A/N: Wow I must admit I have really been on a writing kick. I just know where this is going right now and can't stop myself. I'm changing it up a lot. I don't imagine any of you ever read the older version of this story, but this version is really starting to come into its own! Hope you don't mind the short chapters. And please review! I'd love to know how you think this is coming along.
"Aren't you hungry, Dubhán?" Potter (no, 'the man', that way he doesn't have to remember every second that he's with his Grandfather's enemy) asks. It's the fourth time the man has asked that question in the last hour. Previously Dubhán had tried to be polite and merely shrugged, but now he looks across the table and glares.
"To be honest, sir," he says tensely "not for anything you've prepared." Since the game is over, he pushes the plate away from himself and folds his arms across his chest. His words are the truth, but it's also true that he's very hungry. The seizures always take a lot out of him.
"Bad things happen if you don't eat," the little girl tells him. "You could make yourself a sandwich if you don't like what Mummy cooked though…"
"It would still be your food," he grumbles back, trying not to show the girl any anger. She doesn't deserve his anger.
"But our food is just like everyone else's food…" she mumbles, clearly confused.
"It could be poisoned. It could make me sick."
"Mum wouldn't cook bad food for you," she says softly, reaching out a hand to rest atop his knee in a reassuring manner. "She's a good Mum." He wonders how such a little girl can know such reassuring words, can make her voice sound so loving. She doesn't know him. But it doesn't work on him either. He's not foolish enough to be swayed by a little girl.
"I won't eat it. If you're so concerned about my not eating, you can take me home to my Grandfather." The man sighs, the lady frowns, and the little girl tilts her head.
"We don't have a Grandpa," she says, managing to sound certain. "We only have Grandma's sister, but we only send her Christmas and Birthday cards."
For a moment he opens his mouth to say 'yes we do, I was living with him' but her childish remarks thus far lead him to believe she'd reply back with something like 'I want to meet him!' and Dubhán knew, in all honesty, that Grandfather would have no interest in such an immature little thing, blood or not. So he turns away from her brilliant blue eyes and over to the lady's. She looks relieved.
"I'm tired," he says. "Where will you make me sleep?"
"Ooooh, I'll show you your room!" The little girl cheers, jumping up and tugging at his arm. "I'll be right back Mum and Dad!"
They nod, hiding smiles that he'd like to wipe off their faces. It's taking all his self-control to not hit the girl. He doesn't like to be manhandled. The dog, who had been sleeping by his food dish as if to say 'more please', rose to his feet and began wagging it's tail.
"Zee: Dubhán's Room!" The dog races out of the room and Dubhán is dragged after him by a giggling little girl.
SCENE BREAK
The door the dog is sitting against (as if his body could push it open) looks like every other door, but when Emma opens the door, the inside is blue. Light blues with dark blue highlights color the walls and the bed. On the bed-sheets are clouds and racing brooms with little snitches flying this way and that way. It is all so childish. He stands still in the center and just looks at it all.
"This is your room," the little girl says and her voice is more calm and reassuring than the giggling excited one before. He turns towards her. They're both alone. He thinks of asking her about the things in the room, but then shuts his mouth. He doesn't want to know. Soon he'll be back with his Grandfather.
"Are you really tired?" She asks, her voice soft and curious.
"No," he answers honestly. She is only a little girl.
"Then why did you want to go to sleep?"
"Because I wanted to be alone." The girl puts a finger to her lips and taps it there.
"Oh…" Her lips twitch in something Dubhán thinks is disappointment. "Well then I'll see you tomorrow." She walks out of the room and shuts the door. Leaving him alone…or almost alone. When he turns around again, the dog is on the bed.
"I think that is meant to be where I sleep…" he not-quite-demands. The dog wiggles as if to get more comfortable. "Maybe you could sleep on the cushion over there? It looks like a dog bed…" The dog barks and wags its tail. He sits down in a chair and stares at the dog for a long time. He thinks hours go by. The dog, so wolf looking, makes him long for that companionship.
"You know Zee," he begins, "I've learned some new tricks since I last saw you…" the dogs tail is going a mile a minute. "Would you like to see them?" The dog barks. He smirks. He sends a wandless spell towards the door to lock it; the spell won't keep out the man or the lady if they really want to come in, but maybe they'll decide to let him be.
"You see, I told Grandfather I wanted to learn how brew the Wolfsbane potion, but Grandfather said he didn't have the potion master to spare, so I learned this trick instead… " He stands up and crouches low to the ground and a second there is a wolf pup on the floor. It crawls out of the little boys clothes and climbs up onto the bed. The dog sniffs it and nudges it and looks at it in bewilderment. Dubhán tries to convince himself that he's back home and it's a moon-day, even though his whole body feels different as a real wolf instead of a werewolf. He falls asleep with his body half on top of Zee's.
SCENE BREAK
"We renewed the wards on the windows, right?" Harry nods absently, pressing something to his ear with deeper concentration.
"Its perfectly silent in there. Do you think he's okay?" Alexandra looks up from her pacing, deterred only by the heavy book cradled in her arms, which she is chanting from, enforcing ward after tedious ward.
"I think he knows we're listening to him." She said, putting the heavy book down on a desk and practicing a wand movement.
"We're dealing with an eight year old, Alexandra, not Mad Eye Moody!" Harry reminded.
"An eight year old who somehow, somehow, survived Voldemort." Harry opens his mouth, ready to retort he had never acted like Dubhán, but Alexandra foresaw the question. "Not in the way you survived, Harry, not by temporarily disarming the danger! He survived by conscious wit." Harry could not dispute this, could no find fault in it. It was true, whether Lily had or had not given Harry power through her love, Harry had been to young to regard Voldemort as anything but a danger, one that had hurt his mother and was in front of him. Dubhán had been every bit aware of who Voldemort was, what Voldemort did, and who he himself was...
"Okay – I get it."
"I don't think you have." She said distantly, turning back to the book and beginning to chant a particularly hard spell, so that Harry knew he must, lest he want all of the wards to drop suddenly, restrain the burning retort that had risen to his mouth and was hard to swallow down.
