Argus Filch, aged four, watched his brothers from the sitting room window. As they zoomed about on their toy broomsticks, shooting mock spells from toy wands at one another, Argus longed for the day that he could join them. His mother had forbidden him from riding the broomsticks, although he wasn't sure why. Argus was convinced that he could fly circles around the other two given half the chance. Oh well, he thought. His day would come soon.
Argus Filch, aged seven, watched his brothers through the same window he had peered through three years earlier, but it was with a tinge of bitterness that he now surveyed the scene. Seven years old, and he was still not permitted to mount the broomstick. In fact, quidditch was just one on a very large list of activities he was not permitted to engage in. Although his mother had never made her reasons clear, Argus was beginning to understand – he was different, in the worst possible way.
Argus Filch, aged almost eleven, rushed breathlessly into the kitchen as he had every morning for the past two weeks. Surely the letter would be arriving any day now, wouldn't it? But alas, no letter awaited him that morning, nor would it ever. Although Argus hoped – wished – desperately that there had been some sort of mistake at Hogwarts, he had known deep down for the past several years that his letter would never come. Argus Filch was a Squib.
Argus Filch, aged sixteen, scowled at passers-by on the street as he stomped out of the house. Ever since that fateful birthday five years prior, when his letter had failed to appear, he had been hidden away, out of sight of the magical world. His parents still fed and housed him, of course, but there was a growing rift in his family which would never mend. Each summer, his brothers would come home and regale their parents with tales of their adventures at Hogwarts. Argus mostly kept out of sight, but he heard their whispers when they thought he wasn't listening. He was a problem. A burden. A Squib. And as his grief grew at a loss that could never heal, so did his bitterness.
Argus Filch, aged twenty-two, heaved another shovel of snow off the sidewalk. He had been given this job out of pity, he knew, but it was work all the same. Work kept his body busy so that his mind didn't have to dwell on what could have been. Old Mr. Norris could have cleared the snow in front of the Hogshead in an instant with a wave of his wand, and Argus was grateful in a small way that he did not. Raising his head to stretch for a brief moment, Argus looked over the trees of the Forbidden Forest to see the great castle rising over the hill. Hogwarts. He knew it was a fool's dream, but still, after all these years, he had a feeling he would make it there one day.
Argus Filch, aged twenty-four, walked through the massive oaken doors. He had waited for this moment for thirteen years. But he entered not as an impressionable young wizard, as he had dreamed of so long ago, but as a man old beyond his years. His bitterness had taken its toll on his appearance, and he felt the stares of the children upon him. Argus detested children. He hated their hope, their naivete, and their unknowing cruelty.
Argus Filch, aged thirty-one, cradled the kitten he had just rescued. Some uncaring young wretch had found it more trouble to care for than anticipated and had left it to the mercies of his classmates. The small creature purred weakly in his arms, and Argus felt the twinges of pity. This animal, like Argus (who knew that he was considered no more than an animal), had suffered undeserved injustices at such a young age that, although he knew he shouldn't, Argus couldn't resist taking it back to his small office. Just as Mr. Norris had taken pity on Argus years ago, Argus would care for this cat, and Mrs. Norris would be her name. For the first time in his life, Argus had a friend.
