Celwriter: I just luv adding new characters, don't you?
Chapter 7
He came face to face with a brunet girl who appeared about a year younger than him. She wore an emerald green robe which brought over her deep jade eyes and her hair was layered around her face. The hair seemed to defy gravity and was flung out to either side of her face.
"Here you go," she said as she handed him a handkerchief. He took it and tried to place where he'd seen her face. Perhaps it was on one of his trips to Diagon Ally?
"Ummmm," Harry started, puzzled. "Do I know you?"
"Yes, Harry, but I haven't seen you in almost, what will it be now? Sixteen years?" Harry became more puzzled because he'd recognized her voice and she seemed only fifteen years old. The girl must have noticed his confusion because she answered it.
"The last time I saw you, Harry, you were only a baby. Your parents were already in hiding and," She gulped. "They wanted to get out for a bit. Just an hour in regular society, they thought, and I was going to baby-sit you."
"But….you…….baby-sit…….me?" he mumbled, utterly confused.
"I'm a mage, Harry. I've looked fifteen for the past sixteen years, since the day after I was born."
Harry nodded, though he had never heard of a mage before who stayed the same age.
"As I was saying, Harry," the girl started again. "Your parents were going to go out for a few hours, but they never left the house. Alive, that is. They had just finished giving me instructions when 'he' came in." She looked at Harry. "You don't mind if I say his name, do you?"
Harry, guesses who 'he' was, shook his head.
"Okay, well then," she said, taking a deep breath. They were about to leave when Voldemort came in. They were in the front room and I heard the screaming and I hid under your crib because he didn't know I was there and then I heard Voldemort yell the spell and I knew what had happened to your father and your mother came in to block him front you, but he just cast the spell again and then he turned to you…."
A look of ferocity built in the girl's eyes.
"You, he turned to you. A helpless baby. I tell you, Harry, by then I was mad because he'd killed…." She paused for a moment in thought as if to decide whether or not to add something, but decided against it. "He'd killed your parents, who had been so kind to me, and I'd known them my whole life, which was only a year, mind you, but I was mad. He raised his wand and I saw a cookie sheet which must've gotten knocked over in the chaos, and I lifted it to hit him over the head. Something green hit the cookie sheet before I could slam it down and I realized he had sent a spell towards you. The cookie sheet had reflected most of it away and back to him and I saw a shadow creep away out the door.
"I called Dumbledore right then and there because part of the spell had hit your forehead and it looked like you might be bleeding, but no blood came out. You kept crying for your mother and father, but they were gone and…" She started crying. "I didn't no what to do so I broke up some cookies for you and I to eat and I rocked you until Hagrid came." She broke down sobbing here and Harry was shock and amazed.
It hadn't been his mother's love that had saved him then, it was a cookie sheet. Perhaps love did have something to do with it then, didn't it? The girl had loved his parents or maybe something else. It explained it more clearly than anything he'd heard before, but it was still unbelievable.
"Harry," the girl said, wiping her eyes. "Only you, I, and Dumbledore know this. Voldemort didn't see me in the room at all. It's best if he doesn't know."
"But if it was only the cookie sheet, how come Voldemort couldn't touch me?" Harry said, gaining strength in this discovery.
The girl looked up in thought and shook her head. The answer she gave was amazing.
