"Thank you," Harry said, taking the bowl of stew and nodding his head respectfully. He still wasn't sure how well they understood him, he still didn't really understand them, though it was definitely English.

The stew left a lot to be desired. Well, it was terrible, but the family that had taken him in didn't have much. He had plenty of Galleons in his bag. If he melted them down and transfigured them into plain looking coins, then he could give them away without fear of them being found with goblin currency from the future.

The rest of the family ate with gusto. They had been working in the fields, tilling soil and planting seeds all day. Harry had joined them, naturally. It wasn't too different from working in the Dursley's garden, really.

"Where are the children?" the father asked in his difficult to understand accent. Childhood, Harry gathered, only lasted until the teenage years, after which one was expected to work. The children of this family, Thomas and Anne, would range for miles around the village, with seemingly no supervision.

"Still playing in the fields, I reckon," the mother replied.

"It'll be dark soon."

"Hmm."

They continued to eat, the mother sending nervous glances out of the window at the gradually darkening sky.

"She's been taken! She's been taken!"

Thomas rushed into the house, his hair and clothes in disarray. He almost collapsed to the floor after his initial shout, gasping for breath.

Everyone scrambled to their feet, Harry included.

"What are you talking about?" Mother asked. "Where's Anne?!"

"Taken," Thomas got out. "By the woman in the woods."

A terrified silence followed this statement. The mother began crying. The oldest sister began to mutter a prayer under her breath.

"John, go and get my axe," the father said.

"No," the mother cried, "I can't lose you, too."

But her husband ignored her pleas and pulled on his coat and tightened his boots.

"Who's the woman in the woods?" Harry asked.

"She's a… she's a witch," the older sister said, her voice full of fear.

Harry blinked. Did she mean an actual witch? Like a witch witch? And she's preying on local children? Harry didn't want to think about why she was doing so, but shouldn't the Aurors get involved? Even if there aren't laws against Muggle baiting, surely the infringement against the International Statute of Secrecy alone was… cause to…

Harry's thoughts crashed to a halt. He was in the past.

"What year is it?" he demanded from the girl.

"What? I don't understand."

"What… oh, what is it? A.D.? Uh, anno domini."

"In the year of our Lord? Sixteen eighty-five," she said.

Harry had to hide his shock. There was no International Statute of Secrecy! There wouldn't be for another seven years. And this Muggle is going to fight a dark witch with nothing but a wood axe to save his daughter?

"I'm coming, too," Harry declared.


Harry and the father, Michael, crept through the undergrowth. To Harry's wizarding intuition, it was clear that something evil lived at the heart of this forest. Already, he had had to subtly fend off the approach of two dark beasts that were attracted to their presence.

"It's just up ahead," Michael said softly. Harry felt a great rush of respect for the man. He was absolutely willing to die for his daughter. Harry was already the beneficiary of a similar love. But in this situation, it did seem increasingly likely that he would die, a Muggle going up against a witch.

"We'll get her back," Harry said, before slipping his wand out and silently stunning the man from behind. Gently lowering him to the ground, Harry weaved a simple protective charm around him and sneaked closer to the cottage. This would probably be easier if he didn't have to hide what he really was.

He peered through the corner of a window and was greeted by the most stereotypical Muggle idea of what a witch's house would look like. Dried potion ingredients were hung from the rafters, a massive tome was set on a pedestal and a huge cauldron was bubbling in the centre of the room, in a set up that Harry was sure would have infuriated Snape. He spotted the girl, barely ten years old, standing silently in a corner. The Imperius Curse, Harry guessed by the vacant expression in her eyes. He heard somebody busying themselves elsewhere in the building but couldn't see them.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour for the moment, Harry climbed up the wall to the first floor, his feet finding easy purchase in the large loose stones.

The window was locked, but yielded to a simple alohomora, and Harry slipped inside.

"Now, where was the last of that salamander tail?" a voice said. "I know it was around here somewhere." He heard more crashing and banging as whoever was speaking searched for reagents. Harry looked over the balcony to the potion bubbling below. He didn't recognise it, but it looked unstable and if she was using ingredients as magical as salamander's tail, then it would be powerful too. He didn't want to get into a fight with that bubbling nearby, the slightest hex could destroy the house and probably set half of the forest on fire while it was at it. What he needed was a neutralising agent. He looked around the room quickly.

"Ah ha!" the voice crooned in success. "Plenty enough here." The sound of footsteps made Harry pull back into the darkness.

The witch, and Harry had no doubt that this was a witch, came back into the main room holding a slice of salamander's tail. Harry grimaced. She wasn't even wearing gloves.

She was old, and she didn't wear it gracefully. Her skin was covered in dirt and liver spots. Her robes were patched and soiled. She had several teeth missing.

"It'll all be over soon, you pretty little thing," the witch said to the young girl, throwing the whole piece of tail into the potion. A spout of flame erupted from the cauldron, making Harry wince at the bad potioneering.

Now the witch was waving a large wooden staff over the potion. The staff was large and unwieldy, but Harry still recognised the motion, it was an analysis spell. Did she not have a wand? He knew that Ollivander's ancestors had been making wands in Britain since Roman times.

With a start, Harry realised that the witch had walked over to Anne and was now dragging her towards the cauldron. With no time left to observe, Harry jumped down into the main room, casting a silent cushioning charm as he did. He stood between the witch and her cauldron, his wand held ready.

"Let her go," he said.

"Merlin's…!" To her credit, she recovered from the shock quickly.

"Who are you?" She demanded. "A proper wand? Listen, I don't know which rich lordling's son you are, but you can't just come barging in here. This is my forest and these are my muggles. Look at this one," she gripped Anne's innocent face tightly, contorting her young features. Anne suffered this without objection, still under the effects of the Imperius Curse. "Look how pretty she is! I'll probably look like I'm in my twenties again when I've taken everything useful out of her body and her soul."

"She's a ten-year-old girl!" Harry cried out. "What has she ever done to you?"

"Merlin, you're dim," the witch said. "She's a Muggle. Who cares what she has or hasn't done? The only important thing about her is that I can use her."

"No, you can't," Harry said, tensing up.

The witch brought her staff up, but Harry was ready, he ducked behind the cauldron and flicked his wand.

"Accio salt!"

The large tub of salt in the corner of the room flew through the air and was tipped into the cauldron. Alchemically inert, the salt would end any ongoing magical interactions and ruin the potion, but at least it would stop it safely. It had the unfortunate side-effect that the contents of the cauldron would be ruined and probably the cauldron itself.

The witch screamed in anger, shooting a spell over the top of the cauldron.

"It took me years to collect all those ingredients!" she hissed. "I was just going to send you away, but now, I'm going to kill you and rend your body down into so many reagents. I studied at Hogwarts for two years, you know?"

Huh?

Harry jumped out from behind his cover, but the witch was ready for him.

"Imperio," she said.

Harry felt a long familiar feeling come over him. Just drop your wand, a voice in his head said.

Harry didn't even hesitate.

"Reducto!"


Harry wiped the poor girl's memories of the last day and scavenged around the witch's house for anything useful, but he only found a little gold. He carefully set fire to the building in such a way that it wouldn't threaten the forest surrounding it.

Pulling Michael onto his back, and pulling a confused and upset Anne by the hand, he led them out of the forest. When he got back to the village, he explained that Michael had been knocked unconscious by some spell, but that he had managed to rescue Anne and kill the witch, though he didn't share details.

Before the sun rose, he packed his bag. It was time to leave these kind people behind and search for the wizards of this time. He just hoped that they weren't all like the witch he had fought… that he had killed.

He left what gold that he had taken from the witch on the kitchen table and sneaked away into the night.