After that revelation I quickly became known to my mother as a bookworm. I gathered all the books about history that I could find and reach, I devoured them as fast as I could. But the book that truly changed me was "The Downfall of the Dark Arts" which told of a man named You-Know-Who and a young boy who survived an unforgivable and unsurvivable curse with only a lightening bolt scar to show for it.
No names were actually mentioned, did they really need to be, and it was the only book with such information in the house. Still, I easily connected the dots from magic to this history. I'm in Harry Potter.
Holy mother of god... or should I say Merlin?
I soon learned that accidental magic is indeed that, accidental. The only way to force said magic to work is to make ones self overly emotional. Not to say I still didn't try, I'll probably make Gryffindor for my stubborn will if nothing else. Half the time I hope I do just to spite my grandparents. Unlucky me landed in a pureblood house hold, apparently mother hadn't got the memo cause when I asked why they hated me she said that father was a halfblood.
My grandparents hate me, they made no move to hide or pretend that they don't. Even so I was a part of the Shafiq line, as such was not allowed to dishonor them more than I already was by existing. So I was tutored from the age of five. At first it was just manners and bloodlines, soon became potions and magic theory.
Just as in my past life I did very well, my tutors praised me as did my mother. For my grandparents it still wasn't enough.
I didn't think anything ever would be, but I didn't tell mother that. I knew it would make her sad if I told her so instead I talked about my lessons.
Out of all my classes I like potions the most. Apparently that was something our family is well known for, along with having our middle names as plants. I was actually better at potions than math, and I basically have a cheat sheet for that class.
I'm seven when my world shatters.
Mother dies her lungs collapsing over night from an illness not potion or mediwitch could save her from.
Despair fills me. Crying out for her as they lower her casket down I can feel my magic bubble beneath the surface of my skin as it tries to protect, to sooth my raging emotions.
Beside her grave sits a baby willow tree. In memory of a woman who treated me better than my first mother, a woman I came to love and think of as my mother. In memory of Lorea Salix Shafiq.
(Salix means willow tree)
After mother died grandmother and grandfather became much worse. I was taken from my room and given instead a closet/cupboard.
'Oh the irony' I laugh quietly to myself.
The similarities between me and harry just keep building.
I do learn to cook, thankfully not for them but myself. They have house-elves, Nippy and Slippy, for that. Instead, I must focus on my lessons and my manners. Seems easy enough, but nothing less than perfect is any good. On bad days at work for grandfather even that does not help.
Nippy and Slippy are sweet. Part of me always agreed with Hermione about S.P.E.W. except I didn't know anything about house-elves. Thankfully Nippy and Slippy taught me some facts about house-elves. I know that house-elves live off their families magic as payment, and without a family to tie to they wouldn't be able to live. I still think that they should be treated better, good clothes and common manners could go a long way. A simple please and thank you shouldn't be that hard to say.
The two house-elves tried helping me when they could, and I tried returning the help whenever I could. Nippy and Slippy are the closest things to a friend I have and as such if in need I will help them.
After mum died I didn't really hear my new name, Avior Fagus Shafiq, she was the only one who ever called me by it without sounding as if it were being forced out. Nippy decided to refer to me as 'the special' because he said I was different from the other magicals he had met and that made me special. Slippy agreed to call me that because I think she knew I got sad when I heard my name. It reminded me of who I had lost.
I'm nine when they first deny me food.
When I make a mistake in my lessons or am disrespectful I am punished. Physically or sometimes I take over for one of the house-elves.
I'm hit regularly, I've grown so used to having bruises on me that by now to not have them would be strange. Jinxes and curses are thrown in when they don't want to touch their 'dirty blooded freak'. But that's fine I can survive that. I'm nearly eleven now.
I'm ten when I can feel myself start to crumble.
In my last life I was treated fairly sometimes ignored and forgotten but never hurt intentionally. I was happy when I had found out that the world I lived in was Harry Potter.
I'm resilient and proud to be so, but there is only so much anyone can take. That night during my punishment I swore that I would never let anyone I care for feel pain like this, they wouldn't ever have to feel this hopeless and alone. That they will feel loved.
I'm cleaning the west wing when I come across it.
A giant graph like structure is painted across the wall. Lines that lead to pictures with names beneath them. A family tree.
My family tree.
My eyes scan for my mothers picture, when I find it I can hardly breath.
Beside my mother is a canvas and in it is a man with dark hair, pale skin, and long fingers. His eyes look black and his nose is a little to big for his face.
The name bellow read 'Severus Tobias Snape'.
I'm eleven when my world falls from under me.
I finally realize how cruel my grandparents are. My letter to Hogwarts, my freedom from this hell, was burned in front of me as they wrote a negative response saying that I'll be tutored from home.
That night I cry myself to sleep.
I realize how wrong I was. Before was not hell, this is hell.
Now that they do not have to worry about teachers coming or questions they become harsher. My tutors are canceled and I am forced into smuggling books from the library trying to keep up. Lessons were only kept before in case a teacher came to inquire, no one came. No other letter was even sent to check on me after the Hogwarts letter.
The only lessons still in place are potions because of how shameful a Shafiq who is incompetent at them would be, at least that is their excuse I know it's just so they can find more reason to despise me to hurt me. At night in place of a wand I practice the wand movements with a broken handle of a mop, and practice spells by forcing the magic through.
Wandless magic.
Before I had hoped to look into and learn wandless magic around fifth year maybe when harry started up the DA, but now it is a necessity. Without these small moments of magic I would have broken.
Maybe I already had?
I'm thirteen when I find the wonder that is runes,
A book so torn it had been thrown away, I had stolen it from the garbage. At first I was simply curious the books in harry potter hadn't mentioned runes very often and never in depth. And then I was obsessed. Locking, layering, and combining runes their properties and sayings. I was hooked.
Wandless magic took a lot of concentration and used more magic than it should. To me it was magic without a wand, magic I didn't have to force out of me, that helped me survive that horrid house.
I'm fourteen when they make a mistake.
There is a room in the east wing where I go to take my punishments. Grandfather has a silencing ward around that room. So no one can hear when I scream. But tonight is special, Beltaine, just like Samhain magic is stronger. Nights like these are when grandfather reapplies the silencing ward. Tonight however my punishment takes priority which means the ward is weak. Weak ward plus my magic being stronger means I could potentially escape.
Grandfather generally hits than he hurts. That means he'll hit me then when he is tired he uses spells. That day I had been bad, I hadn't been allowed food for the past few days (three I think) and had knocked over my ingredients stand in a moment of dizziness. The potion exploded, I had failed at the only thing I should not have.
But I refused for this to go on, I could no longer take this. So that night after being hit and having blood run down my back from the whip like belt I smeared the blood over the tip of my finger. It was time, my plan had many holes in it but this was the best I could think of.
He readied his wand
Willing my magic to the surface I drew out the NAUDHIZ rune. The banishing rune, I felt the magic of the silencing ward slowly dissolve.
He shouts a spell.
A violent red curse shot from the tip and slammed into my back. Fire lite every nerve ending in my body. It felt as if hot knives were slowly being driven into my skin and then viciously ripped back out.
I screamed.