CHAPTER 9: Weeping Tears of Gold

ANs:

1: Warning: Child/infant death mentioned.

2: Chapter title is inspired by the Freyja, who is the Norse goddesses of love, beauty, fertility, battle, and death. Her husband, Odur, the symbol of the summer sun, would often go on long journeys. In Viking culture, being well traveled was very important, and those who had traveled many places were held in high regard. It was a way to gain wisdom from the world, which was a paramount goal for all. Despite this, Freya would lament the absence of her husband, for she loved him so deeply. She would sometimes wander the world, searching for Odur when he was gone too long from her. The tears she cried turned to gold when they fell upon the ground.

3: The children's rhyme that Isaiah sings is my modified compilation of several children's game rhymes in Volume 2 of "The Traditional Games of England, Scotland and Ireland" collected and annotated by Alice Bertha Gomme, 1898.

Isaiah placed the kitten down on the floor and rose from the table and proceeded to make more tea.

"Mother used to have a younger sister." He sighed heavily. "Cindy. She was the troublemaker. Ran around with boys. Partying. Drinking. Doing drugs. Up the duff when she was sixteen. She had a little boy. She tried to be a good mother but the drugs always came first. Accidental overdose. He was found crying over her body trying to wake her up. He was seven. Things got better when child services found his grandmother, Cindy and Nia's mother that is, Thea. But fate struck again. Thea got cancer. She died. Leaving the little boy alone two years later. He spent a couple of months in foster care before they tracked down the next relative. His aunt had been living abroad for a bit but had recently moved back. She graciously took her nephew in. Aunt Nia. Mother."

Severus was silent, watching as the pain etched into Isaiah's beautiful face. Though, he wasn't looking at him but watching the kitten chase it's own tail.

"So she's your Aunt?"

"I'm not related to her at all." Isaiah poured them fresh cups of tea. "When I was six, Cindy tried to get sober. And she was for a bit. But then when my seventh birthday came around she got really sad. I didn't understand at the time but later, years later, during many quiet, sleepless nights, I realized that her drug-induced rants were really a confession."

"What did she confess to?"

"Killing me."

"What?!"

"Not me exactly. She killed Isaiah."

"I don't understand."

"She was so young you see, when she had Isaiah…."

"Izzy, what…," Severus clung to his tea mug like a lifeline. He was so confused.

"She ran away from home; didn't like all the rules. She wanted freedom. Thea looked for her of course, but couldn't find her. The police didn't care. Like me, Cindy knew that people would pay for anything. Of course there are consequences. She quickly became pregnant. I'm lucky in that sense, that I wasn't born a woman. I doubt that I would keep it if I were in her place." He sat down at the table again. "By some miracle she had the baby and they both survived, even while living rough at times. They managed for a while. But she couldn't take the crying. He cried, and cried, and she couldn't get any rest. She was so tired. She wanted it to be quiet for a little while so she could sleep."

"Izzy, I don't..." Severus' voice was strained.

"She took him out. It wasn't far from where they were living, but far enough that she couldn't hear him. She could finally get some sleep."

"No, no, no, please no," Severus whispered.

"She went back for him the next day. At least she thought it was the next day. He was quiet. He was still." Severus inhaled sharply. "It was dark, it was cold. She wandered around for hours trying to warm him up. Then she heard an explosion and a cry. She followed the sounds. I'm not sure where she found me."

"Oh god!"

"The warm baby had a cold mommy. The cold baby had a warm mommy. It made sense to make them match." The kitten had made its way back, he picked it up and rocked it like a baby. "She sang herself to sleep that last time." He stroked the kittens ears gently. "Afterward, I had trouble sleeping for weeks. Her voice wouldn't leave me. I'd close my eyes and see her. Rocking a pillow back and forth. Crying. Singing. Sleeping. Except she wouldn't wake up. I tried to wake her up." In a hauntingly beautiful voice he sang while looking at the kitten. It was an old children's rhyme. "When I was a naughty girl, a naughty girl, a naughty girl, a-this a-way went I; When I had a baby, a baby, a baby, a-this a-way went I. How happy was I. How happy was I."

'No, no, no," kept repeating a horrified Severus.

"When the baby cried, a-this a-away went I; When the baby died, a-this a-way went I. How sorry was I. How sorry was I. When the baby died." He finished the song and kissed the kitten on its head. They both watched as it turned back into a tea cozy while still in Isaiah's arms.

Severus looked like he would be sick. "She...she took you...she replaced…" he couldn't get the words out..

"She couldn't take the memories on his birthday. Tried to silence the screams of her crying baby. All she wanted was to sleep. She did in the end." He put the tea cozy on the table but kept petting it softly as it was still a kitten. "Sometimes…" he paused, moved his hand away, picked up his cup and took a sip of his tea, "sometimes I feel like an impostor. Like it's someone else's life I'm living." He turned to look out the little window over the sink, the sun bleached curtains swaying gently with the passing morning breeze. "Isaiah had a mother who tragically overdosed, a loving grandmother that died of cancer, a psychotic aunt who starved him." He closed his eyes. "All I have is the harrowing life of someone that I'll never meet."

It was a strained week after Isaiah's revelation. Not much was said as Isaiah was working twelve hours a day at the bookie. The few hours they had free were spent cuddling on the couch while reading. Severus didn't want to push and Isaiah was more interested in the children's magical books that Severus had than rehashing his horrible life. He liked The Tale of The Three Brothers the best. All Severus could think about was how he wished he could make things better. Help him somehow.

"Unless there is a potion that tells me who I really am, I don't see how you can help."

"What?"

"You were talking out loud again. You said you wished you could help. So do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Have a potion that could tell me who I really am?"

"No…," Isaiah nodded and went back to his reading. He didn't even look disappointed. "But, the goblins do."

Isaiah's head snapped up. "Goblins?"

"Yes."

"Goblins are real?" He put down his book.

"Yes."

"Tell me everything!"

"We have our own bank in the magical world, it's called Gringotts and it's run by goblins. Not very friendly beings but they have great business minds. They are humanoid, so we can speak to them unlike many other magical beings. Since they run our bank, they have ways to identify customers using blood for things like inheritances. There is a fee for the test, like everything else offered by the bank, but the results cannot be refuted, and the Ministry for Magic accepts them without contest."

"Why can't you do the blood test?"

"I don't have the recipe. It's highly regulated, a goblin secret, plus all blood magic is illegal. The goblins are allowed to practice darker branches of magic because they have their own government and their nation has several accords with ours. Treaties signed after many rebellions."

"You need to lend me a history book next. Alright, where's the closest branch? And how much is the test?"

"Near Leicester Square and last I checked, it was around 100G for the test."

"What's a galleon?"

"Our currency."

"So it is an entire different world. Currency, banks, governments, schools."

"That is correct. I have a guide somewhere that explains the basics of it all. I give it to the few muggleborns that are sorted into Slytherin."

"Muggleborn? How are they sorted? Slytherin?"

"It will cover all that, let me go look for it."

"Can't you wave your magic stick and summon it?"

Severus looked surprised. "I have to remember that I can do magic in your presence. It's going to take time to get used to. Accio Student Guide." With that a bound stack of papers flew in his direction from the staircase about a minute later. He grabbed them from the air before they could smack into him and passed them to Isaiah.

"You wrote this!" Isaiah exclaimed looking at the author of the booklet. He read the title. "So You Know You're Magical!" and skimmed the table of content that had a stirring cauldron picture and looked like the one Severus had in his cellar. "Statute of Secrecy, Ministry for Magic, Gringotts, Underage Magic, Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Hogsmead, International Confederation of Wizards, Quidditch. If I didn't know you so well, I would have thought you were taking the piss." He flipped to the correct section and started reading. After a few minutes he looked up. "This is quite useful for a child, or a parent being thrown into the deep end of a new world."

"Quite, it took a bit to get that together as I grew up knowing about magic. It was difficult to know what to explain while not overwhelming an eleven year old."

"Great job."

"Thank you."

"Back to the beginning. The closest branch is in London. And according to this," he waived the guide, "a 100G is £500. That is almost six weeks of my room this term. That's too rich for my blood, literally."

"I'll pay for it."

"No, I don't take charity."

"You could have a vault in the bank and can pay me back."

"I could also have nothing and owe you."

"Izzy," Severus sat next to him and pulled him into a hug, "please, let me." They held each other for several minutes.

"I'll pay you back as soon as I can," he mumbled into Severus' chest.

"Of course," Severus replied but not meaning it.

"With interest."

"If it makes you feel better."

Isaiah sat back up. "I'll check what time the earliest train is in the morning. I'm glad I have the day off." He got up but Severus pulled him back down.

"I can apparate both of us, we don't need the train."

"What's…" he started to ask but then grabbed the guide and flipped to the dictionary he had noted earlier. His finger traced the words as he read to himself then looked up. "No shit. Teleportation. I thought I was special."

"You can apparate?"

"Sure, I've been doing it since I was a kid. Got me away from angry husbands in a jiffy."

"Children cannot apparate, it takes a lot of magic and skill."

"Guess I am special then." He shrugged and proceeded to recount the first time he was swept by the wind onto the roof of his school when he was six whilst running from school yard bullies. He tried it on purpose later on and it worked. "I told Gran about it and she said to keep it quiet. That people would try to do bad things to me because of my gift. She then came home one day with a Black Cat Bone and showed me how to sew this," he then untucked his shirt and on the inner seam by the tag he showed Severus a marking. "It's to keep me safe. I place it on everything I own." The symbol looked like a capital Y but with a middle line extending up to the same level as the other two lines. It was like a stick figure with its arms raised up.

"That's a rune. Algiz, it's for protection." Severus said, surprised.

"She said it would be my guardian. It would shield me and ward off evil. It would keep my gift safe."

"What's a black cat bone?"

"It's an actual blackened bone from a cat. In many cultures black cats are a symbol of good luck. There's a whole hoodoo ritual on how it's retrieved. I think the one she gave me might have been from a chicken now that I think about it. It's a lucky charm. It is said to provide good luck, protection and even invisibility."

"Sounds similar to the Hand of Glory."

"That's real too I guess."

"It is. What happened to it?"

"I carried it around in a pouch until she got really sick. Gran then hired a tribal tattoo artist. Not sure how she met the woman. But she was the great-great something of a Fulbe Pastoralist, a tribe in Northern Africa. They have a tradition of blue face tattoos to identify clans. The cat bone was turned to ash and mixed with blue ink. It's a tradition in many cultures to reopen existing scars to form raised ones and that's what she told her to do. I used to have a scar shaped like lighting just off center here," he pointed to his forehead. "It hurt like the dickens even with pain medication. It took several weeks for it to heal but when it did, the scar was gone. Then she died. I think she was waiting for that, she didn't want to leave me unprotected."

"That is extraordinary. You absorbed the magic of the black cat bone. That and the runes must be why you didn't get your letter, you're invisible to magic. I didn't think about the fact that I didn't feel anything coming from you even when I watched you transfigure the tea cozy into…"

"A black cat. I like them the best. Reminds me of the last gift my Gran gave me."

"It's astounding. You definitely have magic. I wonder where you came from?"

"We have to get to the bank to find out. So, this teleportation thing, kids don't go around popping in and out of places?"

"No, again, it takes a lot of magic and concentration. Plus you need a license."

"Why?"

"It's like driving."

"I guess I can see that. It was easier to learn though. Just think about a place and off you go. No bloody traffic laws to memorize."

"You keep surprising me. It's not that easy; trained people can still leave body parts behind."

"That sounds horrible and has never happened to me. So you want to teleport us to Leicester Square? At," he looked at the clock over the fireplace, "one o'clock in the afternoon on a Saturday? People will notice. It is tourist season."

Severus smiled. "No, we're going to Diagon Alley, it's completely magical."

"Will the bank still be open?"

"Yes, they don't observe British commerce laws."

"Alright. Lead the way, Professor Marvel."