Teddy walked through the gossamer curtain of rain, the droplets blurring his vision as he peered, helpless at his map which grew heavy and wet with precipitation. This road was familiar. Too familiar. He had to of passed it at least three times before. Making cirlces and figure-eights in the flagstones hadn't been the plan and finding Hyde Park was becoming far harder than originally thought.
Teddy sat and ran a hand through his wet cobalt locks agitatedly as frustration roared like the storm in his ears. But over the sound, he heard a soft coo, like a dove floating overhead. He looked up, pulling back the veil of blue that obstructed his vision to see the source of this heavenly sound. And there, in a tower of brick and mortar, sat a girl, hauntingly sad, her porcelain skin streaked with tears like the rain outside. The window framed her like a pop-up book as she looked without seeing at the bustling world below her, kept hidden in plain sight from her, tantalizingly close. She lightly fingered the lacey veil that hung around the thick panes like cobwebs.
Teddy stood, drawn by the sound and approached the grey building that glittered in the rain. He walked to it until he was stopped by a wrought-iron fence, a cruel blockade from his fair angel. Her lips were moving, and from his position below, he could hear her words, a ghost of a whisper carried in the droplets of rain.
"Green finch and linnet bird, nightingale, blackbird, how is it you sing? How can you jubilate, sitting in cages, never taking wing?" With each word she sang, she seemed to get sadder. And with each word she sang, Teddy felt his heart get heavier. "Outside the sky waits, beckoning, beckoning, just beyond the bars. How can you remain staring at the rain, maddened by the stars?" How is it you sing anything? How is it you sing?" Teddy watched her intently now, his heart feeling as if it were about to burst inside him.
How is it you sing? He asked himself, watching her and wondering what it was that could make her hurt so badly, but sing and yearn so beautifully. Her blue eyes met his brown ones and they watched each other for a long moment, but her grief didn't lessen, it didn't waver. Her anguish continued on, a straight, fluid ray of light that pierced him to the core. "My cage has many rooms, damask and dark. Nothing there sings, not even my lark. Larks never will, you know, when they're captive. Teach me to be more adaptive. Green finch and linnet bird, nightingale, blackbird, teach me how to sing. If I cannot fly, let me sing."
Once more they looked at each other, the translucent trace of a smile flickering on her face, but in an instant it was gone as she stood frantically to turn around. And with that, she disappeared into the darkness of her room, leaving behind the words she sang, the saddened air that surrounded her, and a feeling that was growing rapidly within Teddy.
Teddy stared up at her window, captivated by the elusive sad woman. But his happy reverie was disturbed when there was a tap on his shoulder. Jumping, Teddy turned to see a tendril of a woman crouching toward him. "Alms! Alms!" she said, "Alms for a miserable woman! On a miserable chilly morning…" Teddy dropped some coins into her palm. A few sickles and a bronze knut. She needed it more than he did, anyway. As the filthy, shivering woman began to scurry away, Teddy stopped her. "Excuse me, ma'am," he said, gently grabbing her wrist and turning her towards him. "Could you tell me who it is that resides here?"
The woman gasped slowly in amazement. "Who resides 'ere?" the woman asked back, a mad laugh on her tongue. "That's the great Malfoy's manor, that is. He's the Minister now. 'As been for the past thirteen years now, you know."
"And the girl?" Teddy asked, now arriving at the subject he had longed to reach.
"That's Victorie, 'is beautiful little ward. 'E keeps her all snug and locked up in there all day and night. So don't go trespassing there, or it'll be the Cruciatus Curse for you, or rather, any young man with no good on 'is mind."
Suddenly, at those words, she stepped closer to him, her ragged, filthy clothing rubbing his pristine uniform. "Speaking of which," she said, he voice low and seductive, her breathing shallow, "'Ow would you like a little muff, dear, a little jig jig, a little bounce around the bush? Wouldn't you like to push my parsley? It looks to me, dear, like you got plenty there to push." And her hand, appearing from inside her tattered rags emanated a silver glow as it dove for Teddy's groin. Teddy stared at her hand, entranced by the beautiful beam of light. He almost moved back, ready to fish into his pocket to provide her with more coins. But the woman's eyes, only a shadow of them visible beneath her cloaked head, adverted to another passerby and she scurried away, hoping to receive income from them as well.
Teddy quickly regained his bearings as he eyed Victorie's window once, smiling at her shadowy figure, which shyly lurked in the recesses of her room.
As he stared at her, he returned her song with one of his own. "I feel you, Victorie, I feel you. I was half convinced I'd waken, satisfied enough to dream you. Happily I was mistaken, Victorie! I'll steal you, Victorie, I'll steal you..." The figure disappeared, and he nodded to himself, satisfied. He meant every word he said. He would steal her away from her imprisonment with the Minister. Teddy was rather talented with a wand. This Minister didn't know what was coming. This Minister… was standing outside of his door, waving a gloved hand at him, beckoning to him. A broad smile spread across the stubble adorned on his face. "Come in, lad!" he said, waving his hand more vigorously, "come in!"
Teddy stepped, almost warily towards the door, but the Minister's smile was too welcoming, too warm to completely turn down. So he followed the man's hand towards the house. And he followed it down the hall, to the right, into a large library. "Sit down, lad, it's alright."
A fire popped and cracked somewhere behind him, and the Minister leafed through a book, propping himself on a table across from Teddy. Not looking up from his book, he asked, "I saw you from my window. You look quite lost. Is there a place I could help you to go?"
Teddy fumbled with his words as the Minister thrust a glass of fire whiskey into hand. "H-Hyde Park, sir. It's rather large on the map, but I keep getting lost. It's quite embarrassing for me, a sailor, to lose his bearings, but, well, there you are," Teddy added with a shrug, sipping the alcohol in search for an excuse to silence himself.
The minister looked up. "A sailor, you say?"
Teddy nodded. "Yes, sir. The Bountiful out of Plymouth. I realize it's not… typical that a wizard earn his living as a sailor, but I just love the way the sea smells, and the way the wind feels as it-" but the Minister was not listening and Teddy's words fell on deaf ears.
The Minister nodded to a companion, a man, who appeared in the doorway, turned his attention back to Teddy. "A sailor must know the ways of the world, yes? ... Must be practiced in the ways of the world ... Would you say you are practiced, boy?"
Teddy knitted his eyebrows together in confusion. "Excuse me, sir?" he asked, setting the whiskey down on a table shakily.
The Minister moved his hand lovingly along the leather bindings of the shelved books. "Oh, yes ... such practices ... the geishas of Japan ... the concubines of Siam... the catamites of Greece ... the harlots of India ... I have them all here ... Drawings of them."
Teddy's eyebrows knitted closer together still with confusion.
"... All the vile things you've done with your whores," The Minister continued, coming closer to Teddy with a book ready. "Would you like to see?"
Teddy stood quickly. "There must be some mistake!"
"I think not." The Minister's voice was dripping in poison, and just as fast as Teddy stood, he was forced back down into the seat, confined by the Minister's strong arms. "You gandered at my ward, Victorie. You gandered at her. Yes, sir, you gandered."
The Minister's companion moved somewhere behind Teddy, closer to the chair he was sitting in than Teddy would've liked. He could feel his hands on the back, and smell his stench emanating from every orifice the man had.
"I meant no harm," Teddy said, earnestly, trying not to breathe in or lose eye contact with The Minister.
"Your meaning is immaterial. Mark me: if I see your face again on this street, you'll rue the day your bitch of a mother gave you birth."
Teddy's jaw went slack, but no sound stumbled forth.
"My Victorie isn't one of your bloody cock-chafers! My Victorie is not to be gandered at!" And with that, the Minister snapped his fingers at his companion, and Teddy's shoulders were bruised with his grip as he was dragged outside into the damp, biting air. The man pulled out a rod and gave Teddy several whacks with it before kicking him over on his back. "Hyde Park is that way. A left, a right, and then straight on, you see?" With several more whacks to Teddy's quivering body, the man put his heavy foot on his chest. "You heard Minister Malfoy, little man." He pressed his billyclub hard into Teddy's skull, and with a silver hand, grinded and twisted until Teddy cried in pain., fearing his head would spill into a gelatinous puddle on the cold ground. "Next time it'll be your pretty brains all over the pavement."
And with that, the man swung his rod over his shoulder, limped proudly back into the mansion, and slammed the door behind him.
Teddy pulled himself up, gripping the stone wall for support. He glanced at Victorie's window with a moan of agony. "I'll steal you, Victorie. I'll steal you! Do they think that walls can hide you? Even now I'm at your window. I am in the dark beside you, buried sweetly in your yellow hair." As he walked along the street, he stopped and turned, taking one last, longing look at Victorie's window, gripping his side in pain, and wiping the crimson, metallic liquid from his lips. "I feel you, Victorie, and one day I'll steal you. Till I'm with you then, I'm with you there, sweetly buried in your yellow hair..." He could feel it, the love and the bravery building up within him like a reversed hour glass, determination welling and threatening to spill over.
Slowly, he turned and limped his way to Hyde Park.