Written for Caesar's Palace Shipping Week with prompt flamingo.
It was just like any other day in the Umbridge household. Orford had left for work, Ellen was feeding her baby son, and Dolores was…wait, where was Dolores?
The last Ellen had seen of her, she had been quietly playing in her room. That was perfectly fine. She could feed the baby and then play with Dolores. Everything would work out.
No sooner had Ellen taken a seat on the living room couch did Dolores come running into the room. She was wearing one of her mother's pink scarves, but had thrown it about herself in such a way that it looked as if she had been tied up and done only a mediocre job of escaping her binds. On the toddler's head was a pink hat.
"I'm a pink flamingo!" Dolores announced.
Ellen knew better than to say it aloud, but Dolores looked nothing like a flamingo. She looked as if she had been attending a tea party and then been arrested halfway through by someone who had run out of handcuffs. Rather than tell her daughter this, Ellen asked, "If you're a flamingo, then where is Dolores?"
"Not just a flamingo, a pink flamingo."
"Oh, okay," For someone so young, Dolores could be quite specific. "If you're a pink flamingo, where is Dolores? What did you do with her?"
"I ate her!" the toddler exclaimed, giggling.
Instead of explaining to Dolores that flamingoes did not eat little girls, Ellen asked her if she could please spit Dolores out. She refused.
"What a shame. I was thinking about taking Dolores for ice cream. But if she's been eaten by a flamingo, I suppose we can't do that."
"Oh," said Dolores. Within seconds her flamingo accessories littered the living room floor. "Now can I have ice cream?"
Ellen had to smile at that.
X
Years later, Dolores Umbridge found herself remembering that day long ago shortly before teaching her first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. She thought of how happy she and her mother, no, the whole family had been then. Now Dolores had no idea where her mother and brother were, or if they were even still alive. Not that it mattered, of course, they were both abominations and Dolores was glad such people were no longer in her life.
But they hadn't been so terrible then, had they?
Dolores had been about to put on a black robe, which she thought would spread the message that she meant business-exactly what she wanted, but instead chose something pink. At least for today, she could revive the days of the little pink flamingo.
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