One Hand reaches out,
And pulls a lost soul from harm
While a thousand more, go unspoken for,
And they say what good have you done,
By saving just this one,
It's like whispering a prayer,
In the fury of a storm.
And I hear them saying,
You'll never change things,
And no matter what you do, it's still the same thing,
But it's not the world, that I am changing,
I do this so,
This world will know,
That it will not change me...
This heart,
Still Believes,
That love and mercy still exist.
While all the hatreds rage, and so many say,
That love is all but pointless, in madness such as this,
It's like trying to stop a fire with the moisture from a kiss.
And I hear them saying,
You'll never change things,
And no matter what you do, it's still the same thing,
But it's not the world, that I am changing,
I do this so,
This world will know,
That it will not change me...
As long as one heart still holds on,
Then hope is never really gone.
And I hear them saying,
You'll never change things,
And no matter what you do, it's still the same thing,
But it's not the world, that I am changing,
I do this so,
This world will know,
That it will not change me...
What I do is so,
This world will know
That it will not change me...
The Change by Garth Brooks
Methos couldn't explain what had drawn him here, it was like a strange mystical energy that seemed to hum in the air, and for the ancient immortal it was incredibly intriguing. It was nothing like a Quickening, not in the least painful and neither was it really pleasurable; instead it seemed peaceful, yet it drew him on with a sense of urgency. It was not often that the ancient found something he never felt or experienced before, the downside of being over five thousand years old. The energy drew him on; past magical barriers he neither saw nor noticed but ordinarily would have barred the way to him, oblivious of this he continued on.
The neighbourhood he entered was quiet, it had a pleasant air to it, and it was very homely. Yet something was something off with it, maintenance of the houses had slipped lately it seemed, gardens becoming overgrown, toys left lying on lawns and the like, it seemed a lot of people had left here in a hurry for none of the houses seemed occupied. Some houses, he noted were slightly scorched around the edges, one had the back half burnt to a crisp. On the left a hedge had a perfectly circular hole burnt through it. The grass he noticed was rather long and had not been tended in some time, suggesting the area had been abandoned for a while five weeks at the least. He wondered at that, he was very in touch with the news of areas he would be arriving in, even more so of areas he was living in and kept a very good eye on news from everywhere around the world. Something had caused at least a street full of people to move out of very nice comfortable homes in a hurry, and yet he heard not even a whisper of it. Something had happened here, something that had been kept very very quiet.
Indeed the Houses on this street would be very comfortable, as well as being very expensive. They were all rather old looking, definitely most would be over seventy years old built in a style out of date a hundred years ago; they looked like replications of very old manor houses, though somewhat smaller. Definitely not the sort of place you just up and left without leaving a very large For Sale sign in front of, and not the sort of place that would be mass-abandoned in a hurry.
It seemed that the peaceful energy was drawing him towards the largest manor house at the end of the street. The only house it seemed that had seen any activity in the last few weeks, the grass freshly cut unlike the rest. He was beginning to have doubts about this, originally he had been intrigued by this new phenomenon but now with all the signs pointing towards something not being right, his age-old survival instincts were being called into play, and they were not at all liking what they were seeing. Something about this just wasn't right, his instincts were screaming, which was confirmed only moments later when he decided to go back the way he came before he got himself involved in something he wouldn't like. Unfortunately his feet weren't agreeing with his mind at this point and just kept right on walking. This bothered him immensely, he did not have control of his body, and hence did not have control of the situation, he did not have the option of running and at this point he didn't know whether he would be able to fight either and hence he had no means of protecting himself.
As suddenly as the sensation had begun, it stopped. Right in front of the house he had thought it would draw him to.
Before he could seriously begin to ponder what had just happened, he heard it, the sound of a baby crying inside the house. The sound was almost hypnotic to his ears, the crying of an infant did not tug at him physically, as the sensation had, but it drew him in emotionally, it was one of the only things he would never have, both because of what he was and because of who he was. What he was because as an immortal he could never reproduce, he was infertile, sterile when it came to impregnating a woman. Who he was because as the oldest living immortal he put any women, child or student in danger merely with his presence in their life, which was why he generally avoided the first and totally cut himself off from the remaining.
He looked at the house, pondering his choices. On the one hand he wanted to find out what had drawn him here and why, though he somehow doubted he would ever know the answer, he was curious now and even though he knew that curiosity often killed the cat he wanted to know what was going on, both with the sensation and this neighbourhood. On the other hand, the situation was probably dangerous, if not at the moment it would probably prove so later. Never the less his eyes kept straining back at the front door, only a few paces away, which also happened to be wide open.
Despite the fact he knew he would likely regret it and cause himself a million problems by doing so, and the fact he would likely berate himself endlessly for his stupidity later he went in.
Finding himself in what would be the equivalent of an Entrance Hall, he noticed there were several doorways leading off from the main hall, which happened to be circular and all doors but one seemed to be firmly shut. The door that interested him was the door directly opposite the front, and the door that seemed to be open, whoever had entered here had not at all been worried about people following them, not the least bit concerned about security, and that worried him. It suggested something sinister, because surely the owner of the house would at least be concerned about security enough to close the front door if not lock it. He really did not want to think about what sort of criminal would leave a trail like this, it was either a very stupid one, or a very confident one.
Now that he was in the house, the infants wails were clearer, yet still largely muffled which indicated that the child was, more than likely, upstairs. Idly he wondered why no one had tended to the infant yet but squashed that thought down, he didn't want to think about that yet. It both worried and terrified him that he had not heard any other signs of life in the house. There were no people moving about, friend or foe. That did not bode well.
He entered what appeared to be a living room, quite stylish in a homey sense, none of the modern clinical type of furniture had made its way into this room, portraits lined the walls, whoever had painted them must have been very good they seemed to look right at you from any angle. His instincts jumped up another notch to downright paranoid when he surveyed the rest of the room, there had been a struggle in here not a large one but a struggle all the same, there were several displaced pieces of furniture pointed to that fact. A vase knocked over in the corner a tipped over chair and a slightly out of place couch noticeable due to the colouring of the floorboards it was sitting on. Cautiously he moved through the room, towards the back where there seemed to be yet another open doorway. Methos swore as he tripped over something lying on the ground that he had failed to notice.
It was a body. He stared at it for a second before his body moved into action, the man was tall no obvious signs of injury, as he turned the body over he noted the broken glasses had cut into his face, he coldly assessed the man, over the years he had accumulated a lot of medical knowledge, unfortunately in this case he wouldn't need it, a few seconds to check for a pulse was all he needed. There was no pulse. He was still slightly warm with only the first stages of rigor mortis showing.
He quickly concluded that there was nothing he could do for the man, not even bothering to check for a cause of death he moved on, stepping over the mans body and continuing towards the door. Unconsciously his hand sought his sword, one of many weapons hidden on his person.
The doorway it seemed led to a staircase, which, from the sound of things led upstairs and to the infant.
Quietly and quickly he made his way up the staircase keeping close to the wall and moving through the shadows, hand resting on the top of his sword.
Reaching the top of the stairs without a problem he looked around for any signs of danger. Finding none he listened again for the infant, which wasn't hard since the child had not stopped screaming since his arrival, and for some reason was not even slightly surprised when the sound led in the direction of the next open door, which was three doors down to the right.
He moved cautiously down the hallway, it could easily be a trap. That or one of the doors could be hiding something or someone unsavoury.
The room was dark, yet with the light of the moon coming through the window he could see much of the room clearly. He scanned the room and found nothing that could prove a problem. A woman lay on the floor in front of the crib, long bright red hair was his first impression and with a quick check his second impression was that the woman was dead, not long after the man downstairs.
He moved towards the crib in the corner, which held the infant.
"Shh little one..." he cooed at it, actually cooed! Surprisingly the infant's screams quieted into sobs at the sound and the little one's eyes previously scrunched up while it screamed opened up to view the newcomer.
Methos's eyes widened in surprise when he saw the child, he was pre- immortal.
Brilliant emerald green eyes stared up at him from the crib, he was a cute baby yes, but that did not explain why exactly he was feeling so strongly drawn to this child. Sure he felt sorry for the kid, he had most likely just lost both his parents, but that really had nothing to do with him.
The kid just looked at him, it had been a long time since he had had any contact with little children, he didn't know what the kid wanted from him but he could tell it wanted something. Suddenly the little thing thrust its arms out, a clear message that he wanted to be picked up. Methos quickly complying with his wishes gathered the child up into his arms. Making sure to carefully place himself between the boy and his dead mother Methos cuddled the kid close.
Deciding it was best that he took the child with him while he checked out the rest of the house he moved back out into the hallway, while checking all the rooms upstairs Methos noted that the child was drifting off, smoothing out his walk a little more and being careful not to make to much noise he made his way back downstairs. So far he had not found anything of interest most of the rooms upstairs seemed unused, though surprisingly dust free, the only rooms used seemed to be the Child's nursery and the main bedroom. Hopefully he would have more luck downstairs.
Once again he carefully made his way through the living room, this time choosing a different route, it wouldn't be pleasant if the little tyke spotted the form of his dead father on the floor. Somehow he managed to make his way back to the entrance hallway.
The rooms downstairs seemed to be used more often he decided to start on the right side of the hallway, a second living room, a rather extensive library by the looks of things and a sun room which it seemed doubled as a play room. Moving to the other side of the hallway things seemed to get a little more productive the first door on the left, or right as he was now moving in the opposite direction, proved to be a study.
Rifling through the papers Methos found what seemed to be a lot of stock certificates, though the companies weren't anything he'd ever heard of Nimbus, Flourish & Blotts, Gringrotts all sounded a bit strange to him, then again the world got stranger every year maybe this chap was just a bit ahead of his time. Finally he found something that interested him. The names of what seemed to be the owners of the house, a wedding invitation addressed to 'James & Lily Potter' rifling further he found adoption papers for 'Harold James Potter' well at least now he had everyone's names down, even if two of them were dead. Seeing nothing else of immediate interest he moved back out into the hallway. Only one more door remained and he had a fair idea where that would lead, sure enough it led to the kitchen.
There was virtually no warning almost simultaneously he heard someone approaching the house, someone approaching the house on a motorbike. Quickly darting into the kitchen and quietly shutting the door, unfortunately it seemed his movement had jostled the kid awake. The sound of the motorbike however seemed to perk the kid up instantly, unwilling to risk the kid crying out he put his hand lightly over the kids mouth. Not that that would stop him screaming or crying if he really wanted to but it would at least muffle the sound a little. He didn't really want to have to do it to the little tyke but at the moment it was the lesser of two evils, have the kid a little uncomfortable or have them both in danger.
Whoever rode in on the bike entered the house with seemingly reckless abandon, batting the door open even though it had never really been closed and causing it to swing on its hinges before slamming closed in his wake. Following Methos's earlier path as he suspected they would the person, whoever it was, made quick progress down the hallway and made their way through the next open doorway. Where he heard a primal cry and the sound of furniture being thrown around.
Obviously the person was grieving for the man, well that or he was pissed that someone beat him to killing the guy. As Methos considered his options he heard more voices coming towards the house...
".... Should have been back by now, maybe we should go in and check..."
"Are you insane, you know how he hates that ..."
"...Want to be punished?"
The voices were low but they were coming from the direction of the front of the house, from the same direction as the front door more importantly.
"...so powerful" The voices came again
"...surprise"
"...they wouldn't have stood a chance..."
"Just wait awhile longer, then we'll go in."
"Maybe he found something to play with. The bitch maybe?..."
The voices trailed of but he'd got the idea, those people were not the good guys, and the man in the house right now probably wasn't either. He had to get out of here. Now. And he was going to have to take the kid with him.
Scanning the kitchen he noticed a door in the far corner of the room half hidden in the shadows, thanking the half dozen deities that came to mind at the time Methos made his way around the kitchen table and to the door, which he was especially grateful for because this kitchen had no windows and would be easy to quietly slip out of.
What he hadn't counted on was the dog.
A very large, light brown Doberman to be exact, with big claws and as he was beginning to see, big teeth.
Normally it would not have fazed him in the slightest, he could just jump the fence and hightail it out of there, but today, right now, that wasn't an option. He had a baby to worry about here. While opening the back door, Methos had taken his hand from over Harry's mouth, which in this case proved a blessing rather than a curse. The dog, preparing to get vicious immediately quieted and melted into a very large adoring little puppy-dog at the baby's coo of...
"Daaavaa", it had to be the dog's name, or as close to it as the kid could manage. Not that that mattered of course, what mattered was that the kid's cooing at the dog had prevented it attacking them, or perhaps worse at the present moment, barking at them.
Quickly and quietly he made his way over to the fence, hoping to find an easy way of getting out of the yard, one that did not involve vaulting over a fence, however he was pleasantly surprised to find instead of a fence, to find a hedge, a hedge with a gate into the neighbours yard. It was not something that would be expected this close to a major city, but he wasn't complaining.
Opening the gate Methos winced as he heard the hinges squeaked, silently he prayed to the first deity he could think of that the grunts out the front hadn't heard the noise, thankfully he seemed to be in luck.
Quickly and quietly he made his way across the neighbours yard keeping to the shadows and making as little noise as possible, which would have been easier had the grass not been so long. It wasn't until he reached the opposite side of the yard that he noticed that Dava had followed him. It was too late to do anything about it now, and anything he tried to do with the dog would just waste time, it would have to fend for itself until they made their way out of range of the people who had killed the kid's parents, hopefully the mutt wouldn't get them caught in the meantime.
Unfortunately he was not so lucky in this yard, seemed the neighbours were not as friendly with their other neighbours and didn't have a gateway between their yards, there was no fence between the front and the back of the house so he made his way towards the front keeping the house to his back. A quick peek around the side of the house showed that he had been fairly lucky, there was a bit of a garden in front of the house including several large trees which would cover him from the prying eyes of the accomplices for the majority of his journey, he could not however hope for a miracle and he would for several metres at a time be in plain view. It couldn't really be helped though.
Quick as he could Methos flitted through the shadows, unfortunately he wasn't quick enough...
"I Think there's something over there," one of the brutes exclaimed, "I saw something move."
"Lumos" light flooded the area with the phrase, he knew that Lumos was Latin for light, but there was something else about that word that was just out of his reach, there was something he was missing here, something about something he had known a long time ago but could no longer remember, it was frustrating but really not the right time to be reminiscing.
Light flooded the street and Methos behind the tree was silently cursing in his head, he was likely to be caught any minute!
Suddenly Dava came running across the yard, she turned her head towards his pursuers, toward the light, Dava just sat and stared at them, thankfully not giving away their positions, though whether that was intelligence or just dumb luck he didn't know.
"Just a dog, what do you thinks taking so long, Nox"
The light faded away with the voices and Dava made her way over to them. He had never been so thankful to a dog than he was at that moment.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story, save original ones such as Dava. I don't own any of the characters from Harry Potter or Highlander please don't sue me. Oh and I don't own the lyrics from Garth Brooks song either!
AN: Hope you like, hope I didn't butcher characters too much, if anyone has any input on that account it would be appreciated. Thanks for reading!