Freaks: Year One

QUACK!

June was here, and Alabaster was anxious.

Three more months, and he would be starting Hogwarts, and he didn't feel like he was ready for it. Not at all.

He tried doing extra reading, and writing, but he would just get frustrated. It was always the same thing, the same pattern, nothing would ever change except the increase of his irritation. He would just stare at the book for hours straight getting nowhere, and the now always present ache throughout his whole body didn't help matters. It just made it worse.

His parents were talking downstairs about something urgent, so he was in his room drawing. Drawing was peaceful to him, along with the piano, and ballet. Those three activities helped him forget the problems in his life. It helped him forget that he was a problem.

He was staring at the sketch, blinking slowly, his eyes drooping. He rubbed them, and pushed his sketchbook to the side, and lay his head down on the desk, hoping that would help his tiredness, and his headache. Not even drawing could distract him from the pain he was in. Why couldn't he just behave?!

His sister entered his room, about to say something, but noticed his head down on the desk so she walked over to him. "Alabaster?"

"Yeah?" He murmured.

Oh, so he was awake. "Mother, and father want to see you."

Alabaster looked up at that, now nervous. "Why? What did I do now?"

"I don't know." Adelaide replied. "You have done all your schoolwork right?"

Alabaster nodded. "As best as I could...which may be the problem." He rubbed his hands over his face, hoping that would make him feel more awake, and he left the room, and headed downstairs.

Adelaide watched him go, concerned about her brother, and turned to his sketchbook. She looked at the drawing he must have been working on, it was not very far along. She tried to figure out what he was drawing, it looked like a roof of some sort...

Oh no.

He could not be drawing that house again, right? Hopefully, he was drawing Hogwarts or another building. Like their own house. She really hoped it was their own house.

She picked up his sketchbook, and flipped through it. It was filled with drawings of different magical objects he had seen around the house, and other types of plants he had seen in books or outside his window. He had even drawn a duck. He had drawn a lot of different things he had seen, and they were all good. He was talented, he just didn't see it.

Adelaide sighed, and placed the sketchbook back on the desk.

Alabaster went down the stairs slowly, trying to ignore the ache each step brought him, and quietly approached his parents who were whispering something about idiotic children going into the forest, whatever that was about. "You needed to see me?"

His father turned. "Yes, come here."

Alabaster slowly approached them, really hoping that his parents weren't going to use the discipline curse again, he had been getting it daily, sometimes several times in a day, and he was exhausted.

"We need to leave." His mother said.

"Why?" Alabaster asked.

"The Dark Lord called us, so we need to go." His father informed him. "We are leaving you here in charge of your siblings."

"F-for the night?"

"Don't stutter." His father scolded.

"Sorry." Alabaster said quickly.