Hyde Park
“It was at that age that poetry came in search of me”
- Pablo Neruda
Part I
He was magic.
She sat on her old blanket, lunch forgotten, and watched the dark haired boy, tall and too thin, scowling by the bank of the Serpentine.
He was wearing muggle clothes. A knit jumper and the short trousers and long socks combination muggle boys her age favoured that always made her smirk. His clothing was clean but thin, clearly handed down, and he wasn’t the only child in the park to be dressed in such a way.
About two dozen or so similarly clothed children were scattered across the park enjoying the rare sunshine. Tidy but worn, they played under the supervision of two severe looking women. ‘Nuns,’ she thought to herself, ‘on a day trip from an orphanage’. They were clustered in small groups, the older girls sunbathed on blankets and discarded jumpers, giggling softly as handsome muggle boys smiled their way. Boys were kicking around a knackered football, good naturedly braying and heckling each other, and a few of the older ones were trying to get a surreptitious peek into the sectioned off lido.
Two little girls sat nearby, clapping to a song they sang.
Under the bram-bush
Under the tree
Bum bum bum
True love for you my darling
True love for me
The only one alone was him. He stood with his hands shoved in his pockets, kicking occasionally at the trunk of a thin beech tree. He shot sour looks towards the other children who only glanced his way in wariness if their football rolled too close to his path. They otherwise treated him as if he did not exist at all.
She couldn’t fathom how that was possible.
He was magic. So much so that it seemed to shimmer from him in a way she had never seen before from a single person. It vibrated and swirled from him, joyous and dark, alluring and dangerous. She had been raised with magic, surrounded by people so accustomed to it they treated it like it was ordinary (something she would lament was possible in the future). Dragons and Unicorns weren’t just the creatures of children’s stories, adventures to other lands were a simple floo or portkey away, and alchemists dripped in gold spun from metal. But this boy...this solitary boy in second-hand muggle clothes was magic, magic made flesh and she sat still in the wonder of it all.
And when we’re married
We’ll raise a family
With a boy for you and
A girl for me
She wondered if he knew. She looked over her shoulder to see if her sister was watching. In the grand tradition of younger siblings, she had been shooed out of the house by her mum and forced to tag along as her sister met with a muggleborn friend in Hyde Park, where she was promptly left to her own devices. Socorro was still chatting about the next school year and debating whether the honour of being Prefect was worth the responsibility with Nicola Roberts roughly 10 meters to her left, resolutely ignoring her little sister, which suited them both just fine at this moment.
She glanced down at the delicate watch her mother had fastened to her wrist earlier in the day before pointing to the time they needed to be back at the floo for pick up. Time enough to speak.
Under the bram-bush
Under the tree
Bum bum bum
I met my true lover and she met me
Now we’re married and have a family
For we’re under the shade of the old oak tree
She stood.
He didn’t see the point of these stupid outings.
Of course they were better than sitting in church, listening to the vicar drone on about sin and sacrifice, occasionally breaking out into that terrible sing-song voice for hymns as he was made to pray away his wickedness whilst the nuns and Mrs Cole looked pointedly at him, waiting for him to do something wrong. Something evil and unnatural.
Better than being in that classroom where they learned the names of old dead kings and the wives they beheaded, wrote line after line, learned their times tables by rote and were then smacked with a ruler hard enough to bring tears if they were wrong.
The visits to the park were better, but he still stood alone just as he did outside the shadowed gates of Wool’s. He was still out of place and desperately uncomfortable here as he was there. He didn’t need to be paraded around London. A poor little sheep in front of the ladies in their silk gowns and bankers in their Palm Beach suits whilst his dingy grey uniform screamed out to everyone ‘Orphan! Unwanted! Nothing!’ the humiliation of it sat in his stomach like a stone.
The last outing they had been carted off to in the perpetual hunt for ‘fresh air that will do them good’ was that fateful seaside trip. He was so sick of it, sick to the back teeth of the other children blaming everything that went wrong on him, gibing when he said he had a father trying to find him, treating him like he was dirt and he was not dirt.
Amy and Dennis still had not spoken.
He paused and looked up from the trunk he had kicked so relentlessly that the bark was bruised and the green exposed. He could feel eyes on him and spun to meet them. She was a Spaniard, or a Wop perhaps; dark hair, dark eyes, and looked posh. Her dress was a rich fabric and colour, and her hat was too formal for a summer’s day. She looked at him with such curiosity he could feel an unwelcome blush rise to his cheeks under her scrutiny and he looked back down, kicking at the battered tree beneath him once more. When he raised his eyes again, the girl was calmly walking his way.
He felt the sneer slide across his features, preparing himself for the taunts, or worse, the pity. That’s what they did, the other children who saw Wool’s ragtag group. Some laughed and poked fun, mocking them for being dirt (he was not dirt!) whilst others looked at them with soft, watery eyes, as weak as wet tissue, handing them pennies or what was left of the lunches their mums had packed them. ‘They must leave feeling so damn righteous’.
Insults were poised on his tongue, ready for their acid to burn this girl who thought she was so much better than him ‘except she didn’t even know’ when, “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” she smiled a cool smile and leant back against the beech tree. “WB Yeats. An Irish poet; quite clever don’t you think? I’m Ixchel Eztli, who are you?”
He looked at the strange girl in bewilderment and didn’t answer. Undeterred by his silence, she carried on. “My senses are sharp enough though. You’re magic, and I suspect you had an idea.” She peered at him with dark eyes so full he could shiver. “Here’s the secret. So am I.” His heart seemed to have leapt into his throat, and its rhythm pounded in his ears. Did someone really see him? Someone knew? It wasn’t just him, wasn’t unnatural?
He took a breath before the hopeful, desperate questions could come tumbling from his lips.
This must be some terribly cruel joke. Someone put her up to this, to make him believe, like the way the others used to mock, following him, pretending they were speaking to the grass snakes just like Tom had told Amy and Dennis he could. She was here to build him up in the idea that there was more and then rip it away, laughing that he believed in such rubbish.
“What the hell are you on about?” He scoffed. She raised an eyebrow and bristled at his rough tone, and he felt a bit of vicious satisfaction bubble up within.
“You’re a wizard.” She said bluntly, her smile gone. “Just like I’m a witch, just like my sister.” She tilted her head in the direction of another olive-skinned girl reclined on the grass. "Just like a world of others. Haven't you been able to do things no one around you can explain?”
He thought of Billy Stubbs' rabbit. The rabbit that had hung from the rafters after Billy spat that his mother had taken one look at him and would rather die than stick around.
“You’re raving mad!” How dare she feed him such lies? Just to make fun of him! This posh bint thinking she could use him as her joke. He glanced at the watch too big for her wrist. He’d steal it and add it to the pile of his secrets. His proof he could have things too if only he wanted.
Ixchel seemed surprised at his anger and huffed, “I am not! Can’t you feel that you’re... I don't know, more?”
Yes, yes, yes.
“If you’re a witch, and I’m a wizard, prove it then. Prove you’re a witch and not just barmy.” he demanded.
Colour rose to her cheeks and she crossed her arms, disgruntled. “I don’t have a wand yet. I don’t start school until September, you don’t get one until then.”
“Hah!”
They both stood in a sullen silence. He was angry and suspicious, but too hopeful to leave, because what if she was right? He faced the water, watching absently as people went by on their rented boats, laughing and enjoying each other's company, and waited. Waited to be told more. ‘Please.’
“You’re rather rude,” she mused, almost offhand. “I suppose it is a strange thing to just be told something like this bolt from the blue.” Lips pursed she pushed on, “When is your birthday?”
He debated not answering, sticking his tongue out at her and leaving her to stand in her lies. It was too long a time to be a comfortable silence before he answered, “31st December, 1926.”
That cool smile returned to her face and the sunlight through the leaves dappled her cheeks. “I imagine you’ll be getting a visit fairly soon. It’ll prove it, I promise. Write to Thistledown, Roseton-on-Sea, Kent when you do; I’ll answer any of your questions.”
He gave her such a distrusting look that her smile grew wider and she laughed. She had a gap between her front two teeth. Those dark eyes still on him, she unclasped the wristwatch and placed it in his hand with such a knowing look he felt terribly exposed. “As insurance. If you don’t hear anything, sell it, break it, it's yours. But since you will, I’d like it back when I see you next. Intact please.”
“Ixchel!” They both turned their heads to see the older girl Ixchel had pointed out as her sister standing and shaking out a blanket. “Time to go!” she beckoned.
Ixchel turned back to him, that cool smile softer, but still present. “I’ll be seeing you.” Sighing, she pushed herself off the tree, brushed herself off of lint only she could see and began her walk back. He glanced down, his face a rictus of bafflement. The mangled section of tree trunk was now perfectly smooth.
“Hey!” He called out, clutching the wristwatch, and her cocoa hair bounced as she looked over her shoulder. “My name is Tom Riddle.”