"Excuse me, miss, but Miss Amanda's mother is needing to speak with miss, please."
Amanda's shoulders slumped and she looked at Mitzy, who was standing in the doorway nervously, wringing her long, skinny fingers together.
"Do I have to?" Amanda whined. She was sitting contentedly in bed, coloring a picture of a Quidditch pitch with her favorite color-changing quill; the last thing she wanted to do at the moment was speak to her mother.
"Well, she is telling me to—"
"AMANDA! Get down here!" shrieked Amanda's mother's voice from downstairs.
Amanda's eyes widened and she exchanged anxious glances with Mitzy.
"I is thinking you should go, miss," Mitzy said, and then ducked out of the door, her floppy ear disappearing last.
Amanda groaned and jumped off of the bed. She walked quickly out of her room and down the stairs. She stopped about halfway down the spiral staircase when she saw her mother at the bottom of the steps, staring up angrily and tapping her high-heeled shoe impatiently.
"Yes, mummy?" Amanda asked innocently as she continued down the steps and reached her mother.
"Did you happen to go outside during the party last night, Amanda?" said Mrs. Higgs.
Oh, no, Amanda thought. She knows about Scorpius riding Daddy's broom!
"Er, no…" Amanda said quietly, not daring to look her mother in the eyes.
"Oh, really. Well, then would you care to explain… this?" she said accusingly.
Amanda looked up and saw that her mother was waving something pink and frilly in her face. "What?" she said, and took the fabric out of her hand. She unfolded it; it was the dress she'd worn last night at the party. With a giant grass stain on the back.
"I told you to be careful not to mess this up, and look what you did!" Mrs. Higgs scolded, wagging her long finger in Amanda's face. "I am so sick of you disobeying me all the time!" Amanda looked down, turning the soiled dress over in her small hands. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"I'm sorry, mummy. I didn't think…" Amanda stammered.
"That's right, you didn't think, did you? Now you had better—"
"Vivian? What's going on here?"
Amanda looked behind her. Her father was standing on the steps there, one hand on the railing, looking at his wife with one eyebrow raised.
Mrs. Higgs paused as if thinking of what to say, and then said, "Amanda ruined the nice dress I bought for her at the party last night, dear, and I was just…" She had on her pouty face now, the one that always won her husband over.
"Let me see this," Mr. Higgs said, reaching for the dress.
Amanda handed him the pink, silky fabric, still looking down. It was one thing to be scolded by her mother, which wasn't exactly a rare occurrence, but to be yelled at by her father….
She waited as he examined the dress. "Is this what you're getting so worked up over?" he said finally, gesturing to the small, greenish mark that stood out against the pink.
"Well, yes, I…" Amanda's mother said, placing her hands on her hips. "I mean, the dress was rather expensive, so…"
"I'm sure Amanda didn't mean to stain the dress, right, Amanda?" he said, placing a large hand on his daughter's shoulder. Amanda looked up and nodded enthusiastically.
"And I'm sure Mitzy can clean the dress with no problems… So there's no reason to get so upset, now is there, Vivian?"
Mrs. Higgs's eyes narrowed and she looked furiously between Amanda and her husband. "Yes, yes, there is, Terence!" she cried. "It's not just this dress; it's her constant disobedience towards me! She doesn't know how to follow orders!" Her finger was still pointed in Amanda's face, but she was looking at Mr. Higgs.
"Dear, she is only six years old," he replied. Amanda frowned; she hated it when her parents talked about her like she wasn't even there.
"Well, I wish she would just grow up!" Without a glance at Amanda, she turned and stalked off.
Amanda glowered after her mother, whose heels were click-clacking on the hardwood floor. Sometimes, she really hated her, with her red nails and her big hair and her stupid, annoying clicking-clacking shoes…
SNAP. Amanda jumped as she watched her mother fall backward; two pieces of something black slid out from underneath her, right to Amanda's feet. Mrs. Higgs cried out, and her husband ran to catch her just before she hit the floor. As he helped her up, asking her if she was okay, Amanda bent down and picked up the black objects. She had no idea what they were until she saw her mother nearly fall over again, and noticed her shoes were missing their heels.
"What in the world happened to my shoes?" she cried, and her eyes fell on the heels in Amanda's hands.
Mr. Higgs started chuckling as he watched his wife remove what was left of her shoes. "Well, dear, it seems as though you got your wish!"
"My… what?" she stammered.
"You wished Amanda would grow up, and it looks like she has! This is the first time she's shown her magical abilities," he explained, crossing the room to Amanda. "She made your heels fly off… for some reason." He looked down at her, winking. Amanda grinned back up at him; she had been afraid she was going to be scolded again.
Mrs. Higgs stood there, dumbfounded, and forced a smile. "That's wonderful, dear," she said, looking at Amanda. "We're so proud of you." Amanda held out the heels and her mother took them from her; she turned around again and walked away, calling, "Mitzy! I need you to fix my shoes!"
Amanda smirked and waited until she was out of earshot. She wiped the smile from her face and said, "I'm sorry, Daddy. I didn't mean to break Mum's shoes."
"I know you didn't, sweetheart. Mummy will be okay, though. And as for this…" He pointed at the pink dress in his hands. "It can be fixed easily."
Amanda grimaced. "Do we have to get it fixed?"
Mr. Higgs chuckled and ruffled her hair.
Author's Note: Hellooooo again! Long time, no update. I know. But I want to thank everyone who added this to their favorites or story alerts, because I probably wouldn't have started working on this again without you guys. You know who you are. :)
I'm not too crazy about this chapter. It's basically just a filler. I'm kind of lost for ideas of what events to put in before Amanda gets her Hogwarts letter... So this is the product of a writer's blocked brain that was itching to update! Hooray! Anyway, regardless of the crappy quality of this chapter, review pretty please? I'd really appreciate the feedback! I'll try to get a 5th chapter up soon. And if you have any ideas of thing you want to see in the story, feel free to message me or leave it in the reviews!
Thanks for reading! Hugs and butterfly kisses. (:
