It was raining in London. This unexpected break from the piercing glare of the sun that had been filling the small rooms in the trusty and long lasting, and very warm establishment for weeks was welcomed into the rooms of two eleven year old girls and one set of parents down the hall. Ellette, the smaller of the two girls, lay contently and quietly in bed, savoring the last moments of childhood before being thrown fully into the world of witchcraft and wizardry. Laura, on the other hand, stood at the window serenely contemplating the rain. Ellette's wildly uncontrollable shifted slightly in the wind that was blowing from the window, causing a few strands of black and golden hair to cover her pale skin. Because her eyes were closed, the sapphire blue that lay behind her nearly transparent eyelids was hidden from sight. Her appearance, while endearing to her biological mother, was a source of much contempt from Mrs. Park, Laura's mother.
Laura, on the other hand, looked like she belonged in the company of royalty. Regal in whatever position she was in, sitting, standing, walking, and especially now as she stood at the open window, her brown hair waving around her face magically and her thin arms clutched to her chest for warmth. Laura was a lion, magnificence personified. Her brown hair framed her face as a mane and her eyes were large and intelligent, constantly questioning. Even her skin tone was that of a lion, she possessed a dark tan, an unusual look in London. Laura's looks were very endearing to her own mother because she looked much like Mrs. Park herself. The three girls and Laura's father, Mr. Park were staying in The Leaky Cauldron, and would be until early the next afternoon. Fortunately, Laura and Ellette were granted use of their own room while Mr. and Mrs. Park, Laura's parents, stayed in an identical abode down the hall.
Laura and Ellette's room was as different as the girls themselves were. At first glance, the room looked as though it was split into two rooms, only there was in invisible wall instead of a solid one. The two sides were mirror images of one another; both had a dresser, a bed and a vanity. It's what was added to the basic furniture that made the sides so different, so perfectly contrary to one another. One side of the perfectly square room was anything but that. It was magical, physical and complete chaos. Total and utter chaos. Books were strewn at random across a black sea of clothing. Someone had apparently been practicing magic and working with potions because in one corner of the room lay a melted cauldron, and across in the other corner lay a black pewter cauldron that bubbled with an unknown substance. The cauldron contained a transparent, vicious looking mixture that was brown with brilliant jade flakes and smelled of expensive wine. On the floor, on top of the books that were on top of the clothes, a bewitched bishop and a rook battled to the death on their charmed chess board.
Across the invisible wall lay a house elf's dream home. Nothing was out of place, and certainly not strewn, thrown or otherwise imperfect. Clothing was in neat little folded piles, coordinated first by type of clothing, then by color; bright or brighter. Dust had vacated the premises. Little shoes were lined up in the corner, arranged first by size of heel, then by color, in alphabetically order of the color. The chess board on this side of the room lay quietly on top of the dresser and the pieces seemed to be having diplomatic conversations with one another. Everything was as it should be, prim, perfect; essentially, wonderful.
"What do you think it means, Ellette?" Laura asked innocently from the windowsill, her striped pink and white button up shirt blowing back and forth slowly.
Ellette ignored her and rolled onto her back so she could see the white flowered ceiling, nearly strangling her self with her baggy black pajama shirt. There were dozens of patterns inside the patterns the flowers made on the ceiling, but Ellette couldn't see any of it. "Ellette?" Ellette continued to ignore Laura and tried to see something, anything on the ceiling, a ritual she repeated every morning with no results. "Get of out bed, Ellette, and talk to me. I'm bored." Ellette heard Laura move from her perch and close the window.
Ellette grunted a short reply and staggered blindly through the mess. She yelped as the nearly victorious bishop stabbed her mercilessly in the ankle. Kicking him, she moved over to her vanity, haphazardly shoved everything off the little table and stood facing the mirror. Using all of what little energy she had this early in the morning, she lifted her heavy eyes to the mirror, and all she got for her trouble was a blurred, bad imitation of the Ellette she had managed to come to know over the years. She rubbed her eyes methodically to clear up the image in the mirror, but to no avail. Her mother had always told her that if she wanted something badly enough, she could have it so long as she tried. Well, Ellette wanted to see. She closed her eyes and tried to visualize the mirror containing her smiling face, ocean blue eyes staring back at her completely clear. "Ellette? Are you trying to see again?" Laura asked exasperatedly from the closed window. Ellette shivered mildly, wishing she had grabbed a jacket from the floor before now.
"I can do it." Ellette whispered silently to herself, knowing full well that she couldn't. If she hadn't managed yet, even with her mothers help, it certainly wouldn't happen now. She opened her eyes a crack to see if it anything had changed, giving up her visualization exercise. A sliver of face appeared in the sea of black. Compared to the darkness she had beheld before with her eyes closed, Ellette imagined she could make out her features clearly. Giving a whoop of victory she opened her eyes fully and allowed the blindly light of the room to flow into her pupils and distort the image of herself back again.
After voicing a defeated sigh, Ellette reached blindly across the white vanity to the dresser for her large, black rimmed glasses off the dressers top.
Slowly her face swam into focus out of the abyss of her normal eyesight: sheltered blue eyes, short chaotic black hair with gold strands and a face complete with wrinkles courtesy of last nights pillow. She sighed and rubbed her cheek trying to get rid of the pesky marks on her cheeks that were marring the image she could now see with almost un-welcomed clarity.
Rubbing her check still she turned to her friend who still stood by the windows, tan arms crossed impatiently over her chest, Ellette smiled unenthusiastically and said, "All right, all right, I'm awake, Laura. Are you happy now?" Ellette shifted her line of sight from Laura to out the window into the dark rain that poured down ceaselessly.
"Sorta." Laura paused, waiting for Ellette to speak again. Ellette merely stared out the window at the downpour of rain. Shuddering, Ellette began to get change out of her pajamas into warmer clothes and, if her floor allowed, a nice black coat to ward of the cold air that permeated the room, "What do you think the rain means?"
"What?" Ellette responded irritably, shuddering from the cold.
The brooding brunette across the room turned towards the window and the melancholy rain flowing down from the heavens, her hair moving slightly to cover her striped shoulder, "Just the rain. Your mothers always on about hidden 'omens' and stuff like that. I was just thinking maybe there's something with the rain. Something special, you know, that has to do with us going to Hogwarts."
Ellette shrugged mildly, somewhat annoyed with her friend. Pausing over a neon yellow sock she said, "I would guess … that it's a dark … dark … really dark omen of death and of… of chaos and that Hogwarts isn't going to be there when we get there and everything's going to go wrong and we'll hate it there and everything will be awful forever and ever. Happy?"
"Chipper are we on this rainy London morning? Darling little Ellette, if Hogwarts is really and truly gone, you will have no opportunity to hate it! You should be smart enough to figure that out." Ellette scowled as Laura's mother, Mrs. Park walked merrily in unannounced, smiling largely at Ellette. This obviously was the source of Laura's budding good looks. She had obviously badly magiced blonde hair that clashed unnaturally with her yellowing skin. Mrs. Park also had a slightly sick look about her, as though she was in desperate need of a good meal or two. Despite that however, the remnants of beauty remained the arch of the eyebrow hidden in the yellow, a curve of a lip, dark eyelashes that surely once framed startling eyes. "Ellette, you do frighten me sometimes. You are so dark and … rather depressing to be honest, darling. Nothing like my precious, beautiful little Laura." With heroic effort Mrs. Park dramatically leaned over Ellette's things, avoiding the mess entirely, and grabbed Ellette's comb off of her dresser and began to do Laura's hair in a dizzying display of curls and braids. Ellette fingered her own short and messy hair while staring at her right foot with one yellow sock on it, "What will you do with your hair Ellette?" Mrs. Park asked, cocking her head in what was either a malicious gesture to show her superiority over Ellette, or as a mother would question a beloved daughter.
"Oh. You know …I've got until tomorrow and all …" Ellette stumbled over her words and finished getting dressed to avoid Mrs. Park's glare, pausing to grimace over a hole in her left yellow sock.
Mrs. Park interrupted her, "I don't understand why you won't let me dye it back to the way it i should /i be. Don't look at me like that," she snapped, pointing the comb cheatingly at Ellette, "Those blonde streaks running through your hair simply cannot be natural. They're too bright and your hair is too dark for that to happen naturally. i And /i , to make matters worse, it looks absolutely completely ridiculous." She paused, smiling broadly, "Doesn't it Laura?" Laura grumbled incoherently, facing away from Ellette, who handled the onslaught by smiling and humming to herself, desperately trying to ignore everything Mrs. Park was saying. Ever since Ellette had become friends with Laura when she was just a baby, she had heard this one sided conversation time and time again for nearly every trait she possessed. Mrs. Park never did, nor would, like Ellette's hair, Ellette's name, basically Ellette in general. She also never had, and never would have a problem letting Ellette know exactly what was wrong with her and her appearance, while incessantly complimenting Laura on how gorgeous she was. Most days, Laura made an attempt to stand up for Ellette, which made life easier to deal with for Ellette in this new life. However, more and more recently Laura had left Ellette to fend for herself. Ellette rationalized this by telling herself Laura had a lot on her mind, and once they got to Hogwarts, everything would be fine and the way it was before she had moved in with the Parks.
Laura grimaced noticeably when her mother tugged the comb through her hair particularly hard. "Mother! Would you please stop pulling my hair! Why are you even bothering to do it? i Ellette /i doesn't have too. I shouldn't either." She donned her best pouting face.
"I am not pulling your hair; I'm doing your hair, and I am doing it well, in case you were wondering, Laura. Do you want to look like the little princess you are or not for tomorrow? You know that if I don't do it today and prepare it, it will never look good tomorrow. After all, messy hair is not acceptable from a member of i my /i family with i your /i kind of background. You must make a good first impression dear, for it will determine what you do with the rest of your life." Ellette looked at her feet, cheeks burning crimson with acute embarrassment, "You don't want to turn out like some people in this world have. Like the lunatics, the madmen, the ones nobody ever wants to discuss because they are ashamed the wizarding community, any community for that matter, could produce such incompetent fools. The loony's who are always babbling on about magical creatures, fairies and dragons and pixies and elves and how they can talk and do this and that. Fanciful things that any intelligent individual would know are utter nonsense. Nor do you want to be the type of woman who doesn't give a wink about your daughter because you're too busy following your deranged husband into Romania to chase phantoms, phantoms normal people would have dismissed eons ago. No, you want to be respectable, not despicable." Ellette wished desperately she could disappear into the ground and escape this woman's scorn. She clenched her fists at her sides, staring at Mrs. Park and not moving from the only plot of ground on her side of the room that wasn't covered in one thing or another. Mrs. Park turned to Ellette, her smile burning into Ellette's eyes like a searing poker, "Oh my, listen to me babbling on about things like this. What would children know of such insanity? Darling, would you mind being a dear and grabbing my wand from the other room? Thank you so much, it's so difficult doing this without magic. I should have remembered that way I wouldn't have had to stay in here and bore you children with politics of the deranged." Ellette stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to think. "Did you hear what I said, little Ella?"
"Yes." Ellette mumbled to her yellow feet.
Mrs. Park's face took on the impression of a walrus; every wrinkle became obvious and brilliant red. She took a deep breath, then said, "Merlin's beard! Why are you still standing there, then? We take you in out of the kindness of our hearts and this is how you repay us? With argument, dissent? You don't even know what dissent means, it means insubordination, stupidity! Why should we keep you here if you're nothing but a burden, nothing but a hassle? I'm sure your parents would just love to take you in. I hear Romania is beautiful this time of year, just gorgeous. I'm sure they have a fantastic little cottage decorated by the fairies, kept warm by the dragons, and infested by the pixies and gnomes they are such wonderful friends with! You could talk to them all day and night and make potions to your hearts content!" She stormed across the room and kicked Ellette's new cauldron and sent the vicious brown and jade mixture across Ellette's things. "What a wonderful place it would be to grow up and live in!" She paused and gasped for breath, her face becoming redder by the second "You will do as you're told or you will be moving out of here as quicker than a goblin with the ministry of magic on his thieving tale, young lady. No march and get me my wand. Now." Laura sat shocked at the other side of the room, staring at Ellette apologizing with her eyes.
Ellette stood motionless, glaring daggers at the rigid woman across the room, not even noticing Laura. Slowly, ever so slowly, she relaxed her muscles one by one. She turned and walked down the hall to retrieve the mahogany wand from down the hall, fighting tears the whole way.
"That girl. That girl is worse than any goblin, any giant, any half breed. She doesn't deserve to be in the wizarding world, she and her parents are a blemish on the magical community and if I had my say she would be removed from it. Half-breeds include girls like Ellette," Laura's eyebrows knitted together as she tried to process her mother's words, "You need to be careful; I don't want her influencing you. You can tell what kind of person she is by her appearance as well as by … by other things. What kind of girl voluntarily wears black clothing all the time? Why would she? And all baggy and such, you'd think she was an orphan! When I asked her mother for money for clothes, she told me to take as much as I wanted, but Ellette always bought her clothes when they were home. I was shocked! I'm still shocked for that matter."
"Mama, she doesn't always wear all black." Laura said, finding her voice and attempted to belated stand up to her mother.
"Name one time. One article of clothing she has that isn't black, gray or brown."
"Her socks. She's wearing yellow socks."
Mrs. Park opened her mouth, and shut it again. Glaring maliciously, she said to herself, "That girl is taking far too long. She should run when I ask her to do something." And with that she stormed into the hall to find the girl she hated so.
Ellette herself wandered down the hall way outside her room towards the Parks' room, pausing for a moment at an interesting portrait of a curly blonde haired girl who was admonishing a gnome for something. She listened for a moment and realized the blonde girl was mad at the gnome for eating meat. "Ellette!" Laura's mother appeared in the hallway looking for her so she could admonish her more. Ellette glanced over her shoulder and upon seeing Mrs. Park rushed into the Park's room and right into Mr. Park.
"Oh, Ellette! I was just going over to see you, Laura and of course my darling wife. How are you?"
"Fine."
"Oh good. I'm glad, yes very glad that you are wonderful. I'm quite excited for you and my princess, Laura, finally starting school and all. I never thought I would see my little girl grow up to be so lovely." Ellette looked around the room, ignoring Mr. Park and looking for his wife's mahogany wand so she could escape into the relative safety of the pub downstairs. "School is such an important step in life; it really defines us as people." It wasn't on the dresser, "What we do in school. Without an education we," Nor was it on the bed, "Would be nothing but animals. Dragons or hippogriffs or worse," Ellette stopped searching for the wand looked into Mr. Park's eyes, her cheeks turning crimson again and her wounded eyes telling tales of her misery behind her glasses. "Oh. Right. Um … I must go see Laura, really. I have something to tell her. It's … it's quite important. I'll … I'll tell you all about it another time. Soon." He left as quickly as he could from Ellette's crimson cheeks, fleeing into the relative safety of the hallway.
Ellette clenched her fists again and stood shaking in the middle of the room. Why would her parents do this to her? They had certainly been raised in the same world everyone else had, she knew at least that much about her parents. They must know, they have to know that animals can't talk, don't have emotions. Why were they doing this? A tear started wiggling and protesting its confinement in her eye, but she forced it back. She would not give her parents the satisfaction of crying, of emotion. She was all alone now thanks to those people; completely alone and lost. Upon meeting her, nearly everyone backed away once they heard her last name. It was a curse, a curse on her name and a curse on her. She was tainted and she didn't even know why. What she did know, however, whatever little comfort it was, was that her misery was thanks to two people the wizarding world alternately mocked and despised, Mr. and Mrs. Faylinn.
"It's so unfair." Ellette sank to the floor in despair, still fighting tears. She hated herself for listening to Mrs. Park, for doing whatever that woman asked her to. She hated herself for being weak. She hated herself for being alive, for having been born at all. But most of all, the thing she hated herself for above all else; she hated herself for hating the only people in the world who had shown her some semblance of love besides Laura. Laura, who wasn't even paying attention to her anymore.
Ellette's parents were what some called eccentric, but most thought of as completely insane. Both of them came to the conclusion when they were very young and at Hogwarts themselves that fairies were real and that dragons could talk. Whatever possessed them into thinking this was beyond anyone in the magical world because it had been known for years that fairies were the figment of ancient wizard's imaginations, probably Elves mistaken as fairies. And as to dragons talking? Impossible. To start with, dragons don't have the correct physical attributes to be able to form words, and to end dragons aren't intelligent enough to hold a conversation, even if they could talk.
After Hogwarts the two disappeared for years and returned with Ellette, who at the time was a year and a half old. Neither said where Ellette had come from or even if she was theirs, despite many questions from everyone, including Dumbledore himself. There was some contention that the pair had lied to Dumbledore, and that's why the threesome traveled the world, suppositivly interviewing dragons and fairies and trying to learn the secrets of magical creatures' world so as to avoid the great wizard and his wrath. However, as soon as Ellette could think and started to remember things, her parents send her to live with Laura, her childhood friend, and continued their research on their own. Ellette fully intended to demand an answer from Dumbledore as to why people hated her and who her parents really were.
Ellette's parents visited once or twice a year, and gave Ellette everything she could ever possibly want, but this wasn't enough to make up for the lack of parents Ellette had to deal with every day. Nor was it enough to make up for the answers Ellette was constantly told she couldn't have.
Ellette pounded the floor in frustration. i How could they do this to me? Why? What have I done wrong? /i
"There you are." Mrs. Park walked into the room menacingly finding Ellette huddled on the floor. She raised her wand into the air and Ellette cringed, cursing herself worse than Mrs. Park was about to curse her for being so stupid as to believe Mrs. Park would ever leave her wand off of her person.
After that, Ellette's world was blacker than night.
And the rain fell, methodically keeping track of the time that passed.