Mortem Obire

Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The many torrid consequences of bull fighting

She missed magic and Madam Pomfrey.

Hours spent in the hospital had confirmed that much, the ability to wave a wand and fix a broken limb in seconds a far cry from what she had to deal with then. A hum escaped her as she sat in the passenger seat, safely on her way back home after the scare of the night previous. Sunlight shone, already low in the sky, painting the waters a glistening amber which seemed to sparkle in the fading light. She wondered what her father was doing, as the time of his domain came to an end, before she shook her head sharply. That wasn't a safe topic to think about, what with how things stood. A sigh escaped her, long and heavy, and she brought her knees to her chest and shifted awkwardly in her seat.

She didn't need to look into the future to see the scolding she knew she would be getting as soon as they crossed the threshold into their apartment. Her mother was stony silent, all but radiating disapproval and anger. Harriet couldn't find it within herself to shrink away from that much. She had survived the Dursleys. Somehow she didn't think her mother could do worse than that. Even if she didn't want to experience anything which might make her think back to those long eleven years before Hogwarts had provided a much-needed escape from that hellish place.

She didn't even react when she spied those grannies across the street, sitting on the steps, knitting their threads, and watching – always watching – her. A sigh escaped her lips yet again, that pool of dread in her stomach only building as they pulled up in their parking space and the car came to a final definite halt.

Her mother took her hand as she climbed out of the car, glancing down at her briefly before they began the walk up the stairs which felt eerily like a walk to the gallows. Her hand felt awfully clammy, and Harriet didn't understand why because she had known what she was going to do would earn her mother's disapproval – perhaps even anger – but she had been prepared for that much. Or so she thought she had been, because it didn't quite seem that way.

The front door closed behind her with a distinct thud of finality, and Harriet flinched, the mottled purple marks wrapped around her throat throbbing with pain. "Harriet," her mother said, and she tensed, the image of Aunt Petunia rushing to the forefront of her mind. The sharp hiss of that word "Girl!" and the feeling of bony fingers impacting her cheek thudding about in her skull as she shivered and shook where she stood. "Harriet!"

"'m sorry," she murmured, repeating the phrase over and over again like a mantra, wondering where the slap was – where the scathing biting comments about everything she had done wrong and how very freakish she was. Then she remembered that it wasn't that life. She was a Carter who lived with her mother, not a Potter who lived with the Dursleys. Rather than being dragged by her too thin wrist to her cupboard and thrown in, she was sitting on the couch with her mother, cradled in warm arms with a hand smoothing down her hair as she sat on her mother's lap.

"Harriet," her mother spoke, blue eyes looking down at her so severely that she couldn't maintain eye contact. "Has anyone every hit you?" she asked with a voice which sounded like hoarfrost. "Tell me, baby. Was it someone at school? Mrs Thompson? Someone else?"

"No," she answered, shaking her head, fingers curling in the fabric of her mother's blouse.

"Harriet," her mother said again, and she could feel the scepticism radiating off her in waves as she sat there. "For all you say you're good at detecting lies, I must say you are rather terrible at telling them. Perhaps you get that from your father too... or perhaps..." she trailed off, fingers brushing against her cheek gently, a far cry away from the slap she had been expecting for some reason. Silently, she scolded herself for even daring to think that her mother would slap her. She wasn't Aunt Petunia, nor was she anything like Uncle Vernon. Those two were nothing more than relics of her past. A past she wished could've vanished into the wind like smoke. Things were never that simple though, more so for her.