This story follows book four of Rowling's books. Harry has just returned on the Hogwarts Express after Sirius has died and is living with his aunt and uncle.

Destiny's Child

1Ch 1 Gypsy Woman

Harry stood looking back at the small group on the train platform, then turned and followed the Dursleys. He'd never felt as lonely and disconsolate as he was feeling at the moment.

He felt trapped and unable to breath when he got into the car and Vernon pulled out of the parking spot. As they drove through the business district on their way out of London, unknown to him, he was leaving a trail of broken shop windows and turned-over trash bins.

It was all he could do to not open the car door and step out as they drove along. He had yet to resign himself to the fact that he was returning to No.4 Privet Drive and that he would have to stay there until Dumbledore found a way to remove him.

Harry pressed his forehead against the glass and stared out at the landscape and the houses spinning by in a daze. His mind was somewhere else and he felt empty. Vernon was saying something to him and talking to him ias he stared into the rear-view mirror. It was only when his Aunt turned to look at him with her sour face that he turned his attention to his Uncle.

Vernon was dictating the terms of his stay with them. So much had happened since leaving them to start the term he'd almost forgotten. Now, his Uncle was telling him that in spite of his friends threats, he would not have his family harassed or harmed in any way.

It was only then Harry saw they weren't taking their regular route to # 4 Privet Drive. In fact, they were pulling into a circular drive that ended up at the door of a rather large institutional building.

Harry had time to open the door to Hedwig's cage and roll down the window. He set her loose just as they pulled up. Two men were waiting when they arrived. The scrolled sign over the arched door read; St. Brutus' Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys.

Harry woke staring at a grungy blank wall, laying on a bed and feeling thirsty. His legs and arms seem to be bound. He struggled for a moment and realized he'd been having a bad dream. He was at his aunt and uncle's house and was laying in bed in his own room tangled up in his own blankets and sheets.

He lay there for a moment thinking about how it was some relief to find he wasn't locked in some institution for insane boys tied to his bed. He untangled one arm, put on his glasses and stared at Hedwig. It was late and she had not been out to hunt.

Harry disentangled himself and got up to open her cage. The house was silent except for the ticking of a clock at the foot of the stairs and his Uncle's snoring in the next room. Harry's window was already open to the early summer night air. Hedwig spread her immense wings and took to the sky, a speck of white against twilight of the evening. Harry watched her with fascination and wished he could join her, even felt tempted to turn around and dig out his Firebolt from his trunk. He knew that wouldn't- couldn't- happen.

The street was quiet and rain-washed from an early evening shower. He could smell the pungent odor of oily wet asphalt and grass. It was completely silent with only the glow of the street lamps. It drew him like a magnet.

Slipping on his jeans, a tee shirt and a pair of runners, he stuck his wand into his back pocket and opened up the door to his room. He knew just which steps to take to avoid making a sound and moved quickly out to the front garden.

It didn't matter which direction he turned, he'd taken every route away from Number Four Privet Drive a thousand times. He could have walked the streets blind-folded. He started off slowly and then broke into a run. Something inside was driving his steps; something fighting to climb up his throat and gag him. He ran knowing that no amount of running was going to stop the feeling breaking over him like a wave. He ran through the street uninhibited until he could run no longer

Out of breath and bathed in sweat, he stopped and leaned over, his hands on his thighs grabbing a lungful of air. There was a stitch in his side and he grimaced and stretched and then started to walk it out. He was in a darker area; the light not as bright, the houses not as well-kept. Here and there a little shop poked it's head out with an odd residential home set back off the curb or some that leaned in and almost over-took the curb.

Harry wandered down the uneven, broken walk and glanced into darkened windows. He pressed his nose against the glass of a little, used furniture shop. There was a fabric shop next to it with a walk-up flat on the second floor. Down the street was an old school and a play yard. The fence had been torn down in places, victim to thousands of children standing on its' lower rungs or swinging on it. The street smelled old and neglected as if it had set there overused and untended for too many years.

Harry grew curious as he walked. There seemed to be a light on in a window of a house set off the road. It was a red light, the color of an old blood stain. The house was small and had a yard stretching out before it. The yard was overgrown and weedy, but welcoming. Wild roses grew in abundance in unkempt patches along a cobbled pathway. He couldn't distinguish the color even as he stopped and leaned over the gate, but thought they were a deep color; perhaps a red.

He breathed in the fresh aromatic air. It was then the sadness seemed to overwhelm him and he leaned against the fence, grasping the pickets, and found himself sobbing into the dark night.

Between his sobs he began to hear music. Someone was playing a haunting song, each note hung quivering in the air, lingering as it was played. It called to him as he stood and listened. It seemed to ease the wrenching sobs and he slowed his breathing, feeling for the moment... calm.

Harry realized he was staring at a little house and as his eyes grew accustomed to what he was seeing, that there was a person sitting on a porch in a rocking chair, rocking. The music floated towards him and without thinking he reached down, opened the gate and walked along the flagstone path towards it.

A woman was sitting on the porch. He had a foot on the first of three before he saw her fully and then stopped, and was about to pull back. "

"I'm…I'm sorry," Harry gasped. "I heard your music." He turned and started back down the path.

The flute stopped. "And I heard your heart breaking," the voice said.

Harry stood with his back to the woman and closed his eyes. His nose took in the smell of the garden, the sweetness of the roses and the smell of old, decaying vegetation. It was earthy and he wanted to lay down in the grass and keep his eyes closed and lay there through the night. His shoulders slumped and he turned again, slowly.

"You are welcome to sit here with me," she said.

"It's very late," Harry said.

"It is night, that is all. Time doesn't matter," came the response.

Harry took the remaining steps and walked across the wooden porch echoing with his steps. There was another chair across from her. It was so dark under the shelter of the porch that he couldn't see her face or tell her age, or know what she looked like. He knew she couldn't see him and it was comforting to know she couldn't see his infamous scar and ask about it.

He stopped before the chair. "I'll sit, if you play."

"Very well," she said. Her arms came up and he heard her breath whistle through the reed.

He sat and began to rock. It felt soothing and he closed his eyes, knowing to do what he was doing was risky. To be away from the Dursleys, to walk alone was risky; and he didn't care.

They sat that way for over an hour. Harry felt at ease and didn't mind when she stopped playing and they sat in silence.

"Light the candle beside you on the table, would you?" she asked eventually. "Night is almost over. The evening star is already dim."

Harry found the box of matches in the dark and struck one. He leaned over and touched the wick and sat back to look at his companion for the first time.

"Have you lost your way?" she asked.

She was a young woman, hardly thirty. She wore strange clothes, that were mended, but clean. Harry noticed her hair hung to her waist and was pulled back at the temples. He imagined that if he saw it in the daylight there might be a touch of premature gray in it and he couldn't understand why he had the thought.

She had a plain face that was almost pretty. It was hard to tell the color of her eyes, but he saw her looking at him with kindness. She was rocking slowly and she held the flute in her lap. He noticed a black cat curled on a pillow next to her chair. The light of the candle was reflected in its green eyes. It blinked at him and stared.

"No," he answered. "I can find my way back home."

"I didn't mean that," she said in a soft melodic voice, but her brow furrowed as she spoke.

He felt strange and yet comforted talking to her. He knew what she meant. "Sometimes, I think I've always been lost."

"Your life is divided between two worlds and you live in both and yet you long to live in the one denied to you at the moment," she said, easily. "You have many friends but you feel nothing right now except heartache for the one lost to you."

He gazed at her, feeling angry. How could she know, he wondered. Was she a spy for Dumbledore, someone like Mrs. Figg. Or worse! No, he considered, not Voldemort's spy. He rocked forward and was about to stand and leave.

The lips turned into a smile and she raised a hand and pointed over her shoulder to the large picture window framed in by leaded stain glass. There was a cardboard sign inside. The lettering was difficult to read but he made out the letters. It read: Madam Lavinsky. Fortune-telling: Tarot Reading and Palm Reading. 5 pound sterling.

He read the sign and almost burst out laughing. A muggle Seer! Then he looked back at her and knew she was waiting for that very reaction from him. He stifled the reaction, After all, he thought, she was accurate.

Neither of them were startled when Hedwig silently flew through the porch and landed on the arm of the cane chair that Harry sat in. Somehow she had found him, or followed him. He was never sure just how intelligent his owl was. She carried no mail tied to her leg so he assumed she had just come to be with him.

The woman smiled again, "My friends call me Mariah," she said and picked up the flute. She played until the dusky pink of dawn overcame the blackness.

Harry made his way up the stairs and into his room just as Vernon's alarm clock began to ring shrilly in the next room He would only have an hour of sleep before his Aunt would wake him and he would have to start his chores. He didn't care. For the first time, he felt he had something no one in either the muggle world or the wizarding world knew about or controlled.

If I'm very careful, no one will ever know, he thought as he rolled into bed with his clothes on, because the first thing they would do would be to take it away, he murmured as he drifted off.

At eight o'clock the next morning he was already anticipating nightfall. The day seemed to drag by and he crawled through his chores and the drudgery until supper came and went. He returned to his room as always, waiting and listening to the TV in the sitting room below. At ten, the Dursleys shut off the lights and tramped up the stairs. At midnight, Harry stood up stiffly, opened Hedwig's cage and turned her loose into the night. He carried his shoes with him and crept down the stairs again.

…..

Harry sat and listened as Mariah strummed a dulcimer, her fingers moving across the strings to produce a silky harp-like sound reminiscent of some type of Eastern Indian music. He closed his eyes and allowed his fevered brain to calm, sucking in the smell of a trailing vine flower growing on a trellis near the porch.

They stayed that way for over an hour without speaking. He had neither been invited nor sent away the night before. When he arrived at the gate this evening, it was open and he followed the curvy path to the front steps. She had already set a teacup on the table beside his chair and poured him a steaming cup of tea when he sat.

How did she know I would return, he wondered. And once again decided she wasn't a con artist drawing people in with her fortune-telling scheme. She was probably the real thing, at least in muggle terms.

The cat was on its' customary pillow and the woman was rocking and playing the instrument.

"You need not tell me your name if you don't want to," she said. "But it would help us to become friends."

Harry thought about it and sipped at his tea. "I'm Harry," he answered.

"Nice name," she said softly and continued to play.

"Should I call you Madam Lavinsky?" Harry asked.

She laughed a throaty laugh and her teeth flashed with her smile. The smile was what took away the plainness so that her beauty shown through. "Heavens, no! Not unless you are one of my customers. It is true I am Hungarian and people say I have a slight accent when I speak. But it is only for my customers, the old ladies with the blue hair, that I 'speek vit a very heavy vord'." She smiled again. "They come at special times, Tuesdays or Fridays, every week and I tell their fortunes. It's not very hard, there's not much to tell because their lives are simple."

"Are you a Gypsy then?" Harry asked and noticed a frown. The yellow glow from the single candle illuminated her dark eyes and there was a spark there.

"Harry, my people find it offensive to be called that. It means so much and so little to many people. I use it because that attracts customers, but I am what we call, Rom." She stared across the porch and then past him into the dark. "We have been travelers in the world and have no place to truly call our home. No place where we are welcome. It's been some time since we lived in the vardos and lived free, still that does not change our nature just because we live in a house." She studied him and then stood and reached over and took his cup from his hand.

She leaned over the candle and studied the contents in the dim light; there were only dregs left. She looked at him and handed it back. In a very deep accented drawl she said, "I see you are Destinies Child, born to carry the weight of the world on your young shoulders." She pronounced it 'vorld' and 'yung'. With a deep grunting voice, heavily accented, she continued, "There is a darkness which surrounds you and you face an evil in your life that frightens you." She splayed her hands out over him mystically as if reading his aura and then dropped them at her sides.

He took the cup and looked into it. He thought she was much more compelling then Professor Trelawney could ever think of being. "Can you read the tea leaves then?" he asked, his mouth dry.

"No, silly," she grinned. " I am a Gypsy, but it doesn't mean I can truly tell fortunes. Do you believe in that nonsense?"

"But…" he stammered.

"Well some people tell me I am really good at reading people," she said and gathered the dulcimer in her lap and sat again. "I can earn a living because people expect us to do that kind of thing. Fortune-telling is called dukkering in my language." She began to play without looking at the instrument in her lap. "Some people in my tribe- with some of the families- some believe in it. My old grandmother used to stand in the back of the vardo, that is a wagon, and she would scream out at the wind to chase away evil spirits."

Harry sat the cup down and stared at her. "You don't believe in magic, or curses or any of that? Ghosts, wizards?"

She frowned slightly and shook her head laughing heartily, "Perhaps it is your imagination when you sit on a porch with an old woman like me in the middle of the night." She glanced down at the black cat. "Well, actually I can understand a little. I mean you happened on a gypsy woman sitting on a porch with a black cat and a sign that reads fortune-telling. It would be easy to assume I have some mysterious power."

She glanced at him and went on, "But no, I don't believe in that. Some things I believe. In nature, for one. When I was little my family did travel and we have always been close to nature. I know some things about plants, using them for healing and other things." She shook her mane of hair and nodded towards the house. "I come with all the accoutrements; the crystal ball and tarot cards and amulets. My front room is a little shop and I sell candles and things to brew special potions. But I don't believe in magic much."

Harry sat back and listened. He enjoyed the sound of her voice and the way she moved and talked. He found it refreshing to be around her and amusing. He wondered if she were a witch. There were probably many in the muggle world that weren't aware of their true natures. He thought he'd try it out. "A witch then. Do you believe in them?"

She grinned, "Wiccans? No. No more than I believe in werewolves or vampires." She looked at him and frowned again with some amusement in it, but didn't ask him anything.

"Mariah," he rocked slowly. "Do you have family here?"

She shook her head. "No, but they will come soon. They will all arrive for a festival during midsummer's eve. Her eyes twinkled when she said it. "That doesn't mean anything either by the way. We don't dance around bonfires and wear druid robes. But we will have a party and fill this yard. There will be singing and dancing and eating. Feel welcome to come then, and if you want, you will see the old-time gypsies. My family can really put on a party. My sisters and their husbands, my father and my grandfather are all still alive. They'll be here." She leaned over. "The old drabengo will dukker for you. She would be able to tell your fortune. And yes, if you are wondering, I do believe she has the ability to forecast the future. But then I'm prejudice because she is my grandmother and I want to believe. Do you understand."

Harry didn't think he wanted anyone to tell his fortune, at least no one better at it than Mariah. For disavowing any skill at it, she had been close to home; uncomfortably close. He nodded.

She watched him and they remained silent for some time.

"Harry, it doesn't take a fortune-teller to know you. It is very plain you are lonely, that if you have family they are not a loving family. You...like the Rom... you have no place you truly call home," she smiled. "You wear clothes like mine, but worse. At least I am poor and I have an excuse. Yours are just too big and you are poorly taken care of; you look half starved. Also, there is something in your eyes that tells me you have no parents," she waved her hand, "You needn't tell me. It's just that I can see pain in you. Old and new scars that haven't yet healed. It doesn't take much. I mean you are a young man out for a stroll in the middle of the night, hardly a time for strolling."

She rocked and they studied one another. He kept silent. "You have the manner of one who draws people to him and you do have friends I'm sure because you are a likable person. I think these are friends are far away from you during the summer and that's when you suffer the most." She rubbed her chin and caught the look on his face. "It drove you out into the night. You are long way from home because you run to get here and you are out-of-breath and sweaty when you arrive. See I am observant."

He rose from the chair and looked down at her.

"If I have offended you, Harry I am really sorry," she said hastily. "It's such a hard habit to break."

"No. You haven't offended me," he answered. "But it's close to dawn and as you have said, I have a ways to go to get home."

She stood, and was slightly shorter than him forcing her to look up. She smiled a radiant warm smile at him. "Will you come again?" she asked. "I rarely have 'normal' company."

He returned the smile. "Yes, please. I'd like to." He stepped off the porch. "Mariah?" he asked, turning.

"Yes?" she replied, turning back.

"You're very trusting. How did you know I wouldn't hurt you or something?" he asked, standing in the dark.

There was silence. "I heard you crying for your mother, Harry. It came from your heart. No one who feels that way would hurt a woman." She stepped to the candle, leaned over and blew it out and left them in the dark smelling the acrid odor of the smoking wick. "I think you see something of her in me."

Harry stepped through the gate and walked down the dark street. Yes, Mariah, I think you would be like her if I had only known her, he thought.

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