Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley and any other
tangentially mentioned characters created by J. K. Rowling remain her
copyrighted property, as well as the copyrighted property of her
publisher, etc. No copyright infringement is intended. All original
characters created by the author remain her property.


Over Sea

Chapter One: A New Beginning

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd gotten my way on that frigid August morning. Staying at home was very much preferred to going anywhere with my aunt a year ago, and yet, if I had that day, I'd probably have ended up as miserable and sour as her. Even at the undeveloped age of eleven, I was beginning to show a sharpness and bitterness that I generally attributed only to my relatives.
I am, and always will be, a late and heavy sleeper. Sayings like "the early bird gets the worm" are a crock to me. Aunt Jane, on the other hand, has the perpetually annoying habit of rising with the sun and then carrying on, making breakfast as though it was going to be the day the world died. Banging pots and pans, whistling loudly and out of tune, washing dishes that are perfectly clean, and cooking things that have a tendency to sizzle loudly are her favorite morning activities. On this particular day, I was determined to ignore the noise drifting up from downstairs and stay in bed as late as I could without coming to blows.
"Malory!," she screeched. "Get yourself out of bed and help me with the dishes!"
Just pretend, I grumbled to myself. Just pretend she's not there.
"Malory! MALORY-JANE!"
I began counting the cracks on the ceiling above me.
"MALORY-JANE! GET YOURSELF DOWN HERE AND HELP ME WITH THESE DISHES!"
Something in me snapped. Guise of ignorance forgotten, I shouted back, "You know perfectly well that the dishes are perfectly damn clean!"
"Do not use that tone of voice with me young lady!," she shrieked back.
I had to smile. I could swear as much as I wanted, I knew, and she'd still go on about my friggin' tone of voice. "I'll do whatever the hell I want!," I yelled back.
Footsteps stomped angrily up the rickety attic steps. Oh no, I thought wearily.
"Malory-Jane!"
I hated it when she used my full name. It reminded me that my mother and my aunt had been related at one point. "What?," I snapped irritably, blinking in the gray morning light.
She threw a coat at me. "Get dressed. We're out of eggs."
I stared at her blankly. "So?"
"You're coming with me to market." She stomped back down the stairs.
I followed her up to the railing and demanded, "Why can't we just go to Kroger's, for God's sake! Like any NORMAL human beings, hanh?" My aunt diligently insisted every month on going to the noisy, smelly, dirty street market as opposed to the Kroger's across the intersection. Never mind that I'd gotten food poisoning from the meat once. My aunt said it was just stale. I insisted that the "parsley" had been mold, and I strongly suspected that the butcher cut up innocent strays rather than the Angus Beef he protested he sold. The incident turned me into a permanent vegetarian.
There was no arguing with Aunt Jane when she made up her mind, however, and within fifteen minutes I was dressed. I'd purposely tried to wear the jeans with a hole in the knee, and she'd threatened to ground me for the following year if I didn't wear the hideous overcoat Uncle Brian had sent me last Easter.
I ended up being dragged away to market in both, a billboard of contradictory taste.

The odor of unwashed goats and rotting fruits made me cringe. I stumbled back as a fishmonger stuffed half a mackerel in my face while harking his goods, and bumped bodily into a tall man with a tremendously long white beard and half-moon glasses that glinted in the sparse light.
"Sorry," I mumbled and rushed to the florist's booth. While most of the flowers were wilting, the smell was not as bad as the rest of the area.
"Hey, Malory," the vendor said cheerfully. He was my age, perhaps a bit older, too poor to go to the private school I went to and too rich to ask for financial help. He called himself Jim.
"Hey, Jimmy," I smiled, content to see a friendly face in the crowd of customers and merchants.
He held out a long-stemmed violet. "Here. You look like you could use a little cheerin' up."
"No, Jim, it's alright. I don't want to -"
"Eh, go on. I found it on the road this mornin'. Oh, go on, I know you'd like it."
I smiled and accepted the flower. "Thanks."
"Anytime. FLOWERS!," he boomed into my ear as a passerby strolled in front of the booth. "FRESH FLOWERS, GOOD FOR ANY OCCASION!"
The man stooped over to select a bouquet of limp roses that had a strange gold tinge to their drooping petals, handing Jim twice the price of what the roses were worth. "Here you go, my boy." Jim handed back the change, but the man shook his hand. "Keep it."
"I don't accept charity," Jim replied gruffly. Nearly everyone in the town knew about Jim's money matters, and based on countless earlier incidents, he was apparently assuming that this man was from town.
"It's not charity," the man answered, a surprised note in his voice. "I've been looking for these a long time." I looked up, curious. The customer was tall, hooknosed, and had rather oily, dark hair, streaked here and there with gray at the temples. He looked as though he wasn't mean-hearted, yet wasn't used to being kind.
I nudged Jim sharply. "Take it. I could use a drink."
Jim laughed outright, and accepted the man's offer. "Thank you, sir."
"My pleasure," he responded without a note of pleasure in his tone. He glanced at me, then gazed hard into my eyes. I blinked and turned away, suddenly interested in a clump of weeds underneath my feet. He left abruptly to join the man I'd bumped into earlier.
Jim swung the sign on his booth so that it read CLOSED, then turned to me. "So, ready for that drink?"
"You're just going to leave your booth?"
"Don't worry. Dog will guard it." He gestured to the large Alsatian that was snoozing next to the pushcart. Jim was one of the only people I knew who named his pet for what it was. I found it amusing. He thought it was practical. "So, you still up for it?"
I glanced at my aunt. In addition to buying eggs, she'd also bought a greasy pound of beefsteak, three loaves of bread when we already had two at home, and was haggling with the grocer over the price of cream. "Sure. Let's go."
We opened the door to the drugstore. Mr. Leonards, the lean short man who ran the store, smiled and greeted us loudly. "Hello there, ladies! What would you like today?"
Jim pretended to storm off huffily, grumbling, "You've just lost a customer there, mister!"
Mr. Leonards leapt nimbly over the counter and clung to the edge of Jim's jacket. "No! Not that!," he wept melodramatically. Jim relented and came back, grinning. Winking at me, Mr. Leonards tripped him with his broom, and yelled triumphantly, "Ha! That should teach you to threaten a manager! Take that! And that!" He pretended to whack Jim with the broom, while Jim pretended to cringe with fear.
I laughed. Watching Mr. Leonards and Jim was like watching two incredibly predictable clowns.
Without warning, the broom shot out of Mr. Leonards hands and sailed grandly out the window, shattering it in the process. Jim's jaw dropped, and Mr. Leonards sat down on one of his stools with a thump, the steel creaking under his weight. I stared out the window, and caught a glimpse of a tall man with a hooknose - Jim's customer. Without thinking, I leapt across the store, ignoring the gapes of the couple purchasing a packet of bandages and Jim's shouts, and raced towards the man. He saw me and ran like a rabbit after it's spotted the hunting hound.
"Hey!," I shouted, picking up my pace. "Hey! You need to pay for that window you know! Get back here!"
The man ignored me, and led me through the market. It seemed as though baskets of grain and eggs dodged out of his way. I had to spend half my energy jumping over them. The only thing I didn't try to avoid was my aunt; I nearly ran her over when she stepped in my path, scolding me about my behavior, no doubt. Eventually, he led me out of the market area, racing in between the trees that lined the outskirts of the town. Suddenly, I found myself suspended in thin air, my legs pumping in vain as I realized the impossible situation I was in. "What the hell!"
The man stopped in front of me, panting. "A little young to be swearing, aren't you?"
I swiped at his face but he dodged me easily. I heard a rustling in the bushes. White-bearded and eyes twinkling, the man I'd bumped into earlier emerged from the trees. "Who the hell are you?," I snapped.
"My name's Albus Dumbledore," he answered serenely. "The man who you've been chasing is Professor Snape." The hooknosed man bowed sarcastically.
"Well, would you please tell Professor Snape to put me down and pay for the window that he just broke?"
"I was only helping her friend," he told Dumbledore. "He was being beaten by the store manager."
"It was a joke!," I exclaimed. "They always do that! Besides -" I stopped suddenly, remembering exactly how the window had shattered. I stared at the two men in horror, ridiculous stories of psychic powers and serial killers suddenly not so ridiculous to me any more. "Put me down!," I demanded, my voice quavering a little.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you a couple questions first," the white-bearded man told me. I set my jaw determinedly. "Will you answer them?"
"I will if you put me down."
I landed on the frosty ground with a hard thud. My rump began aching, and I stood up, scowling at my interrogators.
Dumbledore knelt before me so that his eyes were level with mine. "Now. I don't normally chase after people who haven't responded to our letters, but yours is a special case."
"How reassuring."
"Have any owls come by your house lately?"
I blinked. Of all the questions I'd been expecting, this certainly wasn't one of them. "Owls?," I repeated blankly.
"Yes. Carrying letters, to be more precise."
"Um...no?"
Dumbledore's face clouded for an instant. "Nothing at all?"
"No."
"Does your aunt hunt, but any chance?"
I raised my eyebrows. What sort of questions were these? "No, I don't think so."
"Does anyone in your family hunt?," Dumbledore persisted.
"My uncle does, but he's a rotten shot."
Snape frowned. "Did he visit recently?"
"Yeah, last week. Can I go now?"
Dumbledore turned to the professor. "Why hasn't she received any of the others?"
"I've no idea."
"Did you see her aunt at market?"
Snape shook his head, smiling dryly. "I must say that I pity her somewhat. Living with someone who haggles over the price of commercial loaf of bread can't be easy to live with."
Maybe he wasn't so bad after all. I trudged away, the brown grass crunching under my feet. "You still need to pay for Mr. Leonard's window," I called over my shoulder.
"You'll stay here, young lady," Professor Snape said smoothly. Something about his voice called for no defiance, and made me stop right where I was. Why did I chase this man? I asked myself wildly, licking my chapped lips with a dry tongue. What did I get myself into?
Dumbledore walked over to me, placing a hand gently on my shoulder. I relaxed. He might be a serial killer, but he was incredibly comforting for one. "I need to speak to your aunt," he murmured. "Do you mind leading Professor Snape and myself to her?"
"You're the one who's going to talk to her, not me." I weaved through the crowd, pushing my way past the adults and yelling at some schoolmates as they surrounded me in the spirit of fun, throwing paper airplanes they'd made the day before. I grabbed the bucket of water that the fishmonger used to wash his fish off and shook it threateningly at them. They backed off. Curiously enough, everyone seemed to stay out of Dumbledore and Snape's way. It wasn't that people actually moved out of the way so that they could pass, it was more like their daily business led them out of their path.
My aunt grabbed me by the arm as soon as she spotted me. "Where were you? You've caused me no end of stress! Ooh, you just wait till we get home, you'll regret wandering off like that..." Her voice trailed off as she caught sight of Dumbledore and Snape. "Who in heaven's name are you?"
"I believe you know the answer already, madam," Dumbledore replied.
My aunt blanched. Her nostrils grew white and flared out like a nag's. "You stay away from my town and my niece!"
I stared up at Aunt Jane in amazement. Since when did she care what happened to me?
"But can't you see how valuable she could become?," Dumbledore pleaded. "The entire wizarding community would welcome her with open arms, yet the only welcome she gets here is from a drugstore manager and a flower vendor. Even her own aunt won't accept her for what she is here."
Pain and confusion shot through my chest as Dumbledore's comments struck home. My aunt's face flushed alarmingly, then paled. "So what if I don't?," she hissed. "What self-respecting person would want such a - a - an abnormality for a relative?" She sniffed. "It's humiliating! I've raised Malory-Jane to be a proper, normal young lady, and I intend to keep her that way!"
Dumbledore's face had hardened somewhat during the past conversation. At length, he cleared his throat and addressed my aunt. "My good woman -" he pronounced the word with irony "- I'm sure it would be better if Malory was the one to decide what her future is to be. It affects no one as much her." He bent his head to face me. "My dear," he whispered. "I think it's time you learned the truth." And so, the story came out. I wasn't what my aunt had told me repeatedly for the past few years, the spoiled orphan put into her care. My father was still alive, drawing maps of uncharted, hidden continents and doing in-field research for the "Ministry of Magic". It was he who was sending money to care for me, send me to the private school that I went to. And later, to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. My mother was dead, but not in the way that I'd believed. Instead of the hit-and-run accident my uncle had told me, and I'd accepted, she'd died while performing a powerful spell for a demonstration - one that could easily go awry. I glared at the ground the entire time Dumbledore narrated his version of my past, as though I could send all the sudden, overwhelming emotions into the soil, so they'd disappear from sight. When he was done, Dumbledore looked at my aunt, then back at me. Snape was turned away, his jaw clenched.
"Well, you've heard it," my aunt snapped, making my head snap up as my reverie was interrupted by her shrill voice. "Come on, Malory-Jane."
I wrenched my arm away from her grip. Her lips thinned, and the area around her nostrils grew white. "Malory-Jane!," she hissed.
"Is it true?," I demanded. My words were as quiet as hers, but the difference was clear: while hers was shrill and full of the panic that comes with exposure, mine was (I was slightly proud to find) calm and clear. "Is it really true?"
My aunt glared at me. "Alright. So it is. It doesn't change what you're mother was, or what your father was." She said the words "mother" and "father" with distaste, as though she were talking about someone's extra-marital affairs. "You're not going to become like them, you hear?," she added tenaciously. "You're going to grow up a respectable woman if it's the last thing I do. You're not going to shame you're family by going to that school, like your parents!"
I could have thrown her to the ground in my fury. Instead I smacked her across the cheek, in full view of everyone. Years of pent-up frustration and suppressed rage were behind that blow, and the mark appeared immediately, as red and dark as my anger. "How dare you!," I whispered, my outrage making my voice drop. "How dare you talk about my parents like that! How dare you LIE to me! How dare you take away my rights!"
"What rights?," my aunt managed to spit out, shocked and angry that I'd hit her.
"My rights to the truth! I had a right to know what happened to my family! You had no right to lie to me!"
Glaring at me, unable to do anything else, my aunt gasped for breath. Then she slapped me in turn.
Snape took two heavy strides towards us. Dumbledore placed himself between me and my aunt's reach. I pushed past him and faced my aunt. "Give me the key."
My aunt narrowed her eyes. "What?"
"The key to the house."
"Whatever for?"
"So I can get my stuff." I shot her a triumphant look. So I could do what I'd wanted to do since I'd arrived at my aunt's house. "So I can leave."
Quivering with anger, she demanded, "Is this what I get? Is this what I get after feeding you -"
"Poisoning me's more like it." Fake Angus beef and parsley-like mold lived clearly at the front of my mind. Old grudges die hard.
"After caring for you, paying for your things -"
"With my father's money."
She trembled some more, then threw the keys on the ground in front of me. "Fine. Get all your stuff. You're gone in half an hour." She turned smartly on her heel and, eager to have the final word, barked, "And don't you dare come back."
I stared at the keys as though they were made of gold. Stunned, I reached down for them, the surveyed my surroundings, dreading the embarrassment that was sure to come with a public argument.
It never came. The market was bustling about as though they hadn't seen my aunt and I fighting. I looked up at Dumbledore, my eyes questioning.
"Magic can shield many things," he murmured. "Privacy is the least of its worries." He waved what looked suspiciously like a wand, then gestured to me. "The window is fixed," he said. "Mr. Leonards and Jim Reynold both have no recollection of what occured in the drugstore."
"You wiped their memories?," I asked, both awed and indignant.
"In a manner of speaking, I suppose," he replied, smiling. "Let us say that I merely rearranged them."
Jim was back at his pushcart. "Hey Malory!," he called out, as though he'd just noticed me for the first time.
"Hello, Jim."
He reached into his pocket then looked down, puzzled. "Funny. I could've sworn there was somethin' in there before."
I reached into my own pocket. The violet bloomed within its depths, and I pulled it out for him to see. "This it, Jimmy?"
His eyes widened. "Yeah! How'd you...?"
I smiled wryly. "Magic."
Snape shot Dumbledore a wary glance.
Jimmy laughed and slapped me on the shoulder as I reached him. "Where's the hag?"
"She's gone," I returned, smiling. "She went back."
"Eh, decided to give up the daily haggling, did she?" Jim flipped the CLOSED/OPEN sign so that the CLOSED faced out. I shook my head, trying to erase the sense of deja vu. He didn't seem to see the two men standing behind me. "Listen, you want a drink? I must've found some money and forgotten about it or something." He displayed the money that Snape had paid him for the flowers.
I sighed. "I can't. I'm sorry, I gotta go home and pack." I felt Dumbledore's hand clench my shoulder briefly in warning.
"Pack? For what?"
"Er, boarding school."
Clench.
"You mean PARKIN'S?," Jim goggled, amazed and horrified. "That prep school in the next city?"
I sighed again. "Yep. That's the one."
"Jesus, I'll never hear from you again!"
I half-believed him. "I'll come down for Christmas. Don't worry." The promise lodged in my heart, and I was suddenly determined to keep it. Spinster aunt or no.
Jim suddenly wrapped his arm around my shoulder. "I'll miss you, Malory."
"Yeah," I murmured. "I'll miss you." And me, I whispered to myself. I'll have to say goodbye to the old me. I'll miss me too.
He waved enthusiastically at me as I made my way with Snape and Dumbledore towards the route leading to my house. "See you at Christmas!"
I waved back. "Bye!"
"Have fun at Parkin's!"
"I will!" Then remembering what I would've said a day ago. "Hey, shut up!"
Jim grinned. I mirrored his expression weakly and turned towards my house to gather my meager belongings. Dumbledore's hand was still on my shoulder, but it was no longer a warning. Now, it was an encouragement.