An Insider's View by CCCC
Chapter Notes: Not quite as good as the others I'd say, feel a bit iffy on this one, some of the grammar mistakes are deliberate to try and show Filch being slightly crazy,( though I'm iffy on trying that as well), but the others are accidental ;). Ah well, read and comment at will.
A bloody kid, if it isn’t letting off Dungbombs then it’s hiding Stink Pellets. Duelling in the corridors, sneaking out after hours -- but always making sure to leave a nice big mess since the Squib’s here to clean it up. They talk about “house rivalries” and “family feuds”, but at the end of the day, every last student in the place would unite with their worst enemies in order to play a “harmless practical joke” on the stupid, incompetent squib. Oh, but they don’t mean anything by it, it’s just some innocent fun -- innocent fun my arse. They know exactly what they’re doing, and there’s no-one crueller than kids; as for innocent, if any of those malingering sods is even half as innocent as their parents claim, then I’m a cactus.
At least I have Mrs Norris with me. An old friend -- or someone I counted as a friend -- gave her to me years ago. I had many friends when I was young. They all drifted away -- well actually they didn’t, they disappeared when I was eleven. They were magical and I wasn’t, they went to Hogwarts and I didn’t; when they came back, them and their parents didn’t want to associate with a Squib. Not even my parents wanted to know me. First the arguments started, they’d be about just about any subject there was, but the root cause was always the same: me. I was a constant reminder of their apparent inadequacy. I count it as no coincidence that my mother went to live with another man before I was thirteen; my father started drinking, and I spent as little time in the house as possible -- stayed away for days at a time. One day I came back and found the locks changed; the next day another family was moving in. I never went back again.
When I was fifteen, I met a girl. She was young, about ten years old I think. I didn’t exactly invite company at that age, but she kept hanging around me. Later I learned she was a Squib too -- or thought she was. But she left me as well, somehow got into Hogwarts. A Squib learning at Hogwarts, or failing to I’d bet -- the very idea was madness from the start. Then some years later she sent me a cat, no apology for deserting me for a life of acceptance. But I thank her for that; that cat was the only thing that has ever stayed loyal to me.
Of course, if it wasn’t a Squib they were doing it to there’d be uproar, they’d suspended or expelled on the spot; but as it is, no one gives a damn. There’s a support group for every minority growing, and there’s a whole ministry department dedicated to helping centaurs integrate into wizarding society; no centaur’s visited it in all the years it’s been open (and even if they did, some genius made the door regulation ministry size, which was set for humans and is therefore too small for any interested centaur to fit through), but they still find the money to keep it staffed with two full time officials. Now the students have even started a campaign to get better conditions for sodding house-elves. House-elves! If you ordered them to do what they liked you’d come back to find them scrubbing the floor. They bloody beg for menial labour.
These fine “witches and wizards” -- prejudiced the lot of them. Some of them are open about it and I wish more were; rather I knew where I stood than have to deal with hypocritical smooth-talking snakes who’ll say nice things to your face, then snigger at you behind your back.
But that’s what most of them do. They’re embarrassed to see me, embarrassed that I exist, embarrassed perhaps that their society has no place for one such as me, a social outcast by merit of his birth, neither Muggle nor wizard and no place in either world. Tough, their problem, I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere to please them. If there’s no path for me to follow, I’ll make my own, and I won’t take handouts either. I won’t give them the satisfaction of the excuse that I only made progress due to charity and handouts. Dumbledore offered me the same wage as the last caretaker, but I refused it. I know the market value of the work of a Squib, and I wouldn’t take a penny over. I know my worth, and no condescending pureblood is going to put me in his debt by handing out “some charity to the poor unfortunate Squib”. I’m not going to let anyone of them strip me of my self respect, the ability to stand up straight -- I say I got where I am on my own merit.
Dumbledore’s better than most -- at least I thought so in the beginning. It was he that put me onto that Kwikspell course; he never said anything but I knew it was him; letters like that don’t just turn up in the post. Then Dumbledore’s pet just happened to find it while sneaking about in my office, what an unlucky coincidence I’m sure; but I knew the reason for the laughter behind the eyes of every student I saw for the next month. I saw it and knew Dumbledore had betrayed me; he’d sold me out for the sake of a mild chuckle. Just as he did every time he refused to get rid of Peeves or take any serious action against those twins -- couldn’t stand the idea of not being able to have a little smirk at hearing how someone’s played a humiliating practical joke on the Squib. He even tried to get his little pet to have Mrs Norris killed and only failed by chance. I swore eternal enmity against him that night.
I see it as no random happening that discipline disappeared as soon as he turned up. Got rid of all the traditional punishments -- or really he stopped me from using them. Can’t use any more physical punishments he said, outdated and cruel he said. What he meant was he didn’t want me doing it. Doubtless the parents and governors didn’t like the idea of their children having to obey a Squib. All my applications for floggings turned down, but that great oaf requests some students to go into the Forbidden Forest with him, and some are dispatched at once. Then when a teacher wants to, he can turn a pupil into a ferret and hammer him into anything he likes with no repercussions in the slightest, not even the hint of an official warning. And I’m willing to bet that had I asked Dumbledore about it, he would have explained that transfiguration was an approved method of punishment for use by all members of staff as they so wished. And I’d bet that I’d have seen his amusement in his eyes, the amusement I see almost every time I look at him. The amusement of watching a fly struggle in a web, the amusement of a kitten drowning an inch below the surface, seeing freedom so close and yet unreachable.
But I kept quiet, I bided my time, and when I got my chance, I put the right word in the right ear and Dumbledore had to go. Revenge is sweet, and those who are prejudiced deserve everything they get. Umbridge might not have been my first choice to take over, but compared to Dumbledore she is miles ahead, and very grateful for my little spot of help she was. Rubber-stamped the whipping form instantly. But then it all went wrong; she got secure and sure of herself and set the Squib to carting students over a swamp she couldn’t get rid of, but I got her back for that. She didn’t last long after that indignity. Then they tried to foist Dumbledore back on me, but I wasn’t having any of that -- had an inkling something was going on but I wasn’t going to bother saying anything; anyway, Dumbledore wouldn’t take my word on anything more important than what colour socks he is wearing. And look where scorning me got him, a box six feet underground, that’s where it got him. Headmasters come and go, but I’m still here; I know which skeletons are in which cupboards, and I can change things when I wish. I am the real power here; the Squib has worked his way up, and though none of those prejudiced pureblood fools realise it, I am the master of Hogwarts.