Written for Hogwarts school of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments): Triwizard Tournament (Task 9)
Prompt: first person, reading, Romilda Vane, Pansy Parkinson, The character(s) rear a child together (not necessarily their own child)
Written for Hogwarts school of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments):
Prompt: Auror (word), Certainty (emotion)
I'm no-one. Not really. You probably don't know me. My name's Romilda Vane. At Hogwarts I didn't matter. But afterwards I did something pretty amazing.
After the war I knew I couldn't go back to school. It was completely destroyed and full of bad memories. My friends had died there, it was hardly somewhere I wanted to spend time reading history text books and doing arithmancy. Besides, I had never been good at learning. I was rubbish at everything except for music (and that was only because there was a really cute Hufflepuff boy in my choir who I wanted to impress). So I just left. I decided I wasn't going back and I didn't I thought it would be difficult, but it was actually alright.
After the war ended, there were hundreds of children left alone; their parents dead or arrested for war crimes. They were abandoned, and no one had the time, money or inclination to look after them. Of course, some had extended families, but those who's parents were dead were mostly children of muggleborns and no one really knew how to find their families.
After I left school, I needed a job. Adoption agencies were overflowing and to me, it was a way I could help. I'd always loved children so it seemed like the perfect job. I applied and was accepted almost immediately.
I took to the job quickly, loving the children and even enjoying the hard work. At first I was only allowed to shadow the senior care team, but as time went on I was left alone to do small jobs, like feeding or clothing the children.
After I had been there a few months they let me work as a full time member of staff. I worked there for three years, and even after all that time the 'baby crisis' as we nicknamed it was still ongoing.
I left the orphanage I had been working at, and with the funds I'd saved I bought a small shop in Diagon Alley. Prices there had dropped dramatically after the war, and after it was totally converted my new life plan fell into place.
I advertised in the Daily Prophet as a Day Care centre and foster home and almost immediately began to get customers. At first they were just people looking for a place to leave their children for a few hours. It was interesting work, but I didn't really get to connect with any of the children.
Then, on a hellish night, full of sleet and thunder I had two visitors. The first was an auror, bringing me my first permanent resident. The baby was beautiful, a gorgeous little boy who was found abandoned in Knockturn Alley. I was the closest help at hand and so I had the joy of finding my first baby. I called him Davie. I don't know why, it just sort of suited him.
The second guest I had turned out to be far more unexpected. A young girl, about my age, came to the door, soaking wet. I thought at first she was trying to give me a baby but then I suddenly recognised her. Pansy Parkinson. Queen of the Slytherins. She looked completely different without all of her gorgeous make up. She said she wanted a job but of course I was suspicious. Her dad was a Death Eater and everything!
It would have been heartless to throw her back out onto the streets so I made her dinner and lent her some clothes. In all the dramatics though, I forgot about little baby Davie. I heard him crying and ran upstairs in horror only to find Pansy holding him carefully, quietly picking a book off the shelf.
I was certain that she could be trusted. I was utterly convinced that she would help me and so I gave her a chance. At first she simply did the books, checking my bills and such, and I let her help out with baby Davie when I could supervise. She was brilliant with him. She had more patience than I, she would sit and read to him when he was ill, tell him stories before bed time. We brought him up together, Pansy and I.
She continued to work with me, and we fostered other children, but most were temporary visitors. No one ever came to claim Davie so we kept him. We became a little family. A perfect, unique little family, and I simultaneously can't wait and dread, next year when he goes to Hogwarts.
Pansy and I argue about which House he'll be in all the time- Gryffindor or Slytherin, but I'm sure that really he'll be a Ravenclaw. He's so smart, always reading and learning. We're both so proud of him.