Hello, Farley Goyle


"No! No!" Rachel's crabby niece screamed as she was manhandled from the floor and away from her blocks.

Rachel, completely undeterred by the eighteen-month old's behavior, laughed. "Hush, hush, Ulyssa. You're getting to see the baby!" she told her niece with exaggerated enthusiasm.

Millicent snorted as she shifted her sleeping slug of a son. He was such a dull baby, she mused. He slept more often than he didn't and even when he did cry, it was a low, baying sound that was similar to that of a lamb's rather than the usual ear-splitting pitch.

Though, that was probably for the best, Millicent mused. She probably wouldn't like her son nearly as much as she did if he were the usual, screechy beast that so many infants were. He might be dull from the Goyle blood, but at least it made it easy to care for him. That, she was quite thankful for. Millicent didn't know how she would have handled a finicky baby.

She just might have drowned them then.

Watching as her cousin wrangled the fussy toddler into sitting on her lap, Millicent ran a hand over her son's baldhead. She didn't know why they were bothering to introduce the two. Ulyssa probably would whine all the way through it.

However, Millicent was quickly proven wrong when the toddler stopped crying abruptly.

"There you are!" Rachel cooed at her niece.

The little drooly girl had her eyes fixed on Millicent's son. Pulling out a saliva covered finger from her mouth, Ulyssa pointed at Millicent's son.

Giving the girl an indulgent cuddle, Rachel asked, "What's that, Ulyssa?"

"Baby!" she proclaimed

Millicent's cousin kissed Ulyssa's ruddy cheek. "Yes! That's it, Ulyssa, that's a baby!" she praised.

Too distracted by Millicent's son to care for the praise, the little girl almost tipped out of her aunt's arm in her hurry to grab Farley's face.

Shifting back a little, Millicent scowled. "No, Ulyssa," she scolded.

"Baby!" the toddler wailed in response, struggling to get to Millicent's son.

Sighing in a good-natured way, Rachel gave Millicent a hopeful smile. "Why don't you tell Ulyssa his name?" she suggested.

Rolling her eyes, Millicent did so (not that she saw why they should, Ulyssa couldn't even pronounce her own name). "This is Farley, Ulyssa. Say hello."

The toddler paused in her whining. "Far'y?" she tested.

"That's a girl!" Rachel applauded as she gave the little girl a hug. "How about you say, hi, hm?"

"Far'y! Hi, Far'y!" she chattered, getting to her knees and in a much gentler manner, scooting close to Millicent.

Some of her earlier wariness fading, Millicent brought Farley away from her neck and said to the toddler. "If you like, you may touch him. Nicely, mind you, Ulyssa."

Grinning a gummy smile at her, Ulyssa reached over and gave Farley's face a pat with her sticky hand. "Far'y," she gurgled. "Hi!"

As if to say hello back, Farley opened his eyes for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he closed them again.

"Uh!" Ulyssa exclaimed, open mouth as she looked between Millicent's son, Millicent herself, and Rachel.

Laughing, Millicent's cousin pulled her niece back in her lap and said to the toddler, "Farley said hi back! Isn't he a good baby?"

Bobbing her head vigorously, Ulyssa replied, "Yeah!"

Giving the toddler one more kiss, Rachel put her back on the floor and said, "Why don't you finish your tower for me, hm?"

For a moment, Ulyssa looked like she might throw a fit, but, then, as if by luck, one of the blocks made a pig-noise, drawing her attention away from them.

Watching the toddler go back to her blocks, Millicent remarked, "I was expecting her to slap him rather than be gentle."

"I was too," Rachel admitted with a little giggle. "But I guess all that practice we've been doing with her dollies has paid off!"

Millicent smiled. "You've been practicing for our visit, eh, Rachel?"

"It's not that difficult. Marcus often brings her by, and I knew it was only a matter of time before you'd come over with your little bruiser to visit…" she trailed off, looking a little troubled.

Deducing after a moment that what bothered her cousin was the frequency of Ephram's niece's visit, Millicent reminded her, "You could always tell Marcus that you don't want to watch his disgusting little spawn."

Rachel's face seemed to wilt. "I've…thought about that," she admitted. "Sometimes, I'd rather just spend the day doing other things and not have to worry about a baby, but when I have said no, the next time I see Ulyssa she'll have a mark or just be overly clingy.

"I don't like what it might mean, and I hate even more that I could have kept it from happening by agreeing to watch her - for however long her parents might leave her here in the process."

Millicent scowled. "Disgusting!" she spat. Though, she completely understood why it happened. Ulyssa, from what she had seen, was not the easy baby that Farley was showing himself to be. She was loud, messy, squirmy and a number of other unpleasant things that Millicent knew she wouldn't be able to handle if Ulyssa were her baby.

"Ephram won't hear it, however. He doesn't want to, I suppose. The idea of your brother being so heartless as to hurt his own child is rather hard to swallow," she admitted with a little sigh.

Looking to the giggling toddler on the floor by their feet, Millicent tried to imagine what she might be like if Rachel wasn't so kind. If her cousin wasn't such a bleeding heart.

Ulyssa would be a faint shadow of this toddler, Millicent bet.

Pursing her lips, she told her cousin, "Maybe her visits are a…blessing, Rachel. You've told me it's not possible for you and Ephram to have any children of your own, so this just could be some will of fate to remedy that."

This drew a smile from Rachel as she took out a handkerchief to dab at her eyes. "Quite right, Millicent," she replied in little more than a whisper. "I knew you'd be able to find reason in this awful situation."

"Hmph," she replied in a noncommittal way. She didn't think she'd found reason, simply a possibility. But if Rachel wanted to believe that was why she was getting Ephram's niece dumped on her, she could. Millicent didn't feel it was her place to ruin her cousin's newly formed conclusion of things.

Especially since it'd not be Rachel's life that was ruined because of it.

Bringing her son close for comfort as she watched the toddler playing on the floor, Millicent pitied Ulyssa. No one wanted her, not even Rachel, when it came down to it. The poor, poor girl, Millicent thought as she brushed her lips across her son's head. Merlin, she hoped that nothing happened to her or Gregory.

Farley would end up just like Ulyssa if something did.


To those of you who are new to this fic, hello! I hope you've enjoyed the introduction to some of the main characters of Growing Up Goyle. As I'm sure you can discern from the title, this fic's focus is on Farley. However, for this chapter, it went a little slanted and ended up being quite a bit more on Ulyssa. Though, that shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Babies as young as Farley can only do so much in a story. But the focus changes over to Farley beginning next chapter.

And to those of you returning to this fic, I hope you like Ulyssa and Farley's first meeting!

Also, remember chapter are being dated in the index with the point at which they were added to Growing up Goyle. I hope this will help with any confusion you guys might feel due to how I arrange chapters upon uploading them to keep the timeline in order.

Thank you so much and please review!