"Though shalt not suffer a witch to live," it says in the book of Exodus

Title: Eyes

Author: Acerbus

Archive: Ask me first ( No_More_Stars@yahoo.com ) 99.9% chance of yes

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DISCLAIMER: This contains religious themes of which I DO NOT BELIEVE. I am not a Christian and mean no disrespect to them.

Disrespect is meant to those people who believe that homosexuality, Wiccan, atheism, etc. is "wrong" and insist on forcing their beliefs on everyone. I for one know that King James who translated the bible was not fluent in Hebrew, a language that for several words has multiple meanings. (For example the word for "Witch" is the same as "poisoner", the word for "abomination" also means "different") Again I want to say that I mean no disrespect at all and that I am a very tolerant person who believes that all people should have the right to worship whatever they wish and have any sexual preference.

For my full views on politics (in the US) and religion/the religious right E-mail me. (If you want to for some reason)

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I am a monster.

I am an abomination.

I should not be around normal people.

I don't have the right to live, especially not to enjoy living.

I no longer have a home.

Home is a place to belong, to be loved.

I don't belong anywhere, except maybe in hell. Before she kicked me out of the house my mother told me that she never wanted to see me again, she said that I wasn't her daughter anymore.

She said that I was dead to her and threw a bible at me, I dropped it, I've never been good at sports, and she told me that it was for me to look at and to remind me.

Remind me of what I was and what I now am.

I open it, I know the page number by now, I've looked at it so many times that it falls open to it, the pages frayed.

"Though shalt not suffer a witch to live."

I am a witch, when I received the letter mother looked at me and told me to pack.

I knew that she would be angry. She loved her bible and its rules, she would never do anything against it. Never.

And having me for a daughter would be against it.

I always knew that I was different. Strange things always happened around me, once, when Eloise Hanson made fun of my straight black hair that always fell in my face she realized that she was standing on a fire-ant pile.

She had so many bites on her body that she went to the hospital.

Tucked inside of the bible was the letter that I had received, a school for witches and wizards, a place where I could go to be with others. Others. Would they be devil worshipers, was I a devil worshipper? I don't think so, I love god, I was raised to.

My mother isn't a bad person, she's just scared. She turned to religion when her brother who she was very close to died; I wasn't even born yet when the accident happened. He was killed in a freak accident, a gas pipe burst underground and he was one of thirteen killed. A few years later she found out that she was pregnant with me. When my father died a year after I was born she became even more religious.

She'll come out and look for me and apologize. Than we'll go inside and have some hot chocolate and look at the school and she'll ask me what I want to do. Whether I want to go to the local school or go away to learn about being a witch. But it might take a while for her to regain her courage, so for a few hours I'll just wander around London and come back later.

I'll come back later.

Down the street from us is an old church, we don't go to this one, but I've always been struck by how pretty it is with the stained glass and soaring cathedral.

I walk inside, is something going to happen to me like it does to people in movies, will I not be able to enter the door because of the evil inside of me?

I walk in.

It's even prettier inside, the walls are beautifully shined and the stain glass catches the sun and glistens. All of the different colors reflect around me.

I make my way to the confession area; no one else is here that I can see. The priest is inside and I sit down as he asks what I need forgiveness for.

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned," I begin. "I am something of evil, but I am not evil, I love God, I don't want to hurt people."

Although I can't see him I know somehow that he is wondering just what I am talking about, how can this young girl be evil. I can't stay in here; I am an abomination, not worthy of being in this beautiful holy place.

I run out without waiting for an answer. I can't stay in there, the quiet, the beauty is suffocating me.

Suffocating.

It's a sin to take your own life, but when you are already damned what does it matter?

Damned.

Witches are evil, they hurt people, and they have long noses with warts and brew a potion that uses the blood of children. Can I really be a witch?

I run.

I stop when I reach the bridge, as I go out into the middle I look down and realize how far down it is. Enough to kill me if I jumped.

I look for a while, I can't tell how long, it could have been a minute or it could have been an hour. I stop when I hear the whimper of a black dog so thin that I can count every rib. His eyes look so sad that I wonder if he knows what I'm thinking and planning to do.

He's a dog. Dogs can't understand humans. Even when they're eyes look likea humans.

I pat him and feed him the bread that I have in my pocket from this morning. It seems so far away, like I've gone from childhood to adulthood in the space of a few hours.

"You don't care that I'm a witch, do you doggie? I'm not a bad person, you know that even if my mum doesn't."

I think I'm going insane, I could swear that when I said witch the dogs eyes widened and he stopped eating for a moment.

"Do you think I should jump? There's nothing else for me to do; my mother won't come after me. She'll say that I'm dead, and she'll be right."

I look towards the bridge and the dog barks and runs in front of me, blocking my escape route. I try to coax him out of the way but he won't go. I take the letter out of my pocket and read it over.

"Though shalt not suffer a witch to live."

It runs through my head and I say it aloud, the dog shakes his head an—no dogs don't shake their heads! He growls softly and grabs the letter out of my hand and runs across the bridge, it looks almost as if he wants me to follow him.

I look at the side of the bridge, I want to jump off, to not worry anymore, to not feel the pain of losing my mommy, my only family because of something that I am. I don't want to live anymore.

Tears are running down my face as swing my legs over and sit on the ledge ready to lean forward and mimic the birds.

Hands stop me.

They grab onto my shoulder and hold me onto land. In my ear I hear a voice, it tells me to go to a certain street where I will see a small pub named the "Leaky Cauldron", I am to go inside and ask the bartender to send an owl immediately to Hogwarts. I gasp when I realize that he knows the name of the wizarding school, about my "situation". He (I can tell by the voice that it is male) says that I am not evil, that I will go to this school and I will have friends and adventures.

I ask him shakily what God thinks about me, he is silent before he says that God knows who people really are and that whether or not I have powers makes no difference to who I am.

He makes me promise not to jump; he says that he has to let go of me. I can't see his face. I ask him to let me see who it is and he says that its better for me not to know who he was.

He lets go and I realize how easy it would be to give up and let go, getting rid of my pain. I hear him say one last thing,

"I know".

I turn around and no one is there. About ten feet away is the black dog with my letter in its mouth. No one else is around.

The dog begins running, I follow it, for now its going straight towards where I need to go. When we are about a street away it drops the note on the ground and looks up.

I notice that its eyes are still full of sadness and anger, mine must look like that too.

I pat him on the head, my hand shaking for some reason and turn to walk. When I reach the corner and see the pub I look around, but the dog is gone.

When I become a witch maybe I'll see the dog—I mean the man who saved me again.

The dog was just there by coincidence, a random stray who walked past and grabbed some paper I had in my hand.

Because after all, dogs can't be sad or angry.

Dogs can't hold you onto a bridge with strong hands.

"Though shalt not suffer a witch to live."

That's what my mother shouted at me, that's what made me want to die, and maybe, it made me want to live.

As I enter the pub I see a man watching me from underneath a tree, through the corner of my eye I see him smile at me, than before I can turn to look at him he is gone.

But I know those eyes.

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Well that was certainly odd. If you didn't get it this was a muggle-born girl who received her Hogwarts letter and was thrown out of her house by her very bible-obeying mother. The dog is indeed Sirius Black who stops her from committing suicide by holding her onto the bridge and telling her where to go for help. If anyone caught that her mother's brother died in a freak accident when a pipe exploded and thirteen other people died. So basically he died in the Black-Pettigrew duel (I just wanted to work that in somewhere). This would take place between Sirius escaping before PoA and the beginning of Harry's fifth year.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Sirius Black, the Leaky Cauldron, or Hogwarts. I am just borrowing them and make no money.

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