The decision of Selena Selwyn to drop out of Hogwarts entirely came as a rather great surprise to a number of people, some with more reason for shock than others. The professors of Hogwarts, who had ever been blind to the inner workings of Slytherin House (and, indeed, to that of the other Houses as well), were understandably shocked and distressed to discover that one of their best pupils had seemingly disappeared overnight with no provocation, slipping back into the Alleys of her childhood where they had little chance of finding her again. Ironically, Lucius Malfoy was nearly as surprised as the teachers, finding that his plan had worked both better than he had hoped and not remotely as well as he had expected. For while Selena had taken his threats to heart and fled to save her own skin, their true scheme had been to send her running to Pyrrhus, who could then "convince" the other Slytherins to let her return, and at this objective they had failed miserably.
The Master of the Alleys, too, was rather surprised, and more than a little vexed to find the girl giving up on her formal education, throwing away her chance at a life in mainstream wizarding society. Without NEWTs, and certainly without OWLs, her long held dreams of earning a Mastery, of becoming a force in magical experimentation and research, could never be realized. At his suggestion, Selena attempted to contact the Ministry officials who oversaw the Wizarding standardized tests in hopes of being permitted to sit for the OWL exams without completing her fifth year at Hogwarts. Her newly rekindled hope was that she could complete her studies on her own, with the Old Master's help, and still eventually gain her formal certifications and raise herself out of the Alleys and into the world outside.
But to her dismay, when the messages arrived, written on formal stationery and borne by majestic owls the likes of which were rarely seen below Diagon, even those dreams seemed to crumble before her eyes. The examinations board (bribed by Lucius Malfoy as a precaution against this very eventuality, though Selena had no way of knowing that at the time) refused her request to sit for the OWLs without completing the corresponding courses at Hogwarts. There was an appeals process, she was told, but one that would require far more resources of time, money, and expertise than she could ever hope to gather in her remaining years of life. Here too she managed to avoid the trap of begging for Pyrrhus's charity to save her, but only by throwing herself onto a path that would lead soon enough to yet another snare, a path that would ultimately bind her even more tightly to him than would the road she now avoided.
Refusing to believe that she had no future ahead of her, Selena set her sights on a seemingly more attainable goal: power and respect in the Lower Alleys, if never in the rest of the world. She convinced the Old Master to take her on for an apprenticeship, one which would never count formally for anything, since even the apprentice-style mastery path that the Ministry sanctioned required OWL and NEWT score which she would never have, but which could still gain her a place among the "masters" of the Alleys, those skilled wizards who practiced their trades away from the watchful eyes of the Ministry, and had their own ways of determining rank and prestige. The Old Master was universally acknowledged as the greatest of their number, and an apprenticeship under him would no doubt teach the girl a great deal about the myriad subjects that the man had studied and mastered in his long years. Selena still harbored hopes that someday she might find a way back to the life she had almost convinced herself she deserved, with real credentials and a place in Wizarding Society, but she knew deep in her heart how unlikely that was, and the cruel fates would indeed continue to stamp out her every chance at that life.
For several years, Selena continued as the Old Master's apprentice, gaining knowledge and skills in leaps and bounds, studying subjects that she would never have been taught at Hogwarts, due to their apparent difficulty, darkness, or esoteric nature. Perhaps it would not be true to say that she ever became truly thankful for finding herself on that path, or that she would have chosen it without outside influences forcing her hand, but it would be safe to say that Selena grew to be content with her situation. But alas, it was a rare longevity that had at least allowed the Master of the Alleys to see his final student reach the age of adulthood, and almost three years after accepting Selena as his apprentice, the Old Master became suddenly ill, and began to fade away. Though Selena did everything she could, struggling to keep up with the requests for the Master's magical assistance on her own to keep the rent money coming in and pay for a healer to ease his pain, she was forced to start selling off books and artifacts to keep them both afloat. His illness dragged on for months, and Selena struggled to keep her Occlumency shields up, to hide even from herself the memories of her mother's last illness over ten years before, to push aside any hint of emotion in a vain attempt to manage the world that was spiraling out of her control.
By the time the Master of the Alleys breathed his last, and was set aflame at a funeral service respectfully attended by all the great players of the Lower Allies, their feuds and rivalries momentarily set aside in honor of the man that all agreed had been the best of any of them, Selena found herself in a worse state than ever before. She was barely eighteen years of age and all alone in the world, with no credentials or money to her name, and soon enough not even a home or workshop to call her own. What little savings her Uncle Jack had left after his death nearly five years before were long since exhausted, and there had been next to nothing for the Old Master to leave for his apprentice. In deference to him the people of the Alleys allowed Selena a longer grace period than they might have offered anyone else, more time to attempt to put her affairs in order before evicting her from his workshop and seizing his few remaining assets to pay off the debts that Master and apprentice had accumulated during his decline, but their respect went only so far.
While the Old Master had lived, Selena had been seen as his heir, the last and best of the very few apprentices that he had taken on in his long life. To disrespect her would have been to disrespect the wizard she served, and they had considered her to speak with his voice and authority. But with the Master of the Alleys dead, Selena became simply one more apprentice without a master, a youngster with little concrete experience and no one left to vouch for her. It might have been different had the man seen fit to declare her a master in her own right before his death, but he had not, and any reasons he might have had for such a decision died with him, leaving the Alley folk to assume it was due to not believing her ready or capable. Unable to find a new master willing or able to take her on as an apprentice, and still with no way to raise herself out of the Lower Alleys and find reputable employment elsewhere, Selena was forced to take what jobs she could in the Alleys, as and when she was presented with them.
For months she kept herself barely afloat with miscellaneous small tasks and odd jobs for the craftsmen and shadier business owners who made up the core of the economy in the Lower Alleys, growing more discouraged by the day. With little more to her name than her wand and the clothes upon her back, Selena had none of the equipment or ingredients necessary to brew the more complex potions that would have found her a place working at an apothecary or even a rundown potions' stall down Knockturn Alley, or to demonstrate proficiency in the elaborate rituals and spells that might have caught to attention of a artificer or cursebreaker. As perhaps could have been predicted, it was to the darker and more disreputable players that Selena was eventually drawn, the ones who would ask the fewest questions and provide the most opportunities, to those who were willing to take the risks.
It was while involved in one such venture of dubious morality and certain illegality that an already woeful tale took yet another turn for the worse. Perhaps the fates laughed as they watched the Aurors descend on the Alleys, acting on a conveniently timed tip off that would see Selena caught in a round up of the dregs of the Lower Alleys, or perhaps even they wept to see the misfortune befalling their favored plaything. For what passed for justice in the Wizarding World proved no less cruel than destiny itself had ever been to the young woman, and with little discussion and even less fanfare, Selena found herself sentenced to Azkaban Prison for the span of six months. Cast alone into a cell, surrounded by the cold winds and the desolate sea, with no company but the screams of her fellow prisoners and the constant torment of the dementors passing through the lonely corridors, Selena could do nothing but wait, alone with her despair, and hope that she might somehow make it out the other side.
Author's Note: Thanks for reading! We'll be back with a new chapter on Thursday, in which Selena is released from Azkaban, but brings her bad luck with her...
