InsaneJournal

Everything that had happened this year had to be some sort of cruel dream. At home there had been her mother’s disappearance, the eventual finding out that she was in Azkaban, and the fights with her Dad that this had resulted in. At Hogwarts there were the Carrows, and their poor pets, Trevor lost somewhere in the big, bad forest, and Ferdinand only barely evading torture. Friends had disappeared, one by one, and then finally there had been the battle.

She hadn’t even been there, and yet Wendy felt deeply shaken by the events. Two weeks after the battle, it still hadn’t sunk in that Andrew, sweet, confident Andrew, who had kept them all safe, was really dead. She kept looking at people, expecting them to tell her that it was all a big joke, or a mistake, and he was still there even if it was with Emily by his side.

Wendelin only had to look at Heath’s frightened face to know that it was real, though, or open her journal to see all the pain and grief gathered there. She was glad to have him still, and Amelia, and Hugo, but she knew that they had been lucky. That Harry and Neville had been the ones to stop it all, even if no one really believed yet that it was really over.

Today Wendy couldn’t think about any of that, though. Anxiety curled low in her stomach as she waited outside the door of the hospital room that her father had just disappeared through. Marigold Pips had been one of the worst affected of the Muggleborns that had been retrieved from Azkaban. As of yet Wendelin hadn’t been allowed to even see her mother, but today, today she was coming home with them.

Settled on the floor in the corridor next to her brother’s chair, Wendelin shifted from side to side before getting up again, stretching her legs, kicking at the smooth floor. None of it helped with the energy running through her body, making her nerves buzz, and Wendy felt like every hair on her body was standing on end, waiting for something to happen.

“How much longer do we have to wait?” she burst out, barely five minutes later. She turned to glare at Archie, who was sitting there entirely too composed, though the way he kept worrying his bottom lip between his teeth implied otherwise.

“I don’t know,” Archie said unhelpfully, and Wendy let out a loud huff. Archibald was easily her favourite brother, but right now she almost wished that her father had allowed Leo to come with them so that she would have something to busy herself with. She could have told him stories, or read him a book, or-

The door opened and Wendy’s shot up so quickly that she almost knocked a painting off the wall that she’d been leaning against, the old woman inside of it complaining loudly. She ignored it completely, stepping forward as her father and a Healer emerged from the room.

“...of course, for the time being, we’ll have to monitor...” the Healer was saying, her father nodding seriously in return, but Wendy stopped paying attention as the man motioned for her to carry on inside.

Quick as she was to react to his prompting, Wendy hesitated once she had made it past the threshold. The curtains were drawn around most of the beds, a soft muttering indicating that she was far from the only person in the room, and Wendelin almost froze when her eyes flitted over the woman in the only bed that was visible. She was thin, thinner than Wendy remembered, her eyes shadowed, her hair no longer the full red mane that it had been before. But it was her mother, and she was alive.

Marigold looked up, a faint smile on her face, and then Wendy was moving forward, throwing herself into her mother’s arms. She paid no attention to the tears streaming down her cheeks, simply holding on. “Mum,” she said, her voice tight, hoarse.

A hand touched her cheek, brushed a lock of hair from her face the way her mother always did when she was upset, and Wendy smiled through her tears.

Maybe, maybe it would be okay.


---


Spending the summer after the final battle pretty much clinging to her mother and friends, respectively, Wendelin doesn’t do so well when she has to go back to Hogwarts, but manages to pull through anyway with the help of the Them. After saying for years that she’s going to continue on in the family business (ie pumpkins), she works herself into the company and lobbies in order to modernise and expand things in a rather drastic manner. This causes some friction with her father, but with Archie’s support, Wendy manages to press her own stamp on the company, eventually taking over management from her parents.

Wendelin is also heavily involved in pro-Muggleborn movements, and ends up dating a fellow activist whose three Krups she frequently looks after and dotes on. The move in together and eventually have a beautiful red-haired baby girl, who inherits Wendy’s stubborn streak. The Them continue to stick together through several happy but drama-filled years, and Wendy frequently jokes that being friends with Heath is like having another child.