~Written for the QLFC, Season 5, Round 6~

Team: Wigtown Wanderers

Position: Seeker

Word Count: ~1700

Beta(s): CUtopia, RawMateriel, DinoDina

Chapter 5: A Bird In The Hand

Bethany Honey had seen a wide range of children in her time. She would admit some stuck with her more than others.

There was Freya Holloway: a strikingly small girl who came to class every morning with her hair in bright blonde pigtails, bouncing as though she had springs in her feet. She was a torrent of laughter in the classroom, disruptive in the best possible way because it made the children excited. It gave them inspiration and made it fun. Freya had not been the smartest girl, but Miss Bethany Honey remembered her nonetheless.

She remembered Yvonne Stanton, too. A quiet girl, dark-eyed and glaring more than she smiled. Or at least she was quiet when she didn't snap, lashing out at her fellow classmates. Bethany would always remember her for the moment she boldly picked up her chair and threw it at a fellow child who had called her 'Evie'. As though it had been a personal insult.

Tyson Cheong had a knack for maths that was all but genius.

Billy Butterson had clung to Bethany's legs for a full two weeks from the moment he'd started in his first year.

Ursula Gray, Darren Hodgers, Peter McGrath – all of them Bethany Honey remembered for their brightness, their happiness, their intelligence, as much as she recalled those who left a dark shadow upon the classroom and slunk through the doorway like beaten dogs. There were special children that she'd seen in the ten years she'd been teaching.

None, however, quite so special as Harry Potter.

Harry was… a quiet boy, just like Yvonne. Except that Harry didn't 'snap'. He was bright, like Tyson, but not a genius at maths, and always seemed to be holding himself back. He was short and skinny, just like Billy had been, but he never clung to her legs or cowered behind teachers like their second shadow.

Harry was special for an entirely different reason, and Bethany Honey realised it only on her final day of teaching him.

It was in the playground. Duty called, attendance demanded, and in the spread of concrete grounds and simple play equipment, leaning basketball hoops and squares of hopscotch, Bethany drew her gaze around herself with practiced efficiency. She had a whistle that could be used to call the attention of a particularly wayward student, but how much trouble could primary schoolers truly make? None that couldn't be quelled by a sharp, "Geoffrey, put that stick down!" or "Annabel, please leave your shoes on."

As was customary – almost expected, because Annabel wasn't a memorable child by any means but she was noteworthy for her propensity for disrobing of footwear – Bethany was crouched on the unforgiving basketball courts barely ten minutes into lunch and shucking the girl's shoes on. "Annabel, you know we have to keep our shoes on at school."

Annabel frowned, glaring at her toes, but that glare faded when she glanced up at Bethany with wide blue eyes. "Sorry, Miss."

"That's alright," Bethany said, looping the laces into bunny ears. "Just try to remember for tomorrow."

"Yes, Miss," Annabel said with a dutiful nod, and she hopped to her feet to scamper after her coterie of friends moments later. Bethany watched her leave, hand shading her eyes from the glaring sun, and shook her head. Annabel wouldn't remember, and if not Bethany then some other teacher would be on their knees and tying laces the next day. Bethany knew she was well liked by the students – "My best, favourite, most wonderful teacher I've ever had!" Norbert Whittaker had exclaimed on frequent occasion – but sometimes there was no getting through to children.

It was as Bethany watched Annabel retreat that she saw Harry trotting around the edge of the basketball courts. He crept with the kind of practiced step that suggested he barely even realised he crept at all, and Bethany couldn't help but sigh in momentary sadness. Harry was… not a problem child, but he clearly had problems. With his family, for one, and with friends. He didn't have friends, was more the issue, and his family seemed to despair of him.

"He just has… issues," Bethany had overheard his horse-faced aunt saying. "We've tried fixing him, but he just doesn't respond."

"There's no overcoming the boy's quirks," his uncle had claimed, blustering through his blond moustache with pomp that Bethany could only frown at. "We've tried to get him to be more like our own son, Dudley, but there's no fixing what's already broken."

Bethany couldn't help but flinch whenever she recalled the overheard conversation. Personally, she believed it to be something of a problem with the Dursleys more than Harry himself. The poor boy; he looked like a flighty bird most of the time. What kind of seven year old started whenever a door opened too loudly?

"Harry," Bethany found herself calling before she quite knew what she was doing. "Are you alright?"

Harry started, and Bethany immediately regretted her words. There was little he didn't seem to find startling, in fact, and she kicked herself for not recalling that as well. Maybe it was his age. Maybe he'd grow out of it. But for now…

Harry stared at her with his wide eyes, round glasses nearly lost beneath the mess of his fringe. His shoulders seemed to hunch slightly into the oversized – always oversized – jumper he wore. Then he tucked his chin briefly and nodded before turning on his heel and continuing to trot in a circuitous route around the basketball court.

Bethany bit her lip as she watched him, hand still raised to shade her eyes. He looked concerned, if a boy with a largely blank expression but for his constant attentiveness could appear concerned. In the midst of shouting and laughing and playing children, Harry Potter was the anomaly of the playground.

Bethany found herself following after him without intention.

Around the court, following in the invisible footsteps of her wayward pupil, Bethany spared a word of acknowledgement and a nod of her head to each child she passed. There were many, and Norbert, ever vocal in his appreciation, bellowed an ecstatic, "Hi, Miss Honey!" across the grounds as though he hadn't just seen her in class barely half an hour before.

Bethany spared him a smile, a nod, and another smile and nod to each of the other students that scampered up to her. She would always have time for the students she loved, even when on a mission of pursuit as she was. Eventually, however, Bethany detached herself enough from her rag-tag team of attendants to hasten after Harry once more.

She found him at the edge of one of the school rooms. A boring building, bricks so brown they were almost grey, it was just short of out of bounds. Bethany almost raised her voice to call him back – almost, but not quite, because the sound of cackles of laughter, snickers of amusement and something that sounded definitively like taunts, curved around the building towards them.

"Stomp on it, stomp on it!"

"If you break it, do you think it'll have a baby in it?"

"Ew, that'd be gross!"

"You should try -"

"Get a stick -"

"- could maybe -"

"No, don't, it's really gross!"

Bethany closed her eyes. She didn't need to peer around the building to behold what was occurred out of sight, to see what Harry was clearly watching with his silent attentiveness. Spring found robins nesting in the sparse trees of the playground, and those nests… those eggs…

"Just crack it already, I want to see what's inside."

Bethany didn't stand too close to Harry, not close enough that he would feel her presence behind him, but she heard his muted dispute nonetheless. A whimper, maybe, and yet somehow angrier. It muffled an instant later, however, when, with an abruptness that caused Bethany herself to start, the wailing discordance of the school bell sounded.

Yelps replaced the children's words, and only a hastily thrown, "Dammit, you were too slow! Just leave it," served as a close to their taunting. Then the slap of footsteps on ground – not towards Bethany and Harry, as she might have anticipated, but away. Around the building. Out of bounds, Bethany registered detachedly, only to shrug it aside. 'Bounds' had always been something of an unnecessary regulation to her.

Any attention she'd spared to the retreating students, however, disappeared as Harry scampered into motion. Not to class, as Bethany might have anticipated, but around the building into disappearance. Bethany started forwards a step, paused, and glanced over her shoulder. She should return to her classroom. She should call to Harry, remind him that the bell had rung, that he should be as responsible with his attendance as Bethany was herself.

But she didn't. Bethany didn't know why she didn't; some of the other staff called her 'weak-willed to student whims', but Bethany wasn't so sure about that. She stepped forwards with intention that somehow seemed… instinctive. Compulsive, even.

And that was when she saw.

Harry had a nest in his hands. A small nest, though it seemed not quite as small as it perhaps should have been for the similar smallness of Harry's hands. He cradled the mess of twigs and – perhaps, maybe – unbroken eggs in his sweater-draped hands and, peering at the cluster with a tip of his head, turned towards the nearest tree. He paused. Juggled the nest for a second. Climbed, as though he'd done it a thousand times before. It wasn't a forgiving tree, and Bethany was surprised he managed as well as he did.

Not far enough, though. Not far enough to reach the branches, to replace the nest, to -

Bethany blinked. Harry didn't throw the nest. There was no throwing involved and yet somehow… somehow it had just…

There were some children that Bethany Honey remembered. Freya with her pigtails, Yvonne and the throwing chair, Tyson, and Billy, and Ursula, and Peter. They were all special, all unique. None, Bethany discovered that day as she saw a nest levitate itself into the upper reaches of the schoolground tree, quite so memorable as Harry Potter.