The Last Gryffindor (Sirius Black)

Epilogue

Mrs. Cole had aided in dozens of births over the years, but none sent shivers down her spine like this one. Her unease wasn't aided by the eerily flickering lights, most likely a side effect from the storm, yet it still unnerved the matron, none the less. All said and done, when the little rascal untethered from the cage of his mother's womb, all flickering stopped, quick as it came. Mrs. Cole wasn't a superstitious woman, but it would have been a lie to say that at that moment she hadn't considered ghosts in the creaky centuries old building.

"Should I notify the father?" Mrs. Cole suggested when she sat up, placing the wrapped bundle into the nameless girl's arms.

"No," the girl murmured, staring, bemused, at the dark tuft of hair on the child's head. "I don't know who it is for sure. I can't remember everything."

"How can you not remember?"

As suspicious as the girl behaved, the matron couldn't help wave of concern she felt for her. Dark bruises accented the underside of her eyes, like she hadn't seen a good nights sleep in months, and sweat beaded along her temple in a raging fever. As far as Mrs.Cole was concerned, it a miracle that the baby was healthy at all, with a mother such a state.

"I don't... I just don't remember a lot of things." The blonde haired girl shifted her eyes away evasively, and Mrs. Cole got the distinct impression that she was hiding something, something important. "There are a few months I'm not sure about. It could be either of two men, I think."

Mrs. Coles' eyes bulged in disbelief. How unstable was this girl that she lost entire months of her life?

"What..." the matron began tentatively, "What's to be the boy's name?"

"Name?" the girl repeated, dazed, as though she didn't understand the question. "That's right. He needs a name..."

She stared far off into space, her deep blue eyes lost in an endless abyss of stars and galaxies they couldn't see within the creaking orphanage, giving Mrs. Cole the distinct impression that she forgot to answer.

Abruptly, the girl snapped back to reality with a sharp intake of breath. Wincing, she absently scratched at a long bandage coiled like a snake around her forearm.

"I need to go," she breathed, voice strained. "He'll find me here..."

She looked down at the baby, snuggled peacefully in her arms, who stared back up at her with her same ocean blue eyes, although that's where the resemblance ended. While her hair shined like the sun at noon, his was dark as night. Where a slight rosie hue accented her cheeks, his were unnaturally pale, especially for a newborn. The girl stared at the boy, Mrs. Cole noted, not as a mother stares at a child, but like a detective trying to decipher a particularly complex riddle.

"I pray you're a squib," she whispered, brushing her lips lightly against his brow. "Better a squib, and powerless, than him finding you."

She hopes her son is a squid? Mrs. Cole thought, baffled. Why in the world would she want that?

Suddenly, the matron felt the child shoved into her own arms. She'd been too busy puzzling over the girl's strange behaviour to notice her rising to her feet.

"Hold on, dear. Where do you think you're going?" Mrs. Cole asked, scrambling after her with the boy as the girl lurched for the door.