Everyone in the family remembered the day Girl didn't get her letter. It was August the first, and students normally received their first Hogwarts letter by that time. Perhaps it shouldn't have come as such a shock—after all, Girl had never shown any signs of magic like the rest of the children, her two older brothers and their cousins down the hill. But how could it have been suspected, they'd thought, when no one in their families had ever been a Squib? Surely, her letter would come as it had for the rest of them? They were a Wizarding family, after all; but no, there was no letter for Girl.

Everyone (especially Girl) remembered how her father had raged and wailed, throwing the eleven year-old about by her hair while her mother wept into the wall outside, and how the boys and the cousins had watched in shock as the scene unfolded.

Afterwards, Girl was thrown into the barn to live. Her name was forbidden from even her mother's lips as 'Theona' had intentionally been chosen for its meaning of goddess. Instead, everyone simply called her 'Girl' after she was only ever referred to as 'the girl' by her father. Other names were 'Brat'; 'Useless'; 'Worthless'; 'You Thing'; 'Little Idiot'; and 'Clot'. They might have used 'Squib' but it had turned into such a dirty and shameful word for them that they avoided using it nearly altogether.

Girl was kept outside of the house much of the time and was made to take charge of the animals they raised for meat, parchment, and potion ingredients, and to forage the acres they owned for things to be used for magical purposes. She was the lowest of the low in her father's eyes, not even worth being sent to a Muggle school for equality in that world.

So, it was a bit of a shock when Mr Lucius Malfoy visited one day, as he sometimes did for business, and asked her parents what they thought she was worth selling for.