"Seirian Macnair!"
Smack.
I let out an involuntary whimper at the cruel blow I received from my father. The ruler's sting sharpened when I moved my hands to inspect the wounds. The backs of my hands were an eye-smarting shade of red, and the smack had reopened several old wounds, which were now trickling delicate streams of blood.
I managed to tear my gaze away from my injuries and stared up into the angry face above me. The blue eyes, so like mine in color, but utterly different in their expression and shape: cunning and narrow, cruel and full of hatred, directed at me.
That's usually how it is in my house.
"Stupid chit, are you actually going to try the spell or not?" my father, Nero Macnair, growled. "Do it."
I tried to ignore the pain and raised my wand, aiming it at the quite innocent toadstool in front of me. Whoever thought turning a toadstool into a toad on a stool would make life easier was horribly, completely wrong.
Gamely, I muttered a few words and waved my wand at the mushroom. To my surprise, it worked. The amphibian gazed up at me beadily and croaked.
My father inspected my work, then rounded on me and slapped me across the face. "That's a bloody frog! And did I not specifically say a three-legged stool, not four?" His face was red and contorted with rage.
I carefully rubbed my stinging face and fought to remain calm. "I'm sorry, sir," I said quietly.
"You damn well better be," he snarled viciously. He checked his watch and paled a bit. "It's lunchtime. Get out of my sight."
He was letting me out early. Must be meeting with one of his 'clients,' I thought wryly. Quiet and innocent as I seemed, I picked up on more than anyone suspected, and knew my father was a shady character.
Not, I thought bitterly, that it takes a genius to realize that. It's easy to see that my father is an utter tyrant.
I turned to leave, but stopped, braced myself, and faced my father again. "Sir, may I ask a question?"
"Make it quick."
"Sir, I–I was just wondering a-about something, and I, um…"
"Fast!" he roared, his temper already flaring.
"I wanted to know why I'm not allowed to go Hogwarts, and Walden is," I spat out desperately.
Seeing the expression on his face, I suddenly wanted to be far, far away.
He started walking towards me slowly, a dangerous, predatory sway. "You want to know why you can't go to Hogwarts, and Walden can."
A statement. I nodded hesitantly, swallowing a lump in my throat and tensed to bolt.
"I'll tell you why," he continued, in a soft, almost pleasant voice.
I knew then that I was in deep trouble.
"You're not allowed to go to Hogwarts because Dumbledore is a useless, worthless, and utterly gormless old idiot. A disgrace to wizardkind. The headmaster of an environment that I would not put a weak, easily-influenced female — " he spat out the word as if it tasted rancid " — into. My children must remain untainted by Mudblood worship. And Walden is only there to be my eyes, my ears, my source of…new recruits."
I didn't ask who he was recruiting, and for what.
"Oh. I see," I murmured politely.
"I see, sir!" he screamed suddenly, and violently backhanded me across the face, so hard that I flew backwards out of the open door.
The stairs were right outside the door.
My foot caught on the edge of the landing, and desperately I tried to regain my balance. It was no use. I continued to plummet backwards, headfirst, down the stairs, bumping and jarring and adding even more pain to my already battered body.
To my own distant surprise, I was overjoyed when I smashed my head on the edge of the bottom stair and sank into blissful darkness…
~*~
"Seiri?"
The cool trickling of water on my aching head awoke me, and I forced my throbbing eyelids to open. I stared at my mother above me, who gazed back at me uncertainly. My mother is nowhere near as heartless as my father, but she's also not really sure how to be a mother.
I sat up with some effort. I was in my bed, in my room. The dingy walls and somber surroundings were my own.
I turned to my mother again, who was sitting tensely, ready to bolt should I start crying, or worse, try to hug her. "Why does he hate me?" I asked drearily, knowing that she would not be able to answer the question. I asked this every time he injured me like this.
And, as usual, my mother's face closed up, and she rose, backing toward the door. "I-I can't answer, I don't know…" And she was gone.
And I was alone. Again.
I gingerly got to my feet, wincing as they touched the cold floor, and hobbled to my mirror to take stock of my injuries.
A bruised face greeted me. There was a red welt on one pale cheek from when he slapped me, and a long, ugly bruise from his brutal blow on the other.
Without the marks, my face might have been pleasant. I would never be pretty: my face was too round, nose too long, complexion too pale. My hair cascaded to my shoulders in soft, dark-auburn curls, more brown than red. My eyes, huge and dark blue, made me appear more innocent than I actually was.
Across my left temple was a puckered white scar from when my father threw a paperweight at me when I was nine. I dodged in time for it only to leave an open cut. Had my reflexes been any slower, it would have undoubtedly killed me. Across my jaw on the same side was another long scar from when he had backhanded me with his large signet ring on his finger.
There was a mark on my neck from when my father's friend had held a knife to my throat last year. And around my neck, like a collar, was a never-fading series of bruises from when my father nearly strangled me, because it was, according to him, my fault that his friend had threatened me so.
I lived a damaged life.
Sighing, I sat on my bed again, brooding. My twin brother, Walden, was to return home from Hogwarts in two weeks, enjoying a summer holiday, whereas I would be schooled throughout the course of the entire summer.
I wasn't sure whether I was happy that my brother was coming home or not. We had once been close, but every year we grew further apart, until he barely talked to me. I was afraid he would soon begin take my father's side.
Dreamily, I thought about his tales of Hogwarts. Oh, to live a life in which I didn't have need to fear anything! I didn't know what that was. I could barely imagine it.
I thought of the four Houses of Hogwarts, and what the stood for: brave Gryffindor, wise Ravenclaw, cunning Slytherin, and caring Hufflepuff.
My mouth quirked wryly. I didn't belong anywhere. I was not brave — if I was, I would have stood up to my father long ago. Besides, an oppressed life had gradually made me quiet and shy. I was not particularly intelligent, nor was I stupid. I feared I was not shrewd enough to be in Slytherin.
And Hufflepuff? Caring Hufflepuff?
In the silence of my room, I started laughing bitterly.
I didn't know how to care anymore.