The ballad of an orphaned lamb

Harry received many letters from those close to him,after he’d been handpicked by McGonagall to be the Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. First came a letter from Gavril, congratulating him on getting picked and telling him he’d be in for the hexing of a lifetime if he would choose to play for an English team and not a Romanian one. Harry had to hold his laughter reading his letter at breakfast a few mornings ago.

Then came a letter from Lena. Harry had forgotten the letter he wrote to her, and found inside her letter a descriptive, second-hand account of a man who tried to get rid of a strigoi who got attached to him, and how the entire village ended up being tormented for a year, until Porcara (Harry had no idea what the actual name of that witch was, as everyone just addressed her as the swineherdess) managed to grow a specific herb to facilitate a ritual to remove the strigoi. 

What I'm writing here is that you always saw the part of the ritual you wanted to, Harry, not all of it. You don’t get rid of evil easily. You must poison the wells and salt the earth to ensure it doesn’t come back. What your teacher is doing is probably warding off something dangerous, for everyone’s safety. Ask him. You're there to learn, aren't you?

However, Harry had soon forgotten about her words, her letter now laying forgotten somewhere in his trunk. He was enthralled by a photograph that Hagrid managed to obtain for him as a present for him getting into the team. It was a picture of his father, a few years older than him, dressed in his scarlet Quidditch uniform, identical to the uniform Harry had thrown on top of his trunk earlier that day.

His dad was grinning ear to ear, holding two other teammates tight by the shoulders. All of them, in fact, were laughing or smiling triumphantly, huddled on the same pitch Harry had practiced with Oliver Wood. He wondered if there were any details - Hagrid had said that he only managed to get that picture from some friends from school of his parents’, and he didn’t look that much before he gave it directly to Harry.

Harry turned the back of the picture, and noticed that there were some details. However, they seemed to have been magically removed, and badly so, as Harry could recognise that about two full lines of text were removed, leaving only ‘James,’ in the middle, and written close to the bottom of the back of the photograph, ‘1979’. He wished he knew if there was a spell to make it appear again, but couldn’t think of anything even remotely close, from the spells he’d learnt so far.

That didn’t make sense. His father looked about fifteen or so in the picture - and even then, surely he must have graduated by then. Harry did the math in his head, and furrowed his brows, confused. 

His father graduated a year before. 

He flipped the picture back and forth, trying to see if there wasn’t anything he remembered badly. No, he knew his parents’ birthdays. As he continued fiddling with it, Harry noticed a corner of the picture started to peel, revealing a burgundy object that was swaying lightly.

Whoever did the bad job on removing the handwriting did an even worse job on that Sticking Charm, because even a First Year like Harry, who struggled in his Charms class last week to remove the paper Flitwick stuck to the wall, managed to cast a successful Unsticking Charm.

After he watched the two photographs carefully separate themselves, Harry carefully removed the picture of the winning Gryffindor Team to look at something he had never seen before.

His parents’ wedding. The burgundy object he saw was a curtain swaying in the wind, next to his mum, smiling wide with a glass in her hand. She was dressed in white lace, holding his father by his arm and putting her head on his shoulder. His dad was once again smiling brightly at the camera, holding out a filled glass in front of him. Next to his dad, holding him by the arm as well, and laughing as he put his head on his shoulder as well, before his dad would jerk him away laughing, was someone Harry had never seen before.

He was a handsome man around his father’s age, a bit taller than both of his parents, with long black hair. While his dad appeared to carry himself in a carefree manner, Harry could notice a haughty look on the man’s face, and his movements, visible under his elegant robes, exuded an air of casual aristocracy. 

Over the next few days, what free time Harry did not spend on his Quidditch practice, he spent in the library, going not only over his own copy of The Standard Book of Spells, but those in more advanced years as well. Sometimes Ron would join him as well, as he had shown him the hidden photograph, with the wiped names, and the strange man that was next to his parents, who appeared utterly happy for them.

Was this man, who was at their wedding, still alive?

He tried asking Hagrid, but that only caused him more confusion. At first, he appeared flustered and denied it, then tried changing the subject, just like when Harry pointed out the Gringotts break-in, and then said he’d ask the person he got it from and tried to get the photo from Harry. However, Harry had no interest in parting with it.

The only First Year who spent as much time as him was Hermione Granger, the girl with the wild hair - and Harry couldn’t help but notice that she was only using the library to write enormous, about twice as long as requested, pieces of homework. On the other hand, Harry had to juggle his practice, his quest in finding out the man’s name, and his homework.

At one point, she’d asked him how come he was spending so much time in the library when his teachers, especially Snape, who kept commenting on how rushed and careless his homework appeared, and at some point even deducting one House point for ‘the hideous handwriting you subject me to, Potter. You are expected to write this with your glasses on, do you know that?’. He shot her a look as she passed his table in the common room, before shoving his head back in the mountain of books by his side, and waiting for Ron.

Harry would never have thought that only a few weeks later, he would be rushing with Ron to save Hermione. He didn’t even imagine he’d be having much more of a conversation beyond bitter pleasantries with Hermione. And as they sat down in the common room, all three looking scruffy, with their robes and hair in disarray from the troll incident, he couldn’t help but think back on those times they’d spent in different corners of the library, not talking to each other. 

“Aren’t you happy? You got points for the House!”

Harry raised his eyes from his plate, unable to eat much. He found it odd that no one else in the common room commented on their appearance, however he could hear the faint whispers about the dangers of trolls, and figured no one was interested in paying attention to some first years, right after having had a creature set loose in the school, and a professor faint in the Great Hall. 

“Just thinking…” Taking a bite of his steak pie, Harry chewed on it idly, shaking his head. Shoving his wand in a troll’s nose, that’s the best he could come up with. “You know, Ron, that was a great spell you used there.”

“Couldn’t have done it without the extra lesson this morning, you know. It’s all about the long gaaaar, did you know that? The person I got teamed up this morning taught me that.” Ron grinned from ear to ear, taking a bite out of his own pie. Harry put on a smile at that, sneaking a look around.

He wondered what each of the Gryffindors would have done, faced with the same situations as himself. He wondered what spells McGonagall would have used - surely she would have transfigured the troll into a porcelain doll. Snape would have probably done the same if it was a Slytherin instead of Hermione, however Harry had no issue picturing him turning his back and leaving. And Quirrell… well, Quirrell has already shown what he was capable of. 

At least when faced with the troll, Harry was thankful he didn’t faint. Indeed, he could still feel his heart beating in his throat from the encounter, but his Defense Against Dark Arts professor did nothing but show just how incapable he was. 

Harry stuck his hand in his pockets, laying against his chair. He felt something oddly shaped inside, and pulled out the birthday gift aunt Petunia had given him months ago.

“Hermione, you know things, right? Do you know what this is? Ron’s said it’s broken.”

“It sure is.” Hermione raised her wand, and touched the broken tip of the little plastic object. “It’s to put in your hair - well, for old ladies to put in their hair. It’s not very fashionable. Why?”

Thank you, aunt Petunia. Your kindness is truly immeasurable.

“My-  uh, I found it. I was curious what it was.” 

“Maybe it’s Professor McGonagall’s.” Hermione decreed.

Ron opened his mouth, however Harry could see him decide against it in the final moment, and  was thankful for it. He didn’t feel like explaining once again how his aunt, a Muggle, did not like him very much. He figured Ron could fill her in when he would be away anyway.

That night, Harry could not find sleep easily. He held his wand, now clean, in his hand, and looked at the others in his room sleeping soundly. Slowly, he raised himself up, and pointed his wand at his trunk.

Swish and flick. Swish and flick. And say the words. That was it.

The first few times, nothing but a light movement happened. Sometimes upwards, sometimes to the left or right. Yet the more he did it, the more he whispered under his breath, careful not to wake anyone up, the trunk gained more and more height, until, in an excess of zeal, he made the trunk rise so violently it hit the ceiling, landing with a loud thud.

In an instant, Harry jumped back under his sheets, as he heard other students grumble, waking up. He heard Dean ask what that was, Neville saying it must’ve been a nightmare, and right as they all described the exact sound Harry’s trunk made when it hit the ground. He had to cover his mouth and stop himself from wheezing with laughter, when Seamus sarcastically asked Neville if, by chance, they were all having a collective nightmare.

Right as they all went to sleep, Harry realized there was something else he could practice on. Slowly, he got the small, golden dragon he got on his birthday from its box, and watched it gain life as he ran one finger along its back. He watched it shake its head from its last remnants of sleep, and placed it on his palm. 

“Listen, Rhys.” He’d named it after the first Welsh Hogwarts Headmaster, and the dragon seemed to have recognised its name, as it lifted its head up. “I want to practice some spells. Just sit there, yeah?”

Propping himself up in bed, Harry fumbled for his wand, and started his practice again. As he made Rhys levitate higher and higher, in more and more fluid movements, until the little golden dragon curled into a ball as Harry lulled it to sleep in the air, he remembered being little, watching on as Lena would make his toys float above his eyes and enact stories. She would hold him propped against her arm, and narrate stories of princes and dragons, men with enchanted hats that would trap devils, or horses that would fly and speak with humans.

He would sometimes only watch the movement of her wand. The fluid movements, how sparks would fly out and suddenly the dragon plush he had would have three heads instead of one, and how it was now him, finally, holding the wand, making things fly.

And in a few weeks, it would be his turn to fly, in his first Quidditch match.