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but I’ma show you how I do
You wake up every morning. You roll over your bed until your socked feet touch the enchanted warm floor. You stretch your limbs over your body and pad over to your bathroom. Minutes later, when you’re changing into your robes for the day, you count the scars on your body. It’s your mantra. Your motivation. Reason enough to do what you’re doing. There are cuts on your arms and hands. Burn marks, too, and on your legs. A curse on your shoulder that cannot heal from ancient ruins in
Canada. On cold days, the scar on your knee aches as much as it did when your opponent knocked it out from under you when you were fourteen. The wounds on your body tell a story and you let them. You wouldn’t have it any other way.
It is not that you are clumsy. You’re actually quite lithe. Your
abuelita noticed that about you when you were younger. That and your tenacity. You didn’t do well sitting on your own and you were always on the move. Exploring. Walking around. Trying to move around and not stay within the confinement of your nursery. You toddled after your brothers; not really because you wanted their company. They were your brothers and you loved them but lacked the curiosity you had. They did not try to play with the elaborate puzzles your abuelita left out, but you did. You always did, until you were outside running. Chasing after the willowy light she conjured for you to chase after. When you were older, she’d sit you next to her and read to you from old spellbooks. Ones passed down through generations.
Eventually, your abuelito notices your potential. It’s not that they didn’t try to drive your brothers to something great. It is more that your brothers weren’t great in the same way; they were different. (Your brother on the Spanish national Quidditch team would tell you that his paycheck told him he was better, but he jokes and you both know it.) At your grandparent’s behest, your mama and Papa enrolled you into a magical preschool, albeit a gruel one. You thrived under pressure. Once you got your wand, you practiced with the old spellbooks. You faced your abuelita and your papa until they thought you ready. When you were thirteen, you entered the World Junior Dueling Circuit. You finished well for your age, but just missed qualifying for worlds. The failure drove you to do better. You spent your free time trying to create your own spells. Repurposing so people wouldn’t think useful for dueling. Funny how a cleaning spell can tighten one’s robes to the point they can no longer move. Or how fast jewelry could tighten and burn because of some old metal warming spell.
Inventing your own spells quickly turning into designing your own runes. You don’t know how you fell into the subject. Maybe it was your abuelo’s tattoos. Maybe it was accidentally stumbling onto some old relics and wondering what they said. Your curiosity pushed you, but your ambition drove you. A crippling injury stopped you from finishing the season when you were fourteen, but it was a debt you returned in full when you were fifteen. You went on to win World Juniors in 2004, repeated the title 2005, and on the podium in ’06 and ’07. Perhaps you could have continued. Perhaps you could have become a dueling legend; you tried, for a couple years. You kept it at because it made your family proud, but your interest had waned.
You had journals and journals of runes; how to create them. How to break them. What they could be capable of doing. How you could make them work for you if you could just knew what do you. When you graduated from Beauxbatons, it was immediately to work for the Ministerio abroad. There is a joke to be made, somewhere, about how imperial Spain still was. How they sent out agents to help the old colonies with new ministries take care of old ghosts.
Your mama prays for you and tells you as much every time you speak; often, given that you are rarely in-country. You tell her not to worry about you so much, even as you’re dodging unseen creatures and damaging ancient curses. You tell her that you’re perfectly comfortable in your new lodgings, even though the healing room they have you in Peru leaves much to be desired. You tell her the worst you’ve gotten is a broken nail on a brand-new manicure, even as they’re fixing up your back. You fill your notebooks with explanations and interpretations, compiling a portfolio for the day you know you’ll need it. You safeguard your homes and help train new teams to do the same. When you visit your family, you make sure their homes are okay. Some might say you’re a little overly suspicious, but you prefer to say you’re prepared.
You drill preparation into your trainees.
It’s not that you’re willing to retire when you’re twenty-eight. It is that your body has taken a decade of hits and you know you cannot go on for much longer. Or that you do not want to, given that you know the risks. Your record speaks for itself, lending to years of experience on the field. Part of you wants to stay in España, somewhere along the coast. The other part of you knows that doing so would be detrimental to what you want. (Your mama, you’re sure, would have you settle down sooner rather than later, but you have yet to meet someone who checks off what you’re looking for.) Your initial hope is to return to your alma mater and inspire a new group of students to pick up your passion. To go out into the world and explore, but your plans fail to go into motion when there is no position for you.
Luckily for you, Beaubaxtons has a close relationship with many other schools. Although your Portuguese is not as strong as your other languages, you are convinced that Castelbruxo will open a position for you. Although you have not worked with academia before, you have spent time on campus and especially within the country. An invitation to apply at Hogwarts thrills you, although you steel and prepare yourself for you interview. Even with charms to warm you, you are not used to the Scottish cold. You walk with a flounce in your step because you are confident. You smile and speak slower than you are used to, but well aware your accent might hinder easy communication. (It goes both ways, for you have trouble understanding just what Professor McGonagall says.)
You get the job and are pleased by the willingness of your students. No one who does not want to be there is forced to be there, so your students are keen. Some come to you with questions you are not sure how to answer – children so young believe every little personal problem to be the end of the world. Some come to you with better requests. You find yourself the professor advisor in charge of dueling. It is difficult in and of itself. When you’re 32, you agree to become the Slytherin head of house. Albeit, you do so cautiously knowing that so many students will now be looking at you.
Your first speech to the Slytherin tell them that you demand excellence. That you will expect them to accomplish great things. Many do. You push and drive. On your vacations, you escape to the sunny beaches of Spain for weeks. Other weeks, you take out contracts that challenge your mind during times you aren’t writing lesson plans or answering correspondences from students. Something’s missing, of course, but you’re content.
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