Where Eileen Prince runs away and joins the Muggles.
… I think I've written the word 'Muggle' far too much tonight.
For the full version of this chapter, please click the link on my profile. I gots to conform with a certain code of practice here. ;)
WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: Violence, parental abuse, swearing.
1.
In her not-so-distant future, she would look back on this moment as a stupid idea. As something she should have known better than to agree to, to surrender to. But there was something about him, about this man who had pushed down the walls that her family had worked so hard to keep up around her... something... it was a power he had that she would never escape from until her dying day.
Eileen could never have imagined what that power, that something, would have eventuated into. Not back then.
She was, obviously, confident enough (back then at least) to trust that she would be adequately prepared to defend herself should something untoward happen. He was only a Muggle after all. This is why she had no qualms in accompanying Tobias back to his shared but presently vacated London council flat a week after their first meeting. They had arranged to meet in the bar once again... Eileen wasn't very hopeful that he would remain true to his word, but surprisingly enough, he was sitting there as she entered the bar, waiting for her.
He was waiting for me... me and only me.
Eileen made a point tonight not to drink anything else but one glass of the Muggle Merlot tonight. That way she would be sure that it wasn't the alcohol making decisions for her. Sure enough, the feelings that she had for Tobias remained as potent as they did the last Friday night. They laughed and talked and cuddled on the couch of the damp, run-down flat into the early hours of the morning, drinking cold tea that they had forgotten to pour in the mad, lustful rush of getting lost in each other. Eileen had never felt so happy.
"Oh, that was disgusting - I loved it -" Eileen laughed after placing the empty, chipped mug upon the table – which was harder than it looked while kissing another person frantically.
"Mmm - you're the first woman - to compliment and insult my tea - at the same time, Eileen. Such - a way with words." Tobias replied, considerably out of breath. Eileen leant her head back and smiled. As Tobias continued kissing the nape of her slender neck, sending cool shivers down her spine, Eileen looked around in wonder at all the various Muggle contraptions that his living room held. They seemed run-down, but that made Eileen love them all the more. There was a dusty looking grey box in the corner with one single dial and two protruding wires on it that caught her eye. She wondered what it could be, and also just how ingenious Muggles really were. Everything here appeared well used and well loved, quite unlike the intact coldness of the 'Maison de Prince'.
For the next few moments Eileen had become so lost in pleasurable thought that the feeling of a warm hand caressing her inner thighs merely added to the blissful sensation. All sensible thought came back to her, however, when the hand urged to move further.
"No," Eileen's eyes snapped open – her hand snapping towards his with equal rapidity. "Not here, not tonight, Tobias."
Much to her delight, Tobias immediately leapt off the couch... "Sorry, I just... I thought, well, you looked like –"
Eileen wrapped her arms around him. He had certainly proved his worth to her. "Tobias Snape..." she whispered, lightly kissing the back of his neck. "I'm afraid I like you too much."
Every word was true. She was very afraid that she liked him too much. Little did she know that twenty years later she would still be thinking the exact same thing.
"I'll see you soon tho' won't I?" he asked as she nestled into his neck. "There's somethin' about you Eileen. I wouldn't be very happy at all if I didn' see you again."
Eileen pressed her lips to Tobias's once again. "Of course you'll see me. I'll meet you here. Tomorrow if you'd like."
"What if I meet you at yours? Be a right sight better than this pigsty of a place..."
"No." Eileen said firmly, backing away almost immediately. When she was met with his look of complete bafflement she added: "It's my... um... parents. They wouldn't approve of my running around with strange boys." (Muggle men... Muggles in general) "Best if I make my way here."
"Alone?"
Eileen gave a faint a smile. "You're sweet. I can take care of myself. Promise. But for now, just before I head off home..." she walked over the to grey box with the wires. "Can you operate this for me?"
Tobias followed her with a very amused expression on his face. "What, the television? Well, I suppose. I could make us some more tea."
A telly vision...?
"Yes, put on this telly vision" Eileen nodded enthusiastically, never considering once how very strange she must've sounded to this Muggle. Tobias flicked the switch and she opened her eyes wide in amazement... it was exactly like a photo... only the people in the photos didn't just move around in their frame, stuck inside four walls – no, scenes kept changing before her eyes... different black and white people kept appearing and talking. There was laughter in the background.
"Amazing..." Eileen whispered in absolute bewilderment. All her life she had known that Muggles were an miraculous people, it was a world that she had obsessed about ever since learning about its existence, but never knew that such people, without an ounce of magic within them, were capable of such inventions, such creativity.
Tobias snorted in amusement as he watched her. "You mean to tell me your posh fam'ly don' have a television?" he said with a laugh, cutting into Eileen's current hypnotic state. "Thought you'd have a much better one than this old box n' all. Only have one 'cause Peter, my flatmate, was given one for his birthday... rich Ma up near Edinburgh you see."
"No... I... well, my parents are somewhat afraid of the future, shall we say." Eileen replied, far too beguiled by the funny Muggles on this telly vision contraption to truly register what she was saying to Tobias.
"Ah, I see. Well you just sit there and I'll make us summore tea before I drop you off."
"Mmm," Eileen mumbled, wide-eyed.
As she sat on the floor, inches from this incredibly piece of Muggle genius, as she heard the faint noises of Tobias busying himself with washing up their mugs, Eileen felt the first tears well up in her eyes. She would've given anything to stay here and never go back to the wizarding world. She wanted to learn everything possible about them, wanted to ask Tobias so many questions... of course, her stringent mother had forbidden her from taking any Muggle studies classes at
Hogwarts, but she would stay up into the early hours of the morning reading all the Muggle books she could, locked away in the Ravenclaw dormitories. She collected bits and pieces of the Muggle world whenever she came across them – Muggle money, Muggle bus tickets, she had even once gone to her friends "ballet" recital once – and had enthused to her friend about how beautiful it was so much that she had bought her a book on the art for her 15th birthday. It was a book that she kept hidden in a locked box at the very back of her wardrobe, amoungst all the other wonderful Muggle objects.
Eileen hastily wiped away her now freely flowing tears before the Muggle man, who would never know, or even believe, just how lucky he was, came back into the room.
After months of perfect bliss with Tobias, Eileen knew that something was certain to come crashing down... and unfortunately, as in the world of academia, she found herself hardly ever wrong.
When she came down the cold, tiled steps of Prince Manor one morning (trying very hard not to show how happy she was save interrogation by her father), she found a much different sort of man shoot a glare at her from the sitting room. In one swift move, Atticus Prince had come to the foot of the staircase to meet his daughter, still clothed in her nightdress.
"Had a good time, last night did we?" he barked. "Didn't think to tell your mother or I where you were off to?"
"I'm nineteen now," Eileen replied as calmly as possible. "I came of age two years ago. I can take care of myself."
"While you are under my roof it makes no difference if you are nineteen, twelve or thirty! You are to inform your mother or myself of your whereabouts!"
"So you can keep tabs on me?" Eileen replied bitterly, her heavy brows furrowing.
But Atticus didn't shout as he so often did... this time a nasty smile appeared on his lips.
"Oh, we've already done that my dear."
A wave of cold dread washed over her. They had been spying on her? Trying to find out what she had been up to? In that case... did it mean...?
"What do you mean?"
"Did you let that disgusting Muggle touch you? Did he ruin you for all the other suitors?" Atticus demanded, as nonchalantly as if he were merely discussing business at the Ministry.
Her silence and defiant heavy breathing was all the affirmation he needed. His hand flew toward the hem of her nightdress and he pulled her toward him, so that their faces were merely an inch from each other. His eyes were alive with hate and fire.
"You are to never speak to that Muggle scum again, do you understand?" he snarled. "Do you understand?!" he shook her a little more roughly this time. "Frolicking around with the dregs of the world like some common Muggle slut! Do you realise the sacrifice and the work your poor mother and I have put in to ensuring you become even adequate marriage material? What with this boyish body -" he grabbed at her non-existant breasts which made her yelp and grab back at his hands in order to try and make him stop. "- and this plain face of yours! We had a Black who was interested in a possible contract with you! Then you go and risk it all by acting like a fucking whore with Muggles! MUGGLES!"
It appeared he couldn't get enough of shouting out their names with such rage that spit was hitting splattering all over her cheeks and into her eyes.
Eileen and her father struggled with each other on the landing, but he was far too burly for her. He shoved her against the frame of one of the doors; Eileen hit her head so hard that the room started to spin. Seeing his daughter lying against the frame, her hand on her throbbing head did not deter Atticus, did not garner even the slightest bit of sympathy. He grabbed her nightie with his furiously shaking hands and with one, swift stroke, ripped off the entire garment, leaving her naked from the waist up. Eileen screamed and pulled the remainder of her nightie up to her breasts, but the damage had already been done.
"Look what you made me do!" Atticus spat furiously, as if her actions and her actions alone were the sole reason she now found herself half naked and crying with a fully grown wizard on top of her (her own father no less). He reached a hand out and grabbed her by the neck to stop her struggling and screaming simultaneously. "I've put up with your gallivanting and insolence for years, but no more. If you want to live under my house, you will abide by my rules. Understand? Understand?"
Eileen coughed and spluttered underneath the strain of his hand. "Mother - " she coughed. "Mother - will kill you - "
"What 'mother' doesn't know won't hurt her..." her father said with an ominous sort of sneer. Eileen stopped struggling and looked up at him with air of utter terror. What was he going to do her? He had never... he had never abused her in that way before. She readied her knee for one swift kick just in case he tried to attempt it. But no attack of that kind came... he drew back his head from hers and spat in her face. Considering what she had been expecting - it came as something of a relief. WIth that, he had stalked away and down the stairs.
Eileen clutched at her sore throat as she managed to drag herself into her bedroom. She shut the door harshly with one kick and lay on the floor, gazing up at the ceiling with a face full of tears, mixed with her own father's spit and scorn.
I'll leave tonight... she thought.
Nightfall came after what felt like a thousand years to Eileen. Neither her father nor her mother, back from her Ministry work, ventured upstairs to check on her all evening. She had hastily drawn herself a warm bath after her father's disgusting display, letting the soothing warm water wash over the unwomanly body that had so incensed him and his prospects for her. If hadn't been for the man who was, hopefully, awaiting her eager return into the safe sanctuary of the Muggle world she feared she might have just held her own head underneath the water and never come up again.
But no... there was a much better life awaiting her outside these walls, and away from all that was magical and unclean.
She spent the majority of the evening grabbing whatever item of clothing she could and stuffing it into a suitcase. It was only when night came when she realised that she didn't want to see a single one of these garments or any of her possessions ever again. They harboured far too many memories. Eileen shoved the full to bursting suitcase back into the back of her colossal wardrobe.
It had to have been around midnight when she felt it was safe to creep out onto the upstairs landing. All was dark and silent. She kept her ears peeled for the scurrying of their house elf but none came. She pulled up the collar of her most Muggle-looking coat and side-stepped down the spiral staircase and made her way to the front door. Before her hand rested upon the silver nob, however, she faltered. Biting her lip and rushing back to her bedroom, she rummaged through her bedside draw for something she not used in over a week now... her wand gazed up at her from amongst the diamond earrings and various bottles of perfumes... she fought with herself over whether she should pocket it, and hold it close to her chest forever out of Tobias's eyes, or whether she should leave every shred of herself behind in this cold unfeeling mansion.
Her old school books sat in the corner looking quite forlorn also. Damn Ravenclaw soul. She could never abandon a book, no matter how useless it would be from this point on.
With a heavy sigh, she swished the wand one last time and performed a Shrinking charm on the books - which now fit easily in one pocket. Then she pocketed the damned wand and and tried again.
Tobias will understand one day... when he is ready...
She could tell by his expression as he opened the door to her, shaking and wet from the rain, that understanding was not going to come anytime soon.
"What...? Ei - Eileen?" he asked, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. "Fuck me, do you know what time it is? Everything alright?"
She had had enough of talking today. The sight of a man who wasn't her father, not a wizard and not related to her in any way was a beautiful sight to behold indeed. Before she even knew what she was going she was kissing him passionately, both of her hands running themselves all over his gloriously Muggle face and his Muggle hair. They stumbled into the flat and ended up against the wall opposite.
"Well..." Toby murmured in between her furious kisses. "I'm - glad it was me n' not Peter who answered t'door -"
"Can I stay with you tonight?" Eileen whispered tenderly, just an inch from his face. "Just one night... I... don't have anywhere else..."
"Of course. Hey..." he looked into her bloodshot eyes and ran one strong hand through her stringy black hair. "What's happened to you? Your family...?"
"I don't have a family," she stated simply and defiantly. She loved him all the more when he asked no further questions. She began kissing his neck fervently as he swept his hands over her body and her breasts, it was as if he was healing the previous inflictions from her abuser. Their bodies smacked into various angles of the wall as the back of him searched for his bedroom. By this stage they were ripping off each others clothes like a woman and man possessed. Eileen jumped into his arms as he pushed open the bedroom door, his hands cupped her as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
They fell asleep almost immediately after he had finished, naked and wrapped safely in each others arms as the dark rain trickled down the windows... Toby clearly unable to withstand the physical exertion any longer, Eileen unable to withstand the mental.
She awoke early the next morning in a state of complete disorientation. It took her a few long moments of gazing around the room and at the slumbering man next to her to remember that she was not back at Prince Manor - and nor would she ever be again. The reality of her hasty decision begun to sink in deeper when it wasn't one 'o clock in the morning, and she wasn't standing in the rain facing a very dishevelled man who looked quite delicious in the lamplight. Now, in the morning light, the bedroom looked positively bare, and her neck was aching from where her father had grasped it.
... The Muggle man currently sleeping next to her still looked positively delicious, however. And she was pleased to feel absolutely no regret for what she had just done.
How little she knew back then.
How little she knew that a cycle was slowly but surely about to be repeated. That she would end up just as trapped and just as isolated and just as sad as she would have done in her old world. How little she knew how much her emotions and her entire being would be manipulated until she was nothing but a shell...
Tobias slowly opened his eyes and smiled.
"Good morning, beautiful." He said softly, kissing her on her needy lips.
No. There was no possible way she could have known... not with a kiss and a smile so brilliantly crafted as that.