Monday's Child

Disclaimer: I don’t own the rhyme ‘Monday’s Child’, from which this story and its sections get their names. None of the sources I could find seem to know who does own it, but it's not me.

Author’s Notes: For days on which none of the main characters were born, I’ve given a birth date to someone who didn’t previously receive one from Jo. Not counting titles and birth dates, all drabbles will be 100 words.

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Monday's Child is Fair of Face

Narcissa Malfoy - Monday, 7 September 1955

“Do not cause trouble,” she warns him. “Our… situation is too precarious. Do whatever Snape says.”

He nods, his gaze flitting around the busy station.

“Draco, are you listening?” she asks sharply.

He turns back to her, contrite. “Yes.”

“Good.” If he missteps, they will all suffer—probably at Bella’s hand. Narcissa suppresses a shudder.

“Be careful.” She doesn’t add, “I love you.” He already knows, and besides, love is an emotion, and emotions are weaknesses. Weakness is the one thing the Malfoys cannot afford.

“I will,” he says, boarding the train.

Normally, she’d leave now. Today, she waits.

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Tuesday's Child is Full of Grace

Luna Lovegood - Tuesday, 24 February 1981

“Lovegood!” he barks. Luna’s feet keep moving.

“Headmaster?” she asks when he stares incredulously.

“Students cannot be outside without permission.” Irritation hides his exasperation. If someone else had seen her first….

Luna’s spinning slows, her arms dropping to her sides. “But it’s raining, sir. It would be a waste,” she explains, as though that makes perfect sense.

“I won’t tolerate arguments, Ms Lovegood. Fifty points from Ravenclaw.”

“One day,” she says, resuming her spinning, “they’ll take the rain away.” Her eyes are bright with dreams and quiet defiance. “I shouldn’t waste it now.”

Her words hit him like a hex.

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Wednesday's Child is Full of Woe

Hermione Granger – Wednesday, 19 September 1979

Hermione Granger, it must be said, has a tendency to mope. She cried for hours when Ron laughed at her at age eleven, spent months pouting over the Crookshanks-ate-Scabbers debacle, and sulked throughout the entirety of what she privately calls The Lavender Era.

Hermione mopes, and when she’s feeling uncharitable, she maintains that it’s always Ron’s fault.

Blaming Ron has never changed her mood, though, and still doesn’t now. He’s abandoned them. She’s angry enough to slap him, so hurt that her heart aches.

This tent’s too big and empty without him, she thinks, and she blinks back fresh tears.

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Thursday's Child Has Far to Go

Fleur Weasley – Thursday, 5 May 1977

It’s the only thing they ever argue about. What it boils down to is love and fierce protectiveness—emotions that are necessary, but dangerous, in times like these.

“I’d feel better if you were safe with your parents,” Bill insists again. The last time they had this fight, he’d started packing her bags when she’d refused. She hadn’t spoken to him for a week, but hadn’t left, either.

“‘Ow can I leave you in danger?” Fleur snaps back. “I will not leave zis house without you!”

He won’t leave his family, and so they stay, hoping their wards will protect them.

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Friday's Child is Loving and Giving

Andromeda Tonks – Friday, 12 March 1953

Surprisingly, Andromeda was never the ‘nice’ sister. Narcissa was—not to everyone, obviously, but she’d been capable of love in a way Andromeda never managed to learn.

That is, until she met Ted. She’d been consumed with a strong, all-encompassing love, and she’d given herself over to it, cutting her ties to the Blacks without hesitation.

Now Andromeda spends her days with Nymphadora, caring for hurt Order members and passing messages. She spends her nights alone. Ted is out there somewhere….

She wishes there were a way to package her love and let him wear it. Like a protective talisman.

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Saturday's Child Must Work For a Living

Severus Snape – Saturday, 9 January 1960

It’s not a struggle to appear unaffected as Michael Corner’s screams fill the Great Hall. He’s had decades of practice in concealing emotion.

It doesn’t make it any easier to hear.

Nearly all students are crying. The entire staff looks ill. Hagrid’s bawling loudly, and Minerva’s doing her best to glare a hole through the side of Severus’s head.

“That’s enough, Professor Carrow,” Severus says quietly, but forcefully. Alecto frowns.

“But we’ve only just—” she begins to protest. She falls silent at his irritated glare.

“All this noise is ruining my appetite,” he snaps, turning back to his dinner.

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But The Child That's Born on the Sabbath Day

Percy Weasley – Sunday, 22 August 1976

Wizards don’t worship Muggle gods. Walking on water is accomplished with a charm. Potions cure illness. Short of raising the dead, there is little any Muggle god has done that a wizard cannot replicate. Even the Muggle-borns, after a while, seem to lose their faith.

Wizards don’t worship Muggle gods, so they don’t pray, either. Most purebloods wouldn’t even know the meaning of the word.

Yet when Aberforth’s message arrives, Percy finds himself with his eyes closed and head bowed, begging for answers and guidance from someone, anyone.

It’s a full eight minutes before he Apparates to the Hog’s Head.

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Is Fair and Wise and Good and Gay

Minerva McGonagall – Sunday, 4 October 1925

“Headmistress?”

Minerva doesn’t answer.

“Headmistress?”

Finally, Minerva realises Poppy is talking to her. “It’s a bit premature for that, isn’t it? The Governors might want some say in the matter,” she responds wryly.

Poppy shrugs, mutters something about Snape and doubting the Governors' judgment, then begins rattling off problems that required a solution hours ago, expecting Minerva to make the impossible decisions.

Minerva would protest that Poppy should ask someone who’s actually in charge—Kingsley, perhaps—but she suspects it wouldn’t do any good. And besides, she doubts anyone left alive knows her school and its needs as well as she does.