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It was definitely no secret that my family was far less than proud when I had been accepted into Hogwarts. They were old fashioned and felt that my "special gift" would stain their image. Much to their dismay, I had been thrilled when my letter arrived. As I learned more about the wizarding world, I found that a lot of work was put into keeping it all a secret. I tried to explain it to my parents, but it didn't change their new attitude towards me. Reluctantly, they let me attend the school.
As I got older, I began to wonder what reputation they were really trying to uphold. Our family didn't exactly have a great one. My parents were always yelling and screaming at each other. Sometimes, I swore they thought that just because they had closed they door, no one could hear them. In reality, they were probably loud enough to wake up the neighbourhood. I knew this because one of my best friends from Hogwarts, Remus Lupin, lived three houses down and he had confirmed that he could hear them from his house. We had known each other since we were little and ever since we had received our letters at the age of 11, we had grown a lot closer. We started dating shortly after I turned 15.
By the end of my second year, my parents had separated. All though they never said it directly, I knew they blamed it on me. My father moved away. They didn't even bother to tell me exactly where, just that it was far. My mother went spiralling down wards, drinking, not coming home until the early hours of the morning or sometimes at all. I stopped coming home during the holidays and spent as much time as possible down the street with Remus and the other marauders during the summer. Over time, she began bringing guys home. And alcohol. My mother had gotten drunk and flat out told me I was mistake, that I broke up her marriage, that I was a strange, unnatural person. By fifth year, this had happened six times, a new insult presenting itself depending on just how drunk she was. Remus was the only one who knew about my life being rough, but he didn't know the extent of it.
It was the beginning of summer before sixth year. I was sitting in the living room of our little house, my mother in the kitchen, drinking as usual. A few books were piled in front of me on the coffee table, each one from one bookstore or another in Diagon alley. I knew it was stupid, to have them sitting out. Every time anything from the wizarding world was found lying around the house, I got shit from my mother about how she could not be seen as the mother of a freak. She claimed it would destroy her, but then again, drunk people tend to exaggerate.
A crash came from the kitchen and I assumed that she broke a plate or something. No matter, I would just use magic to fix it while she wasn't looking. After a minute or two, she came staggering into the living room and sat down in a chair in front of me, smiling. That was unusual. Glancing at my books, the smile disappeared and I prepared myself for the upcoming screaming match. But it didn't happen. Instead she just looked at me and let the smile return to her face.
"I have good news." She said. I just stared at her. Good news to her didn't necessarily mean it would be good news to me.
"While you were at... school, you're father and I got in touch. We saw each other a few times and we realized that we should give our marriage another try."
