Magical Twins – Chapter 2
"It might be possible, if at least one of the babies is very powerful and able to shorten or prolong the pregnancy for himself or his twin," Pomfrey replied thoughtfully, closely examining the two parchments. "Julian here is extremely powerful. His magic is already as high as it should be when he is old enough to attend Hogwarts in two and a half years' time. Dudley's magic is either very weak or has only begun to manifest itself recently. Julian could have either prolonged the pregnancy or thrown his brother out early for some reason."
"Our parents always wondered about that but explained it with the fact that I'm a freak," Julian lied, not really sure why Dudley and he had wordlessly agreed to pretend to be twins.
"We always had a party on my birthday," Dudley added in a small voice.
"Very well then, maybe we should record your birthday for both of you then," Pomfrey said thoughtfully, turning back to Severus. "Don't you think so, Severus? Otherwise, the whole school will infinitely bother them with that question."
"I agree," Severus drawled, eager to leave the hospital wing and check on his little snakes, before they left for the winter holidays.
"Severus, I'm sorry; I know it's the last day of term, but I need you to urgently brew the pneumonia potion for them, and later on, they'll probably need a strong fever reducer. In the meantime, I'll call Minerva and fill her in about our guests. Maybe she can find something out. I assume Albus has already left for his vacation?"
"Yes," Severus sighed. "I accompanied him to the Apparition point; that's why I was outside and discovered the children lying in the snow. It's strange to imagine that he won't be here over Christmas."
"You're right. That's definitely a first," Poppy agreed, smiling.
HP
Julian watched as the man left the hospital wing. 'He was very nice,' he mused, not used to people being kind to him.
"I could see that you have many old injuries, which I'm going to heal when you're recovered from the pneumonia. However, if there is anything that hurts, you must tell me, and I'll heal it immediately," Madam Pomfrey told him as she tightly wrapped both boys in warm blankets.
"I'm fine," Julian replied in a small voice, feeling the heat creep in his face that turned red by embarrassment.
"My chest hurts," Dudley complained, looking anxiously at the Mediwitch.
"That's because of the pneumonia. I suppose your chest hurts as well?" Pomfrey gave Julian a sharp look.
"A bit," he whispered, uncomfortably averting his eyes to his bed covers.
"Professor Snape is just brewing the potion for your pneumonia. That'll make you feel better quickly," Poppy reassured the boys and called Misty, her personal house-elf.
Misty appeared with a small pop, causing both boys to let out a gasp. "Misty is my house-elf," the Mediwitch explained gently, turning to the small elf. "Misty, please bring breakfast for Dudley and Julian here, and ask Minerva to join us for a moment."
"Yes, Mistress Poppy," Misty replied softly, and Julian watched in amazement how her large ears nearly touched the floor as the small elf bowed deeply, before she vanished with another pop.
Mere seconds later, breakfast appeared in front of Julian and Dudley. Poppy gently helped them sit up and instructed them to eat. Julian hesitantly looked at Dudley, who immediately began to wolf down his toasts and nearly choked on the juice, before he queried, "What's that?"
"That is pumpkin juice," Poppy explained in a gentle voice. "Now, Julian, even if you don't feel well, you still have to eat your breakfast."
Julian looked up startled at the sudden change in the Healer's voice that had become very stern. "Yes, sorry," he mumbled, hesitantly taking a bite from the toast. Ten minutes later, his plate was empty. "Thank you very much. This was absolutely delicious," he thanked the Mediwitch, who came to take the empty plates away, just when a very old woman in a long, green dress entered the room.
Madam Pomfrey quietly spoke to the elder lady in a small voice, before she turned back to them and introduced Julian and Dudley. "This is Professor McGonagall, our Deputy Headmistress."
"Hello Julian, hello Dudley," Minerva said gently as she conjured a chair for herself between the two beds. "Please tell me a bit about yourselves. What are your parents' names? Where do you live?"
"Our parents are Vernon and uh... Rose Taylor," Julian began to explain, seeing that Dudley threw him a helpless look.
"We lived in London, but they threw us out yesterday, when I did magic for the first time," Dudley continued as Julian ended up in a coughing fit. "They always called Julian a freak, but when they noticed I could do magic as well, they threw us out. My father drove us to a field and left us there, and Julian used magic to take us somewhere where people wouldn't hate us because of it or so he said." He slowly trailed off.
"Very well," Minerva said thoughtfully.
"Oh please, can we stay here?" Julian queried, throwing the woman a pleading look. "People are so nice here. Never has anyone be so kind to us," he continued in a small voice. "I've never felt so comfy and full like after this gorgeous breakfast. Please don't send us away."
"We won't send you away, if we can help it," Minerva replied reassuringly as not to upset the sick child. "I'll speak to my colleagues to see if anyone would be willing to take you in, and I'll have to speak with your guardians though in order to gain the guardianship over you. Considering you're both very ill, you'll have to stay here in the hospital wing for a few days. Before Madam Pomfrey releases you, I'm going to find something out," she promised, before she returned to the Headmaster's office to consult the huge book of Britain's magical children.
HP
While Madam Pomfrey made the children drink a potion that caused them to succumb to a much needed healing sleep, Minerva slowly made her way to the gargoyle, deep in thoughts. 'Something seems familiar about Julian, although he looks very much alike his brother, but I don't know what it is,' she mused as she entered Dumbledore's office, heading straight to the huge book that had his place on the shelf next to the Sorting Hat.
"Twenty-third of June, 1980," she mumbled, looking at the book in disbelief. 'There is no entry, but Poppy certainly has made sure the birth date. How strange!' Closely examining the page, she found Draco Malfoy's entry for the fifth of June as well as Harry Potter's for the thirty-first of July. 'They're both close, but they can't have to do anything with the Taylor twins,' she thought. 'I'll have to ask Albus about the matter. For the time being, we should keep them here. Maybe Severus would be willing to become their guardian. He was the one who found them, and he's much younger than me. I'm definitely too old to raise two eight-year-olds.'
With that, the Deputy Headmistress returned to the hospital wing to share her thoughts with her best friend Poppy.
HP
"You can't mean that, Minerva," Severus replied flatly at his former teacher's suggestion. "I'm not a fatherly type. I won't be able to raise two boys."
"Well, they're already eight and a half years old, and they both seem very good-mannered and nice children," Poppy threw in, looking at her colleagues in amusement.
"No. I can't do that."
"Ah, but Severus..." Minerva began to counter when Poppy interrupted her.
"Maybe both of you should become their guardians together. In two and a half years, they're going to enter Hogwarts anyway."
"Very well," Severus gave in, raising an eyebrow at his older colleague.
"All right," Minerva agreed. "However, we still have to try to find their parents and properly gain the guardianship from them, provided it's true that they threw them out and the two of them didn't just run away."
"Even if they ran away, they certainly didn't just do so without reason, Minerva," Poppy said in a very upset tone. "Dudley is fine, because his magic seems only just have manifested; however, Julian is definitely neglected and abused, and if we find out who their parents are, we have to bring them to court because of child abuse."
"Very well," Minerva said, sighing. "I suggest we ask the house-elves to make a room for them and connect it to both our quarters, so they can move into their own room as soon as Poppy releases them."
"That's a good idea, Minerva," Poppy replied warmly. "However, it'll be at least a week, before I'll be able to release them. They both caught pneumonia, and Julian has already developed a high fever, while Dudley is still suffering from hypothermia."
HP
Later the same day, Minerva and Severus inspected the room, which the house-elves had added to their quarters. It was kept in several shades of light blue and white. On the two longer sides, it held a comfortable bed each as well as a desk, chair and a wardrobe. While on one side there was a door leading to a bathroom and another going out into the corridor in front of the hospital wing, the other side was equipped with a huge bookshelf and a magical window that allowed the view onto the Hogwarts grounds, the lake and parts of the Forbidden Forest. The two shorter sides each held a door, one of them leading into the living room of Minerva's quarters, the other going into Severus' living room.
"Thank you for agreeing to do this together with me, Severus," Minerva said softly, throwing her younger colleague a grateful smile.
"Well, you know how I feel about child abuse," Severus replied, raising an eyebrow at the older witch.
"I don't know, but these kids seem somehow familiar, especially Julian," Minerva said thoughtfully.
"You don't know why the boy looks familiar?" Severus queried, smirking. "It's his eyes. They're green. Just like Lily's eyes were," he added, his expression darkening considerably.
"Lily!" Minerva gasped. "But the boy can't be Harry Potter now, can he? He doesn't have a twin brother, and I don't think an eight-year-old would lie about his name now, would he?"
"No, I don't think so, especially not if it was Potter," Severus replied, shaking off the thought. "Poppy certainly would have noticed his scar anyway."
tbc...
Thank you so much for your kind reviews! I appreciate them very much! Please excuse that I'm not taking the time to reply to all of them, because I assume it's in everyone's interest that I use my time to quickly write the next chapter. I always answer to (reasonable) questions though.
I'm not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes or help me to correct them.
All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.