4 - Edmund
It was like any other normal day in Hogwarts. Gaia and the rest of her friends were chatting nearby at the garden in Hogwarts when suddenly; out of nowhere, a little flying black ball with bat wings came flying by and zoomed past them.
"What the…" Ron said in surprise, as the black ball zoomed past his hair. "What the bloody hell is that?"
"I don't know…" Hermione said to him, and stood up to see where the flying black ball had gone to. "It looks like something with bat wings…"
"Bat wings?!" Ron said in alarm. "You won't reckon its vampires, won't you?"
"Vampires are night walkers, in case you didn't pay attention to class, Ron," Gaia said to him and chuckles with Harry. Ron scowled.
When they went back into the dining hall, again, the little black ball with bat wings flew past them. Everyone saw it, and they chases after the small ball.
They waved their wands at the ball, but the flying ball does not respond to magic, and continues to fly out of reach from everyone.
The students are well entertained with the flying ball of bat wings, and soon, a whole group of students gathers outside the great hall just so that they could see the flying bat ball.
And as if on cue, Professor McGonagall summons the ball with her wand, and it flew to her hand immediately.
The ball struggles to fly out of Professor McGonagall's hand, and Professor McGonagall is astounded with the flying thing in her hand. She lets it go, and it flew high up into the air again, and the students scream.
"Who made this?" Professor McGonagall asks with a booming voice. Everyone silenced immediately. No one answers her, and she repeats in a louder voice. "Who made this!?"
The students shuffles apart and reveals Edmund standing in the middle. He looked up shyly and blushes in embarrassment with everyone staring at him, shuffling his little feet on the grounds and places both of his hands behind his back.
"You made this, boy?" Professor McGonagall asks with an incredulous tone.
Edmund nodded his head shyly.
"Come with me," Professor McGonagall said to him, and the boy follows her behind her back with his short legs. Everyone laughed at him, and Gaia is immediately notified of her brother's trouble by some junior students in the same class with Edmund.
"Gaia, Gaia!" the junior students ran to her in the great hall, where she is having her lunch with Harry and his friends. "Gaia!"
"Whatever is the matter, boys?" Gaia said to them and squatted down to look at them. "What is it?"
"Edmund… he… he…" the little boy on the left panted.
"He's in the Headmaster's room!" the boy on the right exclaims, and Gaia's eyes widens in surprise and shock.
She flew to the Headmaster's room and whispers the password to the gargoyle. The gargoyle spins and opens up its passageway to her, and up she goes into the Headmaster's room.
"Headmaster!" Gaia stumbles into the Headmaster's room.
"Miss Starlight," Professor Snape said curtly. "Why are you here?"
"Edmund, he's innocent. I mean, that boy is so naïve and selfless! He didn't do anything wrong and I know some of the Slytherin boys are trying to bully him but I always and always manages to save him from trouble time and time again but the Slytherin kids all thought that it is funny to bully him because he is so small and so cute and so adorable and-" Gaia blabbered, but is stopped by Professor McGonagall's hand.
"Not now, Miss Starlight," Professor McGonagall said to her.
"Gaia," Edmund calls her, and ran to her and hugged her waist tightly and buries his face in her robes. "Gaia… the Headmaster is rewarding me for the making of the Golems!"
"What?" Gaia said in surprise. "He's… not punishing you?"
"Why ever would I need to punish such a brilliant student, Miss Starlight?" Professor Dumbledoor said to her with an old man's chuckle. "Mr. Starlight is a genius boy. He ought to be rewarded for his brains. The Golem is a brilliant idea for Mr. Starlight to be able to create it. No doubt a genius of his age; he will be rewarded with 500 points to Gryffindor…"
Gaia is stunned to silence. Professor McGonagall ushers them both out of the Headmaster's study room and said to them.
"You have a genius as a brother, Miss Starlight. He is brilliant, no doubt. And I expect you to be on time to my classes again now and not going all out with Mr. Malfoy with your debates…" Professor McGonagall gave her a look over her eyeglasses and went back to the Headmaster's office.
Professor McGonagall had heard of the kind Gaia Starlight, Snape's most brilliant Potion student. Edmund is her adopted brother from the streets, and she saves him when he is a beggar boy. For her to be so kind to someone so insignificant is something to behold in, especially more so when the poor beggar boy turns out to be a genius of sort. She is so lucky for being so kind…
Everyone came to the front of the Headmaster's office and sees it for themselves the rubies that houses the points for the Gryffindor fills up drastically. Everyone cheered, except for the Slytherins of course.
"Oh, Edmund," Gaia lifts Edmund up from the ground and hugged him tightly. "You are a genius, a genius!"
Everyone scrambles to touch Edmund's dark mop of hair, and Edmund blushes up shyly in return. George and Fred held up Edmund in their arms, and they celebrated the happy event.
"Our genius in our dorm! Our genius in our dorm! He's the mighty genius of them all, and we beat Slytherin out of their own dorm!" everyone sings the silly song Fred and George made, and they happily laughs with the wonderful event that had happened.
Fred and George sets Edmund down, and Edmund ran on his little legs to Gaia and flung him to her.
"It was all for you, Gaia…" little Edmund said to her in a small, shy voice.
"What is it?" Gaia asks him, leaning into him so that he'll speak louder. Everyone watches as Edmund spills his deepest secrets and desires to his adopted sister.
"It was all for you, Gaia… I made them for you. You saved me when I need someone most and you gave me food and a place to stay, and clothes and education in such a wonderful place. I love you, Gaia… Thank you for making me your brother…" Edmund said, and soon, tears came trailing down from his eyes.
He started to bawl sadly into his hands. Hermione sheds a tear at the heart full words he had said to Gaia. Gaia smiles at him and embraces the little boy in her arms, hugging him and patting his back gently.
"Don't cry, Edmund. Don't cry. I am here with you. I'll be with you… You'll have me and my brother forever…" she said to him, and Edmund bawls more into her shoulders.
Everyone laughed at the bawling Edmund. Harry patted the boy's head and he slowly stopped crying.
"Gosh, you are such a crybaby, Edmund…" Gaia said to him and wiped his tears away from his face with her handkerchief. "Big boys don't cry now, alright? You are a big boy right?"
"Yes…" Edmund said shyly and sobbed more when Gaia smiles at him kindly.
"Aww… don't cry Edmund… oh dear, dear, we have ourselves a crybaby now…" she said to him, and everyone laughed.
Edmund became famous around Hogwarts as the little genius boy who created something so magnificent like the Golem. Everyone in school buys it from him, and the little boy had Gaia to help him sets up a vault in Gringotts Bank, and soon, money starts to pour in, and Edmund is rich in his own little world.
Soon, the whole Hogwarts students have a golem of their own. It fluttered close by to them, and it became the number one gadget must have for all. Edmund gave some of those poor students free Golden Golems, which is a luxury to have indeed compared to Black Golems and Silver Golems. The students are touched with his sincerity and his kindness, and he pointed one finger at Gaia.
And she would smile.
Gaia had never imagined that little Edmund would be a genius. He is so young and so innocent, and yet his brains could generate the toughest math questions and he could even read out the entire Defense against the Dark Arts Book without once referring to the book for reference. His teachers are impressed with his intellects, and would reward him with rubies for the Gryffindor Clock.
Winter came soon enough. The snow fell hard and heavy, and Edmund is out to Hogsmead with his sister at tow. She brought him sweets from Honeydukes, and he ate them heartily.
Hermione brought him sweets too, and so does Fred and George and Harry. Everyone seems eager to buy him things, and he would eat them all in the shortest amount of time. He saves some of the sweets in a small burlap bag of his, and he would bring it back to Hogwarts to have it during a resting day.
And when Gaia turns around and gave him his rabbit-shaped cotton candy, she couldn't find him anywhere.
"Edmund?" she calls, but he did not respond to her calls. "Where's Edmund?"
She searches high and low for him with Harry and his friends, but to no avail. Then suddenly, two little boys came running to her and scream bloody murder.
"There's a head in the snow!" they screamed, and Gaia's heart pounded.
Could it be Edmund?
She ran to the site with Harry and his friends, and found people surrounding the snow. There is a small hole in the snow, and in there is Edmund's head.
"Oh, my God!" Gaia exclaims, and Harry and his friends ran to where she is kneeling down. There, in the snow, is Edmund's little head with snow buried all over his little body.
"Edmund!" Gaia screams, and begun to dig the snow hard and fast. Harry and his friends helped too, and soon, Edmund is out of the snow. He is freezing, and his lips are blue. His skin is a pale shade of whitish grey, and he doesn't look good.
"Edmund? Ed? Ed! Oh, my goodness… Ed!" Gaia exclaims and shouted at him, and Edmund opens his round little eyes.
"G-Gaia…" he calls her and Gaia quickly lifted him in her arms and ran all the way back to Hogwarts.
But Hogwarts is so far… and you can't teleport to Hogwarts from Hogsmeade…
"In here!" Harry shouted, and draped her in his invisibility cloak.
"Wherever did you get this, Harry?" Gaia asks him and marvels at the cool and rare silk. She had one in her family, but it is stored safely in their safe deposit box in Peter's room. It belongs to him as the head of the family.
"I'll tell you some other time. I had to go back for Hermione and Ron. Go on ahead. We'll catch up to you later…" he said to her, and leads her into Honeydukes Sweetshop secret underground tunnel.
"This is…!" Gaia said, stunned with the new discoveries.
"Just go on in. I'll explain it to you later!" he said to her, and again disappears under the cloak's power.
Gaia ran through the tunnel with little Edmund in her arms, and soon, she heard footsteps behind her.
It was Harry, Hermione and Ron, flanked by Fred and George.
"Hiya, Gaia!" Fred and George chimed. "We heard from Harry what happened. Thank goodness we had discovered the underground tunnel in Honeydukes. It's a good thing we found it, eh?"
"Good thing indeed…" Gaia said to them and smiles gratefully to them. "I need to bring Edmund to the Hospital Wing. He is freezing…"
Soon, they arrive at the entrance of the One Eyed Witch. They ran to the Hospital Wing, and there, they met with Draco.
"Hi, Gaia," he said to her with a smile, and she storms up to him with a furious expression on her face.
"I'll deal with you later…" she hissed to him, and he is shocked.
"What…?" he said to her, and watches as she storms away to the Hospital Wing. He follows her.
There, Edmund is given treatment to warms him up. Madam Pomfrey gave little Edmund three bottles of warm Butterbeer, and soon, color returns to Edmund's face and cheeks.
"Oh, Edmund!" Gaia exclaims while hugging Edmund, who is still sipping warm Butterbeer through a straw. "What happened!? What happened!?"
And in came Draco. He was worried of Edmund, and he had heard Harry whispering to Hermione about Edmund's being frozen and stuck at Hogsmead. It was lucky that someone informs Gaia of Edmund's demise, or else the boy would have frozen to death.
"You!" Gaia screeched at him and lifts him up with her wand power. Draco stares at her disbelievingly and opens his mouth to speak, but she beats him to it.
"You vile scum! How dare you bully my brother!?" she screeched, and slammed him to the walls.
"Gaia, Gaia!" Edmund calls her, and pulls onto her long red cloak. Gaia stopped her magic, and Draco fell onto the floor in a heap.
"Gaia," Edmund started in his small shy voice. "It was Crabbe and Goyle, not Draco Malfoy… Crabbe and Goyle took me there and buried me in the snow… not Malfoy…"
"What?" Gaia said in surprise. She turns to look at Draco, and he stood up and limped to her. Madam Pomfrey is livid, and she gave Draco some healing draught and he is well again.
"You would do well not to use magic in my ward, Miss Starlight!" Madam Pomfrey scolded her, and went away with a flurry of her skirt. She gave Draco a sorry look and darted out her pink tongue guiltily.
"Sorry about that just now…" she said to him. "Are you alright?"
"I'm good…" Draco said to her. "I get it. You're just worried for Edmund. I mean, that boy is so mini tiny…" Gaia laughs and he continues. "You said Crabbe and Goyle did it?"
"It appears so. Edmund said they bundles him up and buried him in the snow. He said they said that it would be the best joke to see a snowman walking back to Hogwarts…" Gaia said to him, and gritted her teeth in anger.
"I'll deal with it, Gaia," Draco said to her, and patted her shoulders. "Don't worry. I'll teach them a lesson…"
"No," Gaia said to him and stopped him. She gave him a mischievous smile and he raises his eyebrows. "Let's do it together…"