Chaotic Forbiddance

FATE’S P.O.V.

Too far from the places that I love, the music shop in Hoboken that always had a job for me when I came for my NJ half of the year, which was now shortened to just half of the summer and Christmas, which was being debated, due to my new schooling. Too close to the place that I hate, my “home,” even though I do not have an actual clue where I am, I am certainly not in Jersey, which is where my hapless heart lies dormant.

The prattle of children and older students alike fills my ears as I blindly eat whatever happens to be passed onto my plate when Mikey and Frankie find their eyes too big for their abdomens. I eat, hoping for the torture of a full stomach to end as soon as it starts, or, better yet, never begin. I know that they are attempting fruitlessly to “help me” but the sanctimony of the gesture is putting me through more pain than I put myself through, there is some crucial information missing about my life and I have to find it myself, even if it is through death, suicide. I cannot live without this gaping hole in my existence, my very knowledge of myself, being filled, somehow, someway.

“Fate?” I turned my head to the quiet voice of Ron breaking through the din of the Great hall at supp, “You hate bangers.” I looked to the golden platter that had been filled with random food that I had never liked, including the sausage, “You’re right, I’m just out of it.” I placed the food on his plate and continued to work on making myself feel sick, by consuming the nauseating items on my plate.

“G’d night.” Hermione said cheerily, as she leaves me in an empty bathroom to get ready for bed, little did she know that I wasn’t planning on going to bed until my guts throbbed from the vomit slipping up my throat and to the sewage pipes. I placed my wavy red hair into a pony tail, clipping my bangs back quickly, yearning to get this rubbish out of my aching belly. I shoved my fingers to the back of my throat, pushing painfully on the “punching bag” in the soft pallet behind my gums, teeth, and the hard pallet, quickly extracting them and leaning over the grimy toilet seat. A fountain of digested food made its way out, stinging the back of my throat painfully, and easily making every bone in my wearied body sore with the exertion, but relieving the hurt that had been mentally plaguing me.

After the process is done, my now empty shell makes its way over to the sink; I wash my mouth and teeth, removing all of the evidence that I had ever spilled the food, which I had promised to eat, from my very bowels. It has been about two weeks since I had arrived at Hogwarts, arrived at a place that should feel like my home, should feel like the miracle that I had been waiting for, but didn’t not even by the slightest bit, it felt more like a prison in which I could not starve myself, for I would be force fed.

My mind vaguely wandered back to the women’s suffrage, my great grandmother was a suffragette, on the day of her death she told me what had happened to her when she got arrested in London for protesting and chaining herself to city hall.

"Now, Fate, you listen to me, and you listen well. I know that you’re young, barely eight, but you’ve never been immature, you have the inner strength of a hundred men, you’re the bravery that has kept me going through this, I wanted to be like you…”

She had neuro-syphilis, she wasn’t going to make it, the prescription had suppressed it for years, but I had known that this day was coming, I would lose the only person that cared, the only one. I wiped a glistening tear from my fogged eyes.

“I have never been a proper lady, but neither have you, darling, I guess that it shows that you are my true relative, the only one. I know that you are going to be able to understand me, understand me, that no matter how bad things get, you are going to fight, fight hard, no matter what, like I did in my youth… so long ago.” Her eyes glazed over, I asked quietly, in my high voice that was choked with tears:

“What did you fight?”

“The brutal possession and beating of women, back, oh, around the early 1900’s, a long time ago... A girl, she had been protesting in prison, she did not eat until: they force-fed her, they pumped the ‘healthy nutrients’ into her lungs instead of her stomach, she couldn’t breathe, and was gone, like I am going to be soon.” She held my small hand in her wrinkled one, clasping them to my flat child’s chest, right above my swiftly pumping heart.

“We protested; I took the manacles that had held her in that very prison, I chained myself to Downing Street, not caring what they did to me; I was just so enraged at her death. They took me to the prison, I tried to starve myself like she did, I wasn’t married, and my family had died when I was your age. They didn’t force feed me, I was taken to a church, they wed me to someone against my will, to tie me down so that the only way out was death, and I was raped, you know what that means?” I nodded; you didn’t go very long in New Jersey without that knowledge.

“I had your grandmother nine months later, I was beaten afterwards, so we ran, no one found us here in America, she grew up into a beautiful woman, just like you will. She was beautiful, but she wasn’t strong, she fell for a man that killed her, after she gave him a child and the best years of her life. The child of that twisted marriage was your father, who met your mother in more years; he had met a woman who was just as bitter and warped as he. He knew who his horrible father was, but he wanted to find his grandfather, he wanted to find the source of his perversity from my side. They moved to England, they had you, but they never wanted you. You can see that, which is why they send you to your mother’s parent’s every half-year, I stayed here with them, they are the only decent parent figures that you will have anymore, because I’m leaving this world. I won’t be able to come back, but at least you know what you have the strength to do, you can be anyone, you are great. I love you, sugar.”

“Please don’t go.” I sobbed quietly, her hand went slack in mine and she was gone.

I looked back into cold eyes in the mirror, “You were wrong, Nana, I’m not strong, not anything compared to you.” She was wrong; I didn’t have a cause, just pure unadulterated sorrow beckoning me to death.

I wiped the fretful tears, which had formed from the memory, from my paler-than-death face. I changed into my Misfits sweatpants and Morrissey t-shirt and sightlessly walked back into the common room. Professor McGongall was there, talking to a shadowed figure on the crimson couch, I stayed back, not wanting to interfere.

“Does Mikey know?” I heard Professor Way say blankly, as if he had just received information that he had yet to process properly.

“Does Mikey know what?” I heard the boy in question ask from the boys’ dormitory staircase, Harry was right behind him, I was glad that they were bonding, but it was definitely not a good time to be in this room. Nor was it for me, but they couldn’t see me.

“Perhaps, this might be a conversation that you would not want Mr. Potter present for, or anyone else, frankly.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, stepping out of the shadows, as if I had just come from the bathroom, rather than listening in.

Professor McGonagall coughed and handed Gerard a sheet of paper, it looked very much like a letter, she left the room, the tension condensed even more, you could cut it easily with a knife.

“Mikes…” Mikey cut him off sharply.

“Don’t ‘Mikes’ me, you have something to tell me, you spit it out, don’t beat about the bush, I thought we were closer than that.”

“Grandma Elena’s dead.” He choked out; a few tears ran down his face, reflecting with the angry fire that burned in the still common room. Mikey’s knees buckled, sending him to the ground, with tears pouring out of his eyes at an alarming rate, Harry rushed to comfort him, I awkwardly began my way to him, but changed directions in the very middle, walking to where Gerard stood, blind-sided by the tragedy that had just affected him.

I stood beside him, I reached out to touch his hand, and he recoiled sharply, turning his back on me. I sighed and turned to help Mikey, but it looked as if he was going to be fine with Harry’s help.

“I’m very sorry for your loss.” I stated, neither of the boys said anything in return, so I walked up to my dormitory, saddened that they didn’t want my help. Also, I was angered that Gerard would help me when I didn’t even need it, but would not accept comfort when he actually needed it from me. That just goes to show that he’s a teacher and that I am a student, and that there is no way to breach that barrier again.