The Lost and Found

The boy sat in the playground, high up on the hill. Forest surrounded him on two sides of the triangle, the sky looming over in orange and dusky shades. He rocked back and forth on the swing, little feet clad in dirty socks, shoes abandoned somewhere entirely else. The park was empty. Not even the gangs of delinquents from the town below would come up here on Halloween, not when the matriarchs of the settlement would knock them a blow to the head and warn them to stay off Pendle Hill. There would be the idiots who thought they were witches, of course, his gran had warned him about them, but she was off gathering herbs on the edge of the forest. Crushed cans of Tennents and fat bottles of cheap white cider were piled around the playground, though, little cairns of plastic and metal, Muggle totems.

The boy wasn't alone in the park any more. The gate swung open, all of its own accord, and even the wind up on the hillside wasn't enough to push it. The boy knew that he wasn't alone with the same instinct he knew that felwort was in season, the same way he knew that it would be the last growth of dog-rose and sweet-briar that his grandmother would store and dry. Gran wouldn't be pleased to see the invisible visitor, of course, she never was, so he waved in the direction of the gate, and ran over to the head that had suddenly appeared.

"Muddy!" shouted the little boy, a pet name for his godfather, and the grizzled head beamed a broad smile, now joined by its body. The man swept the boy off his feet and swung him around in the air.

"Ah, there's my lad!" he exclaimed, through a mouth missing several teeth and a chunk of lip.

"Oh, Muddy, I'm so happy you're back! Gran's been in a horrid mood since you went abroad."

"Really, lad? You didn't tell her about-"

"About the present? Oh, no, Muddy. I don't think she'd ever want me using one of them."

The man frowned, the deep lines in his face turning in to crevasses, as deep as the Lancaster limestone all around them.

"Now, lad, let's not have talk of that sort here. You're as much right to it as your gran and your parents. But look, I've brought you back a treat from America," and the man produced a brown paper bag from one of the pockets of his robes. The boy took it in his little hands and peered inside. "What is it, Muddy?"

"It's a bit of hoodoo I was taught to make over there. There are people like us there, y'see, they make 'em to keep bad spirits off. Thought you might like it to hang over your bed, see, keep the bad dreams you said you were having away."

The gift was a little hoop of wood, with a spider's web caught firm in the middle, coated with dew. The boy ran a chubby finger over it, feeling the strands as stiff as copper wire.

"Now, say 'thank you, Muddy', and we'll go sit on the swings and have a little talk, shall we?"

The boy nodded, and thanked his godfather, before taking two fingers, soft as kid leather, in one of his little hands, and leading the old man off to the swings. The old Auror hobbled after him. His leg might still remain in the chains of an old donjon with a Pureblood family from years ago, but he could move as fast as any man with his peg-leg. The boy had always been as fascinated with it as any child; it gave him impressions of being with a pirate, or an old spy, which would be hardly have been far from the truth. They sat on the swing, and Moody rocked them back and forth, the boy a heavy weight in his lap, even at his age, but eminently comfortable.

"Swing higher, Muddy!" shouted the boy, and the Auror pushed hard against the gravel beneath the swing, and they swung high in to the starlit sky. Each of them had been amongst the clouds before; the man on his own broom, the boy on those of his relatives, but the swing gave them a sensation of weightlessness that neither of them had felt before, just at the top of the swing before they dropped back to the ground once more, and then up, and down, as one body, as one mind.

The silence was broken by the shout of a woman.

"What are you doing? Neville, get away from him!"

The voice was a woman's voice, elderly, but strong. Moody hit his foot and his peg-leg hard against the ground, clutching Neville in one arm and holding the chains of the swing with the other. He lurched upright with the force of the swing, staring towards the gate, where an elderly woman stood.

"Jennet!" called the Auror, whilst the boy ran towards his grandmother.

"Oooh, don't you call out to me by my name, Moody. I told you and your lot to let my grandson be, and you'll respect my wishes or never gain him and his talents."

The boy stood between the two of them, sucking his thumb as if he hadn't a care in the world.

"Neville, my boy, you get away from that man and come to your grandmother. I've collected all the things I need, so we can go home now."

The boy stood still, looking back and forth at the man and the woman.

"Neville, I won't warn you a second time. You come home with me. Your Great-Uncle Algie's bringing his family round, and they'll want to start the celebrations early, no doubt."

The boy still didn't move, instead gazing at his godfather, who nodded, slowly.

"You go to your grandmother, lad. She'll see you right, but remember what I told you." The last bit was said in an undertone, too low for the woman to hear. Then Moody nodded to Mrs Longbottom. "Jennet. My regards to the family." And with that, he swirled the Cloak over his head, and disappeared once more, leaving Neville and his grandmother alone on the hillside.