Map of Argyllshire
 

open post~
 

It had been well over a month now since Minjae had picked up his baby doll and although it had taken him some time to get used to it, he had actually grown fond of him...it...him. He currently had no classes as it was weekend he was not going to talk about the pile of homework he still needed to do and he decided to show some more of the castle. Whether the baby could understand him or not was not a problem because he was having a blast.

He had tried to owl his parents to buy him a stomach carrier so that he didn't need to constantly hold the baby up in his arms but they had refused. The reason? 'you're a wizard, can't you magically make a carrier appear out of thin air?' Which, technically they were correct in but so far he had failed to Transfigure it. And it didn't help that Transfiguration was one of his worst subjects. Perhaps he had to push away his pride and ask the professor for help... or anyone really.

He hoisted the little one up and held it against his chest, supporting his head like professor Schmoe had told him to do, as he walked through the second floor until he stopped in front of a framed map. He turned the baby around as he was trying to see the map as well and touched it with his little hands, laughing excitedly. "This map is really special" Minjae said, his voice unusually higher than how he normally spoke. Something he had heard in other students with baby dolls as well. Must be instinct? "It reflects the weather on the map according to your mood!" that might have been inaccurate but ...whatever. "See how the map grew bright and sunny the moment you touched it? That's because you're happy right now, aren't you?" he tickled the baby's side with a finger and it let out an ear-deafening laugh.

This was cute and yes she had seen it. She had been walking the castle doing some laps since it was cold outside when she came upon this scene. It was sweet and she was glad that some of the boys were not taking this as a joke, though she hadn't seen any treating their dolls badly, she heard some conversations. It was very interesting to see all the dolls around the school, her eight-year-old self would have loved so many people playing with dolls.

Her own doll was with Ewan, she had finally had him take her for a while. Since they had been not in a great place together co-parenting was even harder. She had kept the doll just so he could have time alone and time to think, but she had to get some training done as well as homework. Gunnar wasn't going to take on babysitting anymore and she was afraid Morgan would drop the doll, so she had to ask Ewan to take Mila for a bit.

"You are a good dad. What did you name the doll?"

You are a good dad.

Those were words he had not expected to ever hear. But it felt good if he had to be honest. "Can you tell that to professor Schmoe? I think he highly doubts me" he laughed as he turned around to face the older Ravenclaw. It was probably because he had tried to buy his way out of the assignment with money or the fact that he had been completely clueless and somewhat scared of the doll. Perhaps he wanted to prove that he could do something this challenging.

If she was impressed by him then, she was going to be a bit dissapointed in him now. When asked what the doll's name was, Minjae's face went slightly red. "I couldn't come up with a name" he lied. He had this name planned since the beginning because he found it funny and when he had not been serious with the assignment at alll. "So i named him...Kiddo. But i should probably change it, just don't know in to what" he looked down at the doll he was holding and a look of panic came to the Hufflepuff's face as he realised what was going to happen. "Oh nonono" He said before the doll began to cry. "sssh its okay. Its okay" he shushed as he looked up at the girl. "I don't understand. Why does he always cry at the most random moments?" He asked as he frantically tried to calm the doll down. "Do you think he's sick? Should i send him to the hospital wi--- oh.." He stared blankly for a second or two as he remembered that he had a doll in his hands and not an actual baby. "Do you know a fast way to calm him down?"

It was sweet the way he was with the doll. She had seen a few like this and honestly it was becoming an inner struggle with herself that she was not as motherly as she hoped to be. Was something broken with her? The doll just seemed to scream all the time and she was happy when Ewan took her. Laughing at his comment about the professor she nodded, "Sure, I can let him know, but I'm pretty sure there will be a charm on the doll to report everything that went on or something." She wasn't sure how it worked, but assumed it had to be something like that.

"Kiddo?" a shrug came as she considered it, "I mean don't most parents call kids by nicknames anyway and that is a popular nickname so basically you didn't bother with the formal name and went right to what you will actually call the baby." It made sense to her.

Was it her? Why did they always cry around her. "Do you have a bottle, maybe he is hungry or a binky? They do like those, Mila enjoys her binky it seems like." She would offer to take the baby and try, but she was afraid of making it worse. "Swaying helps and even singing." She moved a little closer but didn't offer to hold the baby at all.

The doll could have a charm that would report everything that went on? Minjae looked down at the baby and then looked back up at the older girl. "So you're saying that the professor will KNOW that i've been telling Kiddo bedtime stories and been playing peekaboo and all that?" he asked, his voice rising an octave. He wasn't sure if he liked that.

"I...never thought about it like that" he said as she spoke about the dolls name. "Ravenclaws really do think differently!" he laughed brightly before he stopped abruptly. "I mean that in a good way...honest" He hadn't offended her right? He had a habit of saying what was on his mind..."You're not participating in this assignment?" as she wasn't holding a baby herself. It could be that she didn't take Muggle Studies.

While Minjae began to sway the baby like she had said and made humming noises, he listened to what she had to say but one thing confused him just a tiny bit. "...What's a binky?" he asked as his expression turned from panic to confusion before another desperate cry from the doll made him turn his attention to the bag he was carrying. "I think he's hungry" he said as he placed the bag on the ground and tried to open it with his free hand. Which proved to be a lot more difficult than he had thought. "Do you mind holding him for a moment?"

"I'm saying I'm not sure what he is doing to make sure we are being good parents, but there has to be something." She chuckled a bit with him seeming upset about that, "Honestly I think doing bedtime stories and stuff is exactly what will get you amazing marks on this project. It will be the ones that shove a pillow over the dolls heads that would get them bad marks." She had thought about doing it to her own doll, but didn't because she couldn't handle bad marks.

That was the first time she ever had anyone say about her thinking like a Ravenclaw, she always felt a little bit weird about being in her dad's house, that she wasn't supposed to really be there, but the older she got the more she realized she was in the right house and took pride in it. "We do sometimes I guess" a small blush when he mentioned it was a good thing, she didn't ever take compliments well.

"Oh, yes, I'm doing it. I have a partner in it and he has the doll right now." She was letting him take the doll many more times than her, but this Hufflepuff didn't need to know that. "A binky is a pacifier, it's something the baby sucks on to soothe itself. My little brothers loved theirs and the doll seems to like hers too."

Her eyes widened a bit when he asked if she would hold the doll, she didn't want another doll screaming in her arms, but she couldn't say no. "Okay, yeah, here" reaching out she took the baby.