A Sodden Encounter of a Muggle and Those People

a/n: It's twelve in the morning so I decided to write a short story. Because once I start writing about HP I can't stop, this story is centered on a muggle, just to make things more original. This isn't my normal writing style, but I want to explore this way of writing.

Oh, and I'm very sorry, this isn't a story that will make your day any happier.

Once again I own none of these characters except the squib and muggles. The magic is J.K. Rowlings's (true, true…).

A Muggle's Encounter

5 April, a random spring day

I woke up at 6 again.

6:00, my digital alarm clock reads. One of the aunts' birthday presents to me and one of the most useful. I am covered in layers upon layers of blankets and quilts again, the pillow making wrinkles on my tired face. My joints creak as I climb out of my warm and smelly haven and take my daily morning shower.

I catch a glimpse of myself in that half-length mirror I had favoured because full-length mirrors scared me. A completely useless and senseless machine, my body is driven to eat, sleep and work, unfeelingly. It has not been hugged or caressed by anyone and it is not loved by me. Nevertheless I dismiss these apathetic thoughts and go back to my routine. The frayed and limp shirt and trousers. I would grab breakfast along my way to work.

Swinging open the door, a blast of cold air greets me. Typical of this city. Tears seep from my eyes, either of the wind or of the dreary, monotonous routine of what is called Terry's life.

I walk into the subway, jostling with the hundreds of others, expressionless and wrapped in formality and excuses. It was not always like this. I used to love my job. My god, junior assistant to the most well-known CEO of the country. But I cannot blame my little friend Derek for letting me into his painful secret.

It was that autumn that he approached me from his tiny office cubicle. I was sorting out the files when he began. I could only decipher half his words but it seemed like a childhood dream come true. Hidden, secret, nobody knows, and –the most satisfying – magic. To his disbelief, I believed him. Then it was when he realised his mistake. He then went on – following his squib stupidity – to rant about the parallel world right beside us, privileged of the wonders of magic that we could never as so much think about.

Of course, my first instinct was to tell someone else about it. Tell anyone. However, I knew that not everyone was as open-minded to fantasy as we are.

Derek told me about being a squib and the agony of being in contact with the wizarding world and not being able to participate in any of it. To live in both worlds, yet having the disadvantages of both and the good qualities of neither. I pitied him, believed him, loved him, and he told me more.

He told me from what he knew I would be put in Slytherin house if I were born with magic blood. His whole family comes from Slytherin. I have always loved snakes and so I take it as a compliment. He told me about loathing his brothers and sisters for growing up in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, of roaming around the green grounds, of the moving portraits and whimsical humour of magic, which was present everywhere, even in the air.

He cursed his parents for doing whatever it was that made him a squib, and he wished he were never born.

I for one did my research. During visits to his home I read the Daily Prophet and tabloids, learning more about this dark and beautiful realm that somehow I was born not to share.

I took to wanting more and more of the wizarding world albeit knowing full well that I could not participate in it. I was desperate, desperate to have a childhood filled with Honeydukes dreams, with banquets for meals and the power of a wand of my own. To escape from this dreadful world of depending on science and technology, sweat and blood to make achievements.

I sit down on a chrome seat of the underground. The oily sheen of the handrails dazzle my exhausted eyes and as rest on three several strangely dressed figures huddled nearby.

One of them has a lopsided hat over an eye. Three youngsters stand amongst them: a bushy haired one, a lanky redhead and a thin black-haired one. I instantly recognised the latter. My heart swells with pride of being the only muggle in the train knowing who he is. I see the hint of a scar beneath the windswept fringe and I am positive who I am looking at. My world is instantly centered on them and them only. The privileged, who have wands and live in a world with magical creatures and golden hallways. The youngsters who have already achieved and experienced more than my 30-year old mind has.

They are chatting. Not necessarily happily, but the bond between them is clearly strong. I never had a group of close friends before.

I look intently at the three of them and the emotion that wells up in me cannot be described as anything worldly, a cross between jealousy and wonder. Magic, perhaps.

The end.

a/n: So what do you think? The world seen from a muggle's perspective.