"Petrificus totalus!"
Her body went rigid and she hit the ground, landing on her back. The sound of voices surrounding us turned to silence as I stepped towards her. Looking down at her I could see the fear in her eyes, as she lay there in a state of paralysis, entirely powerless beneath me. I could feel the fear emanating from her, and I breathed it in, letting it fuel my anger. She had done this, it was her fault. She deserved to be afraid.
I raised my wand and flicked it through the air.
"Diffindo." My voice came out quiet, but the sound of her scream brought the fury to my tongue as I spoke again. "Diffindo!"
Blood splattered against the stone floor and her eyes seemed to glaze over. The chorus of terrified screams surrounding us only made my heart race, making my anger turn to excitement.
They finally knew what it was to feel fear, to feel terror in their hearts. They now knew what I had gone through, what they had done to me. This didn't feel like vengeance, it was justice for all they had done to me. They deserved this.
"Diffindo!" I yelled again, letting my wand slice through the air like a blade.
The journey across the Atlantic Ocean had been long. When I initially arrived on the dock to board the ship heading to the United Kingdom I had felt relieved. Leaving everything behind and starting a new life gave me a newfound sense of hope that I hadn't felt since I was a small girl travelling to The United States with my father and Aunt. Back then we were headed to a new life. I knew I would miss my home in Italy, but like many other Italian families coming from poverty, emigration offered new beginnings.
This trip was different. After living in the United States for 10 years and hating every moment of it, setting sail to a new land again felt like more of a necessity than an exciting new journey. Over the years I had spent in the United States I had dreamed of returning to Italy, but I no longer had any family there after my grandparents had died.
Standing on the ship headed toward the United Kingdom felt almost symbolic. Floating in open water, I began to feel weightless. The heaviness of the trauma I left behind in America had been lifted from my chest, but the unknown depths below set a chill down my spine. I had no idea what England had in store for me; I was meeting my mother again for the first time since departing the dock in Napoli in 1882. She didn't board the ship. Instead she left with her new husband, a No-Maj who lived nearby. They later emigrated to the United Kingdom together. I had seen my mother as a villain for a long time, but knowing my father as I did now, I could hardly blame her for wanting to be as far away from him as humanly possible. He was a drunk and his weak mind was a burden to everyone around him.
Arriving in England hadn't been as liberating as I had hoped. My stomach turned as the dark clouds rolled in on what was supposed to be a warm summer's day. The No-Maj's manning the dock had strange accents, and my mother was nowhere in sight. I spent half an hour wandering the dock searching for her, before I was greeted by the fat man I knew to be her husband. Corrado Romano was just as unpleasant as I remembered him to be, and the train ride between Liverpool and Farringdon was an utter nightmare. I had little experience conversing with No-Maj's, but this man seemed particularly disagreeable. He had warned me that he didn't allow magic in his home, and that I was very lucky my mother had allowed me to enrol at a magic school in the United Kingdom. Even more fortunate, was the fact that the magic school had accepted me after what I had done.
I was starting at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry the next week. That was the only thing holding me together as I sat beside Corrado Romano, the No-Maj originally from Naples, who stole my mother's heart and took her with him to start a new life in Clerkenwell, London. Clerkenwell was home to thousands of Italian immigrants, yet I couldn't have felt more outlandish as I got off the train at Farringdon station.
The week at my mother's house turned into a nightmare the moment I walked through her door. The woman I once knew was nothing but a shadow of her former self. I'd remembered her as young, beautiful and carefree. She now looked aged and she was even more uptight than her No-Maj husband.
"Why do you look like that?" Were the first words to leave my mother's mouth as she stood in the kitchen, glaring at me. "Santo Cielo, bambina mia!" Good heavens, my child. "Your hair is a mess!"
The rest of the week was no better. She followed me around questioning me and scolding me simultaneously for not living up to her standards. My presence seemed to irk her, and I couldn't shake the feeling that she wanted me gone. Corrado was just as disagreeable. He kept shoving a silver pendant in the shape of a cross in my hand and insisting I wear it. It was an important symbol of his No-Maj religion and said it would help me 'save my soul' after what I had done. I wasn't sure what my father had told them about my expulsion from Ilvermorny, but they were treating me like a criminal.
The week was slow, and I wasn't permitted to leave the house without Corrado. I was forced to attend a service at the local church on Sunday, which had been the most boring experience in my life, and I had been warned not to speak to any of the No-Maj's in attendance. Each night I went to bed I cried myself to sleep, hoping things would get better once I arrived at Hogwarts.
When I woke up on the morning of September 1st I began to feel anxious. I knew better than to be hopeful or even excited about the new school, but part of me couldn't shake the feeling of hope that seemed to be stirring in my chest. It was a chance to start new, where nobody knew my name or any of my past. I could be anybody I wanted. Yet I knew that every moment prior when I'd had expectations, they'd all been crushed when faced with the reality that life wasn't ever as I'd hoped.
My hair was pinned back as my mother had made it quite clear that she couldn't stand my curls being left unkempt, and I had dressed in the clothes she had laid out for me. A puffy sleeved white blouse that covered all the way to my neck and a beige ankle length skirt. I looked utterly dull, but when I walked down the stairs of my mother's small townhome I saw her eyes brim with tears. For a moment I felt my stomach turn at the sight, but when Corrado stepped into the hall beside her I soon recalled the contempt I held in my heart for her.
"Sei bellissima, stellina mia!" You look beautiful, my little star.
I almost laughed at her idea of beauty.
"Grazie Mama."
"You take too long to get ready, ragazza pigra." Lazy girl. "We will miss your train." Corrado clapped his hands at me to rush me down the last couple of stairs.
"Pigra? Non farmi arrabbiare." Lazy? Do not make me angry. "Don't forget what I'm capable of."
I stomped down the last step feeling anger rushing through me, the man was a complete pig and I had put up with enough of his rudeness over the past week. I saw my mother shift, stepping backwards as if she expected me to hurt her. That only made me more angry, my own mother would think so low of me to be afraid of me. It was blatantly obvious how deeply Corrado Romano had brainwashed her into the No-Maj ideology of fearing magic.
As my mother stepped backward, Corrado stepped forward, pushing his chest out in an attempt to look intimidating. While the man was large and very fat, I wasn't afraid of him. I had my wand tucked into the ankle of my boot and no amount of physical strength could trump magic.
"You do not threaten me in my own home, Caecilia!" He spoke with so much anger that his face seemed to be turning purple. "You obey me when you are here!"
"Togliti dai piedi!" Get out of my way!
I went to step around him, but he reached out and grabbed my arm. His grip was like a vice as he squeezed.
"Finché vivi sotto il mio tetto fai quello che ti dico io." As long as you live under my roof, you do what I tell you.
He was hurting my arm, but I did nothing to cower away from him. I still was not afraid, and I certainly wouldn't allow him to think he could scare me. When he realised that I didn't care, his grip tightened again.
"Take your hand off me, porco." Pig. My voice came out calm as I tried to suppress the anger creeping up my throat.
I knew better than to attack this man because the consequences would be dire considering I had already faced The Magical Congress of the United States of America after committing a violent offence. I had walked away with a slap on the wrist because my father was an auror. The English Ministry of Magic wouldn't be so forgiving.
A vein began to bulge in his forehead, and I had the feeling he was trying his hardest not to react to my name calling. Unfortunately he had little restraint. This made me smirk, and suddenly he raised his hand and smacked me across the cheek.
He hit me hard enough that I should have fallen to the ground, but I felt my body suddenly stiffen as my eyes rolled backwards. I heard my mother screech as an image flashed into my mind.
"You are out of your mind, Caecilia! Please! Tell him to stop!" Corrado's voice was hoarse as he tried to shuffle backwards along the floorboards.
I felt excitement licking at my veins, a fire burning in my stomach. The man standing over Corrado was holding a wand to Corrado's neck, but I wasn't sure who he was. His back was facing me, and all I could focus on was the fear on Corrado's face as tears began to roll down his cheeks.
"Don't be pathetic, Corrado. Don't you want to die with some dignity?"
He gasped as the words came from the man standing over him, as if until this point he had assumed it was all a ploy to scare him. I felt my stomach lurch, I didn't want him to die. I had wanted to hurt him, yes, but killing him was too far. I didn't want to go to jail over him.
"No." My voice was shaking. "Don't kill him."
"After everything he's done to you?" The man responded, turning to look at me. I still couldn't see his face. No matter how hard I tried to look away from Corrado, I was unable to take my eyes off of him. He was hyperventilating, gasping out words to his God. I felt nothing as he laid there, praying for his life to be spared. Nothing but hatred seething through me at the thought of him.
"I don't want to go to Azkaban." I said simply. "Torture him for a while though, would you?"
"Anything for you, my love." The man answered before turning back to Corrado and growling the word, "crucio!"
When my vision returned to normal my mother was standing in front of me, holding both of my shoulders and shaking me profusely. My face was stinging, but my heart was racing over what I had just seen.
"Caecilia." My mother sobbed. "Is it your visions again? Tell me what do you see?"
My maternal grandmother had passed on her gift of foresight to me and I had been having visions for as long as I could remember. When I was very young they were difficult to control, and I became very withdrawn and afraid. Most of my visions had been mundane, and unimportant, but when I started having visions of terrible things, my life became a waking nightmare. As the years went by I'd learned to control the mundane visions, but it was impossible to block everything. I had seen my mother leaving us before it had happened, been haunted with visions of my Aunt dying years prior to her death, and I'd known my father would send me away before I had even attacked the girl at Ilvermorny. Having the gift of foresight had been nothing but a curse, but standing in my mother's home, seeing what was to become of my step father, gave me an unfamiliar sense of appreciation for my gift.
I ignored my mother's panicked cries, and met Corrado's eye. He was standing in the corner of the room now, his face pale white as if he had seen a ghost. I supposed my visions would be frightening for a magic-fearing No-Maj to witness, but I couldn't stop myself from smiling. If only I could show him the image that had just played out in my mind.
"Tell your husband to stay away from me." I said simply, as my mother continued shaking me and sobbing. "I've seen what will happen to him if he doesn't."