quite contary,

full name: amaryllis prue parkinson.

nicknames: mary.

date of birth: october 29th.

age: twenty-two.

i’ve got the magic in me

bloodstatus: unknown; either pureblood or halfblood.

hogwarts house: hufflepuff.

wand: pear wood, 10.5″ with dragon heartstring.

amortentia: lavender, hazelnut, and the smell of the air right after it rains..

if you met them, you’d understand — family.

father: unknown.

mother: pansy parkinson.

sibling(s): tba.

extended family: pierce parkinson ( first cousin; primary caregiver ).

take me by the hand — brief bits.

pansy’s daughter but not raised by her bc life is a mess

ray of hufflepuff sunshine

doesn’t officially have any pets, but a family of cats has moved in to her garden and she loves them

actually she loves most things

always wearing flowers in her hair (charmed to ward off any bugs that may try to make it their home, of course)

major proponent of the ‘save the bee’ movement

just a little bit more — bio points.

Amaryllis Parkinson is a child who was never meant to be. It’s not that Pansy intended to have a one-night stand and end up with a child born out of wedlock, but well... things happen. An encounter with a stranger at the Hog’s Head, and nine months later, Mary was born. It was clear that Pansy was ill-prepared to take care of a child, and Mary’s grandparents certainly weren’t looking to lose their golden years by taking her in, so Mary instead found herself being shuffled around from family member to family member for the first few years of her life. While she knew who her mother was, there was never much of a bond there. For Mary, the word ‘mother’ is simply another person, not any more emotionally connected than a neighbor or frequent shop owner.

At age five, she was taken in be one of her mother’s cousins — Mary’s “Uncle” Pierce. This would turn out to be one of the best things that could have happened. While many of her other relatives sent Mary off as soon as she became too much (although their threshold for “too much” was always low), Pierce encouraged her to grow. Normally, Mary would be with a relative for upwards of a year before she was moved around. But with Pierce, one year turned into two which turned into three and before anyone knew it, he was the one taking her to gather up all of her first year supplies.

Although a Parkinson in name, Pierce was somewhat of an outsider. He was always a member of the family, but he was someone that they didn’t talk to or about unless absolutely necessary, which is how Mary came into his care to begin with — it was absolutely necessary. He was a Slytherin thanks to his ambition and cunning, but he never bought in to the concept of pureblood supremacy that was often associated because jkr is trash and doesn’t value slytherin qualities as a whole and therefor needs to demonize them all based on a sorting ceremony when they are eleven . He raised Mary based on his own principles, which included the idea of always being a little bit kinder than necessary.

Mary often wonders if she’d have been sorted into Slytherin had she been raised by any other family member, including her mother. She wasn’t raised by any other family member though. She was raised by Pierce, who taught her to value patience and kindness above all else. When the sorting hat was placed atop her head, there was no hesitation before it put her in Hufflepuff.

The news of her sorting did not go over well with her extended family. Because of the familial distance between Pierce and the others, the information didn’t even reach most of them until Mary showed up to their annual Christmas party that year, donned in a yellow dress to honor her new home. Her family would have been happy if she’d been put in Slytherin. They would have been content, if not disappointed, with Ravenclaw. They may have even been able to overlook Gryffindor if Mary could utilize the traits in a way they deemed appropriate. But Hufflepuff? Absolutely not. What resulted was a heated argument, accusations that Pierce had brought Mary up to be too soft from numerous family members, and Pansy declaring that she would be taking Mary in that following summer to raise her properly. Mary returned to Hogwarts after break in tears.

The summer between first and second year was the worst time of Mary’s life. Despite Pansy’s best attempts to teach Mary the same lessons she’d been taught, Mary wouldn’t take. She was hurt and angry, and learned that Pierce had been the exception that proved the rule in the Parkinson family. She never disliked her family for their views. They’d all been raised in an echo chamber, what else could they have been given the ostracization often placed onto Slytherin house? But that didn’t make Mary happy with Pansy either. She’d been taken from the only consistent home she’d ever known and placed with someone who had not wanted her. The summer was filled with screaming matches (aided by teenage hormones on Mary’s part) and more than one occasion of Mary running away to Pierce’s house. 

Luckily, those summer months came ans passed, and before Mary knew it, she was back in the confines of Hogwarts, where she could write her uncle and live her life as she’d been raised. Her mother, to no one’s shock, kept limited communication with her over that year, with Mary even opting to stay at school rather than go home. The stress at the thought of returning impacted her heavily, making it difficult to focus on her studies for most of the year and resulting in many meetings with professors to keep her on track. Around April of that year though, a short letter arrived from her mother, simply stating that she would be returned to Pierce once school was out. Mary cried tears of joy, feeling like things were finally set right again. As promised, Pierce was the one to meet her at the train station come June.

Her remaining time at school was a tremendous improvement from her second year, although it was decided that her and Pierce were no longer welcome at Parkinson family functions. While not the best student, Mary was certainly capable, and found a particular penchant for herbology. She’d always loved nature and would often help tend to her uncle’s garden growing up; plants and flowered were simultaneously beautiful and resilient, two things she greatly admired. When she left Hogwarts, it was with a heart full of kindness and diligence.

One thing that she’s found hard to reconcile with as she’s gotten older is her feelings towards her mother. She doesn’t like Pansy, and she knows she would be a completey different person if she’d been raised by her. She also heavily resents that period in time where Pansy robbed her of her happiness for (what Mary views as) her own selfish gain. Still, Mary can’t bring herself to hate Pansy. Hate isn’t something Mary is capable of in general, let alone to her mother. The biggest thing for Mary, more so now than when she was younger, is the fact that she feels abandoned. She wouldn’t give up being raised by Pierce for anything, but was the way he raised her really so bad that it made her own mother not wanted? Logically, Mary knows how fault that is — Pansy hadn’t wanted her from the second she was born, as far as she knows. But it still hurts.

Howadays, Mary is working as an herbologist, hoping to one day open her own shop that specializes in rare finds. For a short while, she’d considered training to be a healer but decided she couldn’t put herself in that emotional of a situation on a daily basis. Her love, though, is for plants used in medical potions and magical remedies. She also considered opening a flower shape but has instead settled for growing her own garden and keeping fresh cut flowers on her windowsill always. All in all, Mary wants to make the world a better place, even if just be sharing a little bit of beauty.

inspo