Fifteen year old Esther St-James stepped through the doorway into her house. She hadn't expected to be picked up, but it would have been a nice change. Luckily, she always had a secret stash of muggle money for these occasions. She locked the door behind her, and went to dump her things in her room. A note was taped to her , wriiten in her mother's swirling script.
"Darling, I know you'd have got yourself home, I'm sorry I couldn't come and get you again. I know Abram went to Declan's so looks like you'll have to sort yourself. If I can't get back in time, can you get Lena, Malachy and Solomon from nanna's, because she has work.
While you were away, Malachy got his letter, he'll be joining you two at school, he's really excited to go. I'm relieved, after we'd worried that he hadn't done any accidental magic.
I hope to return by tomorrow early morning by the latest.
Mum."
One word of endearment, and a list of responsibilities and empty promises. Esther checked around the house, seeing that it needed a good thorough cleaning before it would be in any way liveable. If only she was allowed to do magic outside of school! Not for another two years. Perhaps she'd owl Abram to get him to floo over and whip off a few cleaning charms. No. He'd just tell her to bugger off and leave her to clean it like a muggle anyway, so what would be the point? That's if he'd bother to reply.
Well, best get to work. The eight bedroom house wasn't going to clean itself. Well, she'd do her and the kids bedrooms. Leave her mother and brother to do their own, if either showed up. She'd do two bathrooms and the kitchen, locking any rooms they weren't likely to use.
By the end, five of eight bedrooms were thoroughly cleaned, the rest locked. Two of six bathrooms, and the kitchen were the only other rooms cleaned and remaining open. If they needed, they could open up one of the reception rooms for entertaining. Like many wizard families, they had a large house, however their mother was not from a terribly rich family. Their fathers had contributed over the years, but she still had ton work long hours, sometimes away from home for weeks at a time. Anya St James had gone through 4 husbands (taking none of their names), her last divorce had left Solomon's father with one day a month visitation and eight hundred galleons child maintenance each month.
Malachy's father was serving a life sentence in Azkaban and had his accounts seized, and mysteriously a trust fund for Malachy appeared about a month later.
Lena and Esther had the same father, he had been killed in the war. They would inherit exactly half of his estate. Lena had been the result of a brief rekindling between the two after Anya's third husband had divorced her.
Finally, Abram St James was a result of her first marriage to her childhood sweetheart. The marriage had lasted four years, and Abram had been six weeks old when they'd finally got the owl to say they were no longer family. Abram's father had left with a new girl and without so much as a backwards glance.
Esther finished the cheese and onion crisps she'd been eating and washed it down with the remainder of her butterbeer, making a face as the flavours clashed. Muggle and magical food didn't really mix, but she'd didn't really care, as long as it was edible. She hadn't noticed until then that there was another note taped to the fridge.
"For the love of Merlin, eat something proper" It was unsigned, didn't need to be, the swooping letters were all the signature that was needed.
Rolling her eyes, she lifted a tub of ice cream from the freezer compartment and made a rude hand gesture to the note. "I'll eat what I want, stupid bitch. You're not here enough to make decisions like this for me."
Their house was a mishmash of both muggle and magical. There were some anti-muggle charms in place, to prevent any muggle guest discovering the magical side of the house.
Esther sat on her bed eating the ice cream, good old Mauds Belgian Chocolate, imported in bulk along with three other flavours Poor (often mistaken as Pooh) Bear (vanilla with bits of honeycomb), blue surf (vanilla with bubblegum swirling), and chocolate mallow. They had a walk-in freezer in the basement, and had the order shipped bi-annually. Their mother magically divided the gallon tubs into smaller pint tubs and kept a plentiful supply in the freezer compartment of the fridge. Once she'd eaten her pint of ice cream, she went to the wall beside the window, where a post chute had been installed, for muggle post. There was a stack of letters, which she sorted. A few bills, which were direct debit anyway in one pile. One pile was junk, and the other was miscellaneous correspondence.
She sorted through the miscellaneous pile, of six letters, and the final one was a work schedule for her holiday job. She pinned it to her noticeboard, reminding herself to get either her mother or brother to duplicate it magically for her. A quick glance at the clock told her it was ten past two, and she should probably get to sleep, the kids were going to be her responsibility tomorrow, whether their mother came home or not. In less than twenty minutes, she was asleep.
~~HP~~
The next day, as expected, Esther was at Nanna's by ten, the woman's shift was from twelve until seven. She'd lifted her work schedule on the way out of her room on a whim that perhaps nanna would duplicate it. She'd need a copy anyway. Failing that, she'd go into the print shop and run off a few copies. There was a deal on as it happened that 15 A4 sheets cost 75p. It was way more than she needed, but it didn't hurt to have a few spares. She also paid the £9 it would take to laminate the 15 copies. It was a steep price, but it'd be worth it in the end. She'd stepped in and dropped the order off on her way and had been informed it'd be an hour wait. That tied in nicely with the pick up.
At ten to eleven, Solomon and Malachy were ready to go, Lena was still in her pyjamas, running around looking for pieces of discarded clothing, a she added sock or jumper. "Miss Lena better get herself into clothes within the next five minutes, or she's walking home in her jammies." Nanna said in a sing-song voice, causing the seven year old to dump what she was holding at the foot of the stairs and scrambling up them. Fifteen minutes later, she reappeared, barefoot but otherwise dressed.
"Socks and shoes, Lena?" Esther asked, exasperated, as she shoved the pile of clothes into the bag Lena had brought down. Lena grabbed a pair of socks that were remaining on the floor and shoved them on her feet. Esther stood and Nanna handed Lena her boots. "OK, guys. Let's let nanna get off to work. Nanna, I got my work schedule, I'm getting it copied and laminated at the print store in town. I'll get it for you next time I'm down."
"OK, dear. I'll see you tonight anyway, I'm coming to make you all dinner."
"Oh, Nanna, you don't have to-"
"I insist. Your mother is away a lot, and I've got to make sure you eat at least a few proper meals. What did you have for dinner last night?"
"Cheesy cream potato."
"So you had cheese and onion crisps and a tub of ice cream then?"
"I didn't really feel like cooking for just one. Didn't see the point."
Nanna sighed and waved goodbye to the kids as they set off down the road. She would drop them home, but she was going in the opposite direction and would be late if she did.
The troupe of kids walked into town so that Esther could pick up the copies. The four kids filed into the small shop, Esther placing Malachy in charge for the few minutes her attention would be diverted to the transaction.
"Ah, Miss St James, these have just been finished. Still a little warmth in them." He handed her the folder of copies, along with her original, in exchange for her payment ticket.
July:
9, 13:00-21:00
10, 11:00-18:00
15, 13:30-19:30
24, 12:30-17:30
31, 8:30-14:00
total hours: 32 1/2
August:
4, 18:00-23:00
5, 17:00-23:00
9, 11:00-17:30
13, 18:00-23:30
16, 7:00-12:30
18, 12:30-19:00
24, 11:00-22:00
28, 10:30-22:00
total hours: 58 1/2
She totalled the hours at 90, which she was contracted to. She knew that Abram would likely turn up mid-August to go to Diagon Alley. She'd owl him one of the copies and tell him to pick when he was coming home so they could all go. On a whim, she decided to send one to her mother, on the off chance that Malachy's education might matter to her enough to take him.
~~HP~~
Skip ahead a few weeks, to 14th of August. Esther was still asleep, having only arrived home at two that morning. Nanna had slept over as usual, when Esther's shift would end late. Thankfully, she would have enough time to recover before the 7am shift (meaning she'd need to be up by half five) on the 16th. By twelve, Nanna told Lena to go and wake Esther, as she would have to go get Solomon from a sleepover, and needed a vaguely adult figure to look after the other two. While Esther was eating her breakfast (more like brunch) of scrambled eggs on toast, the floo went, signalling the arrival of either Abram or Anya. "I'm home!" A male voice called.
"Hey, Abs." Esther said, calling her brother the childhood nickname that turned into a running joke when Abram had joined the Quidditch team and become muscular.
"Hey yourself. Has mum been home at all?"
"Briefly in and out, you know how she is."
Abram grimaced. Just then, Malachy ran through the door, waving his Hogwarts letter. "I got in! I got in! Abs, are we gonna go to Diagon Alley today?"
"If there isn't anything on today' then yeah, we are." Abram grinned "that alright with you, Miss Pyjamas?"
"Yeah. Was starting to wonder if we were gonna need to go without you." Esther looked pointedly at her brother.
"So does that mean floo, or taxis?"
"Taxis, we're all going. Right down to little Sol."
"Well finish up, get dressed and let's go." Abram started to organise the smaller kids, as Esther finished getting ready herself. When she was nearly finished, the front door opened, signalling Nanna's return with Solomon.
Ten minutes later, the five kids were slipping into a 7-seater muggle taxi, and were soon on their way to Charing Cross Road. When the five got to The Leaky Cauldron, they decided to split into groups, and meet up in Fortescue's in two hours. Abram would take Malachy to get his wand, and they'd go to flourish and Blotts for the three sets of books. He would also be looking after Solomon. Meanwhile, Esther would mind Lena and they'd go to get Malachy's animal, cauldron and scales. Esther needed to pick up some potions supplies, and a new cauldron for herself, the old one has taken a battering over the past few years.
When they met up in Fortescue's, they had nearly all they needed. They just had to visit Madam Malkin's for all three and then return to muggle London and order a taxi back. "With all this stuff, we'll need to go in two taxis." Esther said, chewing her lip.
"It'll be fine, I can take a bit of it and floo home and be back soon." Abram said. "Actually, I've just thought, we need to get him trunk to bring it all to school. Come on, Malachy, let's go get you a trunk. We'll be five, ten minutes tops. You just stay here and enjoy your ice cream." The two dashed off, and returned with a trunk as Esther was scooping the last of the ice cream from her glass. "Looks like we're ready to go." Abram saw that Esther had finished, last as usual, and had fed Solomon the remainder of his. Just need this all packed up and I'll get it home. First the books... Now the scales...and telescope, there's room there for one cauldron. We can pack a few of the other books and potion ingredients in the cauldron. I can carry another cauldron with books in it. Let's get to the floo area."
Once they'd packaged as much was they could, they sent Abram home with the trunk and cauldron full of various items. Minutes later, he popped beside them, having apparated, finding it easiest without luggage or passenger. "We need some more floo powder. I'll just go get some." He jogged to the shop within the main transport area, of floo and apparation points, with the occasional port key used for longer travel. He came back a little later with a pouch and said "How about we just floo back?"
"No. Not with the cat, or Solomon."
"Knight bus."
Esther wrinkled her nose "fine."
They'd realised that with the cat and remaining cauldron (Abram had bought himself a new one for his seventh year, deciding his old one would become a spare for Esther or Malachy if it was needed. Malachy stopped and said "before we go anywhere..." He glanced to a brightly coloured purple and orange shop with a massive W at the front.
A grin escaped from Esther. The Weasley shop was a nice treat at Diagon Alley, and they didn't have a nagging adult with them, not allowing them. "OK. You are allowed ONE purchase each, or mum'll have our heads." She told the two grinning children, Solomon too young to understand, or be conscious at this point. "Make it worth it."
After an hour browsing the joke shop, Lena came out with a fluorescent green pygmy puff, and Malachy (after being disallowed any skiving snackbox) had purchased a fake wand, that turned into a rubber chicken. Happy that they had bought all they needed, they made their way to catch the knight bus home.