Parker had a shadow. This shadow took the form of a Slytherin girl, in the same year as them, with a sharp, sly face and a mad sense of humour, who would follow them around and talk constantly at them. Not even really to them. Just at them.
To be honest, she confused Parker.
Her name was Missy (which seemed like a bit of a silly name, but then again they were the one with the name of a type of fountain pen), they'd found out. Missy Gomez, everyone thought she was mad, and she had a single friend, who seemed more like a pet to everyone they asked. And, for some unfathomable reason, she was obsessed with Parker.
They would be happily studying in the library, and Missy would appear from behind a bookshelf, all smiles and bounciness and charm. They would be walking to their next lesson, and Missy would skip up, ready with a greeting and a story about her day. Or if Parker told her to leave, which they did several times, the smiles would vanish and be replaced with a sad, lost puppy look, and something in their normally icy heart would thaw a little and they would let her stay. It was odd, because she was rude to everyone, but she treated Parker like they were best friends already. To be fair, Parker didn't have any friends unless you counted the sort of lost puppy that was Lethe, and those kids that helped them out and stuff.
It was when she started introducing them to people as 'my boyfriend' that they decided something needed to change.
"Missy," they said, spinning on their heel and cutting her off mid-chatter while she followed them around the library, "I am not your boyfriend. Or your girlfriend, before you ask. I don't- I don't even know if I LIKE you!"
She stopped, and gave her usual puppy dog look.
"That is NOT working on me today." They folded their arms, confronting her with an angry stare. "Either you explain all...all this, or I- I'll report you. To someone..." That wasn't their best threat, but it seemed to work.
Missy's puppy dog look dropped, replaced with one of what seemed to be genuine sadness.
"You- you don't remember?" She reached out a hand to touch their arm, withdrawing it as they jerked away.
"Remember what?" They took a step back, thinking that maybe she was even crazier than everyone else had said...
A pained expression flickered across her face. "We were friends, once. When we were kids. When you used to go by Peter, and you weren't all angry. We used to be best friends... Have you really forgotten?"
They flinched at the use of their name, the name that they'd worked so long to get everyone to forget, the name that they had tried, and managed, to distance themselves from. "Don't mention that name. Please." A faint flicker of memory was stirring, somewhere. A little girl with long dark hair, sitting in a Muggle playground and looking lost. They vaguely remembered approaching her, asking her what was wrong, talking for hours on the swings until their parents had pulled them away, telling them that Muggleborns were below their class of wizard.
They remembered meeting her again, in that same playground, when they'd been eight and ran away from home for the first time, after an argument. They couldn't even remember what the argument was about. They'd sat with the girl for ages and planned a life away from adults, together. When they were older, they'd said. Then they'd run away for good and travel the world.
It became almost a weekly thing, after that. Little Parker had crept out during the day, when their parents were too busy fussing over small things to notice the disappearance of one of their children. They'd run off down to the playground and Missy would always be there, without fail, sitting on one of the swings. They would talk for ages, and Parker would show her little magic tricks their older siblings had taught them.
One day, they'd been caught red handed, halfway out of the front door, by their father, who had shouted and shouted until they had cried, and confessed, and been shouted at even more. They'd been forbidden from leaving the house for months, their room firmly locked day and night. Over time, as they grew up and left for Hogwarts and learned more about themselves, they'd forgotten about their childhood friend (who must have changed a lot if they hadn't recognized her), never once thinking about what it must have been like for her, seemingly abandoned and scorned by the one person who had paid attention to her.
They'd moved closer to Missy without even realising. This time, when she reached out to touch their arm, they let her. A little grudgingly, but they let her.
She opened her mouth, no words coming out for a few seconds, and then, "I just want my friend back..."
Parker paused, grey eyes glancing at her hand on their arm, to her face imploring them to agree with her, then back to her hand. They took it, slowly, really not used to the touching thing that Missy seemed to be so fond of.
"...Fine." They said, giving her a small, tight smile. There was a lot to fix here, and a lot to tell. But maybe it would work. "Just... Lay off the boyfriend thing, okay?"