The Visitor
July 17, 1971
Mary Macdonald hated doing laundry.
There was nothing worse than it. She’d wash Peter and Lucas’s dirty dishes a thousand times over, scrub the outhouse outside, and dust every inch of the flat before she’d ever volunteer to stick her hands in a bucket of dirty water, sick with the grime of the week, and wring out item after item.
You know, she thinks, this wouldn’t be a problem if Mama and Tata hadn’t had so many kids. Louise was near useless, as she was following in the footsteps of Mama, constant aches and pains, barely able to stand some mornings. Naomi wasn’t a prize either, Tata’s favorite, allowed to sit on the couch and read her little novels that she’d probably stolen from a poor schoolgirl terrified of the Soviets from the East End.
At least the boys were old enough to do dishes, and it didn’t all fall on Mary like it had after she’d turned six and had been deemed “useful”. And Sophia wouldn’t be long after them, already nearly five. John wouldn’t be of help ever, probably, more interested in dropping plates than cleaning them. And Mary would be out of the house before the baby or the one on the way were old enough to do anything. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be out within two years, in one of those homes down the street where you get a nickel to do whatever a gentleman pleases.
There was a soft knock on the door, clearly not Tata’s boss or anyone who he owes money. The drinking had gotten out of hand recently, Mary had noticed, but she wasn’t keen on getting shoved into another wall like last week, so she’d kept her mouth shut.
Mama was in bed with Lulu, and Tata spent his whole way to the door grumbling about “days of rest” and how the good Lord wouldn’t make him answer the door, but a devil came to call.
Not a devil at all, but a graying woman in a long green dressing gown with cat eye spectacles and the most peculiar look about her. Tata took one look at her and nearly spit in her face. Mary said a silent thank you that he barely spoke a lick of English, because she put her hand on his shoulder and addressed the woman herself.
“Hello, I think you’ve the wrong house?”
The woman just smiled. “No, my dear, this is quite the right house indeed. You’re Maria Moravec, correct?”
Mary felt something cold run up her spine. It had been nearly seven years since anyone had called her that. What did this woman know?
“Who gave you that name?”
“It's the one we have in the book, dear. Did I pronounce it wrong?”
“Nobody here uses that name.”
“Oh, my apologies.” She turned to go, but Mary felt something calling her to stop the woman from leaving.
“Wait!” she called, running after her, suddenly realizing she had no shoes or jacket. She must have looked a fright, but she knew how important this was. She could feel it. And thank God, the woman turned.
“What I meant to say is that nobody calls me that anymore, ma’am. You see, that’s not really a great name to have around here, you know, where everyone hates the Soviets. So everyone calls me Mary. Mary Macdonald.”
She sees a flash of recognition in the old woman’s eyes, and then a smile.
“Well then, Mary, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Professor McGonagall, and I am the head of Gryffindor House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I’ve come today with an invitation for you to attend. Full cost will be covered, given the financial situation of your family–”
“My family don’t take handouts, Ma’am. We manage just fine.” Mary had heard her father say this a hundred times, and while she’d resented him for turning down dressmakers and good food, she understood when she’d heard the woman. She didn’t enjoy being pitied.
“Mary, I don’t think you’re understanding me. You, my dear, are a witch.”
“Yeah, I’ve been called that loads of times. Never by an adult, though. Bit low.”
“Can you do things that none of the other children can? Things that can’t be explained?”
Mary froze, because she could recall a hundred of these instances. And the woman knew that. There was the boy who’d called her a communist freak and had red skin for the rest of the week. There was the time Lulu had her hair cut off, and Mary made it grow back near immediately. There was–
“You understand me now?” The woman, Professor McGonagall, asked.
“Still not sure you’re not pulling my leg.” Mary said. As much as she wanted it to be true, good things like this didn’t happen to people like her.
“Let me show you something.”
Professor McGonagall pulled out a long stick from under her absurd coat, along with a matchstick. Mary almost thought she was about to offer her a cigarette, until she tapped the match with her stick. Right before Mary’s eyes, it stretched and twisted until it was suddenly a little mouse, near identical to the ones she’d shooed out of the pantry that morning.
“You’re a witch,” Mary whispered.
“And so are you.”
“Well, I can’t do it on purpose. Only when I’m angry, and only by accident.”
“You’ll learn, my dear.”
“At your school?”
“Yes.”
“My parents, they ain’t gonna–”
“Can I speak to them? I believe I can convince them.”
“Not sure you can, Professor.”
“Why not?”
“My da, he only speaks Czech. His English ain’t good enough for any kind of talk ‘bout witches.”
“Good think I spent five years in Prague, my dear.”
Mary couldn’t believe a woman like this had ever been to Prague. Why would she go there, some big, dirty city full of people who hated the government. But she’d never really seen the city, she supposed. Not when she could remember more than the way Mama’s grip tightened on her when they rode in the back of that grain car.
While Mary had been dreaming of returning to Prague and being as wonderfully cultured as this professor, that very professor had marched back up to the door and was arguing with Tata. He walked up to Mary, yanking her inside, yelling unintelligible Czech at her while she stalked back into the room she shared with Louise, Naomi, the twins, and Sophia. It was too good to be true, she realized. She wasn’t fit to be a witch. Tata wouldn’t let her leave anyways.
She could hear snippets of their conversation. The professor was trying to explain to Tata that witches weren’t evil, and that this was free, and that she could even be permitted to come back on weekends. Tata thought the professor was trying to trick him, that she was his most useful child and he couldn’t manage the house without her. SHe could picture Naomi listening in from her place on the couch, too scared to move. Everyone could hear them, their voices growing louder and louder until it very suddenly stopped.
Mary felt cold dread settle in her bones as she heard her father walk up to her, He grabbed her arm, his fingers digging into her skin, and dragged her into the front room, shoving her onto the couch.
“You want her? You really want this one?”
“Sir, she shows exceptionable aptitude–”
“Aptitude? Mary, aptitude? That girl don’t have an intelligent bone in her body. You want aptitude? Lulu’s the smart one. Naomi’s the pretty one. Take a girl you can actually use for somethin’ other than cleanin’.”
Mary had heard this before. But the professor hadn’t, and Mary felt hot shame wash over her as the professor looked at her with pity.
“I’m afraid, sir, that I have to insist on Mary. She was chosen by the book. I have no control over that.”
Her father was about to fly off the handle as he spat the next words. “Fine. Take her. But we don’t want her back.”
“Sir, I have already told you she will be home for breaks, summers, and weekends even during schooling.”
“We don’t need some witch tellin’ us how to run house.”
“Sir, if she really is as ‘useful’ as you claim–”
“Rather have a dirty house than have her in it.”
Mary had been silent for too long.
“Tata, where do we keep the sponges?”
His face got a curious look on it. “I dunno, ask your mama.”
“What if mama’s asleep?”
“Wake her up!”
“What do the twins eat for lunch?”
“I–”
“Where does Naomi go to school?”
“Not my problem.”
“How much laundry do I do? How many dishes? How much dusting, cooking, babysitting–”
“Send her back on Sundays,” Tata said to Professor McGonagall. Mary felt relief spreading through her. She wouldn’t have to leave Lulu or the twins–
“Of course, there is the matter of shopping, and of her arrival to King’s Cross Station. I’ll take her shopping on August 30th, and the train leaves from platform 9 and three quarters–”
“Platform what?” Naomi asks, finally piping up.
“Never you all mind, I will assist Mary along with the other muggle born children at Diagon Alley and KIng’s Cross.”
“Muggle born?” Mary asks.
“Magical children of non magical, or muggle, parents.”
Her father didn’t speak to her for two weeks. Mary had expected him to beat the living shit out of her, so this was a welcome change, but it was still odd. Naomi was being nicer to her, probably figuring Mary could turn her into a rat if she wanted. Lulu and Mama were still kind, Mama perhaps a little more than usual, and everyone else was normal. Tata eventually got over it, but still grumbled about “conniving whores” and “freaks” every once in a while.
Waiting to shop with the professor and these other “muggle borns” was the longest wait of Mary’s life. It wasn’t even particularly worth it.