My name is Sally-Anne Perks. I'm 11 years old. Hardwork is everything. My aim is to survive.
Would you believe me if I said I woke up on the eve of my 11th birthday with nothing but those 4 sentences on my mind? Nope, neither did I but I did not have the luxury of finding out for just as I came into my senses - I was lying on the springy wet slippery grass in a lawn with a derelict old house in the middle of spring with nothing but the orb of the full moon to guide me in terms of light - I heard a howl, a series of growls, and a frantic scampering of claws and drooling of saliva from behind me. The large four legged animal from the edge of my peripheral vision neared within two metres of me briefly before I found my senses and rose to my feet, feeling the weight of a sturdy pair of children's school shoes on the soles of my feet beneath me, and then running of without a moment's more delay.
I crossed the yard within a few strokes, the sight of a vanilla birthday cake with pink icing and eleven candles on it just a blurry mess to my left for a few seconds, I got a splinter in my hand as I hopped over the fence, and took of across the yard for the next one, nursing my fourth finger which had the splinter in it and using my other palm, but gently so, to hop over the fence this time, cursing the wolves from behind me.
Wolves. Dogs. Hybrids. Whatever they were. I had no idea of how I came to the knowledge of the existence of these animals when I don't remember anything, of my life or the world as a whole, but all I knew was that I just knew things about the world, knowledge I could use, without knowing how I knew it.
The houses here were all derelict and run-down. Windows were smashed open or broken, walls were teaming with holes and a few even crumbled into half a standing brick wall and piles of bricks scattered all around, filthy cans of soft drink, cigarette butts, alcoholic bottles (some shattered across the overgrown grass and bracken), dotted the scene. The gloom of darkness shone within each house, instantly I knew this wasn't what a normal household looked like and that no people lived there, even though when I tried to think of it, I couldn't remember anything about ever living in a normal household myself, or being around other people at all. I should have no sense at all of what a normal household or family living in one looked like but yet I did, I had the knowledge.
The brief glimpses of the sidewalk through the left side of the house was all wild dark thorny shrubs, thick green hedges full of spiders, centipedes, grubs and cicadas, and the occasional passageway between two shrubs had so many interconnected webs of all sorts of spiders within it I didn't dare cross it without fear of getting bitten or having a creature on me. No wonder I took the often of jumping the fence and crawling through backyards than the sidewalk, it was the easier path at first glance though I knew not whether this was definitively true for I hadn't broken my way through the wild shrubs by the sidewalk to see the state of the street yet. If there was one. Possibly these were all houses in the woods and that was on the other side of the sidewalk was more woodland. Or maybe there was one path with the houses on one side, and the wild woods on the other.
The brief echoes of skyline I could see around me gave no hints. Just the normal dark green trees all around me, the type you see in suburbs (even though I had no idea how I knew of suburbs), which could mean I was in a suburb, but a run-down one, or in a sparse part of the woods. I had no idea.
In the distance I could see the spires of some church buildings, and slightly taller multi-storey houses, among more leafy tree tops. It gave me hope that there were people and civilisation nearby, but also fear that they couldn't be trusted.
There was no such thing as a free lunch.
These people would have no more reason to be hospitable towards me than the wolves.
I turned around quickly to see if there were any faces I didn't hear which were there all along. Nothing but the darkness of an old wooden picket fence, overgrown bushes up to my waist, and an old wood oven of some sort from where I imagined the previous owner might've enjoyed homemade pizzas or something on a warm summer's night. (I also had no idea how I came to have knowledge of human food I could eat, though I was becoming more sure I was a human by the minute, and what foods I would eat).
Still, I didn't trust the darkness.
Wolves or dogs hunt at night because that is when we are weak. There is no reason to stand around here and make myself be prey.
I hopped over some more fences, beginning to get desperate when I spied a break in the line of houses, and a roundabout at the end of a street that curved into a road flanked by more houses - this time with properly fixed windows, a car in the driveway, and just something about it that gave the impression of people living there - and followed the streets until I came to a public toilet by the park. It was locked but I was skinny enough to either crawl underneath or climb over the top. I chose the option of climbing over the top, grasping the metal poles of the bars with my hand and pushing of them with my feet, until I was close enough to the top that I was able to swing one leg over, and then gradually the rest of my body before I let myself fall for the about 2 metre drop.
I landed safely on the blue and white tiled floor, before picking myself up and heading to the inside of the toilet. This was the female section and there were three cubicles that were thankfully empty and open. I found one and just about collapsed in it, feeling the erratic beating of my heart gradually slow down as I tried to grasp meaning of this whilst I worked the splinter out of my hand.
My name is Sally-Anne Perks. I'm 11 years old. Hardwork is everything. My aim is to survive.
My name is Sally-Anne Perks. Nothing but Sally-Anne Perks. I have no middle name, my first name is just Sally-Anne. My surname is Perks. I have no idea who named me or how I know this, but all I knew with dead certainty was that it was my name. I felt like I could die a thousand times and still have that fact resurface. I'm eleven years old. I knew this like I knew my name. An image of concentric tree rings came to mind. Eleven tightly woven rings on the intersection of a small tree. Just as quickly as it came it faded away again. I didn't feel like it was a tree in real life, a location in real life, or like I truly had something to do with trees cut in half, but just as how you could easily count the age of a tree by the rings, I just felt as sure and strongly as that, that I was eleven years old. Just eleven years old. Not a day more.
Like I had lived the time of my life from when I was a baby until I was exactly eleven, and that I had woken at midnight of my birthday.
Hardwork is everything. That was the only thought that didn't feel like a fact about myself that was burned in the back of my brain, something I couldn't possibly forget, but rather my own voice. Something I decided for myself. Yes, hardwork was everything. Hardwork did everything, was everything. It was what allowed humans to get from one place to another, to access higher enlightenment about the world around us, it was a measure that if man tried very hard to live by and do everything they did for it, would allow them to become great. Hardwork was the secret behind everything and anything. It felt like some spirit I had carried within me from before I even knew what my name or age was. My voice. My thoughts. My opinion.
Everything else was just facts.
My aim is to survive? I felt a strong sensation burn inside of me. As if everything that had been done to keep me alive up til this point and put me in this position, even as precarious to survival as it was, would be for nothing if I were to be stupid, make wrong moves, and throw away my life.
The thoughts of the wolves came back to haunt me. Half wolves half dogs I decided. They had to be to be so close to human dwellings (how did I know this? I didn't know), normal wild animals wouldn't feel so comfortable. They were the first challenge that I'd faced and I was determined not to get eaten by them...
I washed my hands with water from the tap. I felt like I ate dinner though I couldn't remember how or what. But like I would be hungry (and thirsty) in time for breakfast. I had no cup however and I wasn't sure if the water was sanitary. Just as I was done washing the blood from the splinter and heading out to see if I could get more information about the place I found myself, I saw another girl that almost looked exactly like me standing by the outside of the bathroom, her features cut by the black metal bars that separated us. She stood there forlornly, hands by her sides, neither overjoyed nor distraught, just sort of there, if not a little wistful, surveying me through the bars with her clouded grey eyes. I had no idea what I looked like as I hadn't taken a look at myself yet, but just looking at her I got the strongest sense she looked almost exactly like me, and through drinking in her appearance I was getting a sense of what I looked like.
Like many other things I couldn't explain this, but yet I didn't feel a sense of terror or fear just looking at her. I just had the sense she was good.
"My name is Leigh-Scarlett and I think I'm imagining you," she said.
AN: This is the same Sally-Anne Perks that was mentioned in the sorting into Hufflepuff in first year then never mentioned again after that. In 5th year there was a scene in HP where the names of all the Hufflepuff girls were listed and she didn't appear, which means she was enrolled at Hogwarts in 1st year in canon, but wasn't there by 5th year. No explanation was given for it. Some say it was a typo by JK (she simply forgot a character) but it's fun to make up fan theories about it. This is my take on it, please review if you want to read more. It would be encouraging to know there's interest for this type of story!
Edit: Turns out Sally-Anne Perks was't mentioned to be sorted in Hufflepuff (I read a wrong fan theory) but everything else is still true so the mystery of her disappearance continues!