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Harry didn’t see the child until he suddenly took a bite out of the cobblestones just outside Knockturn alley. Yummy, dirt, and shit. Just what the Medi witch ordered. He untangled himself from his lordly robes and began to look around for the cannonball that had come from nowhere so he could chuck it back at the asshole who had lost it. However, looking down, Harry was met with large blue eyes that belonged to the most bedraggled urchin he had ever seen.
He blinked. And blinked again. “Hello there,” kneeling down on the stone, he was closer to the child. “Are you hurt?” Harry’s magic began to flow from him and surround the small individual like a puppy who found an exciting toy. The child began to regain focus from his collision with the back of Harry’s knees and instead began to sniffle and blink furiously.
Harry suddenly stiffened as he felt the struggling magic attempting to meet his own projection. A squib child. Harry instinctively tucked the child’s magic under his own to protect the child from straining their already limited though spirited magic. At that exact moment, the child began to rub their chest and seemed to let the anxiety of the moment melt from their body. “I’m not hurt.”
And they pushed themselves up to stand next to Harry while his sad eyes studied the rumpled man. “Where are you off to?” Harry gently probed. A shrug was the response. “Your parents?” “Haven’t got ‘em.” Well perfect. He tried again. “Who watches you?” A hand slipped from an oversized and torn sleeve to fiddle with the soft silk of the official black House Peverell robes. Rubbing up and down the sleeve, the child muttered, “missy the hag gives me food sometimes. “A blue eye side glanced towards him, even as he continued to play with the sleeve.
Harry sighed deeply. He should have been gifted with the sight. He already knew how this was going to unfold. He slid his hand out, snagged the fiddling hand, and asked to be introduced to Missy. Upon finding Missy, he was told the sad tale of the child and a herd of four other children, all younger than nine, who, through war violence or neglect, had no one to claim or care for the squibs of the alley. The hags did their best, but when they suffered abuse themselves, how much could they actually protect the children?
Through promises of food and shelter, Harry bought the help of Missy in rounding up the rest of the children even as the child was content to trot beside Harry while wrapping himself in the soft, voluminous robes. Once, the flock of children was found and convinced through the power of the silky robe to accompany Harry to his home in Grimmauld Place. Harry found himself looking down at two girls and three boys who were all clean, fed, adopted, and sleeping in Regulus’s old room. Whelp. Time to call Ron and Hermione; he needed to buy some parenting books and toys. And maybe hire a cook; wait, was the house big enough for all of them? Did he need a yard? shit….