Preface

Mum taught me that every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end

I didn't believe this. Because first I chose to believe in cause and effect, another concept my mother taught me. Something caused something else to happen years and years ago, and the effect is the world we have today. The beginning happened ages ago, before I was born, before Mum was probably born, and life will never end, so it's impossible to have a middle of something infinite.

I tried explaining this to Mum once, and she specified what she meant by pulling cause and effect into the mix. To find a story, you take the effect first, or something that is current or already happened. That is your ending. Then you go back and find the exact cause of that effect, the moment the fates were decided, when one tiny decision affected the entire outcome. That is the beginning. The actual object or scenario that is receiving said cause is the middle.

This confused me somewhat; what if I couldn't find the effect, or the cause, and then there was no story at all? Mum said I was thinking too hard about it and excused me from writing that night so I could have some extra sleep and stop worrying. But I didn't stop thinking about it.

So Mum told me the story of Cinderella. The cause of Cinderella's pain was her father's death, which set off her life of enslavement by her family. The middle was the good fortune of finding her fairy godmother, and the effect was that (without her father dying and giving her enough grief to merit a fairy that granted her wishes, this never would have happened) she was able to marry the prince. And they lived happily ever after, the end.

Mum joked that I was deep enough to belong in Ravenclaw House. But that was as far as my deep thinking got; I wasn't trying to be smart or trying the find the meaning of life; I was merely trying to find the meaning of my life. Where was my cause and effect? My exciting climax? Everyday seemed the same. I asked Mum if it would ever change, and she said she didn't know.

Gradually I lost my interest in finding happily ever after or my prince charming. I grew to detest the fairy tales Mum told me and instead begged to hear more about Harry Potter slaying dragons or Ron Weasley going into the Chamber of Secrets. But I didn't lose my theory of cause and effect. It sat in the back of my mind, waiting for a miracle to trigger it back into existence. Because there was some cause as to why Mum and I were alone in this bleak village, and I wasn't willing to wait till the climax of my life to find out why.

---

Chapter 1: A Not So Simple Childhood

When I was little, my mother gave me a stack of photos tied together like a package with red string. "This is my life, and maybe one day it'll be yours," she told me, pressing her gift into my palms. I must've been no younger than two or three, but the memory is still vivid in my mind.

At first the pictures were just an enjoyment for me. I liked waving back at the friendly people inside, laughing at their heartiness, giggling as a smile grew across my mum's lips as well. It was a storybook I never tired of. There weren't many toys as I was growing up. They were forbidden, among many other things. Our living space was no more than a living space: bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. We were lucky we didn't have to share with others.

The photos were to make up for the lack of playthings I had. It was either that or poke myself with twigs I found like the other children. I felt intellectual compared to those boneheads.

When I was older, perhaps four or five, I began to wonder who the people in the pictures were. I obviously recognized my mum; the only distinguishing features from her old self to her present self were the lines across her forehead, the dull eyes, and the long, thin scar that ran across her cheek all the way down to her neck. The scar fascinated me. She had had it my entire life, but her pictures from years ago held no trace of the injury. She had never told me how she acquired it. I never asked her how she got it. I just accepted it. Sometimes I'd look at pictures of her when her face was young and smooth. I tried to imagine what she'd look like now without the scar. Still pretty, I bet myself.

At five years old I went through my question phase. I had a question for everything in the world and wanted a straight answer. My first batch of questions was who the people in the pictures are.

One night, as I crawled into the bed my mother and I shared, I made it my business to find out who they were. I was tired of pictures with no story. I begged her to look at the pictures with me once more. She sighed, as she always did, from sheer exhaustion. Her curls danced in front of her dark brown eyes. She was so tired, always so tired.

I was accustomed to her tiredness and waited patiently for her to agree. She nodded and grinned lazily at me. I leaped up quietly. Noise was not permitted, and years of silence teach you how to not make noise. I retrieved the stack of photos from where I hid it -- wrapped up in wax paper in a loose board on the wall of our little room.

I snuggled close to her, enjoying the warmth of her body. She smoothed down my hair, straight with few curls. I didn't look look much like her.

She untied the fading ribbon for me and helped me leaf through her memories. I was entranced by the way the pictures moved, and how the people inside them waved happily up at me. Some looked familiar, as if from some dream I had had long ago. Others were as foreign to me as the legends that lay beyond the walls of our village. I didn't know who they were, and I wanted to know.

The first we saw were pictures of people, but the didn't move like the others. They looked so ordinary.

"Who are they?" I asked politely, keeping my voice light. Even at that age I was cautious. Mother was always cautious, and it seemed natural for me to be that way as well.

She did not answer right away. Perhaps she was in shock; I had never asked her who the people were before. She smiled gently at me, as if knowing as well as I did that I needed answers about the mysterious people she continually showed me.

"Folks from home," she said softly.

"Where's home?"

"Home," she said, sighing once more, "is where your mother is."

"Is this home?" I gestured to the little room we shared: bare walls, wood floor with splinters, tiny bed, narrow doorway to the even dryer outside.

"This is your home," she said sadly.

"Where's your mother?"

Her lips pursed, and she put the still pictures to the bottom of the pile. "My mother is far away from here."

I didn't press her for more. There were more interesting pictures laid out in front of me.

Photos of Hogwarts castle smiled up at me. I had heard hundreds of whispered stories from Hogwarts as Mum and I lay together in the darkness. "But remember," she had said, "tell no one of these stories, they wouldn't understand them. Let them be out secret." Secrets, secrets, secrets. Everything Mum and I spoke of in private was a secret. I asked her one day if I would go to Hogwarts and learn magic like she did, but she said no, Hogwarts had closed ages ago. Besides, it was beyond the wall the separated our village from the rest of the world. I was to never leave the village my entire life.

"Who's that boy with the glasses?" I asked, pointing to a scrawny little kid with round glasses and a thin scar. He had an odd smile, like his teeth were almost being mashed together. I liked him.

"That is..." she said, and then she paused once more. She stared off into space for a few moments. I was tempted to prod her or something and bring her back to reality.

"Mama?" I said intriguingly.

Her eyes snapped forward, and then found me. Her tone changed. "I am speaking on the most severest terms, do you understand?"

Rules, rules, rules. If I wasn't being told secrets I was being taught rules. "Never speak when we are outside unless directed to." "Always be polite and courteous lest you want to be struck by the Advisors." "When being evaluated, tell only your first name." "Keep quiet or the Advisors will come for us."

"Yes, Mama," I replied, squirming under her gaze. Her usually dreary eyes had lit up, but there was fear right down the chocolate brown. Another secret was about to be shared.

"Whatever we speak of together about these pictures, we do not speak of to others," she warned gravely, her voice dropping an octave as if to further preserve the secret. "You're old enough now for me to tell you to not even tell anyone about these pictures. Do you understand?

"Yes, Mama," I repeated, and I didn't think twice about not adhering to her rule. What my mother said went; she knew best and she would make sure I followed her rules.

"Are you positive you understand?" she asked again. This one had to be big, I thought strangely, for her to seem so afraid of me telling anyone. "If you tell anyone, the Advisors will come."

"I understand Mama." Secrets, rules, Advisors. Story of my life.

"Good," she said, settling down onto the mattress comfortably once more. The smile drifted over her face once more and I knew I was in for another good story. "That," she said, barely above a whisper, "is Harry Potter."

"Who's that?" I had heard his name in passing, but it never really occurred to me that my mother had known him.

My mother's eyes changed once more, but they did not look cold. In fact, they looked sad and distant. I was afraid she would start crying, so I pecked her on the cheek and smiled expectantly.

"Sorry," she muttered, and continued. "Harry Potter was the Boy Who Lived. He was the only known person to survive against the killing curse."

"Really?" I said, my eyes widening to the size of galleons. Well, they would've been the size of galleons if I had known what a galleon looked like.

"Yeah," she said dreamily, staring off into space again. "He was a hero."

"Did you know him?"

"Know him?" she laughed. "He was the best friend anyone could ask for. Remember all those stories I told you, about the dog and the dragon and the basilisk?"

"Yes?"

"That was him," she said proudly. "Most of my stories are about him. He was some hero."

"What happened to him?" I questioned.

Mum looked away, and I feared I had upset her once more. Harry Potter seemed to be a touchy subject with her.

"He survived the killing curse, but it wasn't enough to stop...Voldemort," she whispered the last word so softly I could hardly hear her. I had to stifle a gasp that she dared to use the name. Even I knew how wrong it was to say his name in our village.

"Where is he now? Is he alive?" How could this wonderful hero fail after defying magic so grandly already?

"I don't know," Mum answered curtly, placing his picture at the bottom of the pile as well. That was that. End of discussion.

But his picture kept cropping up again and again, and as the pictures showed changes in time I watched him grow from a skinny boy to a full-grown man, almost. Sometimes he was with Mum. Sometimes he was with a pretty redheaded girl. Sometimes he was with a gaggle of redheaded boys. Sometimes he was riding a broomstick. I wanted to know who all of them were.

But before I could ask about them, I had to know who the redheaded man in nearly every single picture with Harry Potter was.

He was tall and gangly, with a head full of ginger hair and his face dotted with freckles. I had freckles too, lots of them. My hair was mostly brown but had streaks of red that debuted mostly in the summer time. Sometimes Mum rubbed dirt or charcoal into my hair to hide the red. The man's eyes were a warm blue that blinked up at me happily. At the time I wasn't sure if I had blue eyes or not. The closest I had ever gotten to seeing my reflection was staring hard into the little stream that passed through the village. All I saw was brown curls, like Mum's, that hung around my shoulders. But Mum said my eyes were a lovely blue, and I had to trust her on that one. I like the man's smile as well. It was electrifying, and just looking at him made me smile back.

He was most often with Harry Potter, but he was with my mother a lot as well. Most of the time they looked awkward together, and but occasionally they looked nice. I needed, more than anything else in the world, to know who that man was.

"Mum," I tentatively said. There was one picture of him in that pile that showed him all alone sitting on the grass, grinning broadly up at the person holding the camera. He would say something, but his moving lips gave way to no words. This picture was not next, but I pulled it out anyway. I knew exactly where it was in the pile.

"Mm?" she hummed, her eyes already drooping.

"Mama?"

"I'm listening, sweetie."

"Who is this?"

Her eyelashes fluttered as she opened her eyes to see the picture I held out in front of her. Her breath caught in her throat, and I felt my heartbeat quicken.

My mother rarely cried. She was tough. Living the way we did made one learn to just suck it up. But she did have weak moments. As if to symbolize my thoughts, she absentmindedly traced her finger along the scar on her face. I kissed her cheek again.

The corners of her eyes glistened and I wanted to cry too, but I knew better. She brushed her brown curls out of her face and stared at me.

"Aw Tessa baby," she said faintly, hugging me tightly. "That's your daddy, Ronald Weasley."

----

Ron Weasley, my dad. Born the first of March 1980. Master of chess and ogling. Tactless. Humorous. Caring. Second to youngest of seven children. Sister to Ginny Weasley, the pretty redhead. Best friend to Harry Potter, who dated Ginny Weasley. Husband of one Hermione Granger Weasley, now known as Hermione Granger. My mother. She was forced to drop her surname back to the original and retain her Mudblood status.

We lived in a village of what the Advisors, and Death Eaters, liked to call criminals. Our crime? Or rather, my mother's crime, that was carried over to me, was aiding Harry Potter and resisting Voldemort. It was a life-long sentence, to slave each day for the benefit of You-Know-Who. The only way out was to join his army, or die. There were exactly six other villages in England just like ours. It didn't matter if you were pure-blood or half-blood or Muggle-born, though only the Muggle-borns faced immediate death at any wrong doing. That was why Mum was so strict with rules. In our village, if she stepped out of line even once, she got the death sentence. It was a horrible existence, and though Mum tried to hide its horrors from me as a child, she could not stop me from hearing the screams of the tortured and murdered every now and then.

And Ronald Weasley? Mum didn't like to speak of him, though from what I gathered he was not in a village like ours, where it was strictly female residents. Possibly he was in prison, where, as I heard, they were stricter with security.

I didn't need to wait long for the pictures to become my life. I rapidly became obsessed with the people inside them, waving up at me with happy faces. I never tired of looking at Harry Potter, or the pretty Ginny Weasley, or the plump lady who my mother said was my dad's mum. But most of all, I couldn't stop looking at my dad.

I wanted to meet him so badly. I imagined him picking me up in his gangly arms and comparing our freckles. I imagined what I would say to him. "Hello Dad, how are you?" "Fine thanks, and yourself?" "Not too bad, would you like some tea?" "Anything's fine, anything's fine." It went on and on, and I even began to imagine us living in Hogwarts together. Mum said that's impossible, Hogwarts went under the control of the Dark Lord years ago. And besides, only students could live there. Dad was too old. And I wasn't old enough.

Now that I had a surname, I wanted to share it. But Mum said no, we wouldn't share that either. Ron Weasley and Harry Potter were in the pictures, and whatever was in the pictures was a secret. My mouth was shut for eternity about them.

I kept the pictures safely hidden in our room, a tiny shanty attached to hundreds of other that looked the same. Even if I had been allowed to share the pictures, I wouldn't have wanted to. They were mine and mine alone; those children out there with a missing parent were not allowed to share my father.

I asked my mother so frequently about him, and she hardly hesitated to answer. But she refused to say where he was. There was no "I don't know" as there had been with Harry Potter. I got the suspicion didn't love her anymore, or had maybe even died. But if he had died, Harry Potter must've surely died as well. Mum said they were as close as two best friends could be, and then some, and did everything together. So I assumed if one was killed the other was as well, since they were so close. It was a foolish childhood thought.

"Tessa," she said sternly after weeks of my pestering. "If you speak of Ronald Weasley any longer the Advisors will surely find out about it. I'm going to teach you how to write."

"Write?" I sometimes looked at the few books mum had. They were old and probably illegal in the village, and just another hidden treasure of ours. The scratches on the paper meant nothing to me.

"Yes, write. Read and write. Then you can talk about him all you want. To yourself," she added, smiling as she bustled around tidying up the little space we had. "Tonight I'll teach you the alphabet. And remember, tell no one what we're doing."

And so it began, the treacherous journey of enlightenment through learning. My mother brought home bits of charcoal from the fireplace and along the roads, and quietly wrote out all 26 letters on the wall. I was the memorize them.

I should have had a simple childhood. No one else was forced to learn how to read and write, or learn the history or Dark wizards, or carry hundreds of secrets around. I should have had a father around, maybe even brothers and sisters, and a decent house. I should have learned magic, and I should have grown up seeing other people use magic. But I didn't. My life lacked that and so much more.

Each night she washed the writing on the wall off. I asked her why she wasted the charcoal we had to scrounge.

"Because baby," she answered as I helped her scrub off the alphabet for the third night in a row. I was having trouble exercising my mind so much after the hard physical labor of our day. Review was necessary for me to learn. "If the Advisors suddenly come and pay us a visit," she scrubbed extra hard, "they won't like what they see."

"Then where will I write? What if they find me writing?" I wanted to know. Advisors were little comfort to me, especially if I was doing something unpleasant towards them.

"We'll figure something out," was all she said, soap dripping down her forearms. All I could do was, once again, trust her to do what was best for me. If I lost my trust in her, I'd lose every sense of hope I possessed.

And in our imprisonment village, hope was necessary for survival.

Chapter 2: August 19

By the time I reached my fifteenth birthday, I was the exact image of my mother with obvious mistakes. I had her hands, her nose, her lips, her ears, and her teeth. But I also had a smattering of freckles across my nose, dark blue eyes, and red hair. The hair, however, didn't always stay the same. I told myself it was red, but I knew it had turned brown as I got older, and it was only bushy on some days.

I was maybe an inch taller than her, and when I smiled she said it was like looking in a mirror. Even my freckles were sometimes framed by the slight tan we both harbored when I went outside. I liked that I looked like her. She didn't even have any wrinkles, only creases in her brow, and that long, awful scar on her cheek.

As I'd grown older, the things that differentiated us had disappeared until it was to the point when someone glancing at us would double back and take that second look, just to make sure their eyesight wasn't failing them.

There hadn't been a single day in my life where I couldn't remember seeing her. We'd been together every second of my life, or nearly every second. She thought she knew everything about me, but she didn't. And I didn't know as much about her as I thought I did. That is, perhaps, the reason for the explosion.

I call it the explosion, for that's what it was. At the time of its occurrence, I regretted it with every fiber of my being, but today I think I can live with it. I'm positive everyone appreciates it now as well.

Every month of the year was exactly the same, except for August. August was the month in which I was born, and the month stands out to me against all the others. My birthday is August 19, to be exact. Each August on my birthday, something extraordinary would happen. On my sixth birthday, I stole a bottle of ink straight from an Advisor's desk in the heart of the village and was never caught. On my ninth I somehow managed to make all the doorknobs on every door in the village melt into the doorframe, locking every person inside for hours before it could be corrected; Mum said it was my magic coming through. When I turned eleven the Commander Advisor in charge of our section mysteriously disappeared, leaving us in the charge of a much less stricter Advisor. Whether he was arrested or murdered or kidnapped or simply died or ran away, we were never really sure. But security was loosened, it wasn't a crime any longer to step outside, and the darkness of the first years of living in the village seemed to almost disappear. That was the best birthday by far.

As my ability to recognize these happy feats that marked a year to my age, and my handwriting grew steadily more legible, I took to writing these happy memories down. I never wrote these things on the wall, or on Mum's books. She would've seen them and I wanted these to be private in the sense that my mother never read them. Instead I addressed each letter to only man I could ever think to correspond with: Ronald Weasley. I told him all about my birthdays, all about Mum, all about me on the back of the photos my mother had given me as a child with the stolen ink and quill. In an almost sad way, it was my way of telling someone my secrets but never having them leaked.

By noon on August 19, 2015, I was sitting outside on the front step, the pile of pictures in my hands and the precious ink and quill at my side. I flipped through picture after picture, looking for the perfect one to write on for my yearly tradition. As Mum always told me, tradition is what keeps us constant.

The stack was thick and worn from so many years of rifling through them. It was always a pleasant experience to find things I'd written in my youth. I found a picture of Molly and Arthur Weasley in front of their house and flipped it over to see my scribbles of a past birthday.

August 19, 2009

Dear Ron,

It's my birthday again. When I woke up this morning hundreds of flowers had grown overnight outside. Mum told me I did it all on my own, with my own magic of course. She said it wouldn’t be the last time this ever happens. I picked a bunch before the Advisors got rid of them, and now they're hanging upside-down in our house so we can have them all winter long.

Love from,
Tessa

I'd drawn spindly little flowers all along the border in a childish fashion. The flowers we'd saved were crinkled and dry now, preserved in one of Mum's books. She'd said it was a moment she didn't want to forget. It proved I really was a witch, and I didn't belong in the village. But then again, no one else really belonged there either.

A cloud drifted out of the sky and for a moment the sun skated over my face. Leaning back, I shivered as the sunlight warmed my bones, waiting for something, anything to happen.

Almost as quickly as the sun had come out, it disappeared. I squinted up at the silhouette of a shadowy figure above me and opened my mouth in a perfect O.

"Hello," a light but deep male voice said to me.

I stood up clumsily and shoved the pictures into my pocket while simultaneously kicking the ink the ink off the steps where it thumped almost noiselessly in a clump of weeds.

The man was speaking again, but my ears were ringing and my eyes had blacked out from standing too quickly. I waited dizzily for sight to return, and when it did, my heart lurched.

A long line of young men was walking before me, stretching all the way down the dirt road and out of sight. Each one of them carried identical short wands and wore robes of pale gray, fashioned like those of the Advisors. They all had the same haircut and straight posture with their hands folded behind their backs, and their eyes rolled around curiously as they took in the new place. They all stared politely at me and the other women drawn outside by the quiet yet strange noise of their boots against the dirt road.

The one in front of me smiled; apparently, from the shiny badge on his chest, he had some sort of seniority that allowed him to break ranks. I didn't return the friendly gesture. I didn't trust men one bit.

He sensed my discomfort and said politely, "You've led a quiet life here, have you not?"

"Yes," I answered, only because it didn't seem wise to not say anything.

"Things are about to change." He winked at me. My heart lurched again and my stomach plummeted.

"Can we help you?"

I wheeled around.

Mum stood in the doorway of our house, her hair a little mussed, her arms crossed over her chest. Her scar glinted in the sunlight as another cloud drifted away. She clumped down the steps and stood next to me, her arm touching mine.

The man's clear grayish-blue eyes followed her the whole time. I decided he couldn't be more than sixteen years old.

"I believe your friends are moving on without you," said Mum loftily.

He suddenly stood up straighter. His eyes clouded over as quickly as the sky above us.

"Hold old are you anyway?" asked Mum. She seemed to enjoy the fact that she was so much older than him.

"Sixteen," he said scathingly.

Mum's face paled. "And you're already in a point of authority?"

He stood up taller. I had the feeling that he wasn't supposed to be talking so casually with us, but he liked showing off. "Yes, of course. The New Generation Youth "

His words sparked something in Mum. I racked my brains for the reference she’d recognized. "How old are the others?" she whispered.

"Sorry?"

"How old are the others?"

"That depends. Some are eighteen some are fifteen. Most of them are fifteen."

"Fifteen?"

"That's right," he said, and sensing my mother's change of heart in her interrogation, he said, "Is that a problem with you?"

Mum's voice was shaking as she replied, "Only that a boy of sixteen has suddenly assumed the job of a commander. Who gave you your position, You-Know-Who himself?"

He didn't answer her question. He gave me one last look and I felt his eyes burn into me. "I'll be watching you," he said coolly. "Both of you."

He turned around and marched back into step with the other newcomers. The long line of men disappeared into the center of the village. My heart was still pounding. I felt like his eyes were still burning into mine.

"Tessa," Mum said sternly. "Come inside now." She pulled me inside and I didn't fight her. I blindly dropped onto our bed and sat there while she shut the door. The lock clicked, the curtains swished as she pulled them further shut, and the shanty we'd been in for the past fifteen years was doused in gray light.

The bed creaked as she sank down beside me. I swallowed the lump in my throat. It took me only a minute to find my voice.

"What are they doing here?" I asked.

She sprang up, her hair flying around and her fists clenched.

"They're here to keep an eye on us," she said through a grimace. I could tell she wanted to yell and scream, but her vow of silence when the area was so heavily guarded prevented her. "To train for combat, take advantage of us -- there are a million things those boys could be here for, and none of them are good for us!"

"What do they want with us?" I questioned further.

"I don't know, but it can't be good," she repeated, wringing her hands. "After the Commander turned over I thought we'd be all right here -- but now --"

She struggled to speak.

"Oh God," she sighed, falling onto the bed on her back and covering her face with her hands once more.

"Mum?" I said quietly. I lay down on the bed next to her and stared at the cracks in the ceiling. But she didn't answer me.

"Tessa," she began. She faltered again. "Tessa, it's sick, it's disgusting, that those young boys are being paraded around the way they just were. Give them a wand and they think they have power. A wand is nothing unless you have the right mind to use it. They're only fifteen, they must've been training since birth..." She stopped speaking and the room fell silent.

I'd decided long ago that there were six sides to my mother. The first was Hermione Granger, the girl from Hogwarts. The second was Hermione Weasley, the woman married to Ron Weasley. The third was Hermione Granger again, the young, fiery woman who had tried every possible way to escape from the village before, and after, I was born. The fourth was Mum, the mother who had held me when I was little and kept me warm all through the long winter nights and sang me lullabies even when she didn't have a voice. The fifth was Mum still, but stricter and sterner, the lady who had taught me to read at a young age because she didn't want my mind to waste, the woman who had made up a million rules. And the sixth side of Hermione Granger Weasley was a mystery. She would cry in the night, for what, or for who, I never knew, and she'd speak as if I wasn't there, and verbally think to herself, but never explain what she was going on about to me.

Right now, she was on her sixth side. I closed my eyes and tried to wait it out, knowing she probably forgot I was lying beside her.

I thought about the long line of men marching into the village. I thought about their matching robes and wands, and the way they looked hardened and unhappy. I thought about the youth who had advanced upon me, who had probably watched me while it looked like I was sleeping. I thought about the way he winked at me.

My memory zoomed into overdrive and an instance where another man winked at me filled my brain.

August 19, 2008. The first day I ever saw magic, real magic, bad magic. The Advisors had patrolled the village the day before, so Mum and I were sure they wouldn't come around again so soon. We sat out on the front steps to our shanty, our sleeves rolled up to soak in the warmth of the sun. We both gradually grew tan, myself spotting a few new freckles.

"See how it's so nice out here, with no Advisors to make us go back inside?" Mum said, smoothing down my hair. "This is your special day. Nothing can touch you."

I just smiled at her. I was the center of her world, and she was the center of mine.

We sat out there for hours. That was the first mistake. I wouldn't realize until much later that day, that if you could be seen, you would be watched.

The second mistake was worse. She began to hum a song, one she had sung to me when I was younger. I hummed along with her. Our eyes locked; silently, I questioned her with my eyes whether this was allowed, where the Advisors could easily see and hear us. She arched her eyebrows: What do you think?

She'd never been this daring before; it just wasn't in her nature to go against the rules like this. Maybe she was tired of our oppressed life and wanted to rebel in some small way. Maybe the heat was getting to her. Or maybe she really did believe the day was special, and nothing could touch us. But we were wrapping ourselves in a sense of false security that was soon going to be broken.

The hum turned into a song with words. The words were a whisper at first, like the hiss of a snake, before her voice became loud enough to understand the words she sang. I giggled, she laughed.

"Look!" I said, pointing to a bright speck or color on the bleak dirt landscape. "What are they?"

She let out a soft "Ooh!" and lifted me to my feet. "They're flowers. The seeds must've blown in on the wind. I'm surprised they managed to grow. You can pick them right out of the ground."

I didn't need telling twice. I was loving this new daring, carefree mother, and I was forgetting the strong defense that was always necessary.

The petals were soft and yellow, the stems a pale green I'd never seen before. I pulled them out of the ground with ease and stood back to admire my prize.

"Beautiful," Mum exclaimed once I'd crawled back into her lap. She began to rock me gently in her arms, singing softly, "Golden slumbers fill your eyes..."

"Smiles await you when you rise," I sang along with the memory.

A siren slowly went off, building into a higher and louder register. I looked around. Mum was sitting up now, looking anguished but composed. Back to that cross between the fourth and fifth sides of Hermione Granger. She turned her brown eyes onto mine.

"We might as well go now, right? No point wasting time," she said, helping me to my feet.

As we dropped down the steps outside and joined the curious women walking to the center of the village, the sirens filled my mind with their loud buzzing. How stupid of me, to wish for just anything to happen on my birthday. It had to be this, this harshly foreboding thing. I should've known better; on August 19th, my wishes tend to come true. It wasn't until we reached the center of the village and stood in the large, open area that I realized Mum had been gripping my hand in hers the whole walk over, her eyes scanning the crowd, for who, I didn't know.

.:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:. .:.

"As you may know, Section Six has been in operation for nearly sixteen years," the Advisor in Command, Rowland Riggs, read off of a long sheet of parchment.

"Of course we know how long it's been, we've all been counting," an older lady next to Mum and I muttered.

Riggs went on, "The first generation of the new generation under He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has been stationed here for the next week. Abiding to their laws and judging of our ways is our top priority." Riggs smiled wryly, and I could tell he did not like this new, younger group telling him what to do.

"The youth group will also be selecting ten of our residents for questioning, study, and potential use of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. This is not an optional move and it is crucial for those accepted by the new generation to leave without a fight."

Mum's grip on my hand turned vice like. There was a murmur of fear among the women: What did the regime want with us mudbloods who had been tucked away in the country so as to be forgotten? Who would be chosen to leave?

The murmuring among the crowds grew louder. Some women began to cry, others shouted in indignation.

"It's indecent!"

"It's inhumane!"

"They can't do this!"

"Silence!" Riggs jerked his wand and silence fell over the crowds; though I hadn't been speaking, my throat constricted and my voice was silenced. He rolled up the parchment and shouted, "Return to your quarters."

It wasn't until we were halfway home that I found I could speak again. "Where will they stay while they're here?"

"I don't know," my mother said, her hand still on mine. Her eyes took in everything around us, as if she were afraid someone would come down and claim me. Which was actually possible now. She started talking to herself, mumbling words like "years ago" and "happening again" and "can't go through it." Thunder sounded above us and it had begun to drizzle by the time we were locked inside our shanty.

I didn't move while Mum paced the floor once more. She cut up bread and placed it in front of me. I automatically began to eat, as I'd been trained to do when she made me food. Even if it didn't taste good, if it was placed in front of me, the rule was to eat it. I put a hand inside my pocket and played with the red string I used to tie up my pictures.

Mum looked sadly out the rainy window, and I knew what she was going to say before she even opened her mouth.

"We're not safe here anymore."

I tugged at the red ribbon in my hands, hardly daring to breathe. Silently, and without seeming to realize what she was doing, she touched the long scar resting on her face. I shivered. If I was correct in my thinking, this birthday was bound to be on the list of the worst days of my life.

"We're not going to go outside during the day anymore," she said after a few moments. "If we need water, I'll get it. You won't answer the door, not even to pick up our rations. Curtains will stay closed, windows shut."

"What about you? They could take you too, you know."

"No, Tessa," said Mum, rounding on me. "They don't want a thirty-four-year-old woman, they'll want someone young, someone like you."

"I'll be fine --"

"No, I don't want to take any chances with you."

"All right," I said, breaking the crust into tiny pieces. "I promise I won't go out."

She gave me a painful smile and turned back to the rainy day outside. Then she pushed the curtains open a little more.

"It's your birthday," she said softly. "We ought to enjoy what sunlight we have left while we can."

We smiled at each other, genuine smiles.

"It doesn't look like it's going to be very nice outside today," I said, gesturing towards the steady thunder that filled the shanty every few minutes and the growing thickness of the rain.

"No, it doesn't," she sighed, sitting down next to me in the only other chair we owned. She picked up my abandoned bread crusts and chewed absentmindedly. "How's your fifteenth going so far for you? It seems to be a bit unpleasant; I thought it would've been nice, it was so beautiful out today."

"It's been fine," I lied. It was actually looking pretty dark from where I was sitting. I'd wanted something good to happen so badly that it felt like I'd almost asked for the new generation to come. I could see Mum was still uneasy, the way she rubbed her temples and breathed slowly.

I pulled the ribbon out from my pocket and twirled it, the faded red burning into my mind.

In one sharp motion, her voice stopped and her eyes widened. Her hand gripped mine and she laid one palm on my cheek. I stopped singing and stared up at her. Through her smile, I heard her hiss, "Time to go inside."

She lifted me up in her arms -- I was small and skinny for my age -- but when she turned the knob to open the door, it wouldn't budge: I watched the sweat break out on her brow and my grip on her neck tightened.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Granger."

"Please let us inside," said Mum, straining her voice.

He spoke from behind us. I watched him poke his wand into my mother's side, and fear like an electric shock flew through my body.

"Your boy has been causing a lot of trouble lately," he said, his voice thick and oily. It was the Advisor in Command.

He looked terrible. He hadn't shaved, his robes were a mess, and he breathed as though he'd just run ten miles.

"And you know who's been getting the blame for it?" he continued nastily.

Boy? At the time, I wondered why he kept referring to me as a boy. I was a little offended, but at the same time terrified. Did he know I'd stolen from him? Was he only getting me back now?

"You deserve it," spat Mum, still shielding me from his face. "You deserve everything you're getting -- ow!"

"Desertion from the new youth is punishable by death!" he growled, forcing the wand further into her side. I wanted her to scream and lash out at him, but with me in her arms, all she could do was keep me safe. "It's all over the news, fourteen youths have run away! And you know who one of those youths are?"

"He beat your system then," Mum persisted. "He beat your corrupt and foul system!"

I started to cry into my mother's shoulder. What on Earth were they talking about?

"That's one down of your brood down," he growled. "Your antics have had my establishment scrutinized by the Dark Lord himself! If that mudblood shows up here, I swear to Merlin -- you'll be gone before you can even pack your things. And that girl of yours, her blood will belong to the Dark Lord."

"Your establishment?" Mum scoffed, anger filling her voice. "Your -- no! Stop! STOP!"

The wand was burning straight through her clothes. She let out a scream and pushed the Advisor over the edge of the stoop. He lay sprawled on the ground, confused for a moment before he lifted his wand once more and jabbed it in our direction.

Mum dropped me onto the ground -- no, she threw me. I rolled over in the dirt as blood blossomed on my arms and legs, vivid red that imprinted onto my eyes as I widened them in horror.

"Tessa, go -- run!"

I wasn't aware of anything else except my mother: Her shout to me, the terror on her face as the Advisor pushed her up against the wall, growling incomprehensible words.

I turned on my heel and ran.

Overhead thunder rumbled and the candles lighting our home flickered, bringing me back to the present. Mum was sleeping already, her slow breathing filling the room. She’d been sleeping so much lately.

I pulled out the pictures from my pockets and flipped through them, just for something to do while my mind sped on.

The New Generation Youth. How strange it was, that those words etched themselves into my mind all those years ago, and now here I was, my future pending on what this supposed youth thought about me. What could You-Know-Who want with ten Muggle-borns? And who had Mum and the head Advisor, now long forgotten, been talking about.

With a jolt that had nothing to do with what I was currently thinking, I realized I hadn’t filled out the back of a picture yet. I glanced over at my mother’s sleeping form; I’d left my ink outside, and if she saw me stepping out, there’d be hell to pay. I slipped from my chair and stuffed the pictures back in my pocket, easing the door open as quietly as possible. I’d only be gone a second. She didn’t even stir as I gently closed the door and stepped out into the rain.

I’ll only be a second, I repeated to myself. But of course, it only takes half of that time to make a mistake.

A half a second was all it took for someone to grab my shoulders, clap a hand over my mouth, and pull me to the ground.