Hogwarts Reimagined

CW: Child abuse and neglect, disregard of such, isolation, misgendering (repeated), vomit, panic attack. READ WITH CARE, THIS ONE HURTS. 

Rhiannon couldn’t tell how much time had passed when she awoke. Her vision was still black and sparkling uncomfortably, she couldn’t even tell what time it was. Nearby she could hear somebody’s wheezing breaths, but she had no clue as to who – let alone where they were. Her left side throbbed dully, a reminder of her heavy fall inside the final chamber.

Fighting a wave of nausea, Rhiannon struggled upright and went very still once she had. She felt around, her blood turning cold once again. She was in a car. She groped blindly around, finding the back of a seat, and an impenetrable divider between her and whoever was in front.

“Wh-wh-who’s there?” she asked tentatively when they volunteered no information, her throat raw. There was a sick sour taste in her mouth, and there was a rustling in front of her as someone shifted in their seat.

“You’re safe, my dear boy.”

The voice that spoke was all too familiar – low, self-satisfied, trying to be reassuring. Rhi felt around for her wand – it was still stowed in her sleeve. That was little comfort – she couldn’t exactly attack him. So she fought her panic and steadied her breathing, twisting the fabric of her shirt in her hands.

Someone had changed her clothes. She wore sneakers, too-big jeans and a plain t-shirt. The clothes weren’t even familiar ones – they didn’t smell like hers. The fabric felt wrong, and it scratched at her sensitive skin.

Dumbledore sighed, and Rhiannon could put together that mental image of him steepling his fingers together and looking incredibly disappointed. “Did I not tell you, use it well? Honestly, Harry. Had you not interfered, we would have found our ex-Professor Quirrell standing defeated before a broken mirror. This whole adventure only proves what was discussed last year – you have no concept of how important you are to the wizarding world. Even had he managed to get the Stone, a Lord Voldemort returned would still be better than you dead.”

Rhiannon tuned out of his spiel, biting her lip and knotting her hands together in her lap. He wasn’t even necessarily wrong. It was all her fault. “W-wh-where are we g-going?” she managed in a tremulous voice. Professor Dumbledore sighed once again. “Home, my boy, where you will be safe. Don’t worry, it’s all been arranged. You will return to Hogwarts in September, but you need to think long and hard about your recklessness this school year – we cannot have a repeat of it. Your aunt and uncle have assured me you will remain secure over the summer holidays.”

Blood pounded in her ears, and Rhiannon dug her nails into her palms. No, no, no, no, no – she couldn’t think, couldn’t plan, nothing. “M-mmmm, m-m-my c-c-c-cat,” she managed at last.

Again, that disappointed sigh. “Really, my boy, it was very irresponsible of you to get a cat, especially in light of your dear aunt’s allergy. Your cat – Calypso, was it? Yes, Calypso, will be sent home with Miss Granger, along with your school belongings for safekeeping. Your clothes have also been gifted to her – clothes better suited to a young girl, should be with a young girl.” Dumbledore explained, his voice low and slow as if talking to someone very young or very stupid.

Rhiannon leaned back against the seat of the car, taking deep breaths as her heart raced and she was swamped with nausea. The car they were in turned a bend and she pitched to the side. The movement jarred her uneasy stomach and then she was retching, vomiting bile onto the other back seat of the car. Dumbledore was still talking but she couldn’t make out words, all she could do was panic. And for the remainder of the trip she was senseless, her face pressed unseeing against the blessedly cool window. Slowly, reluctantly, her vision began to return in patches and the surroundings were horribly familiar. The neatly clipped hedges, the low walls and wide streets of Fairbanks, in the surrounds of Guildford, Surrey.

As if she could have missed them. As if she had ever expected to be back. Rhi sat there in the back of the car numb and trembling. When the car pulled up in front of Number Four, Privet Drive, Rhiannon began to retch again. She scrabbled away further into the car as the door was opened by the official who had been driving it and she thrashed wildly as he took hold of her arm. Dimly Rhiannon realised she was screaming again, her throat hoarse and burning, but there was no escape, no-one paid her wordless protests any heed, and she was manhandled upstairs into the smallest bedroom. Behind her, the door was barred. The furnishings had not changed at all, even the books were the same. Rhiannon sank to the bed and curled up, sobbing helplessly, hugging herself with shaking arms as reality set in around her.

Eventually she had no more tears left to cry. Lunch and then dinner were delivered to her through a locked cat flap in the bedroom door, she touched none of it – only the water. Later that evening her door was opened and she was informed she could go to the toilet and shower. She lay there unmoving, until Aunt Petunia lost patience and with Uncle Vernon’s assistance, bodily wrestled Rhiannon into the bathroom and locked the door.

“Don’t you think you’ll be going back to that freakshow school, boy,” Aunt Petunia snapped through the closed door as Rhiannon undressed painfully. “There’s a place for you at St. Brutus’ Reform Home come September, just you wait.”

There was nothing Rhiannon could say to that, no clever response or solution. She sat on the floor of the shower, numbly letting the hot water run over her until her aunt returned to force her out again and back into the smallest bedroom.

Rhiannon’s head ached, the room was at once too bright and too close, crushing, but she could not move, could not think. She lay awake, grieving silently, staring up at the ceiling as afternoon whiled away into night.

She did not mean to sleep but eventually did so, lulled into a tense, tooth-grinding unrest as Uncle Vernon’s headlamp flashed through the curtains and the piercing whine of his drill ground into her very bones as he barred up the one window of the smallest room.

___________________________________________________________________

After that first soul-crushing night, the Dursley house settled into an uneasy routine. A list of rules was posted through Rhiannon’s cat flap along with breakfast the next morning, and for the most part she was left alone. The Dursleys’ vehement revulsion of her seemed to outweigh their usual need to punish her, and she saw neither hide nor hair of any of them after that first night.

Then Dudley finished school for the year. Rhiannon could have very easily not noticed, as the older boy could no longer be heard through the wall. He came and went during the day like a ghost. But late one night, she heard a voice from the half-open wardrobe. She opened the door and pushed back the various detritus that was in there, to uncover a fist-sized hole she had not noticed before. It had clearly been made from the other side, where she dimly remembered Dudley’s own wardrobe was.

“Harry?”

Rhiannon sank down to sit on the floor of the wardrobe, resting her head against the wall. Maybe it was a trap. The voice was Dudley’s but it was different now – quieter, like all the life had been stripped out of it. She nodded, even though it was the wrong name – she’d have to get used to that now. “Y-yeah,” she murmured tentatively.

Her cousin breathed a heavy sigh, and then to Rhiannon’s shock he began to cry. Soft, exhausted sobs, barely even audible. He sniffed, and Rhiannon heard his head fall against the wall opposite her own. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” he whispered.

For all her caution, Rhiannon couldn’t suspect her cousin any further – she knew his crocodile tears, and these were not those. “I-I know,” she whispered back, drawing her knees up to her chest. And so the two of them sat there, unable to speak, without words for what they shared – only knowing that it was shared.