Disclaimer: Who do you think this is? The word Muggle belongs to JK Rowling. If you can properly guess who this is, I'll credit you in the next fic I write. I sit, by myself, in the blank room. The one with the white, white, blank walls and bare, hardwood floors, cold as ice to the touch but flaxen in beauty. A sterile, noiseless, peaceful, quiet, solitary place. Perfect. The suitcase I sit upon holds all my clothing; not much, let me assure you. Traveling requires light packing. I remove my navy Muggle hat, I think they call it a Fedora, and set it on the floor quietly. The room is bare as I have no furniture yet. I have just moved here, in total silence and without word to any of the other residents. Nobody knows that I am here. Nobody. The sun shines through the window on the side of the wall like light on a single hanging canvas at an unknown artist's vernissage. And I am so happy to be alone. It is what I truly longed for, peace and quiet without obstruction of my privacy, my thoughts, my life. I am not like the rest of the people I know, with their friends and moments and joking pauses. I hope to God that they don't find me. I shiver to think of their bursting through my door, any second now, that they will find me and scold me and take me back to that hustle and bustle and clamour and happiness and warmth and... I shouldn't get carried away. Life is too short to allow oneself to make too many friends. Live while you can and live in strife and poverty; test yourself. Put yourself through the worst possible, do the opposite of what your mind tells you to do, but don't do anything stupid. My mantras. I'm not masochistic, mind you, just reserved. I keep myself in check constantly and without ever revealing too many emotions, and when I do, it is always a fatal mistake. I have discovered that over the years. Too many conflicts have arisen among them. Those people. I can't stay here long, I told myself. They are all against me now, now that the worst has come to pass, now when I need them in my hour of...darkness? That's a lie. I am so far above them they could never catch up with me. I pause from my staring at the walls and realize my ego has kicked in again; something has set it off. But it is true that I had to leave because they won't listen to me. Typical teenager, you think. Why I am I so typical? Why am I still a teenager? The precise reason I am suspended on my office's list of priorities. It's enough to drive you crazy. If you let it. I'm just another step on the ladder. I'm used it. If you were me, you'd get used to it, too. They've got me where they want me, but there is bound to be some loophole into the system. There always is. There always has been. There always will be. I will always be met with scorn in my family for this, probably never sent anything at Christmas for this, probably never spoken of when nieces and nephews appear here and there. Not that I would expected to be, anyway. But I am here, in this flat that is not comfortable but not a dump, in Greenwich Village, sitting on a suitcase that belonged to one of my uncles, wearing a long dark overcoat in the middle of June and determined to live for something, if anything. Someday the tide will turn in my favour.