A Secondhand Life by MagicalMaddie331
Story Notes:
I started this story in July of 2007, having been completely inspired by MagEd's When Darkness Did Surround Us. In January, after having completed writing half of it yet only posting one chapter, my computer crashed and I lost everything. After being completely distressed over the loss of all the writing, I've recently come to terms with it and have been trying to rewrite it bigger and better than ever. Updates are slow but will eventually come more regularly. Thank you so much to everyone who added this to their favorites and has agreed to stick with me for this.
Chapter Notes: I edited this chapter by adding a preface and rounded off with a new title for both the chapter and story. Warnings may or may not be added in the future.
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns/pwns all, everything is hers.
NOTE: The idea for the village is from the communities of Industrial England. I'm a sad history freak. I've edited the last portion of this chapter, go on and have a look.
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.