Taking a walk around Surrey was calming, especially now. So you could imagine her shock when she found a toddler with vivid green eyes that so reminded her of her own crawling around looking rather upset.

Her maternal instincts kicking in, she picked it up and briefly thought about looking for it's parents. That is, until she noticed the horns and pointed ears.

The child was adorable and eerily beautiful...it's green eyes were similar enough to her own that she could be mistaken for it's mother, and it even had messy black hair. It's skin was unnaturally pale, but she found it lovely.

Something told her bad things would happen if a wizard found this child, so she briefly snuck into her room and got a few clothes while hiding it in the only place she could.

After the hellish year she had before, she had made a bag to discreetly vanish into the mundane world for a while with all the things she felt worth keeping.

She put on the only things that would fit the child, which was still pretty large considering how tiny he was, and discreetly hailed a taxi after hiding the kid under her cloak for a few moments.

"Visiting relatives?" asked the cabbie.

"My little brother and I are meeting our parents in London," she replied, lying through her teeth. "I really wish mum hadn't taken up with that idiot, or that dad hadn't lost the court case."

"Ah. Say no more," said the cabbie.

As they drove to London, the toddler became more and more fussy. Finally it settled once it was allowed to sit in her lap.

He merely chuckled as it was obvious she was being a good big sister to the poor kid.

Once they were dropped off, she immediately put the hood on and hid her distinctive features. Fortunately she had stolen enough money from Dudley's missing wallet that she could afford to pay the man.

One of the things she had learned from Luna, who took such things for granted, was the location of a magical hotel. One the mundanes ignored for all intents and purposes...if a muggle walked in, they were politely told by the staff once they outed that the place had been booked full and they really didn't have any rooms.

It usually didn't help that most magicals wouldn't go near a cell phone and that they had a strict no computers policy which made it even more obvious who the muggles were, as most modern hotels had at least one for bookkeeping purposes.

A brief passing of a few gold coins, and an explanation that her younger sibling had gotten into her potions cabinet, and "Aurora Lovegood" had a room with her younger sibling.

It was a good thing she had befriended Luna last year...the girl was a fount of information that Ron sadly lacked because he took such things for granted. Luna however was more traveled and when Aurora asked, she happily told her of the things most magicals didn't think twice about.

Case in point, the hotel and the lesser known alleys.

The toddler looked at her with far too observant eyes for a child. Whoever he was, someone had to be looking for him. She wasn't sure who he was, just that he was definitely magical.

Seeing all the dirt and mud on him, Aurora took him into the bathroom. The kid began squirming immediately in her arms.

"Quit that," she warned him. "Even if you are likely intelligent enough to know how to handle basic tasks like washing, your body right now isn't equipped to do it solo without help...never mind reaching the faucets, how would you get in and out without slipping?"

The child in her arms went completely still. Her suspicions that it was either highly intelligent or not a child at all grew.

Once he was in the tub and relatively clean, she couldn't help but be struck by how beautiful the toddler was. He would be undeniably handsome once he was older, and would draw any number of women eager to bed him with that sort of gaze.

She shook her head exasperated with herself. Her love life was nonexistent for damn good reason. She wouldn't drag a stranger into it, especially one she helped on a whim.

"Can you talk?" she asked seriously.

The kid made a few sounds, but nothing that sounded like proper words. He looked about as frustrated as she felt. She eyed the pen on the small table and pulled out a piece of parchment.

The kid got it immediately and scribbled something. It was almost illegible considering he clearly wasn't used to proper motor functions in that form, but it was better than nothing.

Malleus

"Malleus...is that your name?" she asked. He nodded. "I'm Aurora."

And so the awkward game of twenty questions began. Yes, Malleus had suffered a potions accident and yes there would be people looking for him. No, he didn't have any way to contact them at the moment (he could barely use his phone to begin with, much less memorize something like numbers to call).

The problem was that he had no idea what ingredients or potion he had been subjected to, and thus no idea how to reverse it. She could take him to St. Mungo's, but her instincts told her that was a very bad idea for multiple reasons.

And every maternal instinct she had told her that she couldn't leave the child alone in a hotel room with no way to defend himself.

A smaller hoodie and some stretch pants solved the issue of his clothing. Most of the store clerks cooed over "Mal" and his big sister out for a shopping trip. Once again she mentally thanked Luna and made a note to do something special, otherwise she wouldn't have known about the minor boutiques and smaller Gringotts branch offices outside Diagon where she would almost certainly be spotted.

Mal was unusually interested in Hedwig, who was on her best behavior as always. The two had a brief staring match, before Hedwig treated him the same as Aurora.

As Aurora went to sleep that night, cuddling with the odd toddler, she had no idea the uproar their sudden disappearance had created.

Malleus had known the second he ate Lilia's cooking that something was terribly wrong. He was well used to Lilia's...unique...sense of taste, but the sudden pain in his gut had been all the warning he needed.

He knew Lilia would never poison him...he wouldn't dare, as he had served Malleus' family for generations.

Out of a sense of blind panic uncharacteristic for him, he tried teleporting to his room where he could hole up and hide until Lilia found him...only something again went wrong and he teleported someplace far, far away from the school.

He had only been crawling around for about half an hour when she found him.

Her eyes were a beautiful green, and her hair was a lovely raven black. But more importantly Malleus could sense the compassion and power behind those eyes.

One of the things he had been drilled into since youth by Lilia was the Code of Hospitality.

She had picked him up without any request from him, taken him to a hotel and insured he was properly cleaned, clothed and fed without asking for anything in return. It was clear she was vastly unwelcomed by her own kin, which explained why she left like she did.

The fact she had the sense to know something was off enough to ask the right questions only raised her in his favor. She treated him as a child when it came to tasks that needed help from someone older, but did not lower herself to treating his own intelligence the same.

It was slightly mortifying being bathed by a young woman of roughly his own age, but he could acknowledge that he lacked the capability of doing it himself.

He could only hope whatever potion or concoction Lilia had accidentally fed him wore off soon. He did not appreciate being so vulnerable.

Waking up with a toddler in her arms was odd, and his horns definitely kept poking her in odd places. Malleus was rather hungry though, as his stomach was still rolling from whatever had been in that concoction Lilia called "food".

Once she got dressed and grabbed her wallet, Aurora picked Malleus up and they went to investigate the morning options for downtown London. The hotel was in a small hide-away area that was well off the beaten path.

Aurora brushed off how women seemed to 'coo' over her younger sibling and complimented her on how well behaved her 'brother' was. Malleus ate the child-sized food voraciously, and she couldn't help but notice how sharp his teeth were.

"How disgraceful! You should teach your son to eat properly," scoffed a woman two tables down, watching them with disgust.

Aurora ignored her, intent on reading the paper while Malleus massacred his pancakes. Besides, the woman had an American accent.

So you could imagine her annoyance when the woman snatched up her newspaper and glared at her.

"Is there a problem?" asked Aurora.

"Yes, there is a problem. Why is an underage mother like yourself wandering around without your parents?" demanded the woman.

Aurora stared at her incredulous.

"Excuse me?" she said slowly, as if talking to a toddler. Ironic, considering she never once spoke to Malleus that way.

"I find it disgusting that little sluts like yourself parade around good honest folk. It's disgraceful."

Aurora couldn't help her reaction...she just started laughing.

"One, I have no idea who you are and you are most certainly not related to me," she said, eyes tearing up from mirth. "Two, in order to have a child his age, I would had to have sex with someone at the age of twelve."

The woman didn't notice the owner standing behind her, looking disapproving. Not at Aurora, for saying something so crass in front of a toddler, but at the American.

"Ma'am, I believe it's time you should leave," he said firmly.

"I'm a customer, I have rights!" she snapped.

"And we have the right to refuse further service," countered the older gentleman.

"I want to speak to your manager!"

"I'm the owner. Leave, or we'll call the bobbies on you," he said flatly.

"I don't care who you call! I'm not afraid of this Bobby person!" she said imperiously.

Aurora bit back laughter, once she realized this idiot didn't seem to get they were about to call the police on her. Her expression when they showed up was priceless.

"I apologize for that," said the owner.

"It's alright...I'm used to worse from my aunt. She wasn't exactly accepting of me being in the home, much less when my parents split up and I was left with my brother," said Aurora.

Unnoticed by the two, Malleus had been observing the whole thing with interest.

Once he was full, Aurora took him back to the hotel to clean him up again, before he got into a comfortable loose shirt and pants. At least she picked outfits that were somewhat dignified.

In Night Raven College

Lilia was not in a good mood. His charge and pseudo-son Malleus had eaten something he only belatedly realized was dangerous and had disappeared. So far the dorm had kept things quiet, but if they didn't find him soon there would be hell to pay.

The problem was that Malleus had not teleported anywhere he could be found. He wasn't in his room, the dorm or even in the Briar Valley, which were the only places his charge would have gone in a vulnerable state.

The problem was that Silver, who had also eaten the same food (and thus the reason Lilia knew to look for Malleus in the first place) still hadn't reverted to normal. As adorable as his son was as a toddler again...with his full mental faculties, amusingly enough... the fact they couldn't find Malleus worried them all greatly.

He could only hope when this wore off his charge was able to contact them.