#for the record I do actually see bobbie mathis having reformed himself in his adult years

[carewyncromwell]

“When we grow up, will I be a lady? Will you be an engineer? Will I have to wear things like perfume and gloves? I can still pull the whistle while you steer. Well, I don't care if I'm pretty at all, And I don't care if you never get tall... I like what I look like, and you're nice small -- We don't have to change at all...”

~“When We Grow Up” by Diana Ross

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inspired in part by this absolutely precious Youtube video, because honestly that articulate little metal princess is baby!Carewyn in a nutshell 😂💚 // more information on Carewyn’s childhood bully Bobbie Mathis can be found here

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It was always a joy, whenever Jacob Cromwell returned home during any holiday break. As much as Jacob loved learning at Hogwarts and as much as he was determined to use all of his time at school to his advantage so he and his friends could deal with the Cursed Vaults, he still couldn’t contain the flood of relieved, exuberant emotions that came from being reunited with his mother Lane and his little sister Carewyn. And considering that the last time he’d come home for winter break, Carewyn had managed to charm the driver of the Knight Bus enough that he actually took her to the train station to meet him and then drove them home free of charge, Jacob was so looking forward to surprising his little sister just as much in return when he came home with a chocolate Easter Egg full of salted caramel he’d picked up at Honeydukes especially for her. 

One can imagine, therefore, that Jacob's enthusiasm was tempered significantly, seeing several fresh-looking bruises on his little sister’s pale, but smiling face. 

They didn’t hurt, Carewyn had reassured both Lane and Jacob with her bravest attempt at a smile. Everyone had been playing a game of kickball at recess that day, and she hadn’t been paying attention. The nurse said she’d be fine, though. Jacob could tell Lane didn’t entirely believe this, but true to form, she was reluctant to force her children to tell her anything they didn’t want to. 

Jacob, however, knew for a fact his little sister was lying, and he wasn’t going to keep quiet about it. So that evening, while Lane cleaned up the dishes, Jacob took the opportunity to confront the matter while tucking his nearly-eight-year-old sister into bed.

“Pip,” he said lowly, looking Carewyn straight-on in the eye. “Where did you get those bruises?”

Carewyn blinked twice. Then, her smile fading from her face at once, she looked down at her blankets, visibly uncomfortable.

“...From playing kickball,” she said again, much more quietly. 

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. “Come off it, Pip -- I know those didn’t come from any kickball. Bruises don’t come in clusters like that unless someone’s purposefully hitting the same spot multiple times.”

He knew that full well, after all the times he’d gotten into fights, back when he was in Muggle primary school. 

Carewyn didn’t answer. Her small hands clutched at her blankets in front of her.

Her posture made Jacob’s expression melt a bit, gaining a gentler, more concerned glint.

“Come on, Pip,” he coaxed her, “you know you can tell me. You can tell me anything.”

Carewyn was quiet for another long moment. She brought her knees up in front of her, hugging them tightly under the covers. 

"...You won’t tell Mum?” she asked at last. 

Jacob tilted his head to the left, confused. “Not if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t.”

Carewyn’s blue eyes grew a little smaller and more miserable. 

“...I...I know Mum was upset...seeing how my face looked. I don’t want to upset her anymore.”

Jacob’s eyes -- the same shape and size as his sister’s -- gained a more empathetic look. 

Although yes, Lane had always been unilaterally supportive of her children, both Jacob and Carewyn had still always felt a sense of protectiveness over her. They knew how hard she worked to try to keep them afloat financially all on her own...and with how uncomfortable she often was dealing with other people, there’d been more than a few times when Jacob had decided to deal with problems on his own rather than go to Lane asking for help.

“I won’t tell Mum a thing,” Jacob murmured. “I promise.”

The promise should’ve reassured Carewyn -- and yet even now, she seemed unable to look her brother in the face. She rested her head on top of her knees, her gaze locked on the far corner of her bed instead. 

“...I...I hurt somebody,” she admitted softly. 

Jacob cocked his eyebrows. “If it was the somebody who hurt you, I’d say they probably had it coming.”

Carewyn shook her head, clearly upset. “No! I mean, yes, it was -- but it was my fault! I hurt him! I...”

Her eyes overflowed with tears.

“...I was awful. I lost my temper, and...and I hurt him. I was terrible, to him.”

Jacob’s expression softened further, gaining the slightest hint of a sad smile as he brought a hand up to rest on the top of Carewyn’s ginger head. 

“Hey...it’s okay,” he said softly, as Carewyn began to cry. “We all lose our heads sometimes. I’ve done it a bit more than ‘sometimes’...”

He brought his hand through her short pixie cut gently, to try to comfort her.

“You know I won’t care about that, don’t you? You’re my little sister. No matter what you did to that bloke, I don’t care. I know you didn’t mean to hurt him...”

This sentiment only served to make Carewyn look more upset. She shut her eyes tight and shook her head harder. 

“But I did hurt him!” she burst out through her still rushing tears. “I know I did! That’s why he hit me -- because I said those awful things!”

Jacob’s eyebrows furrowed. 

“Who?” he demanded. 

“Bobbie Mathis,” sniffed Carewyn. “I -- I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, at first -- I just wanted him to leave me alone! I was already running late, and -- and if I didn’t get home soon, I wouldn’t get there in time...”

“Before I got home,” Jacob surmised. His lips had drawn more tightly together.

Carewyn was crying harder than ever as she nodded, clutching her knees.

“But -- but Bobbie just wouldn’t let go! And his friends were all laughing, and he kept calling me names, and making fun of my clothes, and calling me a freak, and -- I just wanted to run away! That’s all! But -- but I was just so mad, and sad, and...and he’d ripped my dress in front of all of his friends, and I was so embarrassed -- ”

Jacob felt like his vision was being overtaken with red as he took in all of this.

“He did what?”

His eyes shot around Carewyn’s room. After surveying the space critically, he zeroed in on a slightly open drawer of her dresser drawer. He strode across the room to the dresser, opening up the slightly ajar drawer, to find one of his sister’s only three dresses folded neatly inside. When Jacob unfolded it, he found that the skirt of the old-fashioned red gingham dress had a long, jagged tear that stretched from the hemline almost all the way up to the waist -- clearly high enough to show off some little girl’s underwear.

Jacob felt like someone had sparked two gigantic fireballs to life behind his eyes. Seeing the rage in her brother’s face, and perhaps even feeling it, Carewyn’s voice grew more strangled than ever.

“It wasn’t his fault, Jacob!” she insisted. “I know Bobbie didn’t mean it -- I knew it then too, but -- but I was just so upset! Because I like that dress, even if it is old and people say it’s ugly, Mum still bought it for me, and -- and I was hurt, and -- and I took it out on him! ...I said such awful things...”

Jacob whirled on Carewyn, his face contorted with righteous anger and disbelief. “You? Pip, what could you have possibly said, to deserve getting punched in the face? What could you have possibly said, to deserve getting your dress torn?”

But Carewyn looked too ashamed to articulate an explanation. Instead, she hid her face under her arms as she tried in vain to hold in her tears. 

Chucking the torn red dress haphazardly back in her drawer, Jacob immediately swept back over to his little sister, bringing an arm around her and inhaling her in a suffocating hug. It was like he was trying to squeeze all of the remaining tears leaking out of her, just with his arms. 

“Oh, Pip,” Jacob muttered beside the top of her head. “You really are a saint, aren’t you? Even after getting beat up and getting your dress ripped, you still can’t even hate the guy who did it, can you?”

Carewyn choked.

“I hurt him worse,” she mumbled almost incoherently. “I know I did.”

“That doesn’t give him the right to hit you,” Jacob said fiercely. 

“No, but...he was ready to say sorry,” Carewyn mumbled. “He knew he’d done wrong -- they all did. But I lost my temper, and I was wrong, and I was mean. I know what I said hurt him. It hurt him bad -- really bad...”

“What is it you said to this prat that was so terrible?” asked Jacob disbelievingly.

But Carewyn once again seemed to have difficulty articulating that. She looked too ashamed -- she instead buried her face in her brother’s shirt, trying in vain to bite back more tears. 

His jaw clenching that bit more tightly, Jacob ran his hand through his sister’s short hair and along her back, trying to comfort her. 

“Now you listen to me, Carewyn,” Jacob said very lowly and firmly in her ear, “I don’t care what you said to that crotch-goblin, or how much he might’ve been hurt by it. You were hurt and angry, and from the sound of things, I’d say you were thoroughly right to be. I reckon for you to have lost your temper that bad with that rotten little gremlin, you must’ve been bottling up those feelings for a good long while. Probably trying not to worry Mum, or me, or anybody else. Is that it?”

Carewyn gave a loud sniff. 

“...But...I made you worry anyway,” she mumbled after a moment in shame, “didn’t I?”

Jacob gave a dry smile. “You didn’t make me do anything, Pip. You’re my little sister -- I’m always gonna worry about you.”

He gave her a tight squeeze. 

“Fortunately, though...I’m always gonna be proud of you, too. No matter what you might do or say, or what anyone else might think. Because I know you’re absolutely stellar, just the way you are...and anyone who can’t see that isn’t worthy of being a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe.”

Carewyn gave a choke that sounded a bit more like a suppressed giggle. It made Jacob smile that bit more widely and softly down at his little sister as she pulled away at last, rubbing her still tear-stained eyes. Picking up on how sniffly she was, Jacob immediately reached over to grab a box of tissues Lane had left at Carewyn’s bedside and brought it over so Carewyn could grab a couple and blow her nose. Then, just as smoothly, he’d put down the box of tissues and picked up her wastebasket so she could throw them away.

“There we go,” Jacob said with a smile, “feels better once it’s all out, eh?”

Carewyn nodded with another loud sniff, her lips being tugged up in a weak smile. “...Uh-huh.”

She wiped the last few tears out of her eyes with a smile. 

“...Hey...Jacob?”

“Yeah?”

“Mum got me a new record.”

Jacob’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah? Who’s it for?”

“Alice Cooper,” said a wispy, yet still rather amused voice.

Lane had quietly opened the door to her daughter’s room and now came inside to stand at the foot of her daughter’s bed, her arms crossed and her eyes sparkling with something not unlike mischief. 

Jacob raised his eyebrows with interest. “Oh yeah? What’s she known for?”

Both Lane and Carewyn covered their mouths to try to hold in their laughter.

“They were an American band from a couple of years ago that was led by a singer who now solely goes by that stage name,” Lane said, her soft, understated voice full of fondness. “A lesser-known act, really...but Winnie heard one of their songs passing by the record store, and she was just determined to save up for it.”

“That’s because the song is awesome, Mum!” Carewyn’s face had unfurled into a very, very big grin, and she bounced up and down on the bed almost despite herself, headbanging as she sang at the top of her lungs -- 

“No more pencils! No more books~! No more teacher's...dirty looks~! Out for summer -- out 'til fall~... We might not come back at all~!”

Now it was Jacob’s turn to burst out laughing. 

“Hold up now,” he said, his face full of both delight and teasing, “did my wee little sister become a rebel, all of a sudden?” 

He pretended to wipe a tear of joy from his eye. 

“Oh! I’m so proud!” he said in an over-the-top choke. “My little Pippa, all set to ‘stick it to the Man!’”

He gave Carewyn a more playful hug from behind, plopping down on top of her in such a way that she could feel his weight lightly crushing her.

“Hey!” Carewyn yelped through her giggling. “Jacob, get off!”

But Jacob merely leaned against her more, grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire Cat. 

“Oh, Merlin, just wait -- just wait ‘til you get to Hogwarts, Pip! There’s so much to learn, so much to do -- so much to explore! Then you can really get up to some trouble...” 

“Jacob!” Carewyn said in a rather petulant, huffy voice, as she tried and failed to push her older brother off of her. “I don’t want to get in trouble!”

“And you won’t! You’ll be way too smart to actually get caught.”

“That’s not what I meant, Jacob!”

Jacob cackled with laughter as he eased himself off of Carewyn. Lane was still smiling fondly at her two children as she came over to sit on Carewyn’s bed next to Jacob. 

“All right, now -- settle down,” she said. “It’s high time you went to sleep, Winnie.”

“Yes, Mum,” said Carewyn. 

With a small smile, she lowered herself down under her covers. Bending down, Lane brought a hand gently through her daughter’s ginger bangs and kissed her forehead. 

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

“Goodnight, Mum.”

Lane eased herself up off the bed and headed for the door. She paused in the doorframe to look back at Jacob.

“You should get yourself off to bed too, Jay,” she said in a very soft, but reproving voice. “You had a long day, getting home.”

Jacob nodded. “Yeah, I know. I’ll be right there -- just let me say goodnight too.”

Lane smiled at her son, before heading out of the room. Jacob turned his focus down to Carewyn in bed.

“Don’t worry about your dress,” he said under his breath. “I can always mend it with Reparo, while Mum’s asleep.”

Carewyn’s brow creased with concern. “But won’t you get in trouble? Using magic outside of school?”

“Nah,” Jacob said with a wry grin. “The Trace can only detect magic as being an anomaly in certain areas...you know, sensing magic’s been used somewhere where it shouldn’t be used, like in a Muggle neighborhood. It can’t sense who cast it, just where the magic was cast. And Mum’s a full-grown witch! So no one from the Ministry would even know it was me using magic, if I do it while Mum’s here too.”

Carewyn relaxed, clearly relieved to hear this. “...Okay.” 

She paused. Then, impulsively, she got up and threw herself forward -- Jacob, having sensed the move long before she made it, caught his little sister in another big bear hug. 

“Jacob?” 

“Yeah?”

“I’m proud of you too.”

Jacob cocked an eyebrow. “What prompted that?”

“Nothing, really,” she mumbled into his shirt with a smile. “I just...I feel like you don’t hear people say that enough. So I wanted you to know.”

Jacob considered his tiny sister for a moment. Her words had prompted some gears to shift in his brain. 

“What you have is a rare gift, Jacob,” Dumbledore’s words echoed in his mind. “To be able to traverse the space within another’s mind well enough to predict one’s actions before they happen is a talent many have fought hard to cultivate. To do it with no training, as you can...I would hazard to say you may be the only wizard in your generation, to have inherited such potential.” 

If what I can do is so special, Jacob couldn’t help but think with something of a smug smile, just wait ‘til you see what my little sister is capable of...

Despite the arrogance in his expression, he gave Carewyn another affectionate squeeze. 

“...Thanks, Pippa.”

After a moment, he let go of Carewyn, pulling the covers up and over her as she settled back down. He then crossed over to her dresser to fetch her torn red dress, tucking it into the back pocket of his jeans, before he headed to the open door, turned off the light, and closed the door behind him.

~*~

Not long later, while doing some errands for his mother, Jacob came across eleven-year-old Bobbie Mathis and his buddies, meeting at their usual stomping grounds by the playground next to their secondary school and Carewyn’s primary school. As soon as Jacob put two and two together about who the leader of this little middle-school gang was, the newly-sixteen-year-old wizard immediately strode right up to the rather tall boy and punched Bobbie in the face so hard that he broke his nose.

“That was for beating up my little sister,” Jacob snarled. His blue eyes shone like a mad dog’s as he looked from the stunned Bobbie to his trembling friends. “And if I ever hear of any of you laying a hand on Carewyn again, I can and will do a helluva lot worse than that.” 

Sure enough, Bobbie and his gang were so terrified of both “freak Cromwells” that he never so much as spoke to Carewyn again.