Different.
She hates that word. It follows her wherever she goes, in whispers and rumours behind her back. Yet no one, not even her own family, is brave enough to say it to her face.
What do they think she can do to them anyway? She is powerless. She flinches even when she thinks of that word. It is so accurate...Perhaps that hurts the most. She grows up in a world of magic. She learns wands and spells are the norm. She, on the other hand, is the exception. She knows what she is. They all do. No one ever says the word, however. Neither does she. Saying it will make it too real, even if it already is. It hangs in the air, surrounds her, chokes her, unsaid. It is loke a curse, the worst of hexes. Even an Unforgivable would cause her less pain.
Squib.
When she was younger she would sit for hours and listen to the tales her mother told her about her days at Hogwarts. They entranced her, and she would dream of her own tales, her own friends, her own classes, her own mistakes and successes that she might one day write in a letter to her mother. She always fancied herself a Hufflepuff, really. The House of the kind and loyal.
She had waited patiently after her eleventh birthday for her letter, even though the whispers had already started by then. In her joy and hope, she had ignored them. But as the weeks turned into months, with no owl for her, even her own mother gave up on her. Hope was a cruel thing to her.
The whispers grew louder, making sure she knew about them, but never a word to her face.
It hurt more that way. Perhaps that was their intention. She didn't know, nor did she care. Her parents didn't even try to console her. They've given up, she realised. She didn't matter to them now, simply because she didn't have magic. She wasn't one of them anymore. She didn't belong in her own home. It was as if the absence of that letter had created a vast canyon between her and them, and she would never be able to bridge that gap, despite her best efforts.
At sixteen, she runs away. Away, from the wizarding world that was always so cruel to those that were different, away, from her family, who based their love on whether she could do spells, but most of all, away from the whispers that seem to be getting into her own head.
She discovers the Muggle world is surprisingly kind to her. She gets a job, just enough to get by, rents a house, and as time passes, becomes on of them. They do not whisper like the wizards did, they do not ask where she came from. She forges her own life, free of the expectation, and the boumdaries they had laid on her.
It takes a long time for her to find her feet, and get her own home, but she still has the starry eyed hope inside her to guide her.
The day she walks into the house that is now her home, bought eith her own money, far far away from the people who never accepted her, she finds tears escaping her eyes.
She hasn't been this happy since she was eleven, since that ill-fated day... but those are memories behind her now. This is her life now. This is where she belongs, where she finally fits.
She is finally home.
Notes: For the Through the Universe Challenge at the Golden Snitch. Prompt: canyon.
Also for the Jurassic Event: Write about a character who should have been a Hufflepuff, discover
And for Ollivander's Wand Shop: Prompt: Write about a character finding home.