Misdeeds
The air was cold and biting and the small boy had nothing more than a thin blanket and a letter to shield him from the elements.
The boy was found in a basket under a dusting of snow. Cold to the touch and crying. There was an indent in the bedding and a small cat watched from the other side of the street as a thin, pale woman found the boy on her doorstep.
The same small cat watched as the boy was taken to a police station and then an orphanage. The letter was sent with him, nothing but ash in the first woman’s house.
Moving quickly through streets and back garden paths the cat made her way to a man dressed in swirling purple robes. Soon, in the cat’s place, there was a distinguished woman, leveling a sharp glare at the man.
“Albus, I can still take the boy. He’ll be safe with me, you know that.” The man just smiled down and shook his head. “Oh no Minerva. He’s right where he needs to be. A child raised in pain craves love. So when the time is right, Harry Potter will be… saved, and he will owe me his life. And my dear, you will leave him if you know what’s best for you.”
Minerva would not meet his eyes. She simply walked away.
Hadrian James Potter grew up as Hadrian Newley. Abandoned on an orphanage’s steps, neglected, and othered by the society around him.
Odd things happened as the baby grew older. Small cuts and bruises healing in seconds, clothes that seemed to grow with him, small chats with the garden snakes.
So so peculiar.
And all this was seen by the cat that wandered the streets and stayed just out of reach of grabbing hands.