I had been given practical gifts from my friends, thankfully. Amelia had a better robe for me which if the house crest was removed did just fine as a thick coat and I knew would be essentially for as long as it fit me. She'd been delighted by the illustration of her favorite tale of The Lady of Rohan, having told me of the author Tolkein's epic tales a few times. There had apparently been quite a furor over his tales until someone had read them and realized whilst he had likely known a wizard or two to base the Gandalf character on, or perhaps the elves as they were arguably the most magical seeming lot, they were entirely muggle conjecture. A few unexplainable instances given to making an entire saga from whole cloth. Truly it sounded like a series I would enjoy reading some day.
Various other clothing items came from the others, indeed I was surprised to learn that in Hufflepuff it was expected to give and get from the house entire without the exchange of names to make certain everyone had an assortment and spent a few nights making a painting of a stylized badger for the common room after the inundation of everything from socks to gloves and hats that were sorely needed by my threadbare house elf found castaway garments to block the bitter winter cold. Gloves were the most common, and a wonderful gift so I could continue to hide my hands with their runes.
Curiously, after the excitement of the Holiday it seemed everyone was almost in a depression for a time, shuffling from class to class with sighs and pouts as though the 'magic of Christmas' had made them forget magic entirely!
What strange people, these Witches and Wizards of so long ago are to my eyes.
()()()()()
Spring fell into the first signs of summer and my days were an unending fog of the same. I was beginning to feel smothered in cloth, as though it pressed against my nose and lips to stifle my intake of oxygen. I needed to get out, to sing. I hadn't since the Solstice and my Talent was itching, crying from the very core of my being. However, unlike around the Solstice when it was dark and quiet the chill herding everyone indoors, the weather now was warm enough that there was a great chance of being found.
Stifle-fits we had called them, common when one could not make the time to address their Talent's and in the beginning, were it not for my month in the museum and singing with Fawkes for the portraits no doubt I would have had a few then. However, for all I had side stepped time and place playing battery for a firebird eventually the lack of output of my Talent would catch up to me. I could draw constantly, indeed a few teachers had even huffed and taken points for 'incessant doodling Miss Fortenau!" but Minerva kept the feline themed ones, so I don't think she truly minded. A Gryffindor thing mayhaps. Potions I worked with even if only regimented and controlled and my shaping of materials was something I would do idly when alone, sitting on my bed and reading my History books as I tugged and pulled at the metal as though it were clay never allowing it to actually create anything. I was at the saturation point for now.
But my voice? It had ripped open during the death of my loved ones and manifested anew in me, such Talents were pinnacle's and to be honored and honed at every chance. Were I still 'home' I would have been encouraged to sing as often as I was able while never straining myself. I would have been performing as frequently as my master desired and no doubt having contracts of to whom I would be sent, properly bonded to a family either as concubine or just the Squib with a purpose for formal events and later matched with another Talented. Yet I would be fully bonded by now and the siphon that would create such a thing, the easing of the pressure, was not there.
My song was burning me from the inside. I hadn't expected the fit. So I found myself clawing at my skin through my robes, thankfully my thicker ones that kept me from damaging myself much though I could feel scraped skin still, clenched teeth and aching jaw as my breath came in short and shallow. My heartbeat pounding in my ears had become a drum. I needed out! I needed..I needed..
Melpomene shrieking like a banshee where no one could hear her inside of me at the lack of expression was causing a build up of pressure in my core. This made every one of my runes branded into my flesh feel like scabs ripped open once more and salt water poured over me. I may have been crying, I couldn't tell as I suffered.
The problem with the fits is when they begin you can only ride them out. The surge in our core levels without the gentle usual siphoning off a witch or wizard would experience casting spells. They became restless or angered they'd have accidental magic. Nothing happened with a squib beyond an increase in temper or nervous behavior. Unless they'd had runes placed to wedge open gaping holes to access their cores and mark them. Then the build up would flow out but the runes were meant to prevent accidental use and so it would turn it back. An agonizing battering at the gates that would continue until that instinct even for squibs in small trickles to start healing the damage to the core finally would relieve the pressure.
The very marks that let me cast a few spells, though would always cause me pain, were acting as if they were infected and bleeding at the moment and leaving me a wreck as I tried not to pass out.
If I'd been bound to a master the excess magic would have seeped into that bond and the fits would have ceased. Such a small increase that it wouldn't even have registered to them, like a sneeze. I hadn't had one in years, only when I was a child and had yet to realize that my urges to mess with a few things were actually my talent but the runes were still new then.
My dam had not touched me then, just spoke, softly, evenly, but I had never known what she was saying. Much as I didn't know what was being said or could even make out the voice as someone knelt near me, my hands clamped over my ears and eyes tight.
Eventually, magic struck at me and sent me unconscious.
()()()()()()()()
In one of the beds deep within the hospital wing a young girl lay sleeping. A rough nightgown that covered her from wrist to mid throat and down to her ankles covered her and a pair of sleeping gloves preserved her privacy to hide away the silver brands that coated the back of her fingers and hands. Her hair had been plaited much more simply into two braids on either side of her head with a precision that gave evidence to the spell used to do such. Still as she remained, only a faint twitch here and there, was the slightest sign that the dreamless sleep was not entirely effective.
Dumbledore had sworn the Madame and her young assistant Poppy to secrecy, fortunately something that fell neatly under their healers oaths to not mention any markings found upon the slip of a girl. Indeed, Dumbledore did not know what to think of the fact that one of Slughorn's house had found her, and whilst they had alerted their head of house that same student had thought nothing of leaving a clearly traumatized girl alone in the hallway during the process. Sighing, the Headmaster knew he could not save them all. Indeed, that the Slytherin had even reported what they had found was no small feat and yet the motivation had doubtlessly been the heaping of points that followed. Emeralds tumbling freely into the Slytherin house container for assisting a student in need. Even if it was an older student from Hufflepuff who had found her and sent her unconscious with a stunner before scooping the young one up and carrying her to the infirmary. That one, Dumbledore had been proud to give points to. The young man had seemed almost insulted at the idea he wouldn't help one in need, especially a fellow badger. Hufflepuff. Such an underrated group.
Fawkes, unsurprisingly, was perched on the headboard where the child slept, crooning softly to help assist in keeping the girl asleep as by simple misfortune her lack of accessing her core meant the potion did not exactly work. Still, the ruse was perfected by Fawke's efforts and none would know it was the nearby presence of the Phoenix keeping the girl so relaxed as to sleep after her ordeal. The memories brought forth were by design, nonexistent. Rather he had developed exceptionally strong hunches about things so he could not accidentally mislead himself or others as a result of his spell. From the recollection though of nigh six months ago, Dumbledore knew the slip of a child resting before him had given up everything for but a chance. A misguided one perhaps as she would never find peace in a world that despised what she was but a chance regardless.
Considering that even now Fawkes softly crooned and sang to help her sleep, long neck gracefully stretched out to all but whisper his song into her ear, Dumbledore could easily surmise that she was at her core a good person. Even if she did not know that. Indeed, she'd been so very..well..Hufflepuff..and vanished into her house. Slughorn liked her, Sprout was often twittering about her student that helped even with soil and fertilizer on the sides, and she'd slowly been being pulled into a group composed of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students that were firmly on the light side. Dumbledore just hoped somehow the topic of Summer came up and one of the families would take her in. He could not house the girl over summer, nor did he feel at ease dumping her in an orphanage. Not when her coping skills with even modern Wizarding society seemed strained at the best of times.
Yet, what did one do with a Squib in hiding?
()()()()()()()()