It was a cold and especially dark night in late December and Caractacus Burke awoke to the cries of a baby. He sighed and rolled over, attempting to go back to sleep. He failed in his mission and pulled himself out of bed, intending to go and scream at whoever was failing to silence their child. He made his way down the stairs and through the shop floor, which was eerie in the near-total darkness.
He opened the door, expecting to have to look up at one of the neighbouring flats to find the source of the noise, but instead, it came from down at his feet. There was a little black-haired baby with a stripe of shockingly white hair across one side of her head.
Now Caractacus Burke had never been very fond of children, but there was something about this particular baby that intrigued him. The signs of dark magic, which he was incredibly familiar with, were somewhat evident in this child, as she stared up at him with big eyes which seemed to know more than a baby should.
He knelt down, and picked the baby up, cradling it in his arms. On closer inspection, he was even more sure of the interference of dark magic in this child as her eyes were distinctly different colours: one a bright blue and the other charcoal black. His curiosity grew as the child let out another cry which pierced through him, freezing him in place.
The cry was not what one would expect of a baby, but what should be heard from a grown adult. The baby's blanket was yellow with a large A embroidered on it. The blanket itself was quite dirty, the edges of it were somewhat singed. The child herself was also covered in dirt, and tear tracks were shining on her face. The girl stopped crying and stared up at the man above her.
Caractacus looked up and down the alley to see who the child belonged to, but there was no one in sight. Resigning himself to caring for the child for that night, he took it inside. The girl continued her silence once she was taken inside, simply staring up at the man with her unsettlingly contrasting eyes.
The child intrigued Caractacus, so much so that when no one came to claim her in the next few weeks, he decided to keep her rather than send her to an orphanage as he had originally intended. And so Anika Smith found herself a home.
Welcome to my new book! I'm really excited about this whole storyline and I hope you all enjoy it!
~Em xx
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The Miraculous Effects of Darkness
FanfictionBorgin and Burkes, Purveyors of Dark Magical Items. In late 1959, they came into possession of perhaps the darkest magical item of all. One little girl named Anika. * Anika Smith has been looking forward to going to Hogwarts since she could pronounc...
