Authors' Note: AU beyond recognition. Whereby I've mutilated characters, history, plotlines and ideas. Have also implemented clichés. Why do I do this? I'll let you know when I have the answer.
Disclaimer: JKR's characters, in an incarnation of my own. This does not mean I own them.
Warnings/About the Story: I've just had some very strange food, and my stomach is acting up; expect strangeness here too. Excuses for the horribly cute kid, if he offends anyone. Plotline has not even begun to get explained in this chapter. Swearing. Innuendos. I'd put the rating at high T, maybe. OOCness; if I delve into regions too murky even for an AU, please feel free to tell me. Cannon pairings, because I really don't have the flexibility of imagination it takes to come up with new ships.
Prologue
"Mommy!"
Well, now this was awkward.
Ginny MacHall squinted at the small form clutching around her knees, one with black hair. Definitely not hers, because she was convinced that with the sheer stubbornness her hair showed, becoming brighter by the day, it would doubtlessly insist on similarly tormenting whatever poor offspring she had. Not that there was anything to sanction this viewpoint, except maybe the general direction her life had taken this far; Murphy having proved to be an optimist.
"I'm not your mommy." She pried fingers loose from her jeans (worn out almost beyond the realms where fashion could save it).
The face pressing into her jeans peeked at her briefly before going back. It was a small boy, with big green eyes and a face on the verge of crying. The peek he'd taken at her had been done with a considerable amount of dread, and she suspected his return to her legs might have been more from a need to mask tears than anything else.
Then she heard a sniffle. Dear god, that had been meant to be an expression (of sorts), not a bleeding prophecy.
And because moderately good (okay, non-evil) young women did not abandon lost little boys in sprawling malls where anyone could take them, she sighed and lifted his head up. Tears ran freely down his scrunched up face, obviously sneering at the considerable efforts he'd put into controlling them. From her long and torturous stint as a miserable child, Ginny recognized the symptoms of stubborn pride in the face of high misery.
"Okay, I'll bite. When did you last see your mother?"
He shook his head, hiccoughing when he tried to speak. "Don't know," A flood of fresh tears burst out at the next word. "Mommy said she'd never let me 'way, after 'Rius and Da-daddy poked the salana-smal- the li-lizards. And I can't f-f-find her!"
At that point he gave up fighting and bawled outright. Ginny experienced a small moment of triumph (she'd lasted a lot longer before breaking out like that), following which she physically smacked herself. This was not the time to get into second childhood.
"Can't you tell me anything else?"
He shook his head, suddenly suspicious, furiously wiping away the latest tears. "Daddy told me not to say things to people."
"Christ, kid. I'm not going to kidnap you. Believe me, one more mouth to feed, even temporarily, is more than I can afford. And then there's the ransom notes and the threatening calls and the precautions against law enforcement. I'll bet holding up a supermarket would be cheaper, especially if I use a water pistol."
He just looked at her miserably, occasionally wiping his nose, eyes brighter than ever with tears. Ginny almost used a word kids shouldn't be, in general, exposed to.
"At least tell me their names," she said.
"No names," he shook his head again, more violently. "Even 'Rius said so."
"'Rius is paranoid," Ginny told him.
"Not paramn-purnoind! He's a dog." He stated it like it should be obvious.
"Your dog told you not to tell anyone your name?" Imaginary voices, it was too early for this. Never mind the long and detailed world-dictatorship plans she'd shared with her pals Eeeny, Meeny, Miney and Cherwayzurangolla.
"No. 'Rius did," He frowned at her. "You don't know much."
"You're kinda late on the teaching, Master Yoda. I learnt that long ago, and the hard way too."
"You're weird."
"Okay, let's get this over with. The sooner you can tell me something about your parents, the sooner you can quit buggering me and go annoy them."
His face scrunched up with indecision, wondering if she was worthy of being supplied with top-secret information. He finally relented with "Mommy has hair like yours."
The poor woman. "More?"
"Daddy looks like me. And 'Rius has grey eyes!" He finished triumphantly, beaming at her. "Now find them!"
Ginny gave up. This was why she spent the next couple of hours waiting in the announcement room (or more accurately, the narrow space that counted as a hallway outside it) with a fidgeting three-year old intent on driving her to kill him. It was for nothing, though. The parents weren't here yet, and she was running late. So she yelled to the bored man inside to keep an eye on the kid, grabbed her handbag, and prayed her boss was in a kinder mood than usual today.
She'd taken maybe ten steps before a screech startled her.
"Ginny!"
Counting to ten, she turned, fixing the kid with her best glare. "What?"
He quieted down, slightly sheepish. "I thought you were leaving."
There was a slight pause where she felt guilty. "I am."
His eyes widened, threatening to fill up again. "You can't!"
"I have work. It's what most people have to endure to survive," she rubbed her nose. "You'll be fine, I'm sure your parents are out there somewhere sick about you. It's only take them a while to retrace there footsteps, get here and there you go. Home free."
"You can't leave!"
"I have to. Look, Carl will keep you company. Right, Carl?" Ginny looked at the dozing announcer, wincing at the muttered 'humph'.
His face scrunched up again. She steeled herself for another tantrum, surprised when he turned away defiantly, again furiously wiping his nose on his shirtsleeves, by now in a worse state than her jeans were.
"It'll be fine," she said, feeling like a jerk. "I swear. Your parents will be here soon."
He looked at her, tears starting again, before nodding and climbing back into his seat. Ginny started back down the stairs, annoyed at the kind of parents who were this careless with their children. But then again, even distracted affections were better than being left at an orphanage with nothing more than a piece of paper, with an outlandish first name written on it. If she ever found her parents, she was going to tell them all that she had to endure over being Ginevra, even though she doubted they would care.
Her next footstep came down with considerable force, and she bribed a bored guard to get the kid some sweets on the way.
Work was the usual, which was to say agonizing. The patrons of Mo's coffee shop still tended to whistle, comment and stare at her in a definitively non-platonic manner. Mo was still one of the biggest jerks she'd met in her lifetime, and considering the kind of people she'd been exposed to, it was saying a lot. The place still smelled odd, and she hated the goddamned uniform. Bend over a little and the color of her underwear would be the newest topic of discussion.
But it was a job, and it came with lodging. A pathetic one, admittedly, but better than the streets. Her being alive proved that.
Always choose the lesser of the two evils, because waiting for a good option was being unrealistic.
Once her shift was done, she headed back to the mall. So she was a softie, big deal. She had to make sure the kid was okay; he was too young for her to want him to be miserable.
She found Carl outside along with a cleaning lady and a security guard, glaring warily at the boy, who had his tiny fists held out in front of him. Around them she found a broken bulb, some upturned chairs and a strange orange furry object in the shape of a deformed pyramid.
Ginny immediately wished her shift had been longer, but before she could turn back, the boy had spotted her. Without wasting precious milliseconds, he abandoned the fighting stance and settled for running and hiding behind her legs. Ginny had a sense of déjà vu.
"What happened?" she asked them.
Carl dug out his crucifix and clutched it tightly. The woman looked ready to use her mop, and more in a way intended for cudgels than for cleaning.
"Child of the devil." Carl proclaimed. It would have been funny if it weren't for the mild insanity in his eyes.
"You've been watching too many movies." Ginny dismissed him.
He laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound.
"They caught my brother once, dead. He didn't even have a mark on him - he just went out to get milk, came back in a body bag." he licked his lips nervously. "It's armeggadon is what it is. Witchcraft. Black magic. And that thing is it. Unholy."
Ginny moved back, a careful hold on the boy. He was trembling, clutching at her for dear life. She looked at the cleaning lady.
"Can you believe the guy?" She asked weakly.
"I can, missy," the woman growled. "Things weren't like so before. It maybe not some fancy end of the world, but it is unnatural. People like it. Moving things with no strings, I saw it," she licked her lips in a gesture eerily like the one Carl had made. "It ain't human."
It was the look she shot the kid that did it. Ginny felt herself boiling over with righteous rage.
"He's a boy. A little boy. Are the two of you out of your bloody microscopic minds?!" she extended her glare to include the sheepish security guard. "Have all of you been smoking pot?"
"Now, miss," the guard rumbled defensively. "It's hard times, people get nervous. And this place-" he nodded at the wreck. "It is a bit unnatural-"
"Life is unnatural, dammit! Strange things happen all the time. People get killed if they go out after dark, no one knows why or how. People get killed, period. Bad things happen. It's called life! And what sort of idiot blames a three-year old over that? He hasn't even started to live it!"
The guard scowled, but the sheepish look didn't entirely fade. Ginny tried to calm herself.
"Did you find the parents or not?" she managed, and calmly.
The guard gave her a look; the answer was obvious. She didn't even bother to glace at the other two.
Ginny sighed, removed the kid from her jeans (again) and told him to stay calm, because his parents would come (that sounded fake even to her ears). She'd barely gotten past the first argument when the guard cleared his throat.
"Mall closes in half hour," he announced. "If the kid's here then, I'll kick him out."
By this time, he'd attached herself to her jeans again. She also knew that a kid that small wouldn't last the night. Her conscience spoke up again, making her wonder why she had to be cursed with it when most people lived happily without one.
The last things she heard as she led him out were whispered prayers from Carl. Catching the gist (it oriented towards exorcism), she rubbed her forehead.
"Can I at least know your name? An answer would be appreciated, Child of the Devil."
He looked at her, much happier than he'd been before. "It's Harry."
End Note: Don't say I didn't warn you. And a review would be better than nice.