My world is different to anything you know (Hunter/Sam)

She was so close that she could have shouted his name, and he’d have lifted his head. Currently he was helping a customer, an elderly witch who appeared to be shopping for a Crystal ball. From the look of things, the old woman was trying to haggle with him over the price. She’d seen others do the same from time to time, at various shops and stalls on the street. She’d done it herself too, when she had money, even if she wasn’t very good at it. But she had managed to use the bit of coin she hadn’t left at Hunter’s as ‘payment’ for his services to buy herself an apple, a block of cheese, and a warm roll.

The wind pulled at her clothes, though she didn’t really feel it much. She was used to the bite of cold. It was almost November after all, and the cloak she’d gotten for her birthday four years ago fit her like a nice little cape, coming down to her hips and wrapped tightly around her bulky red sweater, two turtlenecks, and tank top. Layers were the best this time of year. Of course she hadn’t really planned on being out in the cold, had she. This was Enitan’s second day watching the shop from the shadowed alley between two buildings across the street. She was dressed in dark clothes, a pair of jeans and a long skirt completing her ensemble. The bright pink princess sneakers didn’t really fit, but they were pretty and she hadn’t wanted to color them black, so they were tucked up underneath her.

Her father, the man she’d been looking for, was right there, waving goodbye to his latest customer. All she had to do was untuck her feet, pick up her mother’s carpet bag, and put one foot in front of the other. Walk across the street. Call him by name. Tell him her mother’s name. Who she was. He looked so kind; but of course Enitan knew that meant nothing. Kind people had ruined her life before. The old man with the candy who had sold them out to the Ministry four years ago, for example. Or the woman at the orphanage who tried to kill Bindi with a broom first, then a fire poker. All while screaming loudly.

She still hadn’t moved, breaking off a piece of cheese and feeding it to the black and white creature who poked its head out of her hair. She didn’t want to admit it; but she was scared. What if he didn’t believe her? What if he laughed at her? What if he told her to go away and never come back? Could she go back to Hunter? Would Hunter keep her forever? Or would he eventually send her away too.  Her voice was a soft whisper, spoken only to herself; her mantra that she repeated to herself every night, afraid that she would forget something important. “My name is Enitan Elysabeth Tatiana Reed-Dickinson. My mother was Tatiana Reed. Born in South Carolina. Muggleborn; Seer. She was killed by the bad people from the ministry. My Father is Samuel Dickinson. Seer. Teacher. London, England. He is Alive. He is standing in front of me… all i have to do is go talk to him.” the last part was new, replacing her oath to find him. Because he was right there. And yet she froze, unable to move, half off the crate she’d been sitting on, her fear too great.

It had been a slow day at the dingy shop where Hunter worked three days a week to make ends meet. In the first four hours there had been precisely three customers; an old witch who had been looking for a particular plate to replace one of a set she'd broken through careless wandwork, a man whose personal hygiene regime appeared to be 'wash once a month whether I need it or not' buying a new coat (Hunter had almost offered to burn the old one and resisted the temptation to perform a cleaning spell until the customer had left the shop), and a woman who had only wanted to buy items in a particular shade of teal. So he was more than a little relieved when the owner finally turned up a little after lunchtime and said he might as well clear off for the day.

Hunter walked through Diagon alley at a rapid pace, a small man who could slip through crowds before they even knew he was there, though for the moment the midweek street was hardly crowded. Just the usual shoppers and wanderers about their daily business. He stopped at one of his favourite cafes for a hot bacon roll, slathered it in mustard and brown sauce and had them serve him hot chocolate in the steel tankard he carried at his hip, ignoring the strange looks from the woman behind the counter. It wasn't as if he was going to put beer straight in it later without washing it out first, she had no reason to worry! Of course, he realised a few moments later as he walked down the street, nobody knew he was drinking hot chocolate out of a beer tankard, and he didn't want to attract the attention of any do-gooding Ministry types. 

So it was that he ducked into an alleyway to finish his lunch, roll in one hand and tankard in the other. Almost hidden from view, he nonetheless has a fine view of the street and could watch the people going by, could even see into the alleyway opposite, almost a mirror image of his own, but for the figure sitting on an abandoned crate and... Moxie? Hunter felt a stab of concern that was very like fear. When he'd left the little girl two days earlier, it was in the street close to the antique shop owned by her father's family. She'd refused to let him go in with her and help her introduce herself, insisting that she wanted to do it alone.

Hunter's mind raced to the most obvious conclusion. The man hadn't wanted to know, and now the little kid was on the streets, alone and scared. He glanced quickly up and down the street to be sure he wasn't mistaken - no, there was the shop that he'd left her nearby. Now he didn't hesitate, darting across the street quickly, no more than an afternoon shadow as he ducked in beside her. “Moxie? Are you okay? Did..?” he hesitated, not wanting to ask outright if she'd been rejected. He knew the kid well enough not to humiliate her like that. Let her tell him in her own way, and in her own time, and then...well, he'd figure that out in his own time, as well “Did you want some chocolate?” he finished, offering the steaming mug in her direction.

Enitan smelled the chocolate before she saw him, letting out a sigh, and hanging her head. There was no way to get out of this one. If she kept silent, he’d assume the worst, and possibly go across to the shop and tear the poor unsuspecting man a new hole for his arse. Not that she fully understood the connotation of that phrase, but she knew it meant scream and yell until the other person cried. Usually. And it was rude, so naturally she liked it. “Hi Hunter.” she said softly, sounding a bit dejected. Bindi poked its head out of her hair and sniffed at the chocolate in the mug, before turning its nose up at it and curling back up behind her shoulder.

The girl on the other hand, took the mug slowly from him, and took a sip, letting the warmth seep into her. She had been hoping to save some of the pocket change for that, but the cheese had been more than she’d expected. A hot drink was really what she needed right now, especially after last night. She’d found a warm air vent to sleep under, and had been relatively comfortable, all things considered, but it still wasn’t a bed, or in the case of crashing at Hunter’s, a couch. Still, she was glad to see him, even if it meant owning up to her cowardice. She passed the mug back to him and let her legs swing freely off the crate she’d made her chair for the day, letting out a sigh.

“I’m okay… I just… I...” she stopped talking, though her legs kept moving rhythmically to no audible tune. She really didn’t want to admit what happened. Or that she’d spent another night hiding in an alleyway because she was terrified that, now that her quest was at its end, she was too afraid of the results to actually take that final step. She let out a harrumph this time. “I froze, okay? I couldn’t do it and i got scared and just hid and then he closed up and i was gonna follow him but he apparated away and then i was all alone and i didn’t want to tell you that i chickened out and i slept behind a box.” the words came out a jumbled mess by the end of it, even if they had started coherent enough.

When she reached out one small hand he handed over the tankard willingly. It was easy enough to go and get another one - though maybe he should charm a mug or something so it didn't look like he was drinking alcohol in the street in the middle of the afternoon this time. “Scoot up a bit” he said, joining her on the crate that was just large enough for two, if one of them was a small man and the other an even smaller girl. It was a bit colder here, the alleyway in deep shade and untouched by even the weak warmth of the late October sun, and he noticed she was wearing what looked like practically every item of clothing she possessed.

Now she sat in silence, drinking his chocolate, and then handed it back while there was still a good bit left in the bottom of the mug. When it became obvious that she wasn't going to offer any explanation voluntarily, he asked “So...what happened?” He tried to sound calm and reassuring, but Hunter wasn't so good at that. He was great at selling things and helping people find stuff and getting animals to trust him, but when it came to tact or thinking things through. Right now he wanted to jump off the crate, storm into the shop and demand to know exactly what the guy's problem was and why he hadn't believed the poor kid, because Hunter had eight and three quarter inches of London Plane right here that was ready to hex him into the middle of next week if he didn't...

Oh.

There was a long pause then. Hunter took another bite of his bacon roll and handed the rest of that over without comment, then finished the dregs of his chocolate. “It's okay” he said finally, both hands wrapped around the empty tankard, staring down at his own feet. And it was okay, even though he felt bad for leaving her here and even worse knowing that she'd slept behind a box last night. He sighed. “Moxie, you've got more guts than witches four times your age, but you're still a lit...a kid. So tell you what. How about you and me go over there right now, and we go into the shop and talk to this guy, okay?” He tipped the tankard upside down and shook it, draining the last dregs onto the cobbled street where they quickly ran into the deep cracks, clipped it back onto the beltloop of his jeans and made as if to stand up. No way was the kid going to spend another night out here.

She slid over to let him join her, watching the man across the way through the shop window, busying himself with rearranging things, perhaps? She’d spent far too long sitting over here in the dark and trying to guess what he was doing. And there was silence, though he did hand her his food, which she hungrily ate without question, even if she was queasy. She really had to go over there, but she was so scared. And she was pretty sure that he was either angry with her for not coming back last night, or felt terribly about not keeping better track of her. A lot of adults felt that way, she’d found, when she went and did her own thing. But she was perfectly capable, why couldn’t they understand that? 

She let out a little sigh of her own and rested her head against his shoulder, Bindi letting out a squeak and moving to the other side of her, obviously annoyed that she’d had to change her position right as she’d finally gotten comfortable. “I hate that. Constantly having people tell me I’m a kid... ” she grumbled softly, but there was no annoyance in her voice, more like quiet resignation. In this case, and perhaps partly because it was Hunter and he didn’t treat her like she was infantile, she was willing to accept that he was right. Obviously she’d tried, but the fear of rejection was too strong. And still…

“I… I really want to do this on my own… but… if you came in with me… like a few seconds after me? And were just there, quietly, in the background, in case something goes wrong? Maybe i’d feel a little better about this?” she hated having to ask for help. But it was Hunter, and he wasn’t the sort of person to lord it over her. “But sometimes grownups react badly when something is hard to believe….. So promise not to hex him right away if he freaks out?” she asked the last part a little timidly, taking a swig of water from her metal canteen before popping it back into her carpet bag.

Again, the girl hesitated, but this time she slid fully off the crate, though she was in fact trembling, her voice coming out incredibly soft and timid. “I’m still scared...”

“Hey, Bindi” he said softly, hardly above a whisper as the kid leaned her head on his shoulder. He hadn't seen the rat, but their language was unmistakeable, and he'd heard a “rat protesting at sudden movement” sound that could only have come from one source. His own rats were mostly back home; confined to his bedroom where they couldn't go exploring the kitchen while he was out. His flatmate had been great about him bringing a strange child home and letting her sleep on the sofa for the last several weeks, but drew the line when it came to pets in the kitchen. And then “yeah...”

Hunter understood. He still got asked for ID practically every time he bought a beer, even though he was twenty six now. Actually he didn't have a problem with it, but it meant he knew what it felt like to be treated like you were young and incapable, that you weren't allowed to do things. At ten years old, Hunter had been stuck out in a tiny cottage in the countryside with his mother, yearning for the backstreets of London that he knew like the back of his hand. He'd felt old enough to go and live there, to be allowed to do anything he wanted... He could understand. And so he let Moxie talk herself around what it as that she wanted to do , and what she thought she should do, and - here he turned his head slightly away, further into shadow so she wouldn't see him grin - what he was and wasn't allowed to do. She slid off the crate they'd been sitting on and he was about to respond when she spoke once more, this time barely louder than a whisper.

“Hey. Know what? It'd be weird if you weren't scared” he told her “and this time I'm not going anywhere until I know you're okay.” And if you're not okay, Sami's just going to have to give up the sofa for a bit longer he added silently. Still she seemed reluctant to move. For all her insistence that she could do stuff on her own, Moxie was still only ten years old and she'd already dealt with more stuff than most people twice her age, and this was probably the biggest thing of all. “Tell you what. This time, you go in and I'll be right behind you. I'll stay outside the shop, because if I come in right away he's probably going to assume I'm your brother or something and you won't get to talk. But I'll be watching, and if you need me I'm gonna be right there, okay?” Poor little kid was shaking, she was so scared. But Hunter had seen that look in her eyes before, and this time he knew she was going to go through with it.

“So. We gonna do this?” he asked a minute later as he stood up and grinned at her encouragingly.

The black and white speckled rat poked its head out from the other side of her neck and looked up at Hunter as if to say hi, before ducking back into her hood, as the young girl smiled. She loved Bindi almost more than anyone else currently alive, and Hunter had been the one to give the creature to Enitan. He’d done so much for her over the years, that she didn’t think there was any way she could repay him. In fact she’d told him as much last week, and he’d insisted that seeing her happy would be payment enough. But she wasn’t convinced. Still, she wasn’t about to bring it up again just now.

Getting told it was okay to be afraid was something she wanted to protest. But it was said so sincerely and was really what she needed to hear, that she silenced it before she actually said anything, wrapping her arms around him as best she could and hugging him tightly. “Thank you. You’re my best friend.” she really liked his new plan, especially if it meant she didn’t have to do this alone. Even if he was outside, it meant that he was there and watching, and if she came back out in tears, he could take her back to his place and… well… they’d figure something out. She couldn’t go back to the muggle orphanage. Maybe there was one for Wizards? With people who actually loved you and didn’t just yell at you? And no muggle school. And… she didn’t want to think about this anymore.

“Yes. let's do this.” she took a few steps, then looked back at Hunter, as if wanting to make sure he was still there, before she stepped out of the shadows of the Alley and into the october afternoon sun. she was quick, making her way across the street with her mother’s carpet bag in hand as though she thought she might change her mind if she didn’t make it quick enough. She pushed open the door and was greeted with soft lighting and a cluttered but well laid out shop, antiques, magical heirlooms, and a few more interesting sparkly items that caught her eye. She allowed herself to be distracted by a pretty glass ballerina dancing on top of a circular jewelry box for a while, before pulling herself away from it, looking around for the man she’d been watching through the window.

She froze when she saw him, from the back, before glancing frantically back through the window for Hunter, the sight of him smiling and nodding to her giving her the encouragement she needed. Slowly, the young girl walked up to him. “Excuse me Mister…. Are you Samuel Dickinson?” she realized last minute that she’d feel incredibly stupid if the man she was talking to turned out to be someone else.

Not for the first time Sam wondered whether he'd made the right choice in leaving Hogwarts. The part of his life that now centred around his painting was everything he'd expected it would be. The creativity, the tiny box room he'd adapted into a studio at the back of Louise's shop or the even smaller space in his own flat where he spent his mornings were places he loved. Places of calm and tranquility and creativity, where he could paint whatever suggested itself and then charm the finished works to move. He'd sold a few, but he didn't mind that, not while he was working up to having a large enough collection that Louise would be willing to put on an exhibition for him.

The afternoons were less fun. Sam had never much enjoyed working in Dickinson's Antiques, but he wanted to make ends meet somehow. While he had saved a substantial sum of money during the years he'd worked at Hogwarts, he was reluctant to live off those savings when there was a sensible alternative. So every day, he served customers in the shop, smiled in what he hoped was a cheerful way when parents and occasionally young adults recognised him and asked why he wasn't teaching any more, and all the time wondered what his next step was going to be. He'd considered the possibility of tutoring, but the number of people who were likely to pay for divination teaching was limited, and he wasn't sure how confident he'd be teaching any other subject. So for now, he spent several hours a day helping customers.

Sometimes it was quite enjoyable, and on a busy afternoon when he'd helped someone to find exactly what they wanted he went home satisfied. And on days like today, when he'd so far spent thirty six minutes helping an old woman select a crystal ball and then had to listen to her try and bargain him down from three galleons, seven sickles because “there was a fingerprint on it” he wanted to close the shop early and take off for somewhere completely new. Maybe that wasn't a bad plan, he thought as he agreed to knock a sickle off the price and finally wrapped the old bat's purchase, handing it over and seeing her out of the shop with a cheerful wave he certainly didn't mean.

The only other person in the shop was a shifty-looking wizard of indeterminate age who was wearing voluminous robes, Sam suspected they were designed so he could hide things under them. The man had entered the shop just a couple of minutes earlier and was currently skulking around one of the locked glass cabinets, as far from the counter as he could be.  So the Seer quietly drew his wand and headed over there too, performing cleaning charms on each shelf in turn so he could see what the potential shoplifter was doing. He saw the man pick up a miniature orrery, old but cast in sterling silver with planets of gold, and at the same time heard the tinkle of the bell above the door signalling that someone else had just entered. Sam's father always liked to greet every customer as they entered, but he was fairly certain that the one who was already here was up to no good, so he hesitated, before turning back towards the counter.

The new customer was a little girl carrying an old-fashioned bag. Sam watched her as she made a shy circuit of the shop, seemingly attracted by the prettier, shinier items, and assumed she'd slipped away from her mother and been attracted by the sheer number of things on display. She looked eight or nine, too young for Hogwarts at any rate, though perhaps she had an older sibling he would have known...he pushed the thought away, turned his attention back briefly to the shifty-looking wizard who had moved on from that shelf to one even further towards the back of the shop. Sam was just approaching the shelf to see if everything was still there when he heard approaching footsteps. Soft, quiet footsteps, like...

How did the little girl know his name? And why was she asking? Was she - oh Merlin, what if she'd lost a parent or sibling in the Battle of Hogwarts and blamed him for it... Sam looked down at her for the first time and felt a jolt of shock. He knew this child! He'd Seen her, scared and alone, in a vision a few years earlier. He'd written it down in his journal, as he did every divination he had ever performed, knowing that some of them took decades to reveal their meaning and others never would. Afraid that nothing good was going to come out of this encounter, he badly wanted to say that no, she'd got the wrong man, he'd never heard of Samuel Dickinson but there was something in her eyes that stopped him. And something in her voice - the accent was unusual, something he couldn't quite place, as if she'd grown up in several places and picked up something of the intonation from each of them. And there was the feeling that if he turned away now, that would be one vision he would never solve.

“Yes. Yes, I am” he said after only a brief pause, these thoughts having raced through his mind in the span of less than a second. “Can I help you? Is your Mum outside?”

Enitan wasn’t breathing, not while he looked her over with confusion, and then a hint of recognition and more confusion. It felt like centuries before he finally answered her and she let out the breath she was holding, a flicker of relief in her eyes. She’d been so worried that he was going to be the wrong man that everything else had left her mind for a moment, hoping desperately that if he wasn’t, maybe he could at least point her in the right direction? But he matched her mother’s description. And the shop had his name on it… and Hunter insisted this was the right place. And Hunter wasn’t wrong. Hunter couldn’t be wrong. He told her that her mom was gonna come back for her, and he did. He told her quidditch was the best thing ever, and it was. He told her he’d find her father, and now here she was.

It was the questions that she was asked next that snapped her out of it, looking down at her shoes. They were still new looking, despite how she’d been living. They’d gotten really dirty for a while and she’d cried about it and hugged them, and then they were clean again. But she’d no idea what she’d done. Her mother often told her that young witches would always show some kind of sign of magic early on, and that it was possible it would be subtle. But that hadn’t been. “My mom….” she took a deep breath. She’d practiced repeatedly what she would say, confidently, without crying, repeatedly over and over again. But now it didn’t seem right, and she didn’t feel at all confident.

“My mum was Tatiana Reed. She… we came here looking for you, but then the bad people were looking for her cause her parents were NoMaj… I mean Muggles. And when I finally got her back, she was really sick. But she made me remember your name. And I promised I’d find you...” she started digging through her carpet bag, unable to find whatever she was looking for and setting it down on the floor. She should have had the letter out. “She was really sick, but she told me what to write… I just… I can’t...” her mother’s wand rolled out of the back, deep burgundy with a faint corkscrew shape to its bendy wood, before the girl caught it as it tried to roll away under a cabinet, returning to the bag and pulling out a folded up piece of paper, scuffed and dirty on the outside, holding it up to him. “She said you’d understand if you read this.” it was easier. She wanted to tell him everything herself, but she couldn’t… the words just wouldn’t come out.

And she knew what the letter said anyways. About how they’d met. How she didn’t want to leave her job, or make him feel like he had to leave his… how she’d changed her mind and decided he should have a chance to know their daughter… about how she’d tried to find him… her vision she’d had in the cells of Azkaban that told her she’d never get the chance to tell him face to face. Enitan again looked at the window, terrified, hoping hunter was still there. He was. And her eyes trailed back over the prettier shiny things in the shop, the fancy magic tools she didn’t quite recognise but felt as though she should, anywhere but on Sam...

The child looked scared, then anxious, then there was something in her eyes that might have been determination or might have been something else entirely, and then she looked down at her shoes and he couldn't tell what she might be thinking at all. He heard faint words, and she trailed off, and he wondered if she'd got herself lost and needed help to find her mother. Certainly she was struggling to work out what to say, and he was on the verge of squatting down so he could encourage her in some way when she suddenly seemed to find her confidence...

...and his whole world shifted.

Tatiana Reed. He knew that name, though it took a couple of seconds to process what he was hearing, to place her and recall exactly where they'd met, and where they'd...

The little girl had dumped her bag - a bag that looked far too heavy for her to be able to lift, let alone carry - on the floor of the shop and was digging through it, searching for something. Sam's mind was reeling, whirling... the word she'd used - Tatiana had been American, that was their word for muggles, that explained the child's unusual accent. Essex with a hint of East Coast America. And the bad people must have been snatchers, or the Ministry during that terrible year and a half...his blood ran cold. How old had she been? Six? Seven? Already his heart was putting together the pieces even while his mind was sluggish, stubbornly slow on the uptake and refusing to process what I promised I'd find you could mean...

He started forward to catch the wand that had rolled out of the carpet bag, deliberately not wondering why such a young girl had a wand and where she could have got it from and what the implications of her having a wand were, but she'd already grabbed it and shoved it back into the bag and then she pulled out a piece of paper and there was something like triumph in those far-too-familiar eyes as she held it out to him and he hesitated for just the briefest of seconds before he could convince his hand to reach out take take it from her. And another hesitation as he looked down at the child with the clearest sensation that if he read what was written here his life was going to change forever. Irrevocably. And then he unfolded the paper and began to read the contents, and the first paragraph was reminiscences he remembered, and that was fine because his mind could still stubbornly deny that anything out of the ordinary was happening, and then the writing became gradually less clear, the hand that held the quill clearly growing weaker and it was a good thing that Sam was close to the counter because then he was leaning against it, and then his legs were growing weaker and he slowly slid down the counter until he was sitting on the ground, next to the...the...his...

He swallowed hard, and suddenly there were tears in his eyes and he couldn't read any more, not that the latter half of the letter was anything like as coherent as it had begun, the writing reduced to a semi-legible scrawl as Tatiana, clearly terribly ill by now spoke of a vision that...

Sam had forgotten how to breathe. The letter hung weakly from one hand, then slipped from nerveless fingers and fluttered to the ground. There was no doubt in his mind that what he was reading was the truth. Close by, the child...the...no, his daughter was staring out of the window, then at a case which held charmed musical jewellery boxes. He lifted the hand that had been holding the letter, vaguely reaching towards her, and his heart was thumping hard enough that it might escape from his chest entirely, and he had no idea, no clue at all what he should say now, what he could say, only that he had to say something and say it quickly, and then just as quickly there came a terror, a galloping fear and with it the memory that he had left teaching because he couldn't protect the students, couldn't protect any of them, and now he was responsible for this one and...

He didn't even know her name.

Another second, and he remembered how to function. “Okay...” he managed, though it came out weak and somewhat breathless, but it served at least one purpose, because the little girl was now looking at him. He managed a smile, and while he knew it would look shaky and probably as nervous as she doubtless felt, it was also genuine. They stared at each other. “So I'm your...” he couldn't say the word, not yet, nor was he even sure what word he was going to choose. Father, Dad, parent... they all felt strange and alien, a badge of honour that belonged to other people, one that he had done nothing to earn. He reached for the letter, scanned it again for that vital detail he didn't yet know, but it wasn't there.

So it was that Samuel Dickinson, sitting on the floor of his family's shop, reached out and took the small hand of the daughter he hadn't known existed five minutes earlier, and asked “What's your name?”

Enitan finally pulled her eyes back from the jewelry boxes and to the man she’d been on a quest to find since her mother’s death. Sure she’d been little, but that hadn’t stopped her. She was used to figuring out how to survive. But he’d recognised her mother’s name, so that was right. He was the correct Sam Dickinson. He was very expressive, emotions playing heavily on his face. She didn’t know how far he’d gotten, but apparently he figured it out. She swallowed heavily looking again at her bright pink shoes. She didn’t dare look back at the window with tears threatening her eyes. She didn’t want Hunter to think that things had gone badly… and then he sank down slowly to the ground, and she let out a startled little squeak, worried that he wasn’t going to be okay. The movies that the Orphanage woman liked to watch often had people fainting when they received news like people they’d loved dying, or someone getting hurt. She didn’t want him to faint. It usually meant that it was bad news, and she really didn’t want this to be bad news.

She looked back up at him when he finally spoke, and managed a shaky smile back. She was worried, afraid, and wanted to run back out into Hunter’s arms and beg him to take her back to the flat with the lumpy couch and the rats. Maybe she could cook for him and his roommate. She was okay at it, her mother always said she was really good, but mothers had to say such things. She swallowed again, wanting desperately not to start crying. He couldn’t say the word. He couldn’t call himself her father. Did that mean he didn’t want her? Was she going to get sent away? “I… I am… you’re my father. Mum said there wasn’t anyone else it could be...” she said softly, trembling as she started to look down again.

And then he reached out and took her hand. She’d been so distracted that she hadn’t even been aware of him reaching out for her and tensed up, looking up startled as he touched her, nearly pulling back. But she let him, and slowly took a step towards him, unable to stop the tears from running down her cheeks. She had finished the letter herself, from her mother’s mumbled additions, and yet it appeared that she’d forgotten something very important. “My… My name is Enitan… Enitan Elysabeth Tatiana Reed...” she didn’t finish. She didn’t want him to know how she’d been introducing herself just yet. He looked like the orphanage woman right before she called in her daughter and husband for backup when the kids were being rowdy. Overwhelmed. Instead, she sat down next to him, still holding his hand. She wanted to say something smart, and helpful. But everything was kind of fuzzy, so she just repeated what Hunter had said to her earlier, hoping it helped.

“It would be weird if you weren’t Scared...I’m scared...” she patted his knee reassuringly, swallowing and hoping she wasn’t making things worse.

There was no doubt in Sam's mind, which was strange. This wasn't a circumstance he had ever imagined, but nonetheless it would have been understandable if it took him a while to accept what he was hearing. If he wanted more evidence than a crumpled letter and the word of a small child he'd only just met, nobody surveying the scene would have blamed him. Yet he didn't ask for any of that. Maybe because it immediately made sense. Maybe because he recognised Tatiana - a woman he'd known for half a year during his early twenties and then for less than a week several years later - in the child standing before him. Maybe because he could see something of himself in her too. But it was none of that. Because he'd Seen her before, multiple times, curled up in a dark corner and trying not to cry; backed up against a wall yelling at something - or someone - he couldn't see; sitting on a sparse bed with a fixed, hard expression.

Somehow that made it worse, because whatever her life had been for the past few years, it hadn't been anything good. He already knew that, and he didn't want to know any more, but at the same time he was desperate to find out what path had led her to the shop now and not a year or two earlier, when he could still have been reached through his father or sister. But how did he ask that question - how could anyone ask that question? He couldn't speak yet, though the little girl had tears running down her cheeks and he wanted to make everything better for her, he just didn't know how...

“Enitan.” He tried the name out, liking how it sounded. Nigerian - no, Yoruban, he thought to himself, recognising the name as one he'd heard several times on his travels. Didn't it mean something like brave of famous or fated? He couldn't remember, and now wasn't the time to ask. Then she sat down next to him, and then she told him it was okay to be scared. This little girl who had spoken of her mother in the past tense, and Sam assumed what that meant but didn't want to ask for confirmation.The irony of a little kid telling him not to be scared, as if she was the grown up, made him smile. “I'm glad its okay, because I'm not scared, I'm terrified” he admitted, not stopping to think whether this was the right thing to say, and then stopped himself and looked at her, hoping he hadn't upset her. Enitan. His daughter. And now they were sitting on the shop floor, and Sam barely raised his head when the dodgy customer he'd been watching a little earlier quietly opened the door and made a swift exit.

“It's going to be okay” he said, without even planning what he was going to say, because that was one of his stock lines, the one he'd said so often to students during that terrible year when they turned up in his classroom with forged notes saying they had a detention or extra study sessions because they knew they were going to be safe there. Now there were no death eaters to avoid, the fear of seeing the Dark Mark over random houses was a thing of the past, but the words still held true. There were so many things he wanted to ask, but it occurred to Sam that this wasn't about him. Not really. Most of his questions could wait, apart from the most important one, though even that came out sounding stilted and confused.

“Where are you living...I mean. Are you...do you want to...live with me now?"

The young girl smiled softly as he said her name, liking the way it sounded with his accent. She really hoped he liked her, not just because he was her father and she didn’t have anywhere else to go, but because he seemed like a nice person. And he wasn’t trying to deny it, or asking her a thousand questions like some kind of interrogator trying to see if she was lying. The nasty people in the orphanage had done that, when they were trying to figure out who she was, they said her mother hadn’t been to prison, or there’d have been a record. They said their names had to have been made up, just because there was no papers on them. And of course Enitan couldn’t tell them why. They were NoMaj, and they weren’t allowed to know. Because they didn’t handle things they couldn’t understand well at all.

She nodded when he spoke again. Pulling her knees up to her chin. “I…. I was too… I didn’t think you’d believe me. I thought maybe you weren’t the right Sam… or that you would...” she stopped. There were lots of horrible ways this could have gone, and all of them had gone through her head. They weren’t out of the woods yet, either. He could still dump her off at some magical orphanage, or send her away and not have to deal with her, or leave her with relatives… she made herself stop thinking about all of those things. Her mum had always told her that she should always hope for the best. Because the bad things were going to happen no matter what, and there was no sense in worrying about things you couldn’t control.

And then he asked where she was staying, and she looked out the window, worried that she couldn’t see Hunter anymore. Had he gone? She looked back to Sam. “I have a Friend.. He helped me a lot… and kept me safe until mum got back after the… bad people took her. He helped me find you.” and then there was the question she’d been hopeful for. “If… If you don’t want me, I can go back with my friend.” she said softly, biting her lip. “But I would really like to… to stay with you.” more than anything else, Enitan wanted a family again. “I can cook. Kind of. I mean it doesn't taste that bad...” she offered up hopefully.

Hunter had a lump in his throat as Moxie hugged him and said he was her best friend. He really, really wanted this to turn out okay, but he had no idea how the guy was going to react. If he was a professor, then there was a good chance he liked kids, but that didn't mean he was going to want one of his own. Resisting the temptation to grab his little friend by the shoulder and tell her it was okay, she could come back and sleep on his sofa for as long as she needed if things didn't work out, he stood outside the shop, just far enough away that it wasn't going to be obvious that he was actually watching her. Close enough, though, that when she looked for him through the window of the shop she could see him nod and give her the thumbs up, telling her that she'd got this, that it was going to be okay.

When she approached the guy, he couldn't watch that part. Not closely, anyway. Instead he eyes drifted toward the only other person in the shop, a shifty-looking cove in a coat that was clearly designed to have a sizeable number of hidden pockets. Sure enough, he watched the man slipping some sort of gold-and-silver divination instrument into a concealed pocket, whilst glancing over his shoulder to check he wasn't being observed. Idiot didn't think to look outside the shop, Hunter thought derisively as he too looked in the same direction. Oh-oh.

The guy was sitting on the floor now, holding a letter in his hand...Hunter came right up to the window and peered through, not caring any more if he was seen, convinced that something was going wrong. Then he noticed. Moxie and the guy were holding hands, she was patting his knee, sitting down beside him, saying something... Hunter's eyes felt suddenly and unexpectedly damp, and he brushed an arm roughly across his face as he turned his face away. Whatever was happening right now - that was personal.

Then the not-customer stepped out of the shop, and immediately Hunter was on him. Two, three, four steps and his wand was out, pointed at the back of the man's neck. “Hi, I'm your friendly local security guard,” Hunter began in a cheery tone laced with ice “and I'm here to take back everything you just nicked from that shop. See, my friend's Dad works there, and I don't like it when people steal from my friends...”

As was often the case in Hunter's experience, once confronted the man began to whimper about needing the money and how he'd never done anything like this before and...Hunter frisked him expertly, having been (unfairly) on the receiving end of such treatment a few times himself, removed the divination thing and also a small pendulum that looked like it was made of opal or some other such precious stone. “Now get lost, and don't let me ever see you round here again” he told the thief, and before he could think better of it had pushed open the shop doorway and approached the counter, where Moxie and the Dickinson guy were still sitting on the floor.

“Your last customer changed his mind about these...” he said briefly, dumping the items on the shop counter. And then “See you around, kid.” He winked and ruffled her hair affectionately, then turned and left the store. Now wasn't the time to interrupt whatever was going on between father and daughter.

His entire world had shifted, so how come he was actually feeling okay? He wanted to explain, not just to the little girl but to himself as well. “I think...maybe some people wouldn't believe you. Not right away, anyway. But...your Mum and I have...had something in common. Did she tell you I'm a Seer? So I think I kind of recognised you, as soon as you walked in. I mean, my heart did...it's just taking my head a little while to catch up” he admitted. The words were more effusive than he intended, and there was a curious lump in his throat that made the last part hard to say. He squeezed her hand gently and let it go for now, shifting into a more comfortable position on the floor. 

There were so many things he wanted to ask. Who was the friend she mentioned? Was that who she'd been with all this time? Had he been another friend of her mother's? But that wasn't as important as the most pressing issue, because clearly Enitan needed to know that she was safe, and she had a place to stay.

“Of course I want you.” he said, though now his mind was starting to function again he was thinking through the logistics “It might be a bit tricky for a couple of days. My flat's only got one bedroom, but I've got a studio, we can put a bed in there if that's okay with you. Oh, and my cooking's terrible. I can just about manage breakfast...well, cereal and toast. You see...” was he talking too much? Sam decided it didn't matter. They had - what? Nine or ten years of talking to catch up on “I don't know if you found this out, but I used to teach at Hogwarts, and they have house elves there who do all the cooking. So for five years I didn't have to cook a single meal for myself, and I was never very good at it to begin with, and...”

He cut off abruptly as the shop door opened and a shortish man, looking barely old enough to be out of school, came in. “Sorry, I'd better...” serve this customer Sam was going to say, but the man was already speaking, his manner quick and efficient and almost as if he wanted to get out as quickly as possible, putting the orrery and a rainbow tourmaline pendulum on the counter. Had he taken them off the one who'd been in here earlier..? Sam struggled to his feet, still feeling lightheaded, but before he could say more than “thank you” the young man had ruffled Enitan's hair and already left the shop.

“Wait..!” As quickly as he could manage Sam crossed to the shop door, opened it and looked outside. Both ways - the street wasn't deserted, but it was quiet enough that he should have been able to see the man. He must have apparated away. The Seer closed the door and started to come back into the shop, then paused, turned, and turned the sign to closed, locking the door with a flick of his wand. “Was that your friend?” he asked, knowing that if it was, he would never be able to thank the man enough for what he'd done “He looked after you when...when your Mum couldn't?”

[OOC: Apologies to admins for the effectively double post, it'll be the only one I promise]