home (reader at hogwarts)

one

you stumble up the stairs in the basement and knock on the trap door. you listen for the sounds of footsteps and back away from the trap door as you hear a heavy pair of boots approaching.

mike, your mother's boyfriend, fiddles with the lock before opening it, swiping a hand at you. you dodge it, flinching and almost tripping down a stair.

"what do you want, now?" he grumbles. "if you keep knocking your mother won't be very happy with you."

you scowl. you were starting to get irritated being locked up in the basement.

"i'm hungry, mike. i haven't eaten since last night." you whine.

his eyes flash with the small glimmer of pity before they harden and he glares at you in disgust.

"i'll ask your mother. don't you dare knock on this door again."

the trap door slammed shut and you heard the rattling of keys as you stumbled down the steps and wandered back to your mattress.

you flopped down onto it, humming a little as you ran your cold fingers over the bruise on your arm to soothe it- feeling each little puncture and sucking in air at the sting of sweat meeting blood.

"what should i do today?" you ask out loud.

your voice shifts from casual to a more theatrical voice. "what should i do today?"

you smile at yourself before crawling to a little gap in the floorboards where you've stashed away your copies of the harry potter books.

you grab the fourth one, opening to the page you folded over and read.

"then there was this big row." ginny said. "mum was saying how she wanted fred and george to work at the ministry but then they told her all they really wanted to do was open up a joke shop."

you smiled. you liked it when ginny spoke more often. she very much reminded yourself of you.

then you heard a knocking on the trap door and your heart nearly jumped out of your mouth.

somehow a rat had managed to bash into it. you hissed at the rat, shoeing it away and grimaced as you heard the shrill screams of your mother and angry footsteps of mike coming to the trapdoor.

you hadn't knocked but mike wasn't going to believe you.

you quickly stashed the book back, avoiding more trouble and tried to remeber the sorting hat song to calm your nerves as you heard him open the trap door.

"y/n!" he yelled. "how many times have i told you not to bang on this door!"

he crawled through the small space and you cowered on your mattress- knowing what was to come.

he fumbled in his pocket mumbling about how your mother had screamed about him to come down and calm you down.

he pulled out the long white packages you dreaded, the ones you had to deal with almost everyday.

"i told you to be a good girl, didn't i?" he said, tiredly.

"please, just leave." you whispered, shaking. "i won't knock, i don't want the injections."

he launches himself at you, slapping a hand over your mouth and pushing you up against the wall.

"shush. don't make this harder than it should be, okay? enough, y/n." he demands, lifting up your arm and gripping it with a fist.

he held you still, a knee to your stomach as he pushed the four needles into your arm simultaneously.

your limbs feel heavier as you fall limp on the wall. you let your head fall forward onto mike's shoulder and he stays for a while before laying you back down to bed.

you smile dreamily, watching the walls shift in size and colour as the dry feeling in your mouth began to scratch at you like sandpaper in a way that was oddly satisfactory.

"shit." you hear mike mumble as he wipes a string of white foam from the corner of your lips.

you see his worried face began to transform strangely, morphing in shape with the rest of your room as you fall into a deep deep sleep.