Chapter 6
10th May 1998
McGonagall sat in her office, deep in thought.
When everything had been cleaned up inside the castle, she had brought out the Book of Admittance. Confiding in the remaining members of the Order of the Phoenix what she had done, she had gone to each of the Muggle-borns’ houses in turn.
Everything seemed to have gone...she wouldn’t have used the term ‘better’, but rather ‘more reasonable’ than she would have thought when it came to the ones who should have started the previous September.
She had gone to Azkaban upon reading the records. To search for what had happened to students sentenced to go there.
A fifteen-year-old student had gone there back in September and he had been given the Kiss, his Muggle family fleeing the country. A sixteen-year-old Muggle-born girl had been caught by Snatchers in November and dragged here, suffering from prolonged exposure to the Imperius Curse. A younger child, a boy of just thirteen, had been shoved inside a cell with six grown adults and had now gone blind.
Only two of the eleven students who had been interrogated had come here, it seemed; Bianca Osborne and Kelly Millward.
McGonagall felt a chill go down her spine as she read that Bianca had been given the Dementor’s Kiss on 8th December. Her body had been thrown into the sea, along with other victims of the Kiss.
Kelly, it appeared, had been released to her home in Norfolk, her parents’ memories modified.
McGonagall had gone straight there.
She had knocked on the door and Kelly’s older brother had answered.
“Can I help you, miss?” he asked.
“David Millward?” she asked. The boy nodded. “I am here from the school that Kelly was due to start at last September.”
“My parents said she was expelled last February,” he seemed confused.
McGonagall waved a hand about, flustered. “I need to speak to your parents, young man. There was a grave mistake and we would like to invite Kelly back.”
Her brother blew out and wiped his hand down the side of his jeans. “I’m sorry, miss...”
“Minerva McGonagall.”
“Minerva, but – Kelly had a spot of bother after her birthday last April. She was having nightmares and screamed if people came near her. She wasn’t making sense and she – my sister stopped using full sentences.”
“I promise you,” McGonagall assured him, “that we can give Kelly the help she needs.”
“She is getting the help she needs, in Wells-by-the-Sea,” David explained, “My parents sent her to a mental hospital.”
McGonagall then shouted something that she would never say in front of her students.
“Merlin’s testicles!”
Kelly Millward was currently in her bedroom. The bed, duvet, vanity set and cupboards were all eggshell white, as were the loose pyjamas she was wearing.
Her hair hung down her back instead of in bunches and her green eyes were deep and lifeless. She didn’t smile, according to the nurses, and hadn’t smiled since she came here. She wouldn’t speak very much either, mainly just ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. When she had been asked to draw what was troubling her, she had drawn what the staff had called the Grim Reaper.
They also said that Kelly had had nightmares before she arrived, but after she came, they intensified. She screamed, hit, bit and scratched and wept loudly. She tore at her clothes with her teeth and hit the walls, even running across the wall in her pyjamas one night. Medication couldn’t soothe her and she spent most of the time in her room staring at the television.
When McGonagall sat down on the end of the girl’s bed, the frail twelve-year-old looking glumly back at her, the teacher tried to explain.
“Kelly, do you understand that you were chosen to attend the school?”
Kelly nodded.
“And that – something happened that shouldn’t have happened?”
Another nod.
“Kelly, what happened to you was not your fault. You do understand that?”
Kelly nodded again, holding her teddy close.
“Your parents should never have sent you here. They thought they were doing the right thing, but they weren’t to know. Kelly, you are a witch, no matter what anyone says. I just wish you the best.”
As McGonagall turned to leave, Kelly spoke.
“Bianca.”
McGonagall looked at Kelly curiously. Kelly had lined up some of teddies on her bed. Three big ones and two tiny ones. She placed the tiny ones together by her cushions, using one of them to hold their stubby arms around the other.
“Bianca Osborne?” McGonagall queried.
Kelly looked up. Then she pushed one of the bigger teddies off the bed and then the tiny teddy that had been holding the other. Kelly made little airplane noises as the other tiny teddy flew in her hand and on to another cushion.
“You do understand that Bianca is dead, don’t you, Kelly?” McGonagall tried to ease her way into knowing how much Kelly would work out in her addled mind.
Kelly nodded. Then she waved goodbye with her hand to the teddies on the floor.
McGonagall knew that this girl would never be well enough to go to Hogwarts. But she could do something.
A few weeks later, Kelly was back at home. Her mind had been completely damaged and she would never be able to look after herself, but if she wasn’t locked away then she might become slightly better, McGonagall had decided.
It was the least she could do.
1st September 1998
Marcus Dawes, Lucy Zhang and Zachary Small-Bone stood in the Great Hall as the Sorting Hat sent eleven-year-olds to their tables.
Marcus was sent to Ravenclaw. Zachary went to Ravenclaw. Lucy went to Hufflepuff.
The Sorting Hat’s song was generally about conquering evil and being true to one’s self, to which the teachers agreed that nothing could be more applicable.
The three students were told that if they had any issues with blood purity, they could talk to Hermione Granger or Ginny Weasley about their problems.
But even when they did, the three of them felt terrible about those terrible days.
Marcus was blossoming into a talented young wizard, with high marks and a keen interest in Charms. Lucy still kept in contact with Monica, although she used Muggle post. Likewise, Zachary spoke to Jessie and Finn, who were also firm friends with each other.
But Marcus only made it to his third year. He said that he kept having nightmares every night, of being lost and his of his parents being tortured for information. Of Monica’s words ringing in his head.
Of what he heard had happened to Bianca and how that had almost been him.
He apologised to his teachers, but said that he couldn’t stay here anymore.
Lucy left the next year. She said that many pureblood students hadn’t been picking her as such, but left her out of games and activities. Other students, from pureblood and half-blood background, were too afraid to hang out with her in case of retaliation.
McGonagall had had strict words with her year about it, but Lucy didn’t want to be a bother. She left after her exams had finished. She didn’t know if she was going back to the Muggle world. But given her age it was more likely than not.
Only Zachary made it to graduation. He collected his certificate and started looking for a job in Diagon Alley instantly.
But the fact that these eleven students had had to suffer when they could have just as easily have been left alone and ignored by wizardkind was damage enough.
Kelly, Monica, Jessie, Finn, John, Flora and Ava all wanted to know more about the mysterious world that lay at their doorstep, the one they had been invited to be a part of.
A world, as it turned out, that they could never belong. An endless reminder of what had happened to them and showed how cruel both worlds could be.
Because prejudice comes in all shapes and forms, just as humans come in all shapes and forms. While prejudice is something that, despite all of our best efforts, can never go away, and will never go away, it should be kept inside rather than used to let others suffer.