The Forgotten Twin

[Hogwarts Castle]

Summer in the Hogwarts castle often leads to peaceful, quiet mornings and undisturbed rest for the people (and ghosts) currently residing in this castle. Some might call this peace, with the exception of peeves the poltergeist, the calm before the storm as the countdown of these warm days dutifully brings the beginnings of autumn and most notably, the arrival of Hogwarts students for another year of magical education.

But before they can get to the school for their magical education, all students -new and old- are required to have been sent an invitation and/or acceptance letter that holds the train ticket that will carry them off to the school. A letter signed officially by the current Deputy Headmistress of the school and it was during this signing for the last invitations to be sent out that Professor McGonagall dashed off to the Headmaster’s office with a disbelieving look on her face that our story, or rather his story starts off.

“Albus!” bursted Minerva through the door, almost slamming it open as she rushed hurriedly to the Headmaster’s desk in the circular room and slamming two pieces of paper, almost wrinkling, in front the silvery haired old man sitting behind the desk. To say that Albus Dumbledore, current Headmaster of the school wasn’t bewildered by his Deputy Headmistress’ actions -a very strict and upright person in all manners- was a lie. He looked down at the two pieces of what he knew to be invitations and wondered what it was in them to make his Deputy Headmistress to act as such.

“Read it and tell me that you see the same as I.” She told him before taking a few steps back away from the desk and waiting for a confirmation.

Albus, in curiousity did what she asked and picked up the first letter on top of the other. He smiled as he read the name Mr. Harry Potter almost immediately after skipping his title at the top and already knowing the exact lines written on the body of the letter he took out the next letter and almost dropped it on the floor. The widening of his twinkling blue eyes behind his half moon spectacles confirmed Minerva’s doubts about the paper.

“So it is true.” She whispered as if afraid that if said any louder than the whole of the wizarding world might hear, which, considering that the office had portraits , gossiping portraits, lined all around the office, might have come true but she was wise enough to not blurt out the words. A part of her was afraid that if she did, it would have been jinxed and turned out not to be real but mostly because she knew that the words are not to be said in this time. Albus leaned heavily back on his high-back chair feeling for once, his age. It took a while for the shock to flow out of his system as he stared tiredly on the paper he clutched with his hand.

“What could this mean Albus?” she asked.

… But even the great wizard of this time, did not know the answer to that.

[The Desert Kingdom of Ezra]

In the middle of a hot, searing Tuesday morning in a valley of scorching hot sand, the people of the Ezra kingdom sought it wise not to do much of anything outside today under the heat of the sun. Born and raised on the desert kingdom as they are, even they knew the limits of their bodies working under these unusual conditions and so, not much people were seen bustling along the grounds of the market place of the kingdom.

“Unusually quiet today, eh Master? I’m almost glad that we chose to leave so early in the morning.” If it weren’t for the boy’s audible strain in his voice, his master, walking up front on his camel, would have believed the comment given as cheerful instead of the sarcastic remark that it truly was. The boy gave up his forced grin then and sulked.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t y--Whoah!” The raven haired boy gripped his camel’s saddle tightly as it gave a sudden lurch and ran, only to switch to walking again next to his master. He only sulked some more at his master’s chuckle.

“How are you to be his Highness’ personal bodyguard if you can’t even master one of the most basic transportation used in his home territory, Bard?” the master -a scarred face man nearing his sixties, teased the ten -nearing eleven in a week- year old boy.

“One,” the boy, identified as Bard replied as he steadied his hold on his camel, “I’ve only just been here for a week. I’m not used to these things yet! Two, I’ve just started training three months ago and En turned eight years old last month, he’s home-schooled at the palace! Cut me some slack old man! I’m English! It’ll take a bit more training to get that flushed out of my system! Lastly, I’m English!” As if proving a point he nearly fell off the camel from another sudden lurch.

“Oof! Stupid camel! Be-Have!” And Bard, again, did the impossible in front of his master’s eyes. The camel suddenly froze, stiff as a board on the spot and Bard huffed before nudging its sides with both of his feet. The poor animal seemingly came back to life and walked next to his master’s camel as if nothing had happened. Bard’s grin dropped after his master’s disapproving look.

“I’m working on it.” He quickly said but his master shook his head as they continued on to their destination.

“You’ve got to control that magic of yours, Bard, or you’ll never be appointed as his Highness’ personal bodyguard.”

“How you can even mention this as something as absurd as ‘magic’ with a straight face is laughable, old man. It’s not easy as it looks.” Bard grumbled at him only to be given a raised scarred brow by his master.

“You lead me to believe that something in your very essence is hard to control?” His master said to him, “You,” he dramatized, “the person who not only had mastered speaking three different languages in three months but had also managed to gain the respect of our senior militia for your combat skills?” He added snort in disbelief and dropped to the sand covered ground.

“Words are easy when you have a photographic memory ingrained in your brain and isn’t the combat skills your doing, master? I swear I’ve never gotten a good morning’s nap since you came along-- Oomph!” Bard nearly dropped from his seat the second time that day when his master threw a duffel bag full of heavy fabric on his face.

“‘Sleeping in’ is not what you call a nap you idiotic apprentice.” Bard gave a cheeky grin in return as he jumped down from his own camel to properly secure the bag on his now behaved animal.

“Master Scorpius, sir, is that everything you need?” the female shop clerk from which they came to collect, asked politely.

“Yes, thank you. Bar-” Scorpius had to pause and blink when he turned to his student, for there was an eagle owl perched atop of said student’s arm.

“Lookie wat I got ’ere mast’r. ’Spose I can kip ’im?”

Scorpius ignored his student’s poor attempt at tactful humor.

[Elsewhere. A week after]

“An’ here’s Harry!” said a giant.

“Las’ time I saw you, you was only a baby. Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh’ve got yer mom’s eyes.”