It was the strangest moment Harry had ever experienced, to top all the scare he had undergone just tonight. The family said nothing, and he said nothing, and they were all just looking at the crackling flame on their midst for a long while.
Then the older of the two similar-looking men stood up, soundlessly moving towards him. Harry flinched, but he could not run away.
He stifled a relieved sigh when, on reaching him, the man just showed him a piece of photograph. The flickering shadow and light reflected on the glossy surface made it hard to discern what was in the picture, but at last he could make up at least two people there. "A couple?" he hazarded a guess, whispering so as not to disturb the silence. The man shook his head. The photograph was tilted slightly, and now Harry could somehow see what was in it in sharper details.
He gasped. A man and woman was there, the latter holding a baby. If not for his own green eyes and some other features on his face, Harry believed he would look like the man in the picture when he grew up. And the eyes of the woman…
His parents?
His heart constricted. Why now? Where were they? Who were these people he had been dropped amongst?
The photograph never left his field of vision, but now the man was sitting on the vacant space at his side. Harry only realised that when he said softly near his ear, "Your father was my godson."
If his heart had clenched, now it reeled. His mind shut itself down for a moment, then attacked the notion with a stream of confused denial – nonononononononono…
Why only now? What did they want?
He was only aware of his own trembling body when the temperature got warmer. The man had moved him into his arms—
Like the baby in the woman's embrace…
Nononononono!
His face was tilted up slightly, gently, and the cool rim of a glass was pressed against his lips. – Warm apple cider. He had never tasted it. His aunt and uncle had never let him taste much of everything on the table in meals.
Was he rid of them now? But was this family – nono, he would not think about that. He must not. He must not…
"You must return there soon, but we shall always be with you."
A promise. And something round and cool and hard was pressed into his shaking hand.
Harry looked down, and there cluched by his fingers was the blue stone.
"We must not be seen by the outside world; not yet. But you can come to us."
The man's hand, large and strong, guided his own to his chest. His palm stung as if the stone was wounding him, but Harry could not shake his hand free.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice wobbling. But no answer was forthcoming.
And then, he felt the cold and the rain and the waves…