Late Bloomer by Just Tink
Chapter Notes: I don't own anything, yadeyadeya. Thanks to my absolutely fantastic beta reader potterphile12 once again!
Now we reach the part of my life that ends my remembrance and starts a new… adventure? Possibly. Era, more likely. All I know is that I’d been sent away by my parents. I thought they loved me! I thought they cared about me! But suddenly I wasn’t too sure. I had a cold feeling in my chest just thinking about it.
By now Professor McGonagall was a ways ahead of me. I hurried after her, trying to drag my trunk, backpack, and run at the same time. Finally I tripped over the hem of my robes, landing on my stomach with a sickening thud. Professor McGonagall turned around when she heard the noise, sighing.
“Let me, Pralent. Locomotor Trunk!” The trunk floated into the air, and Professor McGonagall marched onward, leaving me with my backpack. I struggled up from the ground, rushing after her.
After what seemed like ages we reached the castle- huge, grey, and so far from my home I wanted to cry. I couldn’t, of course. Not with Professor McGonagall there, watching me now and looking for signs that I might be unhappy. No. Besides, Father and Mother wanted me to come. It had to be the right decision. I gave Professor McGonagall a smile which she did not return, just turned and rapped smartly on the door.
When it first opened I thought it was purely magic. But then I saw the man standing in the doorway, ragged robes matching his scraggly grey hair. A cat the same color of his hair with lantern yellow eyes wrapped herself around the man’s legs, watching me. The man looked me over, and then grunted.
“Mr. Filch,” Professor McGonagall barked in a harsh voice such as I had never heard her use before, “this is Cassandra Pralent. She is the one I was telling you about.”
They had talked about me? I gulped, watching Mr. Filch. I figured it was up to me to make the first move.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Filch, sir,” I said, bobbing as I curtseyed. My bright red robes were quite a contrast to the darkness of the castle and the battered rags of the caretaker. “I’m Cassandra Pralent, and I’m really looking forward to working with you.” My smile showed my dimples, but it faded as Mr. Filch grunted. Was this really what my parents wanted?
“Mr. Filch will take you to your living quarters now, Miss Pralent.” Professor McGonagall kept concern out of her voice, but something in her eyes said that she was more than a tad worried. “You can find me in the Headmistress’ Office.” Nodding to Mr. Filch, she swept away, leaving me with the man and his cat.
“Well, come on, then.” It was the first words I had heard from my new companion. His voice was grisly, and it gave me an odd picture in my mind of burnt, overcooked bacon. He turned away from me and limped into the castle. What had given him that limp? The years of bending over cleaning, and running over to stop students? He seemed to read my mind, and turned around. “What are you waiting for? And stop staring at me with those beady little eyes of yours.” I had never heard anyone call my eyes beady before, and my hands flew up to my face. The man grimaced, and continued to limp away from me. Who was this man? But wherever he was going was where I was supposed to be, so pushing my still floating trunk I followed him. The door shut behind me with a resounding boom, and the gloom of the castle seemed to close in on me as I raced after Mr. Filch. For a man who had so much trouble walking, he could go very fast.
The castle was so… empty looking. There must have been an inch of dirt and dust on the walls. Suits of armor creaked at me as Mr. Filch headed towards a huge staircase. Perhaps the staircase was grand once, but this had spider webs on it! I could see dead insects lying on the ground, and I was glad I hadn’t eaten recently. But didn’t the castle have house elves to clean?
My curiosity had to be fulfilled. “Mr. Filch,” I asked, coming to the man’s side, “why is the castle so dirty? Don’t you have house elves?” Mother had always told me about the hundreds of house elves they had at Hogwarts, and how they kept the castle beautiful and spotless. Maybe they were on strike. But Mr. Filch turned to me and gave me such an evil smile I was terrified.
“Oh, yes, young lady, we have house elves,” he said, continuing towards the stairs, as I followed. “But they mostly cook, and clean the house common rooms. We’ll be cleaning the rest of the castle starting tomorrow, with some assistance from a select number of elves.” Oh, Chocolate Frog card help me. Was that even possible? The castle was gigantic, and I had never cleaned before. Something told me my fur-lined dress robes wouldn’t be entirely appropriate for the task ahead. “But here,” he added, “is where you will live.”
We had reached the side of the stairs, where I could just barely make out a keyhole in the dusty marble. Pulling a small metal rod out of his coat, Mr. Filch placed it in the keyhole and turned it. The stairs opened up, as a slab of marble seemed to melt away. I gasped.
Inside was the most disgusting, unkempt room I had ever seen. It was darker than the castle, and I could just barely make out that it was a room at all. I looked up at Mr. Filch, questions and fear showing on my face. He laughed again, shoving a pack of matches and the thin metal rod into my hands and giving me a forceful push into the room.
“Push on the door from the inside to open it. Dinner in an hour in the Great Hall. You’ll report to the Great Hall at five o’clock tomorrow. Night, now.” Mr. Filch had a look of almost gleeful malice on his face as he left the doorway. The marble reappeared, and I was immersed in darkness.
The tears came quick and fast. This couldn’t be right! I had to have magic in me somewhere! This couldn’t be the life I was meant for! I was destined to do great things. Mother and Father never said so, but I could always tell by the way they spoke of my future- how I would be sorted into Ravenclaw or Gryffindor like they had been; which they assured me were the best possible houses to be in. And I would excel in all my classes, and go on to do something great, like be an Auror or a Healer. They never wanted me to be a squib caretaker, did they?
But there was no point in sitting here moping. After all, Mother and Father had sent me to Hogwarts to be a caretaker willingly. Mother had wanted me to go. Didn’t she? Well, I was here. I sighed, reaching my hands out in front of me to try to find a candle. I tripped over something squishy, and I hit the wall once, but eventually I hit a single candle.
Now what? I had seen pictures of people using matches… an entertainer at one of Mother’s book clubs had them, and it was very funny to see him try to make a fire without magic. But what was his technique? How, exactly, did you get fire to come out of the little stick? I decided to experiment. Pulling a match out of the little box I hit the end very hard against the candle. The match broke. Apparently that wasn’t the correct way to do it. What else was there to try?
Ten minutes later there were a small pile of broken matches around my feet, but I had finally lit one! I held it against the candle, lit it, then blew out the match before it burnt my fingers. When I saw the room in a good light for the first time, though, I wished I had never figured out how to use the matches. If I had thought it was disgusting before, it was nothing compared to what it looked like now. How long had it been unused? A ratty sofa, the same color as Father’s chair at home stood against the far wall. A black high backed chair covered with something scratchy sat perpendicular to it. In front of the sofa was a dark, low wooden table. I touched it gingerly, feeling the rough, bumpy surface beneath my fingers. On the other side of the sofa sat a stool. I walked over to it and sat down tentatively, but the moment I put weight on it the legs gave out and it collapsed underneath me, leaving me sitting on a pile of wood. On the other wall was a fireplace that looked like it hadn’t been used for years, and a small stove.
As I got up carefully, watching where I was stepping, I noticed a tiny door at the end of the room. Upon further investigation it entered into a bedroom, with an empty black bookshelf and a four poster bed. The tall wardrobe in the corner reminded me that my trunk was still sitting outside the door.
As I went back into the first room (which I dubbed the sitting room in my mind) I took in more. The mouse’s nest in the corner. The silky strands of web on the walls. I couldn’t take it. I sat down on the floor and sobbed.
*
Ding, dong, ding, dong, ding dong…I sat up with a start. How long had I been lying there? Hours? Days? Probably not weeks or months, because presumably I would not be waking up, but it felt as if I had never been anywhere but that spot on the floor, and had an instant desire to get out, to leave my rooms.
What was it Mr. Filch said? Push on the door from the inside? My hand hovered over the dusty marble not quite ready to leave. As horrible as my rooms were the castle outside was completely unknown. Just as I was about to take a deep breath and shove at the marble, I heard footsteps outside, and then voices. I pressed my ear as close to the wall as I dared.
“I just don’t know, Filius.” It was Professor McGonagall, her voice considerably softer than when I last heard it. “The girl doesn’t grasp it!” Who were they talking about? Some girl, from the sounds of it. But who? The voices continued, growing distant. I didn’t take a second to think, just pushed against the cold marble. It disappeared, and I dashed outside, crouching low to the ground. Professor McGonagall and a tiny man I had never seen before had stopped by four gigantic hourglasses filled with jewels. By keeping as close to the stairs as possible I could keep out of sight and hear the conversation at the same time.
“…couldn’t we at least sort her, Filius? After all, she’s going to be taking some of the offered classes.” I could just see Professor McGonagall out of the corner of my eye; she looked worried.
“But what would we do, Minerva? The Hat won’t sort her when she has no magic. The Houses are for young witches and wizards, and Cassandra is a squib.” The tiny man reached up and patted Professor McGonagall on the elbow. Cassandra? They were talking about me! I strained my ears to listen. “She’s different from the other children. They would hate her for who she is. Remember when we tried placing Argus in a House?”
A large lump was forming in my throat. I was…different? I glanced down at my dress robes. They were morphing into tattered robes, the color fading like the dust of my rooms. Why would everybody hate me? I wasn’t that odd, was I? Were squibs such a bad thing? The man, unaware of my plight, kept talking.
“Squibs aren’t like the rest of us, Minerva! I have nothing against them, certainly, but you have to stop pretending she’s just another student.” I wasn’t another student. I was a whole different species. I was a squib. I slid to the ground as the voices grew distant.
So that was why Mother and Father didn’t want me. They didn’t want to be shamed with a squib. The pieces fell into place, and the lump in my throat grew larger. I’d been rejected, and now I was a caretaker. A cleaner of dirt. Not even a witch. I was barely human. I wasn’t human. I was different than humans. Humans either were witches and wizards or they were Muggles. I was the abnormal one, the one without a category. The one alone, with nobody. Nobody at all.
“Squib,” I whispered to myself, waiting for the dam to burst, but no tears came.
Maybe squibs weren’t human enough to cry.