It had been nearly ten years since that fateful evening that Ms. Black had found out that the man that she had once been married to was crazy. Though she often said that Nacks Street had not changed at all, she could not have been farther from the truth.
At one time, when she, her daughter, and her now ex-husband moved in there was a family orientated feeling to the street. Now that feeling was replaced by feelings of distress and despair. The houses along the street reflected this feeling. None better than number nine, the one Ms. Black lived in. The fence that had once surrounded the house had mostly fallen off of it's posts. Those pieces of fence that still stayed up now had wholes punched into them.
The house wasn't the only thing that had changed. Ever since the day that her husband left, the guy that she had asked to come over to talk to had not left. He daughter was not stupid. She knew that Hank did not sleep in the room next to her mother's. She knew that Hank stayed in her mom's room with her and that he was not there to protect them from her father. Instead of being always at home with her baby. She was back working as a waitress at Tom's Grease Bin Café and Truck Stop three streets over.
What had changed most was the bedroom at the end of the hall upstairs. The room was now empty. Down the second flight of stairs that leads down to the basement in the bathroom that was never used before Ms. Black's husband was forced to leave the house was a young girl. But if you walked into the house when she was at school you would have had no idea that there was a third being of any sort living in that house.
But Kat Black was still in the house. At this particular moment, a few house before her life would change forever, she was sitting in the living room trying desperately to finish up her math homework. Tomorrow was the last day of grammar school for her. Next year she was to start at Schumthfor Secondary. Schumthfor was a local middle school that was within walking distance from the shack that she and her some what family called home.
The reason what Kat was having such a hard time finishing her homework was because Hank had the TV on very loudly on a football game. The television, like everything else they owned, they had had since before her father had left them. It had a tiny screen and had a tendency for the picture to flicker, which was what happened when Kat asked him to lower the volume because it was distracting her. Instead of lowering it, he turned it up to drown out her pleading voice.
Hank's method of fixing it and anything else that didn't work for him, was to hit it with his fist. Only this time instead of flickering back into focus or turning right off all together, the television started to smoke. Hank glared at the TV with his beady, little grey eyes. Then he continued in the grand tradition, hitting it harder than he had ever hit anything in his inter life. He the got what he wanted. The television stopped smoking for a second, only to blow up in his face.
The sound of the explosion brought Karen, who was home for once, running out of the kitchen, where she had been making dinner. It took her less then two seconds to take in the scene. Kat laying on the floor with her homework spread all around her. And Hank sitting dumfounded on the floor blankly at the TV, his greasy brown hair was singed and his scrawny face was covered in ash.
Karen picked her daughter up off the floor by the scruff of her neck. A few moments later Kat found herself laying on the floor in the downstairs bath. Kat dragged herself off the floor to hear Karen lock the dead bolt on the door. The side she had landed on, her left, stung. She rubbed her left arm, which she had used to brake her fall. Her long wavy blonde hair falling into her bright, clear blue eyes.
'You stay in there and think about what you did!' Karen yelled through the door.
'I did nothing wrong!' Kat defended herself. But it was no use, her mother had already left to go back upstairs.
She had no idea what she had done to earn this most recent visit to the downstairs bath. All she did was watch Hank made a fool out of himself yet again. But then her mother was always too willing to blame her for whatever went wrong in the house.
Kat had been locked in the bathroom for roughly three hours when an envelope was slid through the crack next to the window. She got up off the floor and went over to pick it up. The envelope was made out of heavy yellow parchment. The address on it was written in shimmery green ink and it read:
Miss K. Black
Basement Bathroom
9 Nacks Street
Bathe
What Kat had found extremely odd about the envelope was that it had no stamp or return address on it, so it couldn't have come in the mail. Was this a joke of her mother and Hank's? A single ray of hope that someone might know that she was locked up down there and offering to get her out? If someone did know that she was in there, why hadn't they offered to help her before? Millions of questions came flooding into her head, each one wondering who could have sent this envelope to her. But one struck out more clearly than the rest. Could this envelope, this letter, be from her father? Could he have found out how badly her mother was treating her? May-be he was coming to take her to go live with him, but her mom wouldn't let him anywhere near to them. There was only one way to find out and that was to open it.
When she flipped the envelope over, she noticed that it had a wax seal holding it shut. The seal was red with a giant letter H on it surrounded by a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake. It was just as she began to peal the seal off to look at the contents that she heard it. The unmistakenable sound of Hank making his way down the stairs. She looked at the letter in her hand. She knew that Hank must not see it. This could be the one chance she might have of getting out of the horrible house for good. She ran over to the shower and pulled back some of the old blanket and towels that she used to sleep on and slid the letter underneath.
As Hank drew nearer and nearer to the door, her heart picked up speed. She prayed that Hank would not notice the slight lump that was now in the towels.
She could hear Hank fittiling with the keys just outside the door. He came in carrying a tray had had some mashed potatoes and some sort of mystery meat. The food was placed before her.
'I'll be back in then minutes for the tray,' he grunted before leaving to lock the door behind himself.
Kat looked at the food, wondering if she dared risk getting food poising from eating it. In the end she decided that she did. Very slowly she picked up her fork and tasted the meat. It was like eating a pair of Hank's old smelly, sweaty socks with the texture of rope. The potatoes had to be left overs that had been in the fridge for two weeks. She knew that her mother's cooking wasn't the greatest, in fact it was the pits. But no matter how bad the food was, it was food and she should be grateful for it.
With great difficulty she managed to get all of her food down. She was left sitting on the floor waiting for Hank to come down and her the empty tray. Her thoughts then turned to school the next year. She could see the slightest ray of hope. Then she was to go to Secondary school. A whole new set of teachers and hopefully kids. If these teachers where any better than the ones she knew from grammar school everything would be okay. She wouldn't have to bring home anymore nasty notes saying that she had played some sort of joke on the teachers or kids. Next year was going to be differed.
It was unknown to her how long she had been sitting there before Hank came back downstairs to retrieve the tray, but it seemed like forever. As he came closer to the door, she could hear the sound of keys jingling so he could let himself in. Once inside the bathroom, he closed the door behind himself to prevent her from trying to make a brake for it. There was a shocked look on his blue face when he saw the empty tray. He bent down to pick it up when she spoke.
'Hank, am I allowed out yet?' it was a big risk that she was taking, but had to know.
An evil grin spread across his skinny face.
'You blew that blasted TV up in my face. How al I to watch my football games now? Did you honestly think that your mother and I where going to let you out that easily? You could of killed us!' he spat.
'But what about school tomorrow? It's my last day!'
He looked at her, 'I'll talk to your mother,' he said shortly then left without saying another word.
Trying desperately not to cry Kat sauntered over to the shower. She knew that would be able to hear her until he got up to the top of the stairs. As soon as she heard the door to the basement shut, she let her clear blue eyes run dry. Well, sobbing quietly she could feel something underneath her. She sat up and reached under to find the thick letter that had been sent to her.
Now was the time to open in and find out who had sent it to her. She flipped it over, pealed the wax seal off and opened it. Inside where two pieces of parchment. Taking out the first one she saw that it was written in the same shimmery ink. The letter read:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Miss Black.
We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on 1 September. We await you owl by no later than 31 July.
Yours Sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
Kat read the letter over again, sure that this had to be some sort of joke. But the more times she read it, the more it sounded like the real deal. By the end of the night, right before she fell asleep, she had made up her mind to talk to her mother
about going.
At one time, when she, her daughter, and her now ex-husband moved in there was a family orientated feeling to the street. Now that feeling was replaced by feelings of distress and despair. The houses along the street reflected this feeling. None better than number nine, the one Ms. Black lived in. The fence that had once surrounded the house had mostly fallen off of it's posts. Those pieces of fence that still stayed up now had wholes punched into them.
The house wasn't the only thing that had changed. Ever since the day that her husband left, the guy that she had asked to come over to talk to had not left. He daughter was not stupid. She knew that Hank did not sleep in the room next to her mother's. She knew that Hank stayed in her mom's room with her and that he was not there to protect them from her father. Instead of being always at home with her baby. She was back working as a waitress at Tom's Grease Bin Café and Truck Stop three streets over.
What had changed most was the bedroom at the end of the hall upstairs. The room was now empty. Down the second flight of stairs that leads down to the basement in the bathroom that was never used before Ms. Black's husband was forced to leave the house was a young girl. But if you walked into the house when she was at school you would have had no idea that there was a third being of any sort living in that house.
But Kat Black was still in the house. At this particular moment, a few house before her life would change forever, she was sitting in the living room trying desperately to finish up her math homework. Tomorrow was the last day of grammar school for her. Next year she was to start at Schumthfor Secondary. Schumthfor was a local middle school that was within walking distance from the shack that she and her some what family called home.
The reason what Kat was having such a hard time finishing her homework was because Hank had the TV on very loudly on a football game. The television, like everything else they owned, they had had since before her father had left them. It had a tiny screen and had a tendency for the picture to flicker, which was what happened when Kat asked him to lower the volume because it was distracting her. Instead of lowering it, he turned it up to drown out her pleading voice.
Hank's method of fixing it and anything else that didn't work for him, was to hit it with his fist. Only this time instead of flickering back into focus or turning right off all together, the television started to smoke. Hank glared at the TV with his beady, little grey eyes. Then he continued in the grand tradition, hitting it harder than he had ever hit anything in his inter life. He the got what he wanted. The television stopped smoking for a second, only to blow up in his face.
The sound of the explosion brought Karen, who was home for once, running out of the kitchen, where she had been making dinner. It took her less then two seconds to take in the scene. Kat laying on the floor with her homework spread all around her. And Hank sitting dumfounded on the floor blankly at the TV, his greasy brown hair was singed and his scrawny face was covered in ash.
Karen picked her daughter up off the floor by the scruff of her neck. A few moments later Kat found herself laying on the floor in the downstairs bath. Kat dragged herself off the floor to hear Karen lock the dead bolt on the door. The side she had landed on, her left, stung. She rubbed her left arm, which she had used to brake her fall. Her long wavy blonde hair falling into her bright, clear blue eyes.
'You stay in there and think about what you did!' Karen yelled through the door.
'I did nothing wrong!' Kat defended herself. But it was no use, her mother had already left to go back upstairs.
She had no idea what she had done to earn this most recent visit to the downstairs bath. All she did was watch Hank made a fool out of himself yet again. But then her mother was always too willing to blame her for whatever went wrong in the house.
Kat had been locked in the bathroom for roughly three hours when an envelope was slid through the crack next to the window. She got up off the floor and went over to pick it up. The envelope was made out of heavy yellow parchment. The address on it was written in shimmery green ink and it read:
Miss K. Black
Basement Bathroom
9 Nacks Street
Bathe
What Kat had found extremely odd about the envelope was that it had no stamp or return address on it, so it couldn't have come in the mail. Was this a joke of her mother and Hank's? A single ray of hope that someone might know that she was locked up down there and offering to get her out? If someone did know that she was in there, why hadn't they offered to help her before? Millions of questions came flooding into her head, each one wondering who could have sent this envelope to her. But one struck out more clearly than the rest. Could this envelope, this letter, be from her father? Could he have found out how badly her mother was treating her? May-be he was coming to take her to go live with him, but her mom wouldn't let him anywhere near to them. There was only one way to find out and that was to open it.
When she flipped the envelope over, she noticed that it had a wax seal holding it shut. The seal was red with a giant letter H on it surrounded by a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake. It was just as she began to peal the seal off to look at the contents that she heard it. The unmistakenable sound of Hank making his way down the stairs. She looked at the letter in her hand. She knew that Hank must not see it. This could be the one chance she might have of getting out of the horrible house for good. She ran over to the shower and pulled back some of the old blanket and towels that she used to sleep on and slid the letter underneath.
As Hank drew nearer and nearer to the door, her heart picked up speed. She prayed that Hank would not notice the slight lump that was now in the towels.
She could hear Hank fittiling with the keys just outside the door. He came in carrying a tray had had some mashed potatoes and some sort of mystery meat. The food was placed before her.
'I'll be back in then minutes for the tray,' he grunted before leaving to lock the door behind himself.
Kat looked at the food, wondering if she dared risk getting food poising from eating it. In the end she decided that she did. Very slowly she picked up her fork and tasted the meat. It was like eating a pair of Hank's old smelly, sweaty socks with the texture of rope. The potatoes had to be left overs that had been in the fridge for two weeks. She knew that her mother's cooking wasn't the greatest, in fact it was the pits. But no matter how bad the food was, it was food and she should be grateful for it.
With great difficulty she managed to get all of her food down. She was left sitting on the floor waiting for Hank to come down and her the empty tray. Her thoughts then turned to school the next year. She could see the slightest ray of hope. Then she was to go to Secondary school. A whole new set of teachers and hopefully kids. If these teachers where any better than the ones she knew from grammar school everything would be okay. She wouldn't have to bring home anymore nasty notes saying that she had played some sort of joke on the teachers or kids. Next year was going to be differed.
It was unknown to her how long she had been sitting there before Hank came back downstairs to retrieve the tray, but it seemed like forever. As he came closer to the door, she could hear the sound of keys jingling so he could let himself in. Once inside the bathroom, he closed the door behind himself to prevent her from trying to make a brake for it. There was a shocked look on his blue face when he saw the empty tray. He bent down to pick it up when she spoke.
'Hank, am I allowed out yet?' it was a big risk that she was taking, but had to know.
An evil grin spread across his skinny face.
'You blew that blasted TV up in my face. How al I to watch my football games now? Did you honestly think that your mother and I where going to let you out that easily? You could of killed us!' he spat.
'But what about school tomorrow? It's my last day!'
He looked at her, 'I'll talk to your mother,' he said shortly then left without saying another word.
Trying desperately not to cry Kat sauntered over to the shower. She knew that would be able to hear her until he got up to the top of the stairs. As soon as she heard the door to the basement shut, she let her clear blue eyes run dry. Well, sobbing quietly she could feel something underneath her. She sat up and reached under to find the thick letter that had been sent to her.
Now was the time to open in and find out who had sent it to her. She flipped it over, pealed the wax seal off and opened it. Inside where two pieces of parchment. Taking out the first one she saw that it was written in the same shimmery ink. The letter read:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Miss Black.
We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on 1 September. We await you owl by no later than 31 July.
Yours Sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
Kat read the letter over again, sure that this had to be some sort of joke. But the more times she read it, the more it sounded like the real deal. By the end of the night, right before she fell asleep, she had made up her mind to talk to her mother
about going.