all right. so. this is a Harry Potter AU, in rambly and abbreviated form.
- this is a version of events where, on the morning of November 1st, 1981, the police are called to a house in Surrey.
- when they arrive, a large man with a red face and a moustache is waiting for them, brandishing a baby.
- to be more accurate: he is brandishing a basket. the basket contains a baby.
- he tells the police that his wife found the basket on their doorstep that morning. “Gave her the shock of her life,” he says, with a chuckle that does not seem the least bit sincere.
- the police officers have a lot of questions about this, but the man does not have any useful answers. his wife, he tells them, is not in any shape to be interviewed. “she’s been poorly,” he says, “and we’ve got a baby of our own to worry about, keeping us up at all hours.”
- the baby in the basket seems to be about a year old. he is cheerful, seems healthy aside from a cut on his forehead, with a crooked sticking plaster on it. he has startlingly green eyes.
- there is no identifying information in the basket, except for a torn scrap of paper with ‘his name is Harry’ on it in a delicate hand.
- there is nothing else to be done, it seems. the officers take baby Harry, and leave.
- one of them comes back a few days later for a follow-up interview with the woman who found the baby. she seems a little fragile, and her own baby, in the next room, keeps up a constant shrieking tantrum the whole time the officer is there. “I’m sorry,” the woman says, with a brittle smile. “this has all been a bit much. I recently lost my sister, you see.”
nonasuch