Ch 1
When Rogue resurfaced she found herself in a bed. It was lumpy, and the blanket that she was wrapped in was itchy against her skin, nothing like the silk she preferred but for Marie, as she now thought of herself to her surprise, both the blanket and the bed was a treat.
She gazed blearily at the ceiling, trying to figure out where she was. A large part of her knew that she was in the smallest bedroom of number four Private Drive where she lived with her aunt and uncle. A smaller part of her though was surprised that she wasn't locked up in a place that definitely did not have a bed, in fact if she remembered correctly the room she was usually kept in had nothing but a hole to poop into. How odd since this room not only had a glass window that let in the early morning light, it also had more toys then she ever remembered having growing up. Most of the toys seemed to be broken in some way: there was a flying helicopter that seemed to be missing the propellers, a caved in football that would serve better as a weirdly shaped hat, and what looked like it might have once been GI Joe but now resembled a pile of wax.
Marie rolled out of bed like she did every morning, knowing that if she lingered any longer her Aunt would refuse to feed her for the day. According to her relatives, lazy slobs like her did not deserve to eat the food that they, her more then generous Aunt and Uncle, earned through hard work unless she herself chipped in some way. Marie didn't know what was so hard about peering over fences to spy on Mrs. Number Three across the street and then gossip about it to Ms Number two next door but she knew it was best not to comment and just do as they ordered. The last thing she needed was to be put under room arrest.
It was summer, so it wouldn't be long until Harry came home from his boarding school and then in the fall she would be able to take her place in the school that her parents had once gone to themselves. She couldn't help the excitement that arose at both prospects. She couldn't wait.
In a slightly better mood despite all the cleaning that her slightly anal Aunt would no doubt line up for her to do. She reached into her closet, not caring what she grabbed. Her clothes were all handed down from her cousin Dudley anyways. They all swamped her which only served to make her look more childish then she already did. Marie paused at that. Cocking her head to the side in confusion. This was weird. Since when did she look childish? She frowned even more confused at her own confusion. She wasn't usually one to get upset with being called a child. After all at eleven she wasn't even a teen yet. But she was nineteen a part of her screamed at the back of her mind.
She heard a deep grumbling laugh that sent chills up her spine and made her jump. She looked around, trying to figure out where the laugh had come from. There was no one there. She stood still, shaking slightly as she waited to see if the laugh would come again.
She didn't move until she heard stirring in the room down the hall. Her Aunt and Uncle were up and she hadn't started breakfast.
She dressed quickly and opened the door to her room. She walked down the stairs of the insanely clean house and began to take out pans and other breakfast material.
Luckily no one came down the stairs until she set the table. Instead of eating like she wanted to she began to clean the pans that she had used to cook the eggs, bacon, sausage, and pancakes.
As she was putting the last pan away in the cupboard she heard a scream that nearly made her lose her grip on the pan.
She spun around to see her Aunt looking at her in horror. "What," she began in a shrill voice, walking forward and brutally grabbing her hair, "have you done to your hair."
"I didn't do anything to it," Marie protested, wincing in pain as her Aunt tugged.
Her eyes widened as she saw what horrified her Aunt enough to scream and then even worse, in her Aunts books, to actually touch her. The hair caught in her Aunts fist was white. It wasn't a bad white exactly, not a gray white but a pure color that rejected all pigment. She reached up and gripped a hunk of hair on the other side.
To her surprise and relief, not all of the hair she caught in her hand was white. Some remained her natural black color. She admired it for a moment, liking the contrast that the black and white created. She didn't admire long because moment later she was dragged out of her narcissistic thoughts by another tug of her captured hair by her Aunt.
"What. Did. You. Do. To. Your. Hair." Each word was followed by a tug that got progressively more savage. The pain brought tears of pain to her eyes that she refused to let fall. She wouldn't give her Aunt the satisfaction of seeing her tears.
Marie reached up and grabbed her Aunt's hand before she could pull for the eighth time. "I didn't-"
Marie paused, suddenly assaulted with a memory that she didn't remember living. She saw herself standing on the top of a green statue that she didn't recognize. She could feel the handcuffs securing her to the metal machine that surrounded her. A foreign power was running through her veins. It hurt. She was dying. The machine was stealing her life. As the rings that surrounded her spun faster and faster she began to scream: screams of pain, fury, and horror. As the pain progressed she was vaguely aware that the hair in her view was losing its pigment. It was trivial though and unimportant. Soon she would be dead. Who cares what color their hair is at their funeral? She certainly didn't.
She was pulled from the memory by another tug of her hair. This one was so hard that it pulled her with it. She stumbled and fell to the floor. She lost her grip on the pan in her hand. It fell to the ground with a resounding crash.
"You stupid girl." Her Aunt screamed dropping her hair as if the unnaturalness of it burned her. When Marie looked up from where the expensive frying pan rested on the tiled floor she was just in time for the slap that her Aunt delivered. It stung just as much on the second and the third. By the fourth time she was grabbing the frying pan not sure if she was trying to appease her Aunt by being helpful or hoped to use it as a weapon to stop her Aunts hand from striking out at her again.
"It's not bad enough that you bring your unnaturalness into my household by merely breathing. Now you must show it to the neighbors by showing physically how freakish you are." By this time her Aunts angular face was an angry maroon color. Her lips in contrast had thinned and where almost as white as Marie's hair.
"I'm," Marie paused momentarily, and then continued when her Aunt did not look like she was going to strike her down for interrupting. "I don't know how it happened. I'm sorry." She tried to sound sincere. It didn't help; her Aunt did not look calmed at all. On the contrary she appeared to get angrier with each word Marie said.
Her Aunt, after giving her one more disgusted look, snatched the pan from Marie's grip. "Get out," she spat, "Don't come back till' dark."
Marie knew better then to ask where her meals would come from. In her current mood her Aunt would probably happily tell her to starve without any twinge of guilt whatsoever. But then again, her Aunt would probably say that to her on a good day as well.
Truth be told this was the best thing that happened to her since Harry left, Marie had a stock of money Harry gave her from their Gringotts Account that she had saved for emergencies just like this. If the price of not being treated like a slave was buying her own food, it was one that she was willing to pay.
She ran from the house without looking back, not caring that she hadn't brushed her hair this morning. As she passed off the porch she scooped a pair of ratty sneakers that had holes in both soles up in her arms. She didn't pause to put them on but continued to run away from her Aunts perfectly normal house. She ignored the twinges of pain that came each time she stepped on a rock, she ignored the nosy neighbors that watched with disapproving eyes as she ran by, watching to make sure that the nasty Potter spawn did not steal their prized lawn ornaments. Finally she turned the corner off of the street. She slowed to a walk.
She slipped on her shoes and managed to tie them without kneeling down. It involved some bouncing as she tried to maintain her balance but it was a familiar practice and she managed.
Her stomach growled in hunger. It had been so long since she had had a good meal. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon did not believe that she needed or deserved as much food as they ate.
She decided that Mcdonalds sounded divine. As she walked in the door she couldn't help being excited at the luxury. It was the first time she had ever walked into one. Her Aunt and Uncle usually got the food to go because they didn't want to be seen in public with the Potter freaks.
The food was passable, but not she noted with pride as she walked out a half an hour later carrying an orange juice, as good as hers.
The next stop that she wanted to take was to a local store. She needed to buy a comb to fix her rat nest. Her hair wasn't as messy and untamable as her brothers was, thank goodness, but it did tend to get messy over night as she tossed and turned from dreams she only vaguely remembered come morning.
When she reached the store she barely refrained from sprinting to the combs so she could finally get to a mirror.
After a faster then normal walk she went to the only open register to pay for her item.
The old women at the counter, whose hair was a red that would never be confused with a natural red, sniffed in disapproval as she rang up the item. Marie dug through her pockets and grabbed the proper amount of money. She didn't bother waiting for the change. Instead she excitedly walked to the bathroom.
She ignored the other person who was washing their hands obsessive compulsively and mumbling to themselves about germs.
She leaned against the sink and peered into the mirror. She was startled at how young she looked at first but then frowned and shook her head dismissing the feeling, after all as she had already clarified this morning she was eleven, despite what the memory of how her hair turned white showed.
Her eyes where a bright green color, that according to Hagrid, her mother herself possessed. Her black hair was her fathers but the white streaks where all her own. The white, to her relief, was only in the front of her hair. The rest of her hair was the regular black color.
She fingered the hair. It felt the same as usual. She couldn't help the grin that crept up on her face. Very cool, she decided. She happily brushed her hair. For the next ten minutes she brushed it so she would have an excuse to admire herself. As she finished, she decided that her hair looked better with the extra time and she should put more effort into her appearance in the future. She knew that the decision was an excuse to stare at her new appearance in the mirror but she didn't care. It's not like she had anything better to do.
As she left, she nodded to the person who was still washing her hands and walked out of the door feeling a lot better about life.
Marie didn't get home from wandering around town until the sun had set. She was very pleased how her day went despite its rocky start when she was kicked out of the house by Petunia. She had eaten large meals at local restaurants for both lunch and dinner. She had even stopped by the library and had nearly swooned with excitement when she had seen all the books.
She was slightly surprised by her new obsession because she had never had a passion for books or learning before. She had shrugged it off, not willing to ponder the weird turns her life had taken while all those enticing books awaited her. She had spent hours wandering from section to section.
They were all fascinating. The only blimp came when she had wandered into the history section and plucked a book about the Holocaust from the shelf. She had felt sick and panicky just looking at the cover of the book that had a picture of the gates at one of the concentration camps. For some reason staring at the cover gave her a horrifying feeling that she had been there and just looking at the gates would send her back to that hell.
Shaking slightly she had put the book back and had fled to a safer section of the library: children's fiction. She was the last one out of the library and she planned to be one of the first ones back in it tomorrow.
Her Aunt and Uncle hadn't even looked at her when she passed by their door. She was slightly relieved. She didn't acknowledge them. Instead she passed by the living room and continued on to her room. After changing into her pajamas, another Dudley cast off; she crawled into bed and sunk into sleep almost immediately.
If there was a time when Marie would be happy to only vaguely remember her dreams then that first nights dreams would be the first of many.
She wasn't alone. She was with a boy. He lay on her bed as she explained about her dreams of traveling.
Then they were kissing. It felt amazing.
He froze beneath her and she saw black lines like veins stand out across his skin. She felt something enter her.
She jerked away and scrambled off the bed as he began to have a seizure.
She had done this; she was a monster. She screamed.
Marie woke with a gasp. She wanted to scream in anguish because she knew that that girl who had just had her future destroyed in her dream was she. Her own hair may be black and her eyes green but the superficial changes could not change the reality that she was the Marie from the dream. Marie curled into a ball and began to rock herself back and forth, back and forth, over and over again. The repetitive action helped sooth her. Growing up she had never had much comfort. Besides Harry no one had ever held her. Aunt Petunia would hit her sometimes as a punishment for some perceived offense but no comfort was ever offered. Sometimes Harry would be there when she woke up from a nightmare but more often the naught they were separated, Harry in his cupboard, her in the tub in the bathroom. The separation was a form of punishment in itself. When Harry wasn't there she would rock herself and imagine that he or someone else who cared for her was holding her. It was never enough but it was all an unwanted child had. She was unwanted. Yes, she thought, just as that girl was fated to destroy anything she touched, so too would it be her fate. She would one day sap the life from any and all living things that she came in contact with. It was a horrifying thought. Not to be able to have contact with any living thing. Leaving a trail of death and destruction in her wake where ever she tread.
Tears began falling from her eyes for the first time in years. She never allowed herself tears. They never did her any good and only annoyed her Uncle Vernon. So she never cried. Not when Dudley used her for a punching bag, not when she was sent to bed starving, not even when Harry left. She came closest to weeping then but she knew that the separation was not for long and when they were reunited they would never be separated again. So while she was sad because of the seperation, the knowledge of the future allowed her to be happy.
Now though, the happiness would remain but with it would be an undercurrent of dread. With each passing year she knew that the dread would grow. It would only stop when her mutation presented itself. Then a different type of pain would present itself. That pain though. That pain would never leave her.
She didn't know how long she cried but eventually she drifted off to sleep. That, it turned out, was a mistake.
His name was Eric and he had committed the crime of existing.
They were being herded like cattle's to the slaughter but they were no cattle's. They were not dumb animals to be led to their deaths and feel nothing. No they were people. The inhuman ones, if one of them were to be labeled inhuman, were the German Soldiers looking on with hatred or apathy.
He followed the herd. He knew by now that the only means of survival was to obey. Escape was impossible. The only thing that that trying to escape would grant was a quicker death and he was not yet ready for death.
"No. No. Don't take my baby. Give me back my son."
He didn't even look at the woman who was calling for her son. He couldn't look. He had seen enough moments just like this one to know how it was going to end.
The Germans ignored the woman; she continued to yell for her child, to beg to go with him.
He looked up at that in horror.
The women was young, more child the women really. Sixteen years if he had to guess. She had curly brown hair that hung lank across her already gaunt face.
She was already too thin to survive the camp long.
She would never be given the chance he knew, as two blonde guards walked over to the lady. They both wore courteous smiles despite the squalid surroundings. One guard offered her an arm as if he were a gentleman at a party and she a lady, as if they were equals. They didn't speak instead they gave her a friendly smile and began to guide her over to him.
He felt sick. He wanted to kill them as they walked towards him. Kill them all for the suffering he had already endured and for happily murdering thousands upon thousands of his people. Instead he hunched down and lowered his gaze, careful to keep his face blank.
"This women. Take her to the showers. She wishes to join her son."
Eric gritted his teeth and nodded shortly. He walked quickly away from the laughing Germans not caring if the doomed women who loved her child enough to demand him in miserable place like this.
It didn't take long for him to reach the squalid building that held the 'showers'. He looked at the German who was guarding the door.
"She wishes to join her son."
The German smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was a cruel smile. One that said that he found that thought amusing.
As the brown haired women passed him, murmuring her thanks, he began to turn away feeling sick that he had participated in this woman's death. He may have been an unwilling participant but he had been a participant nonetheless.
Before he could start back the way he came the German at the door seized his arm and laughingly said as if he was offering him a treat, "How about a peek into the womens showers." Eric stared blankly up at him, feeling a familiar hatred for these men rise up in him. He allowed himself to be led down a hallway to a glass window that was set up to look into the showers.
There were maybe thirty women stripping down and handing off their clothes to some soldiers. The brown haired women had her child at her breast. The child was crying as if he realized what its fate was. Whether the cry was a fruitless warning to those around him or an acknowledgement of what was to come he knew not nor did he care.
Just as the mother calmed her child down gas began seeping into the room.
Women by women they fell, one by one. Eric watched with empty eyes as the death toll was added to. He didn't move or look away from the dead women and child until the German who held him in place let go with a laugh.
Marie woke with a gasp to find that it was once again dark. She looked up at the ceiling, concentrating on the cobwebs above her head trying not to think. Her dream though, no her nightmare, was too fresh in her mind. She couldn't stop shaking in fury and fright. She had never, not even in her dreams, seen someone die before.
If she closed her eyes she was sure that she would see their deaths again. It would play like a broken record, over and over, until she knew every aspect of that day.
She did not wish to remember clearly so she continued to gaze up at the ceiling, grateful that light seeped into the room from the streetlights.
Where did that memory come from? It was not hers and it was not the older Marie's. Yet she knew that it was not just a dream. It felt familiar, as if a small part of her had lived through that exact moment before. That made no sense, Marie thought, with a frown. How could she be dreaming of another persons' life? While older Marie's dream was weird, at least, it was another aspect of her, another life. This person was not even the same sex, let alone the same person.
Then she remembered the cold laugh and she felt goosebumps form on her arms. She sat up with a jerk and leapt out of bed. Rushing to turn on the light. She couldn't, no she wouldn't, sit in the dark any longer. Not when she was thinking about that horrifying laugh.
She paced the room, stepping over a fire truck that was missing a wheel on each pass.
She had heard a laugh, she was sure of it, but there was no one in the room with her. Her relatives where so paranoid about their safety following the Hogwarts letter catastrophe that even a muggle thief would have a hard time entering. So where did the voice come from?
It came to her suddenly and she stopped mid-step, her foot landing with a thud directly onto the fire truck. "Crap." She cursed jumping up in down while clutching her wounded foot.
After her foot stopped aching she limped to the bed and sat down heavily, leaning over and burying her head in her arms.
The safety of the house was fine. The voice was not from a physical entity but from within her own mind. She knew instinctively that the voice was another part of her curse. Apparently it wasn't bad enough that she was a walking poison that would never be able to touch a living thing without killing it. As an added bonus because she was so special she also got to house the shades of those lucky individuals she came in contact with in her own mind. Joy.
She was just so lucky. Aunt Petunia would be happy to hear this. Well, no she wouldn't, but she would think the sorrow her powers will cause her would be just what she deserved.
She didn't want to deal with peoples' reactions to her doom. She couldn't deal with Harry turning against her. Of him being afraid of what she was. She couldn't deal with the people being afraid of touching her. Not when someday she would be denied all physical contact. She decided in that moment that no one would ever know. Not until it was necessary. Not until it was too late.