Chapter Text
“All right, all right, that's what I'm talking about! Now, everyone give it up for the maid of honour, Pansy Parkinson!” a man yelled from the music corner. A young girl stands up from the long table full of the wedding party. The young girl was barely 16 years old. She had black hair, brown eyes and she was wearing an elegant green bridesmaid dress. The girl held up her glass that was full of apple juice and started her toast “A toast to the groom! To the bride from your sister who is always by your side to your union and the hope that you provide an heir. May you always be satisfied”. Pansy Parkinson continued the toast but the 18 year old bride was no longer listening. The bride, with shoulder length black hair, was sitting in the middle of the long table staring into nothing. The bride didn’t want to be there and mentally the bride wasn’t there. Mentally the bride was reliving her whole life. Every bit of her life that got her stuck in this horrible situation. The situation she never wanted to be a part of. The situation that kept her from the love of her life.
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Lord and Lady Parksion tried for years to have a male hair or even an heir of any gender. They have been trying since the day they married. Over the years, the couple had had many miscarriages. They had never carried a child to term. This causes many rips to form in the relationship between the Lord and Lady. Their marriage was created on the grounds that an heir would be born for the two families. Without this heir being born, the families were splitting. The two families were close to going to war with each other. But then in 1978, the miracle happened. A child was born.
On the 2nd april 1978, Lady Parkinson gave birth to a beautiful bold baby girl. They named the child River Parkinson. Despite the fact that they now had a failsafe heir, Lord and Lady Parkinson weren’t happy. They weren’t going to be happy until they had a male heir. So the couple kept trying. They kept trying for a male heir. But instead they gained another daughter. In 1980, Lady Parkinson gave birth to another female. She came out with thick black hair. Keeping up with the nature theme, they named this new baby Pansy Parkinson. But Lord and Lady Parkinson still weren't happy. They didn’t have a son. So they handed the two girls off to a house elf to raise and carried on trying to make a male heir.
River and Pansy were raised by those house elves for 5 years for Pansy and for 7 years for River. They never knew their parents for those years. They never even met them or heard about them. Their parents were too busy trying to get a male hair. These house elves were all the sisters knew. For those years, the sisters became best friends. Their personalities started to sign through, more in River than in Pansy. River slowly became a sneaky prankster, who acted out. River became a child who wouldn’t stay quiet or still unless she was doing something bad.
However this all changed in 1985.
On the morning of River's 7th birthday, the house elf in charge of the nursery, Nyssa, forced the children into posh matching green dresses that were tied together by a silver ribbon. River absolutely hated it. She hated dresses of all kinds. But Nyssa wouldn't let her change. Nyssa also wouldn't answer any questions River had. Instead she just took the two children to the ballroom and left them there. In the ballroom stood two adults. They were Lord and Lady Parkinson. The two adults walked over to the girls, judging them while also whispering to themselves.
“This one's posture will need to be fixed”
“Yes I agree. I believe everything about the older one will need to be fixed”
“Yes. That is correct. From what I heard, she is a misbehaviour”
“we will just have to train that out of her”
“Now the younger one shows great promise.”
“Yes I can tell. She holds herself correctly. Though she is showing fear. That will have to be trained out of her”
“That is correct. The younger one will be easier to train. The young minds are easier to model. Buy the older one…. Now that will be hard”
“We will just have to find a way to motivate her”
River had enough of their whispering. She didn't want to hear it anymore so with all the might her little 7 year old body could hold she spoke out “who are you oldies to judge us? We don't even know you” . Lord and Lady Parkinson looked at the 7 year old in shock before quickly composing themselves as Lord Parkinson spoke “you dare speak to us without permission? That house elf isn't raising you right. NYSSA!”
Suddenly Nyssa appeared in front of Lord Parkinson, kneeling. “You haven't raised our heiress right. She doesn't know the rules of being a pureblood lady. She speaks when she is not meant to. We will have to re-train her on everything. You failed your job, Nyssa. For that you will need to be punished. Do you understand Nyssa?” Nyssa nods “yes Master”. Lord Parkinson, being a man of his word, did as he said he would. He punished the house elf right then and then, in front of the two girls. He punished the elf with the Cruciatus cruce. Once he was done he sent the house elf away. He then looked up at the girls to find Pansy crying and River being held back from attacking Lord Parkinson with a spell from Lady Parkinson. “If you ever misbehave or do anything to tarnish our reputation, you will receive the same fate as that stupid house elf. Now girls, it has come to our attention that we will not be able to have a male heir. River, you will become the heiress of Parkinson now. But before we can show our heiress off or find you both suitable betrothed to gain us powerful connections and heirs, we will need to train you. Your training starts early tomorrow. Now get out of my sight”. And with that the girls rushed back to their nursery.
Just like Lord Parkinson had announced, the training started the next day. The training was horrible. The training consisted of:
~ lessons on History of Magic
~ lessons on The sacred 28
~ lessons on The Parkinson bloodline
~ lessons on dark magic
~ lessons on magic as a whole.
~ Lessons on powerful connections
~ lessons on clothing
~ lessons of dancing
~ lessons on Magic as a whole
~ Lessons about the wizarding wars
~ manners training
~ etiquette training
~ elliegance training
~ cutlery training
~ communication training
~ posture training
~ pureblood mask training
~ Sewing lessons
~ dressmaking lessons
~ lessons on the history of muggles and mudbloods
~ lessons on how to be the lady of the house.
~ lessons on how to get what you want without tarnishing the reputation.
River hated the training. She hated it all. She hated the way she was being taught to act. She hated the way she had to dress. She hated it all. She wanted to be free, having fun, doing what she wanted to do. But she couldn't because she was the Heiress of Parkinson. The only things stopping her from acting out each lesson were 1) the lingering pain she had from the first 5 punishments in the first day of training and 2) she didn't want her sister to get hurt even though her sister was the perfect daughter they wanted.
As well as all this training, when River was 8 Lord and Lady Parkinson started taking her places to network. So she would be ‘friends’ with other pureblood children in the sacred 28. River hated it. Especially when she had to go to the Malfoy house. Celestia Malfoy was the worst.
For 4 years between her 7th birthday and her 11th birthday, River had to put up with all this. But then in the July after her 11th birthday, River receives what she thought would be her ticket out of being the perfect pureblood heiress.
She received her Hogwarts letter.