Chapter 2
the girl awoke to a figure sitting beside her on the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight as her eyes adjusted to the warm light that filled the room, sunlight pouring through the open windows, fresh chilled air ghosting over her skin carrying the scent of frost and damp leaves. her eyelids fluttered open and the figures gaze snapped to her, blue eyes filled with concern as the figure- the woman- brought a hand down, skin warm and soft as she placed it upon the girls forehead. she kept her tough light, gentle, yet took a few moments to pull away. she opened her mouth, words forming and flowing out of her rosebud lips yet they seemed to flow around the girl, seeping into one ear and out the other but not sticking, an undecipherable flow of noise that carried no weight, no meaning.
she spoke again, and again the words evaded the girl, as if slipping through the cracks of her mind, not lingering long enough that she could make sense of them, just passing through long enough that she could identify the woman had spoken, voice low and soothing. the woman simply smiled gently at her, then moved her hand and reached for a plate behind her, smooth pale blue ceramic that held two slices of toast, generously buttered and topped with a thick layer of bright red jam which she placed onto the wooded bedside table with a slight thud.
the girls eyes slid slowly to the plate, then back to the roof, unseeing. she felt the woman briefly squeeze her hand, hand warm against her own and then rise from the bed, mattress bouncing back into shape as she retreated from the room. the girl closed her eyes against the streaming sunlight and let the darkness take her once more.
when she awoke again, the room was once again shadowed in darkness, curtains drawn, yet a glow persisted from somewhere in the centre of the room. she slid her eyes to its source, vision focusing on a singular small lamp perched on top of the nearest bedside table, casting stark shadows in the spaces the light failed to illuminate. the first thought that filtered into her sleep addled mind was that she was thirty- very thirsty.
she tried to swallow, attempting to alleviate the dryness of her throat with any saliva she could muster, but her mouth was equally as dry and caused her chest to constrict, throat tightening as a hoarse cough forced its way out of her cracked lips. she swivelled her head, nestled into the two plush pillows she had rested it upon the first time she had sagged onto the bed and hadn’t moved it since, and brought her gaze to the side table upon which rested a full glass of water and a pile of toast, along with a bowl of thick stew and slightly chipped spoon.
her mouth watered at the sight of the drink and she slowly raised an arm, fingers curling around the tall glass and brining it towards her starved mouth. she shifted her body slightly, movements heavy as she used all the meagre energy contained in her wasted frame to bring the rim of the glass to her lips, swallowing a mouthful of crisp cool water. she felt it fill her mouth as she swallowed, trickling down her throat and pooling down in her stomach, settling there as a small, constant weight. she took another gulp, then another until the glass was empty, teeth clacking shakily against its rim as she withdrew it from her trembling frame, water dribbling from her chin from her eagerness to drain it, droplets streaking down her neck and dampening her soft cotton shirt she was clad in.
she didn’t know when she had changed into it, or who had changed her into it. she didn’t care. the moment the glass was clutched between both hands it began to fill again, water materialising from thin air and filling it until almost the very top before suddenly halting. she felt something lurch violently inside her gut, a sudden all consuming instinct to get away, palms becoming clammy and heart hammering in her chest to the point of pain as she realised what she just witnessed.
magic.
the sudden urge to fling the glass as far away from her as she could manage was so overwhelming her fingers clenched against it until her knuckles were white and bloodless. she squeezed her eyes shut, body trembling so violently that water began to slosh over the edge of the glass, splattering the duvet she was tucked underneath and staining the effected fabric a dark grey, pools of water growing like pools of blood. she forced a small breath through her nose then out, repeating the motion until she could manage to open her eyes. carefully, slowly, she brought the glass back up to her lips, forcing them open and to swallow the water, allowing it to fill her mouth before swallowing. gulping down the first mouthful she managed three more until her thirst was slightly mollified, returning the glass to the table and sliding back down from where the had been leaning against the headrest to a lying position.
there was magic here. magic.
she forced her thoughts to quiet, to empty out of her head as if grains of sand slipping through her calloused fingers as she allowed herself to slip back into that familiar numbness that had been coating to her like glue since long before she had came to this new place. this new prison.
she ignored the food on the table. she wondered that if she simply didn’t eat she would be able to wither away, to starve her heart until it couldn’t beat anymore. she hoped so.
she waited for oblivion to claim her once more.
________________________
she sensed the two bodies accompanying her in the room this time before she fully rose from consciousness. she kept her breaths constant, allowing herself a few heartbeats to adjust to her setting. she was used to this- how to monitor her surroundings without being noticed. it was how she had survived for so long.
in and out.
in and out.
in and out.
she registered the weight of a blanket upon her thin frame first. thick and warm, not the rough scape of bleached material she was used to. the ground she was lying upon wasn’t hard either, but pillowy and sagging slightly underneath her slight weight. not ground, but a mattress. she was on a bed. the two bodies were close to her own, standing somewhere to her left, breaths barely audible in the otherwise quiet room. she cracked an eye open, then the other, blinking against the pale orange of the sun’s rays that poured into the bedroom through the open curtains, the windows behind them shut and keeping the chilled winter air at bay. her vision focused, and she found herself looking upon two women, both who’s eyes where already fixed upon her own, the first pair blue and slightly familiar, the second deep brown and not.
the woman who those eyes belonged to opened her mouth, addressing her in a gentle tone, words coaxing although she couldn’t decipher them. didn’t care enough to. the girl blinked up at them, the familiar blue eyed woman turning to the other and speaking slowly. she was clad in a faded red apron paired with a white blouse rolled up to her pale elbows, blond hair twisted into a messy undo that allowed certain strands to slip free and frame her face. the second woman was dressed in all white, skin dark and hair darker, twisted into elegant braids and pinned back with thick silver combs that drew attention to her delicate boned face, lashes dark and eyes carefully neutral as they took the child in. she stepped forwards, movements slow yet purposeful as she positioned herself at the edge of the bed, head tilted down to observe the girl cocooned within it. small brown smooth skinned hands reached down, gently cupping her face and she blinked at the contact, unresponsive and uncaring before she felt it.
the hands glowed, a pale white glow emitting from them as if the flesh had been lit up from inside, magic pulsing from them and brushing onto the girls’ cheeks in rapid pulses, brushing against her skin, assessing. healing magic.
magic.
terror slammed into her with the force of a crashing wave, surrounding her, suffocating her, choking her, so overwhelming that she could do nothing but jerk out of the reach of that cursed touch as if it was scalding, a ragged cry dislodging itself from somewhere deep within her ribs, ripping out of her throat as she scrambled back as fast as she could manage on her weakened limbs, tangling in the sheets with the force of her movements. the hands withdrew rapidly, the eyes they belonged to wide with shock as the girl kept scrabbling back, breaths punching out of her getting faster and faster as she attempted to flee from those hands, from the magic they contained.
she would have cried out then, if she was able. would have begged for them to stop, to leave, to get that away from her. would have screamed if her hoarse vocal cords where able to summon any speech anymore. yet there unable, so the only protests she was able to manage was another strangled whimper, heart hammering against her ribcage with enough force it could crack it open and escape from the horrifying force that seemed to flood the room, pulsing thick through the air, chocking her breath from her lungs. the magic swelled, and the last thing she registered was it surging towards her, white light searing her pupils.
she felt nothing after that.
the days past in a haze after that, blurring together in flashes of consciousness, grainy memories of people dressed in white robes and assessing eyes, assessing touches, soft white glows emitting from their skin and sinking into her own. years after, she would look back at those first few weeks housed at ashton road with the family who had taken her in, attempting to pick apart any solid memory. they were always blurry, tainted with the overwhelming numbness that had clung to her when she had first arrived, smudged as if looking back at them through a greased window panel, sporadic and disjointed to the point she couldn’t tell where one started and another stopped. a few ones stood out to her, those that where more solid in their edges, ones that nestled in the back of her brain, burrowing in deep within the soft pink matter.
the first time she had voluntarily eaten was one of these memories, sharper than the rest of the hazy ones that seemed to fleet past her. she wasn’t clear how long it had been since she had first arrived at the house, malnourished and mute, empty eyed and hollow as if a gnarled hand had stuffed its chipped fingernails down the soft flesh of her throat and scooped out her delicate insides, leaving only a discarded shell of a girl in its wake. it had been a thursday when she had voluntarily eaten for the first time. that was always the first thing that stuck out to her when she looked back upon it, as she had heard the voices of the mind healers and regular healers further down the hallway, arguing with a firm voiced ms mckinnon, tones raising and falling like the lapping of waves against a shore. she had started registering things that was said at this point, the numbness retreating enough that her brain was finally able to process the meaning behind the words that seemed to flow around her.
they had not realised this yet as she never bothered speaking back- at least not yet. she hadn’t found the will to dredge up any speech until six months since she arrived at the mckinnon household. she hadn’t been keeping count of course, but ms mckinnon- margret, when asked had told her later on how long it had taken hazel to speak. she had told her that she never doubted that she would eventually start speaking, but even if she never spoke again, she would love her regardless, no matter if she spoke a thousand words a day, or none at all.
it had taken weeks, but the numbness had started ebbing from her body, seeping from her marrow and leaving a brutal, overwhelming awareness in its place. she had hated this awareness when she had started noticing it, hated that it brought back all the emotions, all the pain and memories the numbness had shielded her from. a positive from this gained consciousness, of course, was that she was finally able to process her surroundings and what those were saying to her. it was this that lead her to discover that the family she had housed in where called the mckinnons, and that the woman, the first of the clan she had come into contact to was called margret, a rosy cheeked mother just shy of thirty. the second initial discovery this awareness had led to was her remembering her name. hazel. she was called hazel. her parents had christened her that after a great grandmother who had passed long before hazel has been born.
the third discovery, was that her parents were dead.
it was the fourth discovery however, that lead to her eating by herself for the first time. at the time she had been unaware that the healers had been feeding her for the past few weeks during her bouts of numbness, using these periods to similarly assess her physical condition with healing magic, using it to strengthen her weakened bones and fraying muscles, bringing her body from malnourished to a stable condition. it was the fact that she had made no effort to voluntarily eat that was causing the argument outside her room now, margaret’s voice rising as she snapped back at the healers’ placating tones. they were far enough away from the solid wood of her bedroom door that she was unable to make out what exactly was being said, only being able to pick up on the snatches of the conversation.
a jolt of ice-cold fear spiked through her as she realised what they were discussing. realised what it could mean. would they send her back? did they interoperate her lack of interest in purposefully surviving as disobedient? hazel knew what happened to her before she was brought here when she was disobedient. knew that punishment would follow close behind, the two tied together with an invisible chain. where one went, the other came after. she knew then in that moment, on a thursday morning sometime in early january (she had heard the healers discussing the date a couple hours ago as one of the male ones-a wizard, was planning on taking a break from the ministry to begin the process of transferring to the aurora department, though she had no idea what any of that meant), that she would not let them send her back. not to the place that dumbledor had found her in, had rescued her from. she knew in the very marrow of her bones, in the blood that pumped through her veins that she would not let anyone send her back. yet was this what the mckinnons where planning? where they finally believing her to be a lost cause? hopeless? she had to prove that she was worthwhile. that she was not a disappointment. but how?
‘…she has already been making progress since she first arrived, you can hardly expect her to start feeding herself so early...’
it was ms mckinnon- margret, voice clear before dropping in pitch, muffling the rest of the sentence. none of the adults had bothered with a silencing charm, as they had not yet realised that she was able to now absorb the words spoken around her, brain finally latching onto them instead of filtering them out.
that was it, she thought to herself. a way to prove she was worth keeping around, if only for a little bit longer. she had to eat.
she drew her gaze to the table beside her bed, holding a glass of charmed refilling water and bowl of now cold soup, untouched in the past few hours it has sat upon its surface. she shifted her body into a sitting position, fresh sheets shifting and pooling in her lap as she reached thin arms towards it, grasping the cold bowl in one hand and the metal spoon placed beside it in another. she rested both in her lap, taking a moment to look at the bowls contents. the soup within was pale yellow in colour, dotted with small chunks of vegetables that floated in its surface, its thyme and creamy scents wrapping itself around her. dipping the spoon in, she brought the first mouth full to her chapped lips, hesitating slightly before taking a deep breath and swallowing it.
she knew that it must be strongly seasoned yet could detect none of them on her taste buds, the soup thick and ashy upon her tongue. it was creamy though; far nicer than the watery broth they had fed her before dumbledore had found her. she swallowed, feeling the contents slither down her throat and into her otherwise empty stomach, forcing herself to repeat the motion, actions stiff and robotic. still, she persisted until the bowl was empty, then washed the contents down with several large gulps of water from the glass that immediately refilled the moment she placed it back upon the worn wooden table.
she waited then, hands folded in her lap until margret and one of the accompanying healers entered her room. heard the soft inhale of surprise as the clean bowl, the hope that she found blooming in those large blue eyes that regarded her. they were both smiling. she was unable to return the gesture, unsure if her lips remembered the motions required, but both adults seemed unperturbed. it was the first time that she had arrived here that she felt a stirring of something within her that wasn’t cold despair or crushing emptiness. this was lighter, fluttering somewhere within her chest. not relief, but something akin to it.
maybe they would not find her worthless after all.
the second clear memory she had of this period was of the first time she met marlene.
it was easter break, the previously silent house once again filled with the commotion of its four noisy occupants and fifth silent one now that both mckinnon children where back from their school for the week, rocouse laughter and loud voices filling the corridors.
it had been early morning, the heavy dawn only just lifting from the pink filled horizon and allowing soft sunlight and pale blue sky to take its place as hazel slipped through the backdoor adjust to the kitchen, still filled with the scent of roast meats and rosemary from the evening meal before and into the garden, feet bare sinking into the dew damp new grass. the air was crisp, wrapping around her and down her throat, cleansing and pure as it entered her lungs, soft birdsongs filtering overhead as they took nest in the branches above, twisted twigs and dirt smeared worms clutched in beaks.
she was clad in an oversized quidditch jumper belonging to margrets son, danny, the thick red material frayed at the edges of the sleeves that swallowed her chilled hands, warm crimson wool halting at the top of her legs, which were covered in loose checkered pyjamas bottoms pooling around her feet slightly, damp bleeding into the material that came into contact with the wet grass.
she paused just outside the patio where the dark slate tiles halted and met the grass, lingering in the blissful calm that only ever emerged in those precious minutes where the dawn bled into day. she let her lids filter close, breathing in deeply, allowing the serenity of her surroundings to seep into her, grounding her. this had been her routine over the past week or so, to wake up before the day had and make her slow decent to the quiet garden, in which she would sit on the edge of the patio watching the rest of the world slowly wake up around her. she had taken to wandering the garden, silent as a wraith like the tales her mother used to read to her years ago. lifetimes ago.
today was different though. today she was not alone.
she heard the back door creaking open first, then a patter of light footsteps as they halted, evidently noticing her presence.
‘your outside’
it was marlene, margrets youngest child, the same age as hazel who’s voice greeted her, voice surprisingly gruff and sleep addled. it was phrased as a statement not a question, so hazel didn’t reply, not that she would have regardless.
this was the first time she had encountered the girl. she thought she might have a hazy memory of a pale face wrapped in shadows, wide eyes peering at her through the open crack of a bedroom door the night she had first arrived, although she could not be certain if it was dream or not. it was hard to tell from those first few weeks, what was reality and what wasn’t.
hazel waited for the girl to retreat back in doors, yet she was simply met with silence. then the footsteps began again, nearing until marlene reached her, pausing slightly before she lowered herself to where hazel sat. she was silent, shooting glances at hazel that she didn’t bother returning, simply keeping her eyes on the garden and its slowly awakening wildlife before her. at the edge of the patio a stout brown slug began its slow passage towards the grass, leaving a shiny train in its wake. hazel tracked it.
‘mum says you dont speak.’
another statements that was similarly met with silence. it was true, hazel still hadn’t uttered a single word since arriving here. hadn’t found anything worthwhile to say. sometimes she wondered if she had forgotten how to, if her unused vocal cords had simply forgotten the movements. she didn’t particularly care either way.
a rustling, then marlene produced a small gold wrapped object from her pocket, brining it towards hazel. she drew her attention away from the slug that had now reached the green blades and brought her eyes to the object in front of her. small and oddly shaped, the golden foil wrapping it glowing in the soft morning light.
‘its a chocolate frog.’ marlene explained at hazels silence. ‘we get them at hogwarts. try one, they’re really good.’
at hazels lack of response marlene withdraws here hand slightly and began to unwrap the object, revealing smooth milk chocolate that she once again extended towards hazel. she looked at it for a moment, then back at the offering girl. golden eyes meeting large blue ones. she blinked. marlene blinked back.
she slowly extended her hand, fingers circling around the chocolate and taking it from marlene, brining it towards her lap. it looked nice. she could not remember the last time she had eaten chocolate. could not remember if she liked it or not. looking down at the small edible frog, she decided she wanted to find out.
snapping a small piece off, she brought it to her mouth and swallowed, rich chocolate melting on her tongue and sweetening her lips. it was good. really good. she broke off a larger piece, eating that too before passing it back to the watching girl. marlene took it, breaking off her own piece and swallowing.
hazel looked at her. marlene looked back.
‘you have really pretty eyes.’
hazel just waited until marlene extended the half-eaten frog back to her, taking off another chunk.
they sat there together on the cool stone tiles in the awakening morning, shoulders inches apart, splitting chocolate between them until their fingers were sticky and stomachs full.
somewhere high above, the birds began to sing.