The Battle Mage

Noelle hummed a tune she remembered her mother singing to her as a child into Hadrian's matted curls and he relaxed even further. She walked down the hallway, noting with a cold hard fury that turned to ice in her veins that there were four bedrooms up here. One for Vernon and Petunia, one for their fat son, and presumably two unused rooms. There were two unused bedrooms that Hadrian could have stayed in. She peeked in both. One seemed to be a guest room – recently used by the looks of it, and the other was full of broken toys for their fat son. She breathed out and continued to hum lullabies. Homicide could wait.

She opened the door of the bathroom, which had a rather simple setup of ceramic toilet, sink and tub, and plain floral patterns on the walls and shower curtains. She set Harry gently upon the counter, but when she tried to turn away, he clutched her clothes desperately.

He seemed to expect to be hit for his silent plea because he cringed away even as he did so, but she did nothing more than sweep a soft hand through his gritty hair in a soothing motion and pull out her wand. She flicked the tip, and the plug stopped the drain, and the water began to run. Harry desperately needed to be cleaned, but charms for that sort of thing could be abrasive on the skin of small children, and that was without considering Harry's injuries.

She continued to rock Hadrian and hum to him while waiting for the bath to fill up partially. Checking the temperature with her wrist, she deemed it suitable for a toddler and turned to set little Harry on the counter again. He whimpered again, but she shushed him and gently removed his overly large shirt, keeping the anger off her face as she noted finger-shaped bruises littering his torso and the way his ribs jutted out of his skin.

"You're all right, kit," she murmured, kissing his forehead.

Noelle removed his diaper and almost cursed, it was very full, and obviously hadn't been changed in a while. Hadrian had sores and raw wounds around his groin area, many of which looked infected and painful. This she would have to clean and heal with magic. She quickly vanished the diaper with the shirt and sterilized the counter and her hands, ignoring the slight sting and the lavender scent she'd never been able to get rid of as a side effect. She gently cleaned away the dirty areas and the wounds with a quick spell and brushed his hair with her fingers when he yelped at the sting.

"Sorry kitten, but it had to be done. It has to be clean so I can heal it," she apologized gently, and he seemed to settle.

Part of being a battle mage was courses in Healing. You had to know how to heal yourself and your allies. If she took the tests at the Ministry, she wouldn't qualify as a full Healer without the necessary work hours, but she would be a rather powerful and overqualified Medi-witch. She spelled away the infection, gave him a sip of a pain relief potion for the pain – which practically made him boneless with relief – and sealed them shut. The new skin would be tender for a few days but wouldn't leave any lasting damage or scars. She also spread a balm across the patches on his chest, wrists and back that were bruised.

Finally, she pulled off her gauntlets, rolled up her sleeves and set Hadrian gently in the warm water. Almost immediately it turned murky with dirt, so she spelled it clean, used a simple household charm to shield his eyes, grabbed a soft product labeled as a muggle baby soap and gently rubbed it into his matted curls. She had to snip a few of the worst gnarls out with a silent diffindo, but Potter curls were unruly as it was, and she was sure no one would notice.

When she had finished, she gently lifted him out of the tub, she patted him dry with a fluffy dry towel, spelled her own armor clean of the grit, bodily functions and bath water that had mussed it, replaced her gauntlets, and surveyed the tiny boy in her lap. He still looked terrible, but much better than he had before, though still much too skinny. She'd guess around fifteen pounds, maybe seventeen, but no more.

She gave him a small sip of a nutrition potion, and then a drop of dreamless sleep on his tongue and scooped him up as he fell asleep. His skin was too sensitive for a diaper, but she didn't have anything else, so she conjured a soft green blanket and wrapped him gently in it.

She tucked his head under her chin and carried him downstairs, where Minerva was standing with Alastor Moody and Amelia Bones if she wasn't mistaken. They were all glaring at the muggles on the floor, still unconscious. Noelle knocked gently on the sideboard with her boot and they all turned, eyes flicking from her to the tiny bundle sleeping in her arms.

She stared straight at Moody and said, "I'd like these two muggles and whoever recently used the guest room to be charged with everything you can get to stick. Leave the child at a muggle orphanage under another name if there's no one else. I'm not taking him. I would also like you to charge Albus Dumbledore with everything under the sun. He left my nephew here, according to Minerva, in a basket on the porch, with nothing but a thin blanket in November. Harry obviously hasn't been checked on and I'm positive that Dumbledore must have used his influence to close my brother's will because I was there when they wrote it, and so was he, and it specifically stated that Hadrian was to never come to these monsters. He's gotten away with too much over the years because he got off his ass and defeated Grindelwald, but only after tens of thousands of people died. Make him pay."

"You'll still be in England to testify?" Amelia Bones asked.

"Madam Bones," Noelle purred, "Why would I leave when there's so much for me to hunt here?"

There wasn't always a war for battle mages to involve themselves in, and even when there was, they made a point not to have more than three of them involved at once unless there was a call for aid. There was no need to risk themselves and their small numbers all at once. In the times they weren't paid to carve apart armies, they usually hunted down large bounties. It wouldn't be terribly out of character for her to hunt down the remaining Death Eaters that had gotten off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Especially if half of what Sirius' last letter about briberies and claims of the Imperius without the verification of Veritaserum was true.

And Sirius… that was another thing. She needed to investigate the incarceration of her fiancé. Between Sirius, Remus and Peter, Sirius was the least likely to betray her brother, and that was before they considered that he had asked to marry her and was Hadrian's godfather. If Minerva was right and Jamie and Lily had been betrayed, Sirius was the least likely suspect. But she couldn't tell everyone her suspicions. Not yet. Not without proof.

"Good hunting, Alastor, Madam Bones. Thank you for your help, Minerva," she nodded to each of them before walking out the door without turning back and apparating to the closest allies she could think of.

Grimmauld Place.