In the end can they just pretend?
Ronald Weasley had hit rock bottom, his life as he knew it was over. He had lost everything. Well not everything, but it felt like the life he had imagined for himself was over. And his family wasn't helping him. Th...
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Claudia found herself staring at the calendar upon her home office wall. The calendar she used religiously to mark out all plans, all occasions, all events. And as her eyes searched the month worth of dates she struggled to find the one thing she had become so paranoid about. For the small little red dots she had used for years now to mark the dates of which her period fell were missing. Initially, she had thought perhaps she had not put this months on. She had done so once before when she was a teenager prompting her to panic for about three days before realising she was just running a little late. But her intuition told her otherwise. And therefore, she flicked back to the month before noting that she had marked it the month prior. And so she began to count.
"Oh shit." 43 days had passed. Just over six weeks and she felt an ice like feeling spread down her. Her fingertips were icy cold, her mind felt numb and she felt a sudden panic. Perhaps she was being just a little bit paranoid, but her brain was trying to convince her otherwise. And she believed it.
In that moment there was only one thing Claudia wanted, her mum. And therefore, she quickly moved to grab a pair of shoes and a coat before heading towards her fireplace. Making the quickest and safest form of travel she could think of in that moment, heading back to her childhood home. Vida Parkinson was sat in the drawing room of which the family fireplace was located upon Claudia's arrival. The older woman focused upon a jigsaw puzzle scrambling to complete the middle section. The woman continued to look as elegant as Claudia had ever seen her mother, something she was unsure she could ever truly replicate. Especially considering the way she looked upon waking up after a night out on the town. But then she supposed that those would be reducing in number significantly over the upcoming months.
Vida turned at the sound of the fireplace activating, aware that there was no plans for visitors. Otherwise she was unsure she would be sat in the drawing room and not setting things up in preparation. She took one look at her youngest daughter before immediately catching that something was very much wrong. Wrong enough to cause her to appear without letting either of her parents know. That was very much out of character for her youngest. Therefore, Vida rose from her chair moving to greet Claudia to bring the younger witch into her arms and see just if she could help move the issue away from her.
"Hi Sweetie." Vida greeted waiting for a response.
"Hi Mummy." And with Claudia's tone she had confirmed that there was indeed something troubling the younger girl.
"Come take a seat and we can talk through what is distressing you." Vida took Claudia's hand moving her back towards the table she had just been sat upon allowing her to take the seat beside her mother. Knowing that the close comfort was something which was going to be needed. Claudia did indeed take the seat but she was not letting go of her mothers hand and that was when she knew something was up for sure. Pansy was always the slightly more clingy child and Claudia the more dependent. "Take your time though Claudie you don't have to rush around me."
"You and dad are going to be so disappointed in me." Claudia spoke knowing the way the traditional pureblood families worked, she had seen many disowned for what she believed was happening to her. And she knew she would break if it happened to her.
"Nothing you ever do will cause us to be disappointed in you. Your father and I will always love and support you through everything." Vida tried to push some more confidence into her youngest child but she was unsure what benefit this was going to have.
"But mum you don't get it, I've gone against everything a pureblood should do."
"It's the time for a change sweetheart. I promise no judgement here." Vida continued to try and give Claudia the support she needed.
"Mum I think I'm pregnant." Claudia mumbled but it was loud enough that Vida could hear her clearly. Her initial response was to pause for a moment as she tried to formulate a response, but she knew she would support her daughter through this.
"Okay Claudia, we need a test to confirm and then we can have a chat about what you want to do. Everything will be okay, you'll always have me." With Vida's words Claudia felt tears gather as the situation really started to kick in, she wasn't sure what she even wanted to do regardless of any test results.
The time it took for the test results to come back definitively felt longer than the three minutes it supposedly thought. And as Claudia looked down at the incredibly faint set of lines she knew the answer. It was faint like almost invisible faint but she knew that it meant positive. Claudia had fucked up. And as her mother came in to check on things all it took was one look at her daughters face to know the answer of the test.
"Claudia its okay, you don't have to make any decisions just yet. We can work things out together."
"How do I even tell Ron?" Claudia questioned the universe rather than her mother, not knowing how this would go down.
"I don't know baby but you'll have to tell him eventually. I'm sure he'll support you no matter what decision you make." Vida responded anyways but her words were of little soothing to Claudia, especially considering just how little her mother truly knew about the relationship between the pair. How would her mother even react to knowing there wasn't even an actual real relationship and it was all fake.
"I don't know mum, there's something you don't know about our relationship." Claudia realised in this moment it was time to tell her mother everything. From the fake relationship onwards she was finally going to spill the beans. And let her family down even further. But she supposed she might as well be the biggest disappointment possible. Get it all done and out of the way.
"You can tell me anything." Vida knew that Claudia would eventually tell her but she could see whatever this was, it was troubling. Therefore, she moved them back to the sitting room and to the chair they had once been sat on waiting for her daughter to finally come up with the words she wanted to use.
"Mum, the relationship between Ronald and I, well it's not exactly convenient." Claudia started "not convenient for this anyways, we started off as more of a mutual benefit thing like both of us needed a date for something so we just starting playing the part." If Claudia could paint a picture of her mothers expression at these words, she was sure it would be expressive enough to be placed in a museum.
"Oh Claudia, what have you gotten yourself into?"
"I have no clue mum, I think I love him but for all I know this could be a complete lie on his side." Claudia placed her head in her hands, admitting her deep feelings aloud was one thing, doing it in front of her mother who she had just broke some pretty significant news too well that just complicated something already so complicated.
"We'll get through this, no matter what you choose to do, we'll get through it."
