A Cruelty Vivid and Sweet || Ominis Gaunt

Strawberry Laces

He calls you Gibberish, because sometimes that's all you speak.

In first year, Ominis remembers crossing your path after the Sorting ceremony. You, a shaky little Muggle-born, near no knowledge of the magical world and its machinations, and the depths of its cruelty. You, who only enjoyed wonder in everything: every moving painting, the candles that floated untethered, and the way the air hummed with something else, something ethereal. He remembers hearing your distinctive voice in the foyer outside the Great Hall.

He remembers how you, somehow, managed to get lost.

Your upbeat curiosity pealed like a bell amongst the sombre tension of the first-year Slytherins. For some reason, your hair is what Ominis remembers best. Later he would find out it was thick, bouncy wild curls pinched into two pigtails at the side of your head, but the first thing he recalls is the smell, faintly of something saccharine.

"You're in the wrong place."

A pause, presumably as you realised he was addressing you. "Aren't we going to the form rooms?" you asked, that high-pitched voice like birdsong at dawn. It was hard to forget, given the nervous squeal you made when you were called up to be Sorted. It was already ingrained into his head.

"You're meant to be going to the Hufflepuff common room," he said, frowning. Form. What was a form? He pointed his wand at the Hufflepuffs heading the other way through the hall. "Your house is over that way."

"Oh!" You giggled, a sickly sweet noise, and headed over. "Thanks!"

How did you even get them mixed up? Ominis still doesn't know. He didn't think about you again until the next day, when term officially began Charms. By chance, he was seated next to you. That smell again, that voice.

"Have no fear, Master Gaunt," cheered Professor Ronen, "I will be giving you more practical assignments, so you don't have as much writing to do."

That was some consolation, he supposed. Practical assignments played to his best strengths.

When Ronen moved on to check Adelaide's technique, Ominis heard your chair squeak. Heard the hiss of your clothes as you peered over. Something rattled on your face – glasses.

"It's... Ominis, right?"

He pursed his lips, displeased at the interruption. "Can I help you?"

"You're an actual wizard?"

"... What?"

"I mean, you know, you were born into this magic thing."

A pure-blood, is what you meant. "Yes. What of it?"

"That's great, because I just wanted to know... erm... which way around does the wand go?"

That had to be a joke. "You can't be serious."

"S-Sorry, I swear I'm not pulling your leg." Pulling your leg? You laughed nervously. "It's just— my wand is a little crooked, and it doesn't have a handle, like yours— so I don't actually know if I'm holding it the right way up or not, and I don't want to blast myself in the face."

A wave of that saccharine soap again. Ominis wrinkled his nose and continued practicing Wingardium Leviosa. Swish and flick. "Can you really not tell?"

"No..."

You sounded genuine. Not joking.

Hmm. Never before had he really met a Muggle-born. He had no idea how naïve they were. How unprepared. Certainly, his family said they, and Muggles in general, were inferior, stupid, barely worthy to be at Hogwarts. Barely worth existing. But you weren't any of those things.