Chapter Text
Strange things tended to happen around Aster.
Her aunt would call her a freak whenever one of those things happened within her sight. But Aster really couldn’t help it that these strange things tended to happen whenever Aunt Petunia was around. Her nest of messy hair refused all attempts at brushing, springing up to stick out in the wildest ways possible. It also refused to grow past her jawline, which infuriated Aunt Petunia to no end- once, as revenge, she cut off all of Aster’s hair, leaving her with a tiny buzzcut- but her hair grew back overnight, the inky nest atop her head refusing to submit to the whims of Petunia Dursley.
Aster could understand getting punished whenever things burst on fire around her, like Dudley’s new shoes or Uncle Vernon’s awful belt. To her defence, the belt only caught on fire when Uncle Vernon was about to hit her with it, so she didn’t feel too guilty about it.
But she couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why she wasn’t allowed to ask questions. There was so much she didn’t know, and she had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Yet, questions about her parents got her sent to the cupboard without dinner, questions about her ‘freak powers’ got her beat with that awful belt until her back bled and asking about those weird words on her left wrist had Aunt Petunia screaming and throwing plates at her from across the room.
Fate showed her cruelty by destining you to bring my demise, written in cursive, with neat, pretty loops and flourished letters. Nobody would tell her why she had that written onto her arm. A teacher gave her detention for coming to school with a tattoo the one time she asked anyone other than the Dursleys, and she was locked in her cupboard the entire weekend and let out only for bathroom breaks after they found out. Before she could read, she assumed it was another scar from the car accident that killed her parents. Half her face was hideous, anyways, it felt fair that she had a beautiful scar to accompany the ugly one.
The awful scar, as she called it, seemed to have its centre in her right eye. While her left eye was bright, vivid green, her left was glazed over, milky white, with greyish dots swirling inside it. She couldn’t see through it, she was blind in one eye, but she could still move it around and blink. Honestly, she thought the eye looked kinda cool. It was the scarring around it that she hated. It looked like she’d gotten struck by lightning, with a circular patch of pink skin surrounding her eye, and branching off into smaller, lightning-shaped scars. The topmost ones reached her hairline, the ones on the right stretched up to her ear, the ones of the left reached the bridge of her nose, and the ones going down stopped at the right corner of her lips.
The kids at school avoided her because of that scar, and those brave enough to approach her did it only so they could mock her. The few kids who had tried befriending her got quickly dissuaded from that quest by earning the bullies’ ire: Awful Aster was to be avoided, ridiculed, and taunted, and never, ever, befriended.
She did have friends, though, but if she told anyone, she’d be sent to a mental hospital, probably. And if she told the Dursleys, they’d lock her in her cupboard forever. Because only freaks could talk to snakes, is what they’d say.
Still, snakes weren’t terribly interesting, Aster found, and they loved talking about themselves. And since Aster really had nobody else to talk to, she’d spend hours lying on the grass in the garden and listening to a family of grass snakes talk about all the mice they saw and how warm the sun was, and she’d end up explaining that she couldn’t just eat or bite the Dursleys when they hurt her. They did offer to slither into the house and scare the Dursleys, which was very altruistic of them, but she refused because she was afraid Uncle Vernon would stomp them to death.
It was when the Dursleys would leave for the day to go on a family trip, or for ice-cream, or to visit Aunt Marge, that Aster would actually enjoy her life. They’d lock her in her cupboard with enough food to last the day and a bucket in case she had to use the bathroom, and they’d leave. Naturally, after the first time they’d done that and Aster had to degrade herself by pooping in a bucket, she learned how to pick locks. She’d made a trip to the local library first thing she could, found an old book about spies, and taught herself to pick simple locks with hair pins stolen from Aunt Petunia. She probably couldn’t pick the lock on the front door, but they didn’t bother putting anything worthwhile onto her cupboard, so it was easy for her to get it open and enjoy the freedom of having the entire house for herself.
The day before her 10th birthday was one of those days, and the Dursleys’ absence was the best birthday gift they’d ever gotten her. Early in the morning, Uncle Vernon unlocked the cupboard door, threw in a rusty bucket and a paper bag with day-old bread, announced they’d be back in the evening, closed and locked the door, and they left.
Aster started by picking the lock after waiting fifteen minutes, just to make sure they were really gone. She stashed the old bread away for if they refused to feed her as punishment and went to the kitchen to make herself a real breakfast. She was a good cook, and the Dursleys abused that talent by making her cook most of their meals and letting her eat scraps and leftovers.
But it was her last day of being nine, and she was alone, so Aster made herself a nice breakfast- pancakes. It was her favourite food, and she made sure to make enough so she could eat them for lunch, as well. And have some leftovers for the next day.
After breakfast, she raided Dudley’s bedroom and took several books she knew he wouldn’t miss (not that he read any books at all, but the ones with pictures were too noticeable to take), stole a few of his shirts that she’d noticed he never wore, because she’d inherit them anyways after they got eaten away by moths. She liked to pretend that she was a thief from one of the spy novels she liked to read, breaking into a wealthy family’s home to steal their most precious possessions.
Her next step was filling the bathtub to the brim with hot water and adding various scented lotions and bodywashes until the bubbles were overflowing. She let herself soak like she was a chicken in soup for almost an hour, and then made sure the bathroom was spotless so they wouldn’t suspect anything. Hot water always did wonders for her battered and bruised body. She liked to fully submerge herself and pretend she was in a warm embrace.
And now, for the mission she’d been looking forward to for months, ever since she overheard Aunt Petunia complain about having to keep her sister’s old belongings in the attic. Aster had nothing of her mother’s, so getting into the attic to get these things was her topmost priority.
The trapdoor to the attic was too far for Aster to reach on her own, so she had to drag a chair from Dudley’s room and add a stack of books on top so she could pry it open and release the ladder leading up. She put the chair and the books back in their rightful places and climbed up hastily. The attic was as dusty as she’d imagined, full of broken furniture, cobwebs, old rugs, paintings, carboard boxes… She walked around in the dim light until she came upon a box with ‘Lily’ scrawled in scratchy handwriting with a blue marker. Her heart missed a beat as excitement spread through her, and she quickly bent over the box, feeling giddy.
Her excitement quickly turned into disappointment upon realising that all the box contained was a single, dusty journal. She took it with some reluctance, and looked around the attic again, just in case, but found nothing. Disappointed and angry, she climbed back down, closed the attic door, went to the living room to inspect this ridiculous journal. As soon as she plopped down and saw that the first page said ‘Property of Lily Evans’, her excitement came rushing back. It was her mom’s diary!
She giddily flipped it open and was once again dismayed to find out that only a single page was written on, leaving the rest of the journal empty. Petunia must’ve thrown out all of her mom’s things, and missed this dusty, stupid journal…
Still, it was the only thing she had from her mom, so she read that measly page, written with small, neat letters.
Dear Diary,
I met up with Sev again today. He’s like me, you know? Weird things happen around him. He levitated an apple in front of me today! He wouldn’t say more about that topic, though, just saying that I would find out soon and that everything would make sense. Well, it doesn’t make a lot of sense right now, but Sev had never lied to me before, so I trust him.
I also got around to asking him about those weird words on my wrist, the ones that say ‘Hey, watch it!’. Apparently, soulmates are a real thing! He told me that only people like us, like himself and me, magical people he called us, had soulmate marks. They say the first sentence your soulmate will say to you. I was hoping I would get something more romantic, and my words are so mundane that I don’t think I’ll ever find my soulmate at all. Sev told me it doesn’t matter much, we’re too young to worry about all that. He showed me his own soulmate mark, and it’s a lot better than mine! His says ‘You’re really good at what you do, sir!’. I wonder who’ll say that to him. Well, anyways, I can’t tell Tunia about this, she’s already jealous that I have this strange powers, or as Sev called it, magic. It will be our little secret.
Aster wasn’t sure how to feel.
Soulmate? Her? Awful Aster, the blind girl, the freak, unlovable, friendless, had a soulmate?
She wanted to slap herself for even daring to hope that this was real. It couldn’t be. Fate showed her cruelty by destining you to bring my demise. Her Soulmate will say that to her? But why? What did that even mean? Was her soulmate a poet, or something? Was it a girl or a boy? Where were they? When would she meet them?
She had so many questions, and no way to get answers. A soulmate.
That meant she wasn’t unlovable. She had a soulmate. Someone destined to love her, right? Maybe they’d come and save her from the Dursleys one day. She didn’t want to spend her life here, she really didn’t. And these words were full of big words, so her soulmate had to be educated.
This was too good to be true.
The other thing that got her even giddier than the fact she had a soulmate was the fact her mother was like her. She had these freak powers- she had magic! And so did her mom’s friend! Magic! There were others like her, Aster wasn’t a freak!