"No," he said, his voice dripping with cruel condescension. "I said I would consider giving it back to you. And I have considered... and decided against it. Goodnight, Potter." With that, the man walked out the door. Flabbergasted, Harry just stood there, then made a rush for the door only to find there was no handle with which to open it.
"How the bloody hell- That slimy, greasy, lügen, diebstahl, Bastard. Ich töte ihn!" he raged at the door.
"Mr. Potter..." came a deep voice from behind him.
Harry turned around to see the pretty woman still standing where he had left her. Only now she was joined by an older, much larger man with a no-nonsense face that rivaled his previous warden's. Though he wasn't wearing what Harry normally associated with guards, there was a hardy blandness about his robes that reminded him of security guards. In one hand he held a clipboard, and in the other a wand.
"... I trust we won't be having anymore trouble out of you, eh lad?"
The only thing Harry could do was nod meekly, and follow the pretty woman deeper into the mansion.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Severus Snape returned to his private quarters in Hogwarts just after one o'clock. He went immediately to his liquor cabinet and selected the strongest bottle of brandy he had. In thirty minutes, he had shed his robes and was nursing his third glass in his favorite chair. His thoughts twisted about, finding paths to old memories he had thought forgotten. Memories of less complicated days, when enemies meant fist fights and jibes, and his greatest responsibility was to pass his NEWTs. Nostalgia was strange company for someone like him, and memories of his childhood nemesis and crush were particularly unexpected.
He had heard about their deaths of course. Albus had mad a vague reference to it. Murdered by a muggle. Ironic. Sad. Vaguely pathetic. He had not thought about it much then. He hadn't seen or heard from the Potters in seven years, when- in a rather unGryffindorish act- they had fled Britain and the fight.
He had completely forgotten that they'd had a child.
Forgotten about it until he came face to face with the incarnation of them. James's, the plebeian narcissist, shaggy hair and stubborn mouth and Lily's eyes, so brilliant they should have glowed in the dark. It had been... painful? to see those forgotten features in living form, no longer a past idea, but something that thought and spoke and felt. He had almost forgotten that James and Lily had been actual people.
He wished he didn't remember.
He wished for purely selfish reasons, that whatever cruel bit of fate had thrown Harry Potter right back into the twisted hands his parents had fled the country from had never occurred. And knowing that wish was now utterly futile, he wished that he never saw the boy again. Yet even as he repeated that wish over and over in his head, his hand rested on the stolen sketchbook, twitching every so often as if to fight the urge to open it.
The next three hours were likely the most uncomfortable hours of Harry's short life. From the lobby, he was taken straight to a white tiled room lined with showers. While the pretty woman, who told him to call her 'Edith', waited outside, the large man, referred to as Mr. Mufflin, stood guard at the door and informed him in a tone the brooked no disobedience, exactly what he was to do. Reluctantly, Harry stripped off his ragged clothes and showered, scrubbing every nook and cranny until the man was satisfied.
Once he was done showering and thoroughly mortified, Mr. Mufflin flicked his wand about and muttered something, and Harry suddenly found himself dry. Another wand flick and mutter, and some clothes appeared at Harry's feet. They were only a pair of draw string shorts and shirt that had to be tied close, in identical pale blue. No socks or underwear appeared. He dressed quickly. The moment he tied his shirt close, the name 'Harold' suddenly appeared in dark blue stitching over his left breast.
From there, he was taken to another room that vaguely resembled a doctor's office. Only instead of cotton swabs and stethoscopes, there were shelves crammed with phials of different colored liquids and eye balls in jars that seemed to be moving. He sat on a stool as the boniest man he had ever seen hovered around him, holding up one of said eyeballs to his face and looking him over. Every so often he 'hhhmmm...' and gave him a phial to drink (he quickly came to dread that 'hhhmmm...') and scribbled something down. Finally, after what seemed like hours and twenty phials of liquified 'ick', Edith and Mr. Mufflin escorted him down a long corridor to a door the same pale blue as his clothes.
"Now, Harry," Edith said, crouching down so she could look him in the eye, "I know this must be very confusing and frightening for you, but I don't want you to worry. We'll make sure nothing bad happens to you. You trust me, don't you, Harry?"
Frankly, he didn't. He didn't know how she could expect him to trust anyone who participated in child abduction. Although, she did appear as if she was more experienced with children much younger and more gullible than him. In any event, he was tired and still embarrassed from the shower fiasco and just wanted to be left alone for a while, so he nodded.
"I'm glad. Now, I know you're probably very tired, so we're going to take you to the boy's dormitory. The others are sleeping right now, but we'll be sure to introduce you in the morning, okey-dokey?"
He nodded... or twitched. He wasn't entirely sure.
They opened the door, and from the light filtering in from the corridor, Harry could make out eight small bed in two columns along each wall. Seven of them had little bodies in them, and as they walked quietly towards the one empty bed, Harry could see they were little boys between the ages of five and eight.
Something painful clenched in his heart as he stared at their peaceful cherubic faces, thinking of the mothers and fathers who must be out there worrying and crying over each stolen child. In a soft whisper, Edith performed a spell on his newly assigned bed, and it grew in height and length.
Depressed and suddenly fearful of his future, he slowly crawled into the bed. He did not think sleep would be possible after his intoxicating, frightening, frustrating thrust into a world where magic was a common as sixpence. However, there must have been a spell on the bed, because as soon his head touched the pillow the world went dark, and he felt himself sink into a warm, quiet place.
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The seven beds were empty when Harry woke the next morning. He blinked owlishly, his vision blurry without his glasses, and sat up. After a bit of floundering, he found his glasses sitting on a night stand that hadn't been there the night before and got a good look around. Sunlight filtered in through the two large windows that stretch almost floor to ceiling, through which he could see a peaceful countryside he knew could not possible exist since he knew WYRA was in a city. Each bed had an old-fashioned style gold bar head and foot boards with identical sets of dark blue and gold sheets, and a blue trunk with gold fastenings at the foot of the bed. If he looked closely he could just make out name plates on the trunk. Aside from that, only the colorful crayon drawings at the head of each bed differentiated them.
The rest of the room was decorated in creams, golds, and blues, from the furniture to the fixtures. A short shelf and an open toy chest revealed collection of children's toys, coloring books, and puzzles. A grandfather clock beside the door read seven ten. There was another smaller door across the room, that he assumed was either the bathroom or a closet.
It was a rather depressing realization that this pseudo-orphanage was a lot nicer than his sad little room at the Dursley's or of any non-wizarding orphanage he had ever heard of. It was also a bit depressing to realize he had been placed in a nursery. Sighing, he climbed out of the bed intent on doing some exploration.
Something grabbed his ankles.
"GAH!"
Harry immediately jumped back into the bed. A loud burst of giggles emanated from beneath him. Curious, he stuck his head under the bed to find seven impish faces grinning back at him. Somehow, all seven of his new dorm mates had squeezed underneath his bed to wait for him to wake up. He rather admired their resolve.
"Well, good morning to you too," he said. The boys all giggled and pulled themselves out of their hiding spot.
"We got you good!" said freckle-faced boy. "You yelled really loud!"
A blonde child with a cut on his nose, mimicked him by shouting out a 'gah' and jumping onto the bed next to him. That brought another round of giggles, and even Harry managed to crack a smile.
"Your name's Harold, ya?" the oldest boy of the lot asked. "That's what it says on your trunk."
Harry stood up and walked around the end of the bed. Sure enough, he had a trunk with the name 'Harold' engraved on the name plate. Where did these people get these things? Surely there weren't spells for every little thing, right? He looked at the other boys, who were now all crowding to sit on his bed and looking at him eagerly.
"Call me Harry."
"Just like me!" said the blond boy. "My trunk says 'William', but it's really Billy. No one but the nurses call me 'William'."
"Yeah, the nurses are weird like that," piped in another of the older boys. "My name's Nat, even though everything here says I'm 'Nathaniel'. Blah."
"So..." Harry said, pointing to the two boys. "Billy and Nat. And the rest of you lot?"
"Edgar!" called one the smallest boy, his smile missing half his teeth.
"Brandon!"
"Norton!"