Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

A 15-year-old boy was sitting on his bed at the orphanage, with a book open in his lap, and a slightly melancholy look as he read. His name or appearance is not important enough to be mentioned. Not at all. He was just a nobody, another face in the crowd, who preferred to hide in a nonexistent magic world than to face the reality he had no control of.

That was why the boy was now reading a book. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as it was written in the title. It was his first time reading it, really. The book had the sticker of the local library since the orphanage itself did not have this type of book - or any kind of fictional book to start with - so he had no choice but wait to read one of the Harry Potter's book when he could check it out on the library.

His eyes stopped at the title of thirty-first chapter, and the boy sighed. "The Battle of Hogwarts?" He glanced at the remaining pages with a pang of sadness as the book was ending. He would have to look for another series to read after that, but he doubted any other series would touch him as much as the Harry Potter books had touched. After a second of pause, he shook his head and placed the bookmark to mark where he was, and placed the book on the bedside table before getting up.

The boy was lucky, he supposed. The orphanage was not very crowded, which meant he had a room just for himself, which was great for his midnight readings. Although, the boy thought sourly, if he were really lucky, he would have a family, rather than a room just for himself.

He shook his head, trying and failing to dismiss those thoughts, more frequent since he had begun to read the adventures of young Harry Potter. With two steps, he crossed the room and turned off the bedroom light, then blinked twice so that his eyes would become accustomed to the darkness. The only light now was outside the window, the London lights. His eyes moved slowly around, ignoring how gray and depressing the room felt with the dim lights, and went to the window, touching the icy glass with his left hand.

"I wanted to have a family." He spoke aloud, his eyes locked on the lighted cars passing down the avenue. "Any family, any one, to get me out of this hell hole." In that, the boy envied Harry Potter a little. While Harry was an orphan like him, the British wizard had been able to create friends and a family, people to protect. After all, family was not just blood, and that was something the nameless boy understood intimately.

The nameless boy nodded to himself, letting a sour grin to appear on his face for the childishness of the words he had said, before sitting on the bed. As if talking to nothing would change something. It was not the first time he did this, when he was young and still believed in things like God or entities that could help him, it was quite common for him to pray for help. Nowadays, however, the boy was much more skeptical of all this.

With a sigh, he lay down and closed his eyes to sleep. The next day he would go to the library, he decided, to look for something new to read shortly after he had finished Harry Potter. Yes, that was a good idea.

Within minutes, the boy fell asleep, unaware that this time, that one time, someone had heard his words.

Hydaelyn smiled to themself, feeling the sparks of power coming out of their fingers. "A family, uh? Any family? You should be careful what you want, young child ..."

Hydaelyn may or may not be the name of the entity, but given how the entity preferred anonymity, their name became only a reference to the Final Fantasy video game series. After all, Hydaelyn did not respond to any religion, only the selfish desires of people who sometimes deserved them.

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The unnamed boy woke up on an oddly comfortable bed. Not that the orphanage purposely placed its orphans to sleep in uncomfortable beds, but after forty years of use a foam mattress tended to be not very comfortable, and that was how the boy's was when he had received it ten years earlier. Another thing he noticed, before he even opened his eyes, was the smell. That clear smell of antiseptic, cleaning, easily associated with hospitals.

The boy opened his eyes, staring at the white ceiling, not the wooden one about to fall that he was accustomed to. In the next second, he was moving, rising abruptly, which in retrospect was not a good idea. The pain shook him for a second, burning, from his throat to his lungs. Besides, his whole body seemed to ache as if he had been run over by a truck or something like that.

The pain was so much that it took a few seconds for the boy to hear the high-pitched noise that seemed to be some kind of alarm, which had begun to ring a few seconds after he got up. Not two minutes later, a woman in the strangest clothes came into his room - no, not his bedroom, he remembered, in the strange room - with some kind of stick in her hands. She waved the stick and the pain subsided, along with all the feel of this torso, it was as if his body had shut down. Totally numb.

He blinked twice and focused his attention on the woman, now that the agonizing pain was gone, letting him think more clearly. The woman seemed to be in her forties or fifties, had blond hair stuck in a messy bun, and wore robes, which appeared to have come out of some sort of 1700's themed film. Her clothes were white, the boy noticed, which clearly matched the hospital theme that the scent reminded him of.

"You woke up earlier than we had anticipated." The woman said, in a tone that suggested she was annoyed by it. She looked stern, then the boy tensed, a blank stare on his face, not wanting to draw attention to some kind of scolding. "You had a very strange accident, Mr. Lestrange."

The boy blinked, opening his mouth to correct his name before shrinking from the sharp pain the attempt had caused. He then gave her a confused look, which was apparently interpreted wrong. "Your grandfather informed us that you accidentally took a poison instead of a Pepper-Up potion, and fell off the broom when the poison took effect. We were unable to identify the poison, but using a Bezoar, we were able to combat the effects before it was too late too much." Her gaze darkened. "Your grandfather did not seem to know what poison was either."

Potion? Bezoar? What the hell? The boy's head was spinning. The woman sighed and waved the stick - was that a wand? Magic? - causing a vial with a bluish liquid to appear. The bottle floated to his mouth, and the boy opened it, drinking the strange liquid with a little trepidation. It was not like he could fight, since most of his body seemed to be off, and the woman looked like some sort of doctor, so he would trust her for now.

The taste was horrible, like a mixture of old socks and dirt, but a few seconds after swallowing, the feeling of nothing he had in his body disappeared, along with the pain he had previously. It was like magic. But a lot of it was like magic at that moment. The boy vaguely wondered why he still was not freaking about all this. He felt as if he should be, but his feelings were... strangely... off. In fact, it seemed like the time he'd smoked marijuana, two years earlier, out of curiosity.

The woman still waved the stick a few times before nodding to herself. "Well, your wounds are stabilized.This potion must have lessened the pain, but I advise you not to try to speak yet, your throat was badly affected by the poison. We'll tell your grandfather about your situation.I need you to sign here," she handed him a clipboard and a... feather? "It's a formality, for registration at St. Mungo's, that you are aware of your treatment."

The boy nodded, ignoring the familiar name for now before picking the feather. He touched the paper, next to the line where he should sign, not knowing exactly what to write. Fortunately, however, his body seemed to know what to do without him, because his left hand moved to write a strange and familiar name at the same time.

He paused, watching his oddly practiced handwriting, even though it was his first time using a feather to write something. He shoke to himself before returning the clipboard and feather to the blonde woman, who nodded before leaving the room.

Alone, the boy finally let his mind wander over the information he had received in this brief conversation. Potions. Wand. Lestrange. St. Mungo. He took a deep breath, relieved that the pain in his throat had passed, before letting his body fall back to the pillows of the comfortable bed.

How the hell did I end up in the Harry Potter universe? Is this a dream? But the pain was too real to be a dream, my brain could not imagine such a thing, even if I wanted to, he thought. It was difficult to accept this thought, however, because it was so absurd that he wanted to scream in frustration. It was confusing.

Well, if it is true, he finally allowed, after ten minutes debating the possibilities in his head, my name in this world is Corvus Lestrange. That was logical, the writing of the name, that signature, was as natural and unnatural as it could be. He nodded to himself and took a deep breath - one more time - letting the name come into his head. At least, he thought, strangely amused, if I do not react to the name, I can blame my... accident. The word accident seemed strange to the situation, for some reason that the newly named Corvus could not explain.

"Oh, bloody hell." It escaped from his mouth, and his throat ached, even with the potion. His voice was also strange, sharper, and definitely hoarse because of... the poison, probably. Corvus forced himself to shut up, thinking of the rest of his reasoning. Am I a Lestrange? I'm at St. Mungo's, so my family (the medic mentioned a grandfather, didn't she?) is magic. Lestrange is a pure-blooded name, the family of...

Rabastan, Rodolphus e Belatriz Lestrange.

Oh, bloody HELL. The idea of being related to a sadistic psychopathic murderers was more frightening than the whole situation of being thrown into the universe of a fictional book. I do not even want to know about how we're related...

Corvus then sat down abruptly, when a thought occurred to him. He looked down, focusing on his body for the first time since he'd woken up. The boy looked... small.

Did I shrink, too? Quickly, he got out of bed, ignoring the feeling of lack of strength in his knees, before walking slowly to the other door of the room, which the woman had not entered through. That was probably a bathroom, as was normal for hospitals.

He was right, noticed when he opened the door, it was a bathroom. Not too big, but definitely bigger than normal for a hospital. There was a bathtub in the far corner of the door, which was separated from a white toilet for about a step, which was directly next to a sink with a mirror. The sink, he noted, was low, clearly for a child and not an adult.

He also noticed that the sink was the exact size for him. Oh, no... no. Feeling as if he were walking to his damnation, Corvus approached the sink, keeping his eyes down until he got very close to it, finally looking at the mirror.

The person he saw looking back was not him. It was a boy, who did not seem to be over eight or nine old at the most (he was not very good at judging age, however, anyone under 13 for him looked very young). He had pale white skin, black hair that was not really smooth, but was closer to smooth than wavy. The hair fell on a fringe on his face, while the back looked messy because he had just gotten up. His eyes were blue, a gray-blue, like cloudy sky, a few hours before a storm.

There were some other details, Corvus noted, after carefully observing the person in the mirror (trying with all his might to ignore that person in the mirror was him). First, the boy seemed to have little or no baby fat that people associated with childhood. His cheeks were fat enough not to be starved, suggesting that the boy did not live in misery, but they were not as round as most children.

Another thing he noticed were the bruises, which cut off the white skin every few inches. Having grown up in an orphanage, Corvus was able to identify when some injuries, especially those that were disappearing, had been caused by adults or not. And those he could see gave him a bad feeling because they honestly seemed to have been caused by an adult.

Corvus shook his head, trying to dispel the apprehension in his thoughts. I may just be seeing things...

With a heavy heart, Corvus stepped back from the mirror, returning to his room to wait for the grandfather the doctor had mentioned. Please, please do not let this be what I'm thinking it is.