'Lo, everyone. This is sort of a companion piece to Fury of a Thousand Eyes. It's inspired by Lolita, Little Red Riding Hood, and the wonderful potrayal of Dolores Umbridge in the movie of Order of the Phoenix. Please, enjoy, and I hope it makes you think.
Little Red Lolita
A Sympathetic Look at Hogwarts' Most Hated
When Dolly was five, her mother had married. She liked Mr. Aidan. He brought her little presents-peppermints and paper dolls- for the small price of a kiss. She kissed him gladly, his mouth warm and firm against hers, and he would smile and stroke her head, and tell her she was the best little girl in all the British Empire.
She didn't care that Mr. Aidan couldn't do magic, not really, because he liked her all the more for the fact that she could. Whenever her bean sprouts turned to chocolates or her kitty's hair turned pink (her favourite colour) he would smile at her, a look in his eyes that she didn't understand, and hug her, and call her his little girl.
Dolly had liked the wedding, where she thought her mother looked beautiful despite her hard face, and Mr. Aidan had laughed and twirled her around the dance floor, clutching her to him tightly. Dolly rather liked the idea of having a father, especially one as wonderful as Mr. Aidan.
But the idea of having a father was much better than actually having one.
The peppermints and paper dolls disappeared. But she still had to kiss him, even when she didn't want to. She had to sit on his lap, and even though she squirmed and pleaded to be let down, he wouldn't let her go. Her mother, her face harder than ever, told her to stop being a nasty little girl and listen to her father. And she did, because she wanted her mother to love her, and she didn't want Mr. Aidan to stop tucking her into bed at night. No one had ever tucked her in before except for the deaf old house elf that Dolly had nightmares about, and even if it was Mr. Aidan, who had started petting her like she petted her kitty, it was rather nice.
When Dolly was six Mr. Aidan didn't leave the room after tucking her in. Instead, he told her that he had a special present for her. Six was a very big age, he told her, a very special age. And she was a very special little girl.
And so Dolly had smiled tremulously, even when he started to undress her like she undressed Miss Imogen, her china doll with red hair and blue eyes, just like her. But then he had started to kiss her, kiss her like he was supposed to kiss her mother, and Dolly hadn't been smiling anymore. She squirmed and screamed and kicked, but he just held her to the bed, telling her that this was her present, and it was wonderful, and she should be happy.
She cried. It was worse than when she'd scraped her knee the week before, or when she'd dropped her tea cup and the glass had gone straight through her slipper. It was worse than the kisses, and it was worse than sitting on his lap. It was worse than her mother looking down at her like she was an icky bug when Dolly told her she loved her, especially because the whole time Mr. Aidan told her that he loved her. But he looked at her like almost like he would look at an icky bug he wanted to squash.
When Dolly was eight she told her mother. Her mother told her to stop lying. Her mother told her that she was a nasty, ungrateful little wench. Her mother had pushed the clinging Dolly away, sending that old, scary deaf house elf for Mr. Aidan.
Mr. Aidan had listened to her mother, listened to her like he hadn't ever listened to Dolly. Mr. Aidan had agreed that Dolly was an ungrateful brat, and told her mother that he would take care of the whole matter.
He dragged Dolly off towards her bedroom. She hated that room now, hated her bed, the bed he threw her onto. He tucked her in, like he had what seemed like forever ago, and Dolly thought that maybe, just maybe, he was sorry, and that he would be nice. He started to tell her a story.
Once upon a time there was a little girl with red hair. She was an ugly little girl, and always told the most wicked lies. No one loved her. She was a beastly child, blaming people for the things that she did, saying that everything was their fault when it was really her own. One day, when her mother could no longer stand even the sight of the little girl, she sent her into the woods, hoping that the monsters in the dark forest would rid her of the little girl forever.
The little girl walked and walked, until she came upon a handsome man. She told him that her mother had sent her into the dark and scary woods because she hated her, even though the little girl was sweet and good. And the handsome man took pity on the little girl, and helped her back to the village.
But when they reached the village, the ugly girl told everyone that the man had stolen her and that she was so smart and clever that she managed to escape and bring him back with her so that she could be punished. And though the villagers should have known better than to believe the lying, thieving, ugly little girl, they chased the poor, innocent, handsome man into the woods, where they hoped the beasts of the forest would eat him.
The little girl kept up with her ways, lying and stealing and being the worst child to ever live, and so her mother sent her once more into the forest.
In the forest, she once more came upon the handsome man. But this time, he was wise to her evil ways, and would not listen to her. For, you see, Dolly, the man had indeed been bitten by the animals, though they hadn't quite managed to eat him all the way.
And the poor, handsome man threatened the ugly little girl, telling her that if she did not listen to him, that if she told anyone what he did, that he would eat her too.
And Mr. Aidan had smiled, and showed two very, very sharp teeth that Dolly had never noticed before.
"And if you tell anyone, ever again, Dolly, I'll eat you. For you are a bad little girl, and you know, deep down, that you deserve to be punished."
When Dolly was eleven she'd gone to Hogwarts, and she couldn't have been more excited. She was going to learn magic, and Mr. Aidan didn't know any magic, and she knew that this made her better than him. She needed to be better than him. She'd been disappointed that there was no House that's colours were pink and had the mascot of a kitten, and a bit frightened of her own House, Slytherin. She didn't like snakes, not at all. And the other snakes didn't like her.
The girls in her dormitory thought it odd that she screamed in her sleep, and that she was so organized. Her notes were colour-coded, her quills always arranged in a precise row atop her desk, and her books in her satchel were alphabetized. She always folded her clothes neatly, never throwing them about as the other girls did, made sure that everything was in its proper place. Everything was under control. She was in control.
Her only friend was Cornelius, a Hufflepuff two years older who seemed to understand her love of discipline and her loathing for chaos. He, too, kept his belongings neat, and detested werewolves, and Dolly loved him. He thought she was annoying, she knew, and mostly ignored her, but she loved him all the same.
She'd tried to brew a love potion in Potions class, because potions were disgusting and full of so many nasty things anyway. But Professor Slughorn had caught her at it, and designed her detention. Dolly didn't complain, because she knew, deep down, that she deserved to be punished. She was a bad little girl, after all, a nasty liar.
Professor Slughorn had transferred her detention over to Ogg, the Keeper of Grounds and Keys, who was simply far too tall and far too similar to Mr. Aidan. He'd pushed her into the Forbidden Forest with a basket for gathering herbs, and had told her that he'd come and find her in the morning.
Dolly had cried then, like she hadn't for years. The monsters were going to come eat her, because she was a bad little girl whom no one loved. But she walked and walked, until she came upon a Centaur. She'd heard of them, and when the half-horse, half-man had smiled at her, with the look in his eyes that she still didn't understand but she knew from Mr. Aidan, she'd screamed and flung the basket of herbs at him.
"I suppose you're too young to breed," he'd whispered as he pushed her to the ground, which wasn't anywhere near as soft as her bed, as much as she hated it, "but Venus is bright tonight."
She hadn't stumbled out of the forest until dawn, without her basket of herbs and her red hair turned brown from the dirt. She'd run straight to the library, because maybe, just maybe, if she knew a bit more, she'd understand what it was about her that brought out the bad in others.
Centaurs were foul beasts, Dolly knew. Halfbreeds, just like Mr. Aidan. They were so unnatural that they couldn't even have children on their own, but had to resort to stealing human women to manage. And Venus, who Dolly had always thought was the planet of love, really was the planet associated with Taurus, and sex. And that all led 'round to the Centaurs, and it only confirmed that those who couldn't use magic and weren't human were horrible like Mr. Aidan and that centaur, and that they should all be put down.
But she was still a beastly little girl, one who didn't deserve to have brilliant red hair like happy, pretty, lovely little girls did, so she charmed hers to a beastly brown. Because, deep down, she knew she deserved to be punished.