Warning: Mentions of Child Abuse
Chapter 3: Ministry of Education and Youth Magic
The next morning, despite the headmaster's early tendencies, the young girl woke before him, a result of living on the streets. Silently, as she always was, she gripped the cat to her chest and crawled to the end of the bed. A hand ran through her own hair as she slid down the bed and asked herself what she was doing. Her bare feet padded against the hardwood floors and out into the main room. The lights were still off, the sun hours from rising. Making herself as small as she could, she curiously made her way around the room, looking at the different statues and pictures. The pictures were active, and when they realized she was watching them, all the headmasters at Hogwarts gave her smiles and hellos. One or two of them were given grudgingly, but collectively, but after greeting her, they spoke as though she wasn't there to one another.
She eventually moved herself to the feathery perch of Fawks. Eyes narrowing closely at the bird, she tried to make out if it was breathing or not. When she was least expecting it, the phoenix let its whole body move. The girl shot back, landing on her behind and staring at the bird wide-eyed. Like she was, it was also staring back, looking at her with its dark eyes, a sense of intelligence much like her own behind them. It hopped from its spot toward her, and she scooted back against the desk, cowering away from the moving creature. Compared to her it was massive.
It paused, noting that she was scared of it, and spoofed up its feathers, scratching them before bending over and making it's way to her again. The girl, in response, let her hand out toward it. Like one would do with a puppy. The bird, rather than sniffing it, ducked under the hand and let it rest on its feathers. With a slowly comprehending mind, the girl let her hand run down its feathers and watched it in wonder as it got closer to her. When it was close enough, it flapped its wings and landed on her curled knees, pecking her kindly on the top of the head. She sat ridged until the bird adjusted itself on her shoulder.
After at least 10 minutes of sitting still, the child's shoulders relaxed, and she shifted. The bird didn't move from its spot on her shoulder, but it did grip slightly tighter as she lifted herself to her feet. Slightly unbalanced with the extra weight, she walked toward the books and continued to browse the collection with the bird on her shoulder.
That's what Dumbledore walked in to. The man was not expecting the girl to be missing from her bed when he woke up the next morning at 5am. He had calmly taken a few moments to take a breath before making his way out to the office space. There, with her back turned to him was the small human being sitting criss-cross on the floor looking at one of the books he had on his bookshelf. On her left, next to her head his loyal companion, and one of the few existing Phoenixes and on her right, hanging off her arm was the stuffed cat he had given her the previous night. Her body shifted when he walked into the room, quickly moving her head to look at the page before setting the book back onto the bookshelf and turned around. She looked at the ground and gave a light curtsy.
Giving a small bow in response and watching her tilt her head in confusion, he motioned her to walk closer to him. When she was only a few steps he reached out and lifted her up by her arms once more, putting her against this hip, the bird never shifted from her shoulder. "Well. Good morning child. We should head to the kitchens for food this time around. You see? The sun is rising?" Moving to the window he shifted the curtains. Outside, the horizon line was clear with deep reds and oranges, the orb not yet bright enough to damage their eyes.
With a motion, Fawks flapped his wings and landed upon the edge of the window. The Headmaster smiled and opened the window, letting a soft breeze of cold air run through the room as the tall bird flew right out of the window and toward the light, a trail of what almost looked like fire trailing after it.
The girl let out a small gasp- almost inaudible to human ears as she watched the bird fly away and into the light. When Dumbledore adjusted once more though, she sunk her head into his shoulder and tightened her grip ever so slightly on both his robes and her stuffed friend. They made their way down the spiral stairs of the office, through the halls, down two staircases and to the bottom floor. After tickling a picture of a pear, the portrait swung open to reveal a rather calm kitchen full of small pale creatures with huge ears and long noses.
Just like the previous night, minus the poof-ing into the room, a small female was suddenly in front of the elder wizard and the child in his arms. "Hello, Melina. We came down to get some breakfast. Mind if we wonder about and pick out our own foods?"
"Of course Not! Melina will go and get plates and drinks. What drinks?"
"I'll take the normal tea. And- Sweetheart, What do you want to drink?" The young girl almost seemed to ponder the question for a short amount of time before she shrugged. As a response, the highly esteemed wizard smiled. "Let's try some juice." The elf bounced off and the two humans walked alongside the wall. When two plates appeared next to them, Dumbledore began to walk closer to the food. Every few seconds, he would put something onto his, slightly larger plate. Then he would turn to the small one in his arms and ask: "Do you like ...(insert food of choice here)" More often than not, the young girls eyes would widen and she would observe whatever was laid out in front of her curiously, before nodding her head quickly or shaking it abashedly.
Slowly they made their way through the dishes, the food stacking up to a reasonable level before the two made their way to a small set table with two seats. The girl was set down in the one with taller legs while the head of the school sat across from her. Each plate lowered gently onto the table before the respective owners. With large, innocent eyes, the young girl stared at the pure amount of food before her. Tiny, malnourished hands reached up and touched the sticky pancake syrup. She let it lightly touch her tongue before she sat back and stared at the old man.
He observed every move she made with a curious eye of his own, watching and wondering and guessing her many different reactions. When she stopped and just stared at him, he was, once again, floored as to what he should do. Nonetheless, he reached down and took a bite of one of his strawberries. The light shade of brown in the girl's hair almost reflected the right when she tilted her head.
"You do not have to wait for me. Go ahead." A light flourish of his hand toward her plate and she sat up even more. her shoulders squared and the intellect behind her eyes twinkled as she looked down at her choices. The first thing she picked up with her skinny fingers was a banana, pealing with the utmost amount of care she tore only the top off and set the rest of the item down, munching on it and letting her eyes skirt back to her savior. Again, he took another bite.
Much of their meal went in that fashion. She was very slow when it came to her meal, and she just barely finished it all off, constantly expecting the Headmaster to condemn something she did. Her eyes would flip toward him for permission before she took something off her own plate, and when he got to his main dish, she sat and mimicked the way he ate it and wiped his face with the napkin set out beside them.
"Today will be a busy day I think, young one. We'll go back upstairs, find you some day-clothes. Then I think the plan is to check-in at the ministry. Maybe we'll find you some parents." With a small smile, the girl bit her lip and nodded her head.
They finished, and Dumbledore helped her down from the chair and held her hand, leading her back out of the kitchen and thanking a few of the many house-elves shifting around at work. The walk back up took much longer, most likely because the bright-eyed young-un spend half of her time tripping up the stairs and finding her footing, and the other half of her time looking around at the walls and the photos. When the Bloody Baron appeared before the two, the smaller latched herself onto the robes of the headmaster. The ghost's translucent quality, and the blood that stuck onto his robes, also translucent, stunned the child to a near shaking fear.
"Dumbledore its a rumor that there is a child roaming about that- oh! Hello there." The ghost moved closer to the girl, causing her to duck her head in the childlike manner Dumbledore hadn't truly seen. She continued to bury herself into the old man's robes and attach herself closer to the old man, he could feel slight tremors in her body.
"Yes Baron, though she seems to be a bit shy regarding attention. It would do us best if you advised the other ghosts to refrain from bothering either of us for the next few days if she returns with me after our trip to the Ministry of Magic. Rather the introductions should be slow between you all."
"Oh! of course. She's but a wee thing."
"Thank you. of course. Now. Sweetheart, Up we go." the headmaster turned back to the girl and pulled her up and into his arms once more. It was swift heading to the griffin statue and up the stairs, right back to the room she had slept in. Her hands lost their tight hold on the older man and she looked around without a second thought for the ghost. Baron had gone only minutes after he had finished speaking, but the young girl seemed to hide away even longer.
Plopping her down on the bed, the older man moved over to the chest and pulled out a light pink dress and shifted to help the young girl change.
It was quick work moving around and checking the marks of abuse across the small one's back, the red marks that stained the side she couldn't see herself were only slightly irritated. She sat very still as he finished with the strings and moved a comb through her hair, the soft locks hardly stopping the clean brush through he gave them. With a light hand, the old man braided the hair that ran in front of her face back into a petite halo.
When he shifted the child around to look at her eyes slowly opened to stare back to him. Her limber fingers reached up to touch the braid before she smiled at him, a rather large and awkward smile, attempting to show her teeth much like he did when he smiled to her. The old man couldn't help but chuckle and pat the top of her head with a strong fill of love in the depths of his chest.
"Well, let me grab my robe, and maybe a cloak for you and then we'll head off. It'd be best to floo."
And so they did. The entrance in one of the gateways to the ministry was bright, the building itself seemed rather wild, people rushing to where they needed to be. It was a surprise when, at the sight of the white-haired wizard holding an unknown child in his arms, they paused. Her arms wrapped around the man's shoulders gripped tightly to his robes. Wildly alert and looking around the long halls of the building the dark shade of her eyes tried to take everything in. The headmaster, on the other hand, was very calm with the girl in his arms. When people paused, he greeted them all kindly and with small grins. The man seemed to, once again, know nearly everyone.
The kind but curious smiles drifted to her constantly as they walked. The young girl wasn't used to having people look at her the way they seemed to be doing in the Ministry. For a distraction, she looked to the walls, the intricate bricks with words and the golden statues in the center of the fountain. There was a man, as they walked into the larger portion off to the side selling newspapers, and paper airplanes flew passed the two, weaving and diving in and out of people, into the lifts and out of lifts. A large white poster fell from the ceiling with the face of the current minister of magic looking on.
Dumbledore made his way to the front desk, procuring two visitor passes, clipping one to the girl's dress and patting her softly on the back as he adjusted and put a pass on himself. With curt directions from the woman sitting in front of them, who was rather eager to help, they walked toward a Lift at the end of the main hall, stepping in when the doors opened. Already, two men stood in the back, their hands held tightly to the hanging leather handles on the ceiling.
Beside the old wizard another witch and wizard stepped in, the witch looked up to the girl and gave a small smile, waving her hand in a hello. The young one stared at her from head to toe, looking at the classic wizard robes she wore. The woman's hair was undone behind her into a bun, and she had a scarf wrapped and tied in the front. Gripping on to the Headmaster, she glanced at him to see his eyes on her, and then back to the lady.
"Hello, Matilda. How are you?" The smiling deeper tones of the one holding her caused the girl to jump, not expecting the silence to be broken.
"Good, Professor Dumbledore- who is this?"
"This young one, at the moment is nameless. We're headed to the Department of Education and Youth Magic to get her sorted somewhere." With a very clean driven response, the woman gave exact directions to their destination and she smiled toward the girl who hid her face when she realized that more people had begun to stare at them. Without much further ado the elevator, that jerked when it moved in nearly every single direction before they reached their own shifted open and allowed them to move through a wide archway. The words were not in a language that the young one could not yet understand.
Through about four more doorways and a moving staircase, the two found their selves in a rather loud room filled with parents and children sitting on seats, siblings holding each other's hands and attention on a calling list. One name re-wrote itself into another and a pair stood, walking toward one of the doors. The new surroundings once again distracted the brunette, and she wasn't aware of her carrier speaking until they stopped.
The woman at the desk had a somber tone as she spoke, her eyes looked weary and tired as she looked between the old man and young girl, nodding her head and writing something down on a piece of paper. Green eyes couldn't read the scrawled handwriting.
When her mind eventually filtered out all the outside sounds and nonsense, and her focus returned, she was able to hear the tail end of the conversation. "If Melo is free then I'll speak to her."
"Of course. I'll send this-" She wrote something on a separate piece of paper and then tapped it with her wand. It floated off toward one of the doors, slipping under it just as two children began to cry across the room. The young girls, one of whom couldn't be much older than the girl in Dumbledore's arms clutched each other as a man spoke to them calmly. Their distress making the room tenser, the air felt heavier. The Headmaster could feel the young one's hands fisting tighter, her knuckles turning to a paler white as she considered that she may be the next one to receive such distress.
Dumbledore shifted the light-haired girl up a bit, causing her to once more shift her eyes to something different, this time, the approaching woman. She glanced around them at first and then sighed. Like many of the others in the department, she looked tired. Her shoulders were slightly slumped, and her hair was disheveled from her hand shifting through it every few minutes. Yet when she saw the Headmaster her eyes lightened… but only slightly. "Headmaster. Why don't you follow me?"
Back through the door that the note had flown under was a rather small office, it was just larger than the bedroom the girl had slept in, with a single desk and a few photos on the wall. Moving photos of course. The woman walked around to the head of the desk, and Dumbledore and his current ward sat down in the larger, softer of the two chairs. He set the young girl beside him, where there was plenty of room for her small body to sit, still brushing up against him.
"There are a lot of children here today." He mentioned, getting the conversation started.
"It's been that way for months now. People are finding children looking for parents-but usually they're... gone. This war had torn apart so many families."
"Where are the kids going?"
"Usually to their closest relatives. If not we have to set them up in muggle foster homes around the country, its a rough process. We can't always put a family together."
The older man sighed, glancing down once more at the young girl beside him. "I found this darling child in Knockturn ally."
With a tiny smile, the woman bent over her desk to try and make eye contact. "Well hello there. What's your name?"
It was not much of a surprise when the girl shifted toward the headmaster in order to cover herself from attention. The room stayed quiet for a few more moments as the two watched the girl's shy charisma. Without a response Roumi Melo, as her nameplate read, sat back in her seat. She took her wand and gave it a light wave in the girl's direction. Dumbledore noted the flinch his current ward had and the fact she closed her eyes waiting for the pain. Instead, the tip of the wand turned orange and then dark blue. The woman sighed. "It looks like she doesn't have any living personal connections. I can personally arrange an all-girls home with her."
"While she remains nameless to even I, She is rather intelligent and a bit overly aware of her magical talents. Are there any Magical families that are prepared to handle something like that?"
Hand through hair, the woman looked at one of the photos to her left. "We actually don't have any foster homes specifically for Magical children, all of them are being admitted into the British or Scottish governmental systems. It's rather hard to find stability though, she'll have to learn how to control her abilities or hide them. Not all muggles are very accommodating to any special abilities."
"She'd be living with a group of other girls though?"
"Yes. Probably a group of twelve or fourteen muggle girls of varying ages."
Shifting attention, the headmaster looked down to the one still gripping to him. Her eyes had downcast once more, her shoulders slumped and her hair had fallen in front of her face. While her hands still were latched to his robes, they had loosened considerably- telling the headmaster that she understood every word being spoken. "From what I've seen, she has a history of domestic abuse, as well as street abuse that has resulted in her muteness."
Again, the woman seemed to pause in her thoughts. "It'll be harder to integrate her: once in the system sometimes the kids are moved around. Magical kids more than anything- the psychological issues with orphans of You-Know-Who's followers are severe after they've been left alone. But we cannot sit on one child for too long." Without considering the young girl could understand her, she was blunt. "Dumbledore: Her prospects aren't going to be very good for the next few years, but after she turns eleven things may start looking up. Its what's happening with most of the children- we've already had to track down five runaways."
Once more, the girl's hands slackened on the robes, finding their way to the bottom of her dress and fisting it and the stuffed animal instead. The rejection was blatant in her body language. The seeping depression following her fumbling fingers. As it had when he first found her, his heart ached for her hardships, for the misery that she was forced through at the hands of a war she had no part in. At the hands of men and women, she had met on the streets and been forced to starve.
Who's to say that she would never find a place amongst her peers. She was so inherently intelligent but broken in so many ways.
The decision, really, it was made before they even arrived. It was made the moment she gripped the stuffed animal, or the moment she took a bite out of the food he had set out before her. Maybe it was the moment her small finger had wrapped around his own or the moment he saw that her eyes were tens of years older than her body. Dumbledore couldn't point out the moment he was taken with her so much that he was willing to say his following words. "Could you give us the papers if I wanted to adopt her as my own?"
Reactions between both the girl and the woman behind the desk didn't differ. Both of their eyes widened, one with hope and one with shock, their faces shot up to stare at him, asking if he was kidding. Melo shifted her eyes down to the little girl, looking younger as she stared at the older man. "Dumbledore- Are you sure? A child is so much responsibility- It's- a process from now until even after she turns seventeen. We have different steps you'll have to go through as a Wizard. She'll get public attention if it's you adopting her."
"Well." The old man stroked his beard once before turning to the girl, still staring up at him. "Child, is that okay?"
The eye contact was enough to trigger her voice inside his head, the quiet slightly trembling voice. You want to keep me?
A still aghast tone echoed, and he nodded toward her. Waiting on her slow nod back to him. The emerald forests of her eyes began to rain, and she reached one of her small hands up to brush it away.
"Yes. I think we're okay with that. First things first though. Papers, right Ms. Melo?"
It took a few seconds, before she moved, pushing her chair back and opening one of the drawers of her desk, pulling out a thick roll of parchment. Then she grabbed a quill off the side of her desk and let it float toward the old wizard. He gripped it from the air and set it against the paper at the desk. He wrote in a few lines, ignoring the shocked still expressions of those around him. After he reached the middle of the parchment, he turned back to the girl sitting next to him. "We must decide on your name."
The girl nodded her head.
"Chloe?" She shook her head. "Natasha?" No. "Patricia?" The girl's face scrunched a bit and she stuck out her tongue distastefully. "Tiffany?" No. "Ruth" No. "Kenna?" The girl seemed to consider it for a few seconds before shaking her head. Dumbledore couldn't help but chuckle at her responses sticking to silence for a few minutes as he mulled over names. "Rowan?" No. "Hazel?" No. "Harmony?" Her expression turned from thoughtfulness to consideration and she shrugged. "What?"
Kenna Hope?
"Hope?" She nodded hesitantly. "Kenna Hope Dumbledore?" Again. She nodded. "Anything else you want to add? I have five. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore" The girl bit her lip with a petite smile. Her eyes seemed to sparkle, and she shook her head again, causing the man to laugh. Writing the name down.
Melo continued to watch the two's interaction, narrowing her eyes at how the girl silently communicated to the older man. She was almost too intelligent for a normal child. "Age: Seven. Hair: Light brown. Eyes: hmm. Kelly Green." He continued down the list, noting small things out loud for the young girl to hear him. She nodded her head when he did, confirming small things, such as hearing and eyesight. Skin color. It took about twenty minutes until they had finished the parchment, and the woman sitting across the desk was just then regaining her wits.
"Alright then. We'll have to interview you and review the appropriate housing for her. There's also interviewing any backup relatives- but we can save that for another day. As for housing where will you be staying most of the time?"
"Hogwarts."
"May I do a simple interview? How about next Tuesday- around four? I can head over when I finish here. You both can go get settled?"
"Four? Does that sound good Kenna Hope?" The girl nodded her head enthusiastically. "It sounds perfect Ms. Melo. Now. It seems we must go shopping. Get this one-" He lifted her back into his arms, where she comfortably rested her head against his shoulder. "Some nice dresses of her own, perhaps a few other items and a checkup at St. Mungos. I will make sure the gates are open for you next week."
As they walked out of the office, the newly named Kenna found some type of confidence. She became more attentive to where they walked and which way they turned. When they reached an empty hall, Dumbledore could hear her quiet question. Why?
"Why what?" Dumbledore turned his head to focus on the young brunette.
Why did you adopt me?
In a way, the professor could see the question coming from miles away. "I adopted you because you deserve the world." He stopped and sat on the feet of one of the stone figures, setting her on his lap so he could look her in the eyes. "The cards you've been dealt until now have been terrible. Somehow though, you have these skills that not even most adults could even try to attempt, and you've fought against all odds." Her eyes looked not only at him but through him, searching for the truth. "Your eyes have seen things that no child should see. You deserve the brightest future anyone could give you."
Thank you.
"You have no reason to thank me just yet." Dumbledore smiled and adjusted her again on his arm.
All the way back the way they came, eventually they ended up at the Floo. The staring didn't seem to stop, but the young girl's care seemed to fly out of the window. She stared at the constant green of the fire and glanced back at the dark walls of the ministry.
As they paused before the green flames, the white-bearded man turned to the one in his arms. He let a small smile reach through his face. "We need to get you checked on first, so we're going to go to a Magical Hospital. Then we'll get those errands done."
Mungos wasn't as busy as it may have been the previous year after the fall of the dark lord, but there were still a lot of nurses on duty. As they walked in and approached the first front desk they saw, a woman stood up swiftly to respond to them. "Hello, how can I help you, Professor Dumbledore?"
"We'd like to get a checkup with one of the healers if that's okay? Is Poppy in this week?"
"Yes! She is. I can call her down if you'd like? I believe room three down this hall is open. You can wait there."
"Thank you." The old man adjusted the newly named Kenna on his arm and walked into the white room. There were a few simple pictures of landscapes on the wall that caught her attention enough to keep it away from the medical side of things. The interments were simple, a heartbeat monitor and blood pressure measure. While both looked rather Muggle, Dumbledore could only assume there were one or two magical additions to the simplistic creations.
It took a few minutes before the door opened and the nurse walked in. Fully in her robes, she was almost in full sentence before she stepped inside. "Dumbledore, I told you I'd be back to the school the week before classes. We-" it was only then that she noticed the small human being sitting on the table. "Oh. Hello, there child." The Nurse's entire demeanor changed with the youth in the room. The woman seemed to analyze the girl from head to toe, looking for any major visible injuries. Her eyes had light bags around them, and there seemed to be a cut or two on her face, light bruising around her neck.
"This is Kenna Hope, She's been living on the streets for a while, and I wanted to get a thorough checkup and see what you thought about her stability physically and mentally."
"Oh." Poppy nodded her head and moved closer, looking at the scratch on the girl's head with a gentle shift of her hair. "I'm Poppy Pomfrey. I'm a nurse at Hogwarts, where Dumbledore works. How old are you child?"
Looking for conformation, Kenna made eye contact with Dumbledore, who nodded his head in encouragement. When her gaze met Poppy's once more, she lifted her fingers back up to a solid 7 for the second time that day.
"Seven? You're so cute! I thought you were eight or nine!" The woman turned to the table and grabbed the light metal heart catcher. "Okay, I'm going to lift your shirt up a bit, here we go, and this will be cold, but I'm going to put it on your chest righ-" The woman, as she was lifting the shirt noticed the prominence of the child's ribs, and the light bruising surrounding them. "right here." She held it and listened for a few seconds before moving on to take the child's blood pressure.
After she had finished, she turned to Dumbledore. "Can you step outside?"
The old man nodded, looking at Kenna he watched her eyes widen an ounce. "I'll be right next to the door, okay?" She nodded and he shut the door behind him.
About ten or so minutes later, Madam Pomfrey stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her, turning to Dumbledore with one of the most pained expressions he had seen in a long time. "She... she needs a lot of care." There was a pause as the woman looked down to her notes. "From what I can make out, her Larnyx – the voice box- is damaged, mainly from being unused, I don't know if she has ever spoken a full word. She's twice as small as other girls her age and extremely malnourished. Her feet are damaged, especially the soles, they'll heal, but it'll scar. Most of her injuries will scar if they haven't already." The woman ran a hand through her hair after taking off her hat. "The scars on her back are definitely from whipping, she responds with caution, I can only imagine the mental abuse she's suffered through."
"I can't imagine"
"And on the streets? She had to be there for at least a month or two. I- I fear that her abuse wasn't only in the nature of harm and physical abuse. There's evidence of… of rape. Recent rape."
Dumbledore could only close his eyes and look at the door that held the child. "then it's worse than I thought."
"Yes. What are you going to do with her? She needs-"
"I've adopted her."
"A lovin- you what?" Her expression changed once more to shock.
"I adopted her earlier today at the ministry. They said that she would be put in a home, and her chances were grim until she turned eleven. I thought it'd be in her best interest to live at Hogwarts with me."
The woman let her mouth drop, words trying to form, but being wildly unsuccessful.
Dumbledore continued. "I've got an extra room attached to my office, and she's intelligent beyond her age group. Someone will always have an eye on her in the castle. She'll be well-fed"
"You adopted a child."
"Kenna Hope Dumbledore."
The nurse continued to stare at the headmaster with her mouth open, still attempting to make words.
Dumbledore continued to answer a few questions before they were asked. "We'll figure out a way to give her a basic education between the staff we have at the school. She'll have space and exposure to other children. It's already been done."
Pursing her lips, the poor woman nodded her head. "Alright. Let me walk to the staff room and grab a few things then. You can go in and sit with her" Poppy didn't give the Headmaster any time to argue as she walked passed him and down the hall practically mumbling to herself.
Opening the door Dumbledore stepped back in and watched as Kenna played with her stuffed Cat, continuing to lift its ear or its tail and shaking its paw. She was very gentle and as he walked in, she pulled it to her in what looked to be a hug. He couldn't help but smile at her small reaction for comfort as he approached her and sat down on the medical bed beside her. "Poppy is going to get a few things for us to keep you healthy. Then, I think, we will head over to Diagon Ally and get you lunch and a few more things—Like a new bedspread maybe?" When he glanced down Kenna was staring at him, listening, but not responding. "We can get a few outfits. Maybe find a book for you to read or a few games…" Dumbledore paused again. "Then, perhaps, we can go back to the Castle and get you another bath. Dinner. And I might have to run an errand or two, but we'll wait and see."
The young one nodded her head after he paused and stared at him with her big green orbs.
Dumbledore couldn't help but chuckle and flip the ear of her stuffed cat to take her attention off him for a moment. He could feel her natural attempt at seeing his thoughts when she stared into his eyes. A natural Legilimens. She didn't just project, she snuck her way into hearing people's thoughts. He hadn't noticed it before but was suddenly much more aware of her mental presence. If he focused, he could hear her projection of the voice that she imagined her cat to make, she'd have a conversation with it, continuing to move its hands and legs and tail.
After few moments of quiet, Dumbledore listening to the mental communication Kenna innocently projected to her furry friend, Nurse Poppy walked back in through the door with a different healer in toe. The healer was also female, and while Kenna was cautious of the newcomer, she looked to Albus for confirmation of safety. He could only nod to her and reassure her.
"Healer Lita wanted to do one quick checkup before we give you pain medication and vitamins to take home with you both. Is it alright if Dumbledore leaves one more time for us to check your health?"
Albus turned to his new daughter and watched her eyes move between him and the two medical professionals she didn't really know. With a very hesitant nod, the eldest in the room made his way out and sat on the bench next to the door where he could hear very quietly the voices inside the room. He also allowed his new ward to peek into his pleasant thoughts and plans for the day, feeling her calm as they had her remove her clothes and lightly prodded at sometimes painful places on her skin.
This exam took a bit longer than the previous one, with a quick break of her presence in his mind as the doctor checked her own mental wellbeing with a light Legilimency spell that ended rather quickly once the youth slapped her mind shut after two too many horrible memories were touched.
Healer Lita took a step out of the room once they had finished, looking down at her chart and shaking her head, and then back up to Dumbledore. "She's a legilimens." The doctor confirmed for him. "She's going to need speech therapy, but she's got a full handle on the language." The man before her nodded his head, taking his own mental notes. "She was raped in her time on the streets, and that's induced a lot of trauma on both her mind and her body. I'd like to get her another checkup in a few months to see how she's healed." Again, Dumbledore nodded. "I couldn't tell who she lived with before, but they too were abusive, and she has suffered through an unforgivable, at least once, likely more than that- as the memory is just one of the freshest and she was not happy at me looking."
"I'm thankful for your help healer."
"Don't be thankful yet. She's got a long way to go. I am prescribing her a few options, including a variety of dreamless sleep potions for you to switch after nightmares. They will be common now that she's beginning to feel safer. You need to make sure she's not eating too much food and that what she does eat is nutrition heavy." There was another pause as she glanced down at her chart. "You'll also need to watch her activity level very closely. Because she's malnourished, she's at a higher risk for fainting and dizziness moments, and her body is not strong enough to be carrying things or running. She needs to gain weight and muscle mass before she can begin playing games that raise her heart rate, and, even then, she has a bit of a heart palpitation, which could be from the unforgivable, it could be from trauma, it could be hereditary. I'm not sure if she'll grow out of it, but we need to keep an eye on it."
Again, Dumbledore nodded his head, feeling the weight of her pain once more lie on his shoulders. More than anything, determination to protect her even more from the terrible pains that began her life.
"I can send you a letter and we can arrange a follow-up date. I'm sure she's ready to get out of this hospital at this point."
"I'd imagine." Dumbledore felt a small smile creep on his face, ready himself to find brighter things to think about. He took a step into the room and made eye contact with his new family member. Her eyes were a bit watery, and he could feel that she was beginning to get uncomfortable. Her stuffed animal was white-knuckled to her chest as poppy finished tying her dress.
He motioned a hand to her, and she slid off the table and mad her way over to him, putting a hand on his stomach. Quickly noticing what that meant, he bent down and lifted her up to his chest, letting her attempt to bury her face into his collar bone. The other two women both gave him small, sad smiles and he thanked them before making his way to an apparition space in the hospital.
A/N: Chapter 2! Don't forget to Review!
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