Title: What Millicent Doesn't Know
Author:Librasmile
Summary:What Millicent Bulstrode doesn't know about herself could fill a book...
Rating: T to be on the safe side
Word Count: 921 words
Disclaimer:All characters are the property of JK Rowling. I make no money from their use.
Author's Note: Here's a really rough fic inspired by my recent fascination with the thought of a Millicent / Hagrid pairing. This is just a story fragment that came to me tonight and I figured I'd post it. Yes I'm actually writing a story for the Diversity Fest but of course my muse jerks me around as usual and has me writing something else instead. But I WILL get the Diversity Fest story done. Just had to get this out of my head.
At 16, the things Millicent Bulstrode didn't know about herself could fill a book. In fact they did. Just not any book that she owned. But we'll come back to that later.
As for what she did know, well… She knew that she had a sneaking liking for Muggle literature because not even magic could convince her that somewhere there was some good-looking boy just waiting to fall in love with her. She especially liked The Long Winter*, written by some American girl living a century ago in some gods awful wilderness in the American plains.
Millicent had only a vague idea what the plains were. All she knew, courtesy of the story, was that it was big and wide and packed with disgusting sod and plagued by bone-bitter winters that convinced you that you were going to die of cold and starvation before you ever had the chance to bask in the sun again. She loved that story! She loved the toughness of the little girl and her family. She liked the challenge of throwing oneself against the elements. She especially liked the way people were judged not by their looks or their charm but by their guts and muscular capacity for hard work. Charms and looks wouldn't feed you out there.
She didn't like the way the father described the little girl as being small and compact like "a little French work horse." Just like the little girl seemed to, Millicent suspected that was code for short and dumpy. And what girl wanted to be compared to a horse – even if it was a black beauty? ( She snorted at the irony. The House of Black was known for its black beauties. ). Besides, it made her think too much of how she imagined people saw her as a Clydesdale. She'd take French work horse any day over that.
Which brings us to what Millicent Bulstrode didn't know about herself.
No, she was not the brightest student in Slytherin House. She didn't so much learn as plod along. While she was hardly the waste of brain cells that constituted Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle – who didn't even warrant the grand title of horse, in her opinion; more like donkeys, mules, oh heck jackasses if you really wanted to be honest - she wasn't exactly Draco Malfoy either – an Arabian if ever there was one. But she got her work done. It was good enough to pass, if not to set the world on fire. And, way back in first year, she had shown enough cunning and survival instinct to talk the Sorting Hat out of humiliating her by putting her into Hufflepuff, and instead convinced it put her into Slytherin.
Then again, maybe she wasn't all that smart. She hardly had the loyalty and sense of fair play that would have placed her in the badger house anyway. Millicent had her eye on the main chance just like the rest of her house mates. But when you're a Clydesdale in a house full of high-strung thoroughbreds, you're usually beaten to the finish line by the faster, quicksilver breeds.
What Milicent didn't know was that Clydesdale staying power was as treasured by some as an Arabian's speed. What she didn't know was that the supple play of brawny, sure-footed muscle under lustrous horse hair, all resting atop big, solid hooves was more beautiful to some people than a skittish thoroughbred's elongated elegance.
What Milicent didn't know was that her hair, bone straight and without any distinctive, stand out color besides dun, nevertheless struck people as being surprisingly lustrous, thick, and touchable. She didn't know that the play of her own sports-honed muscles playing under the well fed flesh padding out her tall, square frame, was just as supple and entrancing. She didn't know that while she had no derriere to speak of, her hips curved just enough to transform her frame from rectangular to surprisingly athletic and sinuous when she walked. Although she knew she didn't have enough of a waist to speak of and was already developing a well padded gut, the ample breasts she'd inherited from a German great-grandmother gave her more than enough cachet among quite a few of the boys. She knew she would never have dainty feet or slender ankles. What she didn't know was that she had the kind of long yet full calves that gave her the prettiest legs this side of Hogwarts.
Although she knew charm was not one of her gifts and that she had a tendency to wear either a flat, vaguely dour expression or an off-putting scowl, what she didn't know was that her eyes, for all there stubby eyelashes, had a resolute intensity that made those who dismissed her catch their breath and look again. Because what had on first glance appeared to be ordinary brown on second look seemed to blaze with the heat of a roaring oven.
What Millicent Bulstrode didn't know was that she was an interesting person and that, at the age of 16, she was just starting to ripen into an intriguingperson. While no magic in the world could ever make her conventionally pretty, she was becoming that much rarer female creature – a woman whose sex appeal derived completely from the force of her personality.
All these things Millicent didn't know were being written down in a book, mostly in words of one syllable, but written nevertheless, by the man who had become, unbeknownst to her, her first conquest.
To Be Continued…
Author's Note: * "The Long Winter" was written by Laura Ingalls Wilder of "Little House on the Prairie" fame. (For non-Americans or younger Americans, that was a long running TV series based on another of Ms. Wilder's books that delivered wholesome family viewing for years. It featured the adventures of a pioneer American family living on in the Midwest during the 1800s.) My father, or someone, gave me a copy of that book when I was a little kid and I LOVED it. I was always amazed how this little family survived a brutal winter on the plains where it snowed so hard you couldn't get out your door – and it was based on a true story! For all their failings, those folks had some true grit. I like to think Millicent would have fit right in.
Okay, in the grand tradition of me writing five different stories in between chapters of my standing WIPs, I tossed out this. Yes, I do hope to write more of it. No, I don't know when, sorry! I have to write a story for the Diversity Fest on Live Journal. All the stories revolve around characters of color in the Harry Potter universe ( What a GRAND idea! My story will focus on Dean Thomas. The prompt is: the truth about his father. Wish me luck! )
Genesis of this idea: I was thinking of a het pair that I hadn't seen before and that would interest me. Lately, I've been interested in underdog characters ( See my Confessions of a Cornwall Grad. ) And it just struck me: Hagrid and Millicent! So I went trolling for some stories…and turned up nada! There are a number of Millicent / Vincent stories. And there are a number of Millicent / Neville stories. There are even some Millicent / Draco stories. The best one I've ever read was 7 Preposterous Things by Bloodcult of Freud which is its own loopy, head-spinning, wonderful universe. But no Millicent / Hagrid. Not even in the Beholder fest. So I wrote this. Hope you like! Let me know if you'd like more…