Disclaimer: Let's look at it logically...if I owned Harry Potter I wouldn't be typing on a fan fiction on a website now, would I?
Parenting Class
chapter 2
It Has Begun
"Who are you?"
were the first words out of the child's mouth, lips turned down in a small frown.
"And where am I?"
he asked, looking around the horribly decorated room with interest.
"Well, I'm Sanyukta," said the phoenix girl, a surprised smile on her face. "And this is Parth...we're going to be looking after you for a while. You're currently at a room in Lawrenceville where you'll be for the next two weeks."
Bright pools of black looked at Sanyukta curiously and she couldn't help but give a large grin.
. Randhir Singh Shekhwat was one of the cutest things!
His eyes seemed to glow from the inside, his black hair cut short with bangs hanging over his forehead to come just above his eyes.
His black robes had shrunk down to fit his rather tiny frame and his wand had appeared in Sanyukta's hand since he was under-age to be doing magic.
"But where are Mother and Father?" he asked, warily looking at Parth before taking a tiny step back. "They won't like it that I left."
"Don't worry," said Sanyukta cheerfully, kneeling down to Randhir's height so that he mightn't feel like she was so imposing. "we have taken care of everything."
"You're sure?" he questioned hesitantly, body slowly beginning to relax from the rigid form he'd held himself in. "I won't get in trouble?"
"Of course not. Now why don't you come with me and I'll show you to your room, okay?" Randhir gave a small nod and still glancing almost fearfully at Parth he followed the girl towards a door on the far wall that was stationed between two other doors with a fourth one on the far right.
Hoping this was the child's room, Sanyukta pushed open the door and let out a low sigh of relief. A small twin bed, rather close to the floor, sat in the middle of the room with a shelf of books next to it, all of the wizarding fairy tales.
A brass trunk sat at the foot of the bed, which the phoenix assumed to contain randhir's clothes and belongings. A window across from the bed let sunlight stream in, lighting upon the miniature waterfall in the corner and creating small, dancing rainbows.
The Falcon let out a squeal of delight and raced over to the waterfall, water coursing over his hands and falling in a basin at the bottom. "Isn't he adorable, Parth?" sanyukta breathed, sensing her best friend come next to her, honey eyes watching the small boy play with the water.
"Hard to believe he's Shekhwat," Parth chuckled softly, his own silver eyes following Sanyukta's gaze. "Do you think Harsh shekhwat hasn't taught him about blood supremacy and power yet? He doesn't seem to harbour any ill feelings towards you or me...
"Randhir's a little kid parth ," she giggled, trying to stifle her laughter behind her hand as Randhir gave her an odd glance before turning back to the waterfall.
"And I think it would be best if we both at least tried to call him Randhir for the time being...I'm pretty sure his parents don't call him SHEKHWAT and since we're sort of filling in for them we shouldn't either."
"He seems scared of me sanyu," the jet black haired boy said softly, Randhir now abandoning the falling water and looking at the book titles before pulling one off of the shelf and clambering up onto the bed with it, his pale hands flipping the pages while his eyes took in the beautifully illustrated pictures.
"Really? We'll keep an eye on him. It's probably just apprehension, nothing to worry about." After a pause sanyukta said, "Do you think one of us should go read him a story? I loved it when my parents read to me."
"You love books in general, sanyu. If it doesn't bother you I'm going to go check out my room. Maybe you could read him one?"
"Sure," the brown haired girl agreed, bobbing her head happily. "We'll all head down for dinner in about half an hour, kay? I think that sounds reasonable." Parth nodded and left the room while Sanyukta cautiously approached Randhir.
"What are you reading?" she inquired, settling herself on the edge of the bed.
"Aren't you supposed to be somewhere?" Sanyukta blinked in surprise and Randhir continued, "Mother never stays...she's always out with her friends or at the work . So why are you here?"
"So whom do you normally play with during the day?" she asked, heart going out to the child. From the way he'd talked about his mother it was if she was never there to tuck him in or read him a story. She had never known that, always being lathered with attention.
"No one," he murmured, picking his head up from the book and looking at the Phoenix . "Every once in a while Vidushi will come over," he said brightening slightly, "but normally I just stay in my room. Oh! And the kitchens! Dobby likes to sneak me cookies! But don't tell Father and Mother," he said, voice dropping to a whisper as though he'd done something wrong. "They'll get angry."
"My lips are sealed," she said, dragging her index finger across her lips and then tossing her hand over her shoulder while inside she wondered. 'What is his family life like at home if he's scared of sneaking a cookie?'
"What does that mean?" he queried, imitating the movement sanyukta had just done.
"It's a muggle sign," she said, playing the muggle a bit obvious to see if it caught his attention at all. "It means that you're zippering your lips and then throwing out the key so no one will ever hear of it."
"A muggle term?
Father says all muggles are bad people...is that true? Vidushi told me she used to be friends with a muggle once," he whispered, voice dropping once more, "but that when her father found out she wasn't allowed to play with her anymore."
"Muggles are good people, randhir ," sanyukta said, seeing an opportunity to try to change randhir's views on the whole 'purebloods are better then mudbloods' outlook.
"Do you think I'm nice?" After a second's thought he gave a tiny nod of his head and Sanyukta smiled. "I'm a muggleborn," she said proudly, smile widening at his gasp. "We're just like you Randhir , no differences except who are parents are."
"But Father said that muggles and muggleborns were below us...isn't that true?"
Sanyukta knew she was probably confusing the poor boy by showing him her views while he had grown up listening to his father. "No it isn't. What your father said is prejudiced against us.
"
"What's prejudiced mean?"
A wry smile crossed Sanyukta 's face. 'Silly me. He's only five years old; of course he doesn't know such complicated terms! But I must admit...he's very smart for his age.' And it was true. Randhir was able to read the book quite easily and seemed to be quite mature for someone of five years.
"It means to have a belief or an idea about a person or something formed before that person ever really got to meet them," she stated, attempting to put the definition into simpler terms for the boy to understand.
"But you seem really nice," he mused, "and smart," he added as an afterthought. "I like you." A large smile broke out on the brunette's face and she pulled randhir into her arms, his small body instantly going stiff.
"What' wrong?" she asked as he slowly began to relax, completely miffed about the child's reaction.
"No one's ever hugged me before," he mumbled into her shirt, voice muffled from the fabric. "I was just surprised...that's all."
'No one? Poor Randhir...I can't imagine ever not being hugged. Or kissed good night, tucked in bed, sung to, and all those little things my parents did to show they loved me.' A sudden thought invaded her mind and her arms tightened around the boy as a determined smile crossed her lips. 'While he's in my care I'm going to make sure he receives as much attention as he can. Who knows? Maybe he'll change for the better.'
"Hey, Sanyu? You and Shekha - randhir ready to go?" parth asked, leaning causally against the doorframe.
The girl started and glanced at the clock across the room, realizing she'd been hugging the boy for almost the entire half hour. "Ready to go to dinner, randhir?" she asked kindly, dropping her arms from around him. He looked up, eyes shining a tad brighter then earlier with unshed tears and nodded. "What are those,?" she questioned, glancing at the two black boxes in his hands.
"Cameras," he said with a smile. "I found this one in your room," he said, handing one of the cameras over to her. "There was a note with mine saying that we're to take pictures during our time with each other because in the last week we're going to put together a big project with the photos from all three group members. It said try to find interesting photos of something you might not see everyday."
"Sounds fun. I take it you have his camera?" sanyukta nodded at the small boy standing silently next to her, his eyes turned towards the ground.
"Yeah, he'll get it later," he answered, emphasizing on the later knowing sanyukta would understand. "Let's go, I'm starving!" sanyukta took one of Randhir's hands and the boy stuck the other in his pocket to prevent parth from taking it. parthy raised an eyebrow at his friend and she shrugged.
"Have a nice dinner," called Leviculus from the portrait, waving merrily at the trio as randhir gave a tentative wave back with is free hand.
"You know, Parth," wondered sanyukta as they walked down the stone corridor, "who's house table are we supposed to sit at?"
"Maybe Vardhaan will tell us...after all, he did arrange these pairings, right? I really can't see ours being random...both of us and Shekhwat?"
"He's working on bringing the houses closer together," the girl smartly said. "Here we are," she announced as the trio stopped in front of the entrance to the Great Hall. parth pushed open the heavy wooden doors and they entered, eyes taking in the spectacle.
Some children were sitting quietly at their 'parents'' sides while others were messily eating dinner the house elves had prepared. randhir's eyes scanned the head table before they lighted on a single figure, a wide smile filling his face.
"UNCLE DAN!" he cried, breaking out of sanyukta's grasp and running down the middle of the tables. The professor looked up from his meal, eyes narrowed in a glare. He could have sworn he'd heard his godson but that was impossible.
"What do we do?" parth whispered urgently to sanyukta , the small falcon now completely out of sight among the students.
"Sit down and hope vardhaan doesn't hex him...or us," she whispered, guiding parth to the phoenix table where they took seats besides an adult catania and jignesh with a tiny dean tomson between them.
"Bloody hell," murmured the redhead. "Was that SHEKHWAT?"
Harry gave a short nod while sanyukta groaned. "I can't watch," she moaned, placing her head in her arms. "What's vardhaan going to do to him?"
"What about us?" whined parth , now frantically looking over the sea of students for any sign of the jet black head. "We're going to die, I know it."
"There he is," gasped catania , sighting the boy. "He's climbing up to the head table!"
Across the room, Randhir crawled beneath the head table until he came to a familiar set of ever black robes. Giving a tiny jump he scrambled onto the man's lap, a wide smile on his face. "Hi Uncle dan !" he chirped.
vardhaan looked down at the boy, the oddest expression on his face. His forehead was crinkled with lines while his eyes shone brightly in confusion. The scowl was gone from his mouth to be replaced with a look of sheer bewilderment.
"What's this stuff?" randhir asked, reaching forward to pick up a golden goblet in front of the man. Picking it up the boy sniffed the drink and smiled. "It smells like cherries," he said happily, rising the glass to take a sip.
"That's wine!" exclaimed the potions master, attempting to pull the challis out of his godson's grip. What ended up happening was the goblet tipping over to splash vardhaan in the face with the champagne.
PKC, who had been watching the entire scene, burst into laughter to see the shocked look on the normally composed professor. Unfortunately, the grape the headmaster had been eating got lodged in his throat as he swallowed it whole and his laughter quickly turned into coughs.
maya saw PKC beginning to choke and jumped up from her chair, positioning her arms to give him the Heimlich maneuver. Randhir meanwhile was apologizing rapidly, eyes teary.
"There, there, it's all right," soothed vardhaan , patting the boy awkwardly on the head while at the same time dabbing at his face with a napkin. Randhir set the goblet, now empty, back on the table, never noticing that it was sitting on the skinny part of a spoon.
Snape dropped the napkin onto the table, the wine gone from his face although a slightly red hue was still visible, the cloth landing in a heap on the round spoon. The force was enough (the napkin was made of heavy material and soaked in wine) to send the goblet flying in the air and land in a bowl of mashed potatoes, effectively splattering everyone in a two foot range
But that wasn't the end of the horrors of the head table catastrophe. The bowl holding the potatoes tipped over to hit Professor Kabir's glass of pumpkin juice, which fell over, an orange stain spreading over the white tablecloth.
The glass knocked into a three layer chocolate cake which tipped to slam into several more wine goblets and then a candle that had been sitting in front of a fruit platter. The flame fell onto the rapidly spreading wine, the table cloth sizzling as fire raced upon the trail, knocking platters and cups over in its wake.
The grand finale was when the mess reached the end of the table and a huge bowl of rice casserole was knocked off the end and fell directly on top of Professor maya , who had been passing next to the table.
Before the flames could spread,Vardhaan , shot a spell at the dancing fire and it sputtered out, the whole hall now in dead silence.
Students watched fearfully as vardhaan looked down at the small boy on his lap. "Am I in trouble, Uncle dan ?" randhir whispered, lower lip trembling and tears spilling down his pale cheeks. "I didn't mean to put the cup there...honest."
Tenderly, quite odd for vardhaan , he said, "Of course not randhir . Who was supposed to be watching you?"
"sanyukta and parth ," he sniffled, wiping the tears away from his eyes. His voice, though soft, could be heard by all and heads turned to the two phoenix .sanyukta dug her face deeper into her arms and parth looked guilty down at the table, suddenly finding a huge interest in his fork.
They both knew that randhir hadn't meant to get them in trouble. He had only been answering the question, which as far as he knew of had no hidden motive behind it.
"Would Mr. kashyap and Miss agarwal please come here?" asked vardhaan , voice eerily calm. The whole school watched with bated breath as parth and sanyukta slowly approached the head table. "Are you not supposed to be keeping an eye on your charge at all times?" hissed vardhaan , eyes glinting maliciously.
"We didn't mean to lose him, Sir," sanyukta said softly, refusing to meet vardhaan's eyes. "But as soon as he saw you he took off."
"Fifty points from phoenix ," the Potions teacher said, gesturing at the mess randhir had made, "and may you keep more of hand on randhir in the future."
"Go and sit with Miss agarwal and Mr.Kashyap, randhir ," ordered vardhaan , giving his godson a push off of his lap. randhir turned and gave vardhaan a quick hug at the same time a flash blinded both.
"Sorry," sanyukta laughed, holding up her camera. "Couldn't resist." vardhaan glowered silently as randhir took sanyukta's outstretched hand and let her lead him to his new seating arrangements.
Everyone burst into chatter as soon as the trio had sat back down, whispers racing around the room as the teachers cleaned up the mess. "Bloody hell," murmured loona, looking in awe at the tiny Shekhwat. "Uncle dan?"
"Watch your language around the children, loona," scolded jignesh, smacking the redhead upside her face. "Who knows what kind of things they'll pick up?" As if on cue dean reached up and smacked loona.
"You're the one teaching them jignesh ," catania grumbled, rubbing her rather pink cheek. dean smacked catania again and then pinched her arm rather hard, an innocent smile adorning his face the entire time. "I'm going to be black and blue by the time this is over," grumbled catania, rubbing her arm and cheek.
"jignesh is right you know," smirked sanyukta, giving her friend a pat on her head like a dog. "The kids will pick up if you keep up like that."
A tugging on her robe sleeve made the girl turn to her young charge, his eyes wide. "Are you mad at me sanyukta? I didn't mean to get you in trouble."
"Of course not," she replied, giving randhir a one-armed hug. "You didn't mean too. So I take it Professor vardhaan is your uncle?"
"Not by blood...but Father made him my godfather and I just call him Uncle dan since he's like family...sort of. How come he doesn't seem to like you? Uncle dan likes everyone!"
Parth and catania both snorted simultaneously while sanyukta grinned. "Not quite, randhir. He doesn't like phoenix very much...and we're all in that particular house."
"But i want to be in phoenix." randhir pouted , "does that mean he won't like me if i get placed there."
"You want to be in phoenix?" sputtered Catania.
"Uh huh. It has red as one of its house colors...that's my favourite color. "
"You don't want to be in Falcon?" she asked in disbelief.
"Of course not! green color is yucky,and i don't like that bird " he shuddered.
The group exchanged glances before bursting into laughter. "I can't believe I just heard SHEKHWAT say that!" laughed catania, pounding her fists on the table while her face blew up red.
"My name's RANDHIR ! ," the boy murmured, not liking to be laughed at nor understanding why everyone except sanyukta was calling him by his surname.
"We're sorry," apologized sanyukta , a grin still on her face. "We didn't mean to make fun of you...here, why don't you have some strawberries." The girl placed a small pile on randhir's plate followed by a helping of buttered noodles and a glass of milk.
In small bites, the bright red fruits began to disappear under the watchful gaze of sanyukta , doing her best to fill the role of a parent. Before dessert arrived vardhaan stood up while maya clinked a spoon against a glass for attention.
"I have one quick announcement before we bring out dessert," revealed Vardhaan, eyes twinkling mischievously. "We found that for all of you in sixth year who had the potions found they were grape juice, am I correct?"
General murmurs of consent followed Vardhaan's odd message before the hall quieted once more and attention was turned back to the headmaster.
"It seems that some of the potion's attributes were diluted in the chosen drink. As many as you saw earlier this evening, all of the students still have their memory completely intact. We realized that with the display by Mr. shekhwat and professor PKC."
randhir ducked his head, not sure why his name had come up in conversation but knowing it wasn't meant to be good .other students shifted their gaze to pro PKC's chair but Instead of seeing the rather plump witch, a child occupied the chair, bright brown curls framing his round face. On his plate were all kinds of vegetables grown from the school gardens. "Peas!" he yelled, waving a fork with the green veggie speared on the ends.
"Professor PKC kindly tried out a small sample of the potion," said Vardhaan , a twinkle in his eye, "by complete accident. he should hopefully be back to normal sometime tomorrow since his dosage was so small.
The plates filled cakes and cookies for the students, the teachers having the option to eat theirs with dinner. "Now I understand," sanyukta murmured to parth once she was certain randhir was busy with a cookie. "He was asking about his parents, remember? It's because he still knows everything!"
"Guess what I got?" whispered parth , a devious smile on his face. "I got a video clip of the heat table with the food from the start with the wine to the end with pro maya when randhir knocked everything over. I found a video record button on the camera," he said in answer to sanyukta's unasked question.
"Whatever did happen to poor pro maya ?" the brunette asked.
"Who cares? Did you see the look on Kabir's face though?" butted in catania , mouth full of chocolate pudding. "He looked like he was going to have a heart attack. They both left the hall after vardhaan's announcement though since you're wondering."
After a few minutes the food disappeared from the plates and vardhaan rose once more in his chair. "Congratulations to all of you for surviving your first day of school of the year," he smiled. "And alas, I must now say it's time for all of you to head off to bed. Prefects, a meeting will be held in a few days to talk about hallway patrols. Good night to all of you."
With final goodbyes to friends, students dispersed out of the hall for their dormitories, each looking ready to finish up homework from earlier and to talk to classmates.
For sanyukta , parth and all of the other sixth years though it was a different story. They got to put their child to bed...oh lucky, lucky them.
Author's Notes:
And there we have it, chapter two! n.n I hope my attempt at humor wasn't too bad...I tried, honestly. n.n Also, the reason I made randhir the child first was this. Most of you thought I was going to work on my sandhir in the beginning but the way I see it, that won't work.
randhir would still be a cocky jerk and I really don't see how he and sanyukta could get closer. By making him the child he'll remember all of the nice things they did for him and perhaps like them both better.
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