When Thorn's eyes landed on the scarlet steam engine that was waiting for them on the other side of the wall, the boy knew that he would deny till his dying breath that he felt nervous.
Though as he glanced over his shoulder, Thorn found his previous curiosity towards the shared joke, or whatever it had been that was between his mother and Harry on the other side of the wall had up and vanished like his mysterious Fairy Godmother and his heart was thudding inside his chest as he read the plaque tacked overhead that read, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. His breath hitched as realisation sank in that he had done it and excitement tore its way through his system as he turned his golden-brown gaze back to the Hogwarts Express.
Though a voice at his ear had the eleven-year-old jumping.
"Breath, Thorn."
Kiara chuckled as she pulled away from her son and rested a shoulder in his rather tense shoulder before giving it a reassuring squeeze. The red head found herself rolling her own eyes good-heartedly at the look Thorn shot Harry when the blacket tried to cover up his own snickers with a cough and she shook her head as she led them towards the train. "Come on, you two," she called as she pushed Harry's trolley.
"That woman back there didn't seem to like you," Harry remarked quietly as they followed Kiara, frowning as he watched Thorn's mother continue to push his trolley. He wanted to tell her that he could push it himself, but the blacket found himself feeling reluctant to say anything. He couldn't remember the last time someone had helped him because they had wanted to. And not only had Kiara Scamander done just that, but Harry also found the woman was someone he could see himself looking up to.
She was nothing like his Aunt Petunia.
"Our families don't get along," Thorn replied with a shrug as if it explained everything. Though he added, "You'll find that Family names mean far more in the Magical world that the one out there," when Harry just looked at him blankly.
"Why?" the blacket asked, confused by how someone could hate another just because of their name. Though when Thorn just shot him a look that clearly told him he'd asked a stupid question – one that Harry had been on the receiving end of quite a bit in his eleven years upon the Earth – the Boy-Who-Lived flushed when it hit him that his own aunt and uncle hated him because of who his parents had been.
Turning his gaze to the crowds around them, Harry tried to figure out what to say. Though as he watched people chattering, cats of every colour he could think of winding between their legs, and owls hooting to each other from within their cages in a way that could only be described as disgruntled, the boy found his mind going back to the amazement that was magic. He couldn't believe that there had been a hidden world out there, one that his parents had been a part of and had died for, and he'd never known.
"Look," Thorn sighed as he stopped walking and causing Harry to do the same when he noticed. The blond fanned away some of the smoke that was billowing out of the train and over the platform with a hand as he turned to face the Boy-Who-Lived. Kiara noticed that the boys had stopped, though continued along the platform so she could get Harry's trunks loaded and his familiar settled. "I get that where you grew up was Muggl-"
"Ho-"
"My family fought in the war," Thorn cut Harry off quietly.
"They knew my parents?" the blacket questioned, a hope igniting behind his green eyes at the possibility of learning more about his family.
Thorn glanced about before he grabbed Harry's hand and dragged the boy off in the direction his mother had gone. "My uncle was said to be one of their best friends," he explained as they went, keeping his voice quiet so that only Harry could hear. "But I never got to meet them," he quickly added as if he could sense the next round of questions about to burst forth from the blacket. "After my dad died, my mum moved us out of Britain."
"Wh-why are you telling me this?" the bespectacled boy questioned as they came to a stop just outside of the carriage where Kiara was already loading up Harry's trunks. The red head barely gave them a glance as she placed the last of Harry's belongings onto the train, feeling rather glad that she'd had the foreknowledge to shrink down Thorn's school trunks. Doing it twice would have been backbreaking.
The blond in question just shot Harry another of those looks before he said, "I just want you to know that I don't care who you are, but the people here; in the magical world... they're going to either love you or hate you just because you survived something that should have rightfully killed you."
"What Thorn means," Kiara stepped in when Harry's face scrunched up in confusion, giving her son a questionable look at his topic choice. "Is that despite what people think they know, they don't actually know you."
"But-"
"Oi, Scamander!" a somewhat familiar voice shouted through the hustle and bustle around the trio and Harry watched on with even more confusion as Kiara sighed and Thorn seemed to freeze – just like everyone else around them that had heard the cry and the Boy-Who-Lived was surprised by the looks that were cast their way as one of the ginger-haired twins from earlier ran up to them. Looks that the bespectacled boy found weren't – for once – directed at him, but Thorn and his mother.
Though the blacket noticed that not all the glances cast their way were curious or surprised, but much like Mrs Weasley's expression of scorn and he wondered what it was he didn't know about his new... friend?
"Whoa! I didn't know you could freeze time, George!" the second twin exclaimed as he appeared at his brother's side, and his words had the bulk of the nosey-parkers quickly averting their gazes and moving off.
"Neither did I," George remarked with a look of mock surprise. "Maybe I should see if it wasn't a one-time thing?"
"Maybe not, aye," Thorn piped up with a scowl, shooting a glare to the last of the nosey parkers before moving to enter the train carriage. Though the eleven-year-old found himself being stopped when his mother placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"What can we do for you boys?" Kiara asked, giving her son a glance before turning to the twins and asking him silently to at least hear the pair out before disappearing. Thorn sighed as he turned back to the twins, all the while ignoring the questioning look Harry was shooting his way.
"Well, er..." the twin named Fred was suddenly looking bashful at the realisation the he and his brother may have just caused another unnecessary scene, along with the possibility of having just angered the very person they'd come and apologise to for the previous altercation with their mother.
"We, um," Fred rubbed the back of his as he too came to the same realisation. "George and I had actually come to apologise," he continued after a moment. "Our mum, she's not usually like that you see. But..." The ginger looked to his brother for help, though was surprised when Kiara spoke up.
"You don't need to apologise," the red head told the pair.
"We don't?" they chorused.
Kiara just shook her head at them before she held out a hand. "How about we start off with a clean slate, hey?" she said with a smile. "I'm Kiara Scamander. And this is my son, Thorn and our new friend, Mister Potter."
"Nice to meet yo- What?!"
Fred went to shake the red head's hand, knowing an olive branch when he saw one – only to do a double-take at the last name he heard.
"Um, hi?" Harry greeted a little unsurely as he shifted slightly closer to Kiara and Thorn when two pairs of disbelieving expressions turned to him. He spared a glance to Thorn, noting that now the attention had been drawn away from the other boy, he was looking far more relaxed and Harry found himself – as bad as it made him seem – praying that the attention he was suddenly receiving from the twins was shifted back to the blond.
It was only for a second, but the thought had Harry's gut churning with guilt and he felt immensely disappointed in himself for thinking such a thing.
He could clearly see that whatever war it was he kept hearing about – the very same one that had taken both his parents and caused him to become both rich and famous without even knowing – had also seemed to have affected Thorn and his mother in a way that Harry's eleven-year-old brain just couldn't fully comprehend yet. But having seen the way that Fred and George's mother had acted towards him, not even realising he wasn't the boy she'd thought he was... Harry James Potter found himself wanting to apologise to the Scamander's'.
Not once since meeting them had Thorn nor Kiara acted differently to him because he was the Boy-Who-Lived. He could tell that they knew who he was, but the fact that they'd treated him just like anyone else – even to Thorn ignoring him – Harry found that it was... nice.
"Blimey!" George breathed as he continued to stare at the Boy-Who-Lived. "You're-"
"He is," Fred cut in as he too continued to peer at Harry. "Aren't you?"
"What?" Harry asked as he refocused back onto the twins, though found himself inwardly cringing when they broke out with a cry of 'Harry Potter!' and caused a few heads to turn back in their direction.
"Congratulations... you know his name," Thorn drawled in a way that had the twins stiffening before they blinked and looked to the boy.
"Whoa. Mum wasn't kidding," George stated as he just stared at Thorn.
"Sorry?" the boy questioned, raising an eyebrow at the older boy who was quick to cast a wide-eyed glance to Kiara when he realised he'd spoken his thought out loud.
"I think-"
"Ow!"
"-what my dear brother here was saying," Fred quickly interjected as he whacked his brother upside the head in an attempt to get rid of their family's apparent – and rather unexpectedly sudden bout of foot-stepping-in-things-unmentionable. "Was that you just suddenly reminded him of someone."
Thorn didn't look like he believed the ginger. But when his mother squeezed his shoulder at the same time that was a call of, "Fred! George! Where the devil are you?!" from one Mrs Weasley, the blond sighed before just shrugging his mother's hand away.
"Coming, mum," the twins called back to their mother, sparing the trio one last glance before they disappeared back through the throngs of people.
"Come on," Thorn said when they were gone, turning to Harry looking a little worn out. "Best find an empty cart before they're all taken."
"Thorn. You're certain you've got everything?" Kiara asked before they could disappear and a small frown tugged at her lips when all her son did was nod silently at her. "And what about you, Harry?" she asked, shaking off her worry, knowing that despite Thorn's continued assurance that no one would care who his family was, there had been a reason she'd requested Thorn using her maiden name while at Hogwarts. And surprisingly – or suspiciously enough - Dumbledore had been rather quick to agree.
"Ah, yeah," Harry stated with a nod, looking a little surprised that Kiara had acknowledged him at all. But once more Harry found that Thorn's mother didn't look to be treating him any different than she did her own son and it caused a feeling he wasn't too certain what to name appear in his chest. It wasn't painful. More... warm?
"Okay, then," Kiara continued with a smile-turned-grin as she ushered them up onto the carriage, causing Thorn to once again roll his eyes. "You two be good and don't get up to any mischief," she told them before leaving them on the train alone.
The two boys were quick to find an empty carriage near the back of the train, Harry having followed Thorn when the blond had told him what his father had learnt about the Hogwarts Express.
"Mum told me that Dad always believed parents were in so much of a rush to dump their kids off that they'd take them to the first carriages and offload them there. So the best spots were always at the end of the train."
The moment they'd chosen their carriage, Thorn moved to the window and opened it so he could wave goodbye to his mother. Harry took the seat across from him and there was an odd expression on the blacket's face as he watched the other boy waving his mother off. Green eyes were cast towards the crowds that were still bustling about outside as the last of the students arrived and Harry found himself imagining what it would be like to have someone waving him off to school. His aunt and uncle wouldn't have even dared to show their face, let alone acknowledge that he was anyway related to them if asked.
But as a sigh left Harry as his imagination begun to run away from him, the boy suddenly jumped, almost yelling when Thorn stumbled away from the window with a grunt and fall back onto his seat.
"Wha-?" the raven-haired boy questioned in alarm, though found the rest of his words were lost at the sight of Thorn sputtering, his face crimson as he quickly shoved - was that a rose? - into his shoulder bag. Though Harry blinked when he noticed that the blond was holding another flower and raised his gaze to meet Thorn's rather questionably.
Thorn's golden-brown eyes looked everywhere but at the Boy-Who-Lived as he practically threw the flower in his hands at Harry as he muttered, "Mum says bye," and Harry blinked behind his taped glasses as he looked at the flower he was now holding.
It wasn't a rose. In fact, Harry didn't think he'd ever seen a flower like it before. Not even in Aunt Petunia's garden that he was forced to weed every Saturday.
"What is it?" he asked as he looked back to Thorn – who still wasn't meeting his gaze.
"It's an alstroemeria," the blond muttered as he made himself busy and retrieved the battered book from his bag. Harry managed to catch a glimpse of a red petal inside the bag before it was closed once more and his gaze snapped back to the flower – or alstroemeria – in his hands when Thorn cast him a glance as he re-found his place in his book. Though the blacket was startled when the other boy continued with his explanation, having believed that was all he was going to hear.
"It's a native flower of South America known also as the Peruvian Lily. Though it's not related to them. Giving someone an alstroemeria is a sign of friendship and, well..." Thorn finished with a shrug as he returned his attention back to his book.
Harry just continued to stare at the flower for a moment as Thorn's words slowly sunk in. Kiara wanted to be... friends. With him, of all people.
The Boy-Who-Lived suddenly jumped to his feet as a new appreciation for flowers begun to blossom inside him and he all but threw himself at the window to wave goodbye to Thorn's mother. The alstroemeria was clutched tightly in his hand, not at all caring if anyone could see it as he watched Kiara waving back to him, laughing at his rather overenthusiastic goodbye. But Harry just returned her laughter with a warm smile as he finally got to know what it was like to have someone see him off to school.
He didn't notice the way Thorn had scowled the moment he'd jumped to his feet before the blond had realised what he was doing. A brief expression of confusion flickered across Thorn's face before realisation slowly dawned on him and he just shook his head at the way Harry was acting before returning to his reading.
There was, however, a small smile that tugged at his lips as his eye caught sight of the end of the rose his mother had given him; a hand moving from the worn pages of his most favourite book to make certain the flower wouldn't fall out.
After a while he found another rose, which became his home, for among its delicate fragrant leaves he could dwell in safety. However, every morning the little fairy made the trek to the window of the poor girl, and always found her weeping by the flower pot. The bitter tears fell upon the rose twig, and each day – as she became paler and paler – the rose-twig appeared to grow greener and fresher. One bud after another sprouted forth and blossomed into the most beautiful of roses the little fairy had ever seen, but such sweet bitterness was not the home for one such as he as he watched the heartbroken girl kiss the petals with such a fondness that he found his own heart aching in sympathy.
But when the wicked brother found her kissing the flowers in such a way, he scolded her in a jealous rage – the memory of his brother doing the same thing the night he'd been killed causing him to ask the girl if she were going mad. He could not imagine why she was weeping over that flower-pot when he'd provided her with others that were far more beautiful and expensive, and it annoyed him that it seemed as though his brother still held claim over her heart even without his presence.
The wicked brother did not know whose closed eyes were there, nor what red lips were fading beneath the earth of the flowerpot.
How could he when he believed his brother to be still buried – forgotten and thought to be elsewhere - under the linden-tree on the manor grounds?
One day the girl-turned-young woman sat herself beside the rosebush and leaned her head against the flowerpot. It was here where the little fairy found her asleep and much like the first time he had seen her in such a state, he sat himself by her ear and talked to her of the evening he had spent in the arbour; of the sweet perfume of roses and the loves of the fairies that dwelt there. Sweetly she dreamed, and while she dreamed the little fairy watched her breathe her last; calmly and gently as it should have been for her love. Though her spirit was quick to join the man she loved in heaven.
And as her last breath seemed to fill the room, the once-closed roses opened their blushing leaves and spread forth their sweet fragrance; unable to show their grief for the dead in any other way.
But the wicked brother had always hated the beautiful, blooming plant, seeing it as only a reminder of what had always taken his love from him – long before she was dead. And so he took it and tossed it away in the darkest corners of his grounds, not seeing the skull that was revealed as the pot shattered.
The fairy had followed the wicked brother, curious and worried as to what he would do. And seeing what he had done to the rose-bush, the little fairy was quick to fly from flower to flower; making certain that they were fine at the same time he told them of what had happened; both just now and before with the murdered young man whose head now formed part of the earth scattered around the broken pot, along with the tale of the wicked brother and his jealous love for the young woman who had recently passed.
"We know it," said each little spirit that dwelt in the flowers. "We know it, for have we not sprung from the eyes and lips of the murdered one. We know it, we know it," they repeated, the flowers nodding their 'heads' in a peculiar manner.
But the fairy could not understand how they could rest so quietly in the matter, and so he flew away and left the roses where they'd landed in a shattered heap of ceramic and soil.
He flew far – further than his little wings had ever taken him before. The fairy passed villages that were both small and vast, stopping at night to sleep upon the flowers he found in their pots on windowsills or in the safety of the trees when no such places could be found.
It took the little fairy far longer than he would have wished, but finally he reached the home of the Fairy King. And it was there, on the floor of the throne room did he plead his case to the King of all Fairies; bowed so low to the ground that the tips of his wings touched the stone floor. He knew that getting involved in mortal matters was something no magical being would do willingly, but he felt that a great injustice had been committed and if no one would do anything to avenge the death of a love that never had the chance to blossom, he would do it himself.
Though to his surprise, the Fairy King listened with an understanding ear; feeling the same rage the little fairy felt at hearing what had been done to not only the handsome brother, but his young love that had died of a broken heart. And without another word being said, the King of Fairies stood from his throne and left the room – his army following his silent command with a fluidness that was almost spooky to the wide-eyed fairy watching.
Only a week had passed; a week since the little fairy had left the rosebush in the darkest corner of the manor grounds when the King of Fairies arrived with his great army. But what they found stopped them all in their tracks. For what had once been open fields and lavish gardens filled with flowers from every corner of the world, the fairies found the manor to be overrun by the largest, most impenetrable rose-bush they'd ever seen. And inside this barrier of thorns, leaves, and branches, the sound of fighting could be heard.
Trekking carefully through the bush, the Fairy King and his followers found themselves seeing the most peculiar thing. There was the wicked brother with a blade in his hand, trying to hack his way through the rosebush that continued to regrow no matter how much he cut away. There was sweat upon his brow, and a frown upon lips that once held such a wicked smile, and even though he had not even made a dint in the bush before him, the man did not stop his attack.
Seeing this, and feeling as though the attack on the roses was an attack on his very person, the Fairy King motioned for his army to stay put as he approached the crazed man.
The little fairy, the same one who had seen all the wicked brother had done, watched with amazement as his King handed down his judgement upon the mortal.
But kind was his King, and instead of killing the wicked brother where he stood, he instead cursed him. He cursed him to remain within the manor grounds that were surrounded by the very roses that had grown from the remains of the brother he'd murdered – a reminder of what he had done in his selfishness. But if he were to ever find his way through the thorns and branches; if the spirits of the flowers ever found it within themselves to allow him his freedom, he would be reborn into that of a raven, never being able to show his face once more to people he'd once known and always thought to foreshadow that of which he'd once caused.
Magic thrummed through the air as the King's words took the form of a mark upon the man's chest, above his heart.
It was the mark of the raven and a sign to all those who knew that the man had been cursed by magic itself.
