Thicker than Water (Marauders Era)

28 September, 1989 - Child

Lavinia showed up to her house half an hour after her shift had ended with Heather and Jasmine in tow and was thoroughly enjoying herself. Jasmine, it turned out, was a delightful girl, who had made Lavinia laugh more than once already. She was bright and forward and Lavinia was reasonably certain she'd never met someone as brutally honest as Jasmine was. Except maybe Eloise, who might be able to give the child a run for her money. But at least Eloise had known to hold her tongue around strangers. Jasmine, it seemed, had no such restraint.

Indeed, when they'd first met outside of Heather's slightly run down apartment building, the girl had looked Lavinia up and down and said, "Are you Heather's mom friend? She said she had a mom friend now."

Lavinia had choked on a laugh and stared at the girl as Heather sputtered an attempt to explain. Jasmine, however, had just watched Lavinia with a frank expression. "Well?" she'd demanded, like this was information critical to some investigation she was conducting. "Are you?"

Lavinia had opened her mouth, then closed it again and finally shrugged and tossed a hand up in amused defeat. "Sure," she decided. "I'm Heather's mom friend."

Jasmine had utterly beamed, displaying two very prominent dimples. "Will you be my mom friend too?" she'd asked baldly.

"Jas," Heather had groaned covering her face with her hands.

But Lavinia had just chuckled slightly and smiled. "Sure," she'd agreed. "I'll be your mom friend too if you want. But don't you think we should get to know each other first?"

Jasmine's round little face had gone very serious, like she was considering a most important proposition. Then her face had lit, as if she'd suddenly come to a brilliant conclusion. "Nope!" she'd chirped. "Now where are we going? We never usually get to go out."

Lavinia had laughed outright at that which was apparently the correct reaction as Heather looked utterly relieved to see Lavinia taking it all in stride. Lavinia didn't admit to the girl that it was a very good thing she was already in the helping sort of mood because it was very possible that on another day she would have simply wondered what on earth was wrong with this child. Then again, Jasmine was just a child so perhaps that explained it.

Five minutes later and the three of them were here, standing at the front walk of the little house by the sea. Jasmine gaped around at the surroundings. "There's so much space," she gasped, turning in circles on the spot as though trying to memorize every detail of the rolling hills and that one endless horizon over the sea. "I'm going to explore!"

Heather sighed, the sort of long suffering sigh that told Lavinia that this was not the first time she'd had to keep her little sister from running off to Merlin knew where. Indeed, she just reached a hand out and gripped Jasmine's upper arm without so much as looking, forcing the girl to halt her attempted leap into the great unknown.

"You're going to come in with us first, Jas," she told the girl, her tone a mix of stern and exasperated. "We're having tea. And we're going to be polite."

Jasmine wrinkled her nose. "I don't want tea," she protested, apparently not caring at all about the pointed comment about politeness. "It's just fancy water."

Lavinia snorted, thinking of how much Bertie would have been offended by the comment. Not that Bertie was an avid tea drinker, but he had always been firmly of the opinion that there was little better in the world than a good cup of Earl Grey. Not that she thought that would sway Jasmine in the slightest, so she opted for a different tactic.

"What if I told you there was also food involved?" she asked carefully, looking sideways down at the girl.

Jasmine perked up immediately, excitement all over her face and Lavinia knew the child would follow her as she led Heather up the front walk and into the door. Indeed, Jasmine was right on her heels and came bounding into the house, peering all around even as Heather desperately tried to call after her that it wasn't polite and they were guests and that's her bedroom and so on and so forth.