"I know this is all a lot to take in, Sadie, but yer are a witch. Now how 'bout yah read tha' letter of yers, eh? Bout time yeh did, I reckon. Whaddya say?"
"She doesn't say anything!" Petunia shrilled. "That- that freak hasn't said a word since the day we took her in! She never even cried as a baby! And her eyes...when she's not wearing that ridiculous thing on her face...trying to hide her freakishness..."
Sadie looked between her relatives and the giant man. Hagrid. A wizard. And she was a witch? She felt joy. Wonder. She opened her Hogwarts envelope with a smile, and she silently read the letter over. A list of supplies. Pets? A wand? A reply due by August 30th? She was to go to Platform 9 3/4 on September 1st?
A strange feeling of familiarity coursed through her. Deja Vu. Like she had read this before. Experienced this situation before.
Sadie shook her head, brushed her hair behind her ear. She smiled up at Hagrid, held the letter tight to her chest.
"Sadie, did they hurt yeh ever?"
Hagrid's question as they were on the boat the next morning shocked her.
Sadie startled, looked at him. She hesitated. Looked at the ocean. Nodded.
"Alrigh'." Hagrid sighed heavily. "Dumbledore was hopin' you'd answer that different, but...guess it's not a suprise, the kind o' muggles they are. M' sorry, Sadie. Whatever they did to yeh over the years, M' sorry. Dumbledore's gonna fix tha' for yeh, though. Great man, Dumbledore. We'll talk to ter Ministry, get them muggles the full punishment o' the law. An' get yer into a nice home. A safe home. I promise yeh, yer won't get hurt ever again, Sadie."
Sadie, of course, was silent. She stared out at the ocean harder. Reached up to wipe her eye of blurry vision. Readjust her eyepatch.
"They do that to you?" Hagrid indicated her eyepatch, looking angry and upset.
Sadie shook her head. How could she explain this? Maybe just...show it? Hesitantly, she reached up and pulled her eyepatch aside to reveal the eye beneath. The glittering, ruby eye.
Hagrid reared back, almost fell off the boat. He stared at her with a scared expression. Then he calmed. "Dumbledore said yeh might've...might've developed some side effects from the...that night. Bein' touched by the darkest of magics, an' living like you did, course nobody coulda expected yeh to come outta it without any problems. Like tha' scar of yers, too. It's famous in our world. Yer eye though...prolly be best to keep hidin' it, M' sorry. It's a mark o' a dark mage - a show of dark magic corruption. Least, when it's done deliberately. You just have it from an accident, I know that! It ain't yer fault at all! It was...You Know Who's fault for...directin' so dark o' magic at an innocent little baby. And for yer parents, too, it's all HIS fault...bless them..."
Sadie pulled her eyepatch back into place - and in doing so, she locked away all thoughts and feelings on this incredible information about her past, her disfigurements, and even her parents (they hadn't really died in a car crash, but had been murdered?). She sighed, leaned over the side of the boat and dipped a hand into the cold water of ocean. She swirled it around, made a few splashes.
Mused on her eye, and its impossible shade; so it seemed she was a freak even among freaks.
There was a small, strange part of her that wasn't exactly unhappy about this; in fact, it was downright preening about it.
Sadie's lips tugged at the corners for a brief moment before letting down again.