Prologue
They had been summoned to Godric's Hollow in the middle of the night, but there wasn't anybody out there, on the street at least they thought. But right in the middle of the road were a basket, with a little girl in it.
"So she was just left here?" Minerva asked Albus in a concerned voice. "I'm afraid so Minerva" answered he while looking down his half-moon glasses down into the little basket where the little baby girl lay wrapped in a white blanket. She was almost as pale as the white blanket. The little girl was in a peaceful sleep at least for now.
"Do we know by who? Does she even have a name?" questioned Minerva.
"She does, her name is Dalya, that's at least what there is written on the letter here-" he lifted a letter and skimmed it before continuing "-She's a little over a year old. The mother had an abusive husband and didn't want her daughter growing up and living with that. It isn't written whom the mother is." "...but what are we going to do with her? an orphanage?" "Yes, for now."
xxx
The Grey zone, too young to really remember but still made an impact.
xxx
She closed her eyes, she heard footsteps come her way, but she knew they weren't going to come for her, they never came for her, not anymore. The footsteps grew louder, and the person came closer, and then, stopped. There was a man on the other side of the door, she could see it through a little window there were on her door. But the man wasn't looking her way, he was going into the person in the room on the other side of the hall.
They didn't talk, nobody said anything, but all knew what was happening. It was always the new who got beaten the most, she knew that all too well. The new in the Mental Institute always needed to get beaten extra so that they knew the rules, of course, if they did something wrong they got beaten too, it made their job easier when nobody did anything other than breathing and occasionally eating.
She looked around her dark small rum, but it wasn't a real rum, it was a cell. It was a cell with a small hard bed, a toilet, and a sink. She also had a blanket, but that was only because she had been there in ten years, that was her present for all those years in the mental institution. It was beginning to get a lot of holes in it, she got it a bit over two years ago.
In the beginning, she got beaten at least twice a day. She always wanted to get out of the little room she was stuck in, but that got her in extra trouble. She got beaten for being different, for believing in magic, for everything she did. She doubted everything she believed in now. After 'the incident' she closed her self-inside her mind, she mumbled often to at least hear something, even if it was her own voice. Maybe everybody was right? maybe she was insane?
She heard the door lock again, she sighed, he hadn't screamed this time, they had officially broken him too. He wouldn't get beaten as much after that, then it wasn't fun for the 'doctors' and 'psychologist' anymore.
Just as she thought he was gone, she heard the man come back. Maybe he had forgotten something in the boys' room. The steps grew louder again, and he stopped again outside her rum, but this time his back wasn't turned the other way around. He was looking right at her face, she quickly looked down she didn't want to make eye contact with him, again. He started to unlock her door, still looking at her face.
"Don't pull something like last time-" he whispered in a threatening manner when he had opened the door, "-or you will have visits from the psychologist every day with. You do remember how that was, right?"
She didn't do anything to show she had heard him. He got closer and started pulling his belt off.
Smack! He had whipped her with his belt on her side. "Right?" he got closer to her face and whispered, again she didn't do anything to show that she understood, she didn't even give a reaction when he hit her. He took his hand up and cupped her face, only inches apart, "when somebody asks you something you answer understood?!" he this time whisper yelled threateningly, and then slapped her hard in her face. She nodded this time to show that she understood.
He got a reaction, she forgot that they did this to break them, make them go numb. She showed she wasn't totally numb yet, she showed weakness. She got whipped repeatedly, on her back, her sides, her face. All she did was close her eyes, a single tear was her reaction to it all. She sat still and starred forward, not at anything in particular just waiting for it to be done.
After a while he when he didn't get a reaction again, he took his belt back on, closed the door and locked it for who knows how long.
She heard him say something important to his colleague, "He has finally learned to keep quiet when beaten. I went into the girl on the other side, her who killed Johnson... she's officially broken, she didn't do anything at all, just sat there and looking out into nothing." She couldn't hear the answer, they were too far away again.