Dominique and Beauxbatons Academy: September of 2012
(So it doesn't look like there is any official information about the inner workings of the Beauxbatons Academy, which is super sad, but I found a couple of role play sites that have great ideas for it's houses! I'm assuming that the french academy follows the same seven year schedule that Hogwarts does, with a few inside exceptions like when they take their versions of the OWLS (in the sixth year instead of the fifth), and their method of selecting students will be somewhat less magical than Hogwarts' book and quill. For their houses I'm going to use what I found on a role play site so absolutely all credit goes to them!
. Check out this awesome link to learn about the three houses of Beauxbatons, and here is their sorting method directly copied and pasted from that site:
"Beauxbatons has a unique sorting method. In order to be sorted, you must shoot a silver arrow across the room. After several seconds, the arrow will burst into sparks of your house color: Purple for Papillionlisse, Blue for OmbreLune and green for Bellefeuille. The arrow will choose a house based on your personality, character, and demeanor. Certain traits exemplify certain houses. You may possess all the traits or strongly possess only one of them. The house descriptions are outlines for your character, but not definite facts.")
Dominique knew practically from the day she was born that she was not destined for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Okay, so it may not have been since birth, but as she grew up hearing stories of her parents' Alma maters she couldn't help but feel drawn to the Beauxbatons academy. Her mother spoke so fondly of her time there as apart of the house of Papillionlisse that Dominique wanted to experience it for herself. Since the family as a whole was closer to their Weasley relations, it was assumed that all of Bill's children would attend Hogwarts: Which produced a complication to Dominique. She didn't want to disappoint her family, but the idea of having to attend a school she didn't want to go to made her angry. Luckily, through years of complaining about Hogwarts' name and bitterly stating her opinion of attending the school, her parents caught on and got in touch with Madame Maxime herself. Honored to be accepting back the daughter of their representative in the final Twiwizard Tournaments, the couple wanted to surprise their daughter by waiting till the last month before she was set to start school to give her the glad tidings. This made Dominique even more angry at them, however, confused as to why they would make her suffer the thought of going to an undesired school for so many years. Fleur, who was sorted into a house prided for it's kindness, was saddened to see her youngest daughter leave home with such a poor attitude.
In order to make the journey to Beauxbatons, Dominique traveled by port key for the first time in her life. Brushing off her parents' attempts to hug her goodbye, she ascends the steps of the Academy with her head held high, sure that she would enjoy every moment of her time there to make up for all the years she had spent miserable. Once inside, however, and faced with the task of shooting a bow and arrow, nerves finally set in and she swallows the urge to throw up. 'Why had she decided to go this school again?' the question explodes across her mind, 'Hogwarts has a hat that sorts you, no physical exertion required there. Why was I so obsessed with my emotions that I never even thought to practice this at home before I got here?' She closes her eyes to suppress the urge to hyperventilate and waits her turn, barely aware of her surroundings until she hears her name repeated twice. Embarrassing herself in front of the handful of kids still waiting their turn, and the few across the hall already sorted that are still watching the ceremony, the arrow slips out of her hand as she tries to get the bow in the correct position. Feeling fire spread across her cheeks she swallows again and bends down to pick the arrow up, excepting help from the deputy headmaster to get the bow positioned correctly this time.
Among the students laughing at her from across the room is an extremely handsome, high brow sort of boy named Ezekiel Morin who had been sorted into the house of OmbreLune before her. He was standing in a group of pure blood children and pointing her out in amusement, and among his friends is one Alexander Greenwood, who is the nephew of the Greenwoods that where fostering Elise.
Catching sight of the boy pointing at her, Dominique sets her mind to avoiding humiliation again. Forgetting her anger at her parents, and her excitement for getting to attend this school finally, she starts pulling the bow string back as she raises it high and released the arrow into the air. Forgetting the names of the houses as she watched it begin it's decent, she's not entirely sure which house it symbolizes when it com busts into purple sparks. Recognizing the name announced as the one her mother attended, Papillionlisse, she feels a sense of warmth and pride as she's ushered to the group of kids joining the house with her.
"Hi, I'm Amy." Whispers a mousy sort of girl as she joins the crowd. "Don't worry about before, you probably didn't see but I dropped the bow three times during my turn. It's a pretty common occurrence actually."
Not entirely comforted by the girl's words, she looks back at the boy who had pointed her out before to see him still laughing with all of his friends.
James and Dominique: December of 2015.
Dominique's personality calmed significantly after being sorted into Papillionlisse; however, ever since her arrival for Christmas vacation something has been especially off about her. In an attempt to respect the natural mood swings which comes from being her age, her mother is giving her distance while insisting to Bill that there is no need to get angry with her for a little bit of lip. Once Christmas dinner comes to a close, however, even Fleur reaches her last straw.
James came over to the now empty table where Dominique is sitting to offer her the last pint of butter beer he'd snuck away from George. "Hey Domino, want some..." His words are cut off when his cousin practically jumps out of her chair in a fit.
"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Domino?" She screams loud enough to get the entire house's attention, her chair flying out from underneath her and the glass of butter bear magically being knocked out of his hands and shattering on the wall behind him. James cringes in slight fear, and then pity when he catches sight of her mother storming out of the kitchen towards her. He slips out of the line of fire quickly and Dominique turns to meet her maker.
"I have had enough of you Dominique Evangeline Weasley!" Fleur yells in angry French. "You will go to your room with that fowl attitude and not affect the rest of us with it! I may just withhold all of your presents until the new year young lady, now get going!" (Not sure where her room will be, not quite sure yet who's house this event will take place in. But assume that she goes to Lily's room if she's in Harry's house, Rose's if they're in Hermione and Ron's house, and so forth.) Dominique hangs her head down low as she skirts around her mother and up the stairs Fleur is pointing angrily towards.
A couple of hours later the door opens slowly and James peaks his head in. Searching the room for a moment he catches sight of the girl curled up in a ball on the twin canopy bed. "Permission to come in?" He grins slyly at the question, but there's something in his eyes that's swimming with compassion for his older cousin.
"Permission granted." She mutters, not lifting her head.
James shuts the door behind him and walks over to sit next to her on the bed. "So that was quite a scene down there. I guess your mother always reverts back to French when she's emotional, most of us haven't the slightest what she actually said." James starts awkwardly.
"She told me to go to my room, you should've been able to ascertain that for yourselves." Dominique turns her head away from him in irritation.
"Ya, I guess you're right." He shrugs her words off with one shoulder, setting his hand invitingly down next to him. "Dominique, something happened at school, didn't it?" He's trying to catch a
glimpse of her turned face and then continues. "You know, if you want to, you can always talk to me." Finally the girl turns her head back to meet his sympathetic gaze.
She forces herself to unfold slightly, just enough to talk more audibly, and he can see her nod sadly. "Th, this boy at school that's in the same year as me, well, him and his friends just started picking on me, that's all." She moves her head suddenly in an effort to shake away the tears threatening to swell in her eyes. "Well, it's not like he's just started, I mean, him and his buddies have always sort of picked on those of us in the house of Papillionlisse. It's just that, for some weird reason this time was totally different than the others." Her body is slowly unfolding as she becomes more comfortable talking to James. " What happened was, I was showing Amy a picture of what my dad looked like when he was a young man. And, well I was showing her a picture of him and his family, you know the one where they're visiting Egypt?" James nods his head in remembrance, "We were sitting out in the courtyard at the time so this boy and his buddies come walking behind us and he catches a glimpse of the picture from over my shoulder. All of the sudden the photo disappears from my hands and he's showing all of his buddies, laughing at how they all have red hair. Well, I tried to laugh it off and stand my ground, but when I went to demand it back from them they started mocking the color of my hair. And Amy was no help whatsoever, she just went and hid behind a column as usual and watched the whole thing happen. So I started to demand for the picture back again and then he takes out his wand and jinxes me." At the memory of this all of the sudden her hands fly up over her face and James leans over in shock.
"How did they jinx you Dominique? Was it something really bad? Did they physically hurt you in any way?" The younger boy suddenly becomes increasingly defensive over his cousin, his voice rising with each question as he raises himself from the bed looking like he's ready to beat someone.
"They jinxed my hair purple! This awful, slick plum purple!" The girl screams through her hands causing James to sit back down and try to withhold a laugh. "And it took me all month to get out!" She takes her hands away from her face and catches the sight of him chuckling silently, holding his side trying to catch his breath, "James this is not funny! I'm serious here," She grabs his shoulders and shakes him a bit to show her intensity, "All I could think about was getting the color out so that mom and dad wouldn't find out, and then when I got home they actually didn't have a clue! And it just frustrated me so much that they had absolutely no inclination that there daughter had been spending every night crying for the last month trying to fix her hair and I've barely got any sleep and they're smiling and hugging me like nothing in the world has gone wrong and it's just so unfair! Aren't they supposed to be my parents? Shouldn't they know these kinds of things?" She starts to get hysterical and James has to push her hands away and grab her shoulders to calm her down.
"No, they're not Dominique. Parents like to talk about how they have this great sixth sense, and act like they've got the whole parenting routine down to perfection, but the truth is it's a codependent relationship. They're not going to know when you need them all the time, unless you tell them that you need them. I mean, take my dad for example. A year after," his voice cuts off slightly, "A year after mom died, after everything settled down and we started living full time with him again, he didn't have the slightest clue how to take care of us. I know that he likes to tell us horror stories about his own upbringing, but apparently his aunt and uncle never fed him lunch in the afternoon." Dominique makes a slight choking noise from shock at how random his last sentence was. "I'm serious!" James meets her gaze once again. "I mean, he got that Lily needed to be fed every four hours or so, but he'd completely forget about me and Albus once the afternoon came by. And after a week of trying to scavenge food for ourselves, and eating so many non-edible things from the garden that Albus ended up pukingly sick, I finally had to let him know that kids needed three meals a day, not two!" Both kids are cracking up laughing now and whether the story was true or made up Dominique will never know.
Dominique has a hand on James' shoulder to support herself from falling, and once she finally recovers from the laughing fit she raises her head to smile warmly up at him. "Thanks, I needed that. And I guess you're right, it's unfair for me to take their word for it when they say that they know everything." She rolls her eyes in support of the sarcasm in her voice. "I guess I should talk to them."
James nods his head at her, then gets up from the bed. "Do you want me to go get them for you? I know that Fleur was upset that you didn't get to open your presents with everyone else, I think she'd like to bring them up for you now that you've calmed down."
Dominique nods and then calls after him just before he leaves the room. "James, I'm sorry by the way, for spilling that butter beer you were offering me earlier."
James looks back at her and shrugs it off, "No problem, you'll pay me back later." Grinning mischievously he slips quickly from the room.
Bill and Fleur enter a few minutes later, Fleur levitating the pile of presents for Dominique behind her. They talk well into the night, stealing the room from whoever it really belongs too, and then her parents watch in joy as she opens every present individually. It's the picture perfect family bonding scene, including the tear-stained cheeks on the child, but after everything's all said and done I think this will be one of the last of Dominique's attitude problems.
(Okay, so this was random. I just all of the sudden had huge inspiration for Dominique's character and I'll try to write follow up chapters about her life at Beauxbatons throughout the rest of the fan fiction. I'm sorry that I'm posting this chapter so out of order with the story line, but I'm trying to post a chapter a day at least so I don't know if I'll be able to post the chapter I had planned to write today. Once the story is more developed I'll move this chapter to where it makes the most sense, but for now remember the mentioning of the Greenwood's family as it'll be important later. Thanks for reading!)