AN: I do not own anything from the Harry Potter series. It all belongs to JK Rowling. I am in your debt for creating such a wonderful series. Please don't sue me!!!!

AN: (2/25) updated for your reading pleasure. ^_^

Chapter 2: Scars

At least my parents had each other.

I had no one.

The closest thing I could call a friend was a stuffed animal, a rabbit with floppy pink ears and soft fur. His paws were sewed together so you could slip him around your arm and he would hang onto you. I never let him dangle, forgotten in the air, though. I would hold him in my embrace, his soft fur keeping my chest warm and I would look over his head and between his ears when I carried him so I wouldn't have to talk to anyone.

My father tried to connect with his family. He was still welcomed in with warm embraces, and soft kisses from his sisters, but my mother and I waited out on the sunny porch, swinging on the squeaky white porch swing. She would look over the porch rails and gaze at the garden filled with flowers, some she had never seen before. I would often dangle my feet from the swing wondering when they would touch the ground, or cuddle up into a ball and fall into a deep sleep, tired of waiting. Other times we would wait at a hotel nearby. I remember the ice maker being loud and sounds of the springs in the mattress would make when we moved. It was a horrible coverlet, decorated with disproportionally large flowers, browned by age, and covered in a thin layer of dust. We were never allowed in the house. Muggles weren't allowed to see the wizarding world.

My mother's small family believed my father was crazy, a man with a warped sense of reality. I would be with my father out in the entrance hall where we would sit on a wooden bench or on the cold granite floor. He often held a book in his hand and read, once in a while muttering things under his breath. I would set down my rabbit by him and would play hopscotch quietly, my shoes clicking against the granite tiles, or I would occupy myself with a set of colored glass tiddly winks. Most of the times we would spend the night in the hotel across the street, I remember the five story climb to our rooms and my father whipping his wand out and whispering More often then not, the lamps would then proceed to burst into flame.

My parents could fit somewhere in this vast world, but I had nowhere to go myself. Being neither witch nor muggle, I wondered where I could go to escape from everyone, everything. I would dream of a distant land, deep underground, where gems would shine and rocks would glow with multiple colors, a city that was carved out of stone and filled with flower shops, book stores, a lake and delicious food. There would be no one there. No one would run away. No one would frown at me, wizard and witches that I saw enter the Leaky Cauldron, where I would meet my father sometimes, would offer me help to enter the wizarding world. Then they would notice my mother holding onto my hand and looking, but not seeing the shop there. They would frown then. They didn't know if I could see the shop or not, but they would assume, and they held a look of disgust in their eyes. The muggles didn't quite know what was wrong, perhaps it was the black velvet robe I wore sometimes in the chilly months, perhaps it was something they saw in my detached expression, but they were disturbed nonetheless. You could see their fear. You could taste their bitter hate in your mouth. It was like metal and blood, foreign to the taste buds but displeasing and would never go away despite how much minty toothpaste you used.

My parents tried to comfort me. They would take me to amusement parks, filled with balloons and fast moving rides, shapes whirling inside my head. Other times I would shop in downtown London with my mother, stopping at my mother's heals and staring up at the display windows, my mother debating weather to go into the shop or not. But I rarely asked for anything.

All I wanted was to fit in.

And I knew they couldn't get me that.

Maybe that's why they had another child.

This time a boy.

Two would more readily survive than one.

He curled his tiny fingers around my thumb when I saw him, clothed in a blue terry cloth nightie, at the maternity ward of the hospital. I was determined he would have happier days than I had.

A year later I was in the 1st grade and the name calling and beatings began.

When the teachers weren't around the children made sport of me. One boy in particular hated me, laughed at me. He smashed my head into a mud puddle once. I began to choke as his foot stepped on back, holding me down. At first I was scared; then for one brief moment I was filled with hatred, a most painful and sinful hatred.

I wanted him dead.

I remember sitting up and staring at emptiness.

His body was flat on the ground.

The kids around us stared and then they began to scream.

I couldn't scream. I was too frightened to scream.

The teacher looked at muddy face, my skirt ripped and with various grass stains.... and then at the boy.

The boy that wasn't moving.

I always wanted to fit in, in one way or another, but had I known I would be recognized as a witch in this way....... I would have never let myself become one.

I transferred to anther school.

My father and his family were delighted I was a witch. They held a garden party soon afterwards, my mother nursing my baby brother on the porch swing. I remember the large pink frosted cake. It towered above me. My father told me they had written Congratulations Neoma! across the top. I held onto my rabbit. I didn't want that cake. I wanted it smashed, pink frosting covering everything within a mile. I stared at my shinny black and uncomfortable mary janes.

I walked into the house quietly and hid in the cupboard under the sink until it was time to leave.

They were convinced my brother would be a wizard too. They introduced him to the wizarding world at the tender age of two and my sinful self at age seven.

His amber eyes twinkled in delight. A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.

All I could see was the pain I had created.

But he still felt like he didn't belong. I couldn't blame him. We were still in another way. Our mother was Japanese, our father English. We would spend the weekends learning Japanese at a small school in England. Summers were what caused us pain though. We were sent to public school in Japan with the Japanese kids of our age and would be frowned upon. We could do just as well, if not better than them in class.

They hated us.

I remember my brother crying and running toward me at the young age of five after his first beating. I held him in my arms and let him cry. I comforted him the best I could until he ran out of tears, gently patting his back and rocking him in my arms, humming a gentle song I had learned that day.... something about crows going home after the sun set and little birds dreaming in their nest.....

I could not explain to him why those children had done that to him. I told him that I had never figured it out for all the years since I was five. He looked up at me curiously, his cheeks still striped with the remnants of tears. His palm cupped my cheek, followed my jaw bone and hesitated for a second before he dug under my brown turtle neck. He touched a wound that was just beginning to heal, a scratchy and rough blood clot met his fingers. I looked at him sadly, he looked up at me with shock and then looked as if he was going to cry again. Now understood why I had worn turtle necks and long skirts for as long as he could remember.

He had gotten a deep cut under his left eye, right above his cheek. It would scar but he refused for father to fix it with his wand or his soothing herbs. Perhaps he felt that the scar would remind him of me. That scar had connected us. We had faced life together and survived. I held onto him, as he held onto me, my stuffed rabbit forgotten in the dark corner of my room.

We refused to let go for those few short years we had left.

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AN: Please review. I live for your reviews.... and then again..... I have a pretty sad life.... Yes, this is my OC. She will be more well known in the next chapter. (but even MORE in chapter 4~!)