Cruel Eloise

Chapter one

"We are the music makers..."

I am Eloise Midgen. I am not pretty. I don't think I'm even particularly smart. I don't win games. People don't look me in the eyes. I don't get asked to dance. But wallflowers survive. Or so they say.

I was ugly, but beauty for ashes, right? My nose was too big for my face. I had large mismatched eyes; one bright blue, the other mud puddle brown. I was slightly pudgy, with a round face. My hair was an unfashionable sort of wavy and a definite mouse brown. My teeth were crooked when I was younger, but after I lost them, they bucked out like a rabbit's. Pretty I was not, but there are other things besides beauty, I'm told.

When I was five I attended the Hogsmeade Primary School along with a certain Ron Weasely. Our teacher was Mrs. Schovenfield. I didn't really like her. She kept avoiding my eyes. I stopped looking up after awhile.

This was my first encounter with "The Real World"; a frightening place where the faces leer at you like you are their next meal. Sometimes you are. It is a place where friends are scarce and allies are even rarer.

One day, during our recess, I was sitting on the bench waiting for someone to invite me to play. I always sat there and I never played. But today was different. I flipped my pigtails back and walked resolutely over to the hopscotch court with the shrinking squares. It seemed that the whole grounds went silent as I made my lonely way across the paving stones. My ears were ringing with nothing. Then it happened. There was a sharp tug on one of my plaits. My head jerked back and I fell in surprise. The ground was rough and I tore my jumper. I looked up at the child towering above me. He looked at me with cold eyes and laughed. I seemed to shrink as more voices joined the laughter. They joined until they hit a crescendo that left my head spinning. I began to cry. That only made the voices louder. Hearing the words, I didn't recognize them at first. Then they began to hit me like darts. The knowledge of the words hit me and my heart collapsed. And I was alone in a great cloud of laughter and darts. I had never been so lonely in my life.

I learned some important lessons that day:

*If you don't think you are normal, you probably aren't.

*If you don't think you are wanted, you most likely aren't.

*If you don't think you're a similar, it is best to stick to yourself and not bother the normal people.

I understood the system too well at five and that knowledge, unfortunately, hasn't failed me yet.

What really struck me in hindsight about that incident was that I didn't do magic. Most magical children would have blown something up at that point. But I just took it.

The summer afterwards my mother was frustrated. Her father's business was not doing well. He sold things in Knockturn alley with Mr. Borgin, a nice, if ever so slightly frightening man. But he gave me candy and taught me to play wizarding checkers. The pieces would automatically change to be kings and would then come to life and wreak havoc on the other side without you having to tell them to do anything.

The shop was filled with all sorts of strange items. I remember when Grandfather received the hand of glory. I sat there in the dark as he pushed something into my hand. Once I had my fingers around it, the room became as bright as day. We sat there in the dark as he explained the magic behind it. I didn't understand the concepts but his voice rose and fell like my father's music. He loved his knowledge and would pass it on to me.

The Ministry of Magic was conducting more searches and his job was becoming more of a buying job than a selling one. I was there when they came once. I had been playing checkers in the back when I heard shouting. Mr. Borgin jumped as if he had been bitten, and grabbed my skinny arm. We walked out to the main shop. It was filled with aurors in dark robes. Their wands were drawn and they stared at me. Eventually they let us go but I don't think my Grandfather was ever comfortable having me over again.

But I think it was me that pushed her over the edge that summer.

My mother was popular. She was beautiful. She always had been, and it pained her to have a daughter who looked as I did and who was a squib as far as she could tell. I can't blame her. She had always been perfect. I was being annoying and difficult. I refused to visit with children my own age. Yes, I had refused to visit the Malfoy's, again. I hated Draco with a passion that I had previously reserved only for aurors. So she sent me away one day early in July to visit my Uncle Jim down the muggle street. That's how she got me out of her way unintentially for the rest of my life.

I walked through the crowded alleyway. People were selling and bartering for all sorts of objects. I stared up at the giant adults in their robes and the Hogwarts aged students walking around in their curious mix of Muggle and wizarding clothes. I slowly made my way through the mobs and stood by the entrance and the exit of Diagon Alley.

The way out is placed much higher than the average six year old can reach. Coincidentally, you also need a wand. As I had neither a stool nor a wand, I had to wait. I stood there for what seemed forever. People kept on passing by minding their own business. Not that I blame them.

A tall man with long white hair and beard came by and asked me if I needed help getting out. He stooped down to my level and looked me in the eyes, a thing my mother had never done to me. I was ashamed, so I looked at the ground. He asked me where I needed to go in Muggle London. I told him very plainly, still looking at my dirty feet encased in a worn pair of white sandals. Then he put finger under my chin and lifted my face slowly, forcing me to look him in the eyes. His eyes were so blue and deep like the middle of the ocean and twinkled like friendly stars. Then he got up and opened the exit.

Five rather hectic minutes later, I was in my uncle's piano shop. He is my father's brother and his family has been running it since the turn of the century. I learned to read music over my uncle's shoulder as he played. Since my Dad entered the wizarding world, my uncle has been running it. I had been going back and forth between our flat and my uncle's shop since I was three and old enough to understand the dangers inherent in crossing the street. Not that there haven't been a few close calls.

I made my way to my uncle's shop with out much trouble. It was a large room and had a grand piano near the front window. A fan spun lazily in the air conditioning. The whole front half was filled with pianos of all descriptions. As I entered, little chimes rang above my head. My uncle was walking around as he usually did, checking on customers and making deals or just organizing the merchandise. No one was in the store, so he immediately appeared as if by magic. He gave me an appraising look, then led me over to the large piano in the front of the store and sat me on the large bench. My feet dangled like a doll's. He told me to stay. So I did.

I looked at the brilliant white keys. The shone in the light coming in from the window looking like the white on waves that are about to break. Black ones shone like the beetle's eyes my mother had in a jar on the kitchen counter. There was power in those keys and I knew it. I gingerly held one finger over a white key. I was about to let my finger fall when my uncle came back. He had a stack of books under his arm. He placed them on the top of the piano, and taking one from the top of the pile brought it down and placed it on the ledge above the keys. He opened it to the second page and placed my fingers over the keys. He bid me play and I stared at him. Me, touch something so wonderful? He nodded in encouragement, so I played. The sounds floated out of the piano like beautiful angels, alighting on everything in the room.

When I was done I looked up at my uncle, glowing with joy. He laughed and told me I had only played the "C" scale. He pointed back at the page and told me to continue.

I came back every day that summer and after school all year. The voices of the others disappeared when I sat down at the piano. It drowned out everything except for the chimes of the door whenever a customer would come in to join us.

School didn't get easier for me after that summer. If there was any change in my status it was that I actually moved down the pole of acceptable people to be seen with. The homework was harder and I liked it. The challenge made me feel a little less transparent. My teacher doted on me. She let me work a little bit ahead of the rest of the students. I was happier then. I could at least beat them that way. Not beauty, not friends, not magical ability but brains.

After school was over I would rush home and race through my homework so I could get down to the piano shop as quickly as possible. Every Monday my uncle would sit down beside me and perfect my technique. Soon I was playing the more difficult Bach and Mozart pieces. I was the most beautiful thing in the world then because I could play and that had nothing to do with how I looked. I was unique, in a good way.

The music would embrace me and render me deaf to the outside world. It covered me like a large blanket, as I became a part of it. One day I realized there was a flock of people watching me play. I was confused and stopped the music. They stared as if they expected me to say something. I looked to my uncle for help, but he was standing with the crowd. His perfect eyes glowed with pleasure as he nodded for me to continue. So I did. That was the first time I had ever knowingly played for an audience. They didn't notice my face, just my hands. I was everything I had every wanted. So my uncle kept on putting harder and harder music in front of me. Some of it was very difficult and I struggled a great deal. Whenever there was a passage I could barely scrape through, I remembered how people looked at me when I played. I wanted them to do it again. I didn't want to be just a face.

My father was thrilled with my skills. He didn't like his job very much. I had the feeling he wanted to be working in the piano shop with my uncle. He said he had music flowing through his veins. I knew what he meant. It was an all-consuming fire that would flow through me like wave of joy and pain. He wanted to perform so badly. As it was he worked for the WWN as an announcer. He liked the music part, but he didn't really enjoy speaking on air. That's probably why he had the night shift. I hardly saw him.

He was proud of me, as my mother never was. He was proud to have a daughter that was so "strong". I wasn't strong. Before I learnt to play, I would come home and cry my self to sleep. I was barely doing my homework and I was a mediocre student whose magical abilities hadn't surfaced.

One day he found me sleeping after school and he must have noticed that I had been crying. The next day, after I came home, I found a teddy bear sitting on my bed. It was small and brown with a slight pudge around the middle like me. It had button eyes that were two different colors, one blue, and the other one, black; just like my own. He was the most adorable thing I had ever seen. I even brought him to Hogwarts with me. It was love at first sight.

By the age of eleven, I had so progressed in playing the piano that my uncle's business was booming. People would come in to hear me and end up buying a piano or getting theirs tuned. Sometimes they would just buy music. My dad quit his job at the WWN late night to give piano lessons. I sometimes helped with the younger students. They preferred me sometimes. My father could glower horribly when he got frustrated, so he ended up with the older more experienced students. Some of then kids were scared of me at first but they eventually warmed up after they realized I wasn't as awful as I looked. They usually ended up enjoying lessons, and I loved to teach them. It was fun. I didn't want it to end.

What I had thought unlikely finally happened. Sure enough, I got my letter to go to Hogwarts and as my parents refused to send me to a muggle school even after I had begged them, I had to go and leave my piano. I hated the shopping part. My mother fussed and got me nicely fitting robes that were brand new. Madam Malkin loved my family that day. The silver haired git (Whom my mother insisted on calling "Darling young man." And "How on earth have you grown so much since I last saw you.") kept making faces and rude gestures at me from across the store. I know I shouldn't call people gits, but he started it. I saw him later that day at Florean Fortesuses' and tripped him from under my table. He spilled a large Chocolate sundae down his front. He looked at me as if I was the dirtiest thing on earth. Then he ran off to tell his dad no doubt. I pretended nothing had happened and continued eating my strawberry sundae.

I got my wand and left in the box until the first day of classes. I hid it under my bed. It was willow and unicorn hair, eight inches and whippy. Good for charms. He didn't specify what kind. Mr. Olivander was slightly frightening. I didn't like the way he looked at me, as if I was an interesting new addition to his collection of wand owners. I probably was, but I didn't like him looking at me so. His gaze unnerved me somewhat. He knew something I didn't and refused to give me any clues as to what that may be.

I purchased my books on my own, going into the used bookshops instead of Flourish and Blots if I could, to save money for music. With the leftover change I ran to one of the most mal-aligned area of wizarding London.

Knockturn alley is not so bad if you think about it. And if you know where to look there is no shame in going to a slightly seedier area if one needs to. The best music shops are located there.

Music is considered a sort of dark magic on par with love potions. Every child knows the story of the sirens and their fatal song. My father explained it to me once. Music is a very powerful sort of magic. Horribly complex and hard to control, it can be misused very easily. That's why they don't really teach any sort of musical linked magic at Hogwarts. There have been enough bad incidents as it is.

I ran to the end of the winding alley and walked into a small less grubby looking shop. The sign declared it was "Magical Musical Mementos." It was small and located next to a large apothecary. The smells carried over to the music shop creating a strange heady combination of oil, pickling solutions, wax, paper, and mold.

The attendant was sleeping on the counter. He was also snoring rather loudly.

"WAKE UP!" the door screeched.

The man fell off his chair and landed with a loud thunck behind the counter. He reappeared shortly muttering several choice words that my mother would possibly have wanted me to avoid hearing. He then looked around guiltly for his customer. He saw me, jumped and looked guilty. I smiled thinly at him as I tried to get the books I needed. He appeared to be rather frightened of me but was of great help anyway. I never knew I was intimidating.

I walked furtively out into the sunlight of Diagon Alley and was immediately accosted by Mrs. Weasely, who to her very great credit did not pinch my cheek as she used to when I had visited her house last. After inquiring about my day's shopping she had barely time to hear my answer when she screeched at the twins to stay within the Alley. I smiled and left without her really noticing.

Once that ordeal was over I spent the rest of my summer giving lessons and worrying. And I had a lot to worry about. I wondered if Hogwarts had a piano I could use. My father said they did, but thought they might have moved it I worried about my House. My father wanted me to be in Hufflepuff like he was, my mother, although a Slytherin wanted me to be a Hufflepuff too. She didn't think I was cut throat enough to survive a night in the Slytherin common room. I was worried I wasn't cut throat enough to survive a night in the Hufflepuff common room. I worried about my new housemates. Would they like me? My father said they would, but my mother always snorted something that sounded suspiciously like either 'lack of personality' or 'too much piano'.