87 Training.

For most of the start of July, I was training with Mike. Mike was not like I expected in some situations. I came and asked him to put me through training for combat; he grinned evilly. "You sure," Mike asked.

"yeah, the future doesn't look good. I'm going to need to fight myself at some point." I said.

"my training will be brutal; I'll train you the way I was trained." he kept that evil smile.

"auror training shouldn't be that hard, right? I mean, their detectives," I said

"Auror, is that what you think I was?" Mike smirked. "No, I was a hit wizard." 

I gulped. I didn't know much about hit wizards, but I did know they were like the magical swat team, and if that was the British, I wondered what an American hit wizard could do. 

To my surprise, most of the training was nonmagical; I was running more and doing more push-ups and suicides. Weight training, agility training. Each morning for hours, then I would drink a potion that Mike had prepared that would ease and heal my muscles, but it didn't take care of the fatigue. Then it was onto spell training in my tired state: jinxes hex, stunners and disarming charms, shielding and transfiguring tricks; all this had effects on my magic and muscles.

I was more muscled than ever, sporting a runner's body of lean agility and strength; I was also eating a lot more, which had pushed me taller a few inches. I was now five foot five inches tall for a 13-year-old. My birthday was the 19th of July. It was now the 21st, and in the newspaper that morning, I saw the one article I was waiting for, the one that announced the winner of the daily prophet draw; the weasley were all in the picture, smiles on their face and scabbers sitting on Ron's shoulder. I stared at it, reading the report.

"Who are they, dear?" Mrs. Malhook asked. While not interested in magic, she was interested in gossip and people.

"The weasley family, molly and Arthur are the parents, that's Ron he's in my year, ginny is in the girl she's a year below me, the twins Fred and george are two years above, Percy he's in his final year this year. I think that must be Bill, the eldest, who works in Egypt," I pointed out the Weasley family. "They have another brother, Charlie works in Romanian studying dragons. Anyway, they just won the grand prize of paper 700 galleons, which are about 3500 pounds."

"Wow, seven kids; she must have her hands full. The most we had at a time was three," said Mrs Malhook. "but they look like a happy family."

"very happy, but yes, they do have their hands full and their finances stretched; Arthur works for the ministry in the magical law enforcement sector as the head of Miss Use of Muggle Artifacts office. It's not a well-funded department; it deals with people bewitching public toilets mostly." I explained, like I said, Mrs. Malhook loved gossip, and the wizarding world was a lot of new gossip. I even subscribed to Witch Weekly for her. 

I read some other articles, but not much is happening. A few days from now, that will change, and the daily prophet will have its news for the rest of the year. After breakfast, I headed to Mike's to start morning training.

I told Mike that we would have to stop at the start of August because I had plans with my friends. Mike nodded and kept pushing me, but he also taught me how to make the magical equipment I had been working out. The magical treadmill was a mixture of transfiguration and a charm: take a rug, transfigure it into a running belt and charm it to set the speed. Weights were a simple transfigure into a denser material and the correct shape. 

I figured I could use the room of requirements, like the Danger room in X-Men, and have simulated battle scenarios.

Three days passed in a whirl of training, and the announcement came in the paper. Sirius Black had escaped Azkaban. I wanted to run to Snape and tell him that Sirius was innocent and I needed his help. But I held that thought; I couldn't play my hand just yet. Sirius needed to be acknowledged as innocent for my future plans to succeed. The ministry can't spend a avoiding that Voldemort had returned. If Sirius was acknowledged as innocent, they couldn't use him as a scapegoat.

When I got to Mike's that day, there was also a middle-aged witch visiting.

"Mister Carter," Mike said. "This is Helen Donsce; she is in charge of the investigation of your parent's death." 

"nice to finally meet you, Mister Carter" The witch was in her 40s and had red hair and oddly purple eyes.

"nice to meet anyone from the investigation squad," I said with some snark. They had been keeping me in the dark.

"yes, that was Lady Burroughs's decision to keep you out of the loop" Helen threw her employer under the bus with that one.

"but I'm here to talk about black", she said sternly. "Our investigation shows that your parents, before their deaths, interacted with Sirius black twice. We suspect he might have killed them or betrayed their wear about to death eaters," she said.

"Why would my parents have anything to do with Sirius black? hell, Why did they even come to Britain during a war?" I said.

"I can't tell you why they fled to England, but I can tell you black did smuggle them into the country and help them find a safe house; the second time, black came to the safe house to ask your father something." She explained. "we believe that he was trying to recruit him to join the death eaters."

"and this was a few days before my birth and then their deaths," I said, thinking about it. 'if blacks helped them into the country and tried to recruit them, it was on orders from Dumbledore, ' I thought. "If you can capture him alive, I will have words with him. Do not let the ministry give him the kiss of death before I can speak with him", I said.

"We can't do that," said Helen

"That wasn't a request. It was an order; this is the man you said might have betrayed my family, the family you work for. I will speak to him before he dies" I used a commanding tone, one that I hadn't ever used before. I shocked Mike because, usually, I was so calm and free-loving. 

"helen he's right, we need to question him before handing over to the ministry and Mister Carter has the right to face the man who might of doom his parents" mike backed me up.

"I will discuss with Lady Burroughs", she said. "Must be off now; the ministry has requested our presence at a meeting" She walked to the fireplace and vanished in bright green flames.

"I don't think it was wise to order her around like that, Eddie," Mike said when we were alone.

"no, probably not," I said. "but I want to look that man in the eyes" I strode down into the basement to start training.