At birth, she was the fourth, and only the youngest for a year. The problem with growing up in an ever-growing family is that the youngest are always squabbling for attention while the oldest find solidarity in existing together loudly. But what of the in-betweeners? What of the fourth of nine, the perpetually caught in the middle; what of Pandora?
Well, she joined in the noise. She talked over Cynthia and bickered with Maddox and maintained the peace while Caiden and Lia fought over toys. By ten, she was a master negotiator and all but running the home during the school year while her parents spent their time fighting and falling apart and splitting and falling back together. It’s true that her parents meant well, that they loved their children, that they wanted the best for them. It’s even true that they gave their children all that they could--but sometimes, that wasn’t enough.
At eleven, her parents were falling back together. The last thing she did before leaving for Hogwarts was move her things back into the house. All eleven of the, under the same roof for a brief few days. The noise never stopped. The Hogwarts Express was really no different, nor the Great Hall. But in the Ravenclaw common room, Pandora found something wonderful.
She found silence, and what a treat that proved to be. In the years following, she pursued silence when she could--taking up space in the library, spending time at the homes of friends with smaller families, and ultimately settling on a career that required a degree of quiet, just to get it done. Uriah went on to be an actor, Jessabelle to a teacher, Cynthia to a quidditch star, and so on. And yet Pandora settled definitively on alchemy, and within it, she thrived.
Now, all these years later, she doesn’t have to fight to be heard. There’s no quarreling for space, for attention, for the space to say what’s on your mind. Now, in their little rook-shaped-home, Pandora shares her thoughts regularly, openly, fluidly, with Xenophilius. There is no bickering over the time or whose turn it is to tell a story, just the steady flow of one to another. The two of them take up the same space eagerly, sharing everything they can, talking for hours just to get the words from their brain to someone else’s ear.
At birth, she was the fourth, and only the youngest for a year. At present, she’s the fourth, but she is loved and she is happy and she is heard and hearing and loving. At present, and for the foreseeable future, in every conceivable moment, there is nowhere else she would rather be.
dededos
blakekathryn
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