An Early Fright
The following is an excerpt from the diary of one Miss Hermione Granger, dated October of 1872.
I
An Early Fright
“Such lore as makes us cover our heads when the door cracks suddenly, or the flicker of an expiring candle makes the shadow of a bedpost dance upon the wall, nearer to our faces.”
I was very young indeed when my father brought us to this place. Although I bear an English name, I cannot honestly say that I remember anything of that distant Island which my forbearers called home. My father was in the service, and returned to find himself a widower. Consumption took from him the brightest flower in his English living and so he chose another. Here in Styria, my father’s pension makes us nigh on wealthy, although our same income would hardly elevate us to the middle class back ‘home’; whatever than means to a girl of twenty.
It is a lonely place, and undeveloped I am told, in comparison with the great civilizations of the world. But there is great beauty here, and we have a castle all our own, surrounded by a great old forest of hills and beautiful vistas. No place could be more lovely, or more lonely. Atop a hill we sit, surrounded by trees but with only one road. It passes from east to west in front of our estate, following the natural wend of the small valley through the foothills. A marvelous blue lake takes up most of the front lawn, full of fish and waterfowl. Reflected amongst the lilies one can see the many windows and high towers of this medieval estate.
We are well and truly alone here. For fifteen miles in one direction and twelve in the other, we have no neighbors but the sentinel pines. Abutting the woods to the East there is a small village where my father sometimes passes the afternoon at the little inn, exchanging news. To the West the closest living souls reside twenty miles or more down the road.
I say ‘living’ because only three miles from here is an abandoned village, its former grandeur making it all the more desolate to look upon, with its collapsed stone and rusted iron accoutrements. In the graveyard of the staunch little chapel which, excepting most of the roof, has withstood its neglect from all but nature, lay the familial tombs of the Parkinescues, now extinct, whose proud name was once considered the foremost in the surrounding area. Their crumbling estate is set on a rocky overlook which presides over what remains of the little town, once called Gaunt. It is a melancholy sort of place, and one where I often draw the shutters of the carriage when passing through, especially on foggy evenings, when the trees dance shadows through the lights of the carriage lanterns so that it feels as if the spirits are dancing - or writhing - there.
What became of the place is still a mystery to me, though not to some. My excellent father, however, has become increasingly protective over me in the years after my mother’s passing, and will speak no word of the events which transpired there a century or more ago, which lead me to believe that the story is an exceedingly unpleasant one.
Within our large household we are yet a very small party: My father, Amos, whose wisdom is starting to show itself in the graying of his hair and beard, my nurse, Madame Pomfrey, my maidservant, Ms. Trelawney, and myself. In the village due East there are two or three other girls my age who make themselves occasional visitors to our home, and I to their in return. Aside from these few, I have grown into my present state of youthful adulthood almost entirely alone.
One of my earliest memories is also one of my most discomfiting. As with all stately manors such as this, I was weaned in the nursery room, which occupies the better part of the upper West wing. I cannot have been older than 6 on this night, when some noise or sensation pulled me from sleep and caused me to sit up in my bed. A happy child, I had never known cause to fear, and I looked about expectantly.
At first I thought myself alone, and recall preparing to cry out in truculent outrage at my being left unattended, when at the corner of my bed I espied the somber but beautiful face of a young woman. Upon seeing me she moved to lay beside me and drew me into her embrace. It soothed me and I fell immediately back to sleep. A sudden pain awoke me once again and suddenly the woman beside me was older, more regal and yet more terrible to look at, and with an expression more sinister than the sobriety which had lulled me back to sleep. Once she saw me looking at her, and my young lungs preparing to cry heartily out, she slipped beneath the bed in what I can only describe as a slither as I screamed as loud as I could for my nursemaid.
She, the governess, and the housekeeper all came sweeping in to hear my sobs and my story. They made light of my story, but even at such a young age I could perceive the terror in the housekeeper’s eyes - she is the only one of us of local descent. Furthermore, upon inspection, the women noted the indent in the bedding beside me, larger than my own form. As to the pain I felt they could find no cause and no source aside from two small pinpricks in the flesh of my right arm. But from that night on I have never slept alone, and I developed a certain nervousness that I’m sure I wouldn’t have been burdened by otherwise.
For my father’s part, he heard my story with patience and then laughed at it in such a way that I knew he thought it was a dream, and nothing my 6 year old self could say could convince him otherwise. But I remember the face, and I remember how it changed. The indent in my bed was filled that night by the nursemaid, but the pricks on my arm remained for weeks afterwards, a reminder to me that what had occurred was not a creation of my subconscious. This was how I learned to fear, as well as the first time I realized that I did not want to be alone.