For fourteen years Eliza Slope lived in the second-to-last house on Spinner's End, and in all of those fourteen years she had never once spoken to her next door neighbor. It wasn't out of rudeness that she remained unacquainted, but rather that he spent most of the year away from home and he was a rather stiff and unfriendly fellow. The other neighbors were accustomed to his disagreeable air and had taken to ignoring him, but Eliza was intrigued the moment he arrived that first summer she spent her new home.
Eliza had not planned on living this life on Spinner's End. In fact, she had a wonderful life in London, working at St. Mungo's as a healer. Everything had been going in the right direction and just as it seemed that all of her dreams were going to come true, in a single moment, that wonderful life was all destroyed. It was as though everything she held dear in life had been sitting precariously on a shelf just waiting for a moment of carelessness or distraction to fall and shatter, forever lost. There was no alternative but to escape, run away and save herself from the same destructive forces that had turned her world upside down. With nothing more than her grief and guilt, Eliza searched for someplace far away from the wizarding world, someplace that was safe.
The small industrial town seemed to be pretty innocuous and the tiny cottage that she bought was positively charming. It was lonely at first but Eliza reveled in the anonymity she now possessed. No one knew who she was or where she was from. With an embellished resume and the use of the confundus charm, Eliza was able to secure a job as a teacher at the local primary school. Although she taught all subjects very well, science was clearly her strongest subject. Muggle science amused her with its trivial explanations for supernatural phenomena and its rigidity regarding various laws, but the joy she received from enriching the minds of ten year olds was worth every moment. After teaching for fourteen years, Eliza had such satisfaction with her job that any desire to return to St. Mungo's had vanished.
Despite the adoration of her students and the comradery she had with her fellow teachers and neighbors, Eliza knew that they were wary, if not suspicious of her. Muggles could sense the subtle differences between themselves and wizards, but they could not identify exactly what those differences were. Since Eliza's peculiarities were buried even more than the averages witch's after she quit using magic, the nervous muggles chalked up their discomfort to her unusual appearance: Eliza's hair was pure white with one thick black streak along-side her face. It was rather odd that the young woman should have white hair and even though she was 34 years old, premature graying could not explain away the color because it had been that way for 14 years.
Yes, Spinner's End had been a good choice. In her charming cottage Eliza filled her days with lesson planning, grading and gardening. It was almost easy to put her former life behind her and forget about what she had been before. Although she had quit using magic long ago, Eliza still brewed potions because, frankly, muggle medicine was not all it was cracked up to be. She still grew her own magical herbs in the backyard and her wand was kept in the kitchen drawer for potion-making purposes only, but other than that it was a muggle life for her. Well, and except for the fact that she lived next door to a wizard.
Yes, Eliza knew he was a wizard and although she had hoped that she was mistaken, his magical abilities soon became obvious. His visits were always brief with the longest stay occurring during the summer holidays. She knew that he wasn't there for his health considering the polluted air and the amount of time he spent inside, but Eliza wondered why he would toil his summers away in the small house. Spinners End was hardly an enjoyable place to be and her neighbor was definitely not amused with his visits there. Occasionally, through his living room window (his house sat rather close to hers), she saw him leave with a quick spin and his form disintegrated into nothingness. He also appeared in a similar fashion and Eliza knew that only a wizard could travel in such a way. He was definitely a wizard and she wondered if he knew about her own abilities.
As the school year ended, Eliza anxiously waited for her mysterious neighbor to return home. She didn't have any reservations about him living next door, in fact, despite all of his brooding and scowls, she somehow felt safer with him nearby. On nights that she couldn't sleep, she could always count on him being awake too. It was comforting to her to see his profile through the window, his hooked nose and lank hair, as he read into the night. He didn't know she was watching him and the idea that he might somehow discover her nocturnal voyeurism absolutely mortified her, but those moments gave her contentment, knowing that someone else from her world was also experiencing insomnia, although the reasons behind his sleeplessness remained a mystery.
Sometimes, Eliza was aware that he watched her too, when she was in the garden, digging among her herbs. She pretended not to notice him and as she worked, she prayed that he didn't know a magical plant from a common weed. Sometimes, when he stood in the large upstairs window and stared down with his cold black eyes, she sensed a familiarity as though she knew him from somewhere, but she didn't dwell on it. It was better to forget her connections to the former life and not acknowledging her wizard neighbor made the effort much easier.
But she couldn't ignore him forever and exactly one week after he returned to his home, fourteen summers after she moved in, Eliza met the bat-like man, although not with the circumstances she would have preferred.