Title: My Life As An Outcast
Summary: Eloise Midgen. Her story.
Disclaimer: I don't own the character, but I know her pain.
A/N: Written because people like Harry and Ron making fun of Eloise Midgen is like them saying "hey it's okay to pick on people". It isn't. Eloise needed a voice. I gave it to her.
My parents didn't remove me from Hogwarts because of everything that was going on with You-Know-Who, god no. They did it because I begged them to.
I had always envisioned Hogwarts as a magical wonderful place. A place, in which everybody would be happy, even acne-faced overweight kids like me. I was wrong. It was a place in which everybody got to pick on me. Even Harry Potter and his friends. Them picking on me, calling me ugly, was like saying "Hey, it's only Eloise. Who cares?". And so nobody did. They all laughed at me. They didn't even have the decency to do it behind my back.
Oh I know I wasn't pretty. I know I had acne. Didn't they think it bothered me? I tried everything to get rid of those things. I even tried hexing them off. Of course, that story went around the school soon enough. People started whispering in the Hallways, laughing in hushed voices whenever I walked by. Some pulled my nose, trying to see if it was attached well enough. It hurt. From the inside. It hurt to know that people thought of me as the standard against which really bad acne must be measured.
Part of me wanted to say something about it, but I was too shy. What was I supposed to do? Tell a professor? Which one then? Professor Sprout called me a silly girl behind my back. Professor McGonagall frowned upon everybody who didn't fit her standards. And I surely didn't. I was a shy girl who never opened her mouth in class and I failed every spell I was asked to perform for an audience. I've seen her rolling her eyes one too many times.
Then there was Dumbledore. He was nice, but he had too much on his mind. With You-Know-Who's return...some things were just more important than plain Eloise Midgen. At least to them. To me...there was nothing I wanted more than to get rid of those people teasing me. Smudgen they called me. Pimple-face.
And then the Yule Ball. God...Someone asked me. I thought he was joking at first, but he promised me he wasn't. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe I was going to the Ball with Thomas Meadows, one of the most popular guys in school. He was friends with Cedric Diggory! I was so happy.
My dress wasn't all that bad, it hid most of my fat body, and I had plastered my face with make up so the acne wasn't all that visible. I had really tried, hoping that maybe today they would accept me. Maybe today they wouldn't make fun of me. If they saw Thomas was willing to spend an evening with me...they'd know, right? They'd see I was worth being here.
He asked me to meet him in front of the Great Hall at 8.30 p.m. I stood there, nervously picking my dress, wondering what he would look like in his Dress Robes. I stood there, waiting, for over an hour. And still I was hoping, against hope, that he would show up.
I opened the doors just as the music ended. Everybody looked at me, and then they started laughing. I just let them. The events leading up to this evening had already broken me enough. Oh, and it was my own fault, right? I should have never believed him. I should have known nobody would ever take Eloise Smudgen to the Ball.
Things only got worse after that. Every time anybody mentioned Bubotuber Pus people laughed and mentioned my name. Every time someone had a pimple their friends would comfort them saying that said person should be lucky they didn't have as much acne as me.
So when my parents heard about everything going on (with You-Know-Who of course, I'd never tell my parents anything about people teasing me because I knew they wanted me to stay at Hogwarts and become a famous witch) and they started doubting their decision to leave me at that unsafe school, I saw a chance. A chance at a better life. I begged them to take me home. And they did.
They sent me to another school. A normal school. Somehow, the teasing is easier to tolerate here. At least here I knew I would be teased. At least I didn't have any hopes anymore.
Things are always easier to tolerate when you've lost hope.
Review please!