↳ for @durmsnet ‘s creation event: underappreciated female characters
millicent bulstrode
Millicent isn't pretty like Tracey or regal like Daphne or even rich like Pansy. She's pudgy and coated in kneazle hair and she's too shy and too dumb and, well, it can be absolutely exhausting being so imperfect that even her parents have given up shielding her from the less than scrupulous rumors of her birth — giant, troll, half-breed. There's not a lick of truth to them. She knows that. Logically. Even so, sometimes when she sneaks out of the dormitory in the middle of the night to stand in the cold and silent bathroom starting at her reflection, at the bit of stomach that sticks out from her sleep shirt or at her square jaw, she wonders if there's truth to the rumors. How could all her roommates be so lovely while she looked like an overgrown toadstool?
(and she knew that's what she looked like because she heard Susan Bones and Megan Jones whispering about it in class)
Being an eleven-year-old girl was terrible.
She had been so excited to go to Hogwarts. Who wasn't, really? Every little witch and wizard dreamed of the day they'd turn eleven and the owl carrying a letter just for them would arrive at their window. Growing up she didn't have many — any — friends. The Bulstrodes were an important family, an old one soaked in magic from the beginning of time, but not her branch of the family. Her branch of the family let in Half-bloods and creatures and squandered their money in the eighteen-hundreds while fighting for muggle rights of all things.
(her great-great-great-great grandfather was lucky his son, her great-great-great grandfather, killed him before he had the chance to be disowned. the damage done to his descendants was irreversible, but at least they were still tied to the wealth and prestige of the main branch of the family)
Hogwarts itself was a bit of a letdown. The sheer magicalness of it was amazing. Even Millicent, who had grown up surrounded by seemingly trivial magic, was left breathless. The sorting, however, was boring. She was called on so early that she was the first student of the year to be placed in the Slytherin, and she couldn't help the growing anxiety that was bubbling in her. Slytherin was the evil house. She didn't know a lot, but she knew she didn't want to be evil.
Part of her had really been hoping for Ravenclaw — her mother had been one, after all, and if she could pretend to be smart enough, maybe she'd have a chance at making friends. An even smaller, hidden part of her had been rooting for Gryffindor. They were heroes, brave and powerful and everything that a little girl wanted to believe she could be.
The hat had taken one look into her head, made a clicking sound with its non-existent tongue, and told her, "You're a perceptive thing, aren't you? Clever too. But far to sharp for Ravenclaw. You'd eat all those eagles alive. No, you would be best somewhere you can shine. It'll be hard, but you have the ambition that's necessary, so it better be—"
She already had a pretty good idea about who her classmates would be, likely the same people who shunned her company for years at balls and solstices. Unfortunately, for her, she was right. Crabbe. Greengrass. Goyle. Malfoy. Nott. Parkinson. She had a history with all of them, bar Tracey Davis, who was almost certainly a Half-blood outlier, and Blaise Zabini, who looked her up and down slowly before laughing loudly.
So there she was. Doomed to forever hate her housemates, while the rest of the school hated her for things she couldn’t control — “look at the Bulstrode girl, I know there are laws against people inbreeding, but perhaps trolls are exempt?” — and it was enough to make her want to explode, burst open in a violent, unladylike whirl of self, free from all the taunts and sneers and the pure, unadulterated rudeness of elementary aged kids.
Being an eleven-year-old girl was terrible. She knew that, as she couldn’t possibly avoid the fact when it was the biggest truth in her life, but she wouldn’t be eleven and helpless forever. One day she'd finally be brave and powerful and everything she dreamed of being when she let herself dream. One day she’d be more.
She just had to make it through the dredge of now to get there.
But what if Kylo was allergic to Millicent? And what if Millicent just wants love and scratches. Because I'm picturing Kylo being chased by tiny cat now.
