Unleashing the Mayfly

Chapter One.

She called him "Papa", but it is unlikely that she'll ever know if he really was her father. His name graced her birth certificate, but he left no opportunity unused to tell her she was the ill-bred child of a whore. Some times she wondered why he kept her all those years, but by most people's standards, he seemed a good enough man. He held a job, obeyed the law, kept his garden tidy and his house spotless. That was all they ever saw. They didn't see the empty bottles of Firewhiskey that were neatly concealed under a tarp in the back garden. Like all respectable sinners, he hid his vices well.

Every day she would count the bottles. If there was only one, he would be content with yelling at her, telling her how worthless she was, how she was damned for the crimes of her mother. If there were two bottles, she could expect a beating. At three bottles, she would hide his wand - he usually found it. The worst was four bottles or more. On those days he'd lay semi-conscious on the sofa, too drunk to beat or berate her. Most people would think her a fool for trying to wake him, but to a child, silence is lonelier than a mariner's grave. When he hurt her, he acknowledged her. When he showered her with contempt, she knew he felt something for her. If one has never known love, hatred and disgust can be very comforting. After all, how could a may fly, born at dawn and dying at dusk, ever understand the concept of night.

The night before she left for Hogwarts was a three bottle night.

"Evie! EVIE! Where's my wand, child? Don't make me look for it."

"I don't have it, Papa."

She was being truthful. She didn't have his wand. It lay hidden in the laundry basket.

"You black-hearted daughter of a snake. Lying comes as easy to you as it did your mother. You'll never amount to anything!"

It was a fraction of a second before her head hit the wall, cracking her skull, that Evie decided she would be someone special, someone important. People were going to remember her name. Little did Evie Eldritch know that she was but a train ride away from becoming a pivotal link in a chain of events that would one day rock the wizarding world to it's very core.

She awoke the next morning with a clouded mind and a metallic taste in her mouth. The sun had already risen, although it was hard to tell due to the foul dark clouds that hung scattered about the morning sky. Evie feared she would be late for the Hogwarts Express. Her father lay sleeping in his bed. She shook him as gently as possible.

"Wake up, Papa."

...deja vu.

"You're to take me to London today, remember?"

"Take the Muggle trains!" he growled as he rolled over.

"But Papa, what will people think if you're not there to see me off?"

Though her father ruled every aspect of her life, Evie had learned long ago to observe his moods, and with that, to say just the right thing to find a sliver of control. All too easy, really. His precious reputation was worth his right hand, or as the case may be, a trip to London with a whopping hangover.

Once at the platform, no one would ever have known how much Mr. Eldritch hated his daughter. He seemed like just another stoic Englishman seeing his child off to school. Society recapitulates antipathy.

There were no "good lucks" or "see you at Christmas", all that was said was "goodbye".

The whistle blew just as Evie stepped inside the steam train. The high-pitched sound pierced right through her already throbbing head. She felt something warm drip from her nose, but ignored it. The train had started moving and she rushed to find a seat. Compartment after compartment was filled with young people, smiling and chatting amongst themselves. Evie did not feel comfortable with such exuberance, so she kept walking. As the back of the train rapidly approached, her hopes of finding a quiet place were fading fast, until she spotted a compartment that held only one other student, a young man deeply engrossed in a book. It was the best option so far, so she slid the door open and entered.

The young man looked up from his reading, as if surprised he would remain alone in such a crowded train. Evie noted that he didn't smile or soften his eyes, like most people do when they engage a stranger.

"You're bleeding," he stated matter-of-factly.

She touched two fingers to her nose and observed the sanguine stain.

"So I am."

A silent moment passed, then the boy smiled and rose from his seat.

"Riddle, year three Slytherin."

"Eldritch...first year, I suppose."

He approached her, a lingering smirk upon his faced as he studied hers. Evie was relieved that he didn't rely on the pleasantries and idle chit-chat most people lay on so thickly when they first converse. More comforting still was the fact that he seemingly didn't care she did not engage in such practices either.

"What's wrong with your head, Eldritch?"

"Fell down the stairs," she replied automatically.

She had used that line so many times in St. Mungo's, she didn't even have to think about the lie.

"Won't you let me fix it? I'm very good with a wand."

Now Evie smiled.

Riddle looked at her forehead, then ran his left thumb along it. When he found the fracture, his eyes flashed as he looked straight at her again. Evie didn't know why he paused, why he looked at her like that. Perhaps he was waiting for permission or some reaction she had never learned to give. Before raising his wand, Riddle pushed his thumb down hard on the injured spot, sending a trickle of blood down Evie's nose and onto her robes. He cocked his head, which she knew was a sign of puzzlement in people, then placed his wand upon the fracture.

"Curatio."

Riddle's voice was but a mere whisper, but Evie felt the pain in her head dissipate instantly. For a moment, the both of them stood there as if frozen in stone, then he averted his eyes.

"Run along now, first year. Find yourself another compartment. This one's taken."

Unable to find another compartment quiet enough for her fancy, Evie opted to ride out the trip in a toilet. She chose the boys' lavatory after careful consideration. It is a well known fact that men have larger bladders than women, allowing them to go without the use of a toilet for longer periods of time. They also don't have to sit down to pee, leaving cubicles in the men's room mostly unused. Every women's toilet in the world, be it Muggle or Magical, has at one point been the object of a lengthy queue, even when its male counterpart remains devoid of visitors. No, the boys' toilet would do nicely.

She chose the cubicle farthest from the entry and locked the door behind her. Despite the vast array of scent charms known to wizardkind, the toilets in the Hogwarts Express smelled just like any Muggle toilet. There simply isn't anything that can be done about decades of caked urine sprayed around by young boys with poor aim. Evie was quite thankful her father had taught her a few simple cleaning charms to use around the house (him being a firm believer that a woman's place is to clean the home, even if the woman is but a child). She used a piece of paper to close the toilet lid, then took her wand out of her pocket and threw a semi-successful charm at it. It wasn't clean enough to eat off, but she no longer objected to sitting on it. Nothing could be done about the dull, permeating stench though.

The cubicle walls and door were covered in magical graffiti. Big letters flashing yellow and red alternately said: "Tracy Proctor, biggest knockers in Hogwarts." Evie counted three versions of "The Man from Nantucket", all of them obscene. Next to those was a drawing of what appeared to be a mole crawling out of it's hole. The tip of the creature's nose was just poking out when suddenly a caption in glowing orange appeared: "Beware the mole in the glory hole." What proceeded to come out of the hole was most definitely not a cute, furry animal. Evie clapped both hands over her mouth to stop herself from laughing too loudly. She had only just managed to stifle herself when the door to the toilet opened and shut several times. The tiled walls now reflected a small symphony of shuffling-, dripping- and flushing noises. There must have been several boys at the urinals, yet none of them spoke even a word to another. Evie heard the door open again, followed by the echo of well-calculated footsteps coming in her direction. They stopped right in front of her cubicle and she held her breath as the door handle turned. When the door didn't open, the footsteps moved to the cubicle right next door. Ever attentive, Evie noticed the boy's shoes pointing towards the toilet, instead of away from it, even after the crisp sound of his zip.

Funny how he looked for the farthest cubicle when there is a small legion of urinals in front, she thought.

Then she noticed the shoes, dull black Oxfords with worn-down soles, just like the ones she saw on Riddle earlier. Evie wondered if it was him and touched the dividing cubicle wall, unable to resist the urge to press her ear against it and listen. First she heard a trickle like that of a gentle stream, then a hard flush like an ocean eddy. Evie felt an odd kind of giddiness erupt inside her and grinned widely. She was reminded of something her father had told her not too long ago.

Papa had been perusing a book called "The Muggle Machines of War" by Abraham Weasley and had called Evie over to show her some strange pictures and an even stranger diagram.

"Look at this, Evie. They call it a U-boat, those German Muggles."

Evie had thought it looked like a small, obese whale.

"This here," Papa had said as he tapped the diagram, "is their shower. See how small it is? It's about the size of our broom closet. Now, it's nearly impossible for a Muggle to get dressed in such a tiny space after washing themselves, so it is the only time the crew is permitted to be out of uniform, except for the Captain. Can you tell me why that is, Evie?"

She shook her head.

"Because a leader of men, Muggle or Wizard, can never be seen in his underwear! His crew would no longer respect him."

Papa had put the book away and turned to a page in that day's Daily Prophet, containing a magically mocked-up photograph of the dark wizard Grindelwald, dressed in nothing but underpants.

"See," he'd said, "How can this man ever instill fear in us again now that we've seen him in a pair of big, white granddad underpants?"

Evie remembered that conversation as she stood there in that toilet cubicle, feeling almost criminal for having stolen such a private moment from Riddle. She remained pressed against the wooden wall, as if savoring that pilfered moment, when a sudden yet faint smell of garlic entered her nose. She pulled her face back and saw a drawing of a man in a turban, with an apparently scented caption that read: "I am Hassan, the garlic eater. You can smell me from 100 metres."

Evie wondered how old that spell was, and if it really could have been smelled from a hundred metres when it was first cast. He thoughts were promptly interrupted by the halting of the train and she finally emerged from her toilet hideaway.

What followed was a boat ride over an expansive, black lake. Whereas most students oohed and ahed over the twinkling lights of Hogwarts Castle, Evie ran her fingers through that cold, black water, getting a distinct feeling that things moved beneath it. She felt as if she were a galaxy away from all those other children. Hearing their excited chit-chat reminded her of a hen house and made her feel uneasy. She found herself wondering where her father was, how many bottles lay under the garden tarp that night, and what he would do without his little Evie around. A glacial void settled in her chest, a vortex of loneliness and confusion. When her boat came ashore, she cast a glance over her shoulder and wondered if she could swim all the way back. He sadness didn't dissipate, not when she was marched through the grand marble hallways of the castle, not when she entered the Great Hall. Soon enough, her name was called and she was told to sit upon a stool in front of the entire student body and staff. Evie merely stared at all their faces, her eyes unblinking and glazed, like those of a fish. When the soft leather of an old hat settled around her head, she felt nothing.

"Oh, my," the blasted thing croaked, "I don't see many like you, young lady. And a good thing that is! I can only sort you based on your thoughts, not my own; that is how I was made, but I have sincere doubts about sending you to the place that suits your mind best."

It halted, waiting perhaps for some reaction from it's charge. Evie didn't speak, she just sat, waiting for that smelly old rag to leave her alone, desperately wanting to get down from that podium and back into the crowd.

"Very well then," it continued after a brief pause, "SLYTHERIN it is!"

Evie managed a faint smile as she was ushered to the silver and green table, welcomed by the cheering and clapping of her new housemates. She was the first girl to be sorted there that night, but two more would follow. Laila Elhommoud, a pretty, olive-skinned girl sorted right after Evie joined them, as well as Polaris Peyton, a slender blonde whose family name Evie recognized from the society pages of the Prophet. When the last of the newcomers was sorted into Hufflepuff, an older Slytherin turned to the five new boys in their house and grinned.

"Seems like you outnumber the girls in your year, lads. Too bad for two of you," he teased.

Evie tried to remember the snaky path to the Slytherin common room, but was sure she would forget by morning. She would remember the password, nebulous, though. It reminded her of her father. Her things had been delivered to a dorm room shaped like a three-leaved clover. Each leaf was an alcove, holding a bed, bedside table and an armoir. A thick, forest green curtain made of heavy velvet could be drawn to close off each alcove and Evie did just that right when the two other girls entered.

"Oh, how incredibly rude!" she heard one of them say.

"I know," said the other, "and she smells like a toilet!"