One Bear Clapping

The waiting room has whitewashed walls, white curtains and iron bars in front of the window. She's sitting on one of the long hardwood benches lining the room and flicking lazily through a pamphlet taken from one of the small tables: She's not really reading. Her son is sleeping with his head in her lap. In two weeks he will be fifteen months old. She picks away some invisible lint from his green sweater.

The test they are waiting should have been done on his first birthday. Since they have been travelling quite a bit and might have to do so again, she's taking him now, just to be sure she can curb and direct any magical talents of his. That is if, or when they start to show for real. No one doubts that it's a when in her son's case. Her friends told her that it used to be a mere nuisance when children started to show off those talents in places they shouldn't. They told her stories of childish pranks, embarrassed parents and fines from the Ministry.

Today, that isn't the main issue. Today, your life could depend on your ability to hide.

At first the notion that they had to restrain their own child's natural abilities seemed horrible. But since she never was a child in this world, others who were, assured her that it was necessary. She protested and said that she never needed such things but her husband just laughed and told her that she most certainly had been warded. He told her about the Ministry's Child-Ward Department watching over wizards growing up in muggle families, searching for potential talent emerging all the way from birth to school. Whether it was their wards the Ministry protected with spells and charms or their world didn't really matter, since it all amounted to the same thing anyway.

She remembers her husband asking, "How do you think they knew about you? How did you think they decided who should receive the letters?"

"By magic," she said, a little uncertainly, after a long pause.

"Well, it was that too," he said, laughed and kissed her.

She had never really thought about it. It was the easiest thing she'd ever done. She often felt it had been too easy. It wasn't strange or frightening. It was as it should be. Nothing more. The strangest thing to grasp was the easy way her parents accepted it. They acted like it was the most natural thing in the world. It was, for her, but it shouldn't have been for them. God, she missed them.

The door to the waiting room opens. Another woman, tall, blonde, wearing blue robes, peeks inside and walks in followed by a little boy holding her hand in a tight grip. He's very small, but since he's already walking the mother thinks he must be at least her son's age.

Like his father, her own son has quite dark hair, but the newcomer has a halo of blonde locks and tiny velvet robes in dark midnight blue, too expensive and precious clothing for such a small child. They make him look even smaller and more angelic. Like a little angel doll, she thinks.

If you don't look at his face. He's not pleased to be there and it shows. The mother almost starts laughing at the defiant scowl he displays. If the wind turns, the bell tolls and the rooster crows you'll end up looking like that, her own mother always said. She didn't believe her. She should have. Now she knows that old sayings like that can be true, and if the circumstances are right, they almost always are.

She nods at the woman and suddenly looks up at her, startled.

"Marjorie Rutherford, I didn't recognize you at first," she says and holds out her hand. Marjorie looks a little confused, staring at her, like she had seen a ghost. She says her own name thinking that surely Marjorie hadn't forgotten her; it hadn't been that many years ago since they'd quit school after spending seven years together. Even if they hadn't been in the same house, Marjorie couldn't have forgotten, could she?

Marjorie remembers. She takes her hand, and gives her a little uncertain smile, and then she helps the boy up on the bench and sits down. The smile just flickers over her face. She still looks like she was running from something.

"Don't worry," the mother says, "this place is warded more tightly than Gringott's. As it should be. These are troubled times."

"Indeed. But, surely, not even they would go after children," the woman called Marjorie almost whispers. The mother just shakes her head and changes the subject. These are not things you like to think about, or discuss openly.

"I didn't know you had a child," she asks Marjorie.

"Not mine. I'm just the nanny." Marjorie doesn't tell who she works for and the mother doesn't ask. Marjorie has changed, but not for the best. She used to be so cheerful; her booming laughter often made people sitting at the other tables in the Great Hall turn their heads and smile. She was as tall and strong as most of the boys; now her shoulders are hunched. She looks tired and almost fragile. The long blonde hair that always hung in a thick plait down to the small off her back looks dry and brittle.

"But that is your boy, I gather," Marjorie gives her a smile that for the first time reaches her eyes too. The mother nods proudly and runs her fingers through his hair.

"Looks just like his father, doesn't he?" Marjorie says. The boy wakes up and crawls onto his mother's lap. Hugging her, hard. He's become more and more clingy in the last months, why, she doesn't know. Not that it matters. If he feels safe hugging her, or his father, it's all she could ask for. The small arms around her neck almost choke her. She pries them loose and gives him a kiss on the tip of his nose. He grins, showing all the teeth he was born with, and hugs her again.

The other little boy is still scowling. He kicks his nanny's leg and pulls at her robes.

She picks him up and puts him in a playpen in the corner, the only thing in the white room showing that this is a place were people bring their small children.

"Play nice with the toys now," Marjorie says and wiggles her finger at him, "don't break anything." The boy gives her a toothy sunny smile. She takes out a little toy wand from her pocket and the boy eagerly reaches for it. A mobile with running unicorns hanging over the pen immediately starts to spin.

The dark haired child suddenly discovers that there is another child in the room and starts tugging at his mother, to let him down on the floor. She doesn't want him to fall on the stones so she carries him to the pen and puts him down. He looks delighted. She sighs. It worries her that he seldom gets to meet other children. But it won't be forever, she thinks, hopefully he will grow up surrounded by siblings and friends. Safe. This war will be over and we can forget and go on living as we are supposed to. Whatever that is.

Once it seemed like a fairy tale come true.

But in this one the "And then they lived happily ever after" ending somehow passed us by, she muses. Maybe it is irresponsible to have children when you can't promise them even tomorrow. Her mother called the children a blessing, a hope for the future. She hopes they are.

She turns back to the bench and starts to talk with Marjorie who isn't that forthcoming. She looks frightened and unhappy. Her mouth has a bitter twist and she fidgets nervously in her seat.

"So what did you do after school, Marjorie? I thought you were going to France to play Quidditch?" she asks and puts a hand on her arm. Marjorie flinches, like the kind touch had burnt her. Marjorie had been the star of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team for five years and back then she had no doubts about the path she wanted her life to take. War or no war, the games were one of the few consistent things in a turbulent world. People couldn't believe they would be attacked at a game. When they had the Ministry had suggested withholding the games for a while. A very unpopular suggestion, in general.

She looks over at the two boys in the pen and smiles at the sudden sound of her son's laughter.

"I had offers, but I couldn't travel. My mother is not well. And when we lost the shop..." Marjorie sighs.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that."

"I'm good with children too. One summer I babysat Minister Muffley's children. And after that I got this job offer and decided to take it. My parents are old, they shouldn't have to worry about me." Her voice is toneless as if she has repeated the same story over and over.

She opens her mouth to say something comforting but is interrupted by high-pitched screams from the pen. They both run up to the boys.

Her son's pants are on fire. He stands up in the pen, screaming in anger. The other boy screams as well. His cheeks are red and he's just as angry as her son, but he's laying flat on his stomach on the mat, kicking frantically and waving his wand at the big brown teddy bear that's repeatedly hitting him over the head. It's floating in the air. Her son doesn't hold it, but there is no doubt he's doing it. She quickly puts out the fire. No harm done. She brushes some soot from his knee, happy that she put that heat-repelling spell on his clothes a couple of days ago when he tried to crawl into the fireplace to look for his godfather.

The nanny saves her ward from the violent bear with a flick from her wand and scolds him.

"Didn't your father tell you that you cannot set fire to things?" The boy nods, very subdued, tears running down his cheeks. "You know what happens to little children that plays with fire, don't you?" Marjorie continues. The little boy hangs his head, still sniffling.

Her son trembles in her arms, face hidden in her robes. If it's from fright or anger, she cannot tell. She's a little bit ashamed of her son's violent display, and hope she can get him to learn that hitting other children with or without magic isn't appropriate. But she cannot help feeling a little proud; since this is the first time he's showed such coordinated magical abilities. The most he's done before is making a pair of shoes he didn't like float above her head, out of reach. Some things were certainly easier when you lived in the other world. Her sour-faced sister at least doesn't have to worry that her son would make the furniture float around or animate his toys.

"A right and proper little wizard you've got there," Marjorie says.

"So do you," she smiles, "and think that they can't even talk yet."

"They seldom do before the age of two. But thank god he's not mine," she says. "He's a handful, that's for sure. Sweet when he wants to, but as you saw, not always. His bedroom has more fire wards than the ministerial archives right now. That's why we're here. His parents want me to control him. They spoil him rotten, and he'll be impossible when he grows up..." Marjorie stops in the middle of her litany, like she had said too much already.

Another door opens. A young man in red robes stands in the opening.

"Miss Burns will see you now." He nods curtly to the mother and turns to the other woman.

"Miss Rutherford, Mister Keats will be with you and young Mister Malfoy in a minute."

When she stands up, she turns to Marjorie to say goodbye.

"They are the same age, so they will most likely be in the same year at Hogwarts, right?" Marjorie says.

"If it still stands," she sighs, "I wish we could meet other children more often. But as it is..."

"It's just not safe, I know. But maybe things will change soon. It was nice to meet you."

"Bye Marjorie. And good luck."

"You too Lily. You too." Marjorie sighs and looks out the window.

The little boy with the blond hair points his wand at a stray pamphlet under the bench. It starts to burn with a small blue flame. The other boy sees it over his mother's shoulder as they walk out. The big teddy bear in the playpen starts to move its paws together, without a sound. The blond boy laughs.

The other boy laughs as well as he and his mother disappears behind the door.

When the nanny stomps out the fire, the bear is still clapping.