Their Words Will Become Blows
By Penelope Pagan June Sea Witch

The first time someone called me a mudblood I laughed. I was 12. The word felt silly, unreal, meaningless. Compared to real insults like bitch, slut, retard, it had no weight. It fell along side other ridiculous wizards words like erumpant and voldemort. I mean, even the explanation was ridiculous. They could say their blood was purer than mine all they wanted yet I was the one who always ended up getting the spell in charms right first. If my blood was muddy theirs was downright putrid.

It had happened just after charms actually. A boy named Avery Knot got right up in my face to say it. He was so mad and he said the word with such definitive self righteousness, as if by saying it he settled the order of things, with my place surely beneath his, that I couldn't help but let out a laugh. I won't forget the look on his face as I laughed at him. His gaze became sick as if something clicked inside his head, reducing me. He lifted his hand to strike me and in those moments, as he moved to carry out violence, I saw the truth of things. I was no longer human.

His blow never landed because Severus and James both had tackled him to the floor, wailing their fists into him. It was the only time they ever worked together. Their acts of wanton violence gave me back my humanity, the blows they rained down, the detention they served, all a reminder that they believed I was human. At the time it was all I needed.

I understood what it really meant to be a muggleborn when I was 14. I was being recognized but my professor could never give me real praise. It was always something like "You brewed that polyjuice like an experienced pureblood!" Pureblood became a focal point, a ruler I was stretched out against to see whether I could make the cut. Most days I could and that made it all the worse. Even when I was great, I was still just as, never better than. The pureblood students in class who were mediocre were never treated to compliments like that, they were just quietly marked down, the professor barely giving them notice. I sometimes thought that would have been better.

Severus was envious of me, he talked about how he never received so much as a smile from the professor. I told him I hated it, how I felt I couldn't measure up but he didn't believe me. A rift was growing between us and I couldn't understand why. Severus's greed for what I would gladly give up felt ludicrous. I didn't understand until much later and by then, it was over.

The final straw was on a mild spring day. His throat was thick with bitter longing when I told him I had been invited to the slug club. I tried to invite him as well but he simply picked up his bag and walked away. I watched him go, inaction fueled by disbelief. I didn't cry that day, but a weight sank into my heart and never left. I resolved to go to the slug club, if only to spite Severus and his envy. All I learned from it was that my professor was not the only one who thought I must be compared.

I was the only muggleborn there, the only muggleborn to ever have been invited. I was paraded by my professor in front of all manner of guest. They all spoke in honeyed tones with inexpressive faces, but you could see it in their eyes, the subtle change from polite interest to incredulous study. They looked at me as if I should be mounted on their trophy wall. I became an object, only admired post mortem, never to be seen alive. I could have dealt with that, my professor's treatment preparing me well in advance, allowing a single piece of self to remain unclaimed, but I could not deal with Avery Knot again.

He had become much taller and broader since that day but he steered clear of me for fear of Severus' or James' fists. Not here though, here he strode right up to me, his eyes nailing me into place with their fierce intensity. He said only a single sentence to me. A single sentence that stripped my last scrap of humanity, poisoned all my praise and brought me to tears. It wasn't because it was particularly nasty, or rude or mean. No, it was because deep inside, I knew it too.

"You do not belong here."

The first time I was crushed by the weight of a word I was 16. Voldemort was no longer just a silly name, it was a movement, a storm that threatened to engulf me and anyone like me. I was scared. Scared of being swallowed up, of being unmade by someone who had never even tried to understand me. I dreampt of the moment Avery tried to slap me, his hand poised and high. The moment would hang for an eternity, his cruel gaze never wavering. I would stand there, frozen in anticipation until finally he let his hand fly. Just as it was about to hit me I would awake, my heart pounding.

I expected an attack, expected to be reduced, to be dashed against the rocks by a furious wave. I did not expect it to come from a once familiar face. I didn't expect it to occur when I was just trying to help.

"Don't touch me you filthy mudblood!" Severus snarled at me.

The look in his eyes was that same as Avery's in my dreams. I became untethered from the scene unfolding around me. The wound Severus had inflicted cut beyond flesh, beyond ego. I collapsed, buckling under ideas that wished to destroy me. I felt my humanity spill out from me. It splattered onto the grass causing the greenery to weep. I was nothing, nothing except mud to be trampled underfoot.

What else could I be if my own childhood friend had declared me such? Our bond had been thicker than blood yet with his words he severed us. He said I was nothing and thus I was. That was my last thought before I fainted from the loss.

I awoke hours later in the infirmary. Nothing had been patched, the wound still fresh and oozing. Existential wounds are beyond magic. Instead, the only alteration to my form was a pressure against my legs. James was dozing at the end of my bed, his glasses askew against the bed's comforter, his forehead resting gently on my ankles. His presence there began to cause the hole in my self to close ever so slightly.

Self worth is a tricky thing. So often people tell you validation must come from within, but that is difficult when you are full of holes, when what's within you is whatever offhanded remark your mother made about your appearance last Tuesday. No, self worth cannot be gained on such rocky foundations, and certainly not from within. No, you need someone to patch up your holes with kindness and attention. You need someone to tell you you are human and for you to believe them.

I believed James.

When I was called a mudblood for the last time, it meant nothing to me. The eyes, just like Avery's and Severus's, couldn't breach any inch of my being. I knew who I was and knew what I was not. To some it may have seemed a small recompense. They have never felt what it is to be an object, to be lesser. I died yes, but I died myself, for my own reasons.

I was not devoured by the storm, I was not unmade. I died neither as a mudblood, nor as a muggleborn, but as a human. I was Lily Evans, and I remained so until the end.