Work Text:
20 December 1995
Angelina didn't speak much on the ride home from King's Cross. Either her dad didn't notice, or he'd learned from eighteen years of raising daughters not to ask. Instead, he valiantly carried on most of the conversation, asking her about classes, and N.E.W.T. preparation, and Quidditch—and gamely didn't protest when Angelina responded with mostly monosyllabic answers.
It wasn't until he'd parked his Volvo in the driveway of their black and white Cheshire cottage that Dad turned and fixed her with a serious look.
"You all right?" he asked quietly. "Not worried about spending Christmas with your mum, are you? I told you in August, you don't have to go if you don't want to."
"I'm not worried about that—honestly, Dad," she insisted, seeing the skeptical look on his face. "Besides, it's only for two days. I'll be back home before New Year's."
Dad's eyebrows furrowed. "Is something else on your mind, then?"
Angelina felt a pang of guilt at the lines of concern that had appeared around her Dad's eyes, and she hesitated for a moment. But then, she shook her head. "Everything's fine, Dad."
Dad looked disbelieving, but to Angelina's relief, he didn't press the matter. (She suspected he was leaving the conversation for her stepmum to pick up when she came home from work that evening.) And so, after putting the car in park, Dad heaved her trunk and owl cage from the back of the car and followed her up the winding brick pathway to the cottage's front door.
Angelina had barely cracked open the door before she was attacked by a blur of squealing voices, dark hair, and sequined Muggle frocks. Despite herself, she felt a broad grin spread across her face as she squeezed her arms around her little sisters.
"Did you bring us anything?" demanded seven-year-old Jamaya, wriggling impatiently in Angelina's embrace.
"She's coming home from school, Jay, not a holiday," Dad said from the doorframe, sounding amused. "What on Earth could she have brought you?"
"You said Hogwarts has suits of armors, right, Dad?" Jamaya asked brightly.
"Suits of armor that stay in the castle, yes."
"Angie said her friends tried to send their sister a Hogwarts toilet seat one time!"
Angelina snorted at the incredulous look on her dad's face. Shaking her head, she bent down and kissed the top of five-year-old Soriyah's head, then Jamaya's, before seizing her trunk from the front door and dragging it up the nearby staircase.
Then, at long last, she reached her bedroom, the only place in her father's house that had always been hers and hers alone, even through all the years of changes in their lives—from her dad's wedding to her stepmother when she was eight, to the births of her younger sisters in the years following. Closing the bedroom door behind her, Angelina released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
She looked around at the bright turquoise walls that she and her stepmum had painted together without magic—at the vibrant posters of American artwork that her step-grandparents had sent her from New Orleans, of Black American women with their long, thick hair adorned with gold and silver. Angelina still vividly remembered her birthday, eight years earlier, when she'd received the posters in the post. She'd stuck them all up on her walls immediately, bursting with admiration and pride.
And then, suddenly, Angelina caught sight of her own face in the vanity mirror above her desk—her long cornrow braids, threaded lightly with gold wire, painstakingly styled by her stepmum the previous summer as they'd laughed and chatted over glasses of cider and Witch Weekly quizzes. Hand trembling, she reached up and fingered the end of one of the braids.
Then, holding her breath against the pounding of her heart against her ribs, she drew her wand from her jeans pocket and pointed it at the end of the braid in her hand. With a flick of her wand, the braid loosened and unraveled, leaving the hair thick and unbridled. Angelina felt the corners of her eyes sting at the sight, but she swallowed back the guilt, reaching for another braid.
She worked in silence for several minutes, an ache forming in her throat at the sight of each braid unfolding, the golden threads landing in an unceremonious pile on her desk. She had nearly finished undoing all of the braids on the right side of her head when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway outside her room.
"Angie! Angie, baby, are you up here?"
Angelina's breath caught in her throat.
"I'm in my room!" she called, her voice sticking. "I'm getting dressed, Mama—I'll be down in just a—" she stopped short as the door to her room clicked open, and her stepmother appeared in the doorway, her sunny, warm face crinkled in a beaming smile. The smile slipped from her face as she took in Angelina's mass of half-unbraided hair.
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
Then— "I thought you were still at work," Angelina stammered.
Mama raised her eyebrows. "Hazel and I closed the salon early. We wanted to be there when you and Alicia got home."
The guilt in Angelina's chest swelled. She dropped her wand to her side. "Mama—"
"Sit down, Angie," Mama interrupted quietly, shutting the bedroom door behind her and pulling out her own wand. "You've been using the wrong spell—you're going to break your hair unbraiding it like that."
Angelina blinked at her stepmum, stunned. But then, slowly, she lowered herself into her desk chair and faced the vanity. Mama came up behind her, frowning down at the thick, loose curls on the right side of Angelina's head.
"You've done a pretty good job, overall," Mama said. "But—look here." Angelina glanced up at the mirror to see Mama lift up a hank of her unbraided hair that was oddly bent out of shape. "Textbook beauty spells don't work the same on our braids, Angie. It's why my mama invented her own."
Mama waved her wand at the twisted clump of hair in an intricate flourish, and with a soft whoosh, the hair rearranged itself into soft ringlets.
"I need to learn that one," Angelina said softly, wincing as her stepmother began tugging at the remaining braids with a metal tail comb. "I've always just used the same spells as Alicia."
Mama gave her a wry smile in the vanity.
"Those spells weren't made for our hair, baby girl."
Angelina stared down at her lap.
Mama hummed to herself as she set about unbraiding the cornrows on Angelina's left side. Her fingers deftly moved from braid to braid, unraveling them with an expertise that Angelina had never ceased to admire, ever since the summers she'd spent as a little girl tagging around her stepmum's heels at the hair salon in Diagon Alley where she worked.
Angelina had been going to Mrs. Spinnet's hair salon since before her dad and stepmum had gotten married. But ever since Mama had begun working there, when she'd moved from America to England ten years earlier, the number of Black witches and wizards who came to the salon had grown almost exponentially. The salon had rapidly gone from a small business to a massive, tightly-knit community.
"You've been taking care of your braids well," Mama told Angelina approvingly, as she reached for a new cornrow to uncoil. "Have you been using the hydration charm I taught you?"
"Every three weeks," Angelina said quietly. Then, swallowing, she continued, "Mama, I'm sorry for—I didn't mean to—I mean, I just—" she broke off, closing her eyes as she felt her stepmother's hands still in her hair. There was a small rustle of fabric; then, Angelina felt her stepmum's fingers on her chin, and she opened her eyes to see Mama standing in front of her now, gazing down at her with a very serious expression.
"Someone said something about your hair, didn't they?"
And suddenly, to her utter humiliation, Angelina felt tears sting her eyes.
"It wasn't even—I don't even think she meant it like that," she told her stepmother furiously, her voice coming out raw and harsh. "That—cow Pansy Parkinson is too stupid to come up with a proper insult, much less a—a racist one. I don't know why I let it get under my skin so much—it happened in September—"
"Oh, baby," Mama sighed, lifting Angelina's chin up so that she was forced to look her stepmother in the eye again. "Angie, it doesn't matter how she meant it. It only matters how it made you feel."
Angelina pressed her lips together tightly, turning her gaze back down to her lap.
"You know my parents are No-Maj-born," Mama continued, gently tucking a curl of Angelina's hair behind her ear. "They grew up together as neighbors, in a small town in Louisiana—and before they started at Ilvermorny, they went to No-Maj schools just like the rest of the children in their neighborhood. The stories my mama used to tell me…" Mama trailed off, a dark look crossing her face. "Those stories—they always made me feel so lucky to have grown up in the safety of the Wizarding world. As a child, I used to think racism was a No-Maj problem—that I was protected from it all, being magical." She looked at Angelina, her mouth set in a thin line. "But that's not how the world works."
Angelina gazed up at her stepmother, feeling a knot of guilt twisting in the pit of her stomach. It was shameful to admit, but it was exactly how she'd always felt—a horrible, guilt-ridden relief that her blood status in the Wizarding world protected her, despite the color of her skin.
"We're Black, baby. Witches or not," Mama said, smiling softly. "And to pretend that doesn't matter is an injustice to our brothers and sisters, No-Maj and otherwise. Our hair…" She drew her own mass of thick, dark braids over her shoulder, and the golden threads glimmered in the light from the lamp above the vanity. "Our hair is power, Angie, it's our history. It tells the world who we are. Being proud of our hair is a right that so many fought for before us, and continue to fight for every day—and it's why we can never let anyone make us feel ashamed for it."
The knot of guilt in Angelina's stomach melted into something warmer—something that filled her chest and throat in a rush. "I'm not ashamed of it."
"You never were," Mama said, beaming. "And look what's come of it—your confidence has shown your sisters to never be ashamed either."
Angelina thought of her little sisters downstairs, and she felt a fierce wave of affection well up inside her. Jaw set, she reached out and squeezed her stepmother's hand. Mama squeezed back.
"You've always been my brave girl," Mama said, stroking the back of Angelina's hand. "I knew it the moment I met you." She looked over Angelina's shoulder, at the beautiful American posters that lined the bedroom's back wall, and smiled. "And I know that one day, little Black witches all over the country are going to have posters just like those in their rooms, with your gorgeous face all over them."
Angelina snorted. "Mama."
"What?" Mama asked, eyes gleaming. "Just because you haven't told anyone about that Ballycastle scout, doesn't mean your dad and I haven't figured it out."
Angelina gaped at her stepmum. "How did you—?"
"I work at a hair salon, Angie," Mama interrupted, rolling her eyes. "People tell me things."
Angelina laughed.