Wizards & Therapies | An OC Wizarding World Fanfic

Little Whinging

A/N: Lads, I am back on my bullshit, need to write academic papers, and feel like taking back my childhood from terfs. This one, like the weirdly wonderful Twilight one, was a draft that has been sitting around for years - the oldest iteration is from 2016. So, without furthur ado... this story
Crossposted on FF.net

***

Any peace that she had that day was immediately interrupted.

The child stomped into the room and punched a teddy bear. Eliza startled. She was just setting the table for lunch time. Quickly, she walked over to the child holding a tantrum just as the child proceeded to throw the plastic plates off the table.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Eliza got down on her knees and stopped a plate from falling. The other plates were lost cases. Not that it mattered as they bounced off the floor. She had tears streaming down her face, her cheeks flushed with red as her little fists hit Eliza's chest and grabbed the apron Eliza wore.

Eliza said nothing as the child hit Eliza's chest once more. It felt like nothing. At some point, the anger in the child ran out and she was left sniffling.

"What's wrong?" Eliza asked.

"Ms," the child, Ari, looked down at her shoes and sniffed. "They won't let me play with them."

'They' were the children of the Kindergarten group. That morning during the first break, Eliza observed a small ring of children and a lone figure walking past. She wondered if the other caretakers had noticed it, but didn't have time to think about it until now.

"Ari," Eliza began and wiped a tear away. "How does that make you feel?"

"It burns here," Ari sniffed and pointed a finger to her heart. "I don't like it. I want it to stop."

"You are sad," Eliza put the name to the feeling. "Which can also make you angry. You don't know why they won't let you play, right?"

It was the same game each time, every week. Last week it happened with one of the boys. A lot of children didn't know any better. She picked up the teddy Ari punched, gently handing it back. "Being angry is okay but don't let it make what you do things you wouldn't do. And do not ever hurt things. You could hurt yourself and other people."

"Remember to say how you really feel, okay? It feels better that way. We can't read your thoughts," Eliza reminded.

"That's not true, missus. You can," Ari said in a small voice and clutched her teddy bear tighter. "I'm sorry I made a mess," Ari looked around in shame. It wasn't much. A few plastic plates. None of them had food on them.

"Let's pick up the plates together, shall we? And if the others are mean to you again, I'll have a good talking down to them."

They cleaned the plastic plates from the floor and stacked them back neatly onto the table. Then, Eliza took Ari's hand, and they both walked outside to enjoy the last bits of the break time. The children were still playing ring around the Rosie.

"Do you want to join them today?"

Ari shook her head and buried her face in Eliza's leg.

"That's okay, dear. Do you want to slide?"

She would keep an eye on it, Eliza thought to herself. She would not tolerate bullying, much less if it was a one-day thing.

Eliza Soraya Shafiq has lived in Surrey for nearly 10 years now. Each morning, she'd grab a cup of coffee and croissant from the bakery around the corner before setting up in the kitchen of the Kindergarten. When her shift was over, she'd do the shopping for her (not directly related) aunt Arabella Figgs and then head back home. The evening would be filled with the silent sound of the television or soft music that would be played on her radio as she read something or planned her weak. It was a quiet life; one she chose for herself after all the disappointments she experienced.