Now all three of the children were looking at him like he was the strange one. It was almost funny to see the expression on the girl's face, the boy, Luke, just stood there gaping, almost forgetting to keep his sword pointing at Harry. He couldn't really see the expression on the smaller girl, Annie, hiding behind the older girl, but Harry thought it would be similar to Luke's.
'Okay did I say something wrong there?' And for the life of him Harry couldn't figure out what had gotten these children so worried. Maybe they were particularly religious? From glancing at American muggle newspapers, religion looked like a much more serious thing here. It was just his luck that he managed to offend some religious Americans which could have undone any work at getting them on side.
'Wai-No-Hmm.' The older girl seemed to be struggling to get a coherent thought out. At least she was more verbal than the other two, who were staring in silence.
No matter his first instincts, Harry didn't move from his place, he knew how jumpy people could be, especially kids, especially kids alone in a city without much food. Just when the silence and spluttering was about to become even more awkward, Luke finally found his voice.
'So, umm, Sir, what pantheons are there, and where are you from?'
'England stupid.' This rejoinder came from the older girl, who then quickly glanced back at Harry, looking even more scared and hoisting her shield that bit higher so it now protected her mouth as well, her white knuckled grip on the spear couldn't get any tighter.
'Well Wales actually, I'm Welsh.' Harry wasn't usually one to quibble over technicalities, but he was quite proud of being Welsh thank you very much. Outside of Hogwarts, it probably had some of the oldest magical buildings and sites still in use in Britain, not to mention the quidditch team (Ginny insisted that the Harpies were the only actual team in Wales, any others were just glorified amateurs).
The children looked confused at that, Luke turned his head to mumble something to Annie. Probably brother and sister the wizard thought.
'So you're not involved with the Greek Pantheon at all then?' Thals he thought her name was, found her voice first. Harry still had no idea what they were talking about, but the girl definitely sounded frightened for some reason.
'Wait there are other pantheons?!' Annie squeaked from behind the older two. Now this really confused Harry, but Luke managed to shush her, but then a glint in his eye.
'Why would a Welsh god serve Aurora?'
Harry knew his ear for American accents wasn't the best, but it almost sounded like he heard Luke asking about serving 'Aurora' rather than serving as an Auror. He mentally shrugged, maybe it was a Virginia thing that certain words were dropped or would sound different compared to New York. Merlin that was a tricky accent to get around.
'Erm it's difficult, don't get me wrong, but it's where I can do the most good.' He still wasn't too sure on the 'Welsh god', but they could've misheard them calling him a 'gog', which sort of made sense, there weren't many Welsh aurors throughout history anyway, so it was a valid question, if a bit stereotypical.
'Um right, so sorry we didn't catch your name Sir.' This came from the older girl, looking a lot more deferential now. Harry wasn't too sure what brought that on, it couldn't be because he was an Auror, she didn't react like that at all when he mentioned his profession. Luke and Annie were having another whispered conversation, but this time Luke was half watching Harry as well.
'Right that was rude of me, I'm Harry.' He already knew thanks to Jesse that being an Auror with the surname Potter was something almost on par with him being the Boy-Who-Lived to most American witches and wizards. Out of habit he'd stopped introducing himself by his full name after a few days in New York. Luke looked like he finished his whispered conversation with Annie, and turned back to the wizard, looking much more serious.
'O-okay, so umm, what do you want?'
Finally, they were getting somewhere, Harry thought, rather uncharitably.
'Well first of all there are a few things happening in the area that I would rather not see you caught up in, do you have anywhere safe that you can get to?' Harry had to stop himself from offering them shelter, he wasn't in London and didn't have Grimmauld Place, or anywhere like that he trusted in America to fall back on. Living out of a tent wasn't pleasant by any means, and he wanted the children safe, not hiding.
The boy fixed him with a look, like he wanted to stare Harry into submission, Annie looked nervously between the wizard and Luke feeling the tension from the boy. The older girl stayed stock still, and Harry would've missed it if he hadn't been listening for anything, a quiet mumble wrenched itself from her.
'Safehouse.' And that was it, the other two children looked at her wide eyed, Annie obviously gaping and Luke pursing his lips. So it was supposed to be a secret then, as long as they were safe Harry supposed, although he could make some enquiries later at MACUSA.
'Well that's good.' He smiled, forcing himself to stay where he was. 'As long as it's safe and hidden from Muggles I guess, or.' He added, seeing the confusion on Luke and Annie's faces, 'Whatever you call them over here.' he finished, seeing that the older girl hadn't reacted at all. Harry realised then, she was probably the most scared out of the three of them. Making sure to keep eye contact with her, Harry heard Luke's stomach grumble again, and decided.
'Right, I can give you some food, sandwiches, drinks, probably not enough for a full balanced meal right now, but if you give me a few minutes, I can be back with something.' Rather than give them a chance to protest, he summoned a few chocolate frogs, some pumpkin juice and some sandwiches he made himself earlier in the day. Levitating them in the middle of the strange stand-off, he motioned to the snacks, seeing that the boy was almost physically straining from reaching out to them. Annie looked awed at the levitating food. Thals still didn't react.
'Right, so if you want I can take a few steps back and one of you can step forward to grab the food.' He barely got the chance to finish his sentence before the boy practically dived forward to scoop up the wrapped foods and drinks, before remembering himself and cautiously slinking back to guard the younger girl and pile of, what Harry could now see were crisps and not much else.
'Oh by the way.' He realised he didn't know if Chocolate Frogs were in America or not. 'The chocolate frogs, they're just chocolate, and only have one jump in them, so make sure you catc-'
He didn't get to finish as a scream from Annie echoed around the Luke turned his back on Harry, trying to find what caused the scream, nearly decapitating the frog with his sword. Harry was much more concerned for the older girl, who still hadn't moved, keeping her wide eyed look. Shock, part of Harry's brain that still remembered the Healing and Treatments course all aurors went through, supplied. Right, he knew, sort of, how to deal with shock. Sit them down, if safe. Get rid of the shocking thing. Keep them relaxed, with potions if you have to, until qualified medics get to them. Ignoring the now subdued panicked shrieks from Annie, and curses from Luke, Harry calmly looked directly at the older girl, and deliberately toned his voice like he was speaking to Buckbeak.
'Ok, so your friend, Thals I think they said your name was, is going into shock.' That got the others' attention, especially once they realised that the frogs were just animated chocolate, Luke had a half melted blob in his hand already.
Thals was breathing in quickly, Luke and Annie had just noticed, if the looks of alarm on their faces were anything to go by. One thing someone going into shock did not need was other people panicking.
'Hey, HEY!.' Harry had to shout to get them to hear him, both children turned, now looking scared of him all of a sudden, he could think it over later. 'Okay, first thing, get her to sit down, slowly and calmly. One of you, try to talk to her, get her relaxed.' He knew that barking simple orders was guaranteed to get them followed.
Luke stood in front of the girl's shield and gently moved it away while Annie began talking to 'Thalia'. Harry tuned out the conversation, focussing on Thalia's reactions. Her eyes hadn't left him, but the fact that Luke had now moved her shield so that he was standing completely in front of her gave him hope.
She trusted Luke then, that was good.
Harry fished around in his pouch. Calming Draught was given to all Aurors in the field, specifically to be taken after a traumatic case was completed. Under no circumstances could it be fed to others because ' Aurors are not potioneers, you lot will most likely end up killing anyone you try to feed your Calming Draught to, leave the important stuff to the Healers and potioneers.'
Well it was now nearly 9pm, it was cold, and Harry knew that MACUSA had a weird healing system that he couldn't chance with the girl in that state. Picking up a pebble, he transfigured it into a small teaspoon.
'Hey Annie.' The little blonde girl turned, apparently she'd forgotten he was there. 'I'm going to give you something to help Thalia, Okay.' Nervous nod, 'Ok, measure out one spoonful of this and get her to drink it.' nod, that was good . 'This is very important .' lots of nervous nodding, 'only one spoonful, absolutely no more than-.' Harry held out the Draught and a transfigured spoon. Annie scampered over, yanked the spoon and draught away and was back by Thalia's side before Harry could even finish.
Thalia was now sitting down and blinking at Luke, that was a good sign. Hopefully the potion would only take the edge off the shock, he didn't want to accidentally drug a child. It took a few goes, and a few blobs of potion on Thalia's leather coat, but eventually a spoonful was given.
'Okay.' Once Thalia had a bit of colour in her cheeks, and was supported by Luke, Harry decided to get them moving. 'I would really recommend you getting to hospit-'
'We can't afford that !' Came from Luke. It looked like he would have done something expressive with his arms, but remembered he was supporting Thalia, so he just stared at the wizard.
'Right.' Harry could almost hear the "Are you an idiot?" that Luke didn't say, and came to a decision, 'Where do you stay, usually?' He couldn't believe he'd forgotten, muggle America had a different system to back home, and he had no idea how to get an appointment with magical America's hospital system, or even how to get there.
Now Luke tensed up, firmly thinning his lips, making it clear that whatever 'safehouse' Thalia mentioned was supposed to stay a secret. But then Annie chimed in.
'He's a god Luke! We can trust him.' Ok, he still had no idea what being Welsh had to do with it all, but questions later, Harry thought.
Luke obviously was conflicted, but after a few minutes his desire to help his friend won out.
'Ok, we'll take you to our safe house, but don't touch anything unless we say it's Okay.' That seemed fair enough, Harry agreed.