Little Disaster: Musings of Millicent

Millicent wasn't pretty, or thin, or graceful. She didn't have a way with words or talent with a wand. Oh, she was clever enough, but when her Da had warned her that Lucius Malfoy's son wouldn't want to be outperformed, she knew that he meant it. When her mother told her that it would be better if she didn't mention Florence, her sister, at school, she knew that Mum meant it too. Florence... our little disaster. That's what Mum called her, even now that they knew that Florence knew, and now it was almost a joke... but not a joke. Not really funny, to have 'one like that'.

When Millicent was younger, she'd used to wish that her Da did what Theo's dad and Greg's dad and Pansy's dad and Vince's dads did. She didn't really know what it was, but it meant she couldn't be in their club. Then Florence happened, and kept happening. Millicent knew that other families might have disasters, sometimes, but their disasters died. This one didn't. Florence was four, now, and Millicent was sixteen. An August birthday - the youngest in her year, although they didn't know it and Millicent didn't look it, and never had.

Millicent didn't know when Florence had stopped being a Disaster and started being 'our little disaster'. Maybe it was the first time she smiled, or maybe it was how loudly she'd cried in September when Millicent had handed her back to Mum and Flooed to Blaise's house, to go to the station. Blaise was OK, Millicent thought. Slytherins didn't really have friends - they had allies, or minions, or downright enemies.

Da worked in the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad in Morpeth, and the Bulstrodes lived in a quiet hamlet near Wooler, in Northumberland. Millicent knew that it wasn't that far from school, and when she was eleven, she hadn't been able to understand why she had to go all the way to London to get a train to go all the way north again. Mum had said You Just Do, which had resulted in Mum getting bruised shins and Millicent sporting a red handprint on her cheek for an hour.

Millicent knew that she had to be a Slytherin. Mum was a Slytherin and Dad was a Slytherin. She wanted to be, too, and she was glad when the Hat agreed. Hufflepuffs were - ugh - friends. Millicent was glad that nobody saw anything to like in her, because it meant that she didn't have to look for anything to like in anyone else, either. Granger infuriated her - Miss Perfect herself, and her brown and red haired pets. Weasley was annoying too, but Millicent felt a lingering jealousy for the close family she caught glances of at the station and at school. She wished Mum could see her onto the train, just once, and at first she wondered why 'we can't risk it, love' was an acceptable answer to her asking, but now she understood. Disasters weren't meant to happen. Disasters meant your blood wasn't pure. Someone might want to hurt Florence, or hurt Millicent or Mum or Da because of Florence. And it wasn't like Mum could leave Florence behind.

Millicent had never been good at Transfiguration, but this year, she'd Transfigured a bear for Florence and Owled it home for her birthday. Not much of a change, but just enough so that if she moved, it would purr like a cat, vibrating against her skin. Florence had always liked having raspberries blown on her tummy, and Millicent thought of this as a sort of long-distance raspberry. She'd practised quite a lot, this summer. She'd always, be careful, quietly studying, working, learning, remembering, but she wondered if this year, now that Draco wasn't in all her classes, she might be allowed to do her best at something. Transfiguration, Charms, and Potions. She'd wondered about Arithmancy, and then remembered that Granger would be there and Millicent might not be able to avoid hitting her if one more smug, almost pitying look came her way.