December 1869
| Rosalie is born. |
1872
| Delphine is born, completing this branch of the Hunniford family. At nearly three years old, Rosie is delighted to have another sibling to harass and is just as quickly disappointed to learn that it’ll be years before Delphine (Delly as she’s soon renamed) can play. |
1873 — 1879 | Her childhood is that of a typical child’s. It’s spend playing with her siblings and the neighbor’s children in various gardens, parks and her grandmother’s country house. They’re a close knit family, one that sometimes seems too happy for the rest of society. Rosie even surprises her family one Christmas with her first burst of magic: a snow flurry in the parlor provoked by the delight of watching a snowglobe. What, if anything, could ever go wrong? |
1880 | A year without seeing their son is apparently too much for her mother and father to handle, and so the Hunnifords move to Hogsmeade in the Spring. Rosie doesn’t mind the move so much as there are far more children about to interact with and it supposedly snows there in the winter than it does in the south. Plus, she gets to see her brother more often, so how terrible can Hogsmeade truly be? |
1881 — 1885 | Her Hogwarts’ career is uneventful. She does well enough in her classes and makes friends with her peers. In her third year she adds on Ancient Studies and Ancient Runes, as she rather enjoyed learning about the cultures long lost to the sands of time. And, sometimes, she dreams of running away to be a cursebreaker (not that she ever would as the very mention of it would surely send her mother into some panic induced episode). |
1886 | Ambrose’s death is swift and sudden. A frightened horse on one of their morning rides sees him flying in midair and landing upon an unfortunately placed rock. Those who attend to him (for Rosie has frozen in place as soon as help arrived, her fear turning her blood to ice) say he was dead within seconds of landing. It’s a blessing, perhaps, that he didn’t suffer. It’s a tragedy for a man who had his entire future ahead of him.
Rosie never rides her mare again. She cannot stomach the thought of approaching the stables she once loved. She will never forgive herself for not seeing the snake in the grass sooner. |
1887 | She is selfishly relieved for her seventh year to begin, for it means an escape from the darkness that’s taken over her house. Ambrose’s death is felt in every corner and crevice of the house. She buries herself in her classes and busies herself with her friends. The distractions help, but not enough to rid her entirely of the nightmares. By November she’s been prescribed dreamless sleep potions to keep from waking her dorm mates with her screaming. |
1888 | Despite it feeling inherently wrong to do so, Rosalie debuts as expected amongst her peers. She goes through the motions of the debutante life — dancing when asked, attending events when invited, everything. Her mother uses a pepper up potion before every instance of chaperoning. Her father attends only when her mother demands him to. Grief has stolen the light out of the Hunniford’s life, and Rosalie feels as though it’ll never return. Still, she soldiers on as Ambrose would’ve expected her to do. Time will heal these wounds in time, or so she hopes. |
1889 | Mr. [Graham] is introduced to her through a family friend and, for Rosalie, it’s love at first sight. He’s tall, handsome and charming. He has a respectable career already with a clear path defined before him, he’s everything a debutante ought to want in a husband. They’re courting by early summer and engaged by autumn. It’s the best summer of Rosalie’s life — a light after a very dark and winding tunnel. Loving him is the easiest thing she’s ever done. Nothing can detract from her happiness that winter, not a single blessed thing. |
1890 | On the evening following her final wedding dress fitting, Rosie is invited to a dinner party at the [Graham’s] home. She’s delighted to attend, of course, and the family is abuzz with discussing the wedding and happy future that is to come. Or, they were until the party moved from the table to the parlor and Mr. [Graham] and she are afforded the space to chat quietly amongst themselves.
It’s then that he whispers about his elder brother who died in infancy, and his uncle who died as a toddler, and on and on it goes. It’s then he reveals the terrible blood curse attached to his family — one that kills the firstborn son before they’re out of the nursery. Rosalie is suddenly unable to think beyond the roaring in her ears. A son — their son — would die. Perhaps if she hadn’t watched her mother go through the motions of grief Rosalie might’ve been more willing to continue the conversation. Perhaps if she hadn’t watched her brother’s coffin be lowered into the ground she might’ve been able to tolerate the thought of losing a child. However, all she can see in that moment is her parents’ undying grief — a fire extinguished never to return.
She reacts poorly — how could she do anything but?. She slaps him and throws the ring at him with some line about his terrible timing and flees. It takes days for her parents to understand her reasoning through her sobs and weeks to cancel all the wedding plans. She moves to her aunt’s in London on what would’ve been her wedding day and starts an internship at the hospital that summer. It’s a different life than the one she envisioned for herself and a rather miserable one at that, but it’s something to cling to at least. Something that’s wholly different and unattached to the dreams she stormed away from. Still, Rosalie vows that summer to never fall in love again. |
1891 | Hhuer internship ends and she ultimately decides to follow her passion of herbology into Plants and Potions Poisoning healing. There was a debate for a time of whether or not she’d go into Ancient Runes instead, for she believes this to be her best chance remedying blood curses, but Rosie realizes at the last minute that she would be choosing that for Mr. [Graham] and not herself. And, as challenging as it might be, Rosalie had to put the mess of their love behind her. After all, their future died the day he revealed their firstborn child would perish too. |
1893
| The summer brings about another change, this time in the form of a promotion to a healer. Rosalie is exceedingly proud of her achievements and determines this to be an even greater path than that of a wife and mother. It was a difficult transition to make, and an even harder dream to walk away from, but she’s found that she’s grateful for the engagement ending. (If it’s left a chip on her shoulder, she’s never acknowledged or addressed it.) |