The Girl Everybody Forgot

By Raekitty13

Disclaimer: It's the same old same old here!

Author's Notes: If you've read this far you don't want any more lame author's notes! On with the Fan Fic!

Thank yous: Julie662, thanks for your review!

Chapter Eleven: He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named

After about three cups of hot chocolate and a handful of Christmas cookies I was finally consolable. The warmth of the house and the warmth of the Wood family had me convinced that I had a place in the world after all. We played games, we talked a lot. We even watched movies. Basically it was all of us curled up on the couch together, acting like a family orphans could only dream of.

I still couldn't wrap my head around the fact that I had been adopted. By McGonagall. It was just too weird for me. Laying on the couch surrounded by blankets and the quite murmur of the fire I contemplated the latest turn of events in my life once more. Oliver was laying on the floor beside the couch, snoring softly.

When I couldn't figure out exactly what it meant to have a mother of my own, finally, I succumbed to simply watching my gorgeous guardian angel sleep. How had he known that I was so utterly heartbroken? How had he known that I needed him more than anything? Why was it so fascinating to watch the flames flicker across his sleeping facial features? He was so captivating, so calming. His image finally lulled me to sleep.

"Meow?" I asked confused by the sound of my voice. I looked up at my mother, her long red hair fanned out about her face, stomach bulging. She looked concerned, like there was something wrong.

"James, I don't know if this is such a good idea," She whispered to my father. He was standing there, tall and skinny, running his hands through his jet black hair.

"Meow?" I crawled over to my mother's feet and raised my hand to tug on her pants' leg, but found I could not grasp anything. Upon further examination, my hand was fuzzy. Now, I wasn't all that familiar with my hands, but I'm pretty sure they were never covered in so much ginger fur before. "Meow! Meow! Meow!"

I couldn't help but cry. What was wrong with me? And why was there a kitty mocking my cries? Stealing my parent's attention?

"She'll be alright, Lily," Daddy replied, bending down to pick me up. He stroked the top of my head gently, lovingly and I felt a little better. "That's a good girl, Lori. Don't cry. Being a kitty isn't so bad, now is it?"

"Meow?" What was Daddy talking about?

"It's just like playing pretend," He continued. "Kitties have whiskers," he ruffled the long hairs protruding from my face, tickling me. I laughed and it sounded like a deep purr. "and long beautiful fur," he stroked my head again, right between my ears and I purred again. "and tails!"

I looked down at the part of my body I couldn't identify. Tail. I didn't have a tail.

"James," Mummy said gently, still worried. "This just doesn't feel right."

"You heard the prophecy, Lily," Daddy whispered back, no longer looking at me. "Isn't it bad enough that one of our children will constantly be in danger? If no one knows about Lori, she'll be safe. Voldemort will never come after her."

Mummy was crying, holding onto her tummy like there was something precious inside. "Can't we save them both?"

"We'll do everything possible, Love," Daddy murmured, cradling her in his free arm, the one that had been pointing out all of my kitty parts. "Besides, who can get through me?"

Mummy smiled weakly at him. "Are you sure this is the best way to save her?"

Daddy didn't say anything.

"It seems so unfair to her," Mummy whispered. "If something happens to us, who will care for her?"

"Nothing will happen to us," Daddy whispered back. "We'll take care of Lori and Harry. You'll see. We'll be okay, Lily."

"Meow!" I agreed, not really understanding what was going on, simply loving the sound of their soothing voices. I wanted them to talk forever, to hold me forever. But Mummy was sad. I liked it better when she smiled.

I squirmed a bunch in Daddy's arms and he gently put me down. I looked up at Mummy. I could play pretend that I was a kitty if it would make her happy. It wasn't really that bad. I could bat at shoe laces like Ziggy, the neighborhood stray we sometimes played with. I could chase my tail and purr more.

Mummy smiled at me. "Do you like being a kitty, Lori?"

"Meow!" I responded, rubbing up against her leg lovingly.

She bent down and picked me up, carrying me to the couch. Daddy followed and we sat on the couch together, "Mummy's sorry baby," she wrapped her arms around me lovingly and her warmth instantly made me sleepy.

I awoke, still embraced in my mother's loving arms. It was so cozy that I almost didn't want to move, didn't want to open my eyes. Didn't want to wake up at all.

"Cali?" Oliver's sweet voice coaxed me from my half dreaming state. If I had to abandon my fantasies about my parents, the best reality to wake up to would be one with Oliver touching my elbow gently. "Cali why are you making cat noises?"

"Cat noises?" I asked him, rolling over and taking in the living room setting. Morning light was steaming in through the closed blinds. Oliver looked quizzical, but not too worried.

"You were meowing," He elaborated. "You know, Meow!"

I laughed at him. "You're just joshing me!"

"Am not!" Oliver responded with a pout. It was so adorable that it stole the breath right out of me.

"I had a weird dream," I admitted, realizing for the first time that I could remember what had happened. "I dreamt that my parents, whoever they were, had changed me into a cat to save me from something."

Oliver raised his eyebrows in questioning. "That's quite odd. I thought you couldn't remember your parents."

"I can't," I told him sheepishly. "For all I know it was completely random."

I suddenly felt bummed. Was it possible that all of my dreams were as farfetched as my last one? All my night terrors that I could never remember, were they all just fabrications pieced together from odds and ends instead of actual memories of my past? Who was I other than the girl with no past?

Oliver seemed to sense my mood and rubbed my arm. "I've had weirder dreams," he assured me. "And I'm sure there are plenty of people who have been transfigured into cats in the Wizarding World. I mean look at what we did to those poor rats!"

I laughed, remembering that we had turned them into goblets.

"And we already assumed that your parents were wizards, right? That's why Blaze told you to take the letters from Hogwarts seriously?"

And then we just gawked at each other. Blaze, the cat, had told me to take letters from Hogwarts seriously. I could talk to cats. I could understand their language when others couldn't. Had I just figured out why I could speak Cat?

"Cali," the same question was upon Oliver's lips, I could see it. But before he could ask it, his mother walked down the stairs and smiled at us.

"Good morning, children."

"'Morning Mum," Oliver replied, smiling. "It's always a good sign when my mum's up."

"Why's that?" I asked, Cat Tongue conversation momentarily derailed.

"Because it means we're going to be fed soon." We couldn't help but laugh.

"What's so funny?" Mr. Wood asked; his hair in worse bed-head condition than Oliver's ever seemed. "It's not my hair, is it?"

We just continued to laugh. "You look lovely, dear," Mrs. Wood told him, already starting breakfast. "Who's up for a trip to Diagon Alley later today?"

Let's just say that traveling by floo powder takes some getting used to. I'm also pretty certain that this is how Santa Clause gets around, what with all those chimneys he goes down and what not. I explained this to Oliver and he readily agreed.

"How else would he get around the world in one night?" He further supplied.

With one mystery down we decided to touch base on the more urgent one as soon as we were wandering around Diagon Alley by ourselves. Mr. and Mrs. Wood had given us a bit of pocket change to buy a few last minute gifts and had left us to our own devices.

"I think your dream was a memory," Oliver informed me. "I think your parents really turned you into a cat when you were little. It makes so much sense as to why you can speak to cats."

We were whispering to avoid creating suspicion. We might be wizards among our own kin, but as Oliver so kindly pointed out to me that having special powers beyond what the normal wizard has isn't anything you really want to announce to the world. Especially when that special ability has to do with speaking an animal language.

"Why not? I guess I was under the impression that it was just a part of my magical tendencies."

"Oh, it is," Oliver assured me, "Or at least because someone else transfigured you at such a young age that you were able to learn the language fluently. The problem with it is—well I'll explain it in full later, but there was a certain wizard who could talk to certain creatures. He was so terrifying and horrible that even today people dare not speak his name."

I just looked at him skeptically. I couldn't help it. His explanation was so vague it just sounded… like an excuse.

"Don't worry," he added. "I'll fill you in on all the details later. I promise."

"I'm going to hold you to that!" I told him.

He just grinned. We bought a few little trinkets. He got his mum Christmasy kitchen towel sets, his dad a weird looking tool kit. He said it helped with Garden Gnomes… whatever those happen to be… and I bought Kelsey the Encyclopedia of House Hold Chores spells. It was on sale for a good price.

Once we were back at home (the return trip didn't change my mind about liking muggle transportation better that Wizarding transportation) and everybody had settled down for the night Oliver told me the story of the all powerful wizard—He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

"Poor baby Harry," I said, feeling a battered pang of kinship for the little guy. His parents were taken from him at such a young age. And the story even said he had no idea who he was in the Wizarding world, having been raised by Muggles—just like me.

Unlike me, however, Harry's whole life was documented. He would have no problem discovering who his parents were. I wondered if he had nightmares too, of the night his parents died.

"Yeah," Oliver agreed. "It was horrible."

"Do you suppose it'll all go to his head?"

"Hmm?" Oliver asked confused. "What do you mean by 'it'll all go to his head?'"

"He stopped He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. He brought about a revolutionary era where people could live free of fear. Do you think his childhood fame will go to his head?"

"I doubt it," Oliver stated. "I mean he wasn't raised by his parents, but I heard both Lily and James Potter were good people. I can't image Harry being horrible."

Lily and James Potter. Harry Potter. The names struck me as familiar all of a sudden.

"What's up, Cal?" Oliver caught my pensiveness almost immediately.

"Dunno," I replied. "But their names sound so familiar. Like I've heard them all before."

"Probably at school," Oliver said with a shrug. "They are pretty famous after all."

I nodded. He was probably right. I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was missing something, something important about their lives.

"So why don't people say his name?"

"Whose name?"

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

"Because they say he shows up to kill you the instant his name leaves your lips," his voice was low, like he was trying to tell a scary story.

"But I thought Baby Harry finished him off," I responded, knowing that I, of all people, shouldn't be the one questioning a superstition or fear.

"There are a few who believe he's still out there. Or that saying his name will bring back his ghost to haunt you."

"Like saying Bloody Mary three times and spinning in circles in a dark room?" I asked, suddenly intrigued. I was terrified of the dark, but the only one of the girls in the orphanage to do it. I had them turn the lights off after I had closed my eyes. Then I had spun around as fast as I could saying her name. Never once did I open my eyes and look in that mirror. I knew it wasn't going to be Bloody Mary or Cali I saw, but the lingering, all consuming darkness just waiting to suck my soul from my very being.

"Sort of…" Oliver didn't like my sudden interest in the topic.

"What's his name?" I demanded straight away. "Tell me, Oliver or… Or I'll tickle you!"

"I'm not ticklish," he said shortly, which we both knew was a lie. He just pretended—really well on most occasions mind you—that he wasn't ticklish. But I knew his ticklish spot and he knew it.

"Name, Oliver."

"How about I write it down?"

"What a Gryffindor boy is afraid to speak the name of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? Say it isn't so!" I was teasing him. Probably shouldn't have been after how kind he was to me, but the whole ordeal seemed silly to me.

"I'll turn off the lights and see which one of us Gryffindors is a scardy cat," Oliver countered.

I sucked in my breath. It was a low blow, but true. "Turn off the lights," I told him after a moment of hesitation.

"What?" He looked around the room, noted the blinds were drawn and that the fire place only had burning embers left. "Are you serious?"

I had to do this. I could feel it calling my name. The curiosity was astounding. I couldn't let it go. It only seemed right to have the name of the man who murdered Harry's parents spoken out loud and if I had to suffer a few minutes in the dark to achieve that justice, so be it.

I nodded at him, "But you have to hold my hand," I added quickly, before I forgot to mention it. The last time I was left stranded in the dark Fred was my only anchor to reality and he had a firm grip on my hand. Had he not I would probably still be lost even to this very day. Not that I told Oliver that, though. I was more content with him thinking that I just wanted an excuse to hold his hand rather than have him think that I was a chicken.

He nodded, "If you're sure," but he was already standing up, propelled by the idea of getting to hold my hand, I hoped to myself.

I watched him walk to the light switch, flick it and then I only saw his outline walking back toward me in the ever growing darkness. I could feel my chest tightening and my nerves slipping—and then his warm, solid hand slipped into mine and the knowledge of his presence chased the icy tentacles of fear away.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure you want me to say his name?"

"Yes."

"We could DIE."

"OLIVER, Say his name!"

There was a brief pause where all I could hear was our alternating breaths. The suspense was beginning to kill me more than anything. I thought he wasn't going to reply.

"Voldemort," And suddenly I could remember the nightmare.