All my life.
Daddy Dearest never wanted a girl. He hated me, I knew it. True, he
chose to show it in an entirely different way, but I saw through to his
reasons. Daddy was a sick man.
I always got stuffed bears and rabbits and cotton candy and pretty dresses,
while Daddy went to his meetings and events, dressed like a vicar in his high
black collar. I hated every thing he gave me. Every time I looked at my fluffy
pink animals I wanted to pry out their shiny button eyes and tear out tufts of
their fur. I wanted to be like Daddy. He didn't understand that I was smart.
That I understood everything he did to me. He wanted to pamper me and spoil me
to justify his hate for me even more. Every time he looked at me, he wanted to
think of what a typical girl I was, with ribbons in my hair and teddy bears in
my arms. More reasons to hate me.
I always kept quiet about it. I always grinned gap-tooth grins and shook
my curly black hair in the cutest way. He pretended to eat it all up. But one
day he sat in his tall black armchair for hours, with his back to us. Mother
told us to be quiet. Charles scampered around the parlor, trying to peek over
the chair. I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him upstairs to his room. He
just scowled and made horrible faces at me. I shut the door to his room and
locked it. He deserved it, the rotten little kid.
From downstairs, Daddy started shouting. I heard clangs and a sharp
slap, followed by a growl. Not being able to help it, I rushed downstairs.
Mother stood with her arm raised, anger radiating from her. Daddy was crouching
on the floor, his pale skin flushed and his eyes dark.
"You've been drinking again." Brown glass bottles littered the floor.
Daddy just shoved her.
"Why are you doing this? In case you forgot, we have two children.
Two children who look up to you." He shoved her again while she spoke, until
she was against the wall, breathing hard.
"Children!" he roared. "Children?!" He pressed his face against
Mother's. "Charles is my only child," he whispered harshly. I bounded down the
stairs two at a time, and they both turned to me in surprise. I took a firm
stance.
"Daddy, I'm your child too." His face twisted.
"You are no child of mine. A girl! A pretty, spoiled girl!" He laughed
mirthlessly. "You are worth nothing to the cause. Salazar Slytherin would be
ashamed to know that you were a descendant of his!"
"Daddy, it's your fault that I'm spoiled! I don't want teddy bears! I
don't want pretty dresses! I don't want candy or hair ribbons!" I yelled
through clenched teeth. "Why do you hate me so much?" His face was purple with
rage, but he took a deep breath and a step back, looking me up and down. His
words bit through me like venom. "Because a—girl—cannot continue the
work our family has been doing for a thousand years."
For the next few days I shut myself up in my room and read books that I
stole from Daddy's library. No-one tried to talk to me. It became a habit.
During the next five years, I grew up and read more and more. Daddy didn't even
try to keep me out of his library. He still presented me with stuffed animals
on my birthdays, though. I ignored them.
One day, Mother and Charles left to buy clothes. I was in my room,
reading as usual, and Daddy was sitting in his armchair and staring into the
fire. When I heard the door slam after them, I calmly shut my book and picked
up my wand. I was wearing my nicest green dress and new green ribbons in my
hair, together with my shiny patent leather shoes and stockings. Good.
Tiptoeing down the stairs, I found Daddy sitting with his back to me.
"Daddy." I spoke softly. The chair didn't move. "Daddy," I said again.
Nothing. After a few seconds, he swiveled around slowly with a beer in his
hand. He'd been drinking again.
"What is it?" he asked impatiently.
"I just wanted to say thanks for nothing, asshole," I said sweetly. A
vein popped out in his forehead and his face turned purple. He stood up,
shaking a little on his unsteady legs, his arms reaching out for me. With
swaying steps, as if he were on a boat, he moved towards me, his hands making
to wrap around my neck. He was completely drunk. I just smiled and giggled.
"Crucio."
His eyes popped out of their sockets, rolling madly, and he screamed in
agony, twitching and convulsing. I giggled more to see him lying on the floor,
tearing out his hair by the roots and shrieking. Then I decided to stop. He lay
on the floor for a few seconds, perfectly still. And then he stood up, slowly,
unsteadily. His eyes were wide and his skin was deathly pale. He was shaking
with pain and anger, and his huge form treaded toward me again, sillhoetted
against the blazing fire in the dark room. I giggled again.
"Avada Kedavra."
* * *
Years passed before
anything really happened. I took Daddy's body in a trunk with me, packed with
my clothes and books. And of course, my wand. Borrowed some money. They never
saw me again.
Mother probably
thought Daddy had killed me and ran away. How ironic that it was the other way
around.
It's been a long time
since I've talked to anyone in the wizarding community. I've made myself a
perfect life in a little muggle house in a little muggle town. No one can find
me. Daddy is downstairs, in the basement, sitting in his favorite chair. I took
that with me, too. Now I'm determined to become everything he would have wanted
me to become. I've researched the cause, thought of every possible thing I
could do to help it, become stronger than Daddy ever was. Of course, I still
talk to him sometimes. He helps me make the right decisions. Everything is
crucial in my rise to power. Oh, yes, I will be powerful someday. I already am
powerful. Daddy must feel sorry that he ever said a girl could not do what
Salazar Slytherin, our noble ancestor, did. If only I could release him from
the Orb that the other Hogwarts three used to trap his powers and him in! I
would be favored by him above all the rest.
It would be perfect.
* * *
I'm sitting here and tearing out my hair. What have I
done? I got involved with a muggle man, that's what.
Daddy Dearest, tell me
what to do? I'm staring up into your waxy, shadowed face. You're in your
favorite armchair. Why can't you speak to me? You have to tell me what to do,
Daddy Dearest. Don't you feel my sweaty hands clutching at your robes?
His name is Tom
Riddle. He's a good-for-nothing mudblood who takes advantage of women, I've
found. I've been drinking, Daddy. Yes. Just like you used to. He took my money
and my dignity. Nothing can stand in the way of my success!
But Daddy, I'm
pregnant. . .
* * *
I found him. I found
the dirty thief. I threatened him. I showed him that I was a witch in every
way. Now he's scared. He's promised to take me out of town for a little while,
to encourage the story that I was sick and needed a few months of fresh air.
The Cause can't have any information leaking out about me from these muggles.
With the help of this story, they could be threatened and tortured but they
still wouldn't be able to tell the Cause anything. Perfect.
* * *
I'm in London, Daddy.
At an orphanage. I'll give up the baby and become everything that I ever wanted
to be. He won't stand in my way. The social workers are looking me up and down.
I'm wearing a long, velvet dress and a satin, fur-trimmed coat. My shoes are
expensive and high-heeled. My makeup is immaculate. I look like I can take care
of at least ten children. They wonder why I'm giving up one.
I'm bent over a stack
of papers, looking at the dusty floor and dark corners of the building.
Corridors lead off to rooms with creaky beds in them. The pale yellow paint is
cracking. My pen pauses in the air. Your child's name. My child's name.
My tongue runs over my crimson lips as I think. Yes. Those crimson lips twist
into a cruel smile. Tom Marvolo Riddle. I hate this child. I will name him for
the two people that I hate most. Tom Riddle, that muggle filth. And Marvolo.
I have never called
him Marvolo, though. My young, innocent mouth was too small to form the long
word. So I got used to calling him Daddy.
I pick up the sheaf of
papers and hand them over the counter to a faded yellow woman, just like the
faded yellow orphanage. She smiles a faded smile and takes the bundle into her
faded arms. She doesn't understand what happens next.
All she sees is the
long, slender piece of wood that I take out of the folds of my coat. All she
sees is me pointing the stick at my heart. All she hears are the calm words
that come out of my mouth.
"Avada Kedavra."
