The next month followed the same routine as my first day had. Wake up, clean, go to a class, eat lunch alone, go to another class, clean some more, eat dinner, do homework, and go to bed exhausted. It was a vicious cycle, in my personal opinion, varying only in the classes I had each day.
Potions turned out to be a nightmare. Mother had been good at Potions when she was at school, but I hadn’t inherited her skill. I took the class with the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, and the red-headed boy who had made rude comments before the sorting ceremony, Jeremiah, turned out to be almost as bad as Alta. He was a Ravenclaw, and while Alta was turning out be some sort of Herbology genius, he about matched her in Potions.
While his actual potions were not as good as some of the others, he knew enough about the background of potion-making and the different ingredients to make Professor Slughorn leap for joy. As hard as I tried to read ahead in our textbook, I just couldn’t keep up with him. He was like a human encyclopedia and rubbed it in my face whenever he was out of the sight of a teacher. (I was beginning to see why Alta was in Gryffindor. She never cared if a teacher was staring straight at her when she mocked me.) He was Professor Slughorn’s pet student, and unlike with popular Alta, I wasn’t the only one who disliked him.
But even with his obnoxious, know-it-all attitude, Jeremiah still had a group of friends among the Ravenclaws. What, I wondered, was I doing wrong? It certainly wasn’t because I was a teacher’s pet. Professor Slughorn made minimal remarks about my potions, which were only of an average quality. Because I had no wand, I couldn’t use it to stir the potions and give them the extra magical edge the other students had. Most of the time he only addressed me in class now when he had to magically light the fire under my cauldron. Gwen completely ignored me. Sarah Morgan would occasionally glance at me, but after the first week she had stopped offering me a place at her table.
History of Magic was no better. It was my only class with the Slytherins, and I began to realize why they had such a horrible reputation. Although none of them made fun of me to my face like Alta or Jeremiah did, I could hear them whispering behind my back, and couldn’t concentrate on Professor Binns’ dull lectures. As much as I tried to take notes, I found myself writing down nonsense, and failed the quizzes. So did everybody else, but they could make up for it with essays. All my homework was done hurriedly, in-between cleaning. Half the time I fell asleep while I was doing it.
Mr. Filch continued to give me near-impossible tasks. On one memorable day I had to scrub the Quidditch goalposts. With Mr. Filch standing underneath me, I shimmied up the post as far as I could and cleaned off unearthly amounts of mud. I only managed to get up about ten feet, but Mr. Filch didn’t remark about the large amount of mud still on the post. I was getting the idea that he cared more about torturing me than actually cleaning.
I received no mail from my parents. I assured myself that they were undoubtedly busy with their social calendar. The annual Pralent Halloween Ball would, after all, be held at the end of the month. My parents had to be very busy with that. In fact, without me to help them they were probably terribly flustered, with no idea what to do. I expected a frantic note from them any day now, begging for me to come home.
Occasionally Professor McGonagall would call me from my duties to attend a Defense Against the Dark Arts class with Professor Munch. She only did this once a week or so, when there would be no practical wand work in the lesson. Professor Munch seemed nice enough, even if he always looked like he was about to fall over from exhaustion. I wondered if he had another job at night that was keeping him up. Surely Professor McGonagall wouldn’t hire somebody who was already working, would she? But then, I had never expected her to hire an eleven year old squib as the caretaker’s apprentice. Stranger things had happened.
Professor Munch seemed to be a senseless rambler with no real idea of what was going on in the outside world. He had a strange fascination with anything that you could poke people with, as well. I went into his office once a week to clean, and it was filled with sticks that looked like he had found them in the Forbidden Forest. The entire wall behind his desk was covered with a giant picture of himself waving in front of Ollivander’s. (It must have been an old picture, since Ollivander had been found dead over the summer.) He also enjoyed giving out ridiculously long assignments on topics he said that he had covered, but hadn’t.
One day when I was in his class with the Gryffindor first years, generally avoiding Alta, he paused his lecture to remind us that our five foot report on vampires was due tomorrow, and that he was very much looking forward to our demonstrations of how to ward off an approaching child of the night.
The class exchanged glances. Well, the Gryffindors exchanged glances. Nobody would bother to glance my way. In truth this had been a reasonably good day, without more than a few minor comments from Alta. Her best friends Emily and Ophelia had tripped me at lunch, but that was to be expected, these days. Then a black boy in the third row spoke up, telling Professor Munch that he had never given us that assignment. Professor Munch looked puzzled.
“I gave you that assignment in the middle of September when we began studying vampires,” he declared. His love of pointy things apparently extended to Dark creatures, as well. According to the lesson plan he had given out at the beginning of the year, we would be studying vampires, werewolves, and the use of the wand. The class shook their heads. He shrugged. “Oh well! A five foot essay on vampires due tomorrow, then, and a demonstration for the class on how to ward them off. I can’t adjust my schedule just because you children were all foolish enough to forget the assignment. Dismissed!” We left the classroom grumbling. Except me.
How was I supposed to get this done in time? It was the middle of October, and I had double Herbology tomorrow, as well as Defense Against the Dark Arts and History of Magic. I had an essay due in Herbology and an analysis on goblin wars due for History of Magic, and I still had to work with Mr. Filch. Was it possible for me to get expelled, since I was not actually a student? It wasn’t as if I had a wand which they could snap. What if the school governors decided to snap something else instead? My neck, for example? Mr. Filch certainly seemed up for the job. I had no doubt that he would jump at the chance if it was offered to him. My mind started making up all kinds of horrible things that he could do to me as I stood up from my seat and left the classroom, watching the floor. It was because of this that as soon as I entered the hall I ran straight into Ophelia.
“Watch it, squib!” Ophelia said, shoving me backwards into the wall. I glanced around, scared out of my wits. Any minute now Alta and Emily would close in on me, taunting me. But my quick scan of the room gave me a surprise- Alta and Emily were nowhere to be found. My surprise must have shown in my face. “You got a problem, squib?” Ophelia seemed angrier than usual, but a little unsure of herself. Her dark eyebrows were furrowed together, and she was frowning. “Just… leave, Pralent.” I scurried away while I had the chance.
Was the dynamic trio becoming a dynamic duo? I watched the three of them at dinner that night. The three of them were sitting together as usual, though they had an even larger group around them, listening in. For reasons I could not explain Alta was fast becoming one of the most popular first years in Hogwarts. All of them were laughing hysterically now, eating their dinner like they didn’t have a care in the world. It certainly didn’t look like Ophelia was being left out. I put the matter out of my mind temporarily. I had more important things to worry about- namely, how in the world I was going to finish all my homework.
After dinner I still had a couple of hours before I was due with Mr. Filch, and I took the opportunity to knock out a reasonable Herbology essay. Just as the ink was drying I heard the pounding on my door that I knew to associate with one person. Mr. Filch.
“You’re cleaning the girl’s bathrooms today,” he said as I rushed out of my rooms. “The first three floors. Get to work!” He shoved some cleaning supplies into my arms and strode away, muttering about lateness. My heart sank. The bathrooms always took hours! I suppose that I could have taken my essays with me and ignored the bathrooms, but then Mr. Filch would slaughter me. No, there was no way out of this.
I managed to hold back my tears until I got to the bathroom, but once I was there they seemed to come out in floods. It wasn’t fair! Why me? Why did I have to be stuck with being a stupid, stupid squib?
I tried to imagine what my life at Hogwarts would be like if I wasn’t a squib. It was a blissful picture. I would be in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw like Mother and Father. Gwen and I would be the best of friends; leaving those girls she had replaced me with out cold. We would be the two most popular first years in Hogwarts, as well as the most beautiful and talented. I would use my immense magical powers to turn Alta Abrams into a vile little toad…
That was when it really hit me. The daydreams I was enjoying? It would never happen. Ever. Because my being a squib… this wasn’t something I was ever going to outgrow. I would be a squib for the rest of my life. Until the day I died I would be mocked, rejected, and scorned. I would grow up and take over Mr. Filch’s job and be laughed at by all the students and teachers that passed through Hogwarts. They would all go on to do fantastic, important things, and I would be stuck at Hogwarts forever, all alone.
So I cried. I leaned against the wall and slid down onto the cold, hard floor, as hard and cold as the heart of Alta Abrams. If she had one. As much as I tried, my tears just wouldn’t seem to stop. I wanted to claw away at my face, my skin, my robes… anything I could to just leave the body of Cassandra Pralent behind me and become somebody else. Anybody else! Anybody but… well…. me.
I don’t know how long I was sitting there. The tears subsided after awhile, but I just couldn’t feel the need to stand up, to go about my duties like a good little caretaker and then stay up all night to do my essays. What was the point, anyway? Even if I got straight O’s in all my classes from now until I was seventeen, would it honestly make a difference? After all, I would still be stuck here as caretaker. Did it matter if I was expelled? Mother told me that when someone was expelled from Hogwarts they snapped their wand in half so the person couldn’t do magic. So really, what could they do to me?
As soon as it occurred to me I began to laugh hysterically, laugh until I was almost doubled over in spite of myself. I hadn’t laughed since I had gotten to Hogwarts. It felt good, even if it was because of something so bad. I was still laughing when the door opened and a rather surprised looking girl came in.
“Sorry, I didn’t know you were in here,” she said, but not leaving. She was tiny, but strong looking, with broad shoulders, for a girl. I doubted she had ever even heard of lady-like, considering the cuts that I could see on her cocoa colored skin, and her black hair pulled back in a messy ponytail.
“It’s fine,” I choked out, in between the fits of laughter. “I was just cleaning.” I recognized her as a Slytherin, but I didn’t care right now. What did it matter anyway? In seven years she would be out in the world doing great things, and I would still be here. Who cared if she made fun of me now? She was studying me intently, not smiling.
“You’re the squib, aren’t you?” She seemed slightly scornful, but no matter. I was almost giddy, high off of my emotions. I nodded, giggling as I attempted to stand up and fell right back down again.
“That’s me,” I said cheerfully, attempting to curtsy but losing my balance instead. “Cassandra Pralent. The little squib girl, ready to clean at the snap of your fingers!” If I had been thinking straight my face would have been bright red right now, but in my present state I merely giggled again.
“Joanna,” the girl said by way of introduction. “Pleasure, I’m sure. You come here often?” She was a Slytherin, after all. From my month of experience they weren’t ones to blurt out their intentions. I wondered what she really wanted.
“Whenever the good Mr. Filch sends me, I come,” I replied. I laughed at my tremendous wit as Joanna raised an eyebrow. “Do you?” This, as well, was fantastically funny in my eyes.
“When the mood takes me,” she said smoothly. Why wasn’t she laughing? Didn’t she see the humor? I did. “It was interesting talking to you, Cassandra.” She nodded at me as she turned to leave. “See you in class.” Then she was gone, the door swinging behind her, and I was laughing again. I fell asleep where I was sitting an hour or so later, having completely ignored both the mess and my essays.
Had I not been temporarily insane, I would have been thrilled that she had actually called me ‘Cassandra’.
Late Bloomer by Just Tink
Chapter Notes: sorry this chapter took so long- my beta and I had a mixup, and with summer it took me a while to write. thanks for waiting!