Romance Awareness Month - colours get brighter around your soulmate

Extra prompt: 'You could always come home with us.'

Jenga prompt: (Genre) Family

Easy Pinata: Het pairing.

'Papa, papa, look!' Helena cried, tugging at her father's arm. 'There are pretty colours!'

'Don't listen to her,' Rowena said absently, knowing that her husband caved to all of his daughters demands. 'She should learn to accept that people have the right to say "no".'

Henry looked back to his wife and pursed his lips. 'What harm could there be in exploring the park a little? Rowena, sometimes I think thou must forget what it is to be a child. Come, Helena, show me these pretty colours thou seest.'

Rowena shook her head, but a small smile tugged at her lips.

'Very well then,' she said. 'I must remain, for Helga will be along soon with the plans for the school. Off with the two of you!'

Helena gave a cry of delight and pulled her father towards the shining colours with surprising strength, babbling about how some people had the colours and some didn't, that some trees did and others didn't.

'Is this a game, Helena?' Henry asked suspiciously, kneeling down to his daughter's height as she followed a black cat with green eyes.

'No!' Helena shouted, hurt pulling across her face. 'I told thee, there is a purple ring around the cat, like when Momma does her magic.'

'In that case, I believe thou art coming into thy powers as a Seer. Not a wizarding Seer, but a Muggle Seer like me. We can see magical auras pulsating from magical objects and persons. Those trees with the green auras have magical beings living within. I confess myself surprised, I did not think thou hadst the power,' Henry paused, musing. His daughter was six years old. It was possible that she was a late bloomer.

'The colours are stronger over here,' Helena said importantly, puffing her chest out at the idea of being a Seer.

That stopped Henry short. Why would the colours be stronger? There was no reason, no reason at all. Magical energy was a constant, it did not ebb away in the manner of the sea.

'Art thou quite certain, Helena?' he found himself asking, then regretting it. His daughter hated nothing more than not being believed.

'Of course!' she protested. 'I will show thee, papa.'

And so she led him on a merry chase through the trees until they reached a grand oak, with a boy of Helena's age quietly curled up underneath. Henry felt a clenching in his stomach. There was more than met the eye with this scene.

'Let me handle this, Helena,' he said softly to his daughter.

Luckily, Helena had picked up on something, for her grey eyes looked at him solemnly as she nodded. Slowly, Henry knelt down to talk to the boy.

'Good morning,' he said conversationally. 'Wouldst thou mind terribly if I sat beneath this tree? It is one of my favourites, after all.'

'Sorry, sir,' came the immediate reply. 'I will find another tree, I didn't know, please don't…'

'Please don't what?' Henry asked, lowering a hand to the boy's shoulder. He flinched.

'Nothing sir,' the boy replied, looking up quickly before his eyes dropped back to the floor.

But not before Henry noticed the classic signs. The boy's blue eyes had been filled with resignation, his lower lip trembling in fear. That, coupled with the lack of parents…

'Let us get thee back to thy parents,' Henry said, hating himself as he did so. But he needed to be sure before he acted.

'No! Don't tell papa, he will be ever so mad!' The words spilled from the boy's mouth before he could stop, scrambling to his feet and crouching into a defensive position.

'What be thy name, shiny boy?' Helena piped up, staring at the boy. Henry groaned inwardly. 'And how didst thou acquire such a bright aura?'

'Septimus,' the boy replied, against all odds. He lowered himself into a bow - evidently the manners that Helena still lacked had been trained into him already. 'At thy service, my lady.'

Helena's lips curved into a smile. 'If thou doth not wish to go home, then thou couldst always come home with us. Especially because thou maketh the colours shine so bright.' She looked up at her father hesitatingly. 'Couldn't he, papa?'

'That he could, my dear,' Henry replied immediately, looking at the way the boy favoured one leg over another. He would deal with Rowena's anger later. 'That he could.