1868: Zelda Ophelia Fisk is born in Ottery St. Catchpole as the tenth and final Fisk child. Her parents agree that she must be the last, as any more than ten would just be too much. Her childhood is punctuated by the life changes (graduations, etc.) of several of her eldest siblings, few of which she is able to track at this age.
1873: Dory, Nemo, and Zelda get in trouble for going on 'an epic adventure.' What actually happens is that they all tried to ride a canoe they stole from the neighbor on the pond in town, and it capsized because small children should not captain vessels. Zelda demonstrates magic by relocating them all to shore in a blink of the eye. Boats are banned by Brannon from here on out.
1874: Katia finishes her schooling and marries in July. Zelda decides that she wants to be a pirate, only to be told that girls can't be pirates. (And that piracy is not at all a respectable occupation.) She throws a formidable fit, and Leonid pacifies her by having 'sword duels' with sticks in the yard for the rest of the summer.
1875: Zelda decides that if she can't be a pirate then she'll just have to be a knight. Her father decides that she needs to be better socialized with other girls, and Zelda is forced to socialize with the older twin neighbor muggle girls who she spends far too much time trying to scare. Eventually, she rebels by hiding in the family attic for five hours to avoid them, and Brannon decides that maybe he should find her some friends of a similar age instead. Zelda does not appreciate forced playdates with his coworker's daughters, either, but at least they can talk about Quidditch. In September, Dory goes to school, and Nemo and Zelda are quite bereft in his absence.
1877: Roslyn graduates and, a few months later, announces her engagement to a cheerful fellow. The pair marry in December. In a spiteful mood after the wedding for some reason or another, Zelda professes that she shall never marry - in a few years, she actually becomes serious about such words. Nemo goes to school. Zelda is not at all pleased about his abandoning her, and spends a great deal of her September sulking.
1879: Finally, Zelda goes to Hogwarts. She is sorted into Hufflepuff for her overwhelming sense of loyalty, and spends much of her first year working hard to become friends with a group of boys in her year and house. (No more groups of forced playdates for her, thank you very much!) She is quite thrilled when she is successful, and adores all of 'her boys' almost as much as she enjoys the rebellion that being friends with them is.
At first against her better judgement, she also befriends some of her roommates and yearmates. In June, Xena debuts, and announces her intention to marry up.
1880: Xena becomes engaged for the first time.
1881: Xena's engagement falls through for reasons Zelda does not entirely understand. She only gets that she is not supposed to talk about it and, for more or less the first time ever, she feels very terrible for her sister. But, to be honest, she is more concerned about her Bat Mitzvah, which falls only a few months after The Incident and is really very embarrassing for her.
Zelda selects Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Studies as her electives, because they are the least ladylike things that she can think of. Girls are banned from Quidditch in the Fall and she is filled with righteous fury.
1882: Dory finishes his schooling. Julian loses his leg in some sort of accident, and moves to Hogsmeade. Zelda visits him quite often.
1883: Zelda is, to her pleasure and no one's surprise, not named Prefect. Girls are allowed to play Quidditch again but Brannon will not let her, no matter how much she needles, nags, harasses, begs, or fights him.
1884: Early in the year, Delia convinces Brannon to move to Bartonburg. Zelda would be ecstatic about living closer to her friends, except the Plague strikes Hogsmeade that summer and Delia dies, leaving Zelda without a mother when she is at an age that she very much needs one.
Her lifeline, so to speak, becomes an internship in the office of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes on the recommendation of an older member of the department. This becomes a point of contention with her father, and especially in the aftermath of her mother's death Zelda realizes just how little her father understands her. Hers is a muted personality when she returns to Hogwarts for her sixth year, although she eventually regains most of her general 'pep.'
1885: Although she cannot participate in Quidditch as a player, Zelda becomes the commentator for the duration of her seventh year. Haha.
1886: Sees Xena kidnapped as part of some weird werewolf conspiracy, and Zelda is relieved when her sister turns up alright, although they have never entirely gotten along.
Later in the year Zelda graduates and joins the Magical Accidents and Catastrophes staff after a very mediocre showing at the Hogwarts Coming Out Ball. At the end of the year, she has her first run-in with Mr. Charlie Williams.
1887: Zelda meets Mr. Williams again at the casino for a work thing, and finds herself quite charmed by him. She further runs into him at balls she is forced to attend and has already fallen head-first into a crush when he saves her life at the World Market.
She is nearly in love with him then, and convinced that he likes her -- which makes the revelation she is forced to confront at the end of the summer even more disastrous. Mr. Williams is actually Xena's Mr. Williams; the former fiance who Zelda had not remembered, and he was mostly interested in Zelda as a vehicle for access to Xena.
Zelda is confused - and angry - and even more awkward around her sister and her father.
Also, her brother-in-law is elected as Minister. This elevates the Fisk family's profile significantly, and results in an almost unfortunate amount of event invites she cannot decline.
Toward the end of the year she meets Mr. J. Alfred Darrow, who is too awkward and famous to be fake, at least. Still, she wishes she wasn't forced to kiss him under the mistletoe. Yikes.
1888: Zelda finds herself with another crush, this time on Mr. Darrow. After a series of embarrassing overtures to express this that mostly resulted in rejection, she finds herself intoxicated on his boat at a party, and Alfred drunkenly takes her virginity.
Zelda would have very happily never told anyone about this, except that she's worried about being pregnant - she confesses everything to her brother Ari. Eventually it's settled that she's not pregnant - although since she was thrown down a street by a troll during the fog first, she's not entirely convinced she never was - and when Mr. Darrow comes back, they start trying to get to know each other a bit better. After being rumored to have been spotted near him in the museum, Zelda avoids him for a few months to keep Ari from being too furious with her.
Except then Ari announces that he's engaged to Zelda's friend Dionisia. Zelda is shocked and furious, and refuses to speak to either of them - and perhaps out of spite, begins speaking to Mr. Darrow again
1889: Stolen moments with Alfred continue until Alfred accidentally shows up at the Fisk home during Passover to ask about courting Zelda. Brannon summarily rejects this, and Zelda doesn't know what to do - she rejects an offer to elope, and eventually letters slow and stop, and when Alfred plans to go to India she assumes they're just done, then.
1890: An investigation of Pictish artifacts brings Zelda back to Alfred's ship. The artifact has cursed the boat and Alfred, and fear of his dying leads to several high-stakes emotional conversations. They admit to still having feelings, and Alfred agrees to stay in England.
Zelda eventually finds a way to come up with a way to stop the curse, and with a scheme to start courting. It's essentially a game of chicken: Zelda and Alfred will announce that they're courting, and hope her family get on board sooner or later.
It doesn't go well. Ari helps negotiate a deal where Zelda is allowed to court Alfred as long as they're heavily chaperoned, but while courting in public is better than nothing, she's chafing at the restrictions and frustrated by a lack of progress.
1891: Perhaps nervous that she'll have sex again, Ari agrees to help Zelda with getting the rest of the family on board. Xena is getting married in March.