A Pretty Little Mistake

Chapter Two

This will be the second letter I have written to you since I left Hogwarts. The first, really, since the original was written on the eve of my departure. I am not entirely sure, still, whether or not it does me good to be writing these. After all, it seems a waste of time to write letters that will never see anyone's eyes but mine, and God knows I have little enough time these days. But still, it fills me with a curious sense of peace to put my thoughts down as though I speak to a true person. I have tried to write a journal but the words felt stiff and unnatural, as though I wrote for an audience, or indeed, to a stranger. I could always speak my mind around you, except of course, for one thing.

I think I will begin by giving you an account of the events since my rather abrupt departure from Hogwarts. I left on the night before Easter Break, having told my brother that I was staying with our parents, and my parents that I was studying with my brother. With any luck I will not have been missed until the day classes began; I cannot imagine that my parents care enough for the welfare of their children that they would bother to look closely at any letter we send them. The Knight Bus was as unclean and vulgar as I had feared, but a handful of Sickles ensured the silence of the conductor and driver and my cloak hid my face well enough, should anyone think to ask questions. I do not think that you will waste time and effort searching for me, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

It was an odd sort of starless night when I arrived at the Muggle village of Puddlemere. There was no moon but the sky seemed murky and grey instead of true black. Would you scorn me for choosing to live among Muggles? Of course you would, I have heard you say many times that if Arthur Weasley loves Muggles so much that he should snap his wand in half and join them, and in truth I bear them no love, but Muggles are different than wizards would believe. They are suprisingly human.

I found work with a woman named McCallum. I would not call her cruel but she is bitter, the bitterness that comes from a life of hard work and no reward. I have promised myself that I will never allow myself to become so old and so bitter, like the women I see going to the rusty pump for water every day. They are old before their time, their hands and their voices harsh, their backs bent from scrubbing floors. When they speak it is only to complain, complain of lazy husbands, of rising prices, of harsh winters, cruel summers. I have our son, I will see him and stay young, if not happy. I do not believe I have ever been truly happy.

Rachel McCallum and I do not get along. I thought her common and she, no doubt believed me spoiled. We were both right, to a certain extent. At first I lowered my eyes when she walked past, calling her Madam and keeping my voice cool, but there was disdain in every line of my body and whatever else she might be Rachel McCallum is not unobservant, or indeed, stupid. When I appeared on her doorstep asking for work her eyes took in everything about me at a glance - from my slightly bulging belly to my cloak - travel-worn in a feeble attempt to disguise my orgins, but the robes underneath were silk and my hands were smooth, the fingernails long. The first words she said to me were "You've never done a day's work in your life, have you, girl?" It was my answer that caused her to grudgingly allow me to work for room and board. I looked her full in the eye and replied "No, madam. But I will learn." I hesitate to compare you to Rachel McCallum but in one thing you are similar - the both of you can see strength, however deep it is hidden. You saw it in a pretty rich girl, and Rachel McCallum saw it in a sixteen-year-old mother but strength remains the same, whatever form it chooses to take.

The work day here begins with the sun, sometimes before. I am among the first awake, because I must fetch water for the kitchen and heat the stove for bathwater - electricity does not, apparently, extend to the Outer Hebrides. I am not sure if I understand electricity; I have been unable to question anyone too closely about it, for obvious reasons. Supposedly I am then to help Annie cook breakfast for the other boarders, but in reality I fetch ingredients and reach into the higher cupboards when Annie's arthritic joints cannot unbend. Annie calls me a gopher or perhaps a gofer. The first time she did this I bristled for the rest of the day and now I think she does it mainly to vex me. But I do not mind it as much as I used to.

After breakfast and washing up, I tackle the laundry if it is Wednesday or Saturday, and scrub the house I share with Rachel McCallum, Annie, the two other boarders and, apparently, a young man who is some manner of sports star - I have not enquired because I care little for Muggle sports and also because I am likely to be disappointed by Puddlemere's concept of a sports star. But I have never seen him so I suppose there may be some truth to village stories. I do wonder, though, why any sports star would choose to live in Puddlemere - I certainly wouldn't.

There are a million things that are required to keep a house running smoothly. I have an absurd amount of pride in those tasks that I can accomplish but I am still so very, very ignorant. I have begun to outgrow the disdain with which I once viewed the people that surround me. It is very easy to say that any household task should be simple but I would invite those who do to attempt to wash laundry without magic, or cook a meal for five people. I had thought, once, to ease the pain I felt when I thought of you by picturing you up to your elbows in laundry but I cannot imagine it. I keep wanting to make myself laugh, but for some reason I just feel like crying. Perhaps I will stop trying.

I still have not finished your portrait. I have tried once or twice, when I had a spare minute, but it always ends up looking like wishful thinking. I have thought that I ought to try and draw you as you are but I think that it would hurt too much. This is probably because it would involve admitting the truth of the matter to myself and I cannot bring myself to do it. Not that I haven't tried of course. At night I will sometimes lie in my bed and whisper to myself 'You don't love me, you don't love me, you don't love me' over and over, but the instant I begged you 'please' still haunts my dreams. Curious things, these dreams, it is as if I am somehow separate from myself. As I watch myself fall to my knees I plead to a higher power that this time it be different, 'Let him raise me up and hold me to him, let him love his son, please God let him love our son. The first time this happened I felt my heart go out to the poor, broken creature on the marble floor and in the same instant wondered 'Are she and I really so different?'

Annie surprised me yesterday, as we were getting ready to go to bed. I had already changed into my nightdress and was standing by the window when I felt a timid hand brush my arm - it felt rather like I imagined a bird's wing would feel. When I turned, startled, to face her, she said in halting, broken English, "You are such a söt flicka, a pretty girl, a smart girl. How is it that you can stand to live here, like this?" She spread her hands to encompass the sad little village of Puddlemere - the slumping buildings, the boarded up stores, our ramshackle house, the grey, dingy attic that no amount of whitewash can brighten. I looked into her eyes and saw the ghost of another smart, pretty girl broken by a life of tragedy and hard work. I saw myself in another fifty, sixty years, and it was this that pulled the truth from my mouth.

"Do you want to know how I do it? I clench my teeth and endure. I endure because this is how my life is now and no matter how much I want it to, nothing will ever change." I turned away and whispered softly to myself. "Nothing ever changes."

Annie paused then, and became extremely interested in the cracks in the plaster walls whilst I fought back the lump that had formed in my throat. When I had composed myself sufficiently, she spoke in words that were soft with regret. "You have much styrka, much strength, little one. But do not be so busy enduring that you forget to live, to take joy in what little you have." She turned and made her slow, shuffling way to her bed then, leaving me standing stock-still by the cracked glass of the attic window.

I couldn't sleep that night. I was thinking about what Annie had said, and I have come to realize that it is true. I can look back at the girl I was before and although there is not much difference between us, some things have changed. I remember looking around my dormitory, seeing my wealth of things, and caring for none of them. I look now around my grey, dusty attic room, in my grey, dusty life and even though not everything I see is pretty, it is mine and I have slaved for it, built it from nothing, depending on no one but myself. And there is a ray of light shining through the grey -our son, and he is where I will find my joy when there is nothing else. I have been thinking of what I shall name him, and I have decided on something from the Bible, perhaps Gabriel or Jesu. Gabriel simply because of the beauty of the name, and Jesu because our son will be my savior. I think that's appropriate, don't you?

All my love,

Tabitha Baddock