Recent Posts

Ollie was minding Pansy tonight, or was it her aunt and uncle? She didn’t quite remember, the last couple days were blurring together in a drunken haze. She would recall come morning, in time to go down her mental list of who she had and hadn’t asked to watch Pansy this week, so no one knew she was on a five day bender, her only means of escaping the heavy burden of single-motherdom. Dora had always been a bit of a lush, and if she was offered an elixir here or there, she was game to try it. She’d try anything twice. Lately, though, drinking didn’t seem to be enough. Pansy had finally begun to sleep well at night, but it wasn’t consistent, and she was a right terror during the day. Dora struggled to keep the baby happy and quiet. When the baby cried, Mimi barked incessantly. When Mimi barked, it would cause Pansy to wake with a shrill scream. There was some sort of stain on nearly all of her clothes and Dora couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept properly. Alcohol, and a little extra, helped her to cope. It was doing a hell of a job tonight, a truly reliable friend. She had so few of those since she’d had the baby. Everyone always left her, but alcohol wouldn’t.

The girls she’d been with weren’t good friends, but they all knew each other, and she could score a decent elixir off the tall brunette, so she arranged to meet them at the club where drinking and dancing were a given. The wizard situation was anything but abysmal, there were handsome men left, right, and center. Dora could have her pick and sate that craving for attention she so desperately felt. She’d earned a few free drinks thus far, but nothing substantial. Nothing like she needed. The dancefloor would have better odds. Moving to the music, her already short dress beginning to rise up as she shook her hips, Dora felt pressure from behind her. She’d bumped into someone. She turned to look. Holy hell, he was gorgeous. She turned fully to face him, her hips still swaying in time to the tune. “Hi,” she said in a breathy tone that drifted away amid the music. She bit her lower lip as she looked up at him, syncing her movements with his.

Absolute Fontaine was precisely the sort of shop Dora would have been overjoyed to spend her uncle’s money in a year ago, but the idea of ‘getting formal out of the way’ with her current weight problem wasn’t the dream shopping trip she’d been hoping for. Nevertheless, shopping at any size on another man’s coin purse was infinitely better than no shopping at all. “You’ll have to send my thanks to Uncle Ti for me!” she said excitedly, handing off Pansy’s pram to her cousin as the pair made their way to the shop.

Once inside, Pansy was all but forgotten as the girls began directing the shop staff. It wasn’t as if she could run away, she couldn’t even roll herself onto her stomach yet. Dora was sure she’d be fine in her pram, a spare shopwitch stopping to shake a shiny something or other at her while making baby talk.

In no time her fitting room was stocked with gorgeous dresses of every color and style and Dora was hopping behind her curtain to shuffle herself into a dress that seemed determined to point out Dora’s belly roll. “So… don’t make me wait any longer. I’m dying to know!” Her voice was raised so that Jovi could hear her clearly, completely disregarding the employees or any conversations they might be in the midst of. “Tell me about you and Fin! He’s been suspiciously mum about the whole thing, which means he definitely likes you.” Finally having squeezed, shook, and shimmied herself into the dress and pulled up the zip, Dora smoothed out the wrinkles on the front of the skirt before pulling back the curtain and stepping out of the dressing room.

She reached the foot of the staircase when Ollie appeared from the lounge. Dora didn’t notice the soft orange light of the fireplace behind him, but she smiled brightly as she caught sight of his face. “My knight in shining armor,” she swooned playfully, taking a step away from the stairs to meet him with a single hand to his chest. “Pansy just adores her Ollie-kins. I’ll have to pay you properly one of these days,” she cooed flirtatiously, beginning to list to the side before she gripped his shirt and steadied herself. She smiled and patted his chest before turning back toward the stairs. “Better yet, send Kitten over and I’ll give him my thanks for having such a wonderful brother.” Dora smiled to herself at the idea of snogging Kit, sure she would have pleasant dreams now that such an image was in her head. She was heading up the stairs, pulling down the zipper on the back of her dress as she headed toward her bedroom and disappeared into the darkness of the top floor.

Dora wasn’t the sort to be above telling others she wanted gifts, but she didn’t like looking as though she were asking for a handout or that she was down on her luck. She wasn’t wealthy, by any means, but she was no longer destitute as she had been a year ago, and Fin would never have allowed her to be so poor that she were homeless. If throwing her own baby shower would be perceived as her begging, then she was more than happy to have Clem sort out all the details and play the hostess. She would sit back and accept all the gifts and attention, and receive none of the judgement throwing her own party would have brought her. “That would be brilliant, Clem. Thank you. You really are a fantastic friend.” Dora set the tray of sandwiches on the table between them and pulled out a chair for herself. She leaned forward to look at baby Alec and cooed a little more genuinely in his direction. “Your mummy is wonderful, isn’t she?” Talking to the baby while his mum held him was more than enough for Dora right now. Party planning aside, she wasn’t feeling nearly good enough to be able to handle another episode of his crying at her expense. Dora simply leaned back into her seat, still smiling at the babe, and plucked a sandwich from the tray.

A new wardrobe was definitely a requirement these days. Dora’s figure hadn’t bounced back as quickly as she had expected it to. She’d tried on a few of her figure hugging dresses this morning but opted for something looser, still not pleased with the excess belly she’d been working hard to lose. There had never been a need to exercise before Pansy. Dora was naturally thin and graced with a high metabolism that allowed her to eat almost anything she wanted within reason. It had also been easier for her to forgo a meal pre-pregnancy, but now the idea of skipping lunch just made her even more tired than she already was. Pansy wasn’t a great sleeper, at least not at night. She was loud and fussed, and thought she needed to eat every thirty minutes or else the world was going to end. In the day, however, Pansy was an angel. Sleeping in her pram during a shopping trip was practically a given, though if Jovi was lucky the tiny brunette would wake long enough to show off her gorgeous eyes.

Whimsic Alley was the perfect place to pick out a few new dresses while simultaneously showing off her new little love and catching up with her cousin. Dora was simply over the moon that Jovi and Fin were dating, and there was so much gossip to discuss over their still new relationship, but she would of course allow the redhead to gush over her baby and herself first. Pansy had truly been a gods-send to the attention-starved single mum. She loved having strangers come up and gush over the cute little outfit she’d picked out for Pans, or the adorable way her stick-straight black hair stuck up like a little hedgehog. A little time away from the baby was not only welcomed but a huge relief, but she’d not gotten much of that just yet. Still, if she couldn’t have time to herself then at least she was the center of attention.

Greeting Jovi with a hug, Dora positioned Pansy’s pram at just the right angle to avoid the direct sun but still be easily visible to her adoring second cousin…cousin once removed? Dora didn’t know but exactly how the relations all worked out, but Jovi was some sort of cousin to Pansy and would need a good view of the baby for the obligatory ‘awws’ and ‘ooohs’. “I know. I would have arranged something sooner but this little one has taken up all of my attention. She’s darling though, so it’s hardly a bother.” In true Dora fashion, she kept hidden as much of her real thoughts and feelings as possible. Only a few very select people were burdened with witnessing Dora’s darker moments, of which the new mum was having plenty these days, but she had spent her entire life pretending everything was lovely that it was almost like second nature now. Even family wasn’t privy to all her ups and downs, though they probably could see a bit more than Dora thought she was letting on. “It’s just been fabulous. Really, it has. She practically sleeps all day long and just makes these adorable little cooing sounds. Its brilliant, I’m sure you’ll hear it soon enough.”

“Pish posh,” she exclaimed, flippantly ushering off his concern for embarrassment with a flap of her free hand. The bus darted between two tall buildings, seemingly down an alleyway that wasn’t actually large enough for a vehicle to pass through. Everything and everyone on board the knight bus seemed to elongate as the width of the bus squished itself into the narrow passageway, but other than looking strangely, Dora felt no discomfort. She continued, interrupted. “Who could possibly be embarrassed at their sibling’s presence? Theon adored whenever I came ‘round.” That was, perhaps, a slight exaggeration clouded by rose-colored glasses and an ideation of the men in her life that she had lost all too soon. She and Theon were definitely closer than many siblings Dora knew. Fin and Anna loathed each other, and Narcissa didn’t even speak to her Andromeda any longer. In her mind, Dora’s relationship with her late brother was on par with Kit and Ollie’s, or Clem and Evie’s. The true strength of the Parkinson bond was perhaps lost to time, but they had at one time, adored each other’s company to some degree. “Ally’s lucky to have you, but if you’d rather not come by I won’t hold it against you.”

The bus lurched forward suddenly, causing Dora to gasp audibly and grab Jasper’s arm for support before they were flung back into their seats as the bus came to a jarring stop. “Pontypridd!” Prang, the bus driver, shouted her destination as the doors flung open.

“Thank the gods,” Dora muttered under her breath, eager to get away from the wretched bus. She’d managed to make it all the way home without getting sick on anyone, herself included, and she decided to call that a victory for the trip to her mum’s. If nothing else about her visit was notable, at least she didn’t get sick all over the handsome Jasper Flint on the journey home. “This is my stop," she explained, still not completely used to her new city just yet. "Have a lovely time in Hogsmeade,” she said, giving Jasp a chaste kiss on the cheek before heaving herself up onto her tall heels and waddling her way toward the bus exit.

He was sweet. It made Dora smile throughout the pain. She appreciated that he played along with her story of immaculate conception, even if it was painfully clear to both of them that she was nothing more than harlot who couldn’t narrow down the list of men she’d been with in order to identify a possible father. She didn’t even know all of their names. It wasn’t fair, really. Fin had had just as much fun as she had on that beach resort holiday but if he managed to knock up any of the witches he’d been with, he didn’t know about it. Wizards had all the luck. No shameful looks when they sneak off after a night fun, and no carrying ‘round a bowling ball in your uterus for nine months. And the contractions… The ones she’d had thus far were no fun at all, and the only sage advice her mum had given her before disappearing was to expect loads more pain before she had a sweet little baby to cuddle. Rebekah hadn’t put it quite so lovingly but the thought of holding her baby was the only thing keeping her going now. That, and Leo’s skillful hands on her back. She let out an unattractive moan of pleasure as he managed to massage away the ache she’d been failing to reach. “Oh bloody hell, that feels brilliant.”