Chapter Text
PROLOGUE: LITTERA (THE LETTER)
June 28, 1991
Rey knew she was different from the moment she understood what that word meant.
She didn’t have parents the way most children her age did, she had growth spurts earlier than most of her peers, and she had a peculiar, hard to miss scar on her forehead.
It was the most curious part of her appearance, that scar. Other than that, she assumes she’s very ordinary looking. The orphanage cleaner, Maz, would say otherwise and swat at her for thinking such a thing, but Rey doesn’t see anything special about her hazel eyes or the slight freckles that litter her tan skin. She kept her brown hair short and neat, usually tying it back into three neat buns. At least that was interesting. Other than her three buns and her scar, Rey felt that she was boring.
She’d never had parents, instead she had been dropped off on the steps of an orphanage when she was only a year old, and had been under the care of cruel Unkar Plutt since. She figures her height came from her parents, but it’s not like she’d know for sure. As for the scar, she’s not really sure what that came from or how she got it. But according to Plutt and the other staff she’d grown up around, she’d always had it.
Unkar Plutt was a poor excuse of a man. He had a large beer belly, a bald head, and an enormous nose. And not the good kind of large nose either. He smelled like sweat, which was probably thanks to the massive sweat stains he always sported under the arms of his cheap suits. His appearance matched that of his personality, nasty and gross. He treated the kids at the orphanage as if they were maids, making sure they were busy cleaning something anytime of the day that they weren’t in school. Over the eleven years of her life, Rey had developed a routine at the orphanage, and she had perfected it, leaving no room for Plutt to yell at her.
She spent her days waking up on a poor excuse of a bed and eating a barely nutritious breakfast before trekking to her public school. She came back to the orphanage and scrubbed the floors and wiped the windows before getting scraps for dinner if she did a good enough job. She finished her day falling asleep on her – again – poor excuse of a bed. Repeat every day after that.
She had never known life outside of her routine at the orphanage, and food was not something that she had ever had the luxury of coming by easily. Plutt made her and her fellow orphans work day in and day out, and by dinnertime, he’d assess their progress and effort and give them portions of dinner he felt were fair according to how well they had done. Rey had always come out less than satisfactory, even when her knees ached and her throat burned from dust and chemicals.
Rey had been there the longest of anyone. She’d never been able to keep a solid relationship with any of her peers who came into the orphanage because they always got adopted rather quickly. She wasn’t sure what it was about her that kept her from finding her forever family. Plutt said it was her behavior (more specifically, her attitude) but Rey believed it was the scar she had on her forehead.
It was an awkward, unusually shaped thing, resembling a lightning bolt. It spanned from the top of her forehead to the top of her eyebrow, making it hard to miss. She’d asked many times how she’d gotten it, but no one had ever been able to tell her.
The kids at school bullied her for it, calling her ‘scar girl,’ and it pained her beyond belief when the nickname carried over into the orphanage. Parents coming in looking for their child would often give her weird looks, trying to be polite but ultimately failing and making her feel ugly and strange. She tried to hide it, but it was nearly impossible, considering she hated the way she looked with bangs.
But Rey got answers she didn’t know she was looking for when she turned eleven.
Her birthday was like any other, forgotten about by everyone but Maz. No one wished her happy birthday – except for Maz – and she certainly didn’t get any presents to open. Maz always made sure to sneak her a cookie, though, whispering a tender ‘happy birthday’ as she gave it to her.
She stuck to her routine, and everything was normal until she got back to the orphanage from school. Plutt was angrier than usual at her, and she didn’t understand why, considering she hadn't yet started her chores. He roughly yanked her into his office and demanded she give him answers.
When she gave him a look of confused bewilderment, he threw something on his rickety desk, and she looked down to find a letter looking back at her.
A letter addressed to her.
Rey picked it up with shaky hands, astonishment lying under the furrow in her brow. She had never received mail. She didn’t really know anyone, so who would be sending her mail? It felt foreign in her small hands, like something sacred.
It was sealed with a red wax stamp, the name ‘HOGWARTS’ sprawled across the top. Underneath it was a crest with four symbols on it; a lion, a snake, a badger, and a raven. Rey didn’t know what any of it meant, but with trembling fingers, she tore it open.
The wording on the inside confused her even more, talking about how she had been accepted into ‘Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,’ whatever that was. She sighed as she realized it was probably just a prank from another child, getting her hopes up that something out there awaited her. Something more than this orphanage and loneliness.
Plutt had just laughed at her as she dropped her head and walked out of his office, fighting back tears. Of course no one would write to her. She was just Rey. Rey with no last name, Rey with no parents, Rey nobody.
Maz found her on her way back to her bed, frowning when she noticed her deflated mood. Rey couldn’t hold her tears back as the older woman looked at her with such care, a care that had always made Rey’s heart ache just a little less. At least someone cared for her.
Maz had always been sweet on her. Her small stature and big, kind eyes always made Rey feel comforted. She kept her white hair pulled back from her face with colorful bandanas, and her glasses were large and teal, making her personality shine through the barren halls of the orphanage. She reminded Rey of what she imagined a grandmother would be like.
“Rey,” Maz tutted, wiping a tear from under her eye with her thumb. “What’s the matter, child?”
Rey sniffled, swiping at the snot under her button nose. “Someone sent me a letter to make a fool out of me.”
She held up the offending letter, letting the old woman get a good look at what she was referring to. Maz’s concern morphed into understanding, and a smile spread across her face. Rey just frowned further.
“Oh, Rey,” Maz breathed, smiling at her. “These are your first steps. Your first steps of the rest of your life,” the older woman had smiled at her. Rey had many questions, questions that Maz didn’t hesitate to answer.
And Rey’s life changed forever.