There were places that the sun refused to visit. Scars. The kind the world hid from view. You couldn't find them by looking, nor stumble upon them by chance. You'd only wind up there if that place found you first. Though, there were those who made those kinds of places their home.
Dark things.
And it was the hungry eyes of dark things that watched their unwitting victim. He was a fool who'd gotten lost, wandered off the trail and been too adventurous to find his way back. Now his fate had been claimed by such a place, a ravine buried by time, hidden by trees. There was no climbing back out, and those hungry eyes knew it.
They were ghouls, but not the kind that haunt wizard's homes. They were an older type. A far more dangerous variety, born from the ancient world, and hungry for human flesh.
They watched in glee and greed, drooling in prospect of their approaching victim. He was somewhat ordinary, dressed casually in a knit sleeveless sweater over a collared white shirt, and his brown hair had a bit of a swirl to it. A small bag of far too few supplies was strapped to his belt.
He shined his flashlight at every rattling branch, though the little ghouls always escaped before his eyes could catch them. They all kept their distance, save for the small one guiding his hand.
"Don't worry," she told him with a smile. "Just a bit further."
"A-And there's a telephone I can use?" He asked with fright.
"Yup. Haaaa….." she sighed with heavy breath, a verbal tic of hers.
The others impatiently waited for her to make the first move. One bite and the swarming would begin and each would fight for their share of the meal. Until that moment came they could only observe.
The man scanned the back of the girl leading him with his light. Most of her was wrapped in a pitch-black cloak that hid her arms, though her dainty white legs were left uncovered. They scampered about the ground so that she looked like a chicken. They were paler than any healthy person. Even the dead had more color. The neck-length hair on her head was as dark as her clothes, and just like the cloak it was unkempt and unwashed.
She was a child, but he could not guess her age.
"Say, how old are you? If you don't mind me asking," he said.
She turned her head his way. Her gaze was uncanny and sharp. He couldn't distinguish between her iris and pupil, both just as dark as the rest of her. Surrounding those eyes and buried beneath greasy clumps of hair was her face, pale as a manikin. It was so devoid of contrast that he couldn't locate her lips until they parted to sigh that breathy sigh.
Everything about her seemed terribly off, and it gave him more than a shiver. He never liked children. They were weird, and she was weirder than most.
"How old? Not sure," she said. She seemed genuine about it. "Must be Eleven, I think. Haaaa…."
"That's a rather specific number for someone so uncertain," he said. "Why eleven?"
She grinned back at him. Her eyes fell down with her smile still growing. An excited thought seemed to brew in her little mind. She was bubbling. The way she fidgeted and hopped about made her seem half her age in his eyes. Evidently she had decided to act upon whatever was on her mind. She'd taken his hand and tugged him along more swiftly than he was meant to move.
He couldn't speak in that rush. It took all his coordination to keep from falling, yet that child scurried over terrain uninhibited. She was like a shadow in more ways than one. Down they went, further into the ravine. If not for the girl's grip he would have certainly plummeted to his demise.
The russell around them became too furious to disguise. There were grumbles and words he could hear.
"Greedy! Nana's greedy!" they seemed to say.
If the girl pulling him heard, she ignored them.
When the man eventually caught his bearings he was met with a fright. Just ahead of them was a barrier of dangerous debris, and the girl seemed to be barreling straight for it. Iron bars, rubble from long fallen walls, and all manner of sharp things. He shielded his face to brace for it. He wondered if the girl might have been insane.
Then it came. The girl passed right on through unfazed, but the man was not so lucky. Despite his efforts to be unscathed a dozen bruises and bangs battered him anyway. It nearly knocked him out, but eventually the beating came to an end. He'd popped out the other side like a plug being pulled, and the girl gazed back with a hint of concern.
"You're rather clumsy, mister," she said.
"Clumsy?!" he shouted. "Bloody hell, you nearly got me killed!"
She pressed a finger to his lips.
"Shh…" she whispered. "Shouldn't be too loud. Mother can hear you now. She doesn't like loud mouths."
"Mother?" he asked as quietly as he could.
The girl tightened her grip on his hand and she turned away with a shiver. It didn't seem to be a subject she wished to discuss. A moment later her tug came again. There was less urgency in her now, rather she pulled with a comfortable stride.
A full moon hung overhead in a starless sky, though he hadn't remembered it being there. It revealed only a little, just enough to determine they weren't in a forest anymore. They were in the shabby remains of some stone city. It felt unnerving, though it took him a moment to realize why. There was no sound. No breeze. Nothing to indicate a trace of life. That place felt utterly devoid of the concept.
The walls that made up most of the ruins had no obvious intent. They appeared to stand to confuse and disorient those lost in its maze. Weathered and worn to differing degrees, of differing architects and eras. Pointless Pillars and statues were a common sight. Among the stones were portions of towers, either usable or not. Some of the useful ones had shabby homesteads built atop.
The man shined his light around, catching darting figures scurry out of the corner of his eyes. They muttered so softly that he couldn't make out what they said. In his distraction he failed to notice the steps they were climbing and he made a stumble. Up and up, to one of the crude homes they walked. The little girl in front stopped by the door and opened it.
"Nana's being greedy…" a voice called out from the walls behind them.
"Mother won't like it once she hears. Won't be pleasant," came another.
The girl turned back, wincing under the man's light and clearly annoyed. She took the light from his hand and shined it on the source of the voices. Several pale girls cried out from the bright light. Each retreated to the safety of shadow.
"Greedy Nana!" the first voice cried out from her hiding spot. "Wants it for herself!"
"Let's go," she told the man. There was an unpleasant seriousness in her tone.
Without a word he followed her in. She shut the door behind them and barricaded it with a wooden beam. Once it was set in place her spirits lifted. Her grin returned and met the man's eyes. He made a faltering smile in return that was wrought with nervousness. While he admitted she was rather cute, it didn't make him any less guarded that she'd locked him in.
She moved over to a bed, hers he presumed, and her head disappeared beneath it. Her hands searched around until the sound of fabric met her ears, then she reemerged with a folded cloth in her hands. She unraveled it until a stick fell into her hands. Though, the man knew at once that it wasn't an ordinary stick.
"A wand?" he said with a bit of shock.
She nodded happily and held it out gently. "Cherry. Dragon stringy core. Thirteen inches. I'm going to Hoggarts. Ha, haaa..." she said with a gleeful sigh.
There was so much pent up excitement bottled up within her that she might have blown. The man couldn't help but adore her in that moment, even if he couldn't kill the anxiety in his chest.
"Dragon heartstring," the man corrected. "And it's called Hogwarts."
He knelt down and placed a hand on the wand.
"This is a very beautiful wand. Where did someone like you come by such a thing?" he added.
"You know about wands? Then you've been to Hoggarts? I mean, Hogwars. Haa..." she asked, ignoring his inquiry. Then she pulled away and started swishing the wand around playfully.
"...not exactly," he muttered. "No, actually. I never got the chance."
"Why not?"
"Well… I'm a squib."
"A squid?"
"No, a Squib." He started to get irritated. "It means I'm a wizard with no talent for magic."
The girl puffed her grinning mouth to suppress a laugh.
"It's not funny!" he yelled.
The girl spat it all out in his face, and she chuckled mockingly as his temper boiled.
"You're not a wizy at all. You're a muggled!" she let out with a squeal. A snorting chuckle trailed her words. It was the funniest thing in the world to her.
So annoyed by the little girl, he shined his light in her face to shut her up. It worked surprisingly well. The poor thing stumbled backwards while shielding her eyes, and her grin was replaced with repulsion. He chased her around the room with it until she hid beneath her covers.
"You're just a talentless loser who torments little girls. I bet your sisters laugh at you too," she sobbed under her quilt.
"My sister is nobody to impress!" he insisted.
Though after saying it, his head cooled. He hadn't seen that sister of his since he was a child, it wasn't a pleasant memory. None in the world had hurt him more for his mundanity than her.
He adjusted his collar and turned off the flashlight with a click. She'd gotten to him in a way that put a pit in his belly. While his anger still simmered from his bruised ego, a splash of remorse entered him too.
"You can come out now. I won't torment you again," he said.
She remained as a lump under the blanket for a while longer, but eventually her head poked its way out. Whatever trust she had before had faded away, now replaced with caution heavy in her gaze.
"What about you, then?" he asked her. "You must have some talent if you've been accepted to Hogwarts."
She looked away, her eyes falling into a guilty discomfort.
"Course," she muttered without confidence.
"Show me. There must be some trick you can do. All magical kids have got something up their sleeve by your age."
The girl twiddled the wand in her fingers, uncertain as to what to do.
"I'll learn at Hoggarts," she said.
Now it was the man's turn to laugh. "N'ha! Look who's the talentless loser now."
"You said you wouldn't torment me!" she shouted with a crack in her voice. Then she curled up tight in her covers for comfort.
He rolled his eyes, wanting to tell her to quit being a baby, but holding his tongue this time. That was why kids always got on his nerves. So easy to insult, but suddenly so 'innocent' when you gave it back.
A load of bollocks, he thought. A bit of proper discipline would straighten them out.
"Sorry…" he finally said, but it was clearly forced.
He glanced around the dark room. It was dim, lit only by a small fire from what appeared to be a stove. Not daring to annoy her further with his flashlight, he searched with his hands until they found an oil lamp. It sparked, then came to life. It was still dim, but better than before.
Giving the girl time to sulk, he studied the room they were in. There were shelves upon shelves of all sorts of odd trinkets. Boxes of leaves and herbs. Toys of various ages. There were even posters decorating the walls dating from the sixties to the eighties. To his delight there was a whole shelf dedicated to telephones.
He gleefully approached and grabbed at the nearest one. Though it was quickly apparent that it wasn't attached to anything, none of them were.
"Of course…" he muttered. "Last time I'll have a vacation like this."
Then he turned his attention to the stove. There was a pot for tea sitting over the small flames. He opened the lid and took a sniff. Surprisingly it was rather pleasant. With a warm grin he poured it into the cups sitting nearby, one for the girl and one for himself.
He wavered the cup beneath her hunched head so that the fumes would meet her nose. After a few sniffs she relented and clutched the cup in her hands.
"Fond of tea?" he asked.
She nodded and took a sip.
"I didn't mean what I said," he added. "You're not a 'talentless loser'."
She didn't say a word, but her posture relaxed. The blanket over her slid down to her waist and her mood improved.
"My name's Mr Umbridge, by the way. What's yours, dear?"
"Nadalie," she said softly. "But only Maudie calls me that. Everyone else calls me Nana."
"Everyone else… You mean like the girls you frightened off earlier?" he asked.
She nodded. "Bad sisters. They hurt me for fun."
"They hurt you? Now why would sisters do such a thing?"
"Jealous. They hate that Maudie treats me better. Now they hate me for getting to go to Hoggarts. Haaa…"
"Hogwarts," he corrected again.
Nadalie met Umbridge's eyes. "Know anything? About Hoggarts, I mean," she said.
He sighed, giving up on correcting the girl. "Well, I know they'll sort you."
"Like chickens?"
"No, not at all like chickens. I think it's a personality quiz. I don't know much more, but you'll be assigned a house."
"But I already have a house."
"Stop interrupting, please. Thank you, dear," he said with an empty gaze.
The girl stared back with restrained curiosity, her eyes begging him to go on.
"Anyway, there are four houses that you can end up in. There's Slytherin for all c*s like my sister, forgive my language. A few others, I don't recall. Oh, Hufflepuff, that was one of them. That's for all the weird cuddly pansy kids. At least that's what my sister told me."
"Haa…" Nadalie sighed. "Hugglepuff. I'm gonna be a Hugglepuff."
"Are you mispronouncing things on purpose? It's not cute," he snapped.
She paid him no mind, glowing with giddy joy as she took another sip from her tea.
"Come with me," she said.
"Huh?"
"We'll go to Hoggarts together. So you can be a Hugglepuff too."
He froze. Surely she understood how absurd the idea was. Though, hearing someone suggest it, even as a meaningless gesture, that was a kindness he had never known.
He grinned softly, though he ached inside. "That's not possible," he said.
Then they sipped their tea together in silence.
A thud came upon a window high above. One of those vile sisters Nadalie had mentioned had returned, plopped against the pane like something spooky.
"Nana's telling lies again! Said we're jealous!" she shouted, then chuckled sadistically.
"Nobody's jealous of Nana," another said from out of sight. "Nothing to be jealous about."
"Nana's being greedy too," came a third. "Going to eat on her own."
Nadalie was quick to reclaim Umbridge's flashlight and shine it on the foul little girl. The tea she'd held fell to the floor with a shatter and the girl on the glass scurried away. She didn't go far. Nadalie leapt to shudder the window and place a beam across it.
"We should punish Nana again," The second voice said. "Should we set her on fire?"
A thud came from a room level window on the other side and Nadalie whimpered, racing to barricade the shutters there as well.
"No, hang her. I want to see her dance like a fool," came the first voice again.
"Haaa! Hang and burn her!" the third voice chimed in, and all made enthusiastic breathy sighs in agreement.
The scared pale girl fled to the middle of the floor and shook where she curled. The banging continued on each possible entry. Feeling the fright himself, the man came to her side and wrapped his arms around her.
"It'll be okay. I-I won't let them harm you," he said weakly.
Truthfully he was as helpless as she was. He had a small butter knife for cutting cheese, a few crackers, and some jerky in his pack. He felt the knife would do little against a horde of demonic children, so he defaulted to the flashlight that proved effective.
With the light shared in both of their hands, they shakily pointed it at the door. The banging continued, louder and louder, accompanied by mutterings about whether they would chop off her head or not.
Then with a final thud the barricade failed and the door fell from its hinges. Before the sadistic girls could pounce, Nadalie blinded them with the flashlight. It created just enough of an opening for the pair to escape. She grabbed the man's wrist and pulled him with greater haste than ever before.
He felt his arm being pulled out of its socket as his feet bounced across the stones. The shadowy girl holding him zipped up and over a wall. It took her an extra moment to hoist up his dead weight.
"You're too clumsy, Mr Umbridge!" she shouted with a strained grunt.
The wasted time allowed the others to catch up. One nearly chomped the man's ankle off. The others surrounded them on ruined walls nearby. Now instead of three, a dozen ghoulish girls giggled with sadistic glee. Most were younger, but some were nearly adults. Each of their tattered cloaks waved weightlessly in the breezeless air and their thin white legs readied to pounce.
A tiny one made the first move, but the man shined his light to drive her away. She stumbled back and plummeted off the wall to an unknown fate. The rest stepped back cautiously, shielding their eyes when his light passed by them. Then, there was a flicker, and a moment later the light had died. The whole gathering of ghouls chuckled at their misfortune.
"Haaa…" the oldest of the bunch sighed in delight. "How about we eat Nana too? A better punishment for such a greedy little thing, yes?"
"Won't taste good, but... a good punishment. Haaa…" another said in agreement.
Nadalie quivered beneath the man, clutching close. He patted her on the back and did his best to hide his fear.
"Well, Nadalie. I guess this is it then. My only regret is that I never got that telephone," he said with a nervous chuckle.
Nadalie didn't speak. She just buried herself into his vest.
But then a change had come in the air. A breeze that didn't belong. With it came glowing petals that swirled. The girls froze stiff and their eyes became wide. They knew those beautiful things, and they hated them, feared them. The petals danced by each of their noses, funneling cyclones around them that teased to spark.
The older ones seized up the most. They'd lived long enough to have remembered the devastation they could bring. The home they lost, incinerated before their eyes. Even if those petals paled in comparison to that day twelve years ago, they were enough of a reminder to keep the fear alive.
After a moment that lasted an eternity in those ghouls' minds, the petals retreated. They reformed a flower at the end of their caster's stick. It wasn't a wand, but a proxy to mimic one. The hungry ghouls didn't stick around. They disappeared into the darkness as soon as the opportunity came.
The man stared at the glowing flower, watching as it regressed into a bud and fell to the ground without life. The stick disintegrated shortly after as well. The girl that had summoned it was about the same size as the one in his arms. She had all the hallmarks of the other girls, manikin complexion, pitch-black hair and eyes. Though, she was otherwise quite different. Rather than leaving her feet exposed, she wore lady-like shoes and tights. A very frilly dress covered her instead of one of those shabby cloaks. Her hair was neat and tidy in a bun, leaving wavy fringes on the sides of her head.
"You're such a fool, Nana," she told her sister. "You could have had your fun without causing any trouble, if only you hadn't brought him home."
Nadalie remained guarded. The new girl seemed no less of a threat to her than the others, perhaps more. On the other hand, the man seemed to be endeared to the newer girl. She at least seemed more human than any he'd seen thus far.
"Hello there, sir. I'm Gwendolyn Hallownore. Are you aware that my sister intends to eat you?" the elegant girl said.
"Eat me?" he said with a fright.
He pulled away from Nadalie, now eyeing her with suspicion.
"Was that your game? Baiting me out and taking a whack when I was busy pissing or something?" he asked her.
Nadalie stared back with guilt in her eyes. "Haaa…" she sighed nervously.
"You were, weren't you! Nasty little ghoul. Bet you never intended to bring me a telephone."
He shivered at the girl he only moments ago comforted, letting her sulk in awkward discomfort.
"She's a pitiful sight, isn't she?" Gwendolyn said. "It breaks my heart that my sisters are so feral. Being the only sane one in the bunch is the burden I bear."
"And you?" the man pointed the dead flashlight at Gwendolyn as if it were the wand he never had. "You going to eat me too?"
Gwendolyn put her hand over her mouth in exaggerated offense. "Heaven's no. I've no appetite for human flesh, not at all like my less restrained sisters. I enjoy buttered bread and a well seasoned cut of roasted bird. A cup of fresh juice perhaps too."
It was hard to read that girl, far harder than with Nadalie's less ambiguous mannerisms. Every word out of her mouth seemed to blur the lines between sarcasm, honesty, deceit, and promise. Even so, she was the only thing he'd found down there that didn't seem so horrid. In fact, he might have even said she was charming.
"W-Well…" the man finally muttered, easing closer to Gwendolyn and further from Nadalie. "You'll get me out of this hellhole then? Perhaps even find me a telephone?"
"Hmm…" Gwendolyn pondered, or at least pretended to. "I suppose I could assist you. Though, I'm a rather busy girl, and it would put me in a bad spot to do so."
She tapped her chin for a few seconds, then snapped her gaze back to Umbridge. "So be it, I'll take on the role of your rescuer."
Gwendolyn leapt to their ledge and trotted past. He followed after with shaken legs, peering back at the small girl he was leaving behind. Nadalie stared back with a furrow in her brow and a pout on her lips.
"You too, Nadalie," Gwendolyn called. "Maudie won't be back till late. I'd get more than a beating if she found you'd died on my watch."
Nadalie cursed her misfortune. After a shiver, her little white feet pattered the stones until she was nestled into Gwendolyn's side. She gave the man a mean glare as if placing the blame on him. He returned her stare with the same, having not forgotten her plot to devour him.
With a flick, Gwendolyn summoned another stick into her hands, and no sooner a glowing bulb emerged on its end. Whispers broke out atop the shabby rooftops and stone pillars around them. An unknowable number of ghoulish sisters watched just out of sight.
Gwendolyn gave the stick a few taps. A unique stone tower rose up so that its door was on their level. She entered with Nadalie and Umbridge was quick to follow behind. Inside, the elegant girl motioned her hand so that a series of rings on the ground rotated. They were lined with various symbols, and once they aligned into a new arrangement the tower started to move.
The stick in Gwendolyn's hand fell apart a few moments later. Umbridge had a suspicion that it served no practical purpose, rather a prop to make her magic feel more proper.
"It will be a minute or two, but we'll be out of here soon enough," Gwendolyn said.
Umbridge admired Gwendolyn. He'd been around her age when he last imagined himself casting spells. No matter how bitter the magical world had been for him, it always made him long to be part of it.
"Marvelous," he said. "It's been so long since I've seen proper magic. If only you could magic me a working telephone."
The comment made Gwendolyn grin warmly. If she could blush, she certainly would have.
"Say, why are you so fixated on getting a telephone, Mr Umbridge?" she asked.
"Well, it's like this. I'm supposed to be back from vacation already, you see? And if I don't get a hold of Mr Dursley by tomorrow, I reckon I can kiss my promotion goodbye."
"And what exactly do you do?"
"Drills. Drill bits. Little place called Grunnings."
"Ahhh…" Gwendolyn humored halfheartedly.
There was an awkward silence that followed, but she kept her grin intact for appearances. It appeared even ghoulish children found it difficult to find excitement in the mundanity of such a place.
"Are you going to Hogwarts too, Ms Gwendolyn?" Umbridge asked, hoping changing the subject would go well.
Her warmth vanished in an instant. She eyed her sister, who was now sitting against the wall.
"No, I'm afraid not," she said coldly. "It seems only Nana has the luxury of escaping this place."
Nadalie made herself smaller, keeping her eyes on the floor and sinking into her cloak.
Gwendolyn went on. "Pampered little Nana. Getting all love and luck. Do you know how much it stings that I have to guard a little brat like you while all I do is suffer?"
Umbridge recalled what Nadalie had said, that her sisters were horribly jealous. It became clear that such jealousy included this girl Gwendolyn as well. He watched as Gwendolyn marched over to Nadalie, pressing the sole of her shoe against the submissive girl's cheek.
"Do you honestly think you deserve to go to Hogwarts? No, Nana. If Maudie hadn't been so busy coddling you like a baby she might have noticed. You're worthless. Talentless. Undeserving of life."
Umbridge had enough. Those words, in that order. He knew them well. They were the last words his older sister had ever spoken to him. Whatever nostalgia Gwendolyn had given him was sharply replaced with the trauma that such times invoked.
He was just a child, barely even eight, trying desperately to prove to his father that he was worth being his son. He'd taken his sister's wand in hopes that it would unearth some hidden value in him.
No matter how he'd tried, how he'd twirled that wand, it didn't answer.
"I'll learn at Hoggars!" he'd said with tears.
His sister had snatched the wand from his hands and beat him red and bruised. She'd said those words, and not much later his family had split down the middle. It was all because of him. His muggle mother never recovered from losing her husband's love. He'd never moved on from that moment, even as the wizarding world became little more than a distant memory.
Slam.
Gwendolyn's heel smashed down upon Nadalie's back.
"Ms Gwendolyn, stop that at once!" Umbridge shouted.
She snapped back with a teary snarl. "Quiet, meat-sack! The only reason I'm keeping you alive is to deprive them of the satisfaction of eating you!" There was a tremble in her throat.
Umbridge backed up with his palms raised. The girl's snapping had caught him off guard and suddenly she seemed dangerous.
Gwendolyn stepped back and collapsed against the wall like her sister. The two sat on opposite sides of the small room like mirroring black silhouettes. Gwendolyn gripped her hair as if about to pull it out while Nadalie sunk even deeper into her cloak.
"It's not fair. I don't belong here. That wand should be mine, Mr Umbridge. Mother only agreed to send Nana because Maudie begged and Nana's so utterly disposable."
Umbridge rolled his eyes. He wanted to slap her. That thought left once Gwendolyn glanced up, her palm over her face and her eyes peering between her fingers. She stared sharply into Umbridge's eyes with a serious stare.
"They all know I'm the real witch. They're just too scared to find out how strong I might become. I'd crush them all and they know it. I'd be free, Mr Umbridge. Free of this prison," she finished.
Umbridge struggled to think of an argument. He detested that she could treat her sister in such a way, but he could hardly imagine the toll living in such a place could take on someone so young.
"Why not run?" he asked.
"Run? Mother would hunt me to the ends of the earth. She hates threats to her sovereignty. I'd be made an example," Gwendolyn replied.
"Is this mother of yours really so frightening?"
Gwendolyn smirked, but not in a humorous way. "Have you noticed how young most of us are? It's exceedingly rare for any of our kind to live to see adulthood. There are hundreds of us and only a dozen over twenty," she said.
Umbridge gulped, understanding the connotation.
"Gwenie," Nadalie said, finally speaking up. "If you take Mr Umbridge away, mother will be unpleasant. You'll be punished for sure."
"Not to worry, Nana dear," she said.
It was in the tone of that charming facade from earlier. Even her fake smile reappeared. It unnerved Umbridge how quickly she could put her mask back on.
"I made sure the old hag was fast asleep. Only a fool would try to wake her. Ha-" Gwendolyn covered her mouth to curtail her sigh, clearly embarrassed by the instinctual noise.
A knock came on the window of the tower. Everyone looked up to see the ghoulish girl in her teens on the other side of the pane. She leaned against the wall with her arms folded, a devilish smirk across her lips.
"You're gonna die, Gwenie. Little Pepe's gone and tattled, woke mother and told her that you're letting good food go to waste."
Gwendolyn gasped. Her eyes widened into circles and her mouth hung agape. Nadalie met her gaze with sympathy. There was a quake that rocked the moving tower, then a wail.
"Haaaaaaaaaauuuugh!" it cried out.
Then there was a child's shriek that ceased with a crunch.
"Awe… Poor stupid Pepe got herself killed. Maybe I shouldn't have encouraged her. Haa..." the wicked girl said from the windowsill.
Gwendolyn, Nadalie, and even Umbridge leapt together. They raced to the center of the chamber and huddled together, the two children shaking under Umbridge's arms. Their embrace was tight enough to cut the circulation to his waist.
"What's going on? And what was that noise?" he said, too ignorant to share their level of fear.
The tower's wall behind them fell apart brick by brick until there was none. The maze of walls and broken buildings shifted to either side of them forming a direct path. There was nothing but a trail of dirt between them and a dark castle nestled at the ravine's lowest point. The dead city was revealed to be like a bowl, washing everything that entered into the inescapable clutches below.
"Mr Umbridge," Gwendolyn said. "It's going to get very dangerous for all of us."
The tower began to move again, but backwards now, towards the castle. More so, it appeared as if the whole world was deforming to shorten the distance. It only took a few seconds before the tower tipped them into the main hall.
They slid and plopped onto their bellies. Beyond them was a massive chasm with eroded stone walkways snaking and crossing about. The bottom could not be seen, shrouded in an impossible darkness. Rising from the center of the chamber was a mighty stone pillar. Steps ringed around the top, descending into a hole that stared back like a pupil.
The hole made Gwendolyn stiff with fear, she'd had the displeasure of facing it more times than Nadalie. The horror. She wasn't ready for it. There was only one thing she could do to potentially avoid her punishment. She clasped Umbridge's wrist and yanked him with her.
"Gwenie, no!" Nadalie cried out.
Gwendolyn dashed through the winding pathways. She was fast, but not quite as fast as Nadalie. That fashion she wore proved limiting at a time like that.
"Let him go!" Nadalie shouted. "He's gonna go to Hoggarts with me!"
"It's too late for that, Nana! He's not getting out of here no matter what. At least save me some pain!" Gwendolyn said. She was in hysterics.
Umbridge was too stunned to process his peril, he just stared wide-eyed at the pillar he was being pulled toward.
A crowd had gathered around them. Hundreds of white faces with pitch-black eyes. Even some of the elders had bothered to make an appearance. They stared with anticipation as if watching a show.
Gwendolyn's shoes clacked onto the pillar's steps and she yelped in sudden relief. She was so close, but when she looked back she was met with a fright. Nadalie was closer than she realized. In fact, the messy girl was already mid pounce. Her eyes were mad like a frenzied beast. Her teeth were like fangs, and they plunged into Gwendoyln's arm.
Gwendolyn yelped, which turned into a scream. She shook, but Nadalie's teeth only dug deeper. At some point she'd lost hold of Umbridge in her scramble to fend off Nadalie, and so he slipped free without either's notice.
"You stupid fool!" Gwendolyn screamed. "I'll skin you alive and boil you! I hate everything that you are! I hate the air you breathe and noises you make! Just die! Die horribly!"
She beat on Nadalie's head until her bite was released. Gwendolyn didn't stop there. She reversed their roles, pinning Nadalie to the ground and throttling her neck. Umbridge had crawled back a bit and watched on in horror. He would have risked fleeing in their distraction, but to see such young creatures act with such barbarity made him sick.
"Enough!" he shouted.
He wrestled his bag until he found the butter knife.
"Let the bloody girl go," he said while holding the blade to Gwendolyn's throat.
He gambled that she couldn't tell it was harmless from under her chin.
It seemed to pay off. She calmed down a bit, slowly loosening her grip on Nadalie's neck. The girl below her gasped in desperation for air. Gwendolyn's hands rose, palms out in surrender, then she stood and stepped back to space herself from Nadalie.
"I don't want to be like them," Gwendolyn muttered in shame. "I'm different. Please don't treat me like a beast."
"Sorry, Gwenie. You're the worst kind of beast, no better than those drooling demons watching us. Yeah?" he said, addressing the crowd of spectators.
He returned his eyes to Gwendolyn to say the rest. "Believe me, I know a monster when I see them."
Umbridge was pitiless.
She disgusted him. Perhaps she had the talent to deserve that wand and seat at Hogwarts, but that didn't make her less of a ghoul. She reminded him too much of his sister, thinking that some pretty clothes and eloquent speech could cover up the pitch-black heart she held within.
"Now, I'll be going then. Yeah? I'll get out of this god forsaken place and find myself a bloody telephone," Umbridge said to the room.
He then reached an arm out to Nadalie, who was still recovering on the steps.
"Come along. I won't be leaving you with this lot."
Gwendolyn chuckled from where she stood, her hand putting pressure on the wound on her arm. "Of course. Even an outsider like you would pity her over me. You must adore her. Is it because she's as much of a loser as yourself? Perhaps you're just a bit of a creep."
Umbridge raised his butter knife to her again, but she magically disarmed him with the wave of her hand. Now he was truly hopeless. The reality came upon him quickly.
"Hey now, you said you wouldn't eat me, Ms Gwendolyn," he said nervously, but trying to be polite.
"Oh don't worry. I'm not a liar. I won't eat you, mother will."
"Mother?" he said in a hushed whisper.
Umbridge turned his head to the void-like hole nearby. It stared back like the gaze of a starving predator. He heard the clatter of Gwendolyn's shoes as she approached. She had no arguing left to give, only the bored drive to finish what she'd started. She was simply tired of it all.
A shove, a pathetic whimper from Umbridge, and a stumbling over. The young man fell, his life flashing before his eyes. A pitiable existence that ended without meaning. A boy so disappointing that his mere existence shattered his family. A man so boring that his greatest achievement was getting an office next to that bloated turd of a man Dursley. He had no wife, no kids, no family to mourn him.
He never amounted to anything, just as his sister had predicted.
A little white hand clasped his wrist. He dangled there unresponsively, not yet taking notice of the struggling child holding him.
"Ha. Nana, you really are a stupid girl. If you fall in it won't be my fault," Gwendolyn spat bitterly.
Umbridge looked up, meeting Nadalie's messy teary face with his apathetic one. He'd come out there scared that he would die without trying to live. Now he was dying, wondering if it mattered if he did.
The girl's whimpers made it to his ears.
It was ironic to him that a thing that wanted to eat him would be the only thing trying to keep him alive. Because she found him relatable? Couldn't be, he thought. All they shared was being talentless losers.
The girl really looked like she was struggling. He started to worry that she had something screwy going on in her head. He wasn't even trying to survive, after all.
He understood Gwendolyn's desperation to get rid of him, at least in part. If this mother of theirs ate him, they wouldn't be punished for trying to save him. It would be the most dangerous for Nadalie if he'd lived, and she didn't deserve that.
"Bugger off already," he said. His limbs were all limp.
"No!" she cried. Her little arms were losing their strength. "We're gonna go to Hoggarts, we're gonna be Hugglepuffs, and we're gonna drink lots of tea together!"
He chuckled softly. She really was cute for a monster, even if she made his heart so heavy.
"Sorry, sweetie," he said with pain. His head turned away, but he willed it to return to her. "I've already lost my chance to do something so interesting. You'll have to take yours alone. Show the world you're not a loser like me. Do that for me, Ms Hallownore," he said gently.
The girl wept. Her hands slipped until they held only his vest. He made no effort to save himself. He knew from one look that even if she succeeded a hundred hungry mouths would take him anyway. They'd probably kill her for it too.
"One more thing," he said.
Then he pulled something out of his bag and placed it in her collar.
"If you ever see my sister Dolores, give this to her. Tell her it came from me, a gift for her to remember me by. Whatever you do, don't open it," he finished.
He chuckled, but the girl's face changed into one of utter horror. She screamed at the top of her lungs and tripled her drive to pull him up. The source of her terror was hidden from him to his fortune. He would have screamed as she did if he had to see it. It was their mother, but she didn't take a form that could be called human. A large pale head full of countless deep wrinkles. Tiny Dot like eyes. Horrible jaws with jagged rows of teeth. Only some of the body was visible, thin and bony with long limbs that clung to the walls of the hole.
It was a form all of them carried within them, a dark entity that poisoned and held captive their otherwise human souls. The manifestation of their ghoulish nature.
"Nana, let go!" Gwendolyn cried.
Gwendolyn rushed to her sister's side and fought against her grip on Umbridge. She was frantic, scared, beating at the girl's wrists. For all her insults it seemed she really didn't want her sister to die. The jaws clenched down on Umbridge's waist and he cried out in pain. Gwendolyn finally succeeded in severing his fate from her sister.
He plummeted.
Though his last sight was a kinder one than he imagined it would be. Gwendolyn held Nadalie, cradling her like a true sister. A genuine gesture of affection beyond the facade. It was something he could never envision his own sister ever doing. Perhaps, he thought, that they weren't destined to repeat his story.
He disappeared into the darkness with that monster. Nadalie went limp, weeping inconsolably for a man she'd only met hours ago. To her, she'd lost the closest thing to a friend she'd ever known. Gwendolyn patted her back in hopes to calm her, but it was a futile effort.
"Get over it already. He was just a boring drill maker," she said with growing annoyance.
"Haaaaaaaa…" came a sigh overhead. It was accompanied by a shadow that enveloped them.
Long hair curtained them on either side, and when Gwendolyn looked up she found an eerie white face staring back at her with narrow eyes.
"Welcome back, Maudie. You missed all the fun," Gwendolyn muttered humourlessly under her breath.
"Na-da-leee, Haaaaa… Did Gwenie make you cry?" the woman asked.
She was very tall, six feet perhaps. Her cloak was longer than most of the others and actually touched the ground. Her silhouette was like a pillar of black with only the white of her face to contrast. Among the ghouls in that family, she was second only to mother.
"I didn't make her cry. She's just being a baby," Gwendolyn said. Her face scrunched with frustration.
Maudie didn't seem to care. Her mind had already removed Gwendolyn from the picture. She casually lifted Gwendolyn off of Nadalie and cast her aside with a toss. Then she lifted Nadalie into the air as if she were a toddler and grinned at the weeping girl with a big smile.
"Hoggarts, Nada-leeeee!" she exclaimed with excitement.
"Hoggarts, Maudie!" Nadalie replied through her anguish.
Maudie then moved in circles as happy as could be, so that Nadalie flung in her grip suspended by the force. She either refused to, or was unable to comprehend her favorite sister's sorrow. When she was done, she brought the girl in close and gnawed on her head affectionately.
Gwendolyn scoffed at the sight. It was just another day in that dreadful life she lived. But soon it would be slightly worse. Nadalie would be free to live the life Gwendolyn always dreamed to, and she would have to live each day remembering that.
"Good luck, Nana…" she said quietly.
But before Gwendolyn could make her exit, her sentencing came. The darkness within the hole deformed. It stretched up like a pillar until it reached the ceiling. Every ghoul that paid attention recoiled with fright. Only Nadalie and Maudie were so blissfully ignorant to ignore the changing mood.
There was a white dot near the top of the pillar with a splatter of red, a face with a bloody mouth and scornful eyes. They bore into Gwendolyn with hatred and the little girl could only freeze before them.
It descended, deflating as if whatever structure held it had vanished. Slowly it fell, the top touching down with delicate white legs inches before Gwendolyn. What had been a black pillar had become an impossibly long cloak. It was their mother. The monstrous visage of her previous appearance was gone, replaced with the perfectly smooth face of a round headed woman. She was human looking, except for the manikin complexion they all shared.
Standing next to Gwendolyn, it was clear she lacked the intimidating height of Maudie. She was only a head or two taller than the child. Though, she more than made up for it with her fierce lengths of hair. They were longer than her body, swooshing up at the end in defiance of gravity and fanning out around her to bolster her appeared size.
She wiped the blood from her mouth, bringing her head down to scare Gwendolyn out of her wits. She savored the girl's discomfort, relishing the panic she caused. Gwendolyn did all she could to stay sane, avoiding the woman's taunting gaze and icy breath. Then the woman brought her mouth to the side of Gwendolyn's head, making it ambiguous if she intended to whisper or bite.
"A good enough meal, Gwenie. I'll only whip you tonight," she said with a sadistic smirk.
Then as soon as the encounter started it had ended. Gwendolyn blinked and her mother had already moved past her. Her cloak slithered behind like a snake that never ended. All scurried from her approach.
For Gwendolyn it was the standard affair to narrowly escape execution, so often for a mess Nadalie had created. She glared at Nadalie and Maudie with the frustration she always kept inside. They were still lost in their own little world, so disconnected from the horribleness right in front of them. Rather, they gnawed at each other like puppies. Gwendolyn admitted Nadalie was right. She was jealous, but she had every right to be.
She walked off, her chin held high. The shoes of her feet clattered on the stone, echoing her presence like none of their pattering feet could. She wasn't like them. She was better than them. One day, she would certainly make them know that.
The day had ended, and the next morning had come. Nadalie sat quietly in her dark little home. She drank her last tea before the time would come. It was September 1st of 1992, a day she had much anticipated. Thankfully she could spend her last hours in peace, there was no threat of being raided like the night before. They never risked tormenting her when Maudie was watching.
A creeping anxiety had come upon her as the minutes ticked by. Unlike Gwendolyn, she wasn't very good at blending in with normal folk. Many fears filled her little mind, like how she wouldn't be allowed to eat people anymore, or if she would be able to make any friends.
Though, the night before had put a bit of ease on those fears. She hadn't eaten that nice man, and she might have even been his friend in the end. It was a good start, she nodded to herself. All that really mattered was that she was a Hufflepuff, or at the very least not a Slytherin c*t.
In her boredom she brought out Umbridge's final gift to his sister. Assuming she'd never have the displeasure of meeting this so-called Dolores Umbridge, she opened it for curiosity's sake.
Boom.
The room filled with the foulest gas she'd ever been exposed to. It burned her eyes and throat and stunk like a skunk. She wished at that moment that she hadn't had a nose. Coughing and wheezing she evacuated the home. She managed to stumble right into Maudie.
She looked up to find Maudie's smiling face staring back. Her long hair curtained Nadalie so that it was all that filled her view. It was time to go and become a witch. She'd do all the things Mr Umbridge never got to do, and when she'd died, she'd tell him all about it in the next life.
She set out from that dark place, onward into the light. She had only her wand and the stinky clothes on her back. No books, no cauldrons, quills or ink, not even a pair of shoes. There was one other thing she had. A dead flashlight that belonged to a very boring man. She didn't know why she might need it, but it seemed right to bring.
Far away at the school she was venturing out to visit, several professors scrambled to get ready for the year's start that evening.
"Professor Dumbledore," an old woman called out. She was Professor McGonagall.
She had the list of expected students in her hand, and she seemed to be anxious about something in the contents of it.
"Yes, Minerva?" the headmaster replied.
"You've written down the Hallownore girl. Do you really think she would show up?"
"Well…" he took a long pause. "The book of admittance has determined her worthy of documenting."
Minerva took a deep breath to calm her nerves, then pressed her issue further. "What I mean is, what if she actually does show up? We've no idea what kind of dangerous folk we would be letting in. After the Lockhart incident I would have thought you'd reconsidered, or at the very least not returned the wand –it's practically criminal evidence."
"Did somebody say my name?" Called out Gilderoy Lockhart, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor that year.
"This doesn't concern you, Mr Lockhart. Please don't get involved," said McGonagall.
The Golden haired man smiled charmingly, rolled his eyes, then spun about. Dumbledore then tilted the page so that he could read it. He skimmed down the list until he found the name in question.
Gwendolyn Hallownore.
"There is always a place at Hogwarts for those who deserve to be there, Minerva. If the girl has some talent, she will have her education," Dumbledore said with a grin.
"Well, let us pray that she doesn't," McGonagall muttered under her breath.
"What was that?" Dumbledore asked with a curious raised brow.
"Nothing, never you mind."