Chapter Text
Avaric and Etheldra Gaunt had five children, and that was one too many.
Pavoro came first, exactly what his parents hoped he’d be. Strong and haughty and cruel to the bone.
Marvolo came out squealing, and never stopped. He was loud in a way that pleased his parents.
Stellaris was the first and only daughter, as lovely as she was wicked.
Victorio was where they should have finished. He was lazy, but so handsome and charming that he still served a purpose.
Ominis came last. Born wrong, he grew up hearing. His parents and siblings said it often, as if it was his ears that didn’t work rather than his eyes. They’d leave him in his room most of the day, almost all days. It was boring and lonely with only the whispers of wind and the chirping of birds for company.
“You can’t very well play outside with us,” Stellaris said once, the summer Ominis was six and finally begged to tag along. “You’d run into a tree and crack your skull, and who could be bothered to patch you up?”
“Or a Muggle would catch you,” Pavoro added. “You wouldn’t be able to defend yourself. They’d flay you alive, and let the birds pick your bones clean.”
Marvolo laughed. “Like we did to that Muggle last week.”
His three kindred siblings laughed with him, and his fourth sat there, distressed by all that he’d heard.
After that, Ominis never tried to spend time with his siblings. In fact, he actively avoided them. He holed up in his room and imagined stories in his head of the day he would eventually escape to Hogwarts. He’d have friends, then, he was sure of it. Not all wizards wanted to torture and kill—his family complained about them often enough for Ominis to know they existed.
Ominis was three when Pavoro went off to Hogwarts. He was too little and had too many siblings at home for it to make any difference. Then Marvolo went off the year after that, and Stellaris two years later. When Ominis was seven, it was only him and Victorio at home, and Victorio was content to ignore Ominis as much as possible. It was the first year of his life that Ominis felt lightened from the burden of being a Gaunt. He began to creep out of his room, memorising how many steps it would take to reach the staircase, and then how many stairs there were to walk down. He learned the kitchen with its cold, flat surfaces, and the sitting room with its stiff sofa and smooth walls.
When he was nine, Victorio departed, and that September, Ominis approached his mother for the first time in his memory.
“Mother,” he said one evening during dinner. It was the only time he was allowed out of his room, and Etheldra always led him by the arm to the table, even well after Ominis learned to navigate the house by himself.
“Yes, Ominis?”
The coldness in her voice reminded him to be careful.
“I’ve heard lovely music coming from your room some days,” he said, hoping he sounded flattering and courteous. “I wonder if there’s a way I can listen to my own music.”
“No,” Etheldra said. “I was playing violin. You’ll never be able to do such a thing.”
Ominis did not argue the point, though the next time he heard his mother playing her violin, he was seized with the urge to storm into her bedroom and smash the instrument against the floor.
It was shortly after this discussion when Ominis turned ten. He knew the day of his birthday only because his father lamented their Squib son would not be going to Hogwarts in a year. It was then Ominis decided enough was enough. He would be going off to Hogwarts soon—so he hoped fervently every night as he struggled to sleep—and he had rarely left his own home. It wouldn’t do.
The next morning, Ominis dressed himself from his wardrobe. He didn’t know colours or fit, but he knew his favourite set of robes was a particularly soft fabric. The others ranged from scratchy to itchy. He found and put on the soft robes, walked confidently down the stairs, and felt along the wall until he reached a doorknob he’d previously discovered but had yet to turn.
Ominis opened the door and stepped, very carefully, outside.
He had to pause in the doorstep. It was immediately overwhelming. The wind he’d felt blow in gently through his window now felt like an assault across his face and throat. He’d felt the sun on his forearms, but now it heated his whole body, warmed his hair and robes and the skin of his nose.
He took a step, and stumbled a little as the ground shifted beneath him. There was a small drop outside the front door, then. He’d remember next time.
He took a few more steps before his foot caught on something, and this time he pitched forward and was unable to catch himself. His chin took most of the fall with a scrape of pain, and the jolt knocked the wind out of him. He laid on the ground, gasping, until he caught his breath, and then he brought a hand up to his stinging chin, and found it wet with what he assumed to be blood.
Ominis felt the urge to cry, but it was an urge that came and went fairly often. He’d long since learned to suppress it. Instead he took a deep breath, spread his hands out, and patted around him until he found what he’d tripped over.
When he felt it, it was something thick and rough and attached to the ground. He did not know much of the world, since his family had never shared it with him. He couldn’t think what it could be. It was only later, after he’d gotten his wand and learned so many things at Hogwarts, that he realised he’d tripped over a tree root.
The tumble taught Ominis he couldn’t grope his way around the world, and it was lucky he learned the lesson so close to home. He managed to get back inside uneventfully, and cleaned up his face and hands in the washroom.
It was at dinner that Avaric asked sharply, “What happened to your face?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Ominis said quietly.
“And your robes?” Etheldra put in. “The hem is stained, and the knees are torn.”
“I don’t know,” Ominis repeated, bowing his head.
He knew what came next. His suffering at the end of his parents’ wands. They knew he was lying, and they could’ve magicked their way into his mind with Legilimency—they threatened it often enough—but they preferred the lesson of pain.
Ominis didn’t let their hexes deter him. He would explore again. He would find a way to navigate without falling. Something that would let him know what was before him. A long stick with bells on the end, perhaps. A broom.
He’d figure it out. But he wouldn’t give up. And he’d keep counting down the days until he arrived at Hogwarts.