I just had a test in a class that my teacher hasn't been here for for a whole month. Why.
The house was really loud, and I was tired. Nancy and Austin were out on a date night or whatever, leaving me to take care of the youngins. Ben was always a chill kid, but Olive, in all her four year old glory, claimed she was bored and refused to play with any of the toys I offered her. On top of that, Taylor, the new (I say new, but she was six months old at that point) baby, would not stop crying no matter what I did.
Being a parent was hard. I had to balance Tay in one arm, try to amuse Olive with the other, and keep myself up and standing in the process. Meanwhile, Ben sat on the couch and played with his batman toys. Lucky kid.
"You guys are little gremlins," I muttered, watching as Olive threw away another doll she deemed unworthy. Tay continued to cry, even though I had fed her, burped her, and changed her diaper (which was so completely gross). I couldn't even put her down, because she would shriek even louder if I did.
I wondered what Daisy would do if she was here. She seemed like she would be good with kids. She'd probably know what to do. I mean, I had no evidence that she would, but I also had no evidence that she wouldn't, so I decided I was right.
Anyway, all that continued for another hour before I realized that Olive was just overtired and I put her to bed. Then there was Tay, who apparently just didn't like the onesie she had been wearing. Once that was changed, she calmed right down and I put her in her little bouncy chair thing.
I collapsed on the couch next to Ben, groaning. Ben didn't even look up. He clashed two batman toys together and made explosion noises.
Ben looked at me. "You wanna train?"
"Yeah, sure."
Training was a game we played where Ben hit me with a stick. No, not really. He got an old broom pole and pretended to be Black Widow while I got a foam Thor's hammer and acted like a god (which wasn't too hard. I mean, come on). Then we tried to kill each other. Okay, no, we didn't do that. Ben was training me to be a super assassin like him. It was hard work. [ps this is exactly what I do with the kid I babysit. Don't judge me.]
So we did that for a while. I got a few new bruises, but it was totally worth it, because I was able to hit him in the face with my foam hammer. Ben was a good sport. He took it like a champ and then hit me in the arm. We had fun.
Anyway, after that Ben decided to swap out our weapons for pillows, which he claimed were swords. I liked those a lot better than our other weapons, because with them I got to hit Ben without wondering if I'd hurt him.
Then Ben destroyed me at chutes and ladders and I put him to bed as revenge. Honestly, I had no idea how Nancy and Austin did it. As soon as I was ready to go to bed, Tay woke up and started crying, and I seriously considered making a run for it.
But just then Nancy and Austin got home and I left them to deal with their offspring. Tomorrow, it was back to Hogwarts.
***
Aside from all those mysterious petrified bodies that kept showing up at random, I was glad to be back at Hogwarts. As much as I loved my siblings, they could be a real pain in the ass sometimes. That's what I thought, but after only a few days back at school, I missed them.
Anyway, there hadn't been any attacks since Finch-Fletchley and the ghost, so I was hoping there wouldn't be any others. That was mostly my denial speaking, though, trying to think up any way I would be safe.
I was found in a busy playground when I was two years old. I guess my parents decided it was the best place to leave me. I remember playing around for hours, not even noticing when they left me there. Eventually, as the day got later and the park emptied out, someone noticed I was there by myself, and they took me to the police.
From there, it was a blur of foster homes and grumpy people only in it for the money. As soon as I was old enough to think about it, I ran away. I usually lasted for a few months out on the streets before the system picked me up again and I was sent to another foster.
Eventually, after I ran from another bad home, Nancy and Austin found me. They didn't even hesitate; they took me in without question. According to the muggle system, I'm still missing, but that's their problem. Anyway, I got my Hogwarts letter right on time, and I was officially one of them.
I don't remember my birth parents at all, and I don't think I want to. Anyone who could just up and abandon their own child like that was someone I didn't want to ever have the pleasure of knowing. I had no respect for people who abandoned their kids. Especially in the spineless, cowardly way my parents had done it to me.
But I digress. Anyway, I never knew if they were muggles or not. I never knew if I was a muggleborn, and there wasn't exactly a way to find that out. So if whatever was running around the school, petrifying muggleborns, was able to tell blood status somehow, I had no way of knowing whether or not I was safe.
All those thoughts kept me up one night, and I decided to do the smartest thing I could as a potential target for some monster: wander at night through the halls alone. Yeah, I know. But snacks always helped me catch that bastard named sleep whenever it was far away, so I snuck out and headed for the kitchens.
I don't know whether or not I was surprised to see Daisy there. She was standing at a counter, mixing something in a blue bowl. I didn't know if it was possible, but she looked even prettier than when I'd last seen her. There was flour on her pajama pants, like she'd gotten some on her hand and wiped it off.
"I really hope you're not putting raisins in there," I said.
Daisy smiled, like she'd sensed me there or something. "I am."
"Ew."
"It's healthy!" Daisy laughed, swiping a finger across her big spoon and taking a taste. "Mm. Want to try some?"
I looked at the bowl, suspicious it would blow up or something. "No thanks."
Daisy shrugged. "Your loss." She poured a bag of something into a cup and tipped it into the bowl.
My mouth fell open. "What was that? Those weren't chocolate chips."
"Oatmeal." Daisy started mixing again as I tried not to gag. "You had some last time we were here. Don't try to pretend you didn't like it."
"I plead the fifth."
Daisy laughed again. "We're not in America."
"No, but British people have a right to silence, too," I argued. Daisy offered the spoon to me. I took some. It was really good. "Goddamnit."
"So why are you down here?" Daisy asked, plopping some cookie dough into her mouth.
I shrugged. "Random overthinking. You?"
"Susan snores really loudly. What were you thinking about?"
Oops. I had meant that as a joke. I hadn't expected Daisy to ask about it. I'd forgotten that she was a literal human angel who actually cared about the people around her. I was about ready to crawl in a hole and slowly suffocate, but Daisy's expression stopped me.
It was open, earnest, like I could tell her anything and she wouldn't judge me. It was an expression I don't think I'd ever seen before. Something about it just slipped past my defenses and my instinct to deflect, and I found myself telling her.
"Well, you know," I said, "shitty deadbeat abandoning cowardly parents who couldn't handle the basic task of raising a child they created and brought into the world. Typical stuff."
"Oh." Daisy shrugged, her cheeks going red. "Well, anyone who wouldn't want to be around you is seriously missing out. You're a—a really cool person."
"Yeah, tell that to my dumb yellow bellied birth parents," I muttered.
"Well, there can be a lot of reasons why they left," Daisy offered. "Maybe they weren't able to take care of you, or...maybe they were in some sort of situation that could have been dangerous for them. Maybe they wanted you to have a better life."
"Yeah, a lot of good that did me," I said. "They could have left a note or actually told me what was going on instead of just leaving me somewhere for the shit foster system." I took a deep breath. I didn't want to be angry with Daisy, but it was like she was trying to validate what my birth parents did.
Daisy hummed. "Maybe they were scared."
The raw emotion in her voice made me look up at her. She was staring at the floor, fiddling with a piece of cookie dough like it was stress putty. She looked almost... lost. My anger evaporated in half a second.
"Scared?" I prompted.
She shrugged. "It's why my mom left. Dad's a pure-blood supremacist and she was a muggle. I don't know what brought them together in the first place, but after a while, I realized... She was scared of him. She snuck out in the middle of the night when I was six. I haven't seen her since."
My brow furrowed. Now I was angry for a whole other reason. "She left you?"
"She was scared," Daisy said hurriedly. "She was backed into a wall and she didn't know what to do. I can't exactly blame her."
"Like hell you can't," I said, grabbing her shoulders. "Look, our parents are shitty, and we have every right to be mad at them for it. My parents left me in a playground. Your mother left you with a terrible dad. We are the queens of abandonment issues and we earned the right to be mad about it."
Daisy shrugged. She was going to take a lot more convincing.
Well this was fun but I feel the need to say that blatant rage and doubting your self worth are not healthy coping mechanisms and please don't use them. It's kind of involuntary if you do, but talking it out with someone you trust always help. Always remember that I love you and you can get through whatever hard time life throws your way. See you soon :)