Foundling
An abandoned house, Unknown
25th september 2003
My identity crisis is abruptly interrupted by a soft, hiccupping noise that gets ever louder, accompanied by increasingly more restless rustling and shifting, from behind me. Oddly, neither Neville nor Luna stirs. It’s as if they can’t hear all the alarming noises. But it’s loud!
Neville even asks wy I am worried.
“Can’t you hear it?” I demand, hating the fact that now even a demand sounds squeaky. I try to scramble to my feet and turn round to face the noise, meanwhile, albeit hampered by my now-oversized clothes and unfamiliar body.
Neville gives me a wry smile, even as Luna pokes my nose with a mittened finger.
“Won’t we tell you if we hear something, Harry?” she admonishes. “Hmm, I don’t know many children, but I’ve heard they sometimes have a… timeout? Shall we give you a timeout?”
My cheeks heat up quite so. “I’m not a child!” I squawk.
A mixture between a snort, a gulp and a hum from Neville’s direction alerts me that he is valiantly trying to stifle a snigger; if judging from my now-remembered newly heightened sense of hearing, that is.
But still.
Huffing, I shrug out of my dragonskin boots and gloves, tuck my now-oversized socks round my feet, roll the legs of my trousers so that they won’t be quite in the way, do the same to the long sleeves of the T-shirt I’ve been wearing under my dragonskin jacket, then scramble away from the said jacket while turning my back on my now softly sniggering friends. Thankfully, I’ve had more than ten years of wearing far-oversized clothing to be able to adjust the garments to my new specifications quickly; without fearing that they’ll fall off on me in inopportune moments, at that. And even more thankfully, my strength is returning, and my balance likewise, so hopefully I won’t embarrass myself further. My pride can’t take yet another hit!
And then, all thoughts of traitorous friends and bruised pride fly out of my mind, as my eyes land on the wriggling bundle in the corner.
It’s not as small as I thought it was; or maybe it’s not, now, in my… changed state. It’s not as big as something that might be an adult, though, which would be more than a little alarming. The leather and cloth wrappings look to have been done hastily, if securely, however long ago, and there are small dark stains splattered on the front that mirror those on the wall.
Whoever died to protect this bundle, they didn’t die peacefully, indeed, even though their death did buy this little one a chance to live.
I crawl towards the bundle, ignoring the cold sting on my bare hands and socked feet, not trusting my balance enough yet to walk, then help unwrap whoever trapped inside without negating the protection the cocoon gives them. (The joys of godfatherhood…. I got to take care of Teddy alongside Andy, down to the nitty-gritties, including how to wrap a baby for warmth without suffocating the latter.)
A light-blue face with a spattering of white markings – much lighter-hued and younger-looking than the person in the crystalline picture I found downstairs – is revealed when I’ve managed to shift enough fabric and leather away without unravelling the cocoon altogether, not at all helped by the struggling one being cocooned. Small, innocent eyes, if red and glowy, alike and yet quite unlike Voldemort’s, instantly focus on me.
And then frightened, heart-rending wails break the general silence in this abandoned, broken relic of a battle long gone, as the small being in the cocoon most likely realises that I am not the person they had been with last, before they got frozen in time.
My heart constricts painfully. – Was I like this, when Hagrid picked me up from the wreckage of my nursery? How did he calm me down? How can I calm down this no-doubt traumatised… baby? Toddler? Little child?…
I only have the song I associate with the cocoon and my cocoon-mate, which could always calm me down whenever I managed to recall it, however patchy the recollection usually was, but it’s only after a very, very tiring day or in a very, very deep meditation. Besides, Neville and Luna are here….
Well, Neville did expose that secret about his mum and her desperate Protego that nobody else seemed to have ever known, didn’t he? And Luna is always blunt, even about herself. So now’s my turn to uncover my deepest secret, isn’t it? It might benefit this poor little one as well, right? If I could summon it to the fore of my mind and let it out?
I snort inwardly. – So much reluctance, while I usually jump feet first, so to say, and when there’s a clear need to react fast, too….
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Then again, the song is never worded, isn’t it? It utilises the vibrations in the chest, and yet… not….
Sighing, I murmur sweet-nothings to the struggling, crying child instead: reassurances that I mean no harm to them. Only when the struggles have peter out some do I dare touch their assortment of wrappings, then their cheek (So cold! Why so cold?) and soft black hair.
By the time I manage to pick the bundle up and cradle it in my arms (So heavy! For so small a child…?), the unknown, tiny “blue angel,” who is maybe about one-and-a-half to two years if judging from the size of them, is no longer crying so much, thankfully. The tips of my unprotected fingers and not-so-protected toes have begun to pinch, though, which is quite alarming. I don’t bring any frostbite remedy and don’t know how to cure it with spells either!
With some awkward, ginger manoeuvring, given the size and heft of the seeming toddler in my arms and the new size and exhaustion of my own self, I clamber back to where I’ve left my dragonskin garments and carefully lay the bundle on the bit of unoccupied floor before me. I let an interested Luna and a cautious Neville have a peek at whom we’ve found in this sad place, while I stuff my hands and feet back into my now ridiculously oversized gloves and boots.
A wrong move, apparently. The moment my face vanishes and the faces of Neville and Luna come into view, the loud wails break out again.
And then, in the next instance, with nothing heard and smelled and sensed beforehand, a quartet of strangers suddenly materialise behind the three of us and restrain us by clasping our hands behind our backs, with the last one scooping up the wailing bundle from the floor before retreating a short distance away.
“Ah, poo,” Luna murmurs, and I’ve got the urge to laugh hysterically at her so-very-apt, calmly delivered remark.
Ah, poo, indeed! Why didn’t I think to put parameter wards round us as one of the failsafes before we came up here? Why didn’t Neville think of such, as a former Auror? And why didn’t I notice these strangers sneaking up on us, with all these heightened senses of mine?
The little one is wailing louder now, somehow, even though I can see them being cradled rather comfortably and un-hurting-ly in the last assailant’s arms.
Damn. I put them through this. I must rectify the problem myself.