Unsettled || Mummy

Friday, September 1, 1922
Julia's Office
9:45 PM

Knock, knock, knock.

Kathryn presented herself at her mother's door with little fanfare. The night had been a long and overwhelming one. There had been many people, many eager first-years who thought she might like to make friends with them. She wouldn't. They realised. Not too many had bothered with her after that. Shortly after being led up to the common room by the prefects and being shown to the room she wouldn't be staying in, the little girl had been encouraged to put her things away. She didn't see why. Her room was with her mother. That was where her things belonged. She would have Mr. Maddox bring them over in the morning.

Dorothy was in her dorm. The girl who'd followed Laura's lead in ensuring she couldn't join any of their games now had a bed right next to her. She wasn't happy – had said as much to another of their dormmates.

Kathryn left them chatting.

Her blanket was neatly folded and tucked under one arm, her pillow tucked under the other. She hadn't brushed her hair yet, but there was still time before she needed to be in bed. In her back pocket, her toothbrush sat, waiting to take part in her nightly routine.

She knocked again, thinking perhaps her mother hadn't heard her.

A group of older students walked by, causing her to flinch. From the moment everyone returned to the castle, there was nothing but noise. Everywhere, in every crevice. There were students flowing from every crack in the wall, more than Kathryn was used to from years of remaining shielded by her mother's private quarters. A handful stopped by every now and then. Her mother always fixed their issue, and then they disappeared behind the ominous door that hid the rest of the castle and all its stimulation from her view.

Kathryn was on the other side of that door now, thrown to the howling wolves that played too roughly and had little understanding of personal space.

An older boy had draped an arm around her shoulder, his grin wide as he asked whether she was Laurence's little sister.

She hadn't answered.

She wasn't a Laurence anymore. As seemed to be the case every few years, her name had changed again. It was no longer the same as her brother's but still the same as her mother's.

The group walked away laughing and oblivious to the presence of the little girl waiting to be let in by her mother. They were heading in the wrong direction.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock."

Jude had just turned three months, and with that little milestone, the youngest of the Barlowe children had found new joy in being a night owl. Having tricked her into thinking he was one of those rare babies that slept through the night without fuss, her son seemed to understand that if he were awake when all his siblings were asleep, he got his mummy - and daddy prior to the week before - to himself.

"Both of us will be cranky tomorrow if you don't go to sleep." Julia sat in the rocking chair Maddox had set up for her, brown eyes settled on bright blue that sparkled up at her, full of love for his mother. He cooed in reply, his chubby cheeks dimpling to mirror her own.

She couldn't help the smile that crossed her lips, despite how exhausted she was. A full day of last minute preparations for classes, chasing after a toddler, regular feedings and trying to reassure her daughter who looked more like a deer in the headlights with every hour that beckoned the feast closer had taken their toll on the Ravenclaw house head, and she was more than ready to sink beneath her blankets and call it a night.

Jude had other plans. Apparently, having slept for the house elves through the entirety of the Opening Feast, he was now ready and raring to go for a night of sleepless debauchery and cluster feedings. Darling as he was with those little coos and smiles, Julia had half a mind to rub a little sleeping potion on his gums.

She wouldn't of course. But the thought had crossed her mind.

Knock, knock, knock.

Her exhaustion was playing tricks on her. She wasn't hearing knocks at her door at nearly ten o'clock at night, nor was she about to have to entertain a visitor on the first evening back at school. Her eyes closed as she tucked Jude against her chest, his little hands grasping a handful of her hair to tug on while he babbled without a care in the world.

"Shhh," she hushed him, patting his bottom in hopes it would help him settle. "Be your father's son for once." Evander certainly was. When he was out, he was out. Bed, floor, toy box, the loo. Location didn't matter to the boy who loved and cherished sleep as much as Julia wished his little brother did.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

Someone was at the door. Groaning slightly, knowing it wasn't Maddox as he'd already wished her goodnight when they'd picked up their children, she lifted both her and her son out of the chair, crossing the short distance to her door. Jude, even more alert now, let out a happy squeal the moment it opened.

"Katie," Julia sighed at the sight of her daughter, pillow and blanket tucked beneath each of her arms. She'd explained to Kathryn several times over that once school started, she'd need to sleep in the dormitory with the other first year girls and that she wouldn't be staying the night in Julia's bed anymore.

She nudged her daughter inside, closing it quickly behind her. "What is it little?" she asked, resuming her place in the rocking chair, while Jude fussed, refusing to be cradled when he wanted to sit up and be in the know of what was going on.

"You should be in your dorm, getting ready for bed."

Kathryn's expression fell at the sight of Jude tucked into her mother's arms, minuscule and nearly imperceptible as the change happened to be. She wasn't entirely surprised to see him there. Even at home, the baby was often in her mother's arms, cooing and smiling as he sucked in her affections and—more importantly—her time.

"Would you like to hold him, Katie?"

"Look at the way he looks at you, Little. He loves you already.

Come give me a hand with Jude. You're my special helper."

Her nose wrinkled gently at the phantom words as she moved beyond the closed door to begin settling in for the night. After such a horrid summer, the little girl was looking forward to the return to Hogwarts and the potential for it to go back to normal routine. Between Jude and Mr. Maddox, Kathryn hadn't had a good night's sleep in her mother's...well...she supposed it might have been Mr. Maddox's bed. Back at the castle, there was no ambiguity over who owned what furniture and what she was allowed to do. Yes, Jude was still here. Yes, Julia had told her all about the dormitory spaces – too loud – and how her new dwelling would be in Ravenclaw Tower – too many people.

Contrary to what many, including some of her new housemates, had been led to believe, she wasn't deaf.

Kathryn made her way to the bed and dumped her pillow there, entirely ignoring the words that suggested she should have been somewhere else. It never worked with her mother, who knew quite well there was nothing wrong with her hearing, but after the overwhelming day she'd had, she was willing to try anything.

Blanket deposited, she moved back to the rocking chair and extended the brush to her mother. The first year paused, considering the space between them and the baby in said space.

How would her mother brush her hair if she was busy cradling a baby?

This would never work.

Kathryn placed the brush on the small table by the rocking chair – it hadn't been there before they left but was necessary for Jude. Next, she reached for the baby, plucking it – him – from her mother's arms. Like a little soldier on a mission, she marched stiffly over to the bed and deposited him there, ignoring every coo and dimpled smile.

Blue oceans poured themselves into hers, but hers remained a frigid sea of ice.

Kathryn barely spared him a glance before turning and returning to the rocking chair. Again, she reached for the brush, offering it silently to her mother so they could continue her nightly routine. After, she would get her teeth brushed, and Julia could begin reading.

They'd finished the last book, but she hadn't had the time to pick out a new one. She would browse the shelf in her private room when she was done brushing her teeth and then choose something appropriate for the start of the school year.

"We use our words," Julia's light reply at the extended brush came. Even if her daughter refused to speak, she had an enchanted quill for a reason, and the woman was far too tired to try for a game of charades. Jude's little hands reached for the brush, but his sister was faster in her endeavors.

Her daughter plucked her son from her arms, and for a moment, Julia wondered if they had finally made some headway. It hadn't gone unnoticed that Kathryn wanted very little if anything to do with the baby that had joined their family, and while Julia had hoped having a baby brother would help her daughter find a tenderness she didn't seem to possess, it was looking like futile.

Jude, happy baby that he was, loved everyone that had become a regular fixture in his life. His eyes lit up whenever Morgan walked into the room. His chubby arms bounced excitedly whenever Benji talked to him. His coos and smiles became bright happy screeches and giggles when Evander zoomed around him. Love filled his eyes for Kathryn every time she came near.

He wasn't cognizant enough to understand complex human emotions, but Julia certainly was. She watched for a moment, hoping that maybe her daughter wanted to hold Jude while having her hair combed, but his relocation to the bed sent that theory right out the window.

Julia ignored the once-again extended brush, and quickly retrieved her son from the mattress he could easily roll off of. "No," she said, not sharply but firmly enough to leave little room for interpretation. She settled Jude back against her chest as he squirmed and turned his bright, curious eyes toward his sister again. "We don't pick up the baby and put him down wherever we like because he happens to be in the way."

Her gaze flicked to the pillow on the bed, then the blanket, then finally to the toothbrush tucked into Kathryn's pocket. A whole campaign. Julia may have admired the strategy if she were not the exhausted mother being target by it.

"Kathryn." Her name came softer this time, "I know today was a lot." Jude gave a happy little kick against her stomach, entirely unconcerned with the emotional weight pressing down around him. Julia shifted him higher, "I know the tower is loud. I know there are too many girls, too many voices, too many people walking where you don't expect them to walk." Her expression softened, though the firmness in her voice remained.

"But you can't simply decide school doesn't apply to you because you dislike the arrangement," a small smile drifted across her lips, "As much as I admire the persistence." A sigh slipped from her before she could stop it, tired and low. She leaned back in the rocking chair, Jude still tucked securely in one arm as she reached for the brush. "It doesn't mean I'm abandoning you."

Julia watched her daughter carefully, not missing the tension in her shoulders or the blankness in her expression. "You can sit with me for awhile. I'll brush your hair and we'll read a chapter from your book." Jude, suddenly finding a warm comfort in the ongoing conversation, grew heavy in the eyes, nuzzling his face into his mother's neck. "And then I'm taking you back to your dormitory."

"No."

No?

Contrary to the belief of many, Kathryn had heard the word before. Plenty of times. While her mother doted on her more than some would strictly recommend, Julia never hesitated to firmly put a foot down when moments called for it. The little girl didn't think it called for it in that particular moment when she'd only moved to solve the problem that stood in the way of her getting her hair brushed in a reasonable time, but the word turned up all the same.

No. And just like that, her mother was up and moving to reclaim the baby.

"We don't pick up the baby and put him down wherever we like because he happens to be in the way."


They didn't?

Kathryn's eyes followed the woman as she sank into the rocking chair again. Watching the baby nuzzle into her chest caused an uncomfortable burning in her own. That fire spread to her face and down to her lower back, creeping to consume her while an invisible man jabbed at her heart with searing hot iron. When the sight became more than she could bear, she forced her impassive gaze to settle instead on her mother. There was a sour taste in her mouth, one she despised on the few occasions it cropped up, but she knew only time would see it dissipate. Until then, all she could do was focus on the way her mother's lips moved as they made it clear she wouldn't be staying.

"Kathryn," It began.

"I know today was a lot. I know the tower is loud. I know there are too many girls, too many voices, too many people walking where you don't expect them to walk."

If she knew all that...then why couldn't she stay...?

It was too loud and there were too many people in places she didn't expect them to be. The last time Kathryn had had to share sleeping quarters with so many strangers was at the Gloria Whitfield Home for Children over in Hogsmeade. They'd been loud, too. Intrusive. They'd touched what little she owned until one by one, the treasures she'd taken from her home in Hackney were gone. It was happening all over again. A new room of strangers with scant regard for her boundaries. One of them had helped their mutual acquaintance take her quill two summers before, proving she wasn't above having things go missing now.

Kathryn didn't like it or the way it made her feel like she was being returned to some form of state care despite her mother's assurance that it wasn't abandonment. It felt isolating and detached, as if a large chasm had opened up with her and strangers on one side, and Jude still sheltered by her mother on the other.

"It doesn't mean I'm abandoning you."

Kathryn went rigid at the word, her muscles pulling taut and her knuckles going white beneath her pristine glove as they tightened around the brush's handle.

Her mother promised she would still brush her hair – she didn't see how when she refused to put Jude down – and that they could still read a chapter, but her gaze had once again fallen to the infant, who liberally took comfort in the warmth of her mother. He nuzzled into Julia's neck, and Kathryn felt her own neck go cold.

"And then I'm taking you back to your dormitory."

It wasn't a request but a proclamation of what would happen. There was nothing to do but nod, and she did so stiffly. All the while the sight of her brother seared itself into the back of her eyes. Back to her dormitory it would be. A world away with girls that giggled in ways she couldn't.

She offered the brush a third time, quietly. Resigned.

Something...seemed to click. Julia sighed quietly when her daughter held out the brush again, apparently resigned to the stipulations her mother had set forth. Good. One less thing to fight in the evening that had become far too chaotic for Julia's liking.

She understood all too well that Kathryn was struggling, not just with the adjustment to their living situations and that she was beginning school, but to their family situation. Bringing in Maddox and his children had overwhelmed Kate, to put it lightly. Blending families, Julia imagined, was never an easy thing to do, but with a little girl who already teetered on the edge of routines and consistency, such an enormous change to her every day world would be staggering.

Add an infant into the mix - one who was clingy and always wanted to be held by either his mother or father - and Julia knew Kathryn was fighting for her place that she saw as rightfully hers.

It was hers. But there was room for others, her daughter would have to learn. Julia was a mother to five now, all requiring various amounts of her attention and care. Benji and Morgan were fairly independent and not quite as in need of so much mothering as Kate, Evander and Jude were. But it didn't mean that her attentions weren't spread thin, especially with school starting again.

If only she were able to clone herself, dedicating one to Kathryn, full-throttle.

As Jude unexpectedly grew heavy against her chest, his little head nestled into her neck where his tiny breaths fell upon her skin, Julia took Kathryn by the hand and pulled her closer, before turning her to face away.

"It won't always be like this, Little," Julia said softly, running the brush through Kathryn's long golden hair. "Babies need more attention and care when they're this small. Soon enough he'll be mobile and we won't be able to keep up with him, if he's anything like Evander." Little comfort, she was certain, but Kathryn would need to find a way to adjust. This was her family now. Evander and Jude were her brothers.

Love would have to find a way.

"Did you meet your dorm mates?" she asked, watching as the light glimmered off of blonde strands. "They may not understand now, but once you use your quill, I'm sure you'll all become fast friends."

She didn't. She knew good and well that Kathryn struggled to connect with people her own age - anyone really, but optimism was all Julia had at the moment. "How could anyone not love you?" she asked, a small smile gracing her lips. That, she was sure of. From the moment Julia had set eyes on the little girl, Kathryn had wormed her way right into her heart and had never left.

Kathryn sank silently before her mother's rocking chair, her body taut with the rising tension that had nowhere to go.

It wouldn't be like this forever, she'd said. Kathryn supposed she was right. Nothing lasted forever. Every few years there was something...something massive and life-changing. Always irreversible, always forcing her along the invisible road to some unseen end that met the subjects she liked to collect. There was no stopping it, she knew. Life went full force, whether she wanted it to or not. It never stopped to ask her if she would've liked a mother like Eleanor Longe or 12 children sharing a room with stripping paint and evidence of mold. It never asked whether she'd have liked a little brother; instead, it gave her two and dared her to scream.

She wouldn't.

The all-knowing being that organised the chaos in her life knew that well enough. She would shrink until there was nothing left for it to play with. Only then would it be satisfied – when she had disappeared entirely.

Kathryn sat with the grim thought and the threat of Jude becoming as rambunctious as Evander. One of them was enough—too much. Unnecessary. She didn't want to imagine the pair of them running through her things, touching them with dirty hands and breaking whatever was within reach. The little girl remembered Evander's earlier years, superimposing them on the future Jude had yet to see.

It made her stomach twist.

Her mother started brushing, and she began her diligent internal counting.

One...two...three...

"Did you meet your dorm mates? They may not understand now, but once you use your quill, I'm sure you'll all become fast friends."

They wouldn't. Each sentence her mother spoke drove her further from the comfort she'd arrived in search of. Dorothy was in her dorm. A close friend of Laura's, she'd participated in mocking and stealing her quill two summers back. She'd scorned her difference, laughing as loudly as the others, and had been a part of why Kathryn had stopped using the quill until her mother finally sat her down and told her that if she refused to speak, then the quill was non-negotiable.

The others didn't see the quill. She stuffed it into her trunk the moment she realised who she would be living with.

seventeen...eighteen...nineteen...

Her mother had also, ironically, already explained to her that Dorothy was not her friend. She hadn't understood her role in the dynamic that had unfolded through the playdates, thinking that friends were meant to make your face feel hot and your eyes sting. She'd been sent to Laura's manor to be their friend, and that, in her mind, had been how they chose to display their friendship. Julia said otherwise.

How could Dorothy be her fast friend if she'd been told she wasn't her friend at all?

twenty-nine...thirty...thirty-one..."

"How could anyone not love you?"

Her silence grew heavy. Kathryn dissected the question as if it were any other her mother had given her on one of her tests. The answers came with surprising ease, like a test she'd studied for obsessively. Every morning in the mirror, while she worked on her form for ballet, each time she listened to commentary from people who'd learned to forget she was still sitting in the room, she studied the answer to that very question.

Thirty-eight...thirty-nine...forty.

The tension in her hair lifted, indicating the end to their brushing ritual. Kathryn didn't linger on the floor, understanding, even if she didn't like it, that her mother intended to have her return to her dorm. Promptness was her only recourse. She moved stonily toward the bookshelf, knowing the book they would begin that night. Her attention caught on a sheet of parchment and quill on the small end table. Pausing a moment, she formed the letters her lips wouldn't say. Only after retrieving the book did she hand both it and the parchment to her tired mother.

The note was simple.

You said Dorothy isn't my friend. She doesn't like my quill. She said the others in there aren't my friend's either.

There would be no time and no fast friends. The verdict had already been delivered.

Pale blue eyes fell to the sleeping baby. Surely she didn't intend to read to her while holding him.

There was no mistaking when Kathryn was upset.

Julia knew it well by now, the smallest motions and flashes of expression on her face always giving the little girl away to her mother. She was rigid, her muscles stiff where they normally relaxed and loosened for this ritual.

At times parenting came easy to Julia, but then there were moments like this when she felt her heart tugging with the hurt that resulted from having to take a harder line. It was easier for Julia to give into all of Kathryn’s whims and ‘needs’, justifying it with the same old song and dance that she was a traumatized child and needed more flexibility.

But there was a fine line between flexibility and indulgence, and Julia didn’t intend to end up with a spoiled little girl who had never heard the word ‘no’. Boundaries and expectations were still good things, even for a child like Kathryn. The girl needed the chance to develop some independence and a life outside of her family. She needed to learn how to navigate social situations amongst her peers, and it would never happen if Julia continued to try and shelter her from the world.

When her daughter rose, Julia took a moment to check the baby in her arms, thankful to find he’d fallen asleep in all the activity. Small wins, the woman thought. Even if one of her children were upset with her, at least another seemed rather content. She supposed this would be the way of it now. With five children between her and Madddox, it was bound to be that at least one of them was angry at any given time.

Kathryn returned, her expression stonier now. A note joined the book that was presented, and Julia took a moment to read it first, choosing to ignore the look Kathryn sought to punish her with. She wouldn’t be made to feel wretched for trying to do what she believed was best for her girl.

Her eyes lingered on the words for a few moments after she read them, her arm growing heavy around the sleeping boy. She sighed with exhaustion, pressing the note to her forehead as she closed her eyes and willed herself not to lose her temper. The note crumpled in her hand as she finally stood, moving past Kathryn gently to lay Jude down in the cradle beside her bed.

Dorothy. The wretched little creature who lapped at Laura’s shoes.

She took her time, tucking her son’s blanket around him, wondering for a brief moment when her life had taken the step from relative peace and freedom to being everything for everyone all of the time. It was the fate of a mother, she supposed. The job was never-ending, and the heartache never subsided. When it wasn’t one thing, it was another.

She was just tired.

When she returned to her chair, she reached for her daughter, pulling her into her lap and snuggling her close as she opened the book to the first chapter. “It doesn’t matter what Dorothy says,” Julia said quietly, dropping a kiss on her head. “You’ll find friends. Real friends who like you for who you are.” Her thumb trailed the spine of the book idly.

“But don’t you worry about her,” Julia’s voice grew colder as resolve buried itself in her chest. “I’ll handle Dorothy, and any of the other girls who aren’t kind to you.”

There was no need for elaboration. Kathryn didn’t need to concern herself with the methods of women and social circles, nor with the way hierarchies reigned supreme. All she needed to know was that it would be handled.

“Once upon a time,” Julia began, her hand running along Kathryn’s arm to comfort her, “in a land far from here…”

There was something distinctly harrowing about watching her mother crush the note she'd so carefully written with her own hand. Complemented by the sigh, it created an image of frustration that Kathryn wasn't equipped to distinguish. For a little girl who found it difficult to read emotions within herself and others, the only conclusion that she could draw was that her inability to make friends had become a source of displeasure for her mother.

The thought left her shrinking, the desire to become smaller overriding any other instinct.

The little girl remained standing by the rocking chair while Julia went to tuck Jude away in his crib. She took her time with the baby, leaving ample time for Kathryn to stand there pondering the many implications of the exasperated sigh. Perhaps if she were less difficult, she would be the one being tucked in and kept away from the wider, brutal assault of the castle.

Her mother was tired; she could see. Lately, it felt like her mother was always tired. Jude wasn't a particularly fussy baby, but he was awfully demanding and in need. Evander was a tornado of a boy who never missed a chance to hang off her mother's skirts. The summer itself had been one uproar after another. No one explained much to her, but she was able to gather enough to know that, like the summer that preceded it, the family had once again been turned on its head with the name "Rosalie" at its centre. There was a barrage of things adding to the diminishing plate her mother carried.

She'd become one of them. Unable to sleep in the room provided. Unable to be the sort of child that giggled and made the fast friends her mother dreamed of. Unable to understand that her place was no longer in the private quarters of the Ravenclaw Head of House.

'Petulant', she believed, was the word Eleanor Longe may have employed. It would be accompanied by the admonishment that she not be spoiled.

No one enjoyed spoiled children.

Kathryn went without fuss when her mother pulled her closer, no longer believing she deserved the spot but not wanting to pose further opposition in what had already been a long night. She sagged limply against her mother, unsure of how to be or what to do, except for the one hand that reached for and clung to the fabric of the woman's nightgown that bunched between them.

It was hard, she was quickly learning, to want a comfort she no longer thought belonged to her while being unwilling to let it go.

“It doesn’t matter what Dorothy says.”

But it did. It mattered to the girls inside her dorm. It mattered to Laura who she'd often reported back to. Girls like Dorothy were charming and persuasive. Kathryn still thought Evelyn had the nicer smile, but Dorothy had prettier words.

“You’ll find friends. Real friends who like you for who you are.”

She nodded to the words she didn't believe, more interested in having Julia think she believed than in cultivating any particular faith within herself.

“But don’t you worry about her. I’ll handle Dorothy, and any of the other girls who aren’t kind to you.”

She...didn't think she was worried. In truth, she didn't know. There was an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach, a gurgling. Her hands were cold. But worry? She didn't know. All the little girl knew was her own lack of desire to return to her dorm and her mother's determination to ensure she went anyway.

Her eyes sank to the hand that clung to her mother as the story began. Try as she did to listen, she could only hear every other word. Her mother's warmth spoke louder. It was a booming countdown, warning of its impending absence through its presence. Listening was her role in this little ritual, but her mind kept drifting back to the darkened corridor through which she would have to return and the bronze knocker that required verbal responses to grant access.