our universe

- D U M P S T E R F I R E -

Rory stared up at the ceiling, fixed on the dulling paint and the cobwebs draping the corners. Her peeling flowered wallpaper was covered in a fine layer of dust, and she struggled to remember the last time she'd cleaned it. Come to think of it, every item in her room had been settled over with a sheen of grime.

Unused books her dad had given her about Quidditch and even more unused Victorian dolls that her mother had passed down.

The row of porcelain figures was eerily present in Rory's peripheral view. Annalise. The name flashed through her mind.

Straw colored hair and a part, painted pink smile. A memory of her mother presenting her with the doll, the hope she'd had that somehow it would make Rory more like her. More normal. More not magic.

Annalise's glowing blue irises were unwavering, a haunting reminder of what Rory could never be. For either of her parents.

Her room was filled with those. Dashed dreams and unfulfilled expectations.

It didn't matter how many top marks she pulled or prefect badges she earned. It didn't matter that she was Head Girl or got near perfect scores on her OWLS. She wasn't Quidditch captain. And she wasn't a high society Muggle girl who threw garden parties and shopped on Bond Street.

That was all that mattered to her parents, as much has Rory pushed herself in school. It really was all for nothing.

She sighed, lifting the cold compress off of the rapidly growing welt on her cheek. Shaking, she rose from her mattress, making her way over to the gilded mirror on her dresser.

Rory winced at her reflection, withdrawing her mahogany wand to begin a simple Glamour charm. She heard the front door open below and her heart sank in her chest. Her father was back, and drunk from the way he was banging around downstairs. Drunker than he had been when he'd slapped her across the face.

Oliver could be a mean drunk, ranting, raving, storming around the house with a bottle of whiskey in his hand. But he had never hit Rory before. Not until now. Yesterday she'd arrived home from the station, greeted by her inebriated father, and no mother to be found.

Her dad had been a sight, red in the face, in fit of rage the second she stepped foot in the house. Through his drunken bellows, one thing had been made clear, Amy was gone. She'd left him, left them. Rory realized things must have gotten worse, much worse since the summer' stony silence. Oliver's condition had intensified, and Rory wondered if he'd hit her mother too.

In any case, it seemed that her mum had finally done it. Left Oliver for good. It was about time. But she'd left her daughter behind to clean up her mess, and now Rory was facing the consequences. Her mother had left her behind. Threw her to the wolves, so to speak. And Rory couldn't leave.

How could she? She was the only person her father had left. His sole surviving family. The only one who hadn't abandoned him. How could Rory leave? Everyone else already had.

He hadn't always been this way. He had been a good dad once. Rory remembered him carrying her to bed every night when she feel asleep reading on the porch swing. She remembered when he lifted her to his shoulders to put the star on top of the Christmas tree, and always gave her an extra bedtime story. He loved her mother too, more than he should. They used to dance in the kitchen together, Rory smack dab between them. They sang to her when she was sick, and watched the little plays she put on.

Then came the fighting. The slammed doors and tearful phone calls her mother made. The drinking and the silence, apologies that never lasted long. It only increased as Rory grew older. Her mother pulling father and farther away from anything magic, reeled back into the safety of her previous Muggle lifestyle. Her father growing more and more resentful as time passed, blaming anything and everything for his doomed Quidditch career.