A/N: This is my first attempt at a fanfiction. I have never before tried to make other people's character my own, and I would welcome any constructive feedback on this fic. Please keep in mind that I am not a native English speaker, and that this work is unbeta'ed as of yet.

Of course, I own nothing of what you recognise in this story.

Summarily edited as of 2017-12-25. Still looking for a potential beta. :P

Aimée Selwyn née Malfoi stared at the wailing bundle in the arms of the midwife. She was doing frantic math in her head, trying to deny the obvious evidence provided by the blue liquid sipping out of the white thing's umbilical chord. The child's clear skin and white hair could have been passed of as the Malfoy genes being particularly strong, if not for the fact that her eyes were a piercing blue, even on her scrunched-up face; but the most damning fact was that the child was obviously a blue blood.

It could not be, just. It could not. Anselme Selwyn was very much a pureblood, of verified ancestry, but she knew for a fact that he was not a carrier of the blue blood line. She was, but that meant that the daughter was not her husband's. She kept doing the math. There was but one option: a young man, obviously grieving, that she had left a Death Eater meeting with one day 9 months ago. The man had been drinking himself into a stupor, and Aimée had just been pawned of to Selwyn… One thing had led to another, and she had left in the morning. Luckily, her husband was away in France for business, and her absence had not be marked by anyone but her handmaiden, who would never tell on her.

She had the midwife give the babe to her handmaiden, then dismissed her. She exchanged a long look with her companion, and the girl acquiesced, then excited swiftly with her burden.

The midwife would be found dead two days later, and the child was not seen again; Aimée thought that she had had her throat cut out and would never hear of the thing again. Anselme was told that the child had been still-born, which was a common enough occurence in pureblood lines that it was not questioned.

In the suburbs of London, on the steps on a decrepit orphanage and in the cold night of early November, a baby wailed.

Phanes was sitting on her cot, once again having to find something cool to put on her arm to stop the newly-formed bruise to grow too visible. The matron was in a good mood this time: she had stopped herself after back-handing her only once, for trying to smuggle some bread out of the kitchen. Lucy had fallen ill two days before, and could not make it to meals. And that was without even considering risks of contagion which would make the matron throw her out of the room anyway. She still needed the food, though, and Phanes liked the little girl enough to try and help her. Fat lot of good that had done.

Out of ideas, she took the fraying casing of her pillow off and went to the faucet to wet it. She applied it to the darkening, hand-shaped bruise on her hand. It offered a striking (ha!) contrast with her small frame: the mark covered almost all of her upper arm. All the children in Lambeth orphanage were abnormally small in stature, due to the lacklustre meals they got and the taxing chores they all had to do.

Some of the children were allowed to go to school, and subsequently got out of some of the chores, but one grade under the "acceptable threshold" arbitrarily set by the matron meant a beating; another one meant being pulled out of school.

Phanes had been one of those. She gave little importance to that, though, as she much more cared about practical skills that would allow to keep the little ones safe - never mind that she was only 13-and-something herself. She had become rather adept at managing the kids in her dorm, which fell to her anyway since she was the oldest there. She still had to teach Nichol that eating whatever he found, food or not, was not a good idea, but well. The kid was three. Information of this sort didn't stick much at that age.

She was worried about what would happen in two days' time though. The Spurgeon Orphanage, in Stockwell, had just been close indefinitely following allegations of brutality and unsanitary conditions... as well as a couple of accusations aimed at the superintendent, that hinted at his liking little boy way too much to be sanctioned by authorities.

The orphans from Spurgeon's were being dispatched in several or the other orphanages of London, and they would apparently receive three children in two days. She just hoped it wasn't three kids under 13, and none would be between 13 and 15, because that would be hard to handle. Three tinies to get used to the place at once was just too much, even for her; and a kid older than her but still having to defer to her because she had seniority in the dorm might turn... gladiatorial.

She brought some more lukewarm water to Lucy to try to quell her thirst, then settled back At the foot of her bed, making sure her bruise received as little pressure as possible. She lay there, and sleep was long coming.

"Fey! Feyyy! FEY !"

"Omph!" Was all the answer Phanes could give as she fell from her perch on the corner of Lucy's bed, hers that she actually put the girl in until she was in good health again, where she'd been dozing off.

"Fey, they're here!"

"Wh- oh. Right. Ok." She turned to the prone form in the run-down bed, she shook her. "Lucy. Lucy sweet-heart. Wake up."

"Fey?"

"Lucy, I have to go down to see if any of the kids need to be brought into our dorm. I'll be back as soon as possible. If something happens, send Sonia to get me and I'll come back."

"Hmmmmm'okay..." she mumbled as she burrowed further into the blankets. Phanes touched her head to check for fever — it was still frighteningly hot, but she had to go to welcome the three kids.

The new residents made her feel lucky.

She'd only had to welcome one child, a small kid named Aren who was apparently 6 but looked like they were three. Phanes was not yet sure of their gender. Aren was frighteningly skinny, terribly small, and didn't talk at all. She hoped it was because the child was too frightened by the new environment to speak, and not because of a long-term thing that would only paint them as more of a target than their size already did.

She stopped in front of the kitchen.

"Stay here for a minute, I'm just getting some food for you. You would need it after the trip. I'll be right back."

The child just looked her in the eyes, then nodded and looked at their hands. Phanes ran into the kitchen, nabbed two slices of old bread because she knew it wouldn't be missed, then ran back out. They hadn't moved at all.

"Okay, little muffin, let's show you to the dorm."

She lightly took Aren's hand back in her own, and was suddenly left with the impression of having her hand in a vice. She looked down to see them sticking as close to her as they could, still without touching her aside from gripping her hand like their life depended on it. They kept shooting frantic looks around the hallways, probably in an effort to gain new marks, but their eyes were not panicked. Phanes stopped and crouched down in front of Aren, her hand still held in theirs. They were looking at the floor again, as if in repentance.

"Hey. Hey muffin. Look at me please."

Aren looked her in the eyes.

"I've been dragging you everywhere but I don't think we've been properly introduced. I'm Phanes, but the younger kids called me Fey and now everyone else does it too. Nice to meet'ya!" She said, extending her free hand slowly towards the child, careful to not startle them.

The kid looked at her left hand, then up at her face, then back at her hand, their squint getting more and more evident. Finally, they grabbed two of her fingers — all they could grab, really — and shook it lightly.

"Aren," was said in a light, but still scratchy voice. Hm. They could talk. That was a better response that she had hoped for.

"Great, Aren! Now. Would you prefer seeing the dorms first then the rest of the place, or the other way around?"

The kid seemed to ponder the possibilities for an instant.

"... Bathroom." This was pronounced in a decided fashion, despite the hesitation that preceded it. Their face spotted a slight but still remarkable frown.

"Oh! Of course. You've been on the road for a couple hours. Should have thought of that first, sorry. Let's go then." She started walking to the bathrooms and kept talking to Aren. "So. Are you a boy, a girl, or neither?"

Aren assessed her silently. Phanes waited for a while, but she realised that the child was not hesitating this time, but actually refusing to answer, probably for self-preservation reasons. But this was something Phanes had to know, if only to keep the child safe.

"Can I tell you a secret? Well, no, first, let me ask you a question. Do you think I look like a boy?"

The child squinted, looked her up and down, then warily nodded, obviously waiting for a trap.

"Okay. Then I'll tell you a secret: I'm not a boy. The adults think I am, but they're wrong ."

"... are you a girl then?"

"No. I sometimes feel like one but I am not a boy, and I am not a girl. You don't have to be either-or to be human."

Aren thought a couple minutes on it then nodded. They looked at a Phanes' face, then looked in front of them again and added, in a still scratchy but decided voice:

"I'm a girl," and the statement was accompanied by a determined nod.

"And that's the five-fifteen dorm! I'm the oldest right now so I'm sort of supervising everyone. We try to have someone between ten and fifteen helping a younger kid, but that's not very constant. Now, we have to be down in the kitchen by quarter to six to help prepare breakfast, and we eat at six on the dot. Lunch is at one, and dinner at six. Depending on the day, some of the older kids help for that, but you don't have to worry about it yet." Aren nodded here and there to show that she was following what was being said. All in all, this establishment was bound to be significantly better than the last one, Phanes supposed.

"Alriiight, so, finding you a bed. Hmmm…" The problem was, they were already a bit cramped as it was. Anna and Elie had to share one of the beds as it was because they were short on place, and Lucy had been in Phanes' bed since she was sick — Phanes herself usually sleeping at the foot of the bed, half seated, out of worry for the little girl. She was so tired she's had to rely on Oscar to watch over Nichol and make sure he didn't swallow anything dangerous.

"I shouldn't have you bunking with one of the boys. Anna and Ellie already are on one, Angèle usually sleeps with Lucy — that's the one over there, but please don't disturb her. She needs rest. Sonia kicks too much during her sleep… alright, no real choice I guess. Philip!"

The seven years old boy ran in from the next room ,where he'd been ironing shirts.

"Fey? What is it?" He asked.

"You'll have to bunk for a bit with- Wait. Show me your arm." The boy complied. "Philip, I've told you to be careful with that thing, look at this! You'll be lucky if that burn doesn't get infected!"

Philip's face took on a slightly green tint, and his lower lip started trembling. "I didn't mean to!"

"Shh, shh, it's okay. I saw it immediately, so I can take care of it. It'll be alright. Just be more careful next time, alright?" She took his hand in one of hers, took back Aren's hand in the other, and went to the infirmary, mumbling low enough that the children would not hear her: "Damn matron and her habit of giving dangerous tasks to clumsy children…"

She disinfected the burn on Philip's arm, then lathered it in burn paste, leaving it to breathe for the moment. In the meantime, she explained to him:

"Philip, this is Aren. She'll be with us from now on, but you've seen that the dorm is full; could you sleep with Nichol for now, so that she can sleep in your bed?"

Philip looked Aren up and down, then back at Phanes.

"As long as she doesn't wet herself during the night."

"Ha! I'm less likely to wet myself than you are, you baby." Ah. Apparently, the statement did not seat well with Aren. That was the longest sentence Phanes had heard her say as of yet.

"Baby? What are you, three?"

"I'm six, you dipshit! And I probably have more control over my bladder than you!" Well. That was quite the sentence. The girl might have a sharp tongue, but she also knew how to articulate a sentence. Phanes was still glad to see some fire in the her. She'd been worried that she might've been one of Spurgeon's superintendent's… favourites, nevermind that he'd seemed to prefer boys.

That was one worry less, she supposed, though the possibility was not completely discarded.

Philip scrunched his nose in something like disgust, then finally said "I suppose she can. Okay, I suppose I'll sleep will Nichol for a bit. At least he is not going to pee in the bed."

Phanes didn't even have the time to wince at the comment before Aren's fist flew… right into Philip's nose. Thankfully, she was too small and weak to do much damage yet, but she'd have to watch the girl.

"Okay, stop. Stop stop stop. Philip, that was uncalled for. You have no reason to say that, and even if you did, that wouldn't be enough to mock her over it. Aren, we. Do. Not. Fight each other. There's already enough of that with the matron liking to distribute fists more often than meals."

Philip looked properly chastised, and was apparently fighting tears, but Aren was glaring at her and pursing her lips, her hands at her sides and balled into fists. She then seemed to deflate all of a sudden, her shoulders hunched and her torso bent forward. She raised her arms to hug her middle and looked down.

"Philip, go back to the ironing now. You know matron will have it in for you if you don't finish by dinner time."

"Hmmmm." The kid scampered out of the room and got back to his work. Phanes would be the one to move what few things he possessed to Nichol's corner of the room, and settle Aren in.

She turned back to Aren, and offered her hand. The little girl took it but still stood in a submissive way, in what she recognised as a 'I'm not a threat so please don't hit me' pose. She gently dragged her to her new spot.

"Come on, help me pack Philip's things. We also have to take off the sheets and put on clean ones for you. You won't wet the bed, right?" There, the glare was back. That was way better. "So as I said earlier, we don't fight between ourselves. The matron will pick any tiny reason she can find to punish us either by keeping us from meals, or giving us more chores, or just hitting us. I have no doubt it's better than where you were, but that still means we don't need more in-fighting on top of that."

Aren hesitated for an instant, then jerkily nodded her head. They finished moving things in as companionable a silence as you could get between people who had just met.

Shit. Shitshitshitshit. What had she done? They were soooooo in deep shit. Running away. Hah! Sure the matron wouldn't hit them anymore, but that didn't mean no one on the streets would try to. Now they'd have to find food, and shelter, and all the vital necessities… F***!

Lucy was gripping her shoulders from her piggy-back position on Phanes' back.

"Where are we going, Fey?" she asked in a barely heard, still half-asleep whisper.

"Away. We can't stay there anymore. The matron's gone even more insane and we're not safe. We'll have to come back for the others once we find a good place."

"Hmmm…" Lucy had stopped being sick about a month after it had started, but despite the three months since, she was still weak and unable to walk on her own for long, much less run.

Aren and Philip were running behind her, and she looked back every two or three steps to make sure they were still following. Philip managed just fine, but Aren, who was even smaller than Lucy, had difficulties following; where Phanes took three steps, she had to take twice that.

They reached a large building that looked half-decrepit, with broken windows and no lights on inside. The door appeared to be locked, but she let climb Lucy off her back, then jammed her shoulder into the rusted thing as violently as she could. It gave in easily.

"Come in, now. Quick, we have to close it again." The three children scampered in and she closed the door again. She had to jam it again to shut it properly, but she finally managed it.

The place was not pitch black, but it still took their eyes some time to get used to the surrounding darkness. Apparently, they were not the first to think of using the place as a shelter, because there was a pile of tatty blankets in a corner of the hall they found themselves in. They went there directly, and the smell was terrible, but still better than freezing in the cold of late November.

Aren took off for a couple of minutes, rummaging about, then came back and in a whisper: "I found water. At a tap."

That was something. They'd have a steady source of water to wash themselves and possibly drink, if they had no better option; unless the pipes froze, but that would be a problem for later.

"Philip, can you give me the backpack now?" The boy complied and gave Phanes the bag packed with some bread, a cold bottle of porridge, some crackers and two empty water bottles. They'd know soon enough is the water was safe for drinking or not. They ate some of the bread but kept most of it just in case they couldn't find anything else the next day; quenched their thirst with iron-tasting but otherwise good enough water; then wrapped themselves in the blankets, and bundled together to keep some of their warmth. Still, sleep was long coming.

The nagger was dead. Dead. Aren couldn't believe it. Philip was dead. Philip was dead. It kept circling in her head. DeaddeaddeaddeaddeadPhilipisdead …

The day had started well enough. Within two hours of waking up, they'd nabbed two purses, although one of them was pretty much empty, and a wooden pallet that they could burn for heat; Philip had been about to nab a tin of soup when an old hag had caught him and dragged him out of the supermarket in a back street. That was how Fey and her had found them, the old hag with her hands up his ratty t-shirt. Philip was struggling, and even on his dark skin the paling was evident, aside from two dark splotches on his cheek like he'd been slapped several times. But he was still young, barely over eight, and had nothing on the woman.

When the hag had seen them, she'd grabbed his neck in a tight grip and with her other hand, she'd grabbed a thin stick of wood and waved it at them, and she'd lost all control of her limbs. She stayed standing, unmoving, but Fey had collapsed to the ground. Aren tried to resist, to move a limb, and the hag squinted at her, then mumble some more and the restriction increased on her; meanwhile, the other hand was still gripping Philip's throat and his movement were growing feeble.

"It's my toy! Mine mine mine! You won't take him from me!" she screamed, and both her hands seemed to tighten again. Abruptly, Philip's struggling stopped and he slumped, and Aren could no longer hear his raspy breathing. The woman turned to him, lowering her stick as she did so.

"Hey," she shook him a bit. "Wake up," she shook him again, then threw him down, "now!"

He didn't. His chest didn't even raise up and down, and his face was a purple sort of marbley, and he wouldn't move. Aren stood there frozen.

"It's broken. It was my toy and you broke it!" She sent a powerful kick to his ribs. "You'll have to be my toy now," she advanced on Aren, who could not take her eyes off Philip, "because you broke it."

It never registered that the hag was closing in on her, until she felt a hand on her stomach, under her shirt, sneaking into the front of her pants. And with a jolt of bitter clarity, she knew what was about to happen. She'd seen in happen to the boys at Spurgeon's, curled up on her mat, trembling as she tried to stay as silent as possible because she'd had to live through it once, and never again, and at least it wasn't her, but it made her feel sticky and disgusting inside and guilty because that meant someone else had to endure. She was lucky she'd been born a girl.

The idea that someone might touch her like that again, when she'd thought she was free and safe, in all the danger that living in the street inherently caused, sent a burning coil of anger-hatred-disgust in her gut that slowly made its way in her chest, her shoulders, her arms and her throat, like a wave of heat that nothing can stop, and then the woman- the thing- was nothing anymore, nothing but pressed meat and bone and bowels against a wall, and the smell- no wait, Philip-

She ran to him and stuck her face close to his, feeling for breathing. Nothing. Stuck her ear to his chest, listening for a heartbeat. Nothing. She shook him, then pinched him, then slapped him, as strong as she could even though they didn't fight because the matron is quite enough on her own thank you. And nothing.

She looked back at the… thing on the wall, where you could still vaguely distinguish the shape of twisted arms and legs, and a head, and then she ran. As fast as she could, she ran away away away because if she could do that just because of a memory then who knows what else she could do. Monster. Maybe that's how she'd resisted whatever the hag had done to Fey and her? Monster. That's why Philip is dead. Because you couldn't bow down. He'd be traumatised but alive if you'd just taken it and shut your metaphoric mouth. Monster. Maybe that's why her parents got rid of her? Monster. Because she could turn things and people into meat-piles if she got scared. Monster. She'd rather run than do that to Fey and Lucy. Lucy who hadn't seen anything, what a relief. Fey who'd been there, and slumped on the ground, and Aren hadn't even checked if she was alright. She'd just run. Monster. Egoist. Monster. Philip was dead. Monster. Monster. Monster.

She found herself at an intersection she recognised, and she immediately ran in the direction opposite to that of the hangar they now called their headquarters. She wouldn't risk them like that. She ran like her life was forfeit if she stopped, and it certainly felt like it would be. Houses, fabrics, shops, buildings streamed past her, and in her adrenaline-fueled frenzy, she didn't see them as anything but a blur. She ran until she couldn't anymore, and found herself in an area she didn't know.

That would do for now.

It had been three weeks. Logistically speaking, it wasn't so hard to survive on her own. She just had to make sure to get the right supplies, and find a more-or-less safe, warm spot, then she was set. Emotionally speaking, she was still dull and dead inside- no. That was unfair. She couldn't say that when Philip was actually dead and Fey was left alone with Lucy.

The lurch in her gut was back, burning her from the inside. That was the harshest aspect of her "new" life. The thing that she'd done, the whatever that had crushed the hag to a wall, had not left. It kept rearing its ugly head at the slightest opportunity, usually when she had a spike in emotion. So far, she'd managed to keep it inside. She contracted her ribcage, and her guts, and her throat, and her arms around herself, and she tried to keep. It. Inside.

She was weakening, though, she knew it. The last time she'd fainted from the effort of it. But this time she was alone, and in an abandoned store, and she could, maybe, let it out? She unclenched her fists, relaxed her arms, and lifted them from her stomach. And as she was about to lay them on the ground and start unclenching her stomach, it changed from a lurch to a raging storm, and it did that same thing again. Up her chest and her arms and her throat. But it had gotten worse, because this time, whatever it was levelled the building right on top of her.

But she'd fainted, and didn't see the piece of ceiling falling on top of her.

She woke up exactly not where she had expected.

She thought she'd be in the rubble of the shop, but she found herself in a room with stone walls, no windows, and what looked like a door with bars, like you'd expect in a prison, except it had no lock. She'd been "resting" on a surprisingly well-maintained mattress, although it was a bit scratchy. She knew that by most people's standard, the thinness would be a deterrent, but considering where she came from, it was actually a luxury.

In a corner sat a plate of bread and a jug of water, as well as a simple metally goblet. She took a sip of the water, but it tasted like metal and smelled like plastic. Weird combination on the senses.

She sat up, with a bit of a struggle as her legs seemed to refuse to support her, then walked to the door. If there wasn't any security here, she wasn't going to wait around for them —whoever they were — to show up and ask questions. She gripped one of the bars near the borders of the door, and pulled, then pushed, but it didn't budge. She supposed it was because she'd been fiddling with the wrong side of the door, but when she tried the same with the other edge, it didn't budge either.

That was when a man walked in, rather short but stocky in a fit sort of way. He had black hair, though it was slowly fading to pepper-and-salt, and his cheeks were in need of a good shave. He wore strange clothes, sort of like a bathrobe but less fuzzy and more elegant, that she almost found pretty. That could almost be worn outside, probably... He felt prickly to her senses, though, even if she couldn't smell anything on him.

He walked to the door, then came to a brutal stop in front of her. He crouched so that her face was level with his.

"Hello, little Obscurus. That's quite a scene you've caused, isn't it?"

"..." Obscurus?

"We had to obliviate 27 muggle passers-by, and that after bringing two of them to St-Mungo to heal their injuries. We'll also have to obliviate them too, obviously."

She hadn't gotten much of that, beyond the fact that two passers-by had been hurt because she'd thought she could just relax and let it out , and she was horrified. She'd hurt two more people!

"Now, what's an obscurus like you running in the streets in London for? Usually, they have a… favourite sort of target, see, like 'this man has hit me for being a freak so I'll kill anyone who looks like him and everything they hold dear'. That's actually what could very easily have happened to Potter, although I'm not supposed to know that. So, why were you in London, and what were you looking for?"

"... I was getting away from my friends. I didn't want to hurt them."

"Friends? Do you mean to tell me that you, an obscurus, have friends?"

"I suppose so. What's an obscurus?"

"You don't… Wait. Of course. Most obscurus are muggle-raised young wizarding folk. So you say you had friends?"

Wizards . What. The. F***ing. Heck. The guy looked at the ceiling for an instant.

"... I'll call in Madam Bones. I don't know how to deal with kids anyway." His eyes moved back to her. "This cell you're in is Obscuri-proof, and locked magically, so you can't escape. Trying to do so would only get you killed immediately and rather painfully. I'd advise you against it." He stood up once more, and briskly walked out the other end of the hallway.

She didn't need his little speech, though. She was terrified enough of herself that she was too scared to try anything, and that she'd probably also welcome the possibility of execution. The fact that she'd withstood no injuries while destroying the building she'd been in meant she was probably death-proof at that point — accidental at least.

She sat there for an undefined time, until the steps of the man could be heard again, followed by the sharp snappy sound of heels on the floor, and the softer steps of a third person. The scruffy man from earlier appeared again, mumbling in his proverbial (but very short) beard about old meddling wizards and shoving their curiosity where even inferi wouldn't go.

"Get away from the door, kid. I want at least a meter between you and it." Aren complied.

He stepped back, and the woman then took his place in front of the door, a very tall, old, beardy and weirdly dressed man just behind her shoulder.

"Hello. I'm Amelia Bones, and I'm the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I've been called here, because I've been told that you have no knowledge of your situation, and that you behave quite strangely for an obscurus. The first one can not be tolerated, as all who are executed must know why, and the second lets me think you needn't be executed in the first place…"

Aren stayed silent, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"You've already met Auror Baldwin, of course. This other man behind me is someone with an extensive experience with children, as well as with obscurus cases. He's also the Headmaster of Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: Professor Dumbledore."