I Hate Summer (Diaries of Avros Tanner)

I hate summer (diaries of Avros Tanner) 1: introductions

7 January 2150

Enclosed find the Summer Diaries of Avros Crimple Tanner. It was found under a loose section of marble in an old SoHo cemetery with the Cruciatus curses still intact. Once dispelled, the entire collection was sent immediately to the Lord's Office as his family property, as directed.

Rhiannon Weasley

30 June, 1992

I am writing to prove that I am not stupid, as everyone says. Amy is angry with them for saying these things, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

Amy is a ghost. She was my Grandfather Tanner's nanny when he was little. She won't say how she died, just that "It served him right". She keeps me in the "safe" places all the time, and won't let me wander about on my own. She also won't tell me where my parents kept their rooms because some of their things are especially dangerous.

I've learned a lot of things. I speak French, Latin, and German. I understand basic magical theory, math, history, and some Dark theory. Lots of Dark theory, actually, as it's Amy's favourite.

Amy is very proud of me, and says that I am the prettiest girl-child the House has ever had. I find that hard to believe, but it's nice to hear.

I see Amy almost every day, except when Grandmother takes us all visiting. I hate visiting. I'd rather they just left me at home. I don't like to stay in their part of the house, anyway, I go to the closed off part where Amy and the other ghosts are. All the other live people in this house think that that part of the house was entirely sealed off, and no one is supposed to be able to get in, but I can get in through a little hole in my wall. No one ever comes to look for me, anyway. Grandmother didn't even want me to learn to read, so she just let me wander around except when she wanted me to work.

She and Amy have entirely different ideas about my place in the world. I like Amy's ideas better.

5 July, 1992

It's my eleventh birthday. Grandmother says that if I'm good, and keep my place, I'll get to go to Hogwarts, but she's lying. I know she already made arrangements to send me to a school in Eastern Europe. *Durmstrang* or something. I've read the letters she and the headmaster, Karkaroff, have been sending back and forth to each other. Professor Karkaroff is very angry with grandmother. He says she blackmailed him into letting me in.

Amy is teaching me some Bulgarian. She says I should learn as much as I can before I go.

---

15 July, 1992

Amy led me to an empty bookcase this morning and showed me how to open it. She has finally started showing me the old Dark artifacts in the house, and how they work. Some of them scared me a lot. Especially the chatty severed head. Amy has said that I will get used to such things soon enough, but I am *not* to take anything out of these rooms, or touch anything when she is not about.

---

15 August, 1992

My letter from Durmstrang is here. Grandmother sneered at me when she gave it over to read. I apparently will actually be studying the Dark Arts, like Amy wants me to. Bully for her. She also says that when I come back, I won't really need a nanny as long as I listen to the other ghosts and am careful. But I don't want them to leave me all alone in the house.

---

20 August, 1992

Grandmother found an old, beat-up wand in a second hand shop and made me take it even though it doesn't work for me very well. Amy says that while I am in a wizarding house, the Ministry can't really tell who is using magic, so I'm "allowed" to practice. She also says that there are better wands and clothes in the house, but they are too dangerous to get to. This is because a group of boggarts has taken up the area.

She is teaching me some very old Hexes, popular (popular? How can hexes be popular?) when she was a girl, and found me a book of curses.

I'm not too sure that all this will make it easy for me to make friends...

************************************

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1 July, 1993

School year is over.

Got howlers almost every day at school from my grandmother, and now I'm back at her house for the summer.

Oh Joy. Oh Bliss. Oh Rapture.

I have decided that my three cousins' names are Flopsy, Mopsy, and CottonTail instead of Flora, Marianne, and Carrie, as they are entirely too much like rabbits to have people names. At the ripe old age of 12, they sit around all day and giggle about boys with their proper pureblooded friends. They have also acquired boyfriends who come to the house to snog them when grandmother isn't around. I, however, with no friends, boy or otherwise, who can't remember the last time someone alive spoke to me nicely, let alone touched me, am constantly referred to as "that wretched little slut child". I adore my family.

As soon as I got home, Grandmother shouted at me for my insolence (apparently standing like a normal person is "insolent") and locked me in my little room, after she took my wand. Then she complained loudly about how a few curses and poisons make half- blood children feel too self-important. It's her own fault if she doesn't like what I learned at Durmstrang, as I wanted to go to Hogwarts with the Muggle- borns and other half- bloods.

Not a word about how I was at the top of every single class. She had nothing good to say about me at all. The bunnies barely managed to get to the middle of all their class rosters, and she loves them.

Hate them. Hate them all.

---

2 July, 1993

So I'm going through my clothes, and I have three piles: too big, too small with small holes, too small with big holes, or the wrong color for what's assigned. (For instance, my *pink* robes for school.)

The last pile is the largest, unfortunately. I don't know what I'm supposed to wear, I'm too little to hold up anything the bunnies could get rid of, not that I'd want it. They wear far too many bright colors for my taste. Maybe I can find something in an unused part of the house, though I'd probably have to make it out of curtains or something, as the boggarts are still in residence.

---

3 July, 1993

While recuperating from my housework, I stumbled across some of my Great- Grandfathers things. Mostly books. (Isn't it funny how I get the shabbiest robes, wand, books and everything else grandmother can think of, *and* I have to do housework while the three princesses flirt and preen and snog?) I stuffed them under the floorboards in my little room. Will look at them more tomorrow.

---

4 July, 1993

For a change, some people came over to the house for tea. The Goyles and Crabbes come by sometimes, but usually no one else. They're really very stupid, and I think the men only come by for the free food, but Grandmother just adores having anyone in. It was a very exciting day. The bunnies were in rare form, flirting with all the boys outrageously. I got lucky and managed to sneak away from the lot, but I think that one of the wives spotted me. (I can't tell them apart, and don't care to try.)

Amy also found Great-grandmother Rebecca Tanner's 23-sickel stash and said I should take it. Fine with me.

---

5 July, 1993

No doubt about it, Matthew Tanner was quite the Dark Adept. I think he made a lot of these curses himself, and...

He has a potion to make someone into a Parselmouth. It kills half the people who take it and only works on half the remainder. I think I'll try it. It looks a little complex, but it might give me someone alive to talk to. I did not tell Amy about this.

Also, happy 12th birthday to me. Amy says that I'm a Lady now. I don't think I mind, but I don't know any other Ladies who clean up after other people.

---

6 July, 1993

Raining. Did housework all day, house destroyed by 8 PM. Bunnies and their friend Tristia called me "elfie" all afternoon. Sick of cleaning like a damned Muggle. Swiped Flopsie's wand to do housework over. I was in bed by 9 PM.

Wonder if Tristia knows what the bunnies did with her boyfriend Samuel yesterday...

---

7 July, 1993

Happy Monday. That about covers it.

---

8 July, 1993

I had to listen to an endless rant from grandmother about my mother and her family and why they were unworthy to draw breath. Despite my lack of a wand, I managed to make several large things explode, which grandmother finally took as a hint.

My mother was a Muggle. I get that. Fine. She had men before my father. Not surprising. However, my parents were married to each other for two years before I was born. That never seems to sink in with Grandmother. Ever. The Bunnies are *all* illegitimate, and their mothers are all too busy to raise them. My mother is just dead, and would never have left me with this old bitch of her own volition, I remember that much.

---

9 July, 1993

---

10 July, 1993

Grandmother bundled us all off to the Malfoy Manor this afternoon. I think they only invite her over to laugh at her later, because she's the daughter of a Muggle born herself, and only married Randolph Tanner for social acceptance. I suppose it could be pity, though, as my father is in Azkaban, and he was her only son. They don't look at me if they can help it, though. And now *all* of the Bunnies' friends are calling me "Elfie", which confused the Malfoy's House Elves.

I am not allowed to speak to "my betters," which includes all of my peers at such gatherings. I deal with this sort of thing at school, also.

This is OK, I guess, as so many of them are such gits.

I guess.

---

11 July, 1993

Got out of the house and ran down to the Leaky Cauldron to see if I could get through without a wand. A nice old man let me through, and I got some things for the Parselmouth Potion. There's a bit left over, I changed it to Muggle money.

---

12 July, 1993

Managed to acquire enough ingredients from a variety of places to have a go at the parselmouth Potion. It'll be done in a week. Go Me!

Also got into trouble for telling Flopsy her dress is ugly. Of course it's ugly it's pink. Now I have to do Muggle style gardening in "repentance", which I find disturbing for reasons I can't quite put my finger on.

For that matter, *all* their dresses are ugly.

---

13 July, 1993

Managed to get out of the house for several hours and wandered around Muggle London. It's a little dangerous, I suppose, but I figure no one will look for me there.

---

14 July, 1993

Found an empty sketchbook in Flopsy's "throwaway" pile. Anyway, she won't recognise the thing now.

I also spotted Jessie Nott and her doting male relatives in Diagon Alley. Well, I suppose doting isn't really the word. Her father always looks guilt stricken when he looks at her. I have no idea why. Anyway, she's calmed down quite a bit since I last saw her. She just - well, she looks scared, and that's just not right, because nothing scares her.

---

15 July, 1993

I was wandering along a corridor with my sketchbook mapping out the floor when Amy spotted me, and said she wanted to show me something. She showed me a suite of rooms on the third flor and told me to be careful. It's my parents' suite, and Amy was right, it is *very* dangerous. I found one thing I could get at though. A brown leather book full of family pictures. I have my fathers' hair, a sort of oak stained brown. I can't tell on the eyes. My mother was a little thing, like me. She had to stand on her tiptoes and stretch to kiss the underside of his chin. She looks like a porcelain doll, all black and white.

I couldn't look at the pictures very long. I just couldn't. But they now reside in my little hidey-hole. After that I went to a park and just sat, staring at nothing.

---

16 July, 1993

I've been doing all my chores in the dead of night, so I can leave the house during the day. No one seems to mind

---

17 July, 1993

There was a lovely little box in the room facing my mothers' suite. It had a lot of old Muggle safety pins in it. At least now I can hold up my clothes and close some of the biggest holes. Also found a big jar of knuts. Apparently grandmother didn't go through the rooms in this corridor at all. Good for me.

Hey, some of these Knuts are *old*.

---

18 July, 1993

Was sitting in Hyde Park drawing, as I have since the 14th, and looked up to see an old (he says that he's 87) Muggle looking over my shoulder. He said my drawings are really good, and let me into a museum on his pass! It was brilliant!

His name is Mr. Tombs and he says I can come back whenever I want.

---

19 July, 1993

7am

The potion is done. Sort of a silvery green colour, and there are a couple of doses, but I only need one. Oh, well. Into a jar it goes.

2pm

Grandmother has taken the others shopping. Now for it. If it works, I live, and I might be able to talk to snakes (better company than I usually have.) If I've made a mistake, It might be my last one, but I won't have to hear about it. I won't hear anything else, for that matter. I've pushed down the little niggling guilt I feel about maybe not seeing Mr. Tombs again, and have secured myself in a secluded place where no one will interrupt the change.

8pm

(Shakily) I feel like every nerve is on fire. For the first couple of hours, my skin turned green and scaly (there is a mirror up here). Then it sort of sank in, and I looked normal. I thought it was over, and stood up, but I was very light-headed, and passed out. I just woke up.

I had the strangest dream while I was under..

My mother is next to me, singing in a language I don't know anymore. A woman is sitting across from us in a silver chair. Imara is her name. I had forgotten that. I always thought that Imara was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. Her skin is very pale, and her mouth and eyes are black, like her hair and fingernails. My mother looks similar, but Imara just always.. sparkles with a sort of dark majesty and pride that I desperately want for myself.

She gestures for me to approach, and says that I have chosen my path home. She gives me a black raven feather and a narrow braid of white, brown, and red. Then she hands me a mirror, and I watch as my brown hair and eyes turn to deepest black. When the transformation is complete, all of my coloring matches Imara and my mother.

The braid is hair. I know what that means, and yet I don't. I turn back to my mother and she has been replaced by a great thorny hedge, though I can still hear her singing. As I turn, the house slowly changes to a sort of clearing in a great circle of this hedge, and Imara is gone. The mirror disappears as well. I am left with only the feather and the braid.

At this point I woke up.

I was only three when the ministry killed my mother, and I was taken from my mother's people. Despite everything I have been told, I do not believe that my mother was a Muggle prostitute. I'm starting to wonder if she was even human. When I woke, I really did have a braid of three different hair colors and a raven feather in my hand. I also had severe cramps and there was blood everywhere. I started cleaning up and they heard me downstairs. I must have really looked a fright, as grandmother started to say something and stopped, then told me where to find the things to take care of the blood and pain. Luckily she didn't pay any attention to the green-silver gunk in the bottom of the broken glass I carried downstairs.

---

20 July, 1993

Oh, are the ghosts agitated. One of them was blaming Amy for not watching me close enough when I was obviously depressed, and I ended up in a shouting match with him for upsetting her even more than she already was.

All I wanted was to talk to living creatures without fear of my secrets getting back to my grandmother, and now I've upset the only beings who have cared about me since I was three. Just bloody brilliant.

---

21 July, 1993

Swiped Mopsey's wand this afternoon to do chores. Sat in room looking at pictures the rest of the day. I just feel so sad I don't want to do anything at all. No one has said anything to me since yesterday.

But I didn't cry. I never cry.

---

22 July, 1993

No more moping. Forced self to Muggle pet store this afternoon. The potion failed. I've never been so depressed. It's like the universe doesn't want me to talk to *anybody* except ghosts. A salesman noticed how depressed I looked and came and patted me on the head, thinking I was about 9.

All that work, and I could have bought new robes.

I've apologised to my caretakers for scaring them, and they're still upset, but they try to understand. They know so much what it's like to be dead that they sometimes forget that I'm a live little girl and need to be with other people like me.

I guess I was really very desperate to try something so dangerous, but it really didn't seem like a bad idea at the time.

---

23 July, 1993

I have become a raving lunatic.

I told grandmother off for taking my wand and then making me scrub everything in sight. I told Tristia what her boyfriend was up to, and informed the Bunnies that they were the wrong complexion to wear pastels. I even screamed at the cat, and he didn't do anything.

Now everyone seems to be afraid of me. Maybe I'll just act like this all the time.

---

24 July, 1993

The Bunnies threw a party and *I* got to clean it up, cake ground into the carpet and all. Some of the male guests got quite friendly with the Bunnies and their friends were alternately shocked or very disapproving. Nobody asked my opinion.

I'm going back to the museum tomorrow, where it is only depressing.

---

25 July, 1993

First naked man spotted.

Oh. My. God.

I was walking toward the museum when this protester or something came streaking down the path carrying a sign, screaming about how unnatural clothes were and flapping in the breeze.

My expression must have been really entertaining, as my picture was on a Muggle newspaper article about the protest. Mr. Tombs got me several copies.

And I say again: Oh. My. God.

---

26 July, 1993

Cramps and blood have gone away. Everything is back to "normal". Cousins are all giggling as I have to hear how precocious and famous I am. Plus the newspaper called me a "little girl".

Hate them. Hate them all.

---

27 July, 1993

Got a very cheap little box in a "Muggle" shop (actually an Illegal annex of Knockturn Alley) with 5 compartments for my cache of "forbidden" stuff. It's made to look like a ragged old book, and it only cost me two sickles, as it's got bloodstains or something all over it. Go Me!

---

28 July, 1993

I suppose I should introduce the ghost of the man who built this house, since he's making such a fuss over me all of a sudden. His name is Albright Tanner, and he died 800 years ago. Like many of the other ghosts in the house, Albright was a practitioner of the Dark Arts when he was alive. He did some type of binding ritual that seven generations of his descendants had to duplicate, and now Albright can look at a person and tell if they are of his bloodline.

Albright serves as the family historian, is as snobbish about "pure blood" as the Malfoys, and hates my Grandmother with all of his benighted soul. He knows everything about this house.

Grandmother had four children. This included my father, who was the blood heir to the house, and three daughters. According to Albright, the daughters are all children of affairs, and not his kin. Grandfather was going to divorce her, but an Auror killed him by mistake just before the final papers were signed. Albright won't tell me anymore, but he really hates her. I think he blames her for Papa being in Azkaban, as well, but he won't talk about that at all.

---

29 July, 1993

When I was six, Grandmother had almost the whole house boarded up and sealed off because she had some kind of dispute with the ghosts, and Albright actually convinced the Ministry to make her do it.

Grandmother didn't know the house very well, but she took anything that was very obviously valuable from the area that she knew. I think that's why Albright had the place sealed and herded all those boggarts in.

---

30 July, 1993

I should prolly get to my homework, especially as it has to be done in Bulgarian. Bleah.

---

31 July, 1993

Grandmother was invited to the Bulstrode residence, and told to bring her grand daughters. They apparently didn't think I was related to my cousins.

What a stupid lot they are. Just as bad as the Goyles, only they have a daughter, instead. Millicent decided that I must be a Squib or something, so she tried to hit me.

Just imagine her surprise when I made her hover about a foot from the ceiling. With her own wand. I am amazed that I didn't get caught. She swears that she'll get me for this, but I still haven't figured out what I did in the first place.

---***---

1 August, 1993

Started homework. Each class has three assignments. I have to do extra on all of them, as the teachers have been instructed to grade me most harshly because of my being a half - blood. 21 assignments.

Oy, am I stupid.

---

2 August, 1993

Went to a Muggle shop for underwear. I really had no choice. It's strange how all the Muggles I've met are nice to me, but the wizards are very tense when I'm around or just cruel to me. Maybe I just haven't met enough Muggles.

---

3 August, 1993

I sat under a tree in the park today. They were doing children's activities all over it, and some Muggle children started yelling at me about my ratty clothes. I ignored them. Then some of the trees just dropped branches on their heads. I swear I didn't do it, but it was funny. I do wonder, though.

Trees are supposed to be all cold and dead feeling. Like furniture, I guess. But I'm telling you, they're more alive than some wizards I know. My mother used to talk to them.

---

4 August, 1993

Stashed my stuff in back of the house, where Grandmother can not go. Heh.

---

5 August, 1993

Met a bunch of Muggles called "goths" who were hanging up advertisements for various bands. I guess my ratty black clothes and cloak (it was raining) made them think I was one of them. Sort of. They said I was too young to really be a goth, but I was definitely at least a baby goth, as I'm too morbid to be anything else. They're really brilliant. I love their music, I just wish I could sing, and said so. After looking at some of the things written in my sketchbook, the oldest of them, a private music teacher named Annmarie, said she would teach me, and I can pay her when I'm rich and famous. Yay!!!

---

6 August, 1993

Met Annmarie and some of her younger students in SoHo. General class is on Friday, with individual meetings scattered across the rest of the week. (Mine is on Monday afternoon.) It was an interesting first day. I was very nervous, at first, as I never really interacted with people my own age before. Most Wizarding children I've met wanted nothing to do with me, including the ones I room with at school. Also my clothes are just terrible, even if they are clean.

There are a couple of Squib's children in the group, but we didn't have too much time to talk. Their names are Alabaster and Felicia. (They are both girls.)

After class, I explained part of my home situation to Annmarie. She was "concerned", but said that she would make sure I could still advance even during school and if grandmother was being restrictive. I don't know why Annmarie is being so nice to me.

It's a very strange feeling.

She says I remind her of a little girl she used to know.

---

7 August, 1993

Back to the Malfoy's. Bah, Humbug. Sat drawing people at random in a separate little book I found in my part of the Tanner House. Good thing it was empty of everything else, as Mr. Malfoy wheedled it out of me just before I left. Said he liked the one I did of everyone in the dining room, and couldn't bear to tear the book.

Got yelled at for interacting with my "betters" when we got home.

If he's so much better than I am, why can't he draw his own damned dining room?

---

8 August, 1993

Got my school letter today. Pretty standard stuff I need. Or would be if it wasn't for the old hag hiring someone to drag me into the shabbiest second hand shops in Diagon Alley. Maybe I can shake them off and go down to Knockturn Alley just because.

---

9 August, 1993

Grandmother yelled at me for disappearing every afternoon. Gave me a new list of daily chores three times the length of the old one and said I was to do it every day. Good thing I told Annmarie how bad it is here. She already gave me all the lessons I'll need for the school year.

---

10 August, 1993

I snuck out to my personal music lesson anyway. Some of the people in that neighbourhood are quite - interesting. I never would have thought that someone would pay to have a hole punched in their face. Or carry a riding crop with them "in case I get a shag opportunity".

---

11 August, 1993

I have started "borrowing" a wand every day for my chores. Good thing the Bunnies never pay attention to their stuff.

---

12 August, 1993

Getting very well on homework. Not much else done today. (Besides chores.) Music lessons tomorrow.

---

13 August, 1993

Friday the 13th. I learned a new French Aria in class. Also a new Cure song. Boo!

---

14 August, 1993

Went to a free music festival in a park.

Met Alabaster and Felicia at noon, and got yelled at for disappearing again at 5.

---

15 August, 1993

Packed off to Malfoy Manor again this afternoon. At least I can talk to Dobby there. Only good thing that happened there, actually.

Draco's hair is the exact color as the white strand in my braid. I just realized this today, and it scares the hell out of me for some reason I can't quite fathom. Luckily, I don't think he noticed my expression, since he was facing away from me, showing off in front of his friends. Unfortunately, my grandmother did notice.

Spent most of the evening imagining evil things happening to all my father's live relatives after being screamed at for 45 minutes for *looking* at one of my male "betters". This was made worse by my poorly judged comment of "Well, he seems the type that wants to be the centre of attention, I just thought I'd help."

I'm surprised she didn't beat the stuffing out of me, the hag.

Snuck out of the house at 10 PM to go blow off steam with my fellow rejects.

Huzzah!! 15 days till I go back to school!

---

16 August, 1993

Diagon Alley was full of people for Hogwarts this afternoon. Jessie Nott no longer looks scared. She looks downright terrified, instead. The strange thing is her family just seems to not even notice. That or they're just playing it off as nerves.

That girl is a year younger than I am, and she's already taller than I am. It's not fair.

---

17 August, 1993

Personal music lesson. Doing very well, she says.

Mr. Tombs is not doing well. He has Pneumonia, and is in hospital. Well, I did say that he's old. For a Muggle, he's very old. I'm worried I won't get back in time to see him next year.

---

18 August, 1993

Drew some monkeys with guitars and drums this afternoon when I got sick of homework. Grandmother has started keeping watch on Bunnies wands, so I "borrowed" hers. She has never mentioned my speed at the housework, but I think it still annoys her no end.

---

19 August, 1993

General music class tomorrow.

Yet still more homework done today.

Getting harder to sneak out, as grandmother is keeping a close watch on the house connection to the floo network. Oh, well. A window and a train schedule work just as well, and it's far more interesting.

Muggle hospitals are very odd. Mr. Tombs isn't getting any better. Hmm.. Maybe Pepper-Up Potion...

---

20 August, 1993

Not much going on today. I just realised that I've never given any indication as to what I look like, or where the house is.

I'm small for my age, like six inches shorter than anyone else in my class, and I look a bit like a bundle of twigs, really. My skin is *very* pale, like the pictures of my mom, and my hair and eyes are dark brown. My hair is annoyingly straight, and actually reaches the middle of my back when I let it down, but I never do for fear someone will take a Severing Charm to it. There are also funny black spots on the tops of my ears, and I have no idea where they came from.

The house used to be far away from London, but the city engulfed it before the first Great War. Most of the garden is intact, which is unusual for the neighborhood, but the stables and most of the outbuildings are gone. The house appears large from the outside, though certainly not as large as it actually is. I call it a "house", but it's as much an old Manor as any other large residence built 800 years ago. Over that time, enchantment after enchantment enlarged the inside until it's nearly impossible to say *how* many rooms there are. One generations closet became their grandchildren's' suite.

If this house ever fell into Muggle hands, the poor bastards would go insane.

---

21 August, 1993

Ten days left. Homework is done. Yay!!

Mr. Tombs is out of the Hospital. Shhh..

---

22 August, 1993

The shit has finally hit the fan, as it were. For example:

Grandmother doesn't like my attitude. That's fine, I don't like hers, either.

She doesn't like my clothes. That's also fine, since she gave me everything I have to wear except my underwear, which I had to buy myself.

She doesn't think the hours I keep are proper. Well, if I was permitted to have wizarding friends, I expect I wouldn't have to do all the housework at night and go out during the day just to have someone to talk to who doesn't hate me.

This fight lasted for quite some time, and ended only when she pulled her wand and I dared to duck. The bolt hit her precious Mopsy, and while she rushed to help her little "angel", I left.

---

23 August, 1993

Well, she was as bad as her word. The house is a disaster, and I'm expected to clean it like a Muggle if I want any of my books for school this year. If I spent every knut I have, I would be able to get about three of them, but I have to get books that aren't on the regular list, as well, so there is just no way.

---

24 August, 1993

Personal music lesson. Just barely managed to finish cleaning and get there in time. I told Annmarie what was going on. I mean *really* going on, not the nice version I usually tell people, and she looked completely shocked.

I said that on the one hand, I'm so angry it's frightening, but I'm ashamed, too. Of my appearance, my clothes, my family. Of myself. And Annmarie took hold of me, and said that anger and hatred were all well and good, but not shame. Shame is not allowed. Feeling shame means that we think that the people who hate us are right. It gives them a victory they do not deserve, and should never be allowed to have.

I felt a little better when I left, though I still felt eyes on my ragged clothes all the way home.

Addendum:

I don't usually dream. This is a good thing, it keeps me sort of sane to not dream.

I was in front of Imara's chair, and I was about three. She was telling me about her people and their history. I don't remember any of the history part, or any of the names, but then she stared me straight in the eyes and said:

"You must always remember what you are. You are not some petty woman-child pretender to the dark throne, but a daughter of the Greatest Houses of Europe and beyond. You will never have anything to be ashamed of unless you dare to feel shame. Those who would tell you to feel such self-hatred are our enemies, and should be treated as such."

---

25 August, 1993

So much drudgery, so little time.

Hate housework. Wish grandmother had to do it when I'm away, but she just hires someone. Prolly with my father's money. The money she spends on her precious three terrors all came from my father's account. Money that was supposed to have been mine, and which she would never even consider spending on me.

Bitter? I don't have time to be bitter.

I have revenge to see to.

Such as choosing a Muggle nursing home for my grandmother, and making sure that she's buried 14 feet facedown in a Muggle cemetery.

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26 August, 1993

Grandmother started to say something to me about the housework, today, and I just looked at her like what she is - a thief, and a poor one at that. She backed down immediately and left the room.

I talked to Albright for a little while this afternoon, and he was very approving.

Yay.

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27 August, 1993

Last general music lesson of the summer. I'm very sad, but Annmarie says I'm doing very well. She's very proud of my change in demeanor. I apparently am even moving differently. Like I don't feel like an interloper in my own life, anymore. Wish I actually felt that way.

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28 August, 1993

Managed to escape the mangy git she hired to drag me about, and ran down to Knockturn alley. Now most people in the wizarding world don't go down there unless they're up to no good, but I have vague good memories of the place. Both my father and Imara would bring me to Borgin and Burkes and they used to give me candy or ice cream if I behaved. Well, today, I wasn't behaving, but I wanted to see these two men, maybe just to remind myself that they were real.

Mr. Borgin was there, but Mr. Burke was out. I told him who I was and that I'd slipped away from my chaperone to say hello because I remembered him. (I remember a lot of things a lot more clearly from that part of my life since I took the potion this summer.)

He got really quiet for a minute. I got the impression that he was inspecting my tattered, disgusting robes and then he asked me if I'd even been given the money to do my own shopping or had a fitted wand. Now, the wand my grandmother "gave" me last year was barely in one piece, and I told him so, and as to her giving me money to spend .. HA. That's what the chaperone was for.

I asked him about Imara, and he said that she would contact me in her own way, when she felt the need. He asked if I could wait a moment, and I said yes.

When he came back, he gave me a pouch of twenty Galeons and told me to get some decent robes and a new wand! Though he suggested that I get the robes delivered to school after I get there to avoid grandmothers' objections.

I guess I just stood there stammering for a moment, but he just hushed me, and said it was the least he could do for Jackob Tanner's daughter, but I better hurry before I got caught.

My new wand is Blackthorn, 21.5 cm, with a phoenix feather core. It's wonderful! And I bought all new robes that I'll have the day after I get to school! And I just wanted to say hello to father's old friend! It's wonderful!

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29 August, 1993

Alabaster and Felicia have gone back to Wizarding School in America. We're going to try to owl each other, but their school is somewhere in the middle of America, and my school is in Bulgaria, so the owls might take quite a while.

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30 August, 1993

Today was my last day in London. I'll be glad to be getting away from my "family", but I was very sad to say goodbye to all my new friends. I wish there were people at Durmstrang I felt this way about, but there is no one.

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31 August, 1993

Had to say goodbye to all my new friends yesterday. It's strange to think of myself as having friends.

I will pick this up next summer. Grandmother checks my bags so I don't take anything that doesn't belong to me to school. She'd be sure to take this. It won't fit in my "book".