A.N: My interpretation of the Jurassic Park prompt was by using the idea of an unconventional exhibit.
Black Circus
Marius knew something wasn't right the moment he opened his eyes. When he cracked open his eyelids, he was still in darkness. Where he lived in the No-Home Home, as the other homeless Muggles fondly called it, it was never dark. Even at night time, light from the street lanterns outside glowed through the windows.
No, he definitely wasn't at the No-Home Home anymore. As he came more into awareness, he realised he could hear the dusty clip-clop of horseshoes on dirt, and a low rumble of male voices nearby. Worse still, when he tried to move his arms to rub at his seemingly blind eyes, he couldn't move his limbs.
"Hello?" he called out into the darkness. A hand grabbed roughly at his face, and Marius realised then that he was wearing a mask. The hood was ripped away, and he cringed at the sudden invasion of sunlight.
A burly man was standing opposite him—behind a row of bars. Marius looked around wildly, seeing bars at either side of him, behind him. He was trapped inside a small animal cage, with the lump of another sleeping man lying alongside him. "What is the meaning of this?" Marius gasped.
The man's asymmetrical face split into a menacing smirk. "Behave yourself, young Master Black," he cooed, in a strange falsetto sweet voice. "You'll be at your new living quarters soon. Though I'm sure they won't be what you're used to at your manor."
He walked away, around to the other side of the cage. After a few more observations, Marius realised the cage he was confined within was on the back of a cart, which was being drawn by the horses he could hear before. The burly man climbed on top of the cart and gave the horses a whip, starting them back off into a trot.
"They know who you are already," murmured the man beside Marius. "That can't be good."
"What's going on here?" Marius was confused and desperate. How was he kidnapped from his sleeping bag in the middle of a house of Muggles? How did that man know that he was a Black? Marius had been living under the moniker Baker ever since he was disowned from his real family as a teenager.
The man struggled into a sitting position. He was fairly old, with a few wisps of dirty white hair and a beard of the same shade. His face was ruddy and his flannel clothes were torn. When he got a proper look at Marius, recognition flooded his features. "By God, is it you? Marius?"
"How do you know who I am?"
"Of course, you wouldn't know me. I only know you from those funny pictures your lot have—my old lady showed me many over the years. I'm your uncle, I suppose. Bob Hitchens, I married your Aunt Iola. It's the reason they chucked her out of the family."
Marius's eyes widened. He'd never met Aunt Iola or her husband, but he knew the story all too well. Iola had been betrothed to marry a suitable husband, but instead she fled the nest and eloped with a Muggle instead. "I'm sorry we're meeting under these circumstances," he replied politely. He understood all too well what it was like to be abjured from the family because of his differences. "Wh-where is she? My Aunt? Is she looking for you?"
Bob's beard and moustache seemed to droop with his features. "They caught Iola weeks ago. I have no idea if she's dead or alive. She begged me to stay in hiding—they came for me first, you see—but I had to try and find her. That's how they caught me."
"I'm sorry," Marius murmured. "But I don't understand. Who are they?"
Bob furrowed his brow. "Your lot, of course. They've had this little set-up going for years now. It's a macabre game they play to make dirty money on innocent souls."
"My lot?" Marius shook his head. "I think I understand—but you have it all wrong. I'm not magical, I never had magic like the rest of my family. That's why they disowned me."
Bob's expression only seemed to droop further. "I'm sorry, my boy. I know all about your nature. I mean...it's your family. It's your family who is doing this."
oOo
Marius and Bob remained quiet as the cart rolled through a clearing in the forest that they were travelling through. After what seemed like an age, they advanced upon a large black iron gate, with spiky lettering arching over the top: 'Freakish Curiosities of the Wizarding World'.
"Is this a Freak Show?" Marius gasped. He'd heard of the macabre shows run by Muggles in London, where poor destitutes with disfigurements were paraded around in front of an audience. Suddenly Marius's presence there seemed to make sense. He was a Squib. He was a freakish curiosity of the Wizarding World.
His heart sank to the pit of his stomach as the cart passed through the gate.
oOo
A pair of enormous, rough hands yanked Marius out of the cart a short while later. The ropes were kicked away from his legs, but not the ones on his wrists. He and Bob were pushed, one after the other, through the the grounds.
It was a park, that's what the the man said when they came through the gate. Marius had been to parks in the Muggle world. They were green and friendly places, where women walked arm in arm or pushing hooded prams, and men walked with dogs on leads. Children ran through the grass and shrubbery, playing games and hiding behind the trees.
There weren't any children in this park, at least none that Marius could see. There had been trees here, but they were chopped down to make the clearing. All that remained were the sad stumps, their wounds still rough and fresh from the axe—or the severing spell—used to chop them down. Shabby tents with faded colours and patched tops were scattered throughout, and towards the other side of the park, a wooden stage was set up, facing dozens of benches. It looked more like a circus than a park.
But Marius had seen circuses, too. They were bright and musical and fun. This place was…
"Dismal," Bob seemed to finish his thoughts aloud.
"Shut your mouth, Muggle," snarled the burly man behind them. He shoved them both towards the open mouth of the nearest, shabbiest tent, forcing them through the entrance.
The tent had been modified magically, so that it was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Marius expected Bob to be surprised, but he was more shocked by what was inside the tent. Dozens of rows of cages were lined up, piled on top of each other. There were people in the cages—men, women, old, young. Some of the cages were empty, which only seemed more ominous to Marius. What had befallen the inhabitants of those empty spots?
Marius and Bob were hustled into adjoining cages, the doors were locked tight, and then the man who had imprisoned them left the tent, leaving them alone in the dim gloom.
"Iola?" Bob started to call out, trying to speak over the wails and moans of the other inhabitants. "Iola, sweetheart, are you in here?"
There was no answer, and eventually Bob's cries faded as Marius lapsed into sleep.
oOo
The same man from the day before woke Marius from his slumber. He was tapping on the bars, apparently waiting for Marius to come around. "Glad you could join us," he said. "Now get up. The Lady wants to see you." He unlocked the cage and pulled Marius out.
They trudged back through the grounds the same way as they had come in the day before, only this time he was led towards the biggest, grandest tent in the park.
Marius would hazard a guess that it was also the most luxurious one. The ground inside was covered in furs, there was an ornate standing candelabra in one corner, and a fancy polished dressing table by the candlelight. A woman dressed in red and black leathers sat at the table, smiling sweetly at Marius through the mirror.
"Aunt Elladora?" Marius squinted into the mirror, and she spun around on her chair to face him. She should have been older, like Bob, but she still looked like she had when Marius was a small child—but on closer inspection, her magic didn't hide everything. Her skin was thin and yellow, like aging parchment, stretched out over her taut cheekbones and knotted joints, and her dark grey hair was straw-like and brittle.
"Who untied you?" she asked, then laughed shrilly. "I jest, I jest, calm yourself." She turned back to the dressing table and dipped a brush into a pot, beginning to paint a thick red substance onto her face. "House-elf blood," she explained, replying to Marius's unspoken question. "Their blood has magical healing and rejuvenating properties that no spell or potion can replicate. These are the family secrets that I don't tell just everyone, you know. Every time I use their blood on my skin, I look younger and fresher," she paused to rest the brush on top of the blood pot after her face was completely crimson. "Who knew that those hideous creatures would be good for something after all?"
"Aunt Elladora," Marius repeated, taking a careful step towards her. "What's happening here?"
"You didn't know?" Elladora simpered. "Why, darling, I've brought you here to be part of my show, of course. You are, after all, one of the world's biggest freaks, and the greatest disappointment to our family. At least if you are here, you can be making some money for us," her eyes glittered with greed. "Just like the house-elves, you're suddenly useful after all."
"This isn't right," Marius whispered. "This isn't fair."
"I never said I was a good person, Marius," Elladora replied breezily. "I didn't get to where I am in the business by being fair."
"No, you didn't," replied Marius. "You got there by tricking innocent people and making them victims to this...this…"
"That's enough," Elladora snapped her fingers suddenly, and a set of shackles appear on Marius's wrists. "You are going to be part of my world famous show, where aristocratic witches and wizards from all over the world will come to marvel over your oddities. You should be grateful." She rubbed the dried blood away from her face with a towel, and stood up from the table, grabbing Marius's shackles. "Not another word from you. It's showtime."
oOo
Marius was taken to the wooden stage, but not to the front of it. Instead, he was led behind the red curtain, away from the prying eyes of the audience members who were already seated on the benches, eagerly searching for any glimpse of a wizarding freak.
Elladora lined him up alongside four others. An elderly woman stood beside him—she was so small and frail and corpse-like, with thin white wisps of hair framing her hollow face. It was his Aunt Iola.
A young girl stood beside Iola, not much older than four or five, who could only be a Muggle. A tall, pale man in a tattered suit was beside her. He carried a black umbrella over his head, even though it wasn't raining, and his lilac-tinted skin and sharp snarl suggested that he was a vampire. Finally, a narrow, cylindrical tank was half-filled with water, containing a wheezing mermaid, who was desperately thrashing her incandescent scales in the little water she had.
They stood together, a strange and unusual union, as they listened to Elladora talking to the crowd. The curtain eventually dropped, revealing them to the audience, who gasped and gaped up at them. "Behold, the freaks of the Wizarding World!"
Marius felt exposed and naked as he stared out at the crowd, trying to focus on some of the faces. One lunged out at him suddenly; a dash of violet against a monochrome background. His mother, her face a picture of horror, stared back up at him.
He drowned out Elladora's voice as he made eye contact with his mother, only half-listening listening to her use the Cruciatus Curse on the vampire and goad the Muggle child. Marius hadn't seen his mother since she abandoned him at the No-Home Home so many years before, and suddenly he was that child again, desperate for the comfort of his mother.
oOo
Violetta came to him later that night, when he was worn out from the taunting on stage and weak from starvation. When her face loomed into view, Marius felt tears prickling behind his eyes.
"I'm sorry I'm not the son you wanted," he murmured, his voice cracking.
"Elladora is a liar," Violetta whispered back. "She promised me she would never involve family. She promised."
"No one deserves this," he replied. "Not family, not anyone."
"I'm going to help you," she pulled a key from her pocket and slid it into the lock. "You have to hurry, though. Her guards will be along soon to check the cages." Marius quickly climbed out of the cage, stretching out his limbs.
"What about the others?"
"There wasn't time to get all the keys," Violetta explained, though she didn't make eye contact with Marius. It was a half truth, probably.
"Marius?" Bob groaned from the next cage along. Marius dropped to his knees in front of Bob's cage.
"Don't worry," Marius placed his hand on the bars. "I saw Iola today. She looked...alive."
"You're getting out?" Bob said questioningly. "Can you get her out? Can you save her?"
Marius looked at his mother, and she shook her head sadly.
"I can't get her out now," he took a breath. "But I'm going to. I'm going to come back with more people, people who can help overthrow this place. I'm going to get you all out."
"Marius…" Violetta started, but Marius ignored her.
"Just be patient. I won't give up."
Written For:
- Quidditch League Round 3: 90s Nostalgia - Interpret the 90s Prompt (Jurassic Park).
- Assignment #12/Potions Task #2: Write about someone using deceit to get ahead/become successful.
- Film Festival: (word) Secrets, (dialogue) "Who untied you?"
- Writing Club/Character Appreciation: (word) Greed, (spell) Cruciatus Curse
- Writing Club/Book Club: Julian - (colour) Crimson, (word) Liar, (dialogue) "I never said I was a good person, [name]."
- Seasonal Challenges/Birthstones: Onyx - (dialogue) "I'm sorry that I'm not the son/daughter you wanted."
- Seasonal Challenges/Flowers: Foxglove - (word) Heart
- Seasonal Challenges/Elemental: (word) Incandescent
- Seasonal Challenges/Shay's Challenge: Hamilton - write about someone who won't give up.
- 365 Prompts: (word) Macabre
Word Count: 2,332