I blink against the light that threatens to blind me. Across the crooked horizon, golden light spills out, staining the landscape in liquid shades. Through the night, I watched the blue-green hues of neon signs and synthetic stars glitter in the constantly shifting sea of the city below. New York is a teaming, bustling, buzzing metropolis of speed and sound, drowning out the true stars, but creating its own heat. Like a carcass, from the bones of the dead and gone, it offers up nutrients and new life to the starving and estranged.
I try not to look away, but the true sun drowns the city as the city does the true stars, and I'm forced to squint as bright white turns to black spots, and my vision prickles with pain. Blinking away the tears that spring unbidden to my eyes, I glance down at where you rest against my hip bone. Small eyes closed peacefully in the small round of your face, your young lips pout innocently as you inhale and exhale in perfect symphony with the rising of the sun. I cannot help but feel that you are my real sun, my true sun… my only sun.
But it is time to wake.
"Sunny," I murmur, jostling you as gently as I can. I shift where I sit, stiff limbs easing into motion as another day begins. The city doesn't sleep and neither do I, but we cannot live on sunlight and city stars.
I poke you in the ribs – perhaps unkind, but the hours amount and so do the demons. Hunger battles for dominance over crippling fatigue, though the desperate need to relieve my bladder, after hours cocooning your vulnerable frame, is what drives me to action.
The sun rises and so must we.
"Sunny," I try again, and you murmur in your sleep. "Come on, it's time to get up."
This time you do wake, eyes as blue as the clearest sky fluttering and shuttering blearily as you shed the thick, comforting blanket of slumber. You curl, uncurl, shift and stretch, before turning those piercing sapphires on me.
"Already?" you ask, gaze still unfocused, hair all amess.
"Already," I affirm, though there's no need. The very warmth of the sun kissing your skin says enough.
And just like that, we're up. Easing out of our old bones and shrugging into the new, we shake off the night before – the life before – in the hopes that today will be a new day. A different day. And maybe it will.
Taking your hand, I let the warmth of my little sun – you – seep in to stifle the bone-deep chill and pump life into my heart once again. With a small squeeze – our sign, our mantra – we begin again.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
As ever.
The crowd rises like the tide, a great mass of bodies, crushing us both beneath its weight. I try to call out to you, but my voice is lost amongst thousands. Nameless faces obstruct my view – too tall, and too many – but I still search desperately for glimpses of familiar blue between the bodies. To let you know that it's okay.
But you're scared. Your tiny, fragile fingers grip onto mine with such determined strength that I think they might break. I can feel your palm sweating in my own, and fear begins to rise like a snake up my throat.
And then it happens.
I don't see what hits me, but all at once pain erupts inside of me like a lance to the spine. I arch and crumple, my mouth open in a silent scream as the whole world cracks like an egg, and tears turn my vision into a kaleidoscope of colour.
The second wave brings me to my knees, and through the haze I become painfully aware that your fingers are slipping from my own. I try to lock on to the bright, sky-blue of your eyes, but the crowd is shifting, relentlessly pulling me out to sea. Away from my little island – away from you.
And then, somehow, above the deafening murmur of thousands of voices, one voice speaks as clearly as if it were in my own head. Mocking, biting, bitter, it gnaws at my scull from the inside.
"Thief! Nasty, urchin brat! Cretin! Thief, thief, thief!"
And I feel it. Something in my pocket burning like the white-hot sun sears my skin, bringing new pain and a weight I can't bear.
The stone. The stone I took.
"Thief!"
Then the crowd shifts again, and your fingers are gone. I scream your name, but the snake of fear rises up to choke me, and the shifting waves of the crowd suck me under. I try to push through the bodies, but the stone is too heavy – I can't move.
Sunny.
"Thief!"
"BROTHER!"
I feel sick. In an instant, the pain and the voice are gone, but I know immediately that something is wrong. I gasp for breath, sucking in cool relief at hearing your voice, but around me the crowd ripples and shivers. Mouths open in horrified wails, as thousands of hands are thrown up in unison to stifle whatever it is that assails them.
Then eyes are rolling, and the bodies begin to drop like flies. Crumpling from pain, or slumping unconscious, they fall on top of each other like dominos.
"Sunny!" I cry, spinning desperately on the spot, combing the crowd for one glimpse of your familiar figure. I have to make it stop. Sunny, where are you?
And then I see you. So small, and yet so tall, standing alone amongst the sea of now-sleeping strangers.
I have to make it stop.
Clawing and stumbling, I begin to climb over the lifeless bodies, fighting the bile that rises to my throat as flesh and bone shifts beneath my weight. I have to reach you. I have to make it stop.
Sunny, Sunny, Sunny.
With one hand outstretched, I reach towards your little frame. Desperate to stifle the fear on your face; your eyes all screwed up, your fists balled, your mouth a terrified 'O'.
So close.
And then my fingers are brushing your knuckles, and with one great wrenching tug, I crush you to my chest.
"Sunny," I murmur, my hands in your hair, and I can feel you shaking in my arms. Looking up, relief floods my every nerve to see the perfect circle of slumped bodies no longer expanding. You begin to sob against my chest, all child-like fragility once more, and with shaking hands I smooth back your messy locks in comfort.
Taking in the aftermath, I feel a familiar ache throb in my chest, and an oh-so-familiar question vibrates in my mind.
Why?
"Thief."
Whipping my head around, I realise for the first time that amongst all of the fallen, one still remains standing. In dark robes, she steps lightly across the carpet of fleshy forms, green eyes sparkling. The voice. The pain. I want to move away, but there's nowhere to run. She moves too quickly.
Growing ever closer, she smiles wickedly, a knowing glint in her eyes.
But, I realise, the malice is all gone – the earlier anger evaporated. Upon reaching us, she looks down.
"You are a thief, and I want back what you took from me," she says, that piecing gaze directed at me.
"You, however," she goes on, her eyes slipping from my face, down to your golden head. Her face splits with a smile as she speaks, mirth overcoming her delicate features.
"You, my frightening, frightened little friend… are a wizard."
Written for: 'The Quiddich League Fanfiction Competition'. Prompts: (lyric) "And nobody told us" (word) determined (word) delicate
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
CC cover image (entitled 'Fourth of July fireworks show in New York City') courtesy of Dan Nguyen on Flickr.
A/N: Thanks for reading, please do let me know what you think. I based this fic around the idea of someone growing up, never having been told they're a wizard. In this case, an orphan, muggle-born child living in New York City. GG x