Sometimes you must go back to the beginning
Who: Tracey Davis. When: November 11, very early in the morning. Where: Bank of the River Thames What: Tracey makes a decision about her life. Rating: Low.
It was still easy to slip into the Muggle World if you were quiet and got up before the cock crowed.
Tracey had not slept a single wink that night - it was an occurrance that was happening all too often these days. She'd given up on even pretending to sleep at four o'clock and had dressed in her favorite pair of denims, a snuggly fit jumper and knee high boots. Drawing her cloak on over her only Muggle coat, she silently left her tiny flat above Mulciber's Wards and Protections. From there she walked down Diagon to the Knockturn Alley where if a girl knew where to look, it only took a few sickles to have a door opened into an equally dreary if completely mundane alley in Muggle London.
It was both too late and too early for taxi cabs to be cruising for passengers, but there was always the Tube. She rode through the tunnels ignoring the other passengers as much as was safe. Tracey was going home.
The last stop was bright and clean and new and nothing at all like her childhood memories. But then that was to be expected. The twisted, crumbling warrens of her earliest memories were gone - razed to the ground to make way for the London Eye and it's accompanying new, bright, modern district. Gone were the warehouses and the tenaments. Gone were the sad and the tired and the broke - they had been shoved off to another worn section of the great city along with her parents. But the River was still there. Her memories were still there.
Tracey skirted the park and spared the giant Ferris wheel only a glance. She climbed over the rail and down to the verge of the River Thames. The mud gave off a familiar stench as her boots displaced it. She walked down until the water was lapping at her toes and just stared out across the water, not even really seeing the river traffic.
This was very close to the place that she used to come to think and to wish that she was on one of those distant ships. She would have given nearly anything to escape. And she had escaped, not because she had been rescued, but because she had decided to do it. Tracey closed her eyes and remembered vividly the day she had decided that she was going to find her way out of the East End. Her Hogwarts letter had come, much to her mother's dismay. Evangeline had been appalled that the dirty blooded creature who was her only child would pollute her alma mater's hallowed halls. She'd been beyond furious when her brother Janus had compounded the problem by making said dirty blooded child a promise -that if Tracey could make herself worthy of the Wizarding World, that he would take her in as an apprentice.
Looking back on that day, Tracey could now see that Janus had not really thought she could do it, but he had underestimated her ambition and drive. From that moment forward, she had set out to mold herself into a proper witch. Oh, how she'd driven herself. She'd learned the mannerisms and accents and speech patterns of her pureblood Housemates. She'd studied and studied, often on the sly and on her own, to make up not only the gaps in her pre-Hogwarts education but to stay near the top of those classes at Hogwarts that drew her so strongly - Charms, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Wizarding History. She loved the Wizarding World. Loved it and wanted it and wanted to belong to it.
And she'd succeeded. Beyond all hope, she had succeeded. For one shining, brilliant, unforgettable moment, she had had what she wanted. She'd passed her NEWTs with flying colors. She had presented herself and her credentials to her uncle and had been made an apprentice in her family's ancient business. She had friends whom she loved and the approval, however distant, of a member of her family. She had the life that she wanted in her hands and she'd been so damned happy.
But then...
But then it was ripped from her. She'd been tossed in Azkaban. She'd been labeled as lesser, as worthless, as unworthy of her own achievements by the victors of a war she'd done her best to avoid. The bitterest irony was that those same victors were the ones that she would have supported had they asked for their ranks contained her friends and family.
Then, as a final insult, they had bound her to a friend, laid magic and rules upon her galore, and then tossed her back into the shambles of her life as if they were doing her some great and grand favor.
She'd tried to follow the rules. Hell, she had followed the rules. She bowed her head and been a good little girl and had waited for someone to realize that a mistake had been made. But nothing had come of being good but growing despair. Railing at Daphne had only concerned her friend. Hinting at crossing the fences surrounding her had only gotten veiled warnings from Alex and oh how that had hurt. And Blaise, Blaise had problems enough of his own without hers being added to the weight on his shoulders.
Opening bleak blue eyes, Tracey stared once more out at the water and coldly, logically, laid out her options. She could continue on as she had been doing until all the pacing within her cage drove her inevitably mad. She only had to look at Hereweald and her own mother to know that the possiblity of true madness ran through her blood.
She could take her chances on running. She knew how to blend seamlessly into the Muggle World. A plane or a boat or a trip through the Chunnel could get her out of the country easily enough, but there was that damned tracking charm. While she could justify to Alex why she was here as she hadn't actually left London, Heathrow would be a bit harder to explain. She knew Alex well enough to know she would not stand a chance if she tried to duel him especially with the limits put on her wand where offensive spells were concerned.
Or there was the River herself. Or a potion. Or even a blade against her wrists. But, no, she was not going to take that way out unless she could figuratively lock her teeth in the throats of those who'd put her in this position and take them with her. Dragging the Dark Lord and his most fervent followers to hell with her did have a certain appeal.
Or she could do what she should have been doing all along. She could remember that she was a witch, a Slytherin witch, and not a helpless, powerless child. She'd been eleven when she'd decided to fight her way out of the slums along the Thames. It had taken her seven years to accomplish that feat, but she had done it. She was an adult now and a fully trained witch. Surely she could fight her way out of this intolerable situation in a much shorter time frame.
Tracey nodded firmly at the River, to herself, to whatever powers were watching in this world. Her decision was made. She would rescue herself and hope that she could take those of her friends who wanted out of this madness along with her to freedom. If that meant supporting the rebels, so be it. She would use them to her purposes as they would doubtlessly use her to theirs. That was the way of things, after all.
She turned away from the Thames and started up the muddy bank. It was hard going and slippery, but it was more than time to move forward.
Perhaps she would see if Charlie Weasley would like to fix her another pretty drink.