Black Pages (Harry Potter fanfic)

1)Reality Blues

"Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else." Mark Twain
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Ava watched the TV screen without actually seeing what was playing on it. She was bored out of her mind. If she learned anything in her almost sixteen years of life, it was knowing that moving to a brand new foster home would mean the same thing it always did. The biological children of the people you live with always get to choose what to watch on TV. Still, it was unfortunate.
Keeping up with the Kardashians showed on the screen and blared through the TV's speakers. It caused Ava to roll her chocolate brown eyes. How anyone could watch this garbage was beyond her. She couldn't figure out why the women who starred on the show were always whining - they were millionaires! Should you really be so sad and mopey all the time when you had oodles of money at your disposal? Ava couldn't imagine always complaining if she had that much money. She would build her own library with a coffee shop inside and then live there.

The remote was within arms reach. Ava eyed it while contemplating how much whining would come from her foster sister if she took it. The other girl in the room seemed to read her mind. "Don't even think about it, Ava!" Maisy snarled, her blue eyes narrowing as Ava watched the remote in silence.
Maisy Cooke was a bossy and inconsiderate brat a good ninety-five percent of the time. The other five percent, she was worse.
When Ava thought about it, she probably disliked her newest foster sister more than any  foster sisters she had ever had. That was  saying something. Ava had lived in sixteen different homes since she was a baby. She hadn't been adopted when she was an infant, and then Ava realized adoption wasn't an option for her the older she became. That luxury was mostly reserved for babies and small children; no one wanted a teenager.

Being a foster child was her own personal punishment all because her mother died giving birth to her. Now, Ava was stuck bouncing from home to home until she turned eighteen. After that, she would be kicked out onto the streets and forced to fend for herself. She attempted to emancipate herself on her fifteenth birthday, but her social worker wouldn't allow her to do so. She claimed Ava was too young to know what she really wanted. Brittany claimed Ava held no real idea of what the real world was truly like.

Ava begged to differ. Brittany didn't grow up bouncing around different homes, always knowing the people inside the houses kept you purely as a way to cash in  on government checks each month. Brittany wasn't currently living with a very unhappily married couple who spent their days throwing snide comments to each other over the breakfast and dinner table. Ava felt certain Mr. Cooke was even having an affair. The man came home most nights smelling like cheap perfume. Ava couldn't quite figure out if the guy had a mistress, or, simply had a secret habit of just spraying the stuff on him every now and then.
It was somewhat nauseating to assume the affair; how anyone could kiss a person who smells as awful as the perfume did was beyond Ava's comprehension.

Her social worker Brittany couldn't quite grasp Ava's struggles. She didn't have to share a very small bedroom with two other teenage girls. She didn't have to share a bathroom with seven kids total in a one-bathroom house. SHE didn't have to live life only using the toilet once a day.

"HOW can you watch this garbage?" Ava finally snorted, shaking her head at some more ridiculous crying one of the Kardashians were pulling. Which one it was, she couldn't tell. All she knew for certain was the girl  looked ridiculous as a blonde.

"Ohh you're right, I should be a dork like you with my head in a book all day," Maisy snorted, rolling her eyes at her biological sister sitting beside her. Ava suspected the pinhead thought herself clever for such a comment. She shrugged off the snide remark with ease. Ava stood up from the floor out of boredom, pulling herself into a stretch. "Heyyy, don't hate me because I can at least read a book." She retorted with a snort, walking away before the catty remarks started erupting from the snotty girl.

Ava's comment was a dig for Maisy only scoring a fifty-nine on her college entrance reading exam. She had looked through Maisy pamphlets about studying for the test;  it was rather simple, really. Ava was still only fifteen, yet, she felt you must be a true bonehead if you couldn't read a couple short paragraphs and then answer questions regarding what went on in the story. That's what was truly wrong with this generation of teenagers. No one liked reading anymore. People preferred technology instead of simple reading.
 Still, Maisy was eighteen and on her way to college in a few weeks time. It made Ava feel terrible that her moron of a foster sister was getting her parents to pay for her complete education when she put forth no real effort into school. Ava meanwhile, would barely be able to get into community college without taking a multitude of student loans to help pay for it.

"Hey...uh...You!" Mrs. Cooke called from the kitchen, pointing in Ava's direction. "The school bus is coming. Don't you get into detention, otherwise I'm callin' that social worker of yours." The old woman said with a glare. Ava stared at the woman, silently wondering why  Marissa Cooke thought Ava would dislike her doing such a thing.

Maybe of Mrs. Cooke called Brittany then Ava wouldn't have to live on a bottom bunk and have a farty foster sister sleeping above her. But, Ava couldn't afford a sarcastic response. 
 She was also getting too old, and, people didn't  like taking in older foster kids the majority of the time. If Ava wasn't careful to watch her sarcasm, she could wind up living in a group home. She's heard stories of places like that from other foster kids; it was a place where you never wanted to wind up if you could help yourself.
Ava wasn't quite sure why out of all four of her current foster kids living with her, Mrs. Cooke exclusively focused her dislike on her alone. Why this was,  Ava couldn't explain. She was quiet unless spoken to, and really only said bad things to people who annoyed her. Ava assumed Mrs. Cooke's dislike for her solely came from the fact that Ava was not only prettier than her three biological daughters, but also more intelligent. It wasn't vain on Ava's part for thinking this. It was just as though Marissa disliked Ava because she was simply everything her daughters weren't. Still, Mrs. Cooke's threat was unfair. The only reason Ava sat in detention all of the last week was relatively stupid.
A junior jock had attempted to use a mirror to look up her skirt. In an act of pure retaliation, Ava kicked him hard to the groin. It was completely unfair that Ava was the only one to get into any real trouble. The problem for her was the boy was on the varsity basketball for Terrence High. When it comes down to one of the wealthy star basketball player versus the bitterly sarcastic orphan in the principal's office, the jock will win every time.


Keeping her mouth shut, Ava proceeded to the bedroom she was currently living in. She scooped up her backpack off her bed, double checking for her books.

"You're actually going to school today of all days?" Her foster brother Jimmy questioned in surprise. Ava hadn't even noticed he followed her into the room. Jimmy Conners was probably the only foster siblings she was fond of while living with the Cooke's. He was kind, considerate, and,  he didn't spend forty-five minutes hogging the bathroom like the rest of the girls in the house.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?"

Jimmy stared at Ava in disbelief before waving his dark hand at her in exasperation. "It's review day; there's nothing going down on today of all days."

"You kids ready to get out of the house already!?" Marissa shouted up the staircase.

Jimmy and Ava exchanged a roll of eyes.  Still, part of Ava deflated. It's only two days before final exams and then summer break hits. She completely forgot about today only being a day you go through what you've been learning the last two months. Ava didn't need to do that - she was ready to take the final exams and get them over with. Review day was an entire waste of time that no one would really show up for anyway. The only people who would bother coming to classes would be the kids who's parents didn't allow them to wiggle out of going.

"School's the only escape while living here," Ava mumbled bitterly. Without having that to look forward to, she didn't really have anything to do today. She didn't have to work until tomorrow. She didn't own a car. Ava recently got her drivers license  but considering the Cooke's were rather selfish individuals, that fact didn't matter. They never allowed their foster children to borrow one of their three cars for anything. Ava's even needed to take to running or using a bus to get to her job at the local Pizza Hutt. 

Jimmy released a roll of his shoulders. "Why dontcha just hit up a library or something," he offered, throwing his bag over his shoulder. The bag hit an awkward spot, and out tumbled a familiar looking book with a dark blue cover. The large book hit the floor with a loud thud.

Ava grinned like a Cheshire cat upon reading the book's name. "Awesomesauce! You're a fellow Potterhead!?"
Jimmy snorted, rolling his dark eyes. "Keep your inner geek in check, Aves. I got the whole set as a gift from my last foster rents for my birthday. Dumb series though-"

"-Are you kidding me!?" Ava interrupted in a squeal, excitedly picking the book up off the floor. It was the fifth book of the Harry Potter series - The Order of the phoenix. Ava could remember first reading the whole series with fond memories. She was living  in the fanciest place she had ever lived, and the family's son had the entire book series collected in his massive library. Ava easily had a Harry Potter marathon of reading through every book for an entire week. It saddened her to leave a house with that big of a library - she had wanted more than anything to bring the books with her, but, they weren't hers.
It amazed her to no end that people Jimmy lived with surprised him with the massive book collection for his birthday. Did he not realize how lucky he was?