Author's Note: Written for…
Daily Weird Prompt Challenge. Prompt: Filch isn't really a squib, he just enjoys pretending to be one.
Blockbusters Game Challenge. Prompt: Write a story about light.
Make Believe
Argus never really had any aspirations. He never longed to roam the halls of Hogwarts or fly a broom. He'd been around magic for so long that none of it excited him like it did his older brother. It only exasperated his mother when he asked if he could stay home instead of going to school, and it was never a good idea to get her worked up, so he stopped fighting and went without complaint.
Hogwarts was better than he imagined, but it still wasn't as exciting as everyone had made it out to be. A few professors seemed to sense it. Argus was sent to Dumbledore's office almost every Saturday afternoon. They'd sit and have tea and Dumbledore would ask him all sorts of questions about how he was adapting to school life. Even McGonagall would keep him behind after classes to check on him.
He made a few friends, which increased his enjoyment a great deal. His best friend, he quickly learned, came from a muggle family. Having grown up in a very tight-knit wizarding community, all Argus had heard about muggles came from unreliable rumors and what he read in storybooks.
They'd stay up late in the common room and Branden would tell him all about airplanes and telephones and the silly things muggles believed about magic. Argus found himself paying attention to the stories more than he did in class. His homework was littered with drawings of him driving a car, and he frequently hid under the bedcovers with a book or two of Branden's that he'd snuck out of his friend's trunk. More than once that year he'd fall asleep while reading and wake to find the book gone and a note in its place: "Stop filching my stuff. Ask next time. – B."
Regardless, the practice continued until Branden bought Argus a small stack of books for Christmas. He would go through them quickly and spend all his free time re-reading, then give them back to Branden for safekeeping. Merlin only knew what his parents would do if he came home with a trunk full of muggle books. It was bad enough his homework reflected how little time he spent worrying about the magical world.
Second year brought a new stack of books and a dangerously low grade in Transfiguration. Argus met with McGonagall and Dumbledore to discuss his performance which ended with having to store his muggle things in Dumbledore's office for as long as he liked, but unable to touch them unless his grades improved.
After seventh year it was time to decide where he wanted to go, which had been an easy choice up until that point. His bags had been packed for weeks – just the essentials: clothes and anything muggle-related he'd collected over the years – and Branden was going to help him get settled until he could manage the muggle world on his own.
Then his mum got sick. His brother was never reliable, and their father had died when they were children. Argus was all she had left, and yet it was still a struggle to decide to stay by her side.
The hospital seemed like the best place for her. If anything, it allowed Argus the chance to get a job. For all his mother's bragging, the family's fortune was running out fast, helped along by his brother's spending habits.
Dumbledore offered him a job, which Argus accepted quickly even if he was only an assistant caretaker. He'd never get a better offer with his poor grades.
It was even harder to be at school as the hired help. If he disliked magic as a student, he detested it now that it blew up bathrooms and covered his quarters in slime. He was only a year older than some of the students and that didn't help; neither did his once-important family name.
"What're you doing that for?" an innocent first-year asked as he watched Argus mop a corridor. "Mum says wizards should leave all the dirty work to house-elves."
Argus paused and stared at the boy for a moment before giving him a smirk. "I'm a squib."
It was only meant to be a joke – anyone second-year and over remembered him as a student – but it grew and time passed and soon those second-years were long gone and the rumor remained. The caretaker's a squib.
His mum died. He hid his wand away. He considered leaving, but he owed Dumbledore for the help, and Branden was busy with his new family anyway.
It was his persistent nature that earned him his new nickname. His room was littered with chocolate wrappers and magazines and unused prank items he'd acquired while cleaning up dorms.
So he became Filch the squib, and he decided he liked that better than 'that clueless Crabbe boy' anyway, so he had his name legally changed and never looked back.
"You can still get out, you know," Branden told him on one of the rare occasions they managed to get together. "You can still become a muggle."
Argus shrugged, petting the stray cat McGonagall had found and given to him. "I get to be a squib; that's like the next-best thing." He didn't mention that he was pushing thirty and it was probably too late to start over.
Being a squib could be enough for him – the light in an otherwise dark existence.