Unspoken
by Teddylonglong

Please refer to chapter 1 for my disclaimer and warnings. Thank you.

Regina Lestrange was working on the lesson plan for her autumn classes. She was teaching just two classes at the Centre for Natural Sciences, a private university situated near her home in the outskirts of London. Apart from her teaching position, she was working at her home as a mind healer. It was a tiring job, however, and even if she would be able to take on more patients, as people seemed to love her gentle methods, which she used for her patients, but she never made more than five appointments for one day.

The weekends, however, belonged to herself. Today was Saturday, and she was very much looking forward to Sunday. Twice a month, on Sunday mornings, her sister Rebecca and her fiancé Artemis used to take her to watch a Quidditch match. Unbeknownst to everyone in her muggle surroundings except for the two Unspeakables, she was a huge fan of Quidditch. Her only regret was that she was not able to fly. When she had been a child, her older brothers and her father had often taken her flying, generously allowing her to sit in front of them on their brooms; however, when her father had instructed Dolly to take her into the muggle world and stay with her, this had ended abruptly. Up to her eleventh birthday, she had still hoped that her magic would manifest just a little later than usual; however, when she did not receive her Hogwarts letter on her eleventh birthday, she knew better.

Ever since Rebecca and her best friend had joined the Unspeakables, they were not only able to get hold onto tickets for the matches, in which the British Quidditch teams played against each other, but they took her with them and even provided Unspeakable robes for her, so that all three of them could sit in the spectator seats incognito.

'I wonder who is going to play tomorrow,' she thought, as she curiously reached out for the latest edition of the Daily Prophet, just when her sister's telepathic message penetrated her mind.

'Regina, I'm going to take Harry to you now.'

Her eyes widened in shock. 'Now?' she thought in disbelief. "Dolly!" she called out to her faithful house-elf. "

An instant later, Dolly popped up in front of her, just when an Unspeakable arrived in front of the fireplace with a small boy of perhaps three or four. Her sister pulled down her hood, revealing her Arabella Figg form.

"Regina, Dolly. This is Harry Potter, and he needs a new home. He was abused by his relatives, not only mentally but also physically." Lowering herself to Harry's height, she added, "These are my sister Regina and her elf Dolly. They're both very nice."

Regina immediately rose from her chair and stepped over to her visitors, kneeling in front of the child.

"Hello Harry. I am Regina. I'm sorry to hear that your relatives did not treat you well, and I promise you now that Dolly and I will be very happy to have you here with us."

She realised that a lone tear leaked from Harry's eye, before he averted his eyes. "I'm only a freak, whom no one wants."

Exchanging a horrified look with her sister, Regina contradicted in a soft voice.

"No, Harry, I disagree. You are a wonderful young boy and, as my sister told me, a powerful wizard just like my sister is a witch. I know everything about magic, but I can't do magic myself. Dolly can, and she is able to do wonderful things. I am sure she'd like to teach you magic."

Dolly nodded, eagerly. "Of course, young Master Harry. Dolly will teach you."

Harry slowly raised his head, his expression turning to hope, as he looked at the elf, who was not much taller than himself. "Really?"

"Really." Regina nodded, smiling. She observed, happily, how a small smile began to play on the boy's lips.

"Regina, I'll come by again in the afternoon. I will talk to my colleagues to see what the Unspeakables can do to train him and most importantly to hide him."

'Remember, you cannot simply take him outside, as he could be recognised. Let me discuss this with my colleagues,' she added, silently.

Regina nodded in understanding, before a sudden thought crossed her mind. "I will not be accused of child abduction if anyone gets to know that he's living with me now, will I?"

Arabella rolled her eyes. "No. After Dumbledore took the guardianship over him, which he shouldn't have done and might be tried for it at a later time, my goblin colleague, who is also the account manager of the Potter family, secretly changed the magical guardianship to me. You might not know this, but the magical guardianship automatically overwrites the muggle one, so that right now, there is nothing that we need to do. Even if you decided to adopt him, you'd still need me or someone else as magical guardian, as long as we can't find a way to give you magic. Believe me, it's the main point of my research at the Unspeakables' Office."

"I know, and I highly appreciate it. Thanks, sis."

"Harry." Arabella once more lowered herself to Harry's height. "I will leave you now to make yourself acquainted with Regina and Dolly, but I'll come back in the afternoon. Afterwards, we'll need to go shopping. Do you have anything at the Dursleys' that you want me to fetch for you?"

Harry shook his head, wearing a forlorn expression.

"Did you not have any toy or such?" Regina could not help herself asking, unnecessarily, she realised, as he once again shook his head.

"No. Only Dudley had."

"Then we'll remedy that this afternoon, won't we?" she said, lightly, smiling, when Harry looked at her with an expression of hope.

"I'd like that."

His voice was barely audible, but Regina did not comment. 'This is not a therapy session; this is to get my child settled into our home,' she reminded herself.

"Bye, Arabella, and thank you so much for bringing Harry here," she turned to her sister, who merely nodded and pulled up her hood, before she unceremoniously popped away.

HP

Harry felt a little lost, when the kind, old lady simply vanished into thin air. He liked her. He had sometimes been allowed to visit her, when the Dursleys were away. She had many cats, and she was always very friendly to him. She had even taken him from his cupboard, when he was hurting, and made him all better overnight. Before he could lose himself in his thoughts, the other, much younger woman, who seemed to be very nice, too, turned to him.

"Harry, shall we go upstairs and take a look at your new room?"

Harry gave her a frightened look but nodded and followed the lady upstairs. He cast Dolly a small smile, somehow feeling comfortable with her. While she was looking differently from everyone, she was about his size. Upstairs, Regina opened a door and motioned him inside a beautiful, large room with a huge window that allowed the view into a garden.

"This is your room now. Sorry, but as we didn't know that you were going to come today, we did not prepare it specifically for a young wizard. If you want anything in a different colour or such, Dolly can change it for you."

Harry stared at the woman, wide-eyed. "This is my room?" he asked in disbelief.

"Did you not have your own room at the Dursleys?" The lady sounded surprised.

Harry shook his head. "I lived in the cupboard under the stairs." He observed, wide-eyed, how Dolly waved her hand around the room, changing the brown colour of the furniture to white and the white walls to soft rainbow colours.

"Tell me which colour you like most," she instructed him, before she turned the previously white curtains dark blue followed by green.

A small "Yes" escaped Harry's lips. He then watched in amazement how Dolly added a desk, a comfortable looking chair as well as a bookshelf to the room.

'All for me?' he thought, incredulously, just when the bookshelf filled itself by an invisible hand.

"These were my books, when I was a child," Regina informed him. "I grew up in a magical family, my family, before they noticed that I cannot do magic and kicked me out at the age of eleven." She stepped over to the bookshelf, before she turned back to him. "I'm sorry. I didn't think. You're only five. I believe that we'll have to teach you reading first."

Harry gave the lady a small nod. "I can only cook and clean," he admitted in a small voice.

Regina sighed. "Harry, here at our home, you're going to neither cook nor clean. Dolly does all the house work here."

Dolly grinned, broadly, making Harry feel very much reassured.

"I want you to keep your room tidy, but that's all."

"But how will I be able to earn my keep?"

"Children do not need to work. I only expect you do study, play, eat and sleep and to tell me if anything is bothering you." Regina's voice was soft and reassuring. She then headed to the bookshelf and pulled out a small box.

"This is a floor puzzle of Hogwarts, which I used to learn the alphabet. Are you up to try it out?"

"Yes!" Harry grinned, broadly, as he sat on the floor together with Regina.

tbc...?

Thank you so much for the kind reviews for the first chapter. Are you still interested? Please tell me what you think and what you would like to see in this story (content-wise, pairing-wise, whatever you wish). My muse appreciates it.

I will post this story as a daily post story with small chapters...