Okay . . . so I kind of know where this is going should I make a story out of this but if anyone has any constructive criticism that would really mean a lot. Really, I couldn't give two shits about ratings or whatever they're called on this site. The only reason I started posting and gave up coughLurkingcough was so i could get some real input to help me make my writing better, so even a few words would mean a whole lot to my little old self ; )

Love always and enjoy

Kelly

Di sprezzo degno, se stesso rendo

She always wondered why nothing around her ever really seemed to change; why the world she had immersed herself in always seemed to be so bland and tasteless. Little did she know that her life up until now was just the calm before an unending storm. Every Thursday when she went to confession the aged priest would tell her to pray, pray for the visions and whispers in her ears to stop; pray for god to heal her over time and make the looming shadows dissipate into the darkness from whence they had come from.

They never did though, and so she suffered silently though there was no real need to. She had long ago been marked a cursed child in the eyes of her peers and neighbors. To ease the shame her father felt for bringing such an embarrassment into the world they withdrew her from school and kept her locked in her room for days on end, letting her out for meals and then quickly shutting her back into the place she would later come to think of as purgatory, a could have been paradise that had crumbled into a bubbling cesspool of decay and loneliness.

What a pity it was to any outsider who dared to take a peek into what really went on in the Kent household. Everyone knew though no one dared take any measures to protect the girl; that was something that was just not done. A family's business was their business alone and should not be meddled with by the blind hands of strangers. She was a pretty girl with a pretty name; her mother had insisted on naming her only daughter Violetta after she saw the famed 'La Traviata' while she was pregnant, a curse to put on any child's head considering what happened to the character and her love Alfredo.

Violetta's mother hailed directly from Rome and carried her roughly elegant beauty with all the grace her long, fluid limbs allowed her. She didn't belong with Violetta's father who's stiff and uncaring demeanor left much to be desired. They had met while he was vacationing with his family many years before hand and, so the story goes when he saw her in the window of her family's bakery with her dark curly locks forming a curtain around her beautiful olive face he knew that he had to have her.

He stayed behind in Rome and coaxed her family to allow him to marry her; though really he paid the family (who had fallen into extreme poverty) to look the other way as he sealed her fate as a housewife good for nothing but looking pretty and keeping a tight, well kempt household. Speranza used her new husband's infatuation with her to receive her wish of staying in Rome where her family was. He had his inhibitions but quickly conceded when she agreed to his one condition that she bear him a child within the year.

After Violetta was born he moved the new family to England, much to Speranza's despair. Violetta was never old enough to see her mother glow with happiness and joy. Any fire the woman had burning within her had burnt out when Violetta began to have visions and strange things began to happen whenever she was left to her own devices at a very young age. Speranza recognized her child's gifts and did her best to hide them from her husband, knowing he would react very badly if he was ever to find out.

If only she had known that it would be so extreme, maybe then she could have run away from the terrible man. She was able to veil Violetta's slight acts of magic until she was four when one night at dinner Speranza and Theodore burst into the end all be all of spousal arguments and he rose to strike her. Violetta, seeing the scared look on her mothers face and fearing for what was to come closed her eyes and began to scream; all she heard was the shattering of glass and her father's and mother's yells of surprise.

When she opened her eyes every dish, glass, and window in the room had for lack of a better term exploded leaving a scene matched only by battlefields in disaster. The wine glass her father had been holding at the time had shattered in his hand and caused a massive amount of bleeding. It wasn't until her mother had gotten the wound under control that it dawned on him that his daughter had caused the damage.

Lost in a cloud of anger and fear he grabbed a tuft of little Violetta's shoulder length brown hair and dragged her to the cellar where she remained crumpled in the dark for nearly three days. When her mother limped down the creaky wooden stairs to get her she knew by the sad look in her eyes that nothing would ever be the same. Theodore refused to look at either one them ever again.

He didn't even take the time to touch his wife; instead opting to haunt the local pubs and often times taking a coach into London to spend his evenings at the abundant whorehouses, when he was drunk and angry enough he would bring the women home and force his wife to watch him ravish them, telling Speranza that even a dirty street whore was more appealing than his disgusting wife.

Though she had never really loved Theodore the constant emotional abuse took a heavy toll on her state of mind; she lasted another three years before she took Violetta aside and explained to her that there was so much more to the world than being mistreated as she was.

She told her daughter to never lose hope as she had and to cling to her gifts for all they were worth and never forget them no matter how she was persecuted for being different, for those same gifts would one day free her from all of this if she gave them time. Slowly she unclasped the necklace she had worn everyday since she was her daughter's age and hid it under a loose floorboard near the girl's bed. The necklace was comprised of two overlapped silver chains painted white and clasped in the front; attached to the clasp was an ornate design of the moon, intricately carved from ivory and perfectly round; the necklace was stunning even in its old age.

Looking apprehensively over her shoulder Speranza reached under the skirts of her dress and pulled what seemed to be a stick from a hidden pocket she must have sewn in herself. She leaned in close to Violetta and quietly explained to her that this was no ordinary stick, and that when the time came she too would be able to make good use of it.

Wrapping both of the precious items in a silk handkerchief she replaced them under the floorboard along with a thick envelope. She told Violetta not to so much as look at that floorboard until she was old enough, and that she would know the time when it came. She embraced her beloved child with tears streaming down her face and Violetta wondered silently why her mother cried so hard, it was almost as though she was saying goodbye but that couldn't be right at all! It was well known around the household that the two Kent females might as well have been prisoners; they weren't even allowed to venture to the gardens on the most beautiful of days on Mr. Kent's express orders.

Speranza released her daughter with a glazed over look in her eyes and walked mechanically from the room, stopping only to whisper an apology that Violetta probably hadn't even heard. After three days of searching Speranza was found hung in the attic, there was no funeral save for a quiet burial presided over by the dirty man that filled the hole her simple cedar box was placed in. Theodore was quick to move the two of them into a town house just outside of London so that he could be closer to his all consuming obsession, his work.

He was remarried to a terrible wretch in less than a year and all traces of Speranza's existence were either thrown into the trash or locked away from his devastated daughter until the letter came that saved Violetta's life. As she listened carefully for any movement outside her bedroom door she hoped, no prayed that her father or worse stepmother would be kind to her just this once and leave her to herself when she really needed it. With as little noise as possible she inched closer to the trunk that for years had been untouched in her closet.

She popped the lock open and easily lifted the lid so that she could find what she was searching for. With the care of a mother nursing her child she cradled the small bundle in her hand and drew it near to her face; for a moment she could have sworn it smelled of her mother's once exotic perfume but it faded back to the oily smell that clung to everything near to London; how she missed the country which smelled of flowers and fresh green grass. Unwrapping the handkerchief she took note of the necklace and placed it daintily at her side, she had bigger fish to fry.

The wand was long and thin, much like her mother from what she could remember of her and had a distinct break in the wood where it went from a honey brown to a deep almost ebony color. This fascinated Violetta and she almost lost herself in the beauty of the well used wand until she remembered the letter her mother had hidden with her final gifts as well. Reaching into the trunk once more she felt the heavy paper graze her fingertips and leave a stinging cut on two of her fingers; she took this as a sign that it was not time to know it's contents and entertained herself by gazing longingly at what she had officially come into possession of; her mother's legacy.

There was a stiff knock at the door followed by the jiggling of a door knob and she took that as to hide her secret belongings and resume whatever it was she had been doing. Just as she sat down at her desk her father burst into her room with a grim expression on his face. Carefully he stood next to her and said in a stern voice "We have many things to discuss, child."

Conceding to his request she stood from her seat and followed him into the parlor where Josephine her stepmother was already waiting for them with a disgusted look on her face; she had never taken a liking to Violetta and the feeling although mutual become much more offensive when she found out about her new stepchild's strange abilities. Theodore sat next to his wife on a love seat and squeezed her small hand reassuringly, this could all wind up being a blessing after all as he had explained to her earlier in the day; the girl would be gone and they would be free to live their lives as peacefully as he had intended to when this whole mess had started years ago.

What was a few hundred pounds in comparison to that? Slowly he addressed his abomination of a daughter. "We have agreed after speaking with this dumblesomething or other fellow that we are going to allow you to attend this school for freaks." Violetta felt as though she was going to burst with joy and her father must have noticed that because he followed his statement with "Ah ah ah child listen carefully. I have devised a few conditions for you; first you must never speak of that school or anything else that has to do with it especially what you are capable of doing. As far as anyone is concerned you are attending a private institution for people with your kind of faults." He let the word roll off of his tongue with much distaste. "And you are being cured of all the demons that plague you, understand?"

Violetta nodded her head madly. "Yes, Father." "Secondly, and I have spoken to the headmaster about this you will stay at the school for all holidays except for Christmas eve and half of Christmas day, no more and no less. He will arrange transport on said occasions and you will be home for summer holidays." He said the last part rather begrudgingly.

"Father how will I get my school supplies? Surely they don't sell any of those things around here or anywhere else for that matter what shall I do?" "They have arranged for someone to meet us in London in a few weeks time and they will bring you where you will be able to get your things. When you are finished we will meet back up and take the coach home. The day that you leave will work out much the same way. Don't look quite so happy yet, young lady there's one more stipulation." "Yes, father."

Violetta eyed the ground submissively; he must have been saving this final bit for last because it must be something devastating; she knew this was all too good to be true. "I have agreed to fund your schooling as well as provide for you only the best accoutrements for said endeavor; not only that but I will periodically be sending you a full purse every quarter; what you do with it matters not to me just don't come begging for more if and when you squander it. Now, in exchange for my generosity I expect this out of you; not only must you keep your grades up but when you graduate from this school you must never come back to this place. If need be I will provide an apartment wherever you like . . ."

"Theodore don't you think that's a bit much!" The piercing screech of Josephine's voice echoed through the room as she looked to Violetta's father with disgust and surprise etched across her lovely face. "Now, now Josephine this is probably the only chance we'll get to be rid of her, she'll obviously be impossible to marry off because of the scandal that follows her everywhere she goes, and she is my daughter after all I cant very well leave her out to rot in the streets now can I?"

a look of realization and understanding was the only response he received before she left the room in a huff; mumbling things to herself the whole way out. Theodore continued his original thought "Now as I was saying I will provide for you a place to stay and a large sum for you to live off of until you can find yourself a proper job or husband to take care of you from there; I think that I am being very generous Violet, don't you agree?" "Oh yes father, very much so. After the entire burden that has been laid upon you at my unknowing hands this is very generous indeed; thank you father."

Violetta didn't mean the words though they flew out of her mouth so easily at the time; anything to go to Hogwarts and be surrounded by people just like her was worth it though. For some reason even through his cruel words and actions Violetta could not help but being very grateful to this man for even thinking of letting her go. He well could have thrown the letter away or burned it and resigned her to the life of misery to which she had become so accustomed.

For that simple reason alone after he dismissed her she paused in the doorway, weighed out her options and thinking it not prudent but necessary ran back to her father and kissed him gently on the cheek. As she ran from the room she heard him bellow "Dear god child do learn to control yourself or I shall be forced to renig on our agreement for fear you are not fit to be alone in public! Now go to bed!"

Violetta laughed to herself as she reached her room and changed into her nightclothes. Perhaps life wasn't quite as boring and loathsome as she had for so long been led to believe afterall.