Baby Bella – Chapter Three
At least it wasn't fourteen months this time? Just six...
Instead of being woken up by his best friend when they reached King's Cross Station in London, as Harry had expected, he was awoken in a far different matter. He was woken by his young charge, Bella, not a half hour after he'd fallen asleep. And, of course, she woke him by jumping on him. Suddenly. Damn Dursleys for making him a light sleeper. Then again, constant nightmares for the past year or so hadn't helped much. Regardless, he was woken up by Bellatrix in the following manner.
"Harry!" Bella shrieked, jumping onto her guardian's lap. "Harry, Harry, Harry, HARRY!"
"Whu- huh- Wha's goin' on? Bella? We at King's Cross?" Aforementioned guardian said blearily, brain not fully functional quite yet.
"Harryyyyy! Wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake uuu-uuup!" Bella, well, whined.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Harry looked at the three year old. She was just about vibrating in place, had a rather maniac grin on her face, and said face was covered in what looked to be chocolate and the remains from some jelly bean shells. Oh great.
"Bella," he started cautiously, "What have you had to eat?"
Jumping up to emphasize her speech as she answered, the girl responded, "I had some candy! Mr. Ron gave me some Bertie Bott's Beans, and some of them didn't taste good, and I spat some on the crazy-haired girl, Hermy, and she left, I think to read, what was she reading, it was a big book. And then, and then I had some froggies! And they were chocolatey, and There was licorice, I LOVE licorice! It was red, and looked like a wand, and I had some, some, uhh... Oh yeah! I had some really, really yummy Pasties! They were pumpkin flavored, and come Cauldron Cakes! They were soooo tasty! I liked them! Can I have more? Then I had some more beans! They were even worse! One tasted like brussel sprouts, I hate brussel sprouts! I threw up when Kreacher tried to make me eat brussel sprouts! Still, the candy was yuuuuummmmmy! Can I have more? Mr Ron said to ask you." She finished.
Harry just blinked for a few seconds, just trying to process all she had said, as it had been rather high pitched, and fast. Rather like a chipmunk, if a chipmunk could talk. Or a squirrel. Or something like that. Shaking his head a bit, he responded, "Uhh, Bella... I think you should stop having so much candy, in fact, why don't you just come sit down, or something. I dunno, um..." Searching around for something a small child could do without agitating anyone in the compartment further (Ron was eying the small girl warily, Luna was just reading her magazine.), his eyes landing on a sheath of scrap parchment sticking out of his bag. Digging it, and a quill from the bottom out, he placed them on top of a text book, and handed it to her, saying "Here, just sit down, and, I dunno, draw, or something."
Bella pouted, but seemed to accept that she wouildn't e getting any more candy, for now. Sighing in relief, Harry turned his attention from her, and over to his friends. Ron in particular. "So, why was it a good idea to give the small child candy?" He asked candidly.
Ron had the good grace to blush as he replied, "Well, she was whining about being bored, and I figured if she had something in her mouth she would shut up... I didn't expect her to turn into a hyper little demon. As it is, I'm not sure if I'm more afraid of her like this, or when she's trying to curse people!"
Harry rolled his eyes, thinking the red headed boy was exaggerating, and sat back. He really just wanted to get to the train station. Maybe. He still really wasn't sure what he was going to do. How the bloody hell was he supposed to take care of a little girl? Was he supposed to drop out of Hogwarts? This was all so confusing... Rubbing his eyes, he let his head drop back, resting his eyes for just a moment...
Looking up carefully, Bella noticed that her new guar-, gair-, gawdy-, person-who-takes-care-of-her-thingy was asleep. She smiled. Drawing was boring. And there wasn't enough parchment to make it even slightly interesting. If she was supposed to draw, she wanted to draw something really big, that would be fun! And she still wanted more candy. It was really, really, really, super duper yummy! It made her feel like she'd been hit with a cheering charm, but funner! Now, how to get some...
The red headed boy, Mr... Ron? Yes, Mr. Ron, was reading his Quidditch book again, and the nice Luna Lady was still reading her magazine. Peering at the girl with the pretty hair, she caught her eye by accident, and the Luna Lady did something amazing! She winked at Bella! It was like she knew she was going to get into what Mummy and Daddy and Auntie and Uncle and Kreature called mischief, but didn't care! The little girl smiled, and carefully set down the quill and parchment. If she was quiet, maybe she could grab another froggie before Mr. Ron noticed. Chocolate was nummy, and didn't sometimes taste icky like the bad beans. No, the froggies were best.
The little girl quietly set aside her drawing supplies and rose up to her feet, stepping over the bags scattered on the compartment floor by it's inhabitants. Well, she thought she was careful. Most people would say stepping heavily and lurching about in a form of tip-toeing was rather overt. Thankfully (for her at least) the gangly red head didn't look up from his book, her guardian was asleep, and the spacey blonde was amused with her attempts at subtlety. So, in other words, no one was stopping the little child from going into a sugar coma.
Bella pulled a few of the chocolate frog boxes over, and summarily ate, oh, a half dozen of them. She had now gone from happily buzzing on her sugar, and was well on her way to bouncing. Two more frogs and she was in full on bounce mode. A suddenly tasty looking box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, had her beyond that and jumping, which finally caught the attention of a rather oblivious red head. Well, either that, or the fact that the chocolate frog boxes he was absently digging through were all empty. Regardless, his attention was pulled from his Quidditch book.
"WHAT the BLOODY HELL, are you doing?" he shouted at the tiny Pureblooded witch. It didn't help his temper when she jumped about a foot, tripped over his bag, and fell onto him.
"ACK!" Screamed Bella, "I'm sowwy Mr. Ronny! I's didn't mean to fawll on yous!"
The teenager was turning a lovely shade of maroon, likely from irritation, when the green eyed boy by the window decided to rejoin the land of the living. "Oh, come on! Can't a bloke take a nap without shouting?"
"Oopsies!" Shrieked the toddler, "Is sowwy Mr Hawwy, Go back seepy, go seep!" She then turned to the red head and, rather loudly, exclaimed, "SHHHHHH! Mr Hawwy is t-wying to seep! So quiet!"
The red head just stared in mute outrage, while Harry chuckled tiredly, and Luna burst into -somewhat hysterical- laughter.
"I'm going to find Hermione." The irate Weasley muttered, stalking out of the compartment. Luna and Harry were silent for all of... thirty seconds after the door shut before they burst out laughing.
Running his hand through his hair, Harry leaned back into his seat, chuckling. "Well, it rather obvious that I am not going to be getting any substantial amount of sleep on this ride. So what just happened?"
After taking a moment to tame her shrieks of laughter, Luna responded, "Well, I think Bella was trying to be sneaky and et some more candy. It actually worked, but I think the Nargles warned Ronald in some way, because he looked up from his Quidditch book and got mad at her, with her face so covered in candy."
The toddler being spoken of was rather pouty at the expressed sentiment; she was not trying, she was succeeding in being sneaky!
Regardless, her guardian had a rather good laugh out of the situation. He then picked up Bella and set her on the now mostly empty seat and asked her candidly, "Okay, midget, what'll it take to keep you out of mischief, at least til we get to Gri- Grim-" Oddly, Harry found that he couldn't say the name of Headquarters. He couldn't quite understand why, when he was speaking to Ron and Hermione it wasn't a problem... Oh! That must be the Fidelious charm, since Hermione and Ron knew the secret, but Luna and Bella did not. That could be a problem. How was he supposed to live there, according to Bella and Kreacher, if Bella couldn't get in? Damn it, he should have waited to send that letter to the Headmaster, as it was, he'd have to hope that it was received in enough time that he could send another so that Bella could get in. That, or they'd be spending the night at the Leaky.
Well, I got it out? And it's about three pages long? Don't kill me! I meant to get this out Monday, but I got stuck, and then I had a family picnic yesterday, so... Sorry? Either way, it's over 1500 words, without notes. So... review and tell me what you think!