An Unexpected Visitor
Antonin Dolohov awoke with a grunt, his head pounding with the ferocity of a rogue bludger. The remnants of sleep clung to him like cobwebs, and the light filtering through the heavy curtains seemed to pierce straight into his skull. He rolled over attempting to block the light but after a few minutes gave it up as a bad job. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself upright, the world spinning slightly as he did.
He blinked slowly, trying to piece together fragments of the night before. The Three-Footed Crow, the alcohol, Yaxley’s boisterous tales—everything melded together in a blurry whirl. Rubbing his temples, he stumbled out of bed, the cool floor steadying him as he navigated toward the bathroom. A splash of water on his face did little to alleviate the fog, but after rummaging in one of the bathroom cabinets for a moment and coming up with a rather old and dusty looking pain relief potion, which he downed without much debate. He let out a sigh of relief as the potion seemed to still be somewhat remotely working making him feel at least marginally human again.
Satisfied that he no longer resembled a ghost from the grave, Dolohov trudged toward his open plan kitchen, hoping to find solace in the routine. Only as he passed the lounge door, he noticed a sight that seemed more unreal than any hangover-induced hallucination that could meet his eyes.
Perched precariously on a spindly wooden chair was a young girl, no more than five years old, with impossibly bushy brown hair cut in a blunt chop around her shoulders. She was reaching—small fingers stretching—toward a thick, dusty tome on the fifth shelf of his expansive bookcase, completely unaware of her dangerous balancing act. Scattered at her feet were various other books and paper, their bindings spread wide open pages of complex formulas and tightly packed script bared for the world to see.
“What—” Dolohov’s instincts kicked in, cutting off his own words. Even as the girls head spun round at the noise, and she lost her footing. The chair twisted with her movement and losing its fight with gravity. He lunged forward just as the chair crashed to the floor, catching the child in his outstretched arms as she tumbled with a startled squeak.
An expletive slipped from his lips even as his hands frantically ran from head to waist to check her for injury’s more to reassure himself than her before setting her gently on her feet.
She looked up at him with wide, curious eyes, completely unfazed by her near accident. A small smile broke across her face. “Oh good, you’re awake! I’ve so m’ny quest’ons,” she said, her voice light and musical with a clear slight lisp caused by a missing tooth on her front upper teeth. Dolohov stared at her, his brain struggling to reconcile the incongruity of her presence.
“You’re not the only one” he mutters staring as the girl gave an annoyed little huff and demanded. “I as’ed first” still trying to wrap his brain around a child being in his home he simply gave a half-hearted nod as her annoyance quickly gave way to excitement and she spun round and scampered over to one of the books on the floor.
Lifting one of the admittedly smaller book than most that lay on the floor she spun back round stating,“ So this says magicians can make birds appear but I’ve t’ied that and all I keep getting is paper look” and the little girl sticks out her hand palm up at an empty glass and calls out “ Avss” and suddenly the glass explodes into a flurry of empty sheets of paper and some weirdly folded pieces that looked like half formed cranes. Dolohov blinks dumfounded.
“What-“ he cuts himself of again not entirely sure whatever he was even planning to say.
“You see their not birds” she announced as if that was the most problematic part of this whole scenario. Drawn in by the weird comment Dolohov can’t help the Ravenclaw part of his brain throwing out an equally useless answer about bad pronunciation in a form of verbal diarrheal “Its cos you missed the I and hissed the S” as his mind try’s valiantly to reconvene what the hell is going on. Eventually settling on a chaotic mix of logic and disbelief. He had no recollection of how she might’ve gotten into his home, nor any plausible reason why she would be here.
Who are you?” he asked, his voice rough, torn between confusion and a lingering headache. “And why are you in my home?”
The girl glanced up from where she was frowning at one of the paper cranes and smiled up at him brightly, clearly not bothered by his bewilderment. “I’m Hermione,” she replied simply, brushing imaginary dust from her pretty black dress and smoothing the white cardigan over her small shoulders. “You have a lots of books. Some of the words in them are really big and weird like O-s-li-u-bus” she sounds out peering up at him curiously.
His mind raced, subtly glad she hadn’t attempted that spell as him mind supplied a horrifying image of his own body being turned inside out. Swallowing and trying desperately to quell the rising panic he knelt down, sliding the book out of her hold as his mind grasped at the frayed edges of his composure. “Hermione,” he repeated, his own voice sounding rather hollow even as he hoped the repetition might offer clarity. “How did you get here?”
Hermione shrugged, a gesture of innocent nonchalance. “The lady said she was gonna take me away, but I didn’t wanna go, then there was lots of yelling and pretty lights and you pick’d me up and we were here, and you wanted to sleep.”
Dolohov pinched the bridge of his nose, the echoes of the hangover still waging war against his attempts to think clearly. The implications of him apparently kidnapping a young child out of Merlin knows where were staggering, each scenario that popped into his head more alarming than the last. He had no experience with children, much less unexpected ones appearing in his personal refuge.
“Right,” he said, more to himself than to Hermione. “We’ll figure this out.”
Heaving a sigh, Antonin glanced at the scattered books, then back at the precocious child who seemed to be quite at home in his home with his library. For now, amidst the disorienting haze of the morning, he was left with only one certainty: this puzzle would demand answers—and soon.