My family fully disappeared when I was 14. They had been slowly picked off, one by one. First to go was my mother, she vanished when I was six. Afterwards my father became sullen. Never going out to family meetings and such. I remember one such conversation with my uncle about attending the family reunion. Of course, with my family a family reunion meant several hundred people and many ridiculous expenses. Still, I don't think that was the reason my had objected to attending.
"I won't!" he had shouted, his voice carrying up the stairs to the landing I was sitting on with my twin brothers, "You can't make me!"
My uncle had replied in undertones that we couldn't catch.
"I don't want that kind of life for my kids!" he'd gone on, "Look what happened to Marissa! That could have to Annie in ten/twenty years! Or David and Gordon!"
"They respect us!" My uncle thundered, clearly fed up, "They listen to us!"
"Yes, oh yes, they listen to us," my father replied hysterically, "They also devise ways to kill us off!"
"They pay greatly for our services, they know that the trouble could come up again, and they might need us!" Uncle Amos roared, "Think of our network, we have Tom and Alice in Wales, Petunia in Surrey, Duncan in Gloucester!"
"Ah yes, we're so thinly spread it must not be hard for them to pick us off! They hate us, you've seen their Minister and some of his advisors, looking down their noses at us, as if they're superior because they can do—"
"—Shut up! Shut up, you fool! Can't you see you can't help it? The change has been done! It's been bred to your children, my children, and the entire branch! I'll go upstairs and take the children myself! They'll make useful –"
"—GET OUT! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE WITH YOUR BLASPHEMOUS TALK! YOU WILL NEVER GET YOUR HANDS ON THEM!"
We never did go to the family reunion; we did see our family members a few weeks later. At my father's funeral, they were there, at least Aunt Kate and Uncle Amos and Grandpa Joe. They didn't stay long though, just to extend their sympathies about Father's freak car accident and to offer to take us in. Gordon had stepped in there. He said that he and David, at 18, were perfectly capable of taking care of a 12 year old and that Amos need not worry. It was obvious that the argument was still fresh in their memories. But they couldn't protect me. David disappeared the next year. Gordon became paranoid, cross-examining everyone from the clerk at the register to his own employer, until I saw him step into an unknown car outside our apartment 4 years ago. I haven't seen, nor heard from him since.
In a way, I was glad when we were ostracized from our society. No more fancy parties and visiting fancy flats. I also was removed from my hoity-toity boarding school, where I had had to endure endless sympathies for my family. The highflying society had only been fun when my mother was alive, but…no, I am not going to talk about her now.
I made it my goal to track down my family's killers, I wouldn't let anything stop me, so when Draco Malfoy grabbed me to whisper his revelation gleefully, I kept my face as calm as possible and tried to deter him as best I could.
I could go on to relate the conversation that followed, but it wasn't very interesting, and was brought short by the unexpected arrival of an exuberant Herbology professor.
And so we proceeded to the green houses with this green thumb who really did belong in the loony bin. I've noticed that about most people here, they talk about making rocks float and imaginary ailments, like growing antlers, everyday.
Unfortunately, only a few were brought to public concern by means of a newspaper. The article was dead on refuting the idea of magical scars and surmising that the "victim" was insane. But I'm losing my train of thought…
Oh yes, my conversation with Malfoy. Well, he continued to harass me throughout Herbology, if it hadn't been for his inhalation of the sleep-inducing Largos pollen, I may have had to finish it. Funny though, I inhaled a bit too, it must not have been enough to knock me out. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, David had always said.
"Annie! Hey, Annie! Don't make me hex you to stop!" it was Malfoy, I paused while he caught up.
"How're you feeling? Y'know, you really should try to get a decent night's sleep, that way you won't doze off in class."
"Shut up, we still haven't established why you're here."
"I'm attending school here," I replied calmly, "in fact, I've started to wonder why you're here, surely your family didn't have much hope for you. Maybe you'll get lucky and the gamekeeper position will soon be open."
He flushed, "I haven't seen you do anything with magic," he retorted menacingly.
I waved my hand carelessly in the air, "I really don't have time to play," I said, adopting a mature, maternal tone, "there's so much to be done."
"There's so much to be done," Draco mimicked in a sarcastic, high-pitched voice, "Well, I'll just leave you at that then."
"If you insist," I sighed as though this were a huge disappointment.
"I'll go right n—wait," realization slowly dawned on his face, "I don't want to leave you alone, you still haven't answered my question."
"Way to go, Captain Obvious," I muttered under my breath.
"What sort of magic did you use just then? When you made me almost leave?" he asked curiously.
"Magic? That was not magic," I said, laughing, "That was simple reverse psychology."
"Reverse— are you sure you didn't leave the loony bin and wander here by mistake?" he asked, confused.
I grinned and shook my head and explained reverse psychology to him. He began to understand and was genuinely interested on the whole psychology subject when Crabbe&Goyle (they deserve to be one entity) came back from their sojourn with fungus in the hospital wing to reclaim their leader.
I watched them leave, and then hurried away to find somewhere to sleep.
I'm sure of it," Malfoy informed Crabbe and Goyle.
"Huh?" asked Crabbe, puzzled.
"She was talking to me about reverse psychology! That's a dead giveaway," Malfoy continued, ignoring the two of them.
"Reverse psychology?" Goyle asked, also puzzled.
"Some silly Muggle concept, but the fact that she knows about it proves that she is one of them," Malfoy grinned successfully. "Now to set a trap..."
I was watching my mother put on her make-up, as I had done so often as a child. She was going out to a theater.
"For work," she explained in answer to my unspoken question, "there may be some trouble, but I don't want you to worry. Nothing will happen to your Mommy."
She bent and gave my cheek a kiss, leaving the red lipstick imprint there.
My mother returned to our house the next morning, paper in hand. On the front cover was a large picture of the very theater she had attended, blown to smithereens. My mother didn't have a scratch though, and took great pleasure in reading the article.
"Pipe bomb," she laughed, "They do find the most ill-fitted cover-ups, don't they? Well, they can't have the truth out. I suppose the giant footprint and the high pitched whistle were all symptoms of it."
"Do giants exist, Mommy?" I asked. My mother had taken out a piece of her scented stationary (embossed with her name) and began to scrawl a brief message onto it.
"Have you ever seen a giant Annie?" my mother replied teasingly, placing her letter inside and envelope and licking it shut. I shook my head.
"Well what makes you think it exists then?" she had a knowing, confidant smile on her face as she said it. My father walked in at that moment and told my mother that she shouldn't worry me. They held a brief, silent conversation with their eyes. Then my mother stood up to put her letter in the post.
I awoke with a jolt, I had had that dream before, it was one of my only memories of my mother. This time I remembered something I had overlooked previously.
The next morning I walked out in the Great Hall to verify my hunch. Sure enough above the teacher's table hung the Hogwarts Coat of Arms. The very same coat of arms that had been on the envelope my mother had mailed.
