Mute
Ms. Bertha Jorkins
The Kitchen Table
634 Doverhours St.
London
Bertha Jorkins received her Hogwarts letter on the 27th of October.
Her parents were overjoyed. They took her into Diagon Alley that very day, hustling her around to buy robes and a wand and potions ingredients. It was busy, and rushed, and hot, and Bertha didn't like it. Shopping trips to London usually consisted of ice cream and browsing through the animals in Eeylops Owl Eporium. They were leisurely. They were unhurried.
Bertha preferred the calm excursions, to the busy ones, and she spent the majority of the trip hiding in Flourish and Blotts perusing the books in the fantasy section while her parents bustled around buying the things on her list.
(She didn't have the heart to tell them she didn't want to go to Hogwarts.)
Bertha Jorkins met Scabior on the 27th of October, three years into her Hogwarts career.
She saw him in the library while she was searching for a book (a fantasy book about Muggles, preferably, because she liked to escape from reality once in awhile). He was in the same section, looking for something to help him with a Muggle Studies essay. "You're in Slytherin, aren't you?" he asked.
She nodded.
"I am, too." He leaned against the bookcase and ruffled his hair. "Name's Scabior. Fourth year. I haven't seen you around much."
She shrugged.
"Do you know how to speak?" he asked sarcastically.
She shook her head.
"Oh." It clearly wasn't what he'd expected. "Sorry, then," he added.
She smiled and shrugged.
"Were you looking for a book?"
She nodded.
"For school? Or just to read?"
She held up two fingers for the second option.
"Oh. Well, if you aren't doing any schoolwork, maybe you'd like to walk around the grounds with me?"
She raised her eyebrows.
"Not like anything romantic," Scabior added quickly. "Just to get out of the library for a bit. Enjoy the fresh air." He winked. "My intentions are purely honorable."
Bertha had no desire to leave the library. It was snowing outside, and it looked cold, and she was perfectly happy within these four walls.
But she went with him anyway, because it was kind of him to offer, and it all seemed like innocent courting anyway.
(It wasn't. But she didn't know that until later.)
A man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest...
Scabior met a man named Travers on the 27th of October a year later, when Bertha had been dating him for six months and Scabior in the library brushing up on his Muggle Studies.
"Reading about Muggles?" Travers said, peering over Scabior's shoulder. "What do you want to do that for, anyway?"
"I like the subject. I want to become a Muggle Studies Professor someday, I think."
Travers snorted. "You aren't like other Slytherins, are you?"
"I s'pose not, no."
"I saw you with Jorkins earlier," Travers said. "What're you doing hanging around with her? She's a freak."
"She's not a freak," Scabior said. "She's just got a defect, that's all. We've all got defects."
"Still, mate," Travers said, leaning on his elbow and looking at Scabior from beneath long eyelashes. "She's damaged. Slytherins don't want damaged things. You should be searching for someone a little more pure."
"I don't want anyone pure," Scabior said. "I love her."
Travers tugged on the library door's handle and started to leave. "See how much you love her in a year," he said over his shoulder. "Trust me. You won't."
(And he didn't.)
Bertha Jorkins found out she was pregnant on the 27th of October.
"I don't think I can see you anymore," Scabior said when he found out.
She squinted at him.
"It's not because of the baby," Scabior lied. "It's just . . . I've fallen out of love with you."
She shook her head. No, you haven't.
"I can't start a family now," he pleaded. "I can't - I'm not even graduated, Bertha!"
She blinked. You think this is my fault?
"Of course I don't blame you. I just don't think we can be together anymore." He swallowed. "And what if the baby is like you?" he asked without thinking the question through.
She touched her throat and narrowed her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Bertha," he said. "I just don't think we're going to work. Not as a real family. It's not feasible." And he turned his back on her and walked away, shattering the promise he'd once made that he was innocent.
(Bertha hugged her stomach and sank to her knees.)
(Her baby was born cold and dead.)
Bertha Jorkins died on the 27th of October.
It was years after Scabior had left her. She'd heard that he abandoned his dreams of teaching Muggle Studies and opted to track down and capture Muggleborns instead. She'd heard that his friend Travers had been killed in a Ministry raid, and she'd also heard (quite by accident) that a certain Death Eater was alive and hiding in his father's house.
When the Dark Lord asked her for information, she couldn't tell him anything.
When he killed her, she couldn't beg for mercy.
(But when she woke up in the afterlife, with her baby cradled in her arms and her soul surrounded by shelf after shelf of Muggle books, she couldn't help but prefer this idyllic world to the one she'd left behind.)
[On This Day Competition: Hard - day: October 27th; genre: family; characters: Bertha Jorkins, Scabior, Travers; song: The Boxer; prompts: book, court, handle, idyllic]
[Acrostic-y Challenge: M, Meeting someone new]
[Duct Tape Challenge: Penguin - write about someone who seems innocent and ends up dangerous]
[Death Eater Competition: Scabior]
[Legendary Gods & Goddesses Challenge: Osiris - write about the afterlife.]
[Disney Character Competition: Mother Gothel - write about someone who crushes the good in someone else; Alt. write about a murder. Prompt: Cold]
[Interesting Words Challenge: Querencia (Spanish) - a place from which one's strength is drawn, where one feels at home; the place where you are your most authentic self]