1.
The first thing he noticed about her was that she was ugly. She was ugly not in a Wicked Witch of the West kind of way, but in an almost daring, touch-me-and-you-die kind of way. Her features were all of moderate size and equal symmetry, but there was no beauty to her face. It was a dark face, not in color but in temperament. Most teenagers would probably cover themselves in make-up, but this one did not. Neither did she wear any of the form-fitting clothing that most girls wore. Instead she wore an unflattering baggy t-shirt and ratty jeans which did nothing to indicate a figure beneath. Somehow, despite her unattractive features and lack of adornments, she pulled it off. Her dark hair was cut above her shoulders and hung loosely around her long face, giving her a spunky, defiant look that overpowered the lack of natural beauty.
She was standing across the street from them looking at a spot on the ground when they stepped out the front door together. She moved her head and eyes across the street as if following something only she could see. Crossing the street, she held out a hand and called, "Come here boy! What is it? What do you want?" Her voice was high and sing-song as if talking to a young child or animal. She stopped in front of the walk, oblivious to the five adults who watched her movement with curiosity. Most adults would automatically assume a child her age mad, as she was too old for invisible playmates, but they knew better than to pass judgments on things that seemed incomprehensible and unusual. They were, after all, quite unusual themselves. "Do you want me to follow you?" she asked the air in front of her. And then, with a bewildered shrug, she did the impossible - she started down the walk of Number Twelve towards a house that was unplottable, a house which she shouldn't have been able to see or enter the grounds of unless someone had informed her of its location. Or led her to it.
She stopped halfway down the walk and looked at the people observing her from the porch, some with a cold disdain, others with curiosity and amusement. "Is this your dog?" she asked, indicating to the empty space before her.
They saw no dog, so the old man with the long white beard answered truthfully, "We have no dog. How did you find it?"
"It's more like it found me. I've never seen it before, but I just moved here so I wouldn't have. Its like it. . .wants something, but I don't know what. Maybe it's hungry. It kept on showing up in the oddest places, but no one pays it any attention - it might as well be invisible. It's handsome though, ain't it? My neighbor back home used to have a dog like this one, but it had a spot of white on its chest instead of being completely black."
She wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. Why were they looking at her like that? She had seen that look before when she asked the landlady who the man was who lived in the top flat, the one she always saw staring out his window. But the landlady had given her 'the look' and said the top flat had been empty over a decade. Ignoring the landlady's plea to leave it be, she had snuck up one Saturday morning with a basket of food - baked chicken, potato salad, several loaves of bread - to see if it was a homeless man who had taken shelter there. She had paused at the top of the stairs outside the door and was about to knock when it slowly creaked open. Inside she could see years worth of dust on the scattered papers and overturned chairs strewn on the bare floor. No one had disturbed this flat in quite a while. She could see straight past the parlor and living area into the bedroom where sunlight was streaming through the window that opened to look down on the street out front, the same window at which she had seen the figure. A dazzling display of dust mites and tiny particles whirled in the light. She could see a pair of legs, feet clad in socks, dangling just beyond the doorway, swinging lazily in a circle. She turned and fled. She heard all the rumors - how a man had killed himself in broad daylight, hung himself in his bedroom, how all the tenants afterwards complained of mysterious happenings, doors locking of their own accord, the front window always being pitch black despite the time of day - but ignored them. She never looked up into the top window of the building again.
But the people observing her now knew less about her than she did. They were murmuring among themselves. She caught several words: obliviate, coincidence, Muggle. Were they foreigners? She tried again, "Look, I'm sorry to bug you. I'm sure the dog has a home somewhere - it can find it's own way back." She said this firmly and turned to leave, only to stop short. "Look here," she said to the air in front of her again, "you have to move." She started forward again, but this time the entire porch knew heard the low growl. "Move, you jerk, I have to get home." She started forward again, but stopped and backed up. She turned to look back at the porch as if the people there might have the answer. "I think it wants me. . .to go inside."
The old man with the silver hair nodded, as if it were normal for hallucinating girls to demand entrance because of spectral dogs. "Perhaps that would be the best thing. Where exactly is the dog now?"
It was the wrong thing to say. The girl immediately tensed and glared at him, a slight sneer on her lips. "You don't see it do you? Thought you'd just invite me inside for a cup of tea and call the police, tell them there's a mad girl on the loose."
The old man raised his hands soothingly. "I said nothing of the sort-"
She didn't stay to hear his explanation. Giving no heed to the shouts behind her, she sprinted down the walk and ran quickly to the corner, where she disappeared into the early evening. The woman with short pink hair ran all the way to the end of the block before admitting defeat. She jogged back to the rest, her face apologetic. "Man, can that girl run! Do you think she's an athlete?"
"Do you think she's a spy?" asked one of men, his mismatched eyes darting around nervously.
The old man sighed and answered, "I have no idea what or who she was, but I think it is necessary that we find her. It is too much a coincidence to ignore. She must live in this area - we should comb the surrounding neighborhood. What do you think Severus?"
The tall man next to him was gazing off down the street, lost in his own thoughts. The girl had a spark of familiarity to her. Had he seen her before? He had the feeling he knew her, but from where? Should he know her? Another man, with premature gray hair, gently tapped his elbow. "What do you want?" he snarled roughly, shook out of his reverie.
"Do you know her?" Lupin asked, his eyes understanding and gentle.
"No. Don't be absurd. Why would I know some common Muggle?"
The old man looked at him piercingly. "That was no Muggle."
"Indeed," he answered. "Well, it's no concern of mine. I have my own business to attend to. Those of you who have nothing better to do," he sneered at Lupin, "might as well keep an eye out for her. I'll be in touch," he said curtly, disappearing with a loud pop.
************************************************************************************
She entered the kitchen slightly out of breath and stood there by the doorway, her eyes adjusting to the stark white light inside. Her mom was at the kitchen table, cutting a large yellow onion while tears leaked out of her eyes. "Mom," she chastised. "I told you to let me cut the onions. It always hurts your eyes."
The lady shoved the onion into the girl's hands and sighed. "You're always better at cutting these things than I am."
"Don't be silly. It takes no talent to hack at a vegetable with a knife until it's unrecognizable." But her actions gave no proof to her words, as perfectly symmetrical small squares began to appear on the other side of the knife as she sliced with deadly accuracy.
"Did you find out who owns that dog you've been seeing around?"
The girl paused before answering, "No." She turned to face the woman behind her, whose blond hair and fair features clashed with her dark ones. "Are you sure you've never seen the dog. At all? Even when I pointed it out to you in broad daylight in the park?"
The woman shook her head guiltily. "I'm sorry sweetheart, but I didn't see any dog. You know how you're always better at seeing things than I am." Her remark, though casual, held a darker meaning behind it. It was precisely her daughter's talent of 'seeing things' that caused the family so much grief. The girl could no longer look in mirrors, or any shiny surface for that matter, without shuddering with the things she found there. The lamp on her nightstand remained permanently on, even when she slept. Arguments that she was too old for a nightlight did not exist in this household. Her daughter had long ago made it known that the dark had eyes.
They continued to make dinner in silence, the younger woman slicing onions and potatoes, the older stirring simmering pots and setting the table. Before long a middle aged man entered, his slightly bulging belly indicating a body that was starting to leave its prime. His bright eyes lit when he saw what was for dinner. He stopped to plant a kiss on the girl's forehead, his thin platinum blond hair brushing against her dark brown curls. "Mmhhh, you sure made a feast this time Misa."
She laughed. "I didn't cook it - Mom did."
"But Misa helped. She has a knack of putting just the right amount of seasoning and vegetables in." She kissed her husband briefly before turning back to the dishes she was rinsing in the sink. Her husband rubbed his hands together as he leaned over the pot to smell the delicious aroma that lilted throughout the room. "Stay out of that!" his wife warned.
"Hey, Misa! I talked with some of the neighbors and one remembers seeing a large black dog appear out of nowhere sometime last year. Ms. Batty remembered because her own dog, a large Labrador, had just died last August. She saw several strange looking adults and a whole batch of children walk past her on. . .what was the street name, Grimauld or something like that." Misa nodded. So someone had seen the dog besides herself. She would have to remember to ask Ms. Batty exactly what these strange adults looked like. She couldn't get the strangely cloaked people on the porch out of her mind.
"Thanks dad," she said, giving him a hug, her arms starting to not quite reach around his waist like when she was little and couldn't even reach the sink without a stepstool. "It was sweet of you to ask for me."
"You dog lovers," he said disdainfully. "But I guess if you can't have a cat a dog is the next best thing."
"Huh?"
"Well, I'm tired of waiting for you to ask to adopt it if we can't find it's owners, so I give you permission now."
"Henry!" his wife said in surprise. "A dog! Really - for all we know the dog could belong to someone."
"They aren't taking proper care of it if it does, Miriam. Letting it roam the streets, in the middle of the city! Isn't there a law against that?"
"But we haven't even seen it-" She stopped short. Misa clenched her jaw. There, it was out in the open - they didn't know yet if their own daughter was hallucinating or not. "Now, Misa darling, you know I didn't mean it like that, I simply-"
"No, I don't want to talk about it." She brushed off her mother's comforting arms and started towards the dining room. Her dad started to speak but she cut him off too. "I said I didn't want to talk about it!" They watched her silently. After she had seen the shadows swirling around their son, shadows no one else could see, shortly before his death, they had agreed privately to never doubt her again. But it was hard sometimes. Misa grimaced. She didn't mean to, but she made life so difficult for her parents. She couldn't help feeling resentful towards them - agreeing to not hurt her feelings wasn't the same as the understanding that she needed, an understanding that she had gotten from only one person in the world until her parents decided to move halfway across the world to London. "Come on, let's eat," she beckoned to the two adults who were currently biting their tongues. "I'm starving!"
*************************************************************************************
He opened the trunk carefully, as if it might fall off its hinges at the slightest jolt. Why had that girl reminded him of old memories? A face floated in the midst of his mind, a small hand reaching up and flicking back the dark curls that crowded around the ears like angry bees. Why was he thinking of her now? He remembered too well the last person who had hallucinated so openly. It was a condition with which he had become well acquainted. He reached through the old journals and scrapbooks, the only bits of sentimental nonsense he allowed himself to have, and found the old silver locket. He opened it to find his face, seventeen years younger, grinning awkwardly on one side and hers on the other. "Where are you now Maigraith? Still making music throughout the world? Still beautiful as ever?" But that was a lie. Sophisticated, elegant, and defiant, but never quite beautiful. Perhaps that was why they suited each other so perfectly. He was far from handsome himself, his sharp angular features unattractive and sour, but they both had found a sort of beauty in each other. "Why am I thinking of you now?" He thought through the memories of the day, that strange Muggle girl, the meetings, the visions, the attacks, but found nothing that could have sparked this unprecedented longing for a woman who had left his thoughts as surely as she had left his life sixteen yeas ago. "We should have become married. I should have left for you." He shuddered thinking what kind of children they could have produced, should both their powers of the mind be inherited. What kind of horrors would await their birth? He sighed and curled up on the damp stone floor next to the trunk. He loathed nostalgia, but he could permit this small bit of a feeling he normally shunned, not that that was saying much as he normally shunned feelings in general. If only it had all been different. . .
***************************************************************************************
(A/N: Ok, for the record: Don't own any recognizable characters from HP, never have, never will. I own all invented characters, mostly those associated with the immediate world surrounding Misa. This story follows the summer after Oop. The name Maigraith is the name of my favorite character from Ian Irvine's The View From the Mirror series, a fantastic fantasy series that everyone should read! I'm slightly influenced by the movie Sixth Sense, but Misa's Seeing will involve more than just dead people. Imagine her kind of as a female Danny [from Stephen King's The Shining, also a great book], on whom the shadows of the netherworld must feed to come to life. Misa is an abbreviation from a name that I'm sure everybody knows, but you'll find out from what later. Let me know what you think so far!)
The first thing he noticed about her was that she was ugly. She was ugly not in a Wicked Witch of the West kind of way, but in an almost daring, touch-me-and-you-die kind of way. Her features were all of moderate size and equal symmetry, but there was no beauty to her face. It was a dark face, not in color but in temperament. Most teenagers would probably cover themselves in make-up, but this one did not. Neither did she wear any of the form-fitting clothing that most girls wore. Instead she wore an unflattering baggy t-shirt and ratty jeans which did nothing to indicate a figure beneath. Somehow, despite her unattractive features and lack of adornments, she pulled it off. Her dark hair was cut above her shoulders and hung loosely around her long face, giving her a spunky, defiant look that overpowered the lack of natural beauty.
She was standing across the street from them looking at a spot on the ground when they stepped out the front door together. She moved her head and eyes across the street as if following something only she could see. Crossing the street, she held out a hand and called, "Come here boy! What is it? What do you want?" Her voice was high and sing-song as if talking to a young child or animal. She stopped in front of the walk, oblivious to the five adults who watched her movement with curiosity. Most adults would automatically assume a child her age mad, as she was too old for invisible playmates, but they knew better than to pass judgments on things that seemed incomprehensible and unusual. They were, after all, quite unusual themselves. "Do you want me to follow you?" she asked the air in front of her. And then, with a bewildered shrug, she did the impossible - she started down the walk of Number Twelve towards a house that was unplottable, a house which she shouldn't have been able to see or enter the grounds of unless someone had informed her of its location. Or led her to it.
She stopped halfway down the walk and looked at the people observing her from the porch, some with a cold disdain, others with curiosity and amusement. "Is this your dog?" she asked, indicating to the empty space before her.
They saw no dog, so the old man with the long white beard answered truthfully, "We have no dog. How did you find it?"
"It's more like it found me. I've never seen it before, but I just moved here so I wouldn't have. Its like it. . .wants something, but I don't know what. Maybe it's hungry. It kept on showing up in the oddest places, but no one pays it any attention - it might as well be invisible. It's handsome though, ain't it? My neighbor back home used to have a dog like this one, but it had a spot of white on its chest instead of being completely black."
She wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. Why were they looking at her like that? She had seen that look before when she asked the landlady who the man was who lived in the top flat, the one she always saw staring out his window. But the landlady had given her 'the look' and said the top flat had been empty over a decade. Ignoring the landlady's plea to leave it be, she had snuck up one Saturday morning with a basket of food - baked chicken, potato salad, several loaves of bread - to see if it was a homeless man who had taken shelter there. She had paused at the top of the stairs outside the door and was about to knock when it slowly creaked open. Inside she could see years worth of dust on the scattered papers and overturned chairs strewn on the bare floor. No one had disturbed this flat in quite a while. She could see straight past the parlor and living area into the bedroom where sunlight was streaming through the window that opened to look down on the street out front, the same window at which she had seen the figure. A dazzling display of dust mites and tiny particles whirled in the light. She could see a pair of legs, feet clad in socks, dangling just beyond the doorway, swinging lazily in a circle. She turned and fled. She heard all the rumors - how a man had killed himself in broad daylight, hung himself in his bedroom, how all the tenants afterwards complained of mysterious happenings, doors locking of their own accord, the front window always being pitch black despite the time of day - but ignored them. She never looked up into the top window of the building again.
But the people observing her now knew less about her than she did. They were murmuring among themselves. She caught several words: obliviate, coincidence, Muggle. Were they foreigners? She tried again, "Look, I'm sorry to bug you. I'm sure the dog has a home somewhere - it can find it's own way back." She said this firmly and turned to leave, only to stop short. "Look here," she said to the air in front of her again, "you have to move." She started forward again, but this time the entire porch knew heard the low growl. "Move, you jerk, I have to get home." She started forward again, but stopped and backed up. She turned to look back at the porch as if the people there might have the answer. "I think it wants me. . .to go inside."
The old man with the silver hair nodded, as if it were normal for hallucinating girls to demand entrance because of spectral dogs. "Perhaps that would be the best thing. Where exactly is the dog now?"
It was the wrong thing to say. The girl immediately tensed and glared at him, a slight sneer on her lips. "You don't see it do you? Thought you'd just invite me inside for a cup of tea and call the police, tell them there's a mad girl on the loose."
The old man raised his hands soothingly. "I said nothing of the sort-"
She didn't stay to hear his explanation. Giving no heed to the shouts behind her, she sprinted down the walk and ran quickly to the corner, where she disappeared into the early evening. The woman with short pink hair ran all the way to the end of the block before admitting defeat. She jogged back to the rest, her face apologetic. "Man, can that girl run! Do you think she's an athlete?"
"Do you think she's a spy?" asked one of men, his mismatched eyes darting around nervously.
The old man sighed and answered, "I have no idea what or who she was, but I think it is necessary that we find her. It is too much a coincidence to ignore. She must live in this area - we should comb the surrounding neighborhood. What do you think Severus?"
The tall man next to him was gazing off down the street, lost in his own thoughts. The girl had a spark of familiarity to her. Had he seen her before? He had the feeling he knew her, but from where? Should he know her? Another man, with premature gray hair, gently tapped his elbow. "What do you want?" he snarled roughly, shook out of his reverie.
"Do you know her?" Lupin asked, his eyes understanding and gentle.
"No. Don't be absurd. Why would I know some common Muggle?"
The old man looked at him piercingly. "That was no Muggle."
"Indeed," he answered. "Well, it's no concern of mine. I have my own business to attend to. Those of you who have nothing better to do," he sneered at Lupin, "might as well keep an eye out for her. I'll be in touch," he said curtly, disappearing with a loud pop.
************************************************************************************
She entered the kitchen slightly out of breath and stood there by the doorway, her eyes adjusting to the stark white light inside. Her mom was at the kitchen table, cutting a large yellow onion while tears leaked out of her eyes. "Mom," she chastised. "I told you to let me cut the onions. It always hurts your eyes."
The lady shoved the onion into the girl's hands and sighed. "You're always better at cutting these things than I am."
"Don't be silly. It takes no talent to hack at a vegetable with a knife until it's unrecognizable." But her actions gave no proof to her words, as perfectly symmetrical small squares began to appear on the other side of the knife as she sliced with deadly accuracy.
"Did you find out who owns that dog you've been seeing around?"
The girl paused before answering, "No." She turned to face the woman behind her, whose blond hair and fair features clashed with her dark ones. "Are you sure you've never seen the dog. At all? Even when I pointed it out to you in broad daylight in the park?"
The woman shook her head guiltily. "I'm sorry sweetheart, but I didn't see any dog. You know how you're always better at seeing things than I am." Her remark, though casual, held a darker meaning behind it. It was precisely her daughter's talent of 'seeing things' that caused the family so much grief. The girl could no longer look in mirrors, or any shiny surface for that matter, without shuddering with the things she found there. The lamp on her nightstand remained permanently on, even when she slept. Arguments that she was too old for a nightlight did not exist in this household. Her daughter had long ago made it known that the dark had eyes.
They continued to make dinner in silence, the younger woman slicing onions and potatoes, the older stirring simmering pots and setting the table. Before long a middle aged man entered, his slightly bulging belly indicating a body that was starting to leave its prime. His bright eyes lit when he saw what was for dinner. He stopped to plant a kiss on the girl's forehead, his thin platinum blond hair brushing against her dark brown curls. "Mmhhh, you sure made a feast this time Misa."
She laughed. "I didn't cook it - Mom did."
"But Misa helped. She has a knack of putting just the right amount of seasoning and vegetables in." She kissed her husband briefly before turning back to the dishes she was rinsing in the sink. Her husband rubbed his hands together as he leaned over the pot to smell the delicious aroma that lilted throughout the room. "Stay out of that!" his wife warned.
"Hey, Misa! I talked with some of the neighbors and one remembers seeing a large black dog appear out of nowhere sometime last year. Ms. Batty remembered because her own dog, a large Labrador, had just died last August. She saw several strange looking adults and a whole batch of children walk past her on. . .what was the street name, Grimauld or something like that." Misa nodded. So someone had seen the dog besides herself. She would have to remember to ask Ms. Batty exactly what these strange adults looked like. She couldn't get the strangely cloaked people on the porch out of her mind.
"Thanks dad," she said, giving him a hug, her arms starting to not quite reach around his waist like when she was little and couldn't even reach the sink without a stepstool. "It was sweet of you to ask for me."
"You dog lovers," he said disdainfully. "But I guess if you can't have a cat a dog is the next best thing."
"Huh?"
"Well, I'm tired of waiting for you to ask to adopt it if we can't find it's owners, so I give you permission now."
"Henry!" his wife said in surprise. "A dog! Really - for all we know the dog could belong to someone."
"They aren't taking proper care of it if it does, Miriam. Letting it roam the streets, in the middle of the city! Isn't there a law against that?"
"But we haven't even seen it-" She stopped short. Misa clenched her jaw. There, it was out in the open - they didn't know yet if their own daughter was hallucinating or not. "Now, Misa darling, you know I didn't mean it like that, I simply-"
"No, I don't want to talk about it." She brushed off her mother's comforting arms and started towards the dining room. Her dad started to speak but she cut him off too. "I said I didn't want to talk about it!" They watched her silently. After she had seen the shadows swirling around their son, shadows no one else could see, shortly before his death, they had agreed privately to never doubt her again. But it was hard sometimes. Misa grimaced. She didn't mean to, but she made life so difficult for her parents. She couldn't help feeling resentful towards them - agreeing to not hurt her feelings wasn't the same as the understanding that she needed, an understanding that she had gotten from only one person in the world until her parents decided to move halfway across the world to London. "Come on, let's eat," she beckoned to the two adults who were currently biting their tongues. "I'm starving!"
*************************************************************************************
He opened the trunk carefully, as if it might fall off its hinges at the slightest jolt. Why had that girl reminded him of old memories? A face floated in the midst of his mind, a small hand reaching up and flicking back the dark curls that crowded around the ears like angry bees. Why was he thinking of her now? He remembered too well the last person who had hallucinated so openly. It was a condition with which he had become well acquainted. He reached through the old journals and scrapbooks, the only bits of sentimental nonsense he allowed himself to have, and found the old silver locket. He opened it to find his face, seventeen years younger, grinning awkwardly on one side and hers on the other. "Where are you now Maigraith? Still making music throughout the world? Still beautiful as ever?" But that was a lie. Sophisticated, elegant, and defiant, but never quite beautiful. Perhaps that was why they suited each other so perfectly. He was far from handsome himself, his sharp angular features unattractive and sour, but they both had found a sort of beauty in each other. "Why am I thinking of you now?" He thought through the memories of the day, that strange Muggle girl, the meetings, the visions, the attacks, but found nothing that could have sparked this unprecedented longing for a woman who had left his thoughts as surely as she had left his life sixteen yeas ago. "We should have become married. I should have left for you." He shuddered thinking what kind of children they could have produced, should both their powers of the mind be inherited. What kind of horrors would await their birth? He sighed and curled up on the damp stone floor next to the trunk. He loathed nostalgia, but he could permit this small bit of a feeling he normally shunned, not that that was saying much as he normally shunned feelings in general. If only it had all been different. . .
***************************************************************************************
(A/N: Ok, for the record: Don't own any recognizable characters from HP, never have, never will. I own all invented characters, mostly those associated with the immediate world surrounding Misa. This story follows the summer after Oop. The name Maigraith is the name of my favorite character from Ian Irvine's The View From the Mirror series, a fantastic fantasy series that everyone should read! I'm slightly influenced by the movie Sixth Sense, but Misa's Seeing will involve more than just dead people. Imagine her kind of as a female Danny [from Stephen King's The Shining, also a great book], on whom the shadows of the netherworld must feed to come to life. Misa is an abbreviation from a name that I'm sure everybody knows, but you'll find out from what later. Let me know what you think so far!)