A wave of disappointment had washed over her as Desdemona realized the mewling, wrinkly, pink thing in her arms was female. It was not that the new mother would have preferred a son in the traditional sense—neither she nor her husband, after all, had ever been considered traditional. The disappointment was not for the child she now held in this moment, but for the woman that infant would someday become. In her mind’s eye, Dezzie already saw with clarity the revolving wheel of fate and what it held in store for the new babe: awkward youth, a quidditch career, and the wrenching away of the sport she so loved as her body was commandeered instead for childbirth, for motherhood. The hormones that coursed through her would not allow her to begrudge her daughter—at least not for now—anything, but they could not blind her to the difficult road the child had in store.

(Assuming she grew to like quidditch. Frankly, given her parents, it would be more difficult if she didn’t like quidditch.)

Idly, she caressed the thin patch of dark hair that had accompanied the baby out of her womb. Did it genuinely have to be that way, or had Dezzie’s own choices led to the necessary sacrifices? Perhaps, given time to bond with the child—who seemed impossibly small, impossibly fragile, and already quite decidedly possessed her father’s nose—she would grow to see it not as an unfortunate turn of events but a small setback on the road to true and lasting bliss.

(She wrinkled her nose at that thought, for optimism had never come naturally to her, and today would be no exception.)

Desdemona Pettigrew was resolved: she would not let her bitterness at the loss of her career infect her relationship with her daughter. If anything, Dezzie thought, it would strengthen her determination to smooth the path for the child she had brought into the world. The witch doubted immensely that she would ever be better than “passable” where mothering was concerned, but she did quite like to win. What could be a greater prize than a better future for her child?