“That’ll be three pounds and ninety-seven, please,” I said, watching the gang of boys closely, looking out for any unpaid sweets slipping sneakily into their pockets. One of the boys was looking at me oddly, as if trying to remember something.
“Yes? Can I help you?” I asked as politely as I could, though it’s always hard when someone’s staring at you. He looked like the spoilt, yet rough sort. You know; gelled-up hair, gold chains and rings and a diamond stud earring. We want so many more young thugs like that, I thought sarcastically.
“I ‘fink I’ve seen you in the village. Don’t ya’ live up on that hill? The one ya’ can only see if ya’ look real hard and is really hard ta’ climb up?” I silently praised my Aunt’s muggle repelling charms.
“Yes, I do. Why?” he smirked.
“Oh right, so yar’ the one with that retarded-” I didn’t let him finish his sentence. I had no idea whether he was about to refer to my sister or my mum (both are joked about by young ASBO’s), but I didn’t really want to find out.
“DON’T YOU DARE EVER LAUGH AT SOMEONE WHO HAS SPECIAL NEEDS! I DON’T LAUGH AT YOU BECAUSE YOU LIVE ON THE PETERS ESTATE! THOUGH I COULD, IT’S ONLY TRASHY PEOPLE THAT LIVE OFF CRIME AND DRUGS THAT LIVE THERE!” I was rather satisfied to see that the boy was cowering in fright, helped by the flickering lights.
“AND DON’T YOU EVER LET ME HEAR YOU USING THAT WORD AGAIN, YOU HEAR? IT’S A FLITHY WORD, JUST LIKE YOU! YOU COULD JUST AS EASILY HAVE BEEN BORN-”
“Daisy! Calm down, you boys “ out, now. Don’t bother coming back again, you’re barred.” It was Mrs Conlon, the elderly shop owner, the one who always seemed to have a power over youths that came into the shop. The boys scarped out, sniggering. I wanted to race after them and punch them hard, it’s just a pity I have possibly the weakest punch in existence. Instead, I placed my elbows on the till and my head in my hands, breathing heavily. Mrs Conlon placed her warm wrinkled hand on my shoulder.
“Dear, don’t listen to them. One day, they’ll be faced with problems of their own, most likely when they leave school at sixteen with no GCSE’s under their belt. Then they’ll know better then to laugh at other people’s misfortune.”
“I can’t do this. It’s too hard. I’d quit, but we need the money,” I said bluntly. Then I let out a great moan of annoyance. “The little prats ran off without paying! Oh god, what am I going to do?” I said frantically, losing my head completely.
“Calm down, dear, I know their mothers. I’ll chase them up about the money and about what they said. You were right to shout at them, they deserved a lot more if you ask me.” She began to walk over to the display stand which held sweets where the boys had carelessly dropped several on the floor.
“There was a time when you could give them a good clip ‘round the ear, that’d sort the youth of today out, like I was telling Doris yesterday-” But I wasn’t listening to her. I felt strangely dizzy and my hands were shaking slightly. I stood up to go and help her and felt myself falling. The last thing I remembered was the tiled floor and Mrs Conlon still talking about Doris. Then everything went black.
*~*~*
“Daisy? Da-a-ais-sy…” My Aunt’s cooing voice made me blearily open my eyes. I found myself lying in an uncomfortable bed in a painfully white hospital ward with my entire family (bar mum and Harri) around me.
“Oh, Daisy, you’re awake!” My Grandma beamed down at me, her grey hair up in a bun. She looked very tired.
“What… what happened?” I asked, squinting as I sat up. The bright white walls stung my eyes.
“You collapsed, dear.”
“Well yes, I gathered that,” I said irritably to my Aunt. “Why?”
“Cause you’re a psycho,” muttered Sam, just loud enough for me to hear. He was probably annoyed that I was wasting time when he could be playing Quidditch. Git.
“The Healers think that you’re under to much stress, kid. They say you have too much responsibility. I’m sorry, Daisy, we do try but-” I interrupted Uncle Ron.
“Don’t worry about it. When can I go home?” I saw everyone look at each other hesitantly. “What? What’s wrong? I… I can go home, can’t I?
“Of course you can, honey!” exclaimed Aunt Bianca a little too quickly.
“Then why isn’t anyone telling me when I can go home?” Aunt Bianca looked at her husband, Uncle Charlie. Who looked at Uncle Bill. Who looked at Aunt Fleur. Who looked at Uncle Fred. Who looked at Aunt Hermione.
“Oh fine. Leave it to me!” muttered Uncle Ron. “Daisy… the Healers don’t want you going home until you’ve relaxed a bit.” I shrugged.
“I’m relaxed now.” He was definitely under pressure now; even Snobby-Sam and Jack-arse-Josh looked uncomfortable.
“Yes… but… they want you to go to Hogwarts for a bit-”
“NO! I bet they didn’t say that, you all made it up to try and get me to go! Well I’m sorry, but it’s not going to happen! My place is at home with mum and Harriet “ I can’t leave them! You and Auntie wouldn’t be able to cope!”
“No, no, we wouldn’t. BUT, when the newspapers heard about you collapsing…” He chucked an issue of The Daily Prophet onto my lap. On the front page there was a rather embarrassing picture of me when I was about three, a bowl of spaghetti in my hair. Above that was a large, bold headline.
HARRY POTTER’S DAUGHTER COLLAPSES DUE TO STRESS “ THE MINISTRY ARE TO BLAME.
“Oh,” I said, rather shocked. Then my feisty temper came back up again. “So what? The Ministry won’t do anything-”
“Oh, yes they will. Or have, rather,” Uncle Bill grinned, his scars stretching across his face.
“What? What have they done?” My Grandma smiled.
“Well, dear, they’ve given Hermione a raise, as well as Ron; they’ve assigned a Healer to the house-”
“A free one,” interrupted Aunt Hermione, beaming. My Grandma continued, still smiling pleasantly.
“Yes, a free one-”
“She’s fit as well!” smirked Josh. Everyone ignored him.
“A free healer to be there twenty-four hours, seven days a week so that Hermione and Ron can continue to work and they’ve agreed to let you have access to quarter of the money your father left you, which is a lot.” Everyone smiled at me expectantly.
“Are you all mad? Do you really think that I’ll go to Hogwarts just because we can afford it now? I’ve already told you, I want to stay at home with Harriet and mum. I don’t want some stranger looking after them. She doesn’t know how to cope with mum and especially not Harri! She doesn’t know the routine, what Harri means by certain words, how to stop her from getting upset and, most importantly, Harri won’t trust her! You know how long it takes for her to get to know people “ she didn’t talk to Auntie Katie for weeks when she got married to Uncle Fred!”
“We know, we know, that’s why special conditions have been made. You’ll be allowed to go home at weekends via Floo and Hermione won’t work until Harriet does trust the new Healer. She’ll still get paid, though,” said Uncle George. I shook my head in disbelief, almost laughing.
“No way, that’s still five days a week when I don’t get to see Harri or mum, that’s five days when Harri will be confused and upset.”
“Please, Daisy, please go. I can cope with it, and Harriet will get used to the new Healer,” pleaded Aunt Hermione.
“No. No way. Absolutely not. There is no way on earth that I’m going.”
Torn by dumbledorefluertwins
Chapter Notes: This chapter uses a lot of English slan, so I'll just list it here. If there are anymore that I've missed and you don't understand just yell.
ASBO ~ In this country we have a system were kid's that cause a lot of trouble get something called an ASBO, where they are not allowed in certain area's and they get a curfew. Usually, if someone seems trashy or rough and we're annoyed at them, we call them ASBO's, saying that they're thugs. Unfotunatly, some kid's are now taking ASBO's as a badge of honur. The goverment now has stupidly made that problem even worse by introducing "super-ASBO's". Yeah, that'll help.
GCSE's ~ A set of exams we take in our eleventh year at school that determins what A-levels we can take, which determins what Uni we can go to.
Fit ~ Although when we describe someone as fit we mean that they're good at excersising, we can also mean that they're pretty or sexy.
Also, I'm concerned that some people may be upset by this chapter. If you are, just leave a review saying so and I'll edit this chapter.
Please R&R!
~Evie