Life Is a Ball When You Wear a Masque

Life Is A Ball When You Wear A Masque

When I was little, my mother used to tell me fairy tales. I'd listen closely each night; trying to imagine what my own fairy tale would be like. Then I'd fall asleep dreaming of my prince charming and happily Ever After.

The only part of the story I didn't like was the beginning or maybe the middle, when the poor girl of choice that night was trapped under the glare of a hateful step-mother, or running away from their evil queen-mothers. It seemed like their darkness would go on forever, and that there was a large chance that they would never reach the ball or be rescued by a handsome prince.

When I was eight, my mother died. The stories stopped. It hurt my father to see any of the books my mother had loved, so he had the library locked up. My favorite stories were forever safe from me. I learned to cope with the feeling of loneliness; my father loved me, but didn't know how to show it. I stopped having friends. They all had mothers who read those stories, and it made me sad. Why was I chosen to be different? In my dreams at night, Cinderella or Snow White came and rescued me to be my mother after they had been saved. I imagined my mother looking down on me from heaven, if such a place existed. I hoped she was smiling, because I never smiled. Not anymore. It seemed as if I had died when she did too, leaving only this empty shell that was me.

Later on, my father remarried. I now had my very own step-mother. She was the head-mistress at Evil Step-Mother Academy Training School. I despised her. Now more than ever, I wanted my prince charming to come. But it's not likely for a prince to come when you're twelve; such marriages are illegal. The year before, I had gotten a letter of odd sorts' about a strange school: Hogwarts. I was excited and terrified. I also went. There I met wonderful friends: Harry Potter, the boy who lived; and Ronald Weasley, the boy who drove me nuts.

I remember very clearly the first time I met my step-mother. She walked into my home as if it was already hers, looked around and pronounced it nearly perfect. Then she looked at me. Her face came over a look of smelling rotten eggs and milk, seeing a vulgar something, and stepping into dog crap all at the same time. The first time it was quite comical. After that I came to know that as the face she would look at me with.

I often wondered how such a horrible woman could trick my wonderful father. They were so opposite. Later on I figured out that she was also a dentist. They started a firm together. I cared not. I just wanted her gone.

After that wouldn't it be nice if she had actually forced physical labor on me? Her marriage to my father would have been short lived. She would have gone to jail, because now, there are Child Labor Laws. Thank God that scared her, because often laws do not stop an evil being. But her abuse was verbal, the hardest of all to identify.

She automatically pointed out all my flaws: too short, too skinny, nose too pointed, etc. Then she surprised me by telling my father that I was depressed from my mother's death. I was sent to a physiologist.

This man taught me many things. How to act interested when your not, and how to hide your feelings to the world. Funny, because later I was told that this is not what a physiologist is supposed to teach you. Oh well, my loss.

I learned to wear masques to the balls. A different one for how you are supposed to feel. Blue if you were supposed to be sad. Red if you were supposed to be in love. Yellow if you were feeling happy. I loved my white masque though. It was almost like my true self, nonchalant and unfeeling. You can't tell a thing by a non colored masque, you just cease to exist.

By now you should have realized that there was never a ball. I pretended life was a ball, and if I wore a masque, I would never be the center of entertainment.

I began to loathe going home. I started reading more, and then in third year I took all the classes I could, trying to get away from my parents. My father insisted that I call the woman "mother" and not "step-mother". Such a task was emotionally taxing on me. This woman was no where near the kind woman that had given birth to me.

At the end of third year, when I met Sirius Black, and overheard him asking Harry to come live with him; I felt such a jealousy and rage. One thing that I had in common with this boy was our terrible, or near terrible, backgrounds. Then, Wormtail escaped. And Harry stayed with the Dursleys. I rejoiced. I hated feeling alone.

Fourth year, as many of you know, was exciting, emotionally taxing, and the thrill of my life. That was until Harry disappeared at the end of the Third Task, and came back with a dead Cedric. That day, a war began. My life changed forever. My soul parted with childhood. I was still a masque of deceit to everyone, but occasionally I took them off.

And then came Fifth Year. Notice how five always comes after four? Isn't that interesting? Anyways, this year proved to be the worst. Harry was being sullen, and then there was that whole thing with Umbridge. Mr. Weasley was attacked by a snake, Hagrid had a giant call me Hermy, and Dumbledore left the school. Ron was on the quidditch team. And a prophesy was smashed, without anyone hearing it. I was sent home in bandages and a less than stable mind from the curse that Antonin Dolohov hit me with. I begged Dumbledore not to owl home, but he did so anyway. My 'mother' used this as an excuse to try and get my authority undermined. She may have been an adult, but I was considered one of the cleverest witches at Hogwarts. My father trusted my judgment still. But I was still not quite right. That woman started to get to me.

Then one day, I couldn't take it. I ran. I left all the things I knew behind, even my masques.

I ran farther and farther than I ever imagined I could. My throat was burning and my nostrils were swollen, but I kept running. If I stopped, the world would catch up again. And I couldn't bear that. My legs throbbed, and I wished them numbness. My eyes stung and watered and I wished them blindness. My ears ring and I wished to hear no more. And then It happened. I saw the woman who would save me.

I didn't actually see her though. I ran into her full force before even realizing that she was ever there. She was an elderly lady of about fifty. And she was wearing a cloak. That scared me. How many people wear cloaks during the twenty-first century? (Except witches of course. That comforted me some). She was sitting on the log that, had she not been there I would most certainly have tripped over.

This female (I was sure she was female, her pointed shoes gave her away) was looking down at said pointed shoes. Then she looked up. Her gaze met mine. And she smiled. My future lay in that smile. I just didn't know it yet.

-',-',-',-',-',-',-

I stayed with this kind woman until the start of term in Sixth Year. I said a tearful good bye to her and boarded the Hogwarts Express (she had in fact been a witch, which was good, because how would I have explained that to a muggle?). The train ride was relaxing, and I quickly found myself picking up the pieces of the threads of the life I had left behind last June. The first week was rough, and my masques again found me. After that life fell into a happier pattern, until today. I was sitting in the Great Hall, eating a bit of toast, when an ugly barn owl flew in. Don't get me wrong, the bird might have looked fine to anyone else, but what the owl carried made it the carrier of Satan's letters. The letter went like this:

Dear Miss Granger,

We are sorry to inform you, but the woman you stayed with over summer hols was murdered last week in a raid of You-Know-Who's supporters. We give our deepest sympathy.

Sincerely,

The Department of Magical Cover-up

I was stunned. I ran like I had done earlier in the year. Not seeing, not thinking, but just making my feet carry me somewhere. I made it as far as the Entrance Hall.

There, standing by the door, letting the rain come in, as it had been pouring all day, were men. Men in black hoods and white masks. They turned and stared.

Then, in one quick, fluid movement, one of them walked quickly toward me and uttered a curse. A killing curse. Time slowed. I let out a gasp of shock and let the black dots form over my eyes. Then, a blinding flash of green spread over my senses. I heard a noise and let go. The masque of my own fell, and I also went downwards; smiling. I inhaled and thought, Is this my happily Ever After?

Then, I let the wind carry me away.