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Harry Potter In The Witcher [34]
🕑 Added 2025-06-06 11:34:16 +0000 UTCCalanthe Fiona Riannon, the formidable "Lioness of Cintra," was now the reigning Queen of Cintra, as well as being, as of just a few moments ago, a brand new grandmother.
One wouldn't necessarily be able to tell this just by looking at her face, though. She still looked remarkably, almost unnaturally, young and vibrant, as she was only, by his calculations, about thirty-three years old.
The other man in the room, tall and dark-haired, was apparently named Duny, and he was, Harry knew, the father of the newly born baby girl.
Ciri, in her own time, had never talked much about her biological father, but Harry had always gotten the distinct, unspoken feeling that she wasn't exactly fond of the man.
Looking at him now, though, Harry couldn't immediately see anything overtly wrong with him.
He seemed genuinely, completely overjoyed by the tiny, swaddled bundle resting in his arms, as did everyone else in the room.
The woman who had just given birth, Princess Pavetta, Calanthe's daughter, looked utterly exhausted, pale and drawn, but she still managed a weak, radiant smile as she looked on at her newly born daughter as well.
"Well," Queen Calanthe asked, her voice surprisingly gentle as she looked at her daughter, "what have you decided to name the girl?"
"Cirilla," Pavetta responded, her voice soft and tired, but filled with an overwhelming, adoring love as she gazed at her new child.
"It is a wonderful name, my love," Duny told his exhausted wife, his own eyes shining with paternal pride. "A name truly fit for a princess."
Harry just watched, unseen, as the new little family cooed and fussed over the tiny, newborn girl. Harry was, of course, happy that there was a new life in the world, and he was genuinely happy for the family's obvious joy and happiness over the situation.
But that was not actually why he was here, lurking in the shadows of a royal birthing chamber. It wouldn't make any sense for him to go through all his meticulous, painstaking work to avoid Ciri, to avoid interfering with her timeline, and then just randomly show up at her birth simply to see her.
No, he was here for a much more specific, much more crucial reason. He was here simply to verify, with his own eyes, that this particular baby, this Cirilla, was indeed the Ciri he knew, the Ciri he had loved, the Ciri he was waiting for.
He already knew, with a certainty that sometimes chilled him to the bone, that he had, by his very presence in this world, changed history to some extent, created ripples in the fabric of time.
He needed to be absolutely sure that those changes hadn't altered things to such a drastic extent that his Ciri, the Ciri of his memories, no longer existed, or was somehow… different.
He waited, with the patience of a man who had lived for decades, for what felt like hours, for them to finally take the baby from her exhausted mother and place her gently in a nearby, ornate crib, to allow Pavetta to rest and recover.
Harry had to consciously, forcefully, squash the healer in him, the ingrained instinct to step forward and offer his assistance, to help them deal with the aftermath of the difficult birth. He couldn't interfere. Not yet.
They were using horribly outdated, almost barbaric, methods to ensure Pavetta’s health after the birth, and Harry, with his extensive knowledge of advanced healing magic, just wanted to swoop in, shove them all aside, and show them how it was properly done.
He could have stabilized her, eased her pain, and ensured a much quicker, safer recovery in a matter of minutes.
He was, luckily, and perhaps a little sadly, quite used to squashing his natural, helpful tendencies at this point.
Years of living in a world that wasn't his own, of needing to remain unseen and uninvolved in most matters, had taught him a harsh patience.
So, he waited. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of hushed whispers and rustling linens, they carefully put little baby Ciri into her ornate crib and then, at long last, vacated the room to allow the exhausted mother to sleep.
Harry waited, silent and invisible, until he was sure Princess Pavetta had finally fallen into a deep, restorative sleep.
Only then did he approach the crib, still hidden under his complex layers of charms.
He stared down at the tiny, sleeping child, who was still squirming a little in her sleep, her tiny fists clenched, her face a perfect, miniature version of the one he knew so well.
Harry reached out, not with his physical hand, but with his magic, a gentle, probing tendril of his own considerable power, to touch, to sense, little Ciri's nascent magical signature.
He needed to see if it matched the unique, vibrant, chaotic signature of the Ciri he remembered, the Ciri he had loved, the Ciri he was waiting for.
Everyone's magical signature, he knew, was as unique as their blood, as their very soul. This was the only way he could truly, definitively tell if they were, in fact, the same person, if his Ciri had indeed been born into this world, unaltered by his presence.
He waited a moment, his breath held, as he carefully, delicately, analyzed the faint, flickering magical aura emanating from the sleeping infant. And then, a slow, relieved, incredibly happy smile spread across his face. A perfect match. Undeniably, unmistakably, her.
Harry smiled down with pure, unadulterated happiness at the tiny, sleeping girl.
'I shall see you again soon, Ciri,' Harry thought, a warmth spreading through his chest that had been absent for far too long.
And then, as silently and as invisibly as he had arrived, he disappeared from the royal bedchamber with a soft, barely perceptible pop, leaving no trace that he had ever been there, with no one in the castle the wiser.
