||Scarlet Mason- age 5- a little town in Andover||
It was autumn, my favorite time of year, and I was playing with Tutle at the park. So weird, but one day I'd woken up and Tutle had been on my bed. Like she'd found me. And since then she'd not left my presence. Which I thought was really cool.
And since today was a Sunday I didn't have to go to music lessons! Which I thought was really cool.
I love music, but I don't like ms.Proom. She scares me a little. But usually I'm not scared of anything!
Daddy and I like to pretend we're lions on a hunt and Tutle gets to play the deer. She's not very fast, so mostly Daddy and I just play with each other.
I think Tutle likes it better that way too.
I reached the swingset and grinned swinging higher and higher. I could see my house and the church and my friend Beckys house and my friend Toms house... I closed my eyes and thought about the tree in front of cutch. It had scarlet leaves all year, like my name. I loved it. All the sudden I felt strange so I opened my eyes and my jaw droppped. I was sitting in the middle of the huge tree.
Much too preoccupied with the impressive sight I didn't really care how I got there.
I was having fun looking at all the swirling leaves falling gently to the ground when I heard a scream, closely followed by more screams and my name.
"Daddy!" I called down, waving, oblivious to the danger I appeared to be in.
My awkward five year old limbs slipped and with a surprised 'oh!' I started falling.
Only to see a cloud of red leaves swirling softly around me, under my feet. Carrying me safely to the ground.
Once I landed softly the leaves flew back to the tree, making my long blonde hair flutter around my face.
"Daddy!" i ran up to him and he scooped me up in his arms.
"Devil! The devils child!" "she'll kill us all!" "unnatural being!" "The devil is among us!" the small crowd around us paniced, they tried to take me from my father but somehow they couldn't get close to us. My mother included, she was trying to reach us, but couldn't. I saw her face..I'll never forget the look of torment on her face. She loved me. But my magic wouldn't yield, though I called out for her.
My parents tried to protect me, and my father ran with me in his arms home as fast as he could.
Hours later, when I had fallen asleep, my magic finally let my mother in the house.
If I'd been awak I would have seen the hurt and betrayal on her pretty features. I wouldve seen my father trying to convince her that I was still just Scarlet, and seen my mother crying because she thought I was damned.
Just to not; my parents were very young, my mother had me at sixteen, my father seventeen. And my grandparents (meternal) were very religious. Now my parents know about magic and have accepted it, but I mother never forgave herself for what she did.
She believed the crowd over her family.
So each month on a full moon I was taken to the graveyard and 'exorcised'.
Sometimes as mild as merely sprinkling me with holy water, holding a cross to my forehead; other times as violent as holding my head under water or burning a tiny cross on each shoulder. Marks I can now cover up I used to have to show by only wearing clothes that showed enough shoulder to see the marks. My father didn't speak much to my mother, he loved her and me. So after the torture he'd help me heal and comfort me by saying that Mommy didn't mean it and when I was older I'd understand.
This torture continued until my eleventh birthday when a witch came to take me to Hogwarts.
She took the time to explain everything to my parents and when she heard what had been done to me she was horrified and almost took me away for good, but my father spoke with her and was able to persuade her to give them another chance. All the while my mother sat on our couch, tears trickling down her cheeks silently and looking down.
At the end, when I had to be taken to be introduced to my world, Daddy told me we we're moving to London, the torture was over and we could start again, and he was so incredibly sorry.
I knew he couldn't have prevented it, Lord knows he tried. So I hugged him and Tutle sat on my shoulder, proud to finally be recognized as my familiar.
My mother didn't hug me, she seemed afraid to. The only thing she hadn't changed were my music lessons. She had hoped 'my angels voice' would drive out the demon.
My mother simply stood in a corner watching ne leave. When I would return shed hold me tightly pleading forgiveness and with time I had grown to understand her and I did love her very much. But it would take years to truly forgive her.
As for me, personally; I grew up to be quiet, reclusive. The only times when ivwas me was when I was doing something I lived. Like photography, I must have a hundred pictures of that scarlet tree and for each leaf on that tree I took some strangers picture, before painting each person on a leaf photograph, which would then be stuck to a wall in my conservatory, where I could be alone. By the time the twins could walk our family had changed. My parents were more mature andwe were living in London. My parents took new jobs and it was like the past never existed. Except for my mothers overprotectiveness of us and my reclusivenrss.
When the sorting hat had sorted me in Gryffindor, house of the brave lions, I had figured the hat was mistaken or really, really mean.
Because in all my time at Hogwarts I failed to see what the he'll could be brave about me.
Weird? Yes. Invisible? Yes. Brave?
Not in the least.
Home 
