Disclaimer: of course i own the harry potter books!
Who doesn't?! i mean, there right up there on my book shelf! i can see them from here! wait...that's not what you meant was it...? ...they really should make stuff like this more clear...right er..well no i do not own anything you may recognize, most likely JK Rowling does...that lucky duck...
AN: Hello and welcome to chapter 2 i have nothing to really say except thank you for getting this far and remember to please review once you get to the end and ask your self if you should take the time to write a response. Please take the time!! i don't mind is you say mean stuff! ...well actually i do but if you must please give it to my nicely if you can :)
CHAPTER 2: …Changed
Nettie’s point of view.
For those few hours until I was to go live with my grandmother I never spoke a word and just sat in a long white room with many office cubicles and workers too busy to look my way twice. I didn’t want to live with my grandmother because let’s face the facts, for one she is the most horrible person I know for many reasons, two she hated my father and in extension hates me also, three I just had a bad feeling that I would not have a good life while living in that house.
And I didn’t.
I was apparited to the door step of a dark blue home in London. Not too big and not to small the house looked as if it should have more people living in it then two, yet had the air of never being lived in before, as if it was newly built. The man who apparited me seemed distracted and had not noticed the glare my elderly grandmother had given me upon the grand door opening. She smiled a one toothed smile at the man, said a few sentiments of how horribly dreadful the tragedy was, grabbed my arm roughly, and without further ado slammed the door on the still distracted shocked man.
Over the months I lived there, my grandmother had not feed me more than a few breed slices a day while muttering angrily to herself about the air I was so greedily breathing. To get away from her deadly cane she would whack me with constantly I would walk around London looking for Diagon Alley thinking that when I found it I could buy some clothes easily forgetting the money I would need for that. Sure I still had the clothes and belongings from home but grandmother did not approve of stuffed animals or games or anything fun for that matter. And for the clothes I was growing fast and needed to get bigger sizes or I would forever be severely uncomfortable.
My grandmother got so fed up with my complaining that she gave me a few Galleons a month from then on for clothes and a better diet. Worst guardian ever. I mean really, who does that? An 8 year old almost 9 year old needs love and care, and her under care has made me smaller and paler than nature had intended. Not to mention the bruises I got from the deadly cane.
On my 9th birthday I used my saved up money and bought a few sundresses. They were the easiest thing to buy as they were shirts and pants in one for the price of one at any cheap children’s store. I went for quantity, not quality, so I had gotten them to last until I could buy more clothes of variety. It was also on my birthday; wearing a new bright purple dress did I finally found a familiar pub. I remember feeling the warmest feeling I had felt in almost a year as I walked straight to the entrance at the back. Luckily somebody was in the middle of opening it and all I had to do was watch quietly as the man preformed the complicated wand movements. When he was done I squeezed past him without him even noticing an underfed little girl overwhelmed by the happy shoppers.
That day a lot of things happened. Please don’t think anything bad of me for what I’m about to tell you because I know it was wrong and yes I do regret almost everything I have done, but at the time it was necessary. I had picked up the joy of stealing. I needed food, my stomach was making that much clear and I had spent all my money on my new wardrobe. My two options were to stick it out and go home, eat my scraps and become even hungrier or to steal a bag of dragon fired warm chestnuts from the roadside vendor across from Flourish and Blotts. I chose the latter in case you haven’t been paying attention and those chestnuts were the best thing to pass through my mouth in so long I had forgotten what it was like to enjoy eating. And so my survival hobby had begun.
I stole a lot. Mostly food to keep me going, but sometimes I stole clothes and even colored pencils to entertain me when stuck at home. I went to Diagon Alley even more just to look at the happy faces of the children my age. I wanted a friend and even more I wanted a friend I could be happy with. I began noticing a boy my age who went to Diagon Alley as much as I went. He was always dressed in expensive clothes that could feed me for a month. He never smiled though, and despite his obvious wealth I could sense more to him then what meets the eye. He was always there throughout the rest of my 9th year and my 10th and not once did I even say hello but more than I can count did we meet eye contact. I could tell he was curious about me and me about him but we still didn’t speak.
Once I turned 11 years old every day until I was to get my letter felt like an eternity. I didn’t know when Hogwarts letters were supposed to come but I couldn’t help but give up once the summer drew to a close. On the day I had finally gotten my letter I had almost given up all hope when an owl carrying none other than my acceptance letter promptly flew right into the window next to my small bed waking me up from a peaceful sleep. Once seeing the Owl shaking its head I had jumped up out of bed and rushed over to let it in. Once in the bird nipped my hand as if placing the window in that exact place was a deliberate plow to make its head suffer. The owl placed the letter neatly in my outstretched hand and flew out of the now open window with dignity. Before opening it I first had dressed in my favorite outfit, a baby doll blue shirt courtesy of a much needed “shopping spree” and a pair of jean shorts I had gotten the month before. Grandma Evil as I so creatively dubbed her was still asleep when I got my letter despite the noise the bird had made.
My letter had finally came, the letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to be exact. I was so happy I started jumping up and down singing a song about the joys of leaving my own personal hell hole until next year. I had heard so much about Hogwarts since I could talk and walk as my father had gone there and loved it. He told me to take the bad with the good and that is what I intended to do. No more self pitying! I was going to enjoy Hogwarts if it was the last thing I did and forget about my past as much I could. No more stealing either! Well that is until I got all my Hogwarts supplies. It would be a new beginning for me. I would be able to smile a real smile. As I jumped and sang and thought of my new promising future another eager 11 year happened to be jumping up and down and thinking of his own future. A future that included his own beliefs and not the beliefs of robot parents and horrible cousins.
September 1971
I, Reinette Reed, am going to Hogwarts. That was the one sentence that went through my mind over and over throughout the summer before I was to go. I had already gotten the necessary books and robes, and I am proud to say that I did not have to steal any of it. It turns out that Grandma has a conscience, and even though she’s still the worst guardian in the history of people, she had given me enough money for my supplies and even some left over to buy a small kitten upon reading the letter herself. I’m pretty sure it had to do with the whole not seeing me for a year but whatever flouts her boat. My kitten Jenkins and I were happy.
Grandma drove me to the train station on September 1st with just over 20 minutes to get on the train. I had dressed in my bright purple sun dress which had be them faded and had a hole in it from running way from angry shop keepers. It was still my favorite dress though and I just had to wear it on my first day of Hogwarts. Grandma didn’t get out of the car and without further ado promptly drove away without a glance back. I remember being doubly nervous when I didn’t know what to do next. I had hastily glanced down at the tattered and worn letter in my hand and looked around for platform 9 and ¾ having many people staring at me, my trunk and the black kitten in the nuke of my other arm. Finally I found the barrier and strategically leaned up against it the way my father had bragged to be such a champ at.
I hate being stared at. And when you go through that barrier, and face the Hogwarts crowd, nobody ever has time to spare you a glance in between the cries of goodbyes and greetings of laughter from those you haven’t seen in “forever”, nobody ever stars at you. I remember thinking of how much I was going to like it there. And on that note I waltzed over to the fancy grand door of the Hogwarts Express and found a compartment all to myself.
Looking at the hugging people through the newly cleaned windows got me thinking about the kind of person I wanted to be. First of all, I wanted to shed all of my past. I was a new person and should therefore act like one. Of course I wouldn’t get rid of my clothes considering I would have nothing to wear on the weekends but I could do some serious tweaking on the inside. My name would definitely have to go. It reminded me too much of my mother whose name was also Reinette and besides I hadn’t spoken the name since they died and Grandma hadn’t called me anything near it, preferring names like “ignorant air waster” and “dirty little cockroach”.
Well excuse me Grandma, it’s not my fault I’m dirty, now is it?
I would have to shorten the name to something else. After much deliberation I had come up with a nickname I could live with. From then on I was to be known as Nettie Reed. The stealing in my life had to go also. There was no way I would be going into Hogwarts as a common thief. My appearance was something I had already tweaked a few years back after growing out my black super curly hair past my shoulders with some side bangs to at least look as if I care even a little about how my hair looks. As much as I hated it, I couldn’t change my height, forever being severely short forever. Another thing I would have the change was the way I looked at life. Ever since that night I had been severely sad, bordering on depressed but since that train ride I was to love and live life to its fullest. Being happy and always finding the good in people before the bad and most of all smiling a lot more then I used to. Overall I was quite pleased with my new self and couldn’t wait to make some friends. That is until I saw the same unsmiling boy who I had acquired a complicated relationship with.
He was outside of my compartment smiling and laughing with three other first years by the looks of things. Upon hearing a bark of a laugh I made a double take with my eyes bugging out of their sockets. He was smiling. Not just smiling, he was laughing, full blown sides hurting laughs. Who knew mister unsmiling has a personality? It was then, staring openly at the wealthy boy, did I finally realize what was going on. Unsmiling boy knew who I was, heck he’s seen me steal and be the thief I used to be so many times that he could recognize me and boom! Mission tweaked life would be out of the bag and nobody would want to be friends with me anymore. He couldn’t do that though! I worked too hard on my new tweaking to have them go to waste with a simple “Hey, it’s that poor thief from Diagon Alley!” I breathed in sharply and without meaning to cause the four joyful boys to stop their laughing fit and take notice to my small panicking form within the compartment.
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