AN: Might not update consistently. Please leave reviews. I don't own HP. Not rated M because… Well it doesn't have to be. I try to stick with T. Kind of dark though. Not for the light-hearted.
This is my story. Whether you choose to read it or not is your choice alone. I cannot promise that you will find my journey enjoyable. I vividly remember that I myself did not. However, be you muggle or wizard, there are some mistakes that we all must learn from. Therefore, Reader, I implore you to continue.
I was never supposed to be born, according to my mother.
At the age of thirty-one, I was told, my mother had been raped. Her assaulter was man, a wizard, that she had only just met. There weren't many abortion methods in that time, not in the muggle world there weren't. Even in the wizarding world, the magic for such uses was still being developed. My mother was a squib, and impoverished at that, thus, she had access to neither.
I was born. A bastard child, with little money, and an even smaller amount of friends. My mother kept me well hidden from society for most of the years that I spent with her. I lived in the wine cellar of the small tavern that we ran. I rarely went outside, in my early years. My skin quickly grew pale, and I was gruesomely thin. I remember the wine cellar always had a specific smell to it. It bore a semblance of rat feces, fermented grapes, and mold. I am now shameful to admit that I grew accustomed to the smell; even slightly fond of it.
Our business was not very popular in town. Moreover, this was more due to the fact that we ourselves were not very popular in town. People cursed at our passing, and called my mother a witch. Young boys would throw stones at us from a distance, before running away. At the time, I did not understand why this was. I could not understand why I was there in the first place, exiled into the dark, rather than playing with all the other children of the town. I could not understand why gazes were averted whenever I caught people staring. Mother and I did not go out often, but when we did, I knew that the town lacked its usual verisimilitude. There were hushed whispers as we passed, and other mothers would pull their children back, as if they thought we would harm them. People will come to fear what they have little understanding of. I learned this very quickly. Perhaps that is why I eventually came to fear both myself, and my own ability, later in life.
There were some things I feared about myself, even then. The first time another child saw me, I was five years old, and was reading a book in a tree. When he saw me, lofted in one of the highest branches, he called out. Because I did not know how to respond, I chose not to react. This apparently aggravated the boy, however, and he started yelling. A group of boys around his age quickly allied him, running barefooted and muddy across the unkempt lawn at the back of the tavern. I felt like I should warn them about the broken glass littering the area, but when I tried, I could not find the words. They wanted me to come down, to play with them. Yet, despite their best efforts at coaxing me from my elevated haven, I would not come down. I did not want to play something if I did not know what it was. I was afraid of the unknown, just as every other being. They started chanting for me. Then they started calling me names, while chanting immoderately.
"Come down, Come down, Come down!" I quickly grew aggravated. One of the youngest boys, a toddler, started to throw pebbles at me. None of them reached me, my being so elevated in the branches, and his young range being so small… It stung, all the same. I felt the small resentful tears come to my eyes, as I clung to the trunk. They were still chanting. I only wanted some quiet. I remember liking quiet. That was the one enjoyable part of staying in the cellar. It was always silent, and all there was to hear was my own breathing, reminding me that I was alive. In those days, I feared death, though I had yet to realize it.
I grew tired of waiting for them to leave. I think that they were also getting tired of chanting, for some of them had stopped, instead, contemplating matters, and how to displace me. I did not wish them to reimburse though. I could still hear their raucous laughter, which seemed to me at the time, deafening.
I was concentrating quite strenuously on finding silence and piece of mind, when, to my astonishment, silence found me. I raised my head when I sensed the group of boys was no longer talking. They weren't, for that matter, making any sort of noise. They were silent. They simply wouldn't; couldn't, make noise. I was still in the tree, and didn't understand what had happened. All the same, I could tell that each and every one of them apprehended without hesitation that I was at fault. I remember their eyes flickering up to where I sat in the tree. Their small faces changed so quickly, from mirthful glee, to be drawn with eminent fear. Then, without another glance, they fled, silently.
This caused much consternation and speculation in the children of the town, even after the effect of silence had worn off. Most of all, however, it germinated fear amongst the neighbors, which spread quickly, each mind being the anlage to exaggeration.
I boxed myself in, after that, and took the insurance to see that no one would excavate me from my home, as I called it. My mother enclosed me as well. She thought it was for the best. She wanted to keep me safe.
Later, I was to learn that I would never be safe.