The Muggleborn Diaries
Ch. 2 - Empowerment

August 1, 2003

Dear Diary,

I guess since you're still here, even after three days (hey, I only wanted to give you some extra time to really think about it), I'll take it as a sign that you decided to stick around. That's good, I was really hoping for that... Especially since I'll need something to keep me from dying of boredom while I'm grounded for the next century or so! Oh, but man, was it worth it...

I'm telling you, my parents are totally over-reacting! I know that they're really into the whole no-fighting, violence-is-bad thing, and on most days I'd actually agree with them. But seriously, that jerk had it coming, and the fact that it was little skinny me, who finally taught him a lesson, makes it all the more perfect. It was, quite simply, the highlight of my summer. A very empowering moment...my mom's very fond of that word, and I'd never quite given it much thought before, but boy, today I felt it in all its glory!

Alright, I'll back up and start from the beginning, since you're probably wondering what exactly I'm talking about here.

The jerk in question is one Demian Dingle, grade 7 for the past two years in a row (yeah, real winner, that one...). There are only two things one really needs to know about him. One, he's a bully. Two, his IQ is inversely proportional to his size. And he's flippin' huge. Alright, that's three... but that's basically him in a nutshell. He's always bossing the younger kids around, wrecking their toys just for kicks, calling girls nasty names and such. He's baaad news, but everyone keeps making excuses for him because his mom's sick a lot and his dad's never really home. Well, I'm sorry, but that doesn't give him a license to start beating up whoever he pleases and act like a complete savage.

So anyway, I guess today he figured Jamie, Sarah and I'd be his suckers-du-jour. After all, we're not exactly an intimidating bunch. Jamie's really soft-spoken, he's kind of small for a boy, and he carries an inhaler all the time because he tends to get asthma attacks because of his allergies. Sarah is taller and quite athletic, but it's not like she'd be able to hold her own against a brute like Dingle. What's she gonna do, floor him with her super ballerina kick? And then there's me... weighing maybe 50 pounds soaking wet.

The school bus had just dropped us off after day-camp, so we decided to stop by the candy store. I'd spent my whole week's worth of allowance on jelly beans and Sour Patch Kids (I love the watermelon ones!), while Sarah had gotten a bunch of gummy bears, and Jamie had loaded up on blue whales and squirmies (they look like worms, but they're darn tasty!). So naturally, Dingle figured he'd follow us around, wait until we were out of the village, beat the you-know-what out of us, and make away with our goodies. So here we were, totally clueless, riding our bikes back to Sarah's place, when he shows up and starts teasing us.

He starts calling Jamie a wussy boy just because he hangs out with Sarah and me (honestly, the dude just has good taste in company... something that can't be said for most boys I know). Then, seeing as we just keep going and pay him no mind, he decides to ram into Sarah's bike and push her into a blackberry bush. Ouch.

She starts bawling (rightfully so, those thorns are nasty...); Jamie, who's had a secret crush on her since kindergarten, jumps to her defense and rams his own bike into Dingle's shins, hoping that'll do some damage. Nothing. The behemoth swats him like a fly and starts laughing his ass off when Jamie lands sprawled on his back. By now, I can hear him getting wheezy (he's really not supposed to exert himself, or get upset, because that usually triggers an attack), and he reaches for his inhaler. Meanwhile I'm helping Sarah out of the blackberry bush, so I miss what's going on until I hear Jamie cough and wheeze, "Give it back, give it back". I turn around and Jamie's jumping up and down, really red in the face and just about ready to pass out, while Dingle holds his inhaler out of his reach and shoves him around with his other arm.

That was it, I just saw red. Mom often tells me that I'm too impulsive for my own good, and normally I'd agree that charging against a giant like Dingle when one's my size is not exactly a brilliant idea. But I guess at that point I was way more mad than I was scared. So I launched myself towards him, hoping that, if anything, I'd jostle him enough to drop the inhaler. I didn't even get as far as thinking that he was going to kick my ass into oblivion, when something totally bizarre happened. He stumbled back a couple of steps, then turned and looked around startled, as though something invisible had just given him a good shove.

Now, I was still at least 3 feet away from him. Sarah was crouched over by her bike, still bleeding from her scratches, and Jamie was too out of breath to do anything but snatch the dropped inhaler and suck at it for dear life. And no one else was around. Then get this... I take another step towards him, and he stumbles back some more, as if he'd just gotten another push. By now he's getting pretty panicky, and I probably should have been freaked out too, I mean, here's this big, fat bully being pushed and shoved around by some invisible force, and I'm, like, right there at arm's length. What if this thing starts picking on me next, right? But I keep going instead, one more step forward, and Dingle gets another shove... and I'm starting to wonder whether maybe I'm doing that.

It's not like I'm a big believer in the supernatural and stuff like that, but I do admit that I've often wondered what it would be like if one day I got up and suddenly developed some kind of superpower like, I dunno, telekinesis, or super-human strength, or making myself shift shape. Ok, so I watched the X-Men movies one too many times... So anyway, I'm bound and determined to at least make the best of it for as long as this thing lasts, and I start literally marching towards Demian, still a good couple of yards from him. He starts clueing in, too, that I'm somehow connected to the invisible force, and starts yelling at me to stop it, except his voice comes out like a really high-pitched, frightened, girly wail.

Who'd have thought, big tough Demian Dingle, frightened of little tiny Hilde Schbeiker. I cast one glance at the duck pond off the trail at the side of the road, the water all nice and slimy, and I must have gotten this really evil grin, because next thing I know, Demian tries to run off screaming.

And then, something even better happens. That same force that was pushing him around now grabs him by the scruff of his neck (I'm not kidding you, it totally happened!), and he's flailing his arms trying to get away, but can't move a step, as though he's being pulled back. I give another nudge to direct him towards the marsh, and he stumbles along, according to plan. By now, he's crying for his mommy, and I guess I start feeling a little bad for him, but not too much. He's still a jerk, and I just tell myself that I'm actually doing him a favour by teaching him a valuable lesson.

Nonetheless, I decide to end the punishment swiftly and memorably. I put my hands out in front of me, and give the air a push, like I've seen my dad do when he practices his tai-chi. I really don't know how it occurred to me to do that, it just kind of came out that way, as though it were the most natural thing in the world... or maybe it just looked cool. And, get this, Demian literally lifts off the ground and splashes spread-eagle into the pond like a ton of bricks (don't worry, the water's only knee-deep, and it's mostly muck anyway).

When I get back to my bike, Sarah and Jamie are looking at me like I've suddenly sprouted a second head, and there's this really awkward silence for a while, and I start to wonder whether what just happened freaked them out so much that they're now scared of hanging out with me, like I'm some kind of dangerous mutant (again, that happens to every single character on X-Men). Then Jamie blurts out,
"Whoa, dude... that was, like, beyond cool! That's better than super-hero stuff, how'd you do it?"

And Sarah limps over and gives me a hug and says,
"You rock, girlfriend!",
like I just did something incredibly awesome. I know I'm going to sound like a big sap right now, but this is the kind of stuff that shows you who your real friends are. They still like me, and I just know that we're going to be friends forever. Plus, I kicked Demian Dingle's ass! Yeah!

Ok, so it wasn't all sunshine and puppies when Mrs. Dingle showed up on our doorstep with a bandaged-up Demian in tow, just when we were sitting down to dinner. She started ranting and raving to my parents about how I brutalized her poor son, who probably just wanted to make conversation and be our friend (yeah, my butt...). And you could totally tell that my mom and dad were looking back and forth between me and Mrs. Dingle and Demian, trying to keep a straight face, thinking that the woman must surely be delusional.

Lucy gave me the one-eyebrow-lift (that's the expression she does when she's skeptical), and whispered, "You really beat him up?!", and I said nothing, and just grinned, feeling quite proud for standing up for myself the way I did, and she looked awed to say the least (which, coming from G.I. Jane herself, is quite something), and said,
"Damn, girl... You gotta teach me some moves before I go back to school..."

So, yeah, here you have it... the highlight of my summer. My mom's just finished lecturing me up the wazoo, and dad's locked my bike in the tool shed, where it's going to stay until further notice. I am also to go to Mrs. Wigglesworth's daycare for all of next week, instead of day-camp. Oh, the humiliation... Daycare's for little kids... I'll be surrounded by a bunch of five-year-olds, rather than hanging out with kids my age. If word of it gets out to my classmates, they'll never let me live it down. Oh, but I bet you Demian won't be picking on us any time soon...


Author's Note: I do not own Hilde Schbeiker, or Lucrezia Noin, or any Gundam Wing character, for that matter. I do not even own the Harry Potter concept and characters that will soon be introduced. I am just borrowing them for good, clean fun. I promise I'll return them as good as new... Please don't sic any scary lawyers on me.

Also, thank you very much to Firefly for her encouraging review! Don't worry, I purposely set the timeline in such a way that Harry's generation will be just old enough to show up at Hogwarts... as teachers!