Bloody Mud
AN: My honorary Friday, Oct. 13th drabble. About an hour late. This is a Hermione POV containing precisely six-hundred-sixty-six words for the hell of it. Harry Potter is not mine; I own nothing and live in a cardboard box.
Why do they measure lineage by blood? I read once about cultures that use blood sacrifice. Some magic uses it too. Slitting a creature's throat, letting the blood spill out onto the ground, mixing with the dirt, forming clayish mud. Bloody mud. And the bloody mud is spinning, being formed by the wheel of time into a platter. It is dipped into glaze- red? –and put in the kiln. Trial by fire. Burn the witch, the Mudblood. She emerges broken from the heat.
The image makes my stomach roll and I turn over, shaking. I can't sleep. Four other girls in the room, snoring away, and I feel lonely. This castle is so big and empty at night. I want my tape-player, I want to hear the recorded voices telling me about history. Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard III, Anne Boleyn. Soothing stories that never change.
History doesn't change. It's fact, it happened, there's proof. You can't just change history. Our views may change, but not the facts. The fact is, I'm a Muggle born. I can't change that. But he thinks I'm worthless. Thinks. Maybe he'll change his views someday. Maybe not. I don't care, really. Am I worthless? I'm smart; I know I'm smart because I've been told it over and over again. But what am I worth?
They used to pay bride prices. Give the father money for his daughter. Like a pimp and his whore. Like a farmer and a bale of hay. What would they pay for me? A pig? A small manor? A country? A woman had such an easy life back then. Please your husband, have some babies if you can, work hard, but nothing is actually expected of you. No colleges that you won't be going to, no dentist's office you'll never work in. No men to have to show up over and over to prove your worth.
It really sucks to have Muggle parents. It's like having two children who like to pretend they know better. 'No, dear, it's immoral to buy something made from animal parts.' 'Mom, have you ever seen a dragon?' 'No, but...' 'Good, you don't want to.' I'm stuck in the middle, not Muggle and not a proper witch. Not even a half-blood, just a mutant gene. My parents probably thought I was a mutant for a while. Like in a comic.
These stupid bigots I meet, especially him, think I'm just dirt. A Mudblood. And I know more than they ever will. Some people know; most half bloods do. I've read so much about it that I know more about the wizarding word than most pure bloods ever will. It's like seeing double. Wizards and Muggles. Trial by fire, water, and blood. It isn't blood that matters, it's talent. And my talent itches at me urging me to get up, to move.
The fabric around me scratches, as irksome to me as much as my circular thoughts. I still can't sleep! I sit up, ripping off this hideous nightgown. It's new, that's why the cloth is so coarse. I should send it down to be washed. I wince; how could I put more of a burden on those poor house elves? But it's that or reek of unwashed clothes forever. Besides, there's a rust red stain on it. I must be getting my period.
I hate my period. It makes my stomach feel hollow and empty, like a classroom after the bell. The inside of my thigh is striped with blood, dripping down past my knee, along the curve of my calf. I dip my fingers inside and taste. It doesn't taste of mud. It tastes of copper, lemon, and salt all at once. I guess blood doesn't tell after all.
End