DISCLAIMER: It goes without saying that I'm not JK Rowling because… this wouldn't be called fanfiction if I were her.

Author's Chapter Notes:

I would like to thank my very amazing Beta, Sophie/The owl (from MNFF) for her help with this piece. She was wonderful with this, really and I learned so much! Cheers, Sophie, and thank you very much! :)

This story is for Pauie (lucilla_pauie) who is a lovely person, one of my earliest Betas on MNFF and also a very lovely friend.

_
Here are two bits of information that I'd like to provide:

1. 'Prachi' is pronounced as 'Pr-aa-chee.'

2. 'Pleaje' is just how some Indians (generally the ones who know Hindi better than English) pronounce 'please'.

Eastern Dawn Stars

The first time I noticed her was somewhere in the middle of the second week of my three-month long stay in India. I was there as a part of a Healing program (at St Mungo's) which dealt with worldwide diseases. We had to pick a zone- tropical or temperate-and choose a city belonging to one of these zones. Then we had to do a three month internship at any wizard clinic or hospital there, record all cases sent to us and come back and talk about our experiences at a seminar comparing the nature of diseases across the world.

I was already three years out of Healer training then- I was about twenty five and well-versed in a lot of things. However, I was still a junior and had to work under another Healer wherever I went. Anyway, I chose the tropical region, and then Bombay (or Mumbai, as the locals refer to it). I was trained for a few months and made to understand the common diseases there- my stay was scheduled for late summer and a part of monsoon season so I was told to expect to see many water-borne diseases and a different type of malaria in which the witches and wizards would lose control over their wands. It was caused by a species of insects which was a crossbreed between an unknown magical insect and mosquitoes.

Even after all the rigorous training and hard work, I was excited for this trip. I had never been to India; it's actually one of the few countries I had never visited in my childhood and Mother had been there and loved it. She always told me and Father that we must go there once, but then we never did end up going, somehow. So when this opportunity came up, I must say, a part of my reason for picking India was just so I could go there once and see at least a small part of it for myself.

I arrived at Bombay in early June and it was hot and humid then. I was allotted a private consultation clinic at a western suburb called Kandivali. Mahima Chadda was the Healer who owned the clinic. Kandivali was a nice place, with a lot of residential colonies and good, rather helpful people who were fluent in English and very approachable. The clinic itself was actually a flat in one such residential complex, called 'Lily Pads'. It looked nothing like a lily pad- it was just a plain, rather spacious complex of several seven-storied apartment buildings. It must have been at least four or five decades old and it was green and peaceful. After some initial inhibitions, I began to really like the place. I was allotted a one-bedroom flat at the complex. My temporary home was about two buildings away from the clinic and it was on my way to the clinic every day that I would see her.

She was a sweeper employed to keep the streets within the complex clean. She swept the rubbish, dust and leaves off the ground with her broom, making a frash, frash, frashsound as the hard twigs brushed against the concrete. She couldn't have been much older than eighteen. She had intelligent dark eyes and thick, dark hair that she wore in a plait. Her skin was tanned from all the exposure to the sun. It was amazing how naturally beautiful she was. Her forearms were perpetually adorned with cheap, metallic bangles and she was always in Indian attire- they call it salwar kameez, I think.

It's basically a loose, knee length top with either tights or pyjamas and a long scarf-like thing to go with it. She tied the scarf around her mouth as a mask while she worked and the rest would be wound around a slender body and tied as a knot around her waist. She also wore tarnished silver anklets which let out chinking sounds every time she moved her feet, which were almost always bare. Sometimes, on the hotter days she wore inexpensive flip-flops. I never could understand how she walked barefoot in that heat and sunlight. When I tried it once, I had blisters all over the underside of my foot the next day. She saw me hopping about in the heat and giggled to herself. Her voice was so soft and delicate. But as she looked at me surreptitiously, laughing at my antics, I reluctantly smiled back at her. This seemed to intimidate her and she returned to dusting the street.

I asked Mahima about this girl and she told me that, though wizards need only wave their wands to keep their streets clean, Muggles were often employed for the dusting and rubbish-picking, just to provide a larger population with jobs. Obliviators were always at the ready for any mishaps, of course. But Mahima didn't know her name. She told me, though, that the girl's mother had been working in the complex for as long as she could remember.

After my attempt at going barefoot, I would smile at the sweeper girl everyday and she would smile back uncertainly. I was still hesitant- she was a Muggle for starters and she was… poor. But she intrigued me. I had seen a life of luxury and happiness and I wondered what she must have seen and been through; why was she forced to work thus? She had a sister who collected rubbish from the homes (the system of rubbish chutes was only in the newer buildings, so these ones still needed someone to pick up the rubbish from each flat). Her mother would come occasionally too and they would all sit on the floor of one of the building lobbies in the afternoons and have their lunch together.

Normally, I wouldn't even think of talking to such people. My parents had enough, or rather too much wealth and I had never seen that side of the world. At school, I wasn't very kind with the kids that turned up in second-hand robes. I failed to understand how someone could be poor- how one couldn't want luxury enough to work towards money. But for her, I felt sorry. Despite everything, I felt that maybe she didn't deserve this kind of a life.

~~~

I will never forget the day it all began. I had finished my breakfast and was all ready to go to work when the doorbell rang. I heard the banging sounds of the huge dustbin thather sister carried around and got my bag of rubbish before opening the door. However, I was quite surprised to find that it was her. This was it. This was my opportunity to talk to her, I thought. I shouldn't miss this. However, I didn't know what to ask her, or how to begin. So I decided to start with the basics.

"Hello," I said, "what's your name?"

Her mouth opened a tad and she looked at me, confused. Then she looked at the rubbish bag. "Sahib, kachra?"

That was when I realised that I hadn't given her the rubbish yet. I knew now that 'kachra'meant rubbish. Her sister always called it that too and after two or three days of utter confusion, I had grasped at it. So this time I knew what she meant. "Oh, sorry," I said, handing her the bag. "Here you go."

She took it and threw it into the bin. "You don't have to call me 'Sahib'," I told her. But she continued to look confused. "My name is Scorpius," I added. "Scorpius Malfoy." She nodded and started to leave when I called out to her, "Wait! What's your name?" She looked back at me once, shrugged and left.

I was halfway to work, walking to the usual tune of frash, frash, frash (which was actually from the sister this time, as they seemed to have exchanged chores for a day) when I realised my mistake. She probably didn't understand English at all! Of course she wouldn't have known how to reply! I sighed and walked slowly to the clinic, wondering how I could be so much of a prat. She might not have even understood all the other stuff I said.

I worked that day on patients and was pleased to finally be relieved for lunch. Mahima was picking up her handbag and preparing to leave when I called to her.

"Mahima?"

"Yes?"

"Um… how do you ask someone what their name is, in Hindi?"

She didn't seem too surprised or bothered by my question (but then again there was no reason for her to be so) and she replied nonchalantly, "Tumhara naam kya hai?"

"Huh?"

She smiled and repeated the sentence slowly and I still didn't get it. After about fifteen attempts at trying to teach me verbally, she gave up and wrote it down for me. "Look at it and say it a few times. You'll learn it up by tomorrow," she said, sounding highly amused at my failed attempts to speak a single line in Hindi.

"Sure, thanks!" I told her. I then went back home and practised it, had my lunch and got back down to accomplish my mission. Today, I wanted to find out her name. It was just that… I couldn't wait any longer. So I muttered the sentence under my breath and walked to the building opposite mine, where in the lobby, she generally sat with her mother and sister for the afternoon. When I reached there, they had already finished their lunch and were chatting animatedly. She was giggling again and her sister was laughing with her while the mother looked very amused. And then she noticed me and fell quiet all at once. She stood up.

"Sahib?"

"N-No, sit down," I said, mentally slapping myself again for talking in English. Maybe I should use sign language? But then, I knew one sentence in Hindi and I wasn't about to give up. "Um…" I said, heat creeping up my pale cheeks. "Tum- Tumhara er… num ka hai?"

Her eyes sparkled at this and she started to giggle again, but her sister looked bewildered and her mother was stern. "Prachi!" she said firmly, angry at her daughter's behaviour.

I got my answer just then, but I wanted to hear it from her. "Prachi," she replied to me, glancing at her mother's strict face. "My name Prachi. Who you?"

I was surprised that she knew English, or at least bits and pieces of it. I was also very annoyed. Was she just shitting me in the morning? And I had told her my name then too. What did she want to prove to me?

I should never have spoken to her in the first place, I realised. I walked away without replying to her, irritated at what she had done. Merlin, I could never understand these poor people!

~~~

The monsoon began and it started to rain cats and dogs. There was no point in carrying an umbrella from my home to the clinic because I'd have to use half a dozen drying spells once I reached work anyway. I saw Prachi every day during this period, but I ignored her. I had no intention of ever speaking to her again and I could tell that she stopped sweeping to look at me each time I passed by. But she never did make an attempt to speak, or to apologise. I almost forgot that she existed. Almost.

On one of those days, I was at my flat, sorting through the files of all the cases I had seen. It was dusk and there was a light shower of rain falling outside. I was contemplating an Indian dinner outside at a nice restaurant. I had just got down to the lobby when I saw Prachi sitting on the floor in the corner, sans family. I frowned. What was she doing here at this time? That was when I saw the transparent plastic bag in her hand. It had some rice and curry- a ridiculously small quantity and yet she was clutching at it as though it were treasure.

This was somebody's leftover food.

I felt an unexpected dollop of sympathy. She was still sitting there, staring at the rain. She hadn't heard me get out of the lift because of the noise that the rain was making. I walked up to her.

"Prachi?"

She stood up and turned around, alarmed by my voice. "Sahib?"

"Don't call me that," I said again, despite all my anger. "Don't you have an umbrella?" I asked, gesturing to mine.

She shook her head. "Rice wet if I go," she said, pointing to the bag of leftovers.

"Where do you stay?"

"Arun Nagar," she said. "I walking."

"Can I drop you?"

She didn't understand that. She was still staring at me. Merlin, why did she stare at me so much? I glanced at the sparse amount of food she was carrying home. She would have to share that with everyone else.

"Are you hungry?" I asked her.

"No," she replied indignantly, but I heard her stomach grumble distinctly.

"Come on," I told her, feeling terrible for her. "I'll buy you some food."

"No," she said again, proudly.

I sighed. I didn't want to let her be hungry. And then I had an idea. "Can you cook?" I asked her.

"I cooking home," she replied.

"Will you cook for me right now? I'll pay you." I removed some Muggle rupees from my pocket and showed them to her.

She nodded. "I cook for you."

I took her home. It started to rain harder; the lightning and thunder added themselves to the existing ruckus. After showing Prachi to the kitchen and letting her open all the drawers and cabinets to see where everything was (the home had already been stocked with ground wheat, oil and spices before I started living there and I had a few vegetables in the fridge). I went back to the living room and reopened my file. In a short while, I smelled the delicious aroma of cooking vegetables in spice and, soon enough, Prachi came to the living room and called out to me.

"Sahib?"

As she set the curry and the rotis at the dining table, I made my way to the kitchen and took out two plates, spoons and glasses. I came out and placed them at the table. "Join me for dinner, will you?"

She shook her head. "I go."

"Sit down and eat," I told her firmly. "You can take some for your family too."

"Sahib," she said pleadingly. "I go."

"Okay, but at least take some of this then," I told her patiently, gesturing towards the hot food.

She shook her head. "For you."

"Listen, Prachi, just take it," I said, starting to get annoyed again. "It's only food, for heaven's sake!"

She didn't understand half of it, but she got the gist. She didn't reply to me and started to exit the flat. She took her bag of leftovers and started to open the door when the anger got the better of me. "What's your problem?!"

She turned around. "Sahib, pleaje."

"Please, what? I'm doing a good thing here and you don't need to be so bloody proud, okay?"

That was wrong, I realised. I shouldn't have said it like that. But she wouldn't understand the tone anyway. She would, like every other time just get the gist of it. But then I saw the tears in her eyes just before all the lights went off and we were enclosed in pitch darkness. "Fuck," I whispered.

~~~

The only sounds that came were from the heavy rain spattering against all kinds of surfaces. I knew she was still at the door; I could hear the slight chinking of her anklets as she moved unsurely and also light sobs which indicated that she was hurt. And then there was a blast of lightning, where I could suddenly see her, holding on to my doorframe and looking scared, while tears streamed from her eyes. "Shut the door and come in," I told her.

"I- I go."

"I got that. But I can't see any streetlamps that are working for some distance either. At least stay on until the electricity comes back." I didn't wait for a reply as I went into the bedroom to retrieve a few candles. She's a Muggle, I reminded myself. I couldn't use magic in front of her. I lit the candles inside the room itself though, for I was in no mood to use matchsticks. I swore at the rain and the electrical insufficiency of the city under my breath while walking back to the living room. This was a nice place, no doubt, but I bloody wished these stupid Muggles could at least solve their electricity problems.

When I reached the living room, she was still at the doorframe. The soft light from the candle illuminated her beautiful, scared face. She was not crying anymore; she was just terrified. I sighed. "Come in, Prachi. Stay on for a while."

She finally decided to listen to me and shut the door behind her as she made her way back to the dining table. She didn't even protest when I pushed the curry and rotis to her after helping myself. We ate in silence and she didn't look up at me even once as she polished off her plate.

Half an hour later, the power had still not come back. I mentally let out a string of obscenities as she cleared the plates and then re-joined me at the table. She stared out of the window then and I decided to make small talk with her. "How old are you?"

She frowned, obviously not having followed my question. "Age?" I asked her again.

She looked around for an answer. "Uh…" then with the help of her fingers, she let me know that she was eighteen.

"Didn't you go to school?" I asked her.

"Fifth standard left," she told me. I assumed that she had left school at year five or something, though I couldn't be sure.

"What does your father do?"

She stared at me for a long time before gesturing skywards. I sighed. "Oh, sorry."

She shook her head. "Sahib?"

"Will you stop calling me that?"

"I sorry," she replied.

I frowned. "For what?"

"I fun you," she said. "When I take kachra that day."

"Oh, that's okay," I said. I wasn't going to apologise for being rude to her earlier. I spoke again. "But you can make up by not calling me 'sahib'."

"What I call then?"

"My name is Scorpius, Prachi," I told her again. "You can call me Scorpius."

"Scupeej."

"Scor-pi-us," I told her again, loud and clear.

"Scopeej?" she repeated, earnestly trying to pronounce it right.

A smile touched my lips as I walked to the window and stood there, enjoying a fine spray of rain water on my face. The way she said my name sounded… beautiful in her voice. The day that I had got to know of her name, I had been a little curious about its meaning and had used one of those Muggle computers to… research her name a little bit.

Prachi means the East, I found out. It means the dawn, the first rays of sunshine. It means the universal truth. She seemed to validate all these meanings. She was a bright star from the Eastern world, fresh as dawn, pure as the first light of the day and there was something about her that gave off… truth and pride. She couldn't possibly believe in lying to anyone, but she had her pride, as I got to know today. Prachi. She was beautiful. She was perfect.

I turned around and quite suddenly, the candle at the table went out. I rushed to grab the matchbox kept beside it to rekindle it, but she was there too and our hands grasped it at the same time. I felt a jolt of electricity rush through me and let go instantly, backing away from her. She saw this and relit the candle anyway, keeping the box aside and looking away from me. Suddenly, I had the urge to kiss her.

What was happening to me? I was never interested in her like that. I actually didn't even expect to be involved with or care about someone like her, who was from a world so different from mine. I was just curious about her. This beautiful, mysterious girl, who swept floors for a living was a subject of intrigue and nothing else. So what attracted me to her?

To my horror, a list of reasons came into my mind: her simplicity, her innocence, her beauty, her voice, her pride… her perfection.

I seemed to be in love with her.

How did this happen? Where did this even come from? How on earth could I have such feelings for her? This was absurd! Unbelievable! I was surprised with myself. Was I,Scorpius Malfoy, falling for a Muggle sweeper girl? This was not me. No one I knew would believe me if I said this to them. Something inside me had changed very much.

I looked at her. She was still turned away, but all I wanted to really do to her right now was to cup her face in my hands, feel her beautiful wheaten skin and softly kiss her until I reached her lips. And then… I'd lightly peck her lips. That's all. No tongue. I didn't want to shag her, or anything. I didn't want to destroy her innocence.

I walked up to her. Did she feel the same way? Did she love me too? Why would she stare at me so much, otherwise? "Prachi?" I said hoarsely.

She turned around and stood up, her face inches away from mine. "I… go in five minutes if light no come," she whispered. "Ma waiting."

I nodded. "Okay." And then I bent forward… I could see her eyes and I cupped her face in my hand just as I wanted to, feeling her delicate cheeks… my lips touched the border of her mouth and I traced them upwards, enclosing her upper lip in my mouth and kissing her softly. She sighed as I brought my lips up to her nose, kissing the tip, then the bridge and then her eyes, her forehead…

Her arms were around my middle, her petite body pressed against mine, but in a more comfortable way than a sexual way. I was just covering her forehead with kisses when there was a bolt of lightning, followed by loud thundering, which broke us both from the embrace. And then she realised what she had let me do- what we had done.

I knew there were tears in her eyes as she left my flat at a run. I could hear the chinking of the anklets as she got down the stairs as quickly as she could. Later on, I noticed that she had left her packet of food at my place and felt a pang of guilt as I realised that her family would probably go hungry tonight, just because I decided I wanted to kiss her.

~~~

For the next few weeks, I knew she was looking at me whenever I passed her, but when I looked back, she seemed to be looking somewhere else. I tried to talk to her many times after that, but it was evident that she didn't want to talk. Soon, my third and last month in Bombay was coming to an end and Prachi still had no idea how I felt.

I wanted her to be mine, and somehow, after the evening of our kiss, I knew that she had feelings for me too. So I decided on the last few days of my stay I decided to man up and talk to her… and also ask her to marry me.

Yes, I wanted to marry her. It was an extreme decision on my part and I was very surprised at how much I wanted this. I didn't care about what the wizarding world or my parents would think of this. I wanted to make Prachi my own and take her and her family to my place in London. She'd see luxuries that she had never imagined, she'd be happy, she'd be with me. I bought her a ring that I thought would suit her slender fingers and decided to propose the next time I saw her.

I didn't see her during the last week of my stay. Her mother and sister were there, but she wasn't. I didn't really want to approach them and ask them where she was, so I waited for her to come. Maybe she'd come tomorrow. She didn't turn up. Maybe the day after…

On my last day in Bombay, she still didn't turn up. Her family hadn't turned up for two days either. I was disappointed at this, but I wasn't about to give up. Maybe they were all just on leave or something. Anyway, I was determined to marry her.

I was scheduled to leave for London early next morning, so I packed my bags that night and bid Mahima goodbye. And then I woke up the next day at the first hint of dawn and set off to Arun Nagar, where Prachi had said she lived. I asked for directions from the locals and realised that it was located a fairly walkable distance away.

Arun Nagar was a narrow colony of small, colourful homes with stray dogs running about everywhere. Most people were already awake. It was still pretty much dawn- there wasn't much light yet and the stars were somewhat visible. I looked around at the shacks. Most of them didn't even have doors, just doorframes with curtains to cover the interiors from view. How the hell could people live like this? I looked around for someone to ask for directions and spotted an old woman sitting outside one of the homes. I approached her.

"Prachi?"

Her eyes widened and she pointed at a yellow shack a few paces away. I walked to the shack. This one, like most of the others had a blue doorframe with a curtain pulled shut.

"Prachi!" I called out, my hand clutching at the ring inside my jacket.

There was no reply for five minutes. Just as I was about to call out again, her mother suddenly opened the curtain from the other side. "S-Sahib," she sputtered, standing aside and making way for me. I entered the shack. The brick walls were unpainted and the floor was not tiled. The room I had entered was the living room and I could see just another room, which was possibly the bedroom and kitchen combined. Prachi's sister came out of the other room and unfolded a dirty little chair for me. "Pleaje seat."

"I… need to talk to Prachi," I said.

The sister bit her lip and looked at her mother. She then looked at me with tears filling her eyes. "Prachi nahin hai."

"I'm sorry," I said calmly. "I can't-"

"Prachi no here!" she said.

"Then where is she?" I asked her.

She sighed deeply and then I experienced the longest minute of silence in my entire life before she raised her head skywards and gestured towards the starry dawn.

The End