sorrow, "When?" he whispered as Hadrian swiftly cleaned and bandaged the auror's wounds.

"Halloween."

"And Will?"

"Disappeared on Christmas." Hadrian took a shuddering breath before stepping back, and pulling out a mirror from the expanded pouch. Hadrian gazed wistfully at the mirror, murmuring "This was dad's last invention. The fidelous mirror. I'll tell you how it works later. Look into it and touch the passcode."

Reluctantly Moody did so and he only had time enough to widen his eyes before being pulled through the mirror.

Hadrian looked into the mirror and saw himself holding a reflecting mirror that made the correct runes appear on a 'door' and whispered "Runner's runic sons," before grabbing the pouch, map, and parchment. He was holding the mirror tightly as he touched the door in the mirror's handle and was also pulled into the mirror, but this time the mirror pulled itself through the portal as well. This type of travel, called Vortexing, was quickly becoming Hadrian's favorite type of travel being almost instantaneous and unknown, but mainly because Hadrian could land on his feet and not feel queasy.

Moody soon learned that Runner's infirmary was run by an unusual free house elf. Her name was Nurse Dove and was taller and nicer looking than any other house elf due to contact with the Silverwood magic.

The retired auror was one of a couple people outside of the family who knew even a few of the family secrets. Nearly everyone who knew the Silverwoods knew them as a family of superb runemasters, but hardly any wizards knew that runes for the Silverwood family were actually more of a successful hobby than their real work. Silverwoods worked almost impossibly well with magical creatures/ beings because they protected and supported them.

Nurse Dove refused to let Moody leave until he had taken several labeled potions. Moody refused to take them. In the end, Nurse Dove won. Hadrian entered the infirmary at last with a large box almost reverently floating in front of the boy. Hadrian explained that it was both a gift and the fulfillment of a dept Runner wanted to give Moody. Moody was stunned into silence as he stared at the prosthetic limb. Moody mumbled that he didn't even need his magical eye to see the magic in it. In his sensitive state, Nurse Dove easily gently bullied Moody into wearing it.

"It's like having my original leg back in better condition." the auror marveled.