Under the Unlucky Star

Under the Unlucky Star

*

Chapter Two:

The Bad News

*

"Good morning, Harry," Moony greeted the little boy as he sneaked into the kitchen. "Slept well?"

"Yes, Si-Moonie," the boy replied hesitantly. He could hardly believe that the man could really care whether or not he'd slept well, or that anybody could ever care about him at all. This was all so new to him, new and fascinating, that the little boy found himself wary.

Now, however, he was at least not afraid. He couldn't be, not in the homey little kitchen of Moony's house. Bright sunlight washed the freshly cleaned tables through the open windows, and the scent of various herbs hung in the air. The only one Harry could tell apart from the general scent was that of chamomile.

As soon as he was seated in front of the table he was given a big plate full of hot porridge. The boy's bright emerald eyes widened behind his worn-out glasses. He was used to have some burnt toast for breakfast, if even that. And now he had a plate of porridge -- all to himself?

At first, he was understandably hesitant to eat, but as Moony continued to smile at him encouragingly, he finally decided to give it a try. After all, if somebody was going to come and take his food away, he could at least eat some of it before that. However, by the time his plate was empty, nobody had come to take his food. And from the warm sparkle in Moony's eyes he realized that nobody would do that, either. Ever.

Harry watched in fascination as a brown owl flew inside and right to Moony. The man gave it something that looked like a small coin, but was like nothing Harry'd seen before. The owl accepted the coin, letting him put it into the small bag on its leg, then dropped the newspaper it'd been holding in its claws to the table and took off through the window.

"Wha-" he started, but then quickly shut his mouth. After all, children were not allowed to ask anything.

"Yes, Harry?" Moony raised his eyes to him from the newspaper, which he'd just started to examine. "What is it? Ask away, little one."

"Well..." At first, Harry again hesitated, then asked quickly, "What is that owl? Why'd it bring you that?"

To his great relief, the man didn't look mad at him for asking questions. Instead, his gentle smile became even broader. "Oh, this is the magical equivalent of the usual post," he said cheerfully. "The owl merely brought me today's newspaper, because I've ordered the Daily Prophet."

"The Daily -- what?" demanded Harry, his eyes very wide. He'd never heard of that before!

"The Daily Prophet," repeated Moony patiently. "It's a Wizarding newspaper." As Harry still looked like he hadn't understood the owl post thing completely, he said, "Look, I'll explain you some day, okay? But not now. Do you want more porridge, or do you want to play with your new toys while I read the newspaper? They're in the toy chest in your room."

Harry's smile got very wide. Indeed, this seemed to be becoming his best day ever, even better than the previous one.

*

"What do you mean you don't know where he is?"

Vernon Dursley cowered as he had to face the fuming Albus Dumbledore who was standing in the living room of the Dursleys. "We don't know where the boy is, because he disappeared yesterday! He was playing in the garden, and when we went to look for him, he was nowhere to be seen!"

"Playing in the garden?" exclaimed Dumbledore. "You let a four-year-old boy play all on himself in the garden, not worried that he might wander off on his own, or -- or run under a car!"

"He never leaves the yard," said Petunia Dursley with a very small voice. "He doesn't dare to."

"What do you mean, doesn't dare to?" raged the ancient wizard. "Has something happened to him, then, when he's left the garden before?"

"Yup," said a quiet, almost frightened voice from the doorway. As Dumbledore glanced there, he saw a tiny boy standing there. Well, not exactly so tiny -- he couldn't have been more than four years old, but he was still fat like a well-fed pig. "If he leaves the garden, he'll be locked into his cupboard."

"DUDLEY!" bellowed Vernon, scaring his son. He'd almost never been mad at his son before. "Haven't I told you often enough NOT to talk about that?"

"Well, I tell him to talk about it," the Headmaster said coolly. "Dudley, will you show me where Harry sleeps?" he then asked, ignoring the adult Muggles' horrified expression. The boy reluctantly obeyed, and, to his immense horror, led him to a cupboard under the stairs.

"There's not anything inside," the boy informed him. "Harry took all his toys with him."

At this, Dumbledore raised his eyebrow, disbelieving. "All of his toys?" he echoed. "I hardly think that is possible, a four-year-old cannot carry a big load."

"A car, a ball, and a bear," snorted Dudley, although he was unable to hide the slight hint of fear in his voice. An infuriated Albus Dumbledore scared people much more brave than he. "That's not too much."

"The boy doesn't have more than three toys?" asked the Headmaster sharply. "How's that possible? I saw piles of toys on the front yard before I entered this wretched house!"

"Those are Dudley's toys," Vernon dared to speak up. "The freak's not allowed to play with them."

"The freak?" echoed Dumbledore. "Did I just hear you call an innocent child a FREAK? Vernon Dursley, your life is currently in very slim hangings!" Shooting them a furious glare, enraged but knowing that Harry could not be found there, he stormed away. He didn't leave, however, before shouting, "And expect to soon have Aurors on your doorstep for neglect!"

Once outside, Dumbledore sighed. It was obvious that Harry could not be found by Muggle means. So, in order to find out whether some wizard or witch had taken Harry, in which case they'd definitely used charms to keep anybody from noticing himself, he tried to find a magical trace nearby.

Soon enough, he indeed found one. This, of course, made him alarmed. The blood's protection should have kept anybody with malicious intentions away from Harry. However, after seeing how the poor boy had been treated, he had begun to doubt how much it was worth. If some Death Eater had found Harry...

Trying to push his worries away, Dumbledore followed the day-old magical trace to a nearby park. For some reason, notice-me-not charms did not affect children as well as adults. Dumbledore suspected that this somehow involved the fact that children viewed the world very differently from the way adults did. Therefore, his next action was to soon pick the picture of Harry he'd got from Arabella from his pocket and going to the children who were playing nearby.

"Hey, little ones," he said gently, knowing that they would notice him, even if the adults didn't. "Were you here yesterday?" As most of them nodded enthusiastically, he showed them Harry's picture. "When you were playing, did you happen to see this boy anywhere nearby?" he asked hopefully.

"I saw him!" piped up a girl, about seven years of age. "He was walking with some funny man!"

"Funny man?" echoed the Headmaster curiously. "Is that what you saw?"

"Yes, a funny man!" the girl repeated. "He was wearing a dress, and a rope as a belt!" She giggled.

"And what did this funny man look like?" he asked. "What colour were his eyes? What about his hair?"

"He had light brown hair and weird eyes," answered the girl. "They were weird because they were golden -- like some wolf's, or something. And I think they glowed!" A bit younger girl on her side nodded in confirmation, giggling as the elder girl mentioned the glowing.

Dumbledore sighed, knowing very well who was the only person who fit the description and probably knew where Harry was. 'Remus,' he thought to himself. 'Oh, Remus, what have you done now?' Searching his pockets for some sweets, he indeed found a few handfuls of Muggle sweets, and with them, bid his goodbyes to the children. As they all went back to their games, all laughing and wondering about this weird man's questions, he stood on his place, deep in thought.

For a moment, he considered Apparating to the werewolf's house. Then, however, he decided against it.

He'd been wrong about the boy before when he'd supported giving the boy to the Dursleys. He knew that Remus had offered to look after Harry immediately as the Potters had died. Of course, that couldn't have happened -- the Ministry would have never let a werewolf take care of the Boy Who Lived. Remus had tried to claim that somebody else could look after the child during full moons, which was of course a perfectly sensible argument, but then the Ministry had claimed that as he had hard time to keep any job he managed to get, he couldn't support a child. This was a lie as well; even though Sirius was now imprisoned, Remus could very well use his money as he pleased, the Animagus had taken care of that. The werewolf, of course, could never have used it on himself, but Albus suspected he'd feel no remorse about spending some or even all of the money on the poor orphan Harry. However, when even Albus himself had supported the Ministry's opinion, Remus had given up, knowing that he could not win.

Now, however, it was an opportunity for Albus to fix his past mistakes. He would not go to search for Remus, even though he knew he'd found Harry as well. The most time he could give them would be to the next day, and then, he could delay the Aurors' visit to the werewolf to give them some time to leave after the newspapers had announced the news.

He could only hope that Remus could keep Harry away from the Aurors, as then he'd for sure been sent back to that nightmarous place known as Number Four, Privet Drive.

*

Meanwhile, Harry was having the time of his life. He had played in the small garden of Moony's cottage, arranged his new toys into the shelves and the toy chest at least a dozen times -- he'd been taught to tidy up after himself -- and especially been with Moony. The sensation was new to him -- at last an adult really cared about him, not thinking that he was just waste of time. And when the evening was turning dark, he was sitting in Moony's lap in front of the crackling fireplace, and the man's calm, gentle voice reading an ages old fairytale washed all worries out of his mind, Harry wished that moment to go on forever.

Unfortunately, sometimes not even the most innocent of wishes are fulfilled. Therefore, he eventually drifted off, oblivious to the arms that carried him to his little bed, or to the little goodnight kiss that was pressed on his forehead. He did, however, indeed press his cheek against the hand that caressed it.

For once, Harry could sleep happily.

*

The next day Harry woke up in a warm and comfortable bed. Unlike the morning before, this time he could actually believe it true. Yawning, the boy slipped off the bed and changed his pyjamas into proper clothes -- clothes that actually fitted him, even, not only somebody else's overlarge hand-me-downs. Still barefooted, he slowly made his way to the kitchen.

When he came to the kitchen, he was surprised by the sight he met there. Moony stared at something in the newspaper, his eyes wide. Harry rubbed his eyes, wondering what had got Moony so shocked.

Suddenly, the man jumped up. "Harry," he said hastily, "we have to leave. I'm the first one they'll ask about it, it's a wonder they haven't come here already..."

If Harry'd previously been confused, now he certainly was. What on Earth was Moony talking about? Why they had to leave? And why did Moony seem so upset? Maybe -- maybe he was upset at Harry?

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry if I've done bad." His wide eyes were concentrating on the man, and he bit his lower lip.

"No, Harry," Moony said, taking immediately a softer tone. "You've done nothing wrong. All things just haven't gone as I'd planned." He frowned slightly, then added, "Eat your breakfast in peace, little one. I'll pack our things up, and then we'll leave." With this, he gestured towards the plate of delicious-smelling porridge and the glass of milk on the table on Harry's place.

"Leave?" asked Harry quietly as he sat down to the chair. "Where do we leave?" Moony had told him not to be afraid to ask anything, but he still couldn't be help but be frightened. All his life, he'd been told not to ask anything. All of the life he knew of, anyway.

"Somewhere," Moony replied carelessly. "Anywhere, actually. We'll come back once this mess is over."

"What mess?" Harry demanded, but instead of an immediate answer, he only got a hand ruffling his hair.

"Nothing that's your fault, Harry, that much I can tell you," the man said reassuringly. "Now, eat. I'll come to pick you up after some time."

So, Harry continued to eat, trying to make himself think of this as some kind of an adventure. And after they were done with their adventure, they would return to the little cottage, wouldn't they?

Little did Harry know that he would never come back to the house after he left it that day.

*

Far, far away, on a lonely island in the middle of an icy and stormy sea, stood a mighty stone fortress. In one of the small cells in the dungeons of the fortress, a ragged man was clutching on a newspaper. His grey eyes were so dark that they were almost black, his beard was an untidy stubble, and his black hair hang on greasy tangles down to his shoulders. He didn't seem to be interested in his haughty appearance any more than he was in his tattered robes. Instead, his eyes were feverishly scanning the article.

"I must find him," he muttered to himself. "He's missing, they don't know where he is. I must find him..."

*End Chapter Two*