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Margaret Wallace · October 17, 2024 – 10:08 PM

October 12th, 1894 - East Ridge Farm

Margaret sat next to her cousin, her ministry allocated legal guardian, surrounded once again by muggles and she finally felt safe after the last month in Hogwarts. Y'seult had pulled her out for a couple of days on the grounds of a family emergency, except in fact the emergency was Margaret herself. The young girl had been spiralling and she needed a break before she eventually hit the bottom. Her cousin had taken good care of her, she had had a bath in her own time, slept in a bed that was her own and her hair was in the prettiest braids. Noone from school would likely even recognise the little girl in a pretty grey dress with a flower in her hair.

She sat, eating a sweetened apple on a stick. She was still nervous and didnt quite know how to feel about her moment of freedom when she spotted someone familiar, Charley Goode was across the farm up to... something. Maggie's lips curled into a little smile, she liked Charley, she was a witch like all the other kids at school, but she was mostly just a child like her.

She asked her cousin if she could go and play then dropped onto the rough straw covered dirt. She quickly crossed the ground and crept up behind her friend. "Oi! What are you upto?" she said with feigned force, trying to make the little miscreant jump.

Charley Goode

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Charley Goode · November 12, 2024 – 5:23 AM

Walking right out of town to the fields of the Plunkett's farm was as much of a treat as the scent of the autumn air. Maybe the big farmer wouldn't sell her his even bigger pumpkins anymore, but she could at least come to marvel at them. One was as big as a house this year, standing guard over the festivities. It tickled the urchin's fancy, whispering the life of a fairy tale that Hogsmeade had never lived up to.

Charley could have stayed for hours at the comedy troupe performing on the farm, laughing herself sick. To be up on stage with them, riffing off jokes and the audience, now that would be her fairy tale. Let the rest of the town have their magic, the theatre was hers. She could only break away when her stomach demanded, making her pass the apple bobbing for a place serving food that took far less effort to obtain.

The line was too long, like always at festivals of these sort. Charley had no family tent to return to, though it didn't mean she couldn't graze from other plates like she had then. If festivals drew any crowds, it was those most untidy and forgetful, and all to her advantage. The urchin strode past several empty seating areas, picking up a piece of cheese and brushing the ants off half a sandwich left behind from a picnic.

Her mouth was full when the little troublemaker shouted behind her, making the urchin whirl to face her accuser. Mouth full, she raised her sandwich-fisted hand ready for a punch, or a toss to buy herself a few seconds head start, only to find Maggie standing there instead. Charley belted out a short laugh, forgetting about food in her mouth and the ache in her belly.

"Eatin', couldn't say no to a full belly," she explained, then spotted the stick-mounted apple in the little girl's hand. Even full of sandwich, her mouth watered at the sight of the treat. Fairy tale or not, those apples were the prize of the day. Charley held out the remainder of the cheese to the girl, swallowing quickly before she asked, "Oi, trade ya for a bite?"

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Margaret Wallace · November 21, 2024 – 11:37 AM

Maggie was pleased to see her friend and she eyed up what she had in her hand curiously before realising it was a half-eaten lump of cheese from one of the farm stalls. "I'll pass on the cheese thank you, but you can still have a bite." She held out the stick for Charley to take for a moment.

"I'm supposed to be in school but my cousin thought I needed a little break... it's horrible there Charley." she said with a slightly forlorn look on her face. "It's nothing but witches and wizards and then me stuck in the middle having no idea how to cope." She let out a long sigh before grabbing her friend for a hug. Their miscreant games had made Charley feel like a proper friend who understood her better than anyone, but right now the little eleven-year-old girl could have hugged a cactus if she thought it would hug her back.

After letting go and retrieving her sweet treat she looked at Charley with a that's better grin on her face. "Have you done any of the games yet? There is a children's sack race about to start, and after that a three-legged race?" She looked excited to do something a bit silly and muggle-like. Sometimes it was kind of good to be invisible at school as no one seemed to have noticed her here today. She had been signed out legitimately, but she didn't need some bully to spoil her recuperation day before she returned to that bastille on the hill.

Charley Goode

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Charley Goode · December 12, 2024 – 6:32 AM

Charley couldn't say no to a bite of something good, particularly what someone else had paid for. She made sure to take a big bite of the apple, Maggie was small enough for the whole thing anyway. The candied layer was like heaven, much better than her sandwich and cheese. Oh well, food was food, and the urchin wasn't about to turn up her nose at what she could eat without paying for.

"Aye, Hogwarts was a bit of a dreary place," she agreed with Maggie. Not that the urchin wouldn't give up everything to go back someday. Only that was someday and this was now, where her friend of a little girl was sick of the one place she would rather be. Which meant Charley wasn't about to tell her otherwise. It wasn't up to her, really, she was no grown-up bent on ruining a child's day. "Ya didn't find the—"

Whatever Charley had to ask her little friend was snuffed out under the same attack as her midsection. For a second, her arms remained poised above Maggie's head, dug deep into her chest. And then, with a little shrug, she let them fall onto the girl's back and shoulders to return the hug. It felt nice, hugging a friend again. It wasn't much of a recent memory of hers, either, so this was about time to make a new one.

"Oh, I en't the typical sort for those games," Charley said, thinking idly of who might want to join in with her anyhow. Besides, with everyone's attention on the games, she could make plenty of her own fun. The little girl looked about ready to burst if she said no, though, so the urchin threw up her arms again, "Aww, fine! Don't be turnin' the tap on me. Where we goin'? Jes don't be tying me up to Fletcher or none of the boys, can't stand their hairy legs touching mine."

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Margaret Wallace · December 18, 2024 – 8:24 AM

Margaret giggled at Charley's fear of the hairier leg, why did older boys have so much hair? It really was a curiosity, she remembered seeing some on one of the gentlemen she helped serve breakfast to once, she assumed he must simply be part monkey.

"Well I don't know who Fletcher is so you'll have to settle for being tied to little me!" She laughed as she grabbed Charley's hand and pulled her along with a surprising strength given to her by her eagerness to do something fun. Rows of people were already getting tied up, she saw another girl even smaller than her being tied to a man twice her height that she could only assume was her father by their similar look. "They're going to fall over I'll bet." She pointed at the mismatched pair to Charley's mirth.

"Alright, last spot on the end gells" said one of the farmers as he bent down and hitched a rope just below Maggie's hemline and then around Charley's calf binding the friends together. Maggie looked over and caught the eyes of the little girl with her father who looked right back at her as if issuing a challenge. Margaret pointed at her own eyes and then back at the girl before giggling at the playful threat. The other child giggled back too before clamping hard onto her father's towering leg. So that was her game, he would let him carry her to victory.

"Think we can win?"

They would find out soon enough.

"On yur marks, get set, gurrrr!"

Charley Goode

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Charley Goode · January 25, 2025 – 6:31 AM

Charley bit back a laugh at the news, chewing the last morsels so she wouldn't choke on them in spectacular fashion. Which was more than she could say for Jimmy Fletcher, he must have lost his notorious edge in Hogwarts if first years were no longer spreading warnings about him. Her vindication was shorter lived than she would have liked, Maggie was quick to yank the urchin off her feet in the direction of the races.

"An' that pair's not even lookin' to win!" Charley added to the little girl's commentary, tossing her thumb over to the young couple who were demonstrating the telltale signs of courtship. She looked aside when the man leaned in and the girl laughed, letting Maggie see the full force of her rolling eyes. She pursed her lips in a mock set of kisses, making just enough noise for her partner, tied and leglocked together now, to hear.

The urchin flexed her ankle a bit, chafing at the rough bindings on her skin. It wasn't the nicest way to run a race, there should have been a spell or something that even a farmer could manage. When Maggie leaned out to make some gesture at the father and daughter pair, Charley pinched her sleeve and pulled it so they were lined up. "Keep yer wits there, Maggie. Gotta focus to get the win, eh?"

She set her free foot out in front, coiled slightly like a rabbit ready to run. Charley's nose twitched, like she could sniff the right moment to launch, and stuck her foot out the second the farmer called out the start. Then she was off, flinging her weight behind their combined feet to start them off, and giggling when Maggie was just a moment too slow to react.

The urchin threw an arm around the girl's shoulder to keep her upright. Maggie was her path to winning, she wasn't about to let any stumble keep them back. "No toppling on me," Charley warned a bit sternly to the girl, and then threw a laugh into the breeze of their own making, "an 'we're the fastest three-legged hare in these parts!"

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Margaret Wallace · January 30, 2025 – 11:55 AM

Maggie laughed a little too loud when Charley made the kissing gestures in the air between them as she saw the all too amorous couple. "That looks gross, why do grown-ups enjoy it?" She placed her hands over her mouth to stifle herself in case she was caught observing them, not that they seemed to care. She reached down and adjusted the rope around her leg, pulling her socks up as high as she could to reduce the amount of chafing.

The race began about half a second earlier than Maggie anticipated and the stronger girl almost flipped her over backwards before she caught her from behind with her arm and the charged forward like girls possessed. Charley's legs were a little longer than hers so the gait was natural enough to make the youngster feel funny. She began to giggle as Charley followed her commands with a fun laugh. She couldn't remember a time when she had giggled so much and it carried her all the way through the short distance it took to cross the line where the two girls finally collapsed as the balance they had somehow borrowed from Merlin expired.

As they hit the ground, she could completely forget that she was only here because the alternative was imprisonment in that place across the lake. "That was so much fun... did we win?" She lifted her head up past her friend to look over at the rest of the party. The little girl was in tears because daddy didn't make them win, the amorous couple had finished and wandered off oblivious. She looked at the other pairs and nobody seemed to have declared themselves winners yet so maybe it was them? The prize was a pair of chocolate rosettes that Maggie would certainly enjoy getting her hands on.

Charley Goode

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