A Pretty Little Mistake

A Pretty Little Mistake

I am composing a letter to you but I will never send it. The words echo in my head as I set my quill to parchment and write the things I can never say.

I am sixteen, almost seventeen now. The same age as your son, did you think of that when you came to me? Sixteen, then, and so proud; proud of my hair, that falls thick and dark behind my back, proud of my breasts that are rounded and firm, and so very, very proud that I had caught the eye of such a handsome, wealthy man. And you warned me, didn't you, that there was nothing between us, and that there never would be. I laughed then, a deeper (and, I fancied, more seductive) laugh than is my wont - laughed to cover my sudden nervousness and said, "Really, love is such a babyish thing isn't it?" It made you smile, how frightened I was and how fiercely I fought against it. That is how it began.

But I was young, and carried away with myself, wearing the dress you bought me and smiling knowingly when the girls in my year began to talk of balls and boyfriends. There were near misses, many of them, when I nearly gave away our secret. I think now that you put up with me only because I was so fresh and so pretty and most of all so compliant, needing no sentimental lies or promises of marriage to placate me. So quiet when deep inside I was beginning to love you.

I said nothing, though I came close, once or twice. I came close but your eyes always stopped me. So cold and grey, your smile never reaches them. They make me think of the sound that a glass makes as it shatters and when I looked into them I knew everything would end the moment I told you such a thing.

So I waited. It would be far too melodramatic to say that I endured or that I pined. You never could stand melodrama, I remember the time that you stumbled upon me weeping for an uncle I barely knew, dead in the Dark Lord's service. It was the only time I've every seen you truly angry; you called me a silly little girl and told me that if I were weak enough to cry over a relative I hadn't met more that twice in my life then I might as well take my things and go home. You were right and I thank you for it. It seems odd but when a person is broken and left to put themselves back together they can leave out the pieces that they don't want any longer, and I suppose that's what I did.

And then one day everything changed for me. I woke up one morning and didn't need the nausea or the dizzyness to tell me that I was more than myself, there was a living being inside me, that I carried your child. I told my best friend then, without mentioning names or pointing fingers. Said, Oh God, Pansy I've been seeing someone and now I think I'm in trouble, what should I tell him? I thought I saw something like sympathy flicker across her face but her eyes were cold when she said "Be sure."

And so, I skipped class the next day to find out, left on the way to the infirmary. I wore a cloak that hid my face and Flooed to a dingy place in Knockturn Alley, where the floors were dirty and I fooled no one when I said I was twenty. The man who led me to a cramped little office was short; had bulging eyes and the air of a fish about him but his fingers were surprisingly gentle when he performed the spell that let him see inside me. When he said to me that I had a son, a fine healthy young boy, I was not sure whether to laugh or cry, but when he tentatively handed me a tissue the room seemed to grow cold as I simply stared at him and said, "Good day, doctor".

I am not entirely sure what I did for the rest of that day. There are holes in my memory where time rushed by so quickly that I was unaware of its passing, and in between the holes there are sudden flashes of inconsequential things vividly remembered. A red geranium had fallen by my feet, its stem broken. There was dust from the street on its petals. A curious flower, that has no scent unless it has been crushed.

Another hole and I am standing in front of you. My face is empty and my voice hollow as I explain to you the situation - succinctly and without tears or hysterics as I knew you would prefer. I wonder now how I managed to speak at all, consumed as I was with the thought 'If you will not love me than please - oh God - please love your son, find it within you to love him a little I no longer care for myself only love your son'

I am finished speaking and silence falls abruptly. You simply look at me and the lack of emotion in your eyes becomes unbearable. It was that, I think that destroyed the walls I had built around myself, more so than anything that followed. The cold iron curtains that I had drawn around my soul came crashing down and I whispered one word.

Please

In that instant it ended. You had read everything I could not say in my face and as you spoke I sunk to my knees, silent and screaming inside. I can still hear your words. I wake up with them ringing in my ears and I moan softly and cannot sleep. You looked at me like you do Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers and said "It is of no consequence. A pretty little mistake and easily rectified. Much like yourself. Dispose of it."

I said nothing. I wanted to fly at you, scream at you, hurt you, make you feel make you see our child as I did, he's not an it he's your son he's our son HE'S OUR SON! Instead I rose gracefully and turned to go. When you dropped a pouch of money at my feet I did not move to take it, did not even look at it and as I left I chanced a glance backwards. You seemed very out of place in the room and the hand that had dropped the money was still extended as if you were not sure what to do with it. This is my last memory of you.

I am sixteen, almost seventeen now and I am pregnant. I've gone up two sizes and my uniform doesn't fit right any more. Exams are coming up but I can't stay here, I've been sick the past three mornings and my friends are starting to notice that I'm eating more than I used to. In a little more than half a year my fourteen-year-old brother will be an uncle. The first time I thought of this I laughed because I will not, will not cry.

I am going away tonight. For the first time in my life, no one is there to help me and being forced to help myself is somewhat of a heady sensation - I do not know whether to be exhilarated or frightened. I think I will settle for both. I have reservations on the Knight Bus, under an assumed name, of course. The name Baddock still commands a certain amount of respect in the wizarding world but it also garners a certain amount of attention. I will leave for a town in the middle of nowhere where no one has ever heard of my family or yours and I will find someone who is willing to let a sixteen-year-old mother work for her keep. Laugh if you will, I am not afraid of hard work. Professor Sprout once said that I was suprisingly willing to get my hands dirty. She did not, of course, add 'for a spoiled little rich girl'.

I have a portait of you, that I began on a whim, watching you sleep beside me. I found it as I was packing. I had thought that it would be hard to take only enough to fill my one, small suitcase, but gazing around my dormitory I have come to realize that I have so many things and I care for so few of them. The portrait seems clumsy now, and the time since I sketched it seems longer than four months ago. Perhaps one day I will finish it. I think I will put myself beside you and you will look at me as you never did in life, and this time your smile will reach your eyes. I will take it out when I wish to dream of you and perhaps when I am old and memory of this time begins to elude me I will gaze upon it and think that this portrait is how it really was.

You broke me, vein of my heart, dropped me and I shattered into a million pieces but one day I will be whole again, and our son will help to fill the emptiness you left behind you. I will take our son and raise him to be a better man than his father. I may have been a pretty little mistake, my dear, but I vow to you that our son will not be.

All my love,

Tabitha Baddock