The first three months saw Girl tending to the thirty sheep the Malfoys' owned. The flock was made up of one ram, one wether, twenty-eight ewes, and their lambs. Girl hoped they wouldn't keep the lambs or try to add to the herd; thirty sheep wasn't an enormous amount to have, but without a dog or other shepherd, it was large enough that Girl knew she didn't want to have to take care of more.

It took a while for Girl to grow used to her new home. The day Mr Malfoy took her from her parents, he brought her directly to the pasture where she was to graze the flock. Two hundred acres lent itself to grazing, a pond, and a small, overgrown copse. A thorny hedge enclosed the entire area, separating the pasture from the dirt road along its northern side and the meadow and small wood of the Malfoys estate proper.

"That," said Mr Malfoy, pointing eastward from where they stood, "is where the manor is, across the lane and beyond the hedge."

Girl stood on her tiptoes to try to see where he was pointing, however, the copse and the pasture hedge obstructed her view. Mr Malfoy led her to a different spot where she could finally see the tops of a tall yew hedge several yards in the distance.

"Obviously, you stay here and work."

Girl already knew that; she couldn't imagine going elsewhere.

Mr Malfoy grew stern; "You've got plenty of room to run around here, so don't get adventurous."

Girl shook her head in reply.

"Good. Now, the sheep are in the cote at the other end of the meadow. Don't bother asking me anything about them unless it's about where I bought them and how much they cost, because I don't handle sheep; that's your job. I do know how many there are including their lambs, and I expect every—single—one—to be present after your six months here is up."

Mr Malfoy fixed Girl with a hard stare, and she gulped. Animals died all the time; what would happen to her if she failed?

He didn't elaborate any further, instead he began to explain how her life would be while she lived on his property.

"You'll get enough for two weeks every other Friday. It will appear in the hut next to the fold—do you see where that is?"

Mr Malfoy gestured some way along the gnarled old copse; Girl looked to where he pointed and saw the outline of a stone pen used for holding sheep when not grazing or near their cote. She nodded at Mr Malfoy, who continued, "You don't look like a glutton, so I expect we won't have to worry about you eating all of it before the next delivery, yes?"

Girl nodded, wondering just how much and what sort of food she would be given; at her family's home, she either got leftovers or older food that someone would set out atop the stone wall in the yard in a bowl or on a plate every evening after they'd eaten supper. If there was nothing there, Girl went hungry—in the early months of her banishment from the house, anyway; she'd learned to supplement her diet through foraging or setting snares, and no one had ever stopped her from roasting a rabbit (when she could get one) over a fire outside the barn, so there was that.

"Don't you talk?" asked Mr Malfoy, giving Girl a curious look. Girl nodded, but Mr Malfoy only looked confused. "Well—prove it then."

Oh! He wanted her to actually say something!

"Yes, sir."

Mr Malfoy quirked an eyebrow. "Yes sir, what?"

Now Girl was confused—and a little nervous. If she said or did something to make him angry, and if he decided to punish for that with violence, there was no one around to see or stop him should he get carried away.

Mr Malfoy must have seen the worry on her face, because he said, "Relax, girl; I wasn't trying to trick you. Dear me, but you are a quiet one, though your father told me you were only clever enough to obey commands! I hope you're not stupid—he wouldn't answer me straight on that regard—he would only go on about what a useful servant you would make. Well girl, have you enough brains in that head of yours that I won't have to think about you while here?"

I'm a Squib, thought Girl. For as long as that fact had been understood, the assumptions and comments surrounding her implied that she couldn't be as smart as normal witches and wizards. The greatest compliment she received anymore—and it was always indirect—was that she was capable; animals liked her, and she was excellent with them. She was tough, working in cold weather and hot without begging for reprieve (the first time she'd begged to be allowed of the cold her father slammed her head against the wall of the house and threatened to rip all her clothes off—"Let's see how cold you get then!"—Girl had quickly learned to pay extra attention to the sky and the subsequent behavior of the animals, and to move the livestock quickly near shelter if the weather threatened to change for the worse.

Girl glanced up at Mr Malfoy; she didn't think he'd want a stupid shepherd, so she shook her head to indicate that, no, she was no stupid.

"Young girl, if you don't speak when I ask you a question, I swear I shall hex you so that all you do is speak!"

"I'm a Squib!" said Girl, startled by Mr Malfoy's declaration.

Mr Malfoy's pale eyebrows knit together; he cocked his head to the side, considering her with another curious expression. After a moment, he smirked, saying, "Yes, you most certainly are!" And that seemed to satisfy him.

"Right then, you may put your things in the hut by the sheepfold if you wish, or in the cote where you'll have to make space for yourself. It doesn't matter to me. I'll come by in a day or two to see how you're getting along. And remember, girl—look at me, now,"—Here, Mr Malfoy actually bent down to look Girl directly in the eye; his stare sent a shiver down her spine as he continued— "I paid good money for you—if you do anything that you know you oughtn't, be assured you'll regret it."

Mr Malfoy had left her then, and Girl began her work.

In those first three months, Girl felt that life working for the Malfoys (apparently there was Mrs and a son, whom she hadn't seen) wasn't that unpleasant—if at all. At home it was a toss-up between being blissfully ignored or beaten and cursed at. If she were in the loft during the daytime and someone came into the barn below, Girl would tense up horribly, fearful that her father or eldest brother would shout up to her with some reason to abuse her. Her second eldest brother mostly ignored her, thankfully. Her mother tried to ignore her it seemed, but the woman always had an odd, strained look on her face when she was around Girl—as though she couldn't quite reconcile the trajectory following her only daughter's unfortunate blood status (or rather, lack there-of). It was a bit uncomfortable being around her mother anymore, thought Girl, so she'd avoided her nearly as much as she avoided the other members of her family. Angelus, her little cousin, had been the odd one.

In three months, Mr Malfoy had visited the pasture three times: first to see how Girl was getting along, as he'd said he would. He'd been pleased to find that chaos hadn't descended with a Squib in charge. The second visit had been after three weeks; he ordered Girl to count the sheep in front of him to make sure all were accounted for. They were. His third visit had been a month later to confirm that she was alive. On that visit, he'd handed her a small package filled with healing potions for various illness and injuries.

"I'll admit I ought to have given you these when I brought you here, but you're a hardy thing, aren't you, girl?"

She'd almost nodded in ascent, but remembered that he preferred her to speak, so she said a quiet, "Yes, sir. Thank you."

"Good," said Mr Malfoy with a satisfied smile before disapparating.

Girl had spent the next hour ogling the potions, thrilling at the different colors and the round glass stoppers. Back home, whenever she'd fallen ill, it had been either, "Get your lazy arse up, you're not that bad off!" or "You pathetic fucking Squib! Can't even get through a cold past two days!" Most magical persons suffered less from mundane illnesses, but being non-magical, Girl had longer bouts of colds and fevers when they came.

Keeping clean was much the same as it had been at home; since she hadn't been allowed inside the house, Girl had washed by filling buckets at the pump just inside the yard and bathing at night in the barn when no one was likely to bother her. In the winter, she heated the water in a metal pail over a fire, every week or so, depending how filthy she'd gotten, but especially during her period. When that had first come, Girl had known what it was. She didn't tell her mother, of course, but created rudimentary pads by cleaning and matting wool she'd collected in the fields or pulled off the sheep. Moss, fleece, wool, even rabbit fur; if it was soft and fit in her pants, Girl used it. She'd been thirteen, almost fourteen, and had thought clearly and loudly for the first time, Mama can fuck herself. She generally tried not to think thoughts like this about any of her family, though; it wasn't their fault she was a Squib; not to mention Girl would have to put up with her rough life until she died (or so she'd been led to believe; she didn't know anything different), so what was the point in resenting everybody all the time? Girl supposed it couldn't be helped, the way her life had turned out.

The hut Girl lived in, where her food appeared by magic every two weeks as she'd been told it would, was small and built from the same stones as the sheepfold, to which the hut was attached. It was a bit low, which wasn't horrible for Girl as she was small herself, but it was broad enough that she could stretch out on the dirt floor without either her fingertips or the tips of her toes touching the walls, though an entire limb would be beneath the cot set against one wall. That was a pleasant surprise when Girl first entered the hut—a cot! At home in the loft, she'd made a nice pallet for herself, but a raised cot (it even came with a pillow) with lots of blankets was lush! Aside from the cot, the hut was bare. In a corner, Girl had dug a shallow pit, lined it with stones, and kept a steady supply if kindling beside it; that was her hearth: her stove and her fireplace. Because smoke would fill the hut, Girl had cut a small hole in the roof above the fire. The roof was weak, made of flat wooden planks that were half rotten, so girl had repaired it as best she could figure to by removing the planks and throwing one of the many blankets on the cot across the roof (it covered nearly half of the hut); then she replaced the planks and set heavy stones atop the edges to keep the plank roof down and the keep the blanket portion taught. It certainly wasn't sophisticated, and it probably wasn't the best solution, but it did look studier. If Girl discovered a better way to remedy the roof, she reckoned she would be capable.

At the other end of the pasture, where the sheep cote was located, Girl had stored about half of her food. There was no loft in the cote, so on the nights she and the flock spent there as they always would in the colder weather, Girl slept with the sheep on a pile of hay, grass, and moss she'd gathered and stuffed into another blanket, snuggling the lambs and the occasional mild-mannered ewe that wanted attention.

It was as isolated as Girl had ever physically been, but in her heart and her mind, she felt rather peaceful. She didn't have to worry about her angry father or her eldest brother, or her mother's dejected, hangdog glances at her, which Girl couldn't fathom and which she hated almost as much as other people's disgusted looks at her for being a Squib. She didn't consider Mr Malfoy a nice person, no (she might've been a dumb Squib, thought Girl, but she wasn't that dumb), but he had yet to really hurt her or call her horrible names, though of course, she'd only seen him a total of four times, counting the day he'd brought her here.

She didn't know what the remaining three months held for her, but Girl was quite pleased to realize that she was looking forward to the near future, for once in her un-magical life.