Dear Uncle

It was late in the evening. Long pale fingers moved over an old piece of parchment. Harry hadn't activated the map since he got back. He was worried it had broken and would never work again. He sighed. No time like the present to find out. He activated the magic. Laughter bubbled up inside him. It was fine. The dots moved around. He looked all over the map checking on Albus Dumbledore who was pacing in his office.

'Now what is that?' Harry wondered as his finger trailed over a name. "Winky," he said softly.

Winky showed up. "Master Harry. What does Master Harry want from Winky?" she asked.

"Does Mr Crouch have a son Winky?" Harry asked. "You don't have to tell me anything about him. I just want to know if he has a son."

Winky nodded slowly. She liked her Master Harry and telling him Young Master Barty existed was not wrong. "Master Crouch son is Young Master Barty," she said softly.

"Thank you Winky," Harry said. "You're a good elf."

"What will Master Harry do with Master Barty?" Winky asked. "Winky knows Young Master was a bad boy, but..."

"He can't stay here," Harry said. "Is It alright If I scare him away?" he asked.

Winky nodded. "As long as neither Master Barty nor Master Harry gets hurt," she said.

"I'll do my best," Harry said.

Winky popped away and Harry looked back down at the map.

There was one dot labelled Alastor Moody and another labelled Bartemius Crouch in the Defence Professor's office. Barty sounded like a pet version of Bartemius. He watched them for a moment. There had to be something with that. He'd have to check it out.

But not right now.

Harry put the map away and lay down. So much was going on. He hadn't thought that he would have so much to do when he got back to Earth. But, well… he wasn't left bored that much was for sure.

21st of December, 1994.

'Well that explains things,' Harry thought. Moody wasn't Moody. He couldn't say he was surprised. It answered a lot of questions. Like who had put his name in the goblet. It raised other questions though. Why was Moody not moving around in his office? He guessed he should do something about that. He put his map away and looked up at the head table in the Great Hall once more. Barty Moody was still eating and had plenty of food left on his plate. If Harry headed up now, he would have a decent amount of time to sneak around before Barty would come upstairs.

Harry told Hermione and Neville that he would see them later. He was going to go see Hedwig. He stood up and walked over to the grand staircase. He headed up the stairs and through the draughty corridors. He could understand why Fleur disliked it. He took a shortcut to Moody's office. He wondered why Dumbledore hadn't noticed that Moody wasn't the real Moody. They were supposed to know each other really well.

Harry checked the door for traps. There were a couple of safety precautions taken around the door but nothing further in. "Feim Zii Gron," he whispered. His body went clear but not invisible. He walked straight through the door. Now, where was Moody? He wasn't sure he could use the clairvoyance spell. He didn't know the real Moody. His eyes fell on the chest in the room. It was big enough to hold a body. He sent his thief-spider out to see if that could unlock the chest.

Barty Moody limped through the corridors on his way back to his rooms. All these stupid children and their idiotic ideas. He opened his office door. It would be worth it though. His Master would return. His eyes widened slightly as he realised that Professor Dumbledore was standing in his office. The door slammed closed behind him.

"You don't have to do this, my boy," the old wizard said. "There are other options, Bartemius."

Barty Moody blacked out.

When Barty woke up again his Polyjuice Potion had worn off. He looked up. Dumbledore was still standing there. The chest he had hidden Moody in was open. He had failed. So much effort; so much work. It was all wasted. He looked around. He had to get away. He moved back slowly. He managed to get to the door without the old man noticing. He opened it up before he took off running. On his way out of the castle, he knocked a kid out and took his wand. He would have to get back to his Master.

Harry rolled his eyes. Sometimes illusions were very practical. He moved over to the door leading up to the private quarters of the Defence teacher. He had moved all of Moody's items into the bedroom. He placed a hand on Moody's chest and sent healing magic through his fingers. He asked Winky to show up so someone could look after the former Auror.

"I want to know if he wakes up, dear," Harry told her. He headed out. He needed to get outside, needed to get some air. He had to decide what to do now and quickly before Moody woke up. Did he speak to the man or not? It really wouldn't hurt to have an ex-Auror in his corner. He reached the great doors and pushed one of them open. His breath came out in clouds of white smoke in front of him. He closed his eyes and relaxed. He would speak to Moody. It was the smart thing to do. He didn't stand there for long before he heard a pop behind him.

"Master Harry, strange man be waking up now," Winky said.

Harry nodded. "Could you get us something to eat, dear?" he asked her. "It should be something easily digested for Moody."

"Winky can do that. Master needs to eat. Master needs his energy," Winky said before popping off.

Harry turned around and headed back into the castle. He made his way up to the Defence teacher's office. He could hear a lot of grumbling coming from the bedroom. He opened the door. "I see you have come to Mister Moody," he said.

The one dark eye the man had focused on him. "And who are you?" he asked gruffly.

Harry walked forward and cast a Magelight to the ceiling so they would be able to see.

"Well, well if it isn't James' son," Moody said. He would recognise that mess of hair anywhere.

"You knew my father, Mr Moody?" Harry asked.

Moody nodded slowly. "He was a good man, laddie, and a good Auror," he said. "So you are responsible for getting me out of that chest?"

Harry nodded slowly. "I seem to be the only one that noticed something was off," he said. "I figure I should do something about it. Barty Crouch Jr. isn't here anymore. I scared him off. You are at Hogwarts, it is Yuletide. Today is the twenty-first. He turned to the side as Winky popped in. He had seen Moody's reaction as the elf showed up. He was glad he had placed the man's wand on the other side of the room. "This is Winky. She is my house-elf. You should eat – regain your strength."

Moody looked down at the broth Winky placed down over his lap on a tray. He was giving it a suspicious stare.

"I have no reason to harm you after I spent an hour or so healing you," Harry said.

"Where is my wand?" Moody asked.

"Your wand, wooden leg, and magical eye are all on the desk over there. I did not let him leave with any of those," Harry said.

"You should have neutralised the bastard," Moody said. "Leaving enemies alive is not a wise decision."

"I didn't for Winky's sake. She belonged to the Crouches before her Master fired her," Harry said. "He doesn't know it was me. I used a disguise."

Moody nodded. "That's good laddie, the less your enemy knows the better," he said. He looked down at the broth again. The kid had a point, and he was James' son. He didn't like just trusting people, but he'd give the kid a chance. The broth felt good. He hadn't had anything to eat in a while. "Can you get me the eye laddie?" he said.

Harry placed his own plate down and stood up from the chair he had pulled into the room. He picked the eye up and walked over to the man. He held it out and Moody took it. The man pushed it into his empty eye socket. It spun around like crazy for a couple of turns as the magic of the eye connected back with its owner's magic. For a second as he looked at Harry, he saw a faint shimmer around the boy. "Who are you?" he asked. "You are not young Potter."

Harry tilted his head to the side. "I take it that the real owner of the eye is better at using it than the fake was," he said. He reached in beneath his shirt. "I knew I was going to tell you just based on what I had to do to get you out of that box I knew you would have questions. Seeing that I wore a glamour was not what I thought you would notice." He turned the glamour off.

Harry looked older but nothing else had changed. It was still James' son as far as Moody could see. "So either I have been out for a long time or you have done something not so wise with an ageing potion," Moody said.

Harry looked over at him. "It is a bit more complicated than that," he said. "I take it that you won't trust me if I don't tell you what happened." He stood up and walked out of the room to fetch the Secrecy Sensor. He placed it down next to the bed. It wasn't humming anymore. "So this should be able to tell you if I lie to you, right?"

"Yes, it will," Moody said.

Harry leaned back in his chair. He had quite the story to tell.

Moody was studying Harry as he finished his tale. The kid had been through a lot. He was a warrior; that much was clear from what he was told. And not a single lie. That wasn't common in anyone. He would have expected the boy to exaggerate. It had been very common with his father and godfather. But there was nothing like that. He was to the point and didn't make himself seem better than he was. "And you haven't told Dumbledore any of this?" he asked grumpily.

"Do you think Albus Dumbledore would accept what I have had to do in my life," Harry asked.

Moody nodded slowly. "Albus wants to see the best in people and killing is not something he prefers," he said. "I can see what you mean kid." He had his own thoughts regarding his old friend that he would keep to himself, but he didn't fault the boy for being cautious. "How many know about your change?" he asked.

"A couple of people and I'm not too worried about people learning about it as long as it goes slowly," Harry said. "I've got hooks in everyone that knows so far. It is good for them to keep my secrets. But I don't enforce it as such. Eventually, it won't matter who knows and I'm not worried about it."

Mood looked at the young man. He wasn't sure he agreed, but it wasn't his secret so he wasn't going to be too harsh on the boy. "Sharing secrets can lead to danger and misery," he pointed out.

Harry shrugged. "That is my problem," he said. "If I choose to not trust anyone, then my life will get really boring. I'm not scared of danger. I know I have to be careful, but I have lived in a world where basically everyone around me was a possible enemy. I learned how to tell which people I could trust and which I had to be careful around."

"Experience," Moody said. "It's the best teacher." He looked over to his desk. "Could you get me my other things?" he requested. He needed to think about what the kid had said. "So no one but you and your elf knows that there was a fake Moody around?" he asked.

Harry shook his head. "I didn't tell anyone else. I wasn't sure how you wanted to handle things," he said.

"Good, good," Moody said as he put the wooden leg on. "What a mess," he muttered. He felt weak. He didn't like that. He would have the whole Christmas break to heal up. "I'm going to have to tell Albus." he looked at Harry. "We can't tell him you got me out if you don't want to tell him everything."

"I could glamour to someone else I guess," Harry said.

Moody nodded slowly.

"I have Kato, but Kato and Harry are the same person," Harry said as he put his earrings in and transformed into Kato.

"I have Ray. The problem with Ray is that I created him after the image of two of my friends and that stands quite clear. I could take Ray's personality and place it over a new glamour of course."

"That might work," Moody said. He tapped his chin. "If you were an auror trainee then there would be paperwork so that won't work. He sighed. You could be my nephew," he said softly. "My sister died in the war. She could have had a child. I wouldn't have been able to take care of the baby."

"So you would have given me to someone who could," Harry said. "But you would have checked on me periodically."

Moody looked thoughtful for a moment. "It is a good enough disguise if you ever need to use it for any other reason," he said. "People won't think it's strange that I never spoke about you. If I had been gone for less time, I probably wouldn't have cared about this and just gone with what had happened, but I think Albus needs to know that there was an impostor here all this time."

"This doesn't compromise me so I'm fine with it," Harry said. "I just need to make the glamour. Do you have any pictures of your sister?"

Moody had to rummage around for a bit before he found one. He handed it to Harry who looked down at a rather pretty girl with curly hair and a cute smile. He asked Winky to fetch him a small bag and sat down by a mirror so he could work on the glamour. "We don't want anyone to know who the father was right?" he said.

"No. Not even I need to know that," Moody said. "Preferably it should be someone that no one knows."

"I'll just take a guy from Skyrim," Harry said. He had considered Balgruuf. He knew the man's face well enough. He worked on the glamour for half an hour as Moody moved around for a bit to get his bearings back. He felt like crap.

Harry sat up straighter and applied the glamour to a set of earrings. "There we go," he said. "So I am Raiden or Ray for short. Do I use your last name or the last name of the family that I have been living with? It is probably safer to use yours because then people wouldn't know where to look for the ones I have been living with."

"True," Moody said. "You have a good head on your shoulders lad." He studied Harry or Raiden for a while. "The glamour only shows sometimes. It is very well made. I doubt anyone else has noticed," he said. "There aren't that many people with an eye like mine and this baby is a piece of work. Her creator unfortunately only made her before he died." He stretched. "Oh, well. We better go tell the old man what has been going on under his half-moon spectacles."

Ray chuckled. "If you say so Uncle dearest," he said.

"Don't get uppity lad," Moody said. "And say Alastor."

Ray nodded. "Will do Uncle Alastor," he said. He walked with Moody to the Gargoyle. Moody glared at it and told it he needed to speak to Albus and he wasn't playing games. Either Albus could hear him or the gargoyle knew what was best for it and moved aside. Dumbledore was not alone when they reached his office. Snape was there as well.

"You wished to speak to me, Alastor, old friend," Albus said. He looked at Ray. "And who is this?" he asked.

"This is me nephew Raiden," Moody said grumpily. "You should be glad he decided to not listen to me and dropped by. Show them what you found lad."

Raiden walked up to Severus with the silver flask that Barty Moody had been drinking out of the past couple of months."

"And what may I ask should I do with this?" Severus asked acidly.

"You are a Potion Master, right?" Ray said. "You certainly look like one. Why don't you tell us what is in that flask?"

Severus' eyes narrowed. He sniffed the flask and looked down into it. Then he swore. "This is why my boomslang has gone missing," he cursed. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Moody.

"I arrived earlier today and went to check on my dear Uncle Alastor here only to find a man that knew nothing about me sitting in his room looking an awful lot like him. He tried to attack me, but well… Uncle Alastor does that all the time, and I know it hurts so I do my best to not get hit."

"Get to the point lad," Moody said.

"Anyway, I knocked him out, which by the way would never have happened with Uncle…" Ray skilfully jumped out of the way of a spell fired at him. "And I proceeded to look for my Uncle. I found him in a big chest in the room, but at some point, I must have lost track of the impostor. He ran away." Ray shrugged and smiled brightly.

Albus sighed and looked between Raiden and Alastor. It would seem like another thing had slipped past him. He certainly wasn't happy about it, and he could understand why Alastor seemed so angry. They were supposed to know each other quite well after all. "No one else knows about this?" he asked.

"Not a soul," Moody said.

"I think it might be better if we kept it that way," Albus said. "At least now we know who put young Harry's name in the goblet of fire. We also know that whatever plan they had has probably been thwarted for now. Let's hope things work out alright. But there is no need to worry people by letting them know that a potentially dangerous man has been teaching the children for a semester. No one got hurt so it will be fine."

Severus didn't look happy, but he also didn't disagree. He just didn't quite think that no one had gotten hurt. He recalled some rather horrible ways that the fake Moody had taught certain students lessons.

"At least everything turned out alright," Ray said with a bright smile. "Well, I better be off before my girlfriend blows her top off. I'll see you later Uncle Dearest." Ray quickly disappeared beyond the door and narrowly avoided another spell thrown at him. He went past any painting that might tell Dumbledore anything and changed back to Harry so he could go and try to appease the mother dragon that was Hermione Granger. He had been gone for almost an entire day and they still had some homework to finish.

22nd of December, 1994.

The following morning, Alastor Moody was slowly going through notes taken by Barty Moody over the past few months. He had been thorough. Alastor had to give him that. There were individual notes on just about every student at Hogwarts. He didn't know how accurate they were though. He needed a second set of eyes and he wasn't going to ask Snape or Albus which only left him one person.

Harry James Potter. The son of James Potter. James who had been one of his best protégés. He would do his damnedest to make sure that the lad was safe. He seemed to have been doing fairly well on his own, but some extra training wouldn't hurt and he needed to increase his spell repertoire by a lot.

There was a knock on his door and Moody braced himself as he walked over to it.

"Good morning, sir," Harry said.

Moody relaxed some. He had expected Albus this early in the day, but Harry was a nice surprise. "Good morning laddie. You are up bright and early," Moody said.

"Every morning," Harry said. "I run around the grounds with Fleur just to keep up with some semblance of what I'm used to."

Moody nodded. "Once I have recovered a little better I'll be putting you through the wringer," he said.

Harry shrugged. "Go ahead, I could use the exercise," he said. He ducked as Moody fired a spell at him and he rolled his eyes. "You will have to be faster than that if you want to hit me," he said.

"Don't get cocky," Moody said. "That always got your father."

Harry nodded. "Will remember that," he said. He looked at Moody's desk and all the notes on it. "What are you trying to do?" he asked, and Moody explained. "I guess I could look through them. I don't know that many people here though."

"Just tell me if the ones you know are correct. If they are right then I can assume that the rest are too," Moody said.

Harry nodded and searched through the lists of names for ones that he recognised. ¨

Weasley, Fred and George

Inventive but a pain in the ass.

Always comes up with new ways to test the magic eye.

Weasley, Ronald

Unfocused. Easily bored.

Useless at magic. Rides on his friend's fame,

but dumps him if things are looking south.

Only had decent grades because of Potter and Granger.

Harry grimaced.

"Something wrong?" Moody said.

"He was harsh. Not necessarily wrong, but a bit harsh and a bit quick to judge. I would only use these as loose interpretations of the people they describe," Harry said.

Granger, Hermione

Book-smart and good with written assignments.

Lacking in wand skill.

Over-enthusiastic. Always wants to answer the questions.

Keeps repeating exactly what the books say.

Longbottom, Neville

Good lad but very shy.

Wand work abysmal.

Potter has been fixing things and they look better.

Malfoy, Draco

Arrogant twat.

Papa's boy.

Reminds me of Lucius.

Harry looked at a few other Slytherins and quite a few had very scratching remarks on them. "Am I right in assuming that all of these had Death Eaters who did not go to Azkaban as fathers?" he asked Moody.

Moody looked at the names and snorted. "Would seem that way, lad," he said.

"I would maybe just make up my own mind on most people," Harry said. "Though keeping these things in mind might not be bad."

Moody nodded. "What do you think about the schoolwork? Especially defence," he asked.

"I get bored easily because most things are repeated for far too long," Harry admitted. "I have the same problem in most other classes. I have trained to consume and categorize knowledge far better than what a fourteen-year-old normally can do. I also had an incident with a magical object that did something to my head. I still don't know the full effect it had. But basically, it unlocked something."

"I'm thinking we'll start you on Auror-level material while also working on simply increasing the number of spells you know and honing your skills with all magic you can perform," Moody said.

"Sounds like an idea to me," Harry said. He could see his days filling up in the future. He would have to make sure that he didn't lose Neville and Hermione in the midst of everything else he wanted to do.

As Moody saw Harry leave his office for the day, he was strangely glad that he had accepted this position for the year despite everything that had gone wrong. He would probably never have gotten this chance to get to know Harry otherwise. He was a smart lad, and quick on his feet too. Moody smirked. This was going to be interesting.