Dora was glad that all remnants of her first period were gone by New Year's Eve. It seemed appropriate to begin the new year this way, and when she mentioned this to her mum, Andromeda laughed, but didn't disagree.
"I know it's not a fun experience to have on your holidays, but at least your first time wasn't at school. I also had my first cycle at Christmas after I turned thirteen, and let me say, it's dreadful without muggle sanitary products. At least, until you can Vanish away the blood." Andromeda shuddered. "I'll be sure to have extras available in case you need me to send them. Don't worry," she added, quickly. "I'll hide them with other items that are far less embarrassing."
Dora laughed at the mental image. "Thanks, Mum. When do we learn Vanishing, anyway?"
"Fifth year," Andromeda answered, without pausing to think. "It's a vital part of your Transfiguration OWL. You'll begin with Vanishing animals-don't worry, it doesn't hurt them-and while they don't teach you about Vanishing nonliving things, you'll be able to manage with ease. My classmates and I," she recalled, her face taking on a rather faraway look, "found Vanishing nonliving things to be much easier, and wished we'd learned about that, first. But as they don't test you on that, I suppose Professor McGonagall didn't see the need."
"Do you think I might be able to begin learning the process before fifth year?" Dora wondered. "At least, with my period blood and all that."
"There's no harm in trying the summer before your fourth year," Andromeda encouraged. "You've always been gifted in Transfiguration. A Black trait, you know. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you mastered Vanishing nonliving things entirely before your fifth year."
Dora beamed. "Not that tampons are so awful, but it would be great to have the other option."
"Oh, believe me, I know," Andromeda said, with a laugh. "Speaking of holidays...have you decided whether we'll see you for the Easter holidays?" her father asked, a moment later.
"Yeah, I expect I'll come home. I reckon I'll ask my professors for the assignments in advance, and can get a good head start beforehand," she determined. To her mum, she added, "You can go ahead and invite everyone."
Andromeda beamed, then walked over and pulled her into a long hug. "Oh, that's wonderful! Thank you, Dora!" she gushed. "I promise, it won't even be for a full day, and I will help you with your work if you need it."
"I'd volunteer, too, but I reckon I forgot most of what I learned in my third year," Ted added, as he entered the room. "When you advance to your NEWTs, I'll be more useful."
"It's all right, Dad." She knew that everything they learned at school tended to build on each other, and she probably couldn't teach a first year much without assuming the knowledge of an extra year and a half. She felt a small bit of admiration for teachers-some of them, anyway-at being able to switch from year to year with relative ease. "I expect it will mostly be taking the time to get everything written and read."
"I remember that well." Andromeda shook her head. "I can understand assigning extra work after the Easter holidays, but there's no sense in calling it a holiday if you're going to be working all the time. There was talk of a boycott one year, only no one went through with it."
Dora grinned. "Are you suggesting I start one up?"
"Well, if you do, don't let it be found out that you were behind it," Andromeda advised, slyly.
"That's your mum's inner Slytherin at work," Ted stage whispered. "'Don't get caught.'"
Dora giggled, and her mum tried very hard to hide a smile.
Before Hogwarts, celebrating New Year's Eve wasn't quite as exciting as Christmas (there were no gifts, but there was always great food), but that didn't mean it wasn't worth looking forward to. While Dora hadn't been allowed to stay up until midnight until she turned ten-her mother would put off any protests with some rendition of,"You're a growing girl and need plenty of rest! Besides, you'll be terribly tired the next day, and will need to go to bed even earlier!"-her bedtime for that night was a whole hour later than usual. She'd always felt very grown up, especially during that last hour, never once dozing off before her New Year's Eve bedtime. After she began at school, it felt like a bit of a letdown, because even though it was fun staying up until midnight and watching the muggle celebrations on television, it meant that the new term was only a couple of days away. This year, New Year's Eve fell on a Thursday, so Dora would depart for school on Sunday morning for the Hogwarts Express.
While Andromeda busied herself preparing the dishes for their dinner and desserts to be enjoyed afterwards, Ivy looked on, no doubt hoping for table scraps. This hope might be realized, as Dora had seen both her parents surreptitiously feed her kitten from the table on more than one occasion. Ivy did not beg for food, exactly, the way a dog might. Rather, she'd look up with her clear blue kitten eyes, and upon making contact, immediately look away. The adult in question would feel guilty, as though Ivy did not have a full bowl of cat food right by the fireplace, and a few morsels would drop to the floor. After inspecting the food carefully, Ivy would eat with care. No doubt, as her mum cooked, such a scene would play out several times before Dora and her dad returned from their walk.
"You ready?" her dad asked, after giving Andromeda a kiss.
Dora nodded, and they donned their heavy winter cloaks, then magically folded up their robes to fit neatly underneath, and headed outside to enjoy a nice, long walk on the beach.
Having spent most the previous two days inside, Dora had a momentary shock when she was greeted with a gust of cold air. It diminished as her dad placed a Warming charm on her cloak, but it reminded her, once more, that they were on the beach in the beginning of winter, not in the hot month of July.
Still, it was no less majestic than a few days earlier.
They strolled in companionable silence for a time, her father slowing his larger paces to match hers. At one point, he wrapped an arm around Dora, and she leaned in, glad for the extra warmth as much as the contact.
"Having a good holiday?" he asked, softly.
"Oh, yes!" she answered, and meant it. "I only wish it didn't go by so quickly."
He sighed. "Don't I know it. Seems like every time I see you, you've grown a half a foot. And," he added, "you've become so grown up."
"I'm not grown up yet," she protested. "I'm barely fourteen, Dad!"
"I still remember when you were four," he countered, chuckling. "And five, and six, and all the years in between. No going backwards, I suppose."
"Did you...did you ever want a second child?" she asked, tentatively.
"We both did. Came from houses of three kids, your mum and I. She had hopes of having a large family. I would have been happy with two or three. Wasn't meant to be, though," he added, as though Dora hadn't known already. "We're not disappointed. Well, perhaps if we hadn't been able to have children at all, it might have been," he corrected himself. "But I can't imagine how our family might have been if there had been more of you."
"One's enough?" Dora teased.
He squeezed her shoulders in response.
They continued their stroll in silence for a spell.
"Do you ever wish you'd had a brother or sister?" Ted asked, interrupting the silence.
Dora chewed on her lip. "Sometimes," she admitted. "A younger sister, not a brother," she specified, because she knew that her younger self would have preferred no siblings over a brother.
"I had one of each. Still do, of course," he recounted. "Poor Susan, stuck with two brothers, and no sisters. On the other hand, she had a room to herself, and I rather think she had Mum wrapped around her finger. Rarely said no to her, Mum did. Not that she was particularly strict with us, but if the three of us wanted something, we knew that Susan ought to be the one to ask."
"And your dad?" Dora asked, interested to hear these details about her father's childhood.
He chuckled. "Let our Mum rule the roost, or so it seemed to me. He worked, and she stayed at home with us. That's not to say he wanted to be left alone when he returned from work, and we always had supper together, but he trusted our mum to allow her to make the major decisions. Come weekends, we spent more time together."
"That was until you went away to school," Dora noted.
"Yes. I was the youngest of the lot. Tom was thirteen when I turned eleven, and Susan was sixteen. Nearly seventeen. It was a bit of a surprise when Professor McGonagall appeared at our door to inform my family that I was a wizard and wouldn't be attending regular secondary school, and she had to do quite a lot of magic before everyone was certain it wasn't some ruse." Her dad grinned at the memory. "She arrived just after my father returned from work, and stayed well into the evening. Oh, the questions we had! And the warnings that came, especially towards my siblings." His voice took on an almost perfect imitation of the deputy headmistress. "'Under no, I repeat no, circumstances can you tell anyone about our world. Muggles like yourselves must never know of its existence!' She told terrible stories about what might happen if this happened, and while I later learned that there was a department just for Obliviating muggles who saw or heard things they shouldn't, I expect an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and all that. Oh! Shall we stop here?"
They'd reached, if not a cliff, a rather higher level of ground that was perfect for watching the waves.
"Oh, yes!" Dora murmured, watching a powerful one crash against the sand. "So, your brother and sister never told?"
"Never. My parents said I'd be going to boarding school, and McGonagall provided charmed paperwork to deter the muggle authorities. And off I went!"
Dora turned her gaze away from the waves. "Did you...were you ever homesick?"
"Oh, yes. Always at the beginning of the new term. Went away in a day or so. The first year, I was too excited and anxious to be very homesick in September, but it came back at full force come January. Every year, it was a bit easier." He smiled at Dora, in an understanding way. "Even when I was seventeen, I still missed my family."
She nodded, feeling herself choke up a bit. Then, her father's arms wrapped around her once more, and they watched the waves in silence.
The aroma of her mum's cooking all their favorite dishes greeted Dora as soon as they opened the door.
"Merlin, that smells wonderful," her dad exclaimed, removing his cloak and stepping towards the kitchen.
Dora followed with enthusiasm.
"Merlin had nothing to do with this cooking," Andromeda quipped, with a smile. "Had a good walk?"
"It was lovely," Dora replied, hanging up her cloak on a hanger. "Mum, you're torturing us with these good smells. When do we get to eat?"
"I'm entirely in agreement, there," Ted added, before his wife could answer. "The longer we need to wait, the more severe the torture becomes."
"Oh, the two of you!" Andromeda laughed. "It's only 4:00! Still rather early for dinner."
Ted's stomach growled loudly in response, causing everyone to burst into giggles.
Heaving a sigh, which Dora knew was meant to tease them for their impatience, Andromeda flicked her wand and the lid covered the stew.
"It's rather late for tea," she mused, "and the meal won't be ready for at least another hour. I know you didn't go swimming, but why don't you both take a hot shower, and then we'll see what's ready? Dora," she added, "you can wear either pair of your dress robes, if you like. I altered your spare set so that the waist was seventeen and a half inches."
As the initial waist size had been eighteen, Dora had expected to need to enlist the house elves if she planned to wear them.
"Thank you!" she beamed.
"I'll style your hair, too, if you wish," Andromeda added, with a smile.
Dora's grin widened, and she hugged her mother.
An hour later, the three of them gathered into the sitting room. Dora felt extremely pretty in her dress robes, and with her hair styled in what muggles call a "French braid" down her back. More than that, she was extremely comfortable. Even though she knew she'd be at seventeen inches any day now, seventeen and a half was the perfect size-for now-when there was good food to be enjoyed. The warmth combined with the softness of her chemise, not to mention the yards of fabric swirling around her frame, made her feel rather like a princess in a muggle fairytale.
Perhaps Cinderella, dolled up for the first time at the ball, she mused.
Her mum, too, had dressed up for the occasion, in a pair of periwinkle robes that made her look like a queen.
Dora and her mum relaxed on the plush sofa, which was easily large enough for the three of them on a normal day, but the extra width of their skirts meant that Ted might run the risk of trodding on them. He took a seat in an armchair that could fit two, directly across from his wife and daughter.
"I made quite a few dishes," Andromeda began, blushing, as she floated bowls over to them, "and my servings and Dora's are rather smaller, because we want to save room for dessert, right?" At Dora's nod, she continued. "There's plenty of time to eat, as we'll be staying up past midnight to greet the new year."
Dora ate slowly, savoring her mum's cooking. Stew wasn't normally considered a festive dish, and Dora imagined it had never been served to her mother when she'd been growing up, but the way her mum prepared it went beyond even the house elves at Hogwarts.
The other dishes were just as good, and true to her word, Andromeda spaced them out over a span of a few hours. It gave them plenty of time to digest their food, yet not long enough to feel hunger. In between eating, they played games, watched muggle TV, and told stories.
Or, rather, Andromeda and Ted told Dora stories. She knew how they met, of course, and how they'd courted in secret, all under the guise of friendship and "study partners," throughout their time at Hogwarts. Bellatrix had gotten married at this point, but she and Rudolphus focused more of their time towards helping You Know Who obtain power and terrorize the wizarding world, rather than create children to expand on the wizarding world. Narcissa, at two years Andromeda's junior, was not exactly a spy, but could hardly be trusted with such an important secret.
"It was Hannah who became our greatest ally," Andromeda recalled.
"Hannah-the one you laced against her will?" Dora asked, not managing to hide a laugh.
"That very one." Andromeda turned rather pink. "She'd long since forgiven us for that, and being a half blood, she didn't fit into Slytherin as well as some of the others. I was hardly the most popular female of my house, but no one disliked me, and everyone knew that Ted and I were seeing each other."
"What did they think?" Dora looked from her mum to her dad, who was grinning almost sheepishly.
"Well, we were fifteen and sixteen, so many of us were seeing the boys who would later become our husbands," Andromeda explained, "but we also didn't take it for granted that the boy our roommate was seeing would necessarily become her husband. Even those who wanted careers still wanted to marry young-especially back then. Besides," she added, with a shrug, "they liked Ted well enough, and the only family known for being rather dark was mine. And if they didn't think it was a good match, they didn't say anything. So, they kept our meetings a secret, and we were all older than Narcissa, so she could hardly bully them for information."
"Unlike Bellatrix, had she been there," Dora remarked, frowning a bit.
"Yes. It was very fortuitous that she'd finished school before your dad and I began to see each other," she agreed.
"I might not be around had she known," Ted remarked.
"Or me," Dora added, in a quiet voice.
Andromeda took Dora's hand, then wrapped her arms around her.
After a few moments, Ted suggested that they make popcorn again, and both Andromeda and Dora reacted with enthusiasm. While they heated the kernels over the fire, listening to their popping sound, a muggle news announcer declared that the new year was only four hours away.
"That is," he added, with a laugh, "for our fellow Brits. Parts of the world have already been celebrating, and it's a ways off for many in the west!"
"You know," Andromeda mused, "as much as I enjoy celebrating the new year, I haven't been alive yet for any milestone. My parents were born after 1900, and they could have celebrated in 1950, only I don't recall them ever mentioning it."
"I reckon 2000 isn't so very far off, in the grand scheme of things," Ted noted. "Not even two decades away."
Dora made a face. "I'll be nearly thirty by then!"
Her parents laughed. "Old hags, you mean?" Ted teased.
"No!" Dora insisted. "Not at all. Only, I just turned fourteen, and I'd rather not think about being twice as old."
Her mum pulled her into a hug. "We understand that, love."
"Really, it's a relief that you're not in a hurry to grow up," her dad added, placing his arms around her. "I remember being your age. Always wanting to be a bit older. Same with my classmates. It's good to take in the age you are, the stage in life you're at."
"That's not to say it's a bad thing to look forward to parts of being older," her mum reminded her, with a smile. "This year, you were able to go to Hogsmeade for the first time, as well as attend your first dance."
Dora smiled as she nestled against her parents. "I reckon it's just scary to think that I'll be an adult before I know it."
Her dad gave her braid a playful tug. "You'll always be our little girl, no matter how old you become."
Dora's grin deepened.
They stayed up long enough to finish the assortment of foods, and to see the newscaster announce that it was now 1987. Then, exhaustion seemed to pass over all of them, and Dora barely managed to exchange her dress robes and chemise for a nightgown and night corset before nearly collapsing onto the bed. Going without brushing her teeth for once would hardly matter, especially since there were spells that prevented tooth decay. Pulling the warm covers over her, Dora fell into a deep, dreamless sleep almost immediately.
Author's note:
Next up: Dora returns to school and begins to catch up with friends, not all of which were able to enjoy their Christmas holidays. Also, her kitten, Ivy, makes an enemy. At least, for now.
I've written enough of the chapters that follow the next one to add that the issue of pure blood politics, house rivalry, and waist training will all come up shortly. So, if you're reading (at least in part) to "see" more about the politics of the wizarding world, you'll be rewarded quite soon.
As always, I love to hear what my readers think. If you're enjoying this, or have some ideas, please take a few moments to leave feedback. It doesn't go unappreciated as long as it's sincere and constructive.
Now, I'm off to fix one of my skirts, and hope MY cats don't get too much in the way!