A/N: Hi there! We don't own any of JK Rowling's amazing Harry Potter universe, but we do own our OCs. Please read, review, and enjoy! Thank you! :)
"You mean, Mrs. Figg isn't watching us?" Fawn's wide, hazel eyes lit with excitement. The Dursley's had planned to go out to the zoo for Dudley's birthday. Which usually meant Harry and herself were sent to Mrs. Figg's: she had a very strange-smelling house. Harry thought it smelled like cabbage.
"She's got a broken leg, Petunia! What are we supposed to do with them?" Uncle Vernon's pink face was beginning to redden to a dark crimson. He paced the living room, kicking aside Dudley's crumpled-up wrapping paper.
"You could leave us here. . . ," Harry quietly suggested.
Uncle Vernon slowly nodded to that. He grumbled, "Well, that might--"
Aunt Petunia's eyes got wide. "They'll destroy the house!" She sat upon the couch with a puff of exasperation.
". . . It's not like we will bring the place to ashes!" Fawn fiercely whispered to Harry. He nodded in agreement.
"We won't do anything," Harry promised. "Honest!"
Aunt Petunia didn't seem to be listening to anything they were saying. "We will just have to take them with us!" Aunt Petunia snapped. "We could leave them in the car."
"Petunia, dear, not in my new car!" Vernon said. Dudley started to sob. Fawn grinned. This meant she might actually be able to go to the zoo for the first time.
"Th-they always ruin--EVERYTHING! THEY ARE RUINING MY BIRTHD-D-DAYYY!" Dudley screamed, flailing his fists. Aunt Petunia held him in a wide embrace. He gave Harry and Fawn a terrible smile behind Aunt Petunia.
"Oh, Duddykins! You poor thing! We will make everything perfect for your birthday. I promise."
Duddykins stifled a grin and made a lousy pouty face. The doorbell rang. Dudley forgot his act and a wide smile appeared on his face.
Petunia opened the door to find Dudley's friend waiting at the door. "Oh, Piers! Just in time!" Fawn's heart sank. Piers was nearly as terrible as Dudley. He always helped him beat Harry senseless. They wouldn't hit Fawn, luckily, but they made fun of her ruthlessly and pushed her down the stairs together.
"All right, it seems we are ready to go--Fawn! Get your shoes!"
Fawn retrieved her shoes from upstairs. While her brother got the cupboard under the stairs as his room, she was stuffed into the closet of one of Dudley's playrooms. She had her little mat of which she slept on, and one of Dudley's old stained blankets. Dudley couldn't stand these arrangements. He always kicked her out and locked her in the cupboard with her brother.
As she was walking towards the stairs again, she sighed at the mirror. Fawn looked pretty terrible. Her tangly auburn hair was in a messy ponytail. Aunt Petunia often tried to brush out the curls and waves, but they always coiled back to place.
She and her brother shared the same wardrobe; which was all of Dudley's old clothes. They were huge on her. She looked like a bum in the big, baggy, t-shirt that Dudley grew out of several years ago, and his old khakis that reached below her knees. The only thing she did not receive from Dudley was her pair of ratty sneakers and her undergarments---which she had gotten last Christmas. It was quite embarrassing. Sometimes she wished she owned some girly clothes; maybe a skirt? Or a t-shirt her size? But that was too much to ask of of the Dursleys.
When Piers, Dudley, and Petunia had gotten into the car, Uncle Vernon pulled them aside. "I'm warning you two . . . none of your trickery on this day, none of the sort! You will not embarrass this family out in public!" His face turned the color of an eggplant. Harry and Fawna nodded.
There were only three seats in the back. Fawn was a tad smaller than her brother, so when anyone else was in the car, Fawn had to sit on the floorboards by Harry. It wasn't too bad, but she sometimes got kicked by Piers and Dudley.
While Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon ranted on about their silly problems, and Dudley and Piers were snickering about something, Harry told Fawn about a strange dream he had had last night.
"There was a . . . motorcycle. It was flying," he recalled, his bright green eyes fixated on the roof of the car, as if he were half-expecting the same motorcycle to come crashing through the car.
Uncle Vernon snorted, "Flying motorcycles don't exist, Harry!"
Harry gave him a sour look and mumbled, "Well, I know that. . . ."
The Dursley's didn't believe in imagination--or anything out of the ordinary for that matter. The two of them never seemed to fit in, so they stood out together. They rarely left each other's sides. Harry and Fawn made fun of Dudley behind his back, contradicted Mr. Dursley, played outside, walked to the park, got tortured by Dudley, sat alone at lunch in school, cried, talked about their parents, got socks for Christmas, got into trouble, talked about their odd dreams--together.
"I had a dream a couple days ago. . . . I'm trying to remember . . . there was this-this old, scary, ugly man that was staring at me. I couldn't move--or talk. . . . I think you were there, Harry," Fawn said as quietly as possible so that Mr. Dursley wouldn't hear.
"I've had a dream sort of like that, too, this ugly old man--I heard a woman screaming," Harry looked to the corner of his eyes, trying to remember.
Dudley gave a quick kick to the side of Fawn's head. "Ow . . . stop it, Dudley!" She gave him a nasty glare.
"Mum, Fawn's being mean!" Dudley said awfully loud.
Aunt Petunia looked back her way and shot her a stern look. "Don't ruin Duddy's birthday. You've already done enough."
Fawn nodded, and when Aunt Petunia turned back around, she repeated what Petunia had just said in a funny, high-pitched voice only loud enough so Harry could hear. Her brother tried not to laugh with much difficulty.
When they arrived at the zoo, Fawn was overwhelmed by excitement. She was nearly skipping as they came through the entrance. "I can't believe it--we're actually here!" She smiled brilliantly at Harry as they followed behind the Dursley's.
It was probably the best day of her life. She saw all sorts of animals: lions, elephants, bears, gorillas. Although she felt bad for the bear; he seemed very lonely and scared. He sat in the far corner of his small exhibit.
"Poor thing, he's awfully lonely," she had murmured.
But the most exciting part of the day was most certainly "The Reptile Room." There was a huge boa constrictor; the largest one snake in the zoo.
"Why isn't it moving! Make it move!" Dudley pounded against the glass until he lost interest. "Ugh, this is booooriiiiiingg!" He walked over to the next snake. Fawn felt terrible for the animal. It must have been so tired of ugly people staring at him . . . like Dudley.
She noticed Harry was speaking to it in almost like a different language. She looked intently at the snake, and then Harry, and realised he was speaking to it. She didn't really think twice about it, so many strange things had happened to them over the years that this didn't seem too out of the ordinary. "Harry, tell the snake I feel sorry for him."
"You can understand him?" he whispered. He pushed his broken glasses farther up the bridge of his nose.
"Well, I can understand how he's feeling. But you can speak to it." Fawn watched keenly as Harry quietly said something in the strange language. The snake then looked towards Fawn and winked. "Wow. . . ," she mumbled.
"THE SNAKE'S MOVING!" cried Dudley, running over to the glass, pushing Fawn to the ground. Harry glared at him.
Then, suddenly, the glass around the boa constrictor's exhibit vanished. The snake slithered out by Dudley, which resulted in a high-pitched scream. Harry and Fawn watched in awe as the creature slithered out of the reptile room, causing quite a commotion near the entrance.
"THAT THING ALMOST BIT MY ENTIRE LEG OFF!" Dudley cried as they headed towards the car.
"He almost ate me whole!" Piers said, folding his arms and shivering in his seat, "Harry was talking to it! I saw him!"
Now they were in trouble. Uncle Vernon would surely blame it all on them--and Fawn worried that she might be stuck in the cupboard under the stairs with Harry for the next couple weeks.
When Piers was dropped off, and they had returned to the house, Uncle Vernon brought the two siblings aside. His face was a bright magenta. "YOU--GO TO THE CUPBOARD--BOTH OF YOU! NO DINNER!"
Uncle Vernon shoved them into the cupboard under the stairs, and quickly locked the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Aurora, dinner's almost ready!"
Aura (which had been her nickname almost her entire life) was too immersed in her painting to respond to the housemaid's cry. She scratched at her nose and most assuredly smeared black paint all over her face.
"Aurora, dinner's almost ready!" Aura grudgingly tossed down her paintbrush and moved to open her bedroom door with her foot to not stain it.
"I got it, I heard you the first time!" The housemaid's face fell at Aurora's harsh tone and she instantly felt guilty. "I'm sorry, Lisa, I didn't mean it like that. Thank you for informing me." With that, she shut the door with the heel of her foot and heard the quiet footsteps of Lisa trekking down the stairs. Aurora sighed and continued painting. She rather liked that housemaid, but she was positive she wouldn't be seeing her for too much longer. Aurora knew she would be gone soon enough. She never stayed in a home long.
Sometimes strange things happened around her that she couldn't really explain, but in her mind, that wasn't a good enough reason to send her packing again and again. That was only part of the problem, as she grew older, she grew angrier and less trusting and either lashed out at foster parents enough to make them give her up, or was pulled out of the home because of their abusive nature.
But sometimes, she actually quite liked her foster parents. A few of them seemed to become genuinely fond of her and want to get to know her. It never lasted, though. Something always went wrong. It usually was when she became upset or angry, but odd things always managed to happen around her. Whether it be the chandelier shattering all over the dinner table, or the tires on the car mysteriously disappearing while they were driving, or objects spontaneously catching fire, it just always had to be around her and she freaked people out enough for them to want to get rid of her.
Anyway, currently, she was in one of the fanciest bedrooms she had ever lived in. She was being fostered by a politician named Raymond Greene who wanted a boost in the polls so he decided that fostering a little orphaned girl was a good way to get that boost. And it was.
Aura had been living under his roof for a month now and quite honestly despised the man. They had a bargain going, she got to live in his mansion and eat the chef's nicest food if she went to fancy banquets and important public appearances and flash a big, dimpled smile for the press. The deal was going fairly well, but behind closed doors, they hated each other.
He was an alcoholic, rude to her and generally couldn't stand her, and occasionally slapped her around when he was very angry. At the moment, she was in her room, furiously painting across a canvas. It was a dark painting, one of a forest where the trees and shadows were monsters and evil yellow eyes peeked out of bushes. That was basically the only thing she was good at: art. She was okay at school (would be better if she cared), couldn't do anything musical in the slightest, never really got the chance to play sports. . . . Art was all she had.
"Aurora, dinner!" This was Raymond's voice. She sighed out of frustration and threw her paintbrush back on her pallet. Her hands and the front of her frilly dress were stained from paint but she didn't care much about clothes anyway.
She trudged down the stairs, her Mary Janes clicking on each marble step. Yes, he made her wear those. She hated fancy clothes like what he made her wear; she was a tomboy.
"Hurry up, it'll get cold!" His voice was raised. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling; it had barely been a minute since he had last called her.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," she muttered, hopping down the last few steps. Aura took her time, strolling leisurely into the dining room. Raymond looked up in disgust as he saw the paint on her.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he snapped, standing up and throwing his napkin down. He was slurring.
Aura glared at him, pulling out a chair to take a seat at the table. She decided to feign ignorance. "Oi, what possibly could you mean?" All right, so she exaggerated it a bit too much but she just couldn't resist.
He slammed his hand down on the table and right then, she could tell he had been drinking. He was a nasty drunk so she decided right then to refrain from anymore verbal jabs.
"Don't get smart with me!" he said loudly, glowering at her as he slowly approached her. He stumbled over the leg of the table and swore under his breath.
She stiffened in her seat and tightened her jaw; he was more drunk than she had originally perceived. "I'm sorry," she mumbled, stabbing her fork into what she assumed was a roast of some sort.
"What was that?" he demanded as if she had insulted him.
Aura swallowed down her indignance and replied sharply, "I apologized."
"Did you now?"
She cocked an eyebrow; Raymond was normally quite an impatient man who was easily fed up with her and would normally have dropped it by now because he just didn't care enough. Huh. She wasn't sorry in the slightest but she kept on the ruse to keep him away from her. "Yes, I did. That really doesn't happen very often, so you ought to be honored." His eyes widened with outrage and she knew right then that that wasn't the right answer.
His eyes were blazing with fury and alcohol. He lunged forward in a sudden movement and she jumped backwards off her seat and tensed into a defensive position. She heard the slap before she felt it. His hand was a blur as he backhanded her across the face and her cheek blossomed with pain. Her head whipped back and she nearly fell over backwards.
Aura's hand immediately went to her cheekbone and she took a few steps backwards so she was out of his reach. "You bloody well know you deserved that," he spat in her face.
Her brain told her to cower away and agree with the man but that wasn't in her nature. Instead, she jutted out her chin and stepped forward to get into his face. "I know nothing."
Aura then realized she had misjudged him. She assumed he would just grumble about her disrespect and go chow down his dinner and ignore her for the rest of the night as he usually did, but he didn't.
No, instead, he dove forward and shoved her backwards as hard as he possibly could. She flew back and slammed against the wall, banging half her head on the corner of a picture frame and the other half against the wall before she crumpled to the ground.
Stunned, her hand went to the back of her head and she drew it back to see blood. Her vision was blurry and everything was dizzy so she had hardly any time to react as Raymond stepped forward and hauled her to her feet with an iron, quite painful grip on her upper arm. He began to shake her roughly, making the ground sway beneath her once more. "You're about to get what's coming for you."
Aura struggled beneath his hold and something snapped inside of her. White-hot fury bubbled up through her, licking at her insides, and she shouted, "LET ME GO!"
Something very bizarre happened then. Raymond Clarke let go of her like she was burning hot and went flying through the air, his body smashing against the cabinet on the other side of the wall. He fell to the ground as glass rained down on top of them him and . . . he didn't get up.
Aura made no moves to help him; her limbs were frozen and she just stood there, dumbfounded, her mouth hanging ajar. "R-Raymond?" He didn't stir. "Raymond, I hate you and everything, but are you all right?"
The housemaid named Lisa came rushing in at the sound of commotion and screamed at the sight of him. She turned accusingly toward Aura. "What have you done?"
Aura instantly went onto the defensive, crying out, "I didn't do anything! He just grabbed my arm and it hurt and I told him to let me go and he went flying! I swear I didn't touch him!"
Aura could tell by Lisa's dubious expression that she did not believe her, but then Lisa busied herself with checking his pulse. "Thank God he's alive. Now I've got to call an ambulance--and the police will likely come too."
Aura felt the blood drain from her face. "You don't have to do that, do you?"
"Of course I do!"
Before she knew it, Aura's legs were taking her up the spiral staircase as fought through her dizziness and ignored the housemaid's cry of, "Where do you think you're going?" She charged into her room and slammed the door, locking it. She frantically began to pace, hyperventilating.
"What's happening to me?" she repeated over and over. Strange things had happened to her her entire life, but none as violent as this!
Aura steeled her nerves; she knew what she had to do. She had an empty briefcase in her closet from when she moved in and she pulled it out, tossing it on her bed. Now, she could care less about her frilly clothes or shiny shoes so she didn't pack any of those. She actually ended up using one of the ugly dresses to press against the back of her head to stop the bleeding.
Other than the clothes Raymond gave her, she really didn't have many possessions but that was good because she didn't have any time to waste.
Finding several rubber bands in her desk drawer, she stretched them out and wrapped them around her paintings that had been done on canvases. Those were few, though, and once they were safely tucked away she snatched her art portfolio filled with the rest of her paintings (done on paper) out from her closet along with her sketchbook. She managed to find the rest of her art supplies as well (there weren't many) and stuffed them away into the briefcase.
Her final and favorite possession was a stuffed black dog that had its name stitched into its left front paw: Padfoot. She gave Padfoot a quick hug to try and comfort herself before placing it in the briefcase and zipping it up. Making her heart pound with anticipation, the maid knocked on her door and said, "Aurora, are you in there? Come out already! The ambulance and police are on their way."
"Traitor!" Aura yelled before she could stop herself. She had grown rather fond of the usually kindly maid and now she felt utterly betrayed. "And yeah, that's going to make me want to come out!"
"Have it your way, then." Aura listened to her footsteps faded away and then jumped headfirst into her plan. There was a tall, sturdy tree near her window that she had used several times to sneak out when Raymond wouldn't let her leave. She propped the briefcase safely onto one of the branches and climbed out after it. A wave of dizziness almost caused her to tumble off the tree but she regained her balance and shimmied her way down the trunk along with the briefcase.
Aura was free now, but it was freezing. She could hear the faint sound of sirens in the distance so she promptly took the road opposite them, still pressing the fabric to her head. Raymond had a small stretch of country surrounding his mansion so she would have to trek through that before even making it back into the city. Her city, her beloved Edinburgh.
A few minutes into her walk alongside the road, the clouds that had been looming overhead all day began to gush with rain, pattering down onto her and seeping into her already thin dress. "This is just great. The universe bloody hates me. It's like it thought, "Oi, she's having a mess of an evening, is there any possible way we could make that worse? Oh, wait, let's make it rain on her! Yeah, that'll do it!" It struck her how alone she really was at the moment and her cheeks burned with embarrassment. "And I'm talking to no one. Great, I can make people fly away from me without touching them and now I'm talking to myself. I guess I'll add "insane" to the list of things wrong with me. And I'm still talking to myself."
She just kept babbling on because it was dark and she was lost and the shadows were beginning to look like the monsters she had painted earlier. The rain just kept pelting down and she couldn't stop shivering.
The country road seemed to stretch on forever. Her head was pounding and as she drew the shirt back every few minutes, more and more blood stained it. The cold was really beginning to get to her and the ground beneath her was tilting at odd angles. Finally, when she could walk no more, the world began to spin around her and she collapsed to the ground into a puddle of mud. She groaned as her head connected with the brown mush.
Aura just couldn't find it in her to pull herself up so she lay there, letting the rain and mud incase her. She suddenly felt sleepy, very sleepy, and wanted desperately to close her eyes but she knew somewhere in the back of her head that one wasn't supposed to do that after they hit their head.
Just as her eyes were fluttering closed, a bright light shone somewhere in front of her. Am I dying? she thought, utterly baffled. She felt strong hands reach under her and lift her up. A person was carrying her . . . but who? She blindly lashed her hand out and as it slapped against the chest of the stranger she decided that the person was a man. The voice of the man said calmly and soothingly, "You're alright now. I've got you. Nobody's going to hurt you anymore. You're safe with me."
Her foggy brain screamed at her that she should be suspicious of the man, but her instincts told her otherwise. This man, whoever he was, was safe. So, as she lay against his chest and clutched onto him for dear life, she let his steady heartbeat lull her to sleep.