Assignment Two: Psychology: Write about a child demonstrating learned behaviour from an adult or role model

Extra Prompt: (object) doll

Word Count: 1403

A/N: [Little] Artie is an OC, obviously. He was born two years after Hugo. He was premature, hence why he is 'Little', and a sickly baby… Baby is Rose's doll's name. Little Artie has a magical disease, his magic engulfing him and destroying his lungs due to it not being able to form properly. They only have a 'cure' for the symptoms.

Warnings: character death

Little Artie and Baby

Rose sat next to her mum on the sofa, clutching her doll close to her chest like she had seen her mum do with Little Artie. She placed one of Little Artie's bottles to Baby's mouth, pretending it to feed it as her mum was feeding her youngest brother with her milk. "Are you being a good Mummy?" her mum asked, her voice sounding tired due to late nights tending to her brother but her face full of love.

"Yes! I'm like you, Mummy! Great Mummy!" Whilst her vocabulary was great for a girl of four years, whenever Rose got excited her words went out faster than her mind could process, leaving her with broken sentences.

"Good girl. You continue to treat your baby well, Darling."

Rose nodded violently, as her mum picked up Little Artie and started to burp him. Watching intently, Rose decided that one day Baby may need burping as well. Actually, he needed burping just now...

She was burping Baby a few weeks later when Little Artie's coughing started again. Her mum got up of the sofa, kissing her on the cheek lightly. "I'll be back in a minute, Darling."

Her mum was looking after her and Little Artie again. Every Tuesday, her dad and other brother went out to watch a Quidditch match or, if a Quidditch match wasn't on, the Holyhead Harpies practices—life as a former Chaser's sister had some perks, after all. Rose didn't want to go to the matches, although her father had offered many times. She had to stay behind to look after Baby, after all; just like her mum had to look after Little Artie. She couldn't just leave Baby at home, and the Quidditch stands were no place for a baby.

Little Artie was in her mum's arms when she walked back into the room. He was screaming and fussing, and her mum looked at a loss, but seemed to think that bringing him into the living room was the safest thing to do. She settled down into an armchair with him, bouncing him up and down on her knee gently. Rose watched her for a few moments, before deciding that Baby needed to be calmed as well, and, concentrating hard, began to bounce her own knee.

Rose was woken up early one morning—or was it night?—to the sound of Little Artie screaming. It was becoming a more common occurrence, as well as the sounds of coughing and her parents voices. Hugo slipped into her room, looking quite fearful. Rose remembered that he didn't like the loud sounds when he climbed into her bed, and wrapped an arm around him as he snuggled into her side. She had thought that their parents warded their doors when they tucked them in at night, but Hugo's magic had probably unlocked them in order to get to her comfort. Rose pressed a kiss to her brother's forehead, saying, "I'll be back in a minute, Brother."

She walked over to her toy cradle, where she knew Baby was sleeping. She picked it up and brought it over to her bed, where she sat with both Hugo and Baby until they all fell asleep.

Rose held onto both her dad's and Baby's hands as her mum led them through the hospital entrance. She held Little Artie close to her chest as she started to talk to the witch at the front desk. The witch got a nurse to lead them to another room, where Little Artie was taken away from her mum by the nurse and checked over by some machines and a wand. Her parents started to talk quietly to the nurse, so Rose got a twig—she wasn't sure where from, but it had just appeared in her little dark hands—and began to run it over Baby's body, like she had seen the nurse do. The nurse handed her parents some medicine before saying they were free to go.

"Are we gon' get Hugo from Grandma Molly?" Rose asked slowly as they began to walk out of the room, grabbing onto her dad's hand.

"Yes, Sweetheart."

"Cool! Can have Pumpkin Juice?"

"Of course."

The medicine seemed to work for a while. Little Artie's coughing subsided, and Hugo no longer needed to creep into her bed at night. Rose had taken to giving Baby some medicine. She felt like it was coming down with some sort of illness, and therefore needed a prescription of Pumpkin Juice to be taken every morning.

But then everything seemed to go downhill again. Her mum was found crying on her dad's shoulder as Little Artie was coughing up blood again. Rose had never coughed up blood herself, but it must be painful, like the time where her knee was bleeding when she fell off her broom. She would do anything she could to protect her brother. She had to. Little Artie couldn't bleed!

She was in hospital again a few months later, standing over a small cot in which an even smaller person lay. Rose, all of five years, knew what Little Artie's unnaturally still form meant. He wasn't well. He wasn't going to get better. He would stay his age forever, stay with the same dark-brown hair that was only in little tufts on his head, and with the still-blue eyes that hadn't yet changed into the chocolate colour that her mum, Hugo and Rose all had. He would never get the chance to walk, to talk, to get to know his older siblings beyond some gentle cuddles.

Rose clutched Baby closer to her chest. She had failed.

A tiny coffin—Rose thought that was what Uncle Harry had called it when she had asked—was lowered into the hole in the ground. She held onto her mum's hand, Baby held in the other arm. Little Artie was in the coffin, and they were just going to bury him. Rose supposed that they couldn't keep him forever, although she didn't want him to leave them just yet. Even if he couldn't move.

The dirt was moved over his coffin. It was a light blue shade. Little Artie would have loved it, if he could see it. His blue blanket was always his favourite.

A stone was placed over the grave. It had writing on it, but Rose couldn't yet read. "What does it say?" she asked her Uncle Harry, who was standing next to her with gleaming eyes.

She distantly felt her mum let go of her hand and walk away, but she was staring at her Uncle Harry too strongly to really feel it. "'Here lies Artie Marmion Granger-Weasley, a loved son, godson and brother.'"

"What are the… numbers?"

"They're his birth date and," he glanced at her quickly before deciding it couldn't hurt to tell her, "death date."

"Thank you."

He ruffled her curly hair, green eyes clouded with something Rose didn't understand. "Come on, Rosie. Let's go find your mum."

Baby wasn't well. She knew that. It hadn't been for a long time. Despite this, it came as a surprise to her when Baby just stopped moving one day. Just like Little Artie had.

I have to do something, she thought, holding her doll close to her body.

She had a small box in her room. She could use that as a coffin, one like Little Artie had. Their back garden had a lot of mud, which was great for making holes. She could lay him to rest.

Her mum found her just as she was finishing the hole. "What are you doing?" she asked, a cloud over her voice which had been there since the last trip to the hospital.

"Making a hole."

"Why are you doing that, Sweetheart?"

"So Baby's coffin can rest in it," she replied firmly, placing the box with Baby in it into the hole and beginning to cover it.

Rose heard sniffing, so looked over at her mum. She seemed to be wiping tears away, but Rose did not understand. Wasn't it good that she was burying Baby?

"Here, I'll help," her mum said softly, bending down next to her and pushing some of the dirt into the hole. "You're a good kid, Rose."

When the hole was filled, Rose placed a stone on the top. She glanced at her mum, who pulled out her wand and began to carve writing into the rock:

'Baby Granger-Snape, a beloved doll.

30-01-2006 to 28-02-2011.'

Rose may or may not be afraid of contracting any illness now, due to her brother [and doll] dying.

The doll is inanimate. It didn't actually die. Rose just thought it did.

She got the doll when she was born.

~Buttercat