Christmas Eve Eve | Saxon
‘Twas the night before Christmas Eve and all through the house, screams and pleas could be heard, even the neighbors couldn’t tune it out. However, the neighbors continued cooking their dinners and watching television, paying no mind to the teen that was getting a beating from her father. They never paid any mind, the only one that had ever said anything before was an elderly lady that lived next door, but she’d passed away before Sophie’s mother had died, so the girl was left on her own to face the monster down the hall.
It was a big blow out. This time he’d found her mother’s locket, the one Sophie had managed to get her hands on just before her mother was buried. She remembered the night she’d grabbed it, her father wanted to bury her mother with it, but while he was talking to his brother downstairs, Sophie knicked it from the paper bag that held all of the things that her mum had gone into the hospital with. Her mum had always promised her that she could have it when she was older, and she wasn’t going to let that one piece of her mother go, not without a fight. So, when her father asked if she’d seen it, she shook her head and he thought that someone at the hospital had screwed up, and man, did he give them hell. As badly as she felt about it, she needed that part of her mother, especially when her things that once sat in drawers were boxed up and put in the attic. Her scent didn’t fill the house anymore, it wasn’t on the aprons in the kitchen, her sweater didn’t hang by the door. The locket was all Sophie had when she went back to Hogwarts after the summer.
It was her fault that he found out, really, she’d forgotten to leave it at the castle when she went home for the holiday. She tucked it into her trunk before she got off the train, but the night before Christmas Eve, after coming home from a day of shopping for her father’s gifts, she was chilled to the bone and pulled out her sweater from the trunk, and her locket caught on the yarn of her sleeve. She didn’t know it until she brought two hot chocolates and some biscuits into the sitting room to share with her father, and something fell to the floor with a dull thud. Her father reached down and in that instant, he went from pleased with his daughter, to more furious than he’d ever been with her. The only time she’d seen him so angry was after she and her mother returned from Paris, after they’d tried to run when she was just a child.
Mugs shattered on the floor, hot liquid burning her sock clad feet as the cigarette in his hand pressed against her collarbone. Then the chaos broke out; screaming, hitting, slapping, yelling, punching, throwing, shaking, squeezing, slamming, crying, begging, apologizing, struggling...
Then there was blackness.
When Sophie woke up, she was on the floor, blood sticky on her sweater and face. She was sore and badly banged up, worse than she remember being before. As she tried to sit up, she cried into her hand, a sharp pain shooting through her torso. It was a struggle for her to get up, eyes searching for her father’s presence, but the house was quiet. He’d probably stalked off to his room long before she came too. She remembered the times he’d done that to her mother, she’d hear the door close in his room and then she’d sneak down the stairs to wake her mother up, take care of her. But her mother was no longer there and now it was Sophie on the other end of the dangerous blows.
Still, she mustered up her strength and all the resolve she had left in her and made it to the bathroom to clean herself up as best as she could. She crawled up the stairs to get her trunk and anything else she could gather from her room, wand included, and trudged her way to the top of the stairs. She looked under her father’s door for a light, but it was dark. All of that beating had tired him out, it seemed, and Sophie wasn’t leaving without her locket. So as quietly as she could, she opened the door, and padded into his room. The locket was on the dresser, next to where his wallet and keys sat. She clutched the locket tightly in her hand before instinctively pulling the cash from wallet, and tucking it into the pocket of her jeans.
It was an hour later that the girl finally made it to the Leaky Cauldron, after attempting to find Hugo at his home, she’d spent the last of her money on the Knight Bus taking her there and then to the only entrance she knew to Wizarding London. Dragging her trunk in, she approached the inn keeper, pulling her cloak tight to hide her blood stained sweater, but there was not much she could do to hide the bruising on her face or her fat lip as she started to speak with the man.
It was getting late and the clock neared ten as Sophie once again tried to explain to the man that she had money, she just couldn’t exchange it until Gringotts opened in the morning, but she needed a room. He refused her again and she was getting desperate as their argument continued. “Please, I’ll leave my wand with you until I can pay for the room in the morning. I spent the last of my wizarding money on the Knight Bus, but I have muggle cash, see?” She struggled, pulling it out of her pocket to show to him, tears prickling at the corner of her eyes and she tried to blink them away. “I’m good for it, I swear to Merlin, I just need a room for the night.” The man glared at her, “Then I suggest you ask someone else, I’m running an Inn, not a pawn shop, nor a charity. Now, if you haven’t got the money, then I suggest you be on your way.” He snapped at her, causing her shoulders to finally drop as she could no longer compose herself. The fifteen year old was scared. She was in London, nowhere near Hogwarts, nowhere near Hugo, and nowhere near the sad place that she had to call home. This had been her last resort and now, it seemed, she’d be sleeping on a park bench in muggle London for the night. Tears ran down her cheeks as she shakily grabbed the handle of her trunk and turned towards the exit of the pub, “Okay.”
