The conclusion of the last day of Kylie Nichol's eleventh year is not marked by anything in particular. Kylie's parents have noted her inability to exhibit any accidental magic and have not really expected an owl to swoop in to deliver a letter confirming her giftedness.

Kylie's mundaneness is not wholly unexpected. The Nichol's are both Muggle-born and hold no illusions of blood purity. They live in a time when their inferiority is a basic assumption of life; they are vassals to the ancient House of McMillan and lead the simple life to which their descent entitles them.

To be honest, Kylie's incompetence rarely comes up as an issue. The Nichols are caught up in a battle of survival that occupies most of their attention. To be sure, they are happy when Rita and Zachary are accepted to Hogwarts and hope they will do well. Mrs Nichols remarks that she hopes Rita will learn some useful household spells, and her husband instructs Zachary to pay attention in Herbology, as Lord McMillan wants the gardens to be restored. They pat little Tobey on the head when he levitates his bottle, but do not actively push him to repeat this feat.

It is not that they don't want their children to succeed. They are kind, loving parents; devoted to their children's happiness. But they do not actually expect them to excel in the magical community; after all, they will have so few chances to do so and so many obstacles to overcome. The Nichols do not want to raise false hopes. The McMillans are kind masters, but there are plenty Muggle-borns to replace them if they become uppity.

x

So Kylie remains at home without much comment, ignored unless she misbehaves, which her father's strong arm with a belt keeps down to a rarity. Her mounting jealousy and frustration passes unnoticed. No sensitivity is displayed, because nobody realizes how much it hurts.

Rita turns seventeen and starts doing all the housework by magic, quicker and neater than their mother can, and her impatience with her sister's slower methods increases. Zach receives top marks in several subjects, and Lord McMillan himself comes to the house to congratulate him. Tobey receives his acceptance letter. Baby Ruth turns her father's hair green.

All this while, Kylie silently does her chores and grinds her teeth and pretends not to mind when Zach pranks her with charmed devices that her magic-less eyes cannot see until they have trapped her, when Tobey pulls her hair and races away on his broom.

Without any gift of Divination, she knows exactly how her life will go. She will be formally employed by the McMillans when she is of age; it is the tradition of the old families to hire the less fortunate of their association, however useless they are. She will be a maid, relegated to such chores as Lady McMillan decides are not done well enough by magic. She will live a pathetic, lonely existence, with no hope of improvement.

Often, she wishes that her mind was as feeble as everyone believes it to be, that she was truly stupid and could not understand how lowly she is. She longs to put out her eyes, so that she does not have to watch Zach leave the estate to take up the junior position at the Ministry that he is offered, a superb accomplishment for one of polluted blood. She hates her ears for exposing her to Rita's sharp reprimands; her older sister is now head housekeeper.

x

I know how you want the story to end. You want Kylie to run away and find a handsome Muggle husband who knows nothing of wands or potions, or to get a glamorous job as a fashion designer. The more romantic (or stupid) of you might even imagine her ending her pointless life, her blood staining the ground tragically and not nearly as messily as would actually be the case outside of teenage novels.

But real life has no stars in its eyes, and so Kylie spends many more years on McMillan Estate, the rest of her life, in fact, an average life of happiness and irritability and cake and Mondays and all the other things experience by people who are not tragic heroines. Her predictions are entirely correct.

But sometimes she wonders if it really matters. Tobey and Ruth have also stayed, their current lodgings within one hundred yards of the house they grew up in. Actually, when Kylie takes lunch in the kitchen, she eats with almost all the same people she played with as a child. Overwhelmingly, once Hogwarts was finished, her peers returned to the estate, secure in the expectation that they would have a job with the McMillans or one of their rich friends.

The use of magic also becomes less of a barrier as they grow up and the thrill of magical mischief fades. Times have changed since Kylie was a child; blood prejudice, once only an undertone and assumption of life, is on the rise as a political issue. The old families must take a stand, and do so by enforcing stronger rules and distinctions between the pure and the profane. It is now considered highly improper, gross bad taste of the chief order, to use magic in the presence of one of higher blood-ranking, to sully one's betters with one's ignoble talent; for the Nichol family and those of their acquaintance, this applies to practically everyone. This means no levitation while serving food to the family; no Banishing Charms to get rid of dirty nappies; wands are even banned in the kitchen in front of the half-blood chef. The servants become so used to avoiding magic in the house that they unconsciously use their hands at home as well; Ruth once confesses to Kylie that she can go for several days without using magic without even realizing it.

Kylie does not respond to this, but forever after smirks when she sees haughty Rita opening doors and wiping spills with her hands, her magical talent rendered useless by her lowly station in life.

She feels mean for taking comfort in the drabness of her life by watching the restraint to which her peers are subjected. She knows that she ought to wish things to be different, better for others as well as herself.

But how can she help herself? How can she not be relieved that all her fears of derision, of inadequacy, are so much lessened now that magic itself is forgotten? She, and those like her, have not missed out on so much; in the end, learning to polish silver properly was enough.

x

Years later, when Kylie's worn hands are found still and cold, nobody even remembers that she was once different; nobody thinks to mark her grave with the traditional symbol that would identify her remains as one without the magical ability. Young Lord McMillan remembers the next day, as he is sorting out her paperwork to send to the Ministry, that his childhood nanny was once handicapped, that she had not had the talent that he so rarely sees any of the servants use. He says nothing, though - what purpose would it serve? And the first seeds of doubt are planted in him as to the wisdom of the lines drawn between people, lines that have seemingly become more real than reality.