CHAPTER 23
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR. All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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Chapter 23 ~ Bara Arrives at Hogwarts
Traveling by port key was quite a frightening experience for Bara. Albus clutched the boy tightly in his arms as they flew through colorful wormholes, space twisting in upon itself, winds roaring by them, the wizard’s white locks streaming as Bara hid his face in his chest. It took over forty-five minutes for them to return to England, landing in front of the Hogwarts gates with a gut-wrenching drop. The moment Albus put the boy down, Bara bent over and wretched…nothing coming out. Then the boy staggered, Albus catching him before he fell. He lifted Bara into his arms and apparated directly to the infirmary, startling Poppy who had been putting away some supplies.
The medi-witch wiped her hands on her blue pocketed apron and quickly walked toward Albus, who headed for the closest bed, pushing through the black privacy curtain. Poppy entered after him and gasped as she looked at the emaciated young boy.
“Oh Albus, who is he?” she asked the wizard, pulling out her wand and passing it over Bara, who looked up at her through half-lidded eyes. “Oh, the poor thing is half-starved!”
She put her wand away, her lips tight with disapproval. She did note the slight magical signature. The boy was a wizard, although not a very powerful one.
”His name is Bara, Poppy. I brought him back from India. Both of his parents are deceased and he has been living on his own for the past seven months,” the wizard replied, looking down at the boy with concern.
Poppy’s eyes washed over the boy’s prominent ribs, then focused on his face.
“He’s so young. However did he survive?” she asked Albus.
Bara stared at the medi-witch. He could understand the Headmaster because he wore a translation charm, but the woman spoke a language he wasn’t familiar with.
“Well, as far as I know, his diet consisted primarily of snakes,” the wizard replied.
Poppy’s eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline in horror.
“Snakes? Dear gods, the poor thing. Let me get him some potions to boost his system,” she said, bustling off.
“Who is she?” Bara asked Albus weakly. His head was spinning.
“She is our healer. She will make you feel better, Bara,” the old wizard replied, stroking the boy’s hair for a moment. “Drink what she gives you.”
Poppy returned with several bottles. A blood cleanser, a blood replenisher, pepper-up potion, healing potion, a colonic, and an innoculation potion that covered a variety of muggle and wizarding diseases.
“Now, these aren’t going to taste very good,” she said to the boy, helping him to sit up. Bara’s brown eyes stared into the witch’s pale face. Was everyone white-skinned like the old wizard here? He had seen white-skinned people before, but only from a distance. As an Untouchable, he wasn’t allowed near them because they were in a high caste area. It could have meant his death. He couldn’t understand Poppy, but her eyes were kind.
Poppy opened the first potion and held it to Bara’s lips, her blue eyes concerned about how he would react to the bitter taste, but Bara drink it straight down without so much as a grimace. He obediently swallowed down the rest as well. The medi-witch was quite impressed when the boy downed the innoculation potion. It was the nastiest tasting potion she had in her stores.
Bara immediately began to feel better. He thanked Poppy, bowing his head reverently.
Poppy looked at Albus.
“What did he say?” she asked him.
“He said ‘Thank you.’ Didn’t you hear him?” the wizard asked her, his brow furrowed.
“I heard him, but he didn’t say ‘Thank you.’ I have no idea what he said,” she replied.
Albus realized that neither Poppy nor Bara had a translation charm. He quickly took his charm off his neck and draped it over Bara’s head.
“Now you can talk to Madam Pomfrey yourself,” he smiled at the boy.
“Madame Pomfrey,” Bara repeated looking up at the medi-witch. “Thank you.”
“You are very welcome,” Poppy replied, liking the exotic inflection in the young boy’s voice. “Are you hungry?”
Bara nodded eagerly.
“Yes, I am very hungry. I haven’t eaten in four days,” the boy said.
Again Poppy looked horrified.
“Four days! Oh you poor thing, wait right here,” she said, hurrying over to the floo and ordering her infamous gruel from the kitchens. Bland but nutritious. Everyone hated it, but she shoved it down the throats of sick students and staff alike.
Albus looked at the boy.
“Er…Bara, this might not taste too good, but it will be good for you. You must eat it all,” Albus said. “It will strengthen you.”
A house elf winked in with a steaming bowl of gray gruel and a spoon. Poppy took it from the small creature and rushed back over to the boy, the bowl held high and spoon in feeding position.
“Would you like me to feed you?” she asked Bara, who scowled slightly and looked at Albus, not knowing what to say. He could feed himself but didn’t want to offend the kind woman.
“You can feed yourself if you like, Bara,” the wizard said, smirking as Poppy frowned. She would have preferred to feed the boy to make sure he ate every drop. His chest was as thin as a bird’s chest.
“I would like to feed myself,” Bara said, extending his hands and cupping them.
Poppy passed the boy the bowl and spoon. Bara spooned up a bit, blew on it then inserted the spoon in his mouth. He pulled it out and smiled.
“This is good,” he said and began eating hungrily, both Albus and Poppy looking at him in astonishment. No one…no one liked Poppy’s gruel, but the boy was wolfing it down as if she had served him some tasty delicacy. He quickly finished the bowl of gruel and looked up at both of them, licking his lips.
“May I have more please?” he asked Poppy, his brown eyes pleading.
Bara was used to eating as much as he could as quick as he could whenever he got hold of something edible because he never knew when he would eat again, or if someone would steal what he had. The reason the young wizard was able to drink down the disgusting potions so easily was because many of the things he had been forced to eat in order to survive didn’t taste good. At times he had to cook animals that were already dead, skinning them with a sharp stone and cooking them thoroughly over a fire he either asked for or stole with a quickly thrust branch from other Untouchables. Sometimes Bara got sick after his gleaned meals, but not too sick. He had no condiments to make the food taste better, so learned to stand the taste.
Sometimes the boy ate fruit he found on the ground that had fallen because it was overripe, brushing the ants or other bugs off of them before feasting. Once he had gotten quite drunk because the fruit he’d eaten was so fermented. But those days of scavenging for food were over now. He was under the protection of Albus Dumbledore, though what that meant for the youngster was still up in the air.
Poppy was glad he liked her gruel, but too much of a good thing wasn’t good. She shook her head.
“No, no more food right now, Bara. I want you to sleep now and rest your body. It needs rest, my dear,” Poppy said, helping the boy lie down. She took her wand out and scourgified him as best she could. He became a shade lighter when the dirt was removed.
“He needs a bath, Albus…or a shower at the very least,” she said to the wizard.
Bara wondered where the river to bathe in was. And what was a “shower?”
“After he is rested and in better shape Poppy,” the Headmaster replied. “He will be washed and fitted with suitable clothing and shoes.”
Bara’s brow furrowed as sleepiness came over him.
He had never worn shoes but saw them on the higher castes, their toes all closed in and soles wrapped in heavy leather. Shoes didn’t look comfortable at all. He would rather walk in his bare feet than have them suffocated. But he didn’t protest right now. He was too tired.
Bara’s eyes fluttered closed, the last thing he saw being Albus, smiling down at him as he adjusted his half-moon glasses.
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Albus and Poppy withdrew to the medi-witch’s office and sat down to discuss Bara.
”Whatever will you do with him, Albus?” Poppy asked the wizard, her fingers drumming the desktop lightly. “He’s far too young to attend Hogwarts, and I doubt he has the education to get in even if he were old enough.”
Albus looked at the medi-witch.
“Well, I thought I might keep him,” the wizard said quietly.
Poppy looked shocked.
“Keep him? Albus, you don’t know the first thing about caring for a child. Plus you’re too old,” she chided him, hoping to talk some sense into the wizard.
“Too old? I have seventy-five good years left at least. He only requires a decade or so,” the Headmaster responded, looking a bit hurt.
“How do you plan to keep up with him? He’ll be all over the place,” she said.
“There’s nowhere in Hogwarts or on the grounds where he can go and I can’t find him. I still have the Marauder’s map, Poppy. I can locate anyone in Hogwarts with that parchment,” Albus responded firmly. “And I can certainly bring him directly to me if he is being difficult.”
Poppy looked a bit taken aback. Albus was right. He could pluck anyone from anywhere at Hogwarts if he wished. Still she pressed on. Albus with a child? Preposterous.
“Well, what about his primary education, Albus?” the medi-witch said. “He doesn’t even speak English and I highly doubt he can read.”
Now Albus really did scowl.
“Have you forgotten I was once a teacher, Poppy? A very good one at that. I taught first years on,” he said archly, puffing out his chest a bit. He really had been a very good Professor.
“But…still Albus,” Poppy began.
The wizard’s eyes darkened.
“What would you have me do, Poppy? Place him in the Wizarding Foster Care system? Have him tossed from home to home, orphanage to orphange, unloved, uncared for until every good trait has been torn from him?” the wizard said darkly. “I didn’t bring him here for that.”
Albus was thinking of Marcus Delaluci, his Dark Arts teacher who was orphaned at an early age and passed around the wizarding world like refuse until he ran away to live on the streets alone. He had a hard life, and eventually was recruited by the Ministry as part of an elite and clandestine group of political assassins called “The Eradicators.” For years he multilated, raped and killed for the Ministry using Dark Magic or any other necessary tool until they were finally disbanded. Then he served abroad as a mercanery for hire until he returned to England and was hired by Dumbledore. He was the only wizard who lasted in the DA position longer than a year. Until him, it was believed the position was cursed.
To this day, the wizard loved no one or nothing, plowing through witches like water and looking for trouble where there was none in his need for excitement, adventure and danger. Fortunately, Marcus knew how to keep a good cover, and was never caught actually dirty, though he was involved in quite a few scandals from time to time. And because of his background, he made an excellent Dark Arts teacher. He was a dark wizard, but his demeanor never openly revealed it. He was well liked by all the students and knew how to stay in everyone’s good graces. He was quite an accomplished actor.
Still, the system had failed him. Albus would not subject Bara to the same terrible situation.
”Of course not, Albus,” Poppy said hesitantly, “but still, it takes a lot of work to raise a child…”
Albus looked at her.
“Have you ever heard the quote that says it takes a whole village to raise a child?” the wizard asked her.
Poppy nodded.
“Well, Hogwarts is a whole village. I have my staff as well as myself,” the wizard said, “With all of us, the boy will be well looked after. Our specialty is producing fine witches and wizards after all. I have no reason to believe we will fail Bara if we work together.”
Poppy blinked at him.
“You mean to make him a mascot for the school, Albus?” she asked him.
“If that is the best way to take care of him, yes,” the wizard replied. “The boy will be loved and watched over. He will have access to some of the best teachers in the wizarding world. I will not hand him over to the fostering system, Poppy. I will not!”
Poppy studied Albus. It seemed he was going to stand firm on caring for Bara.
“There will have to be a hearing for guardianship, Albus,” the medi-witch said quietly. “The Council has to approve you taking the boy out of the system and taking him under your care.”
Albus gave the witch a wan smile.
“I don’t think there will be a problem with that, Poppy. I believe they would assign me guardianship in the hope that the boy would keep me so busy I wouldn’t have time to take them to task as much as I do. I am quite the pain,” he said smirking. “No doubt they would give their blessing immediately.”
If they didn’t, he would would make them. Dumbledore had quite a dark side himself when crossed. When he wanted something to occur, it did. Poppy saw a shadow pass over the wizard’s visage. She was quite aware that Albus had the potential to be extremely nasty. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She sighed.
“Very well, Albus. You have my support,” the medi-witch said. “I will help all I can.”
Albus smiled at her broadly.
“Thank you, Poppy. Now, I must go and prepare a report for the idiots at the Ministry. I will give them one more chance to do the right thing, before I take matters into my own hands,” he said, rising.
“A report? A report about what, Albus?” the medi-witch asked, curious.
“You will know soon enough, Poppy,” the wizard replied, “Take care of Bara and tell him I will come to see him in the morning. Good night.”
”Good night, Headmaster,” Poppy replied as the wizard exited her office, glancing toward the privacy curtain that held the small boy he had brought back to Hogwarts.
Albus had high hopes for him. A youngster as resourceful as Bara should turn out to be a fine wizard, providing his magic was strong enough. The Headmaster hoped it was a simple matter of exercising his talents and his magic would strengthen with use. If not, Bara could still live a full and satisfying life…much better off than if he had remained where he was.
The Headmaster left the infirmary looking thoughtful. Now that he had Bara settled in, there were other matters to attend to.
Important matters.
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A/N: I felt it necessary to describe Bara’s arrival at Hogwarts and give an idea of Albus’ plans for him, rather than launch back into Hermione and Severus’ situation and leaving everyone in the dark. It gives a little closure to this part of the story and allows me to concentrate on the upcoming (hopefully) exciting chapters. Please review.