Chapter Text
Chapter One
July the 31st, 11:45 PM
Number Four, Private Drive,
Surrey, London
Circe Evans had not left the street of Private Drive for almost two years, ever since she’d collapsed half her secondary school.
Her part in that rather disastrous event was frequently speculated, but even being near something ‘freakish’ was enough for the Dursleys to lock her in her cupboard for many months on end. Perhaps the first incident happened when she was eight, when she exploded the list of chores that had been assigned to her. Her relatives’ expressions had been priceless, and she’d since decided the mound of scars her first fit of anger had earnt her was worth it- she’d been spared many more because Dudley was simply too afraid to approach her for months afterwards.
Her short life had been a repetition of violence, pain caused by that violence, chores and unusual things. Strange things. Like exploding five small items in her eighth year, vanishing Vernon’s belt and several other items in her ninth, changing her teacher’s hair blue at ten, partially binding Dudley and randomly disappearing many times at eleven, the whole house cleaning itself when she was twelve, and flattening the whole school at thirteen.
She wasn't sure how it’d happened, really. She’d found a girl crying in the bathrooms and interrogated her, finding out that her teacher, Mr. Jones, had touched her inappropriately. The rest of her memory was blurry, but Circe remembered confronting him, the windows rattling when he denied everything, saying that poor girl was delusional. . . And next thing she knew, she was covered in dust and scrapes, as the science corridor, the english classrooms and half the homerooms simply imploded.
Mr. Jones had, unfortunately, received severe injuries that had put him into a seemingly permanent coma. She wasn't sure she’d actually been a part of that, actually. But, nonetheless, tonight would mark her second year in isolation, her fifteenth birthday.
Circe had never liked birthdays, hers especially. Dudley seemed to always use the thirty-first of July as an excuse to do something horrible, and Vernon chose the very next day to leave on a surprise holiday, half-way across the world, dumping her at Mrs. Figg’s for two almost-perfect weeks, who was vaguely irritating, but far better than the Dursleys.
And, really, it was Mrs. Figgs’ fault she wasn't illiterate. The woman had hundreds, no- thousands of books, piled haphazardly in her dusty attic. There was a good dose of everything, from advanced mathematics to childrens’ tales, she had it all. And it was all hers, for better or worse. Probably worse, in the eyes of her relatives, because they were the reason she decided to control her ‘freakishness’.
Which meant using it. A lot. Because, eleven year-old her reasoned, what use was making things explode and vanish if she couldn't control it? Half the time it was a useless ability. So, that was why she’d learnt to levitate things. It had come surprisingly quickly, for something that was supposedly impossible, and after two very exhausting months of staring, focusing, and sleepless nights, she’d managed to float a discarded pigeon feather, and after that it was easy. Two months after that, she could lift almost anything, and manoeuvre it to command. Her next conquest was summoning a bluish orb of light, which floated a few inches from her right shoulder, an almost conscious-feeling presence.
Afterwards, her magical skills clicked into place much quicker, two to three per season. By the time she turned twelve, she could conjure almost-infinite amounts of water and fire, heat or cool anything her size to the point of freezing or melting it, and turn any object any colour.
It was spectacular.
It was hers.
And, more or less, she’d mastered quite a few basic abilities by the time she was fourteen. Circe could see in complete darkness, turn materials into any metal (except gold, that was harder), conjure small-to-medium animals and every element. After completely depleting her energy, though, it took a few days before she could practise her skills safely again.
So on this particular night of this particular month, she was eagerly wishing for her birthday to be over and done, so she could escape to her ‘room’ in Mrs. Figgs’ attic for the next two weeks, discovering new treasures under mile-thick swathes of dust. Though her cupboard had a substantial collection of books she’d smuggled back from Mrs. Figg’s- all her favourites, plus some new ones -she was eager to receive (steal) more material.
Absently, she ‘picked up’ several random items with her telekinesis, idly floating them around the cramped space. The old, ratty mattress she lay on floated several inches in the air, too, sending those beautiful, shuddering waves of magic deep into her skin. Using her powers always felt amazing, like a pent up release of energy, like a bomb being slowly defused, leeched of it’s unstable explosiveness. Maybe that was why she had used to explode thing so much- she simply had too much energy, and it was looking for the easiest way to dispel.
To add another variable in her practise, Circe conjured a stream of water silently, manipulating it with ease. Dozens of miniature anatomically-correct crows separated themselves from the mass, turning wide circles of the room, flying in a perfectly-crafted show of complete synchronisation.
Circe picked up a fabric-covered book, flipping to her marked page while mentally shoving her magical exercises into a corner of her mind, which promptly guided the crows into an ariel tap-dance. The forefront of her brain, however, was immersed in ink-stained pages, drowning in seas of words and knowledge and diagrams of birds, the immense complexity that was their bodies. This particular book was on the anatomy of birds- hence the correctly-formed birds she was absently controlling. Circe turned a page, frowning at the displayed diagram. A flick of her fingers, then the water-feathers of the birds turned translucent, as opposed to the pale-blue that they were before. They fluttered down to perch on her books, their tiny chests contorting as she adjusted the shape of their air-sacs. Their number halved, the crows on the left transformed seamlessly into fire, while keeping their previous shapes. This kind of fire was more like molten rock, but somehow solid and transparent at the same time. Little trails of smoke filtered off their wings, rather strangely as the fire was entirely made of magic, without any kind of fuel (unless magic counted).
The curly-haired girl rather enjoyed creatures of flight, but, by far, preferred snakes. Since she was around seven, Circe had been made to meticulously prune, water and generally care for the small garden the Dursleys kept. In the Summer, she’d encounter hundreds of garden snakes slithering around behind the shed. She was enraptured by the glossy scales, the rabid intelligence she found in their eyes. So instead of drowning them like Petunia commanded, Circe studied them with a pencil and scraps of paper, diligently sketching every scale until she was a competent artist by now, with a tendency to notice many small details that weren't obviously apparent to others. This skill translated to everyday life, too. She found herself noticing the small tremors that shook Petunia’s hands when she was around Vernon, particularly when he was angry, and the slight red handprints that were mostly covered by her sleeves.
Her Aunt was as afraid of that beast of a man as Circe was, but that didn't mean her niece had to like her. In fact, it almost worsened her perspective of the woman, rather abhorred that Petunia was of such a weak mind she could not devise a solution to escape from her predicament, or at least stand up for herself. Then again, maybe she had judged too quick. Circe knew how terrifying it was to have a giant standing over you, so all-controlling that they seemed like a god.
But, nevertheless, her aunt seemed to take pleasure in ordering a child as young as six to do every chore in the house, so Circe took pleasure in twisting around the woman’s words so she could do whatever she liked, studying snakes and reading and learning, growing to smarter than everyone else in Number Four put together.
And it certainly made up for what she lacked physically. Circe was short for her age, small enough to fit in five-year-old Dudley’s hand-me-downs and use the current ones for blankets- not that she needed one. Her eyes were a strange shade of yellow-green, slightly too large on her undeveloped, coffee-brown face. Her other facial features weren't that remarkable; a somehow sharp-yet-soft nose and almost heart-shaped lips a slightly darker brown than her skin. What was really remarkable about her face, though, was her hair.
A magical shade of reddish-brown, it used to puff out in a circle, frizzy and untamable, until Petunia finally gave up trying to tame it, and got it braided in the simplest style the hairdresser had available. She was an odd patchwork of her parents, whoever they were. All she had from her parents was her face and her name and the ratty blanket they’d left her in when they abandoned her on the doorstep of Number Four almost twelve years ago, now.
One minute under twelve years, to be precise.
Thirty seconds, now.
Circe wondered if she’d suddenly see things differently the next morning. Her experience said otherwise, but there was that little childish fragment of excitement lodged in her chest, thrumming anticipation into her veins at the different kind of magic it was to turn a year older.
Ten. . . Nine. . . Eight. . .
She closed her eyes, banishing her magic creatures and setting down the floating items.
Seven. . . Six. . . Five. . . Four. . .
Circe breathed in one last time.
Three. . .
Two. . .
One. . .
And then, suddenly, inexplicably, terrifyingly, everything dropped away, her vision, her hearing, her smell, till she was no more than a panicked brain in a dead body, with nothing but memories to say otherwise.
And then, nothing.