Raine Collindale
August 11, 2023 8:52 AM
The best laid plans [Tag Prof X and Dora] by Raine Collindale
Raine took a neat step out of the fireplace, barely thrown off by the additional weight of Summer hanging onto her. Even though Floo wasn’t something she used often, years of balancing and gymnastics served her well.Summer disentangled herself, barely staying still for the house elf that was trying to brush them down before flinging herself in the direction of Dora’s voice. She grabbed hold of her friend and disappeared towards her room with a “See you, Auntie Raine.” The last Raine heard was a thump as she walked into an umbrella stand, an accusation that someone must have moved it since their last visit (it looked the same to Raine), and the words “Let’s play sorting ceremony!”
She sighed.
Perhaps it was inevitable, raising her with annual visits to a Sonora teacher and his daughter. But Raine had continued those visits as much for herself as for Summer—or rather, for Summer’s future rather than just her current amusement. The fact that she and Dora were the same age was a fun and convenient distraction for Summer while Raine worked. Every visit, Raine had come armed with a million questions for Professor Xavier, a million lists and papers—things she’d got from books, worksheets of her own devising, lesson plans. She remembered the trauma of being pulled away from home and forcibly shoved into school. It wasn’t meant to be that way. Magical folk were meant to be allowed to educate their own kids. But the government had all these standards and checks, that she was pretty sure fancy society types passed with flying colours—whether because they had the money for good tutors or the money to just make the problem go away without looking too closely, she didn’t know. But people like her mother didn’t. A formal education and a grand falling out with her mother later, there was twisty feeling in her stomach sometimes, which wanted to think that maybe there had been just cause… But the guilt of betraying her mother, even in her own head, and the screaming, palm-sweating childhood fear she could still feel as an adult kept the lid tight shut on ever fully articulating that thought, even to herself. And she’d never wanted it to happen to Summer. Raine was going to do it all properly, even if she had to work twice as hard to be thought half as good. She would have all her papers and her plans. She would make sure they’d been checked over by a real, actual teacher. She would make sure that no inspector failed her, and that no one took her niece/adopted daughter to school by force.
But they didn’t have to because Summer was gearing up to go willingly.
“She keeps saying she wants to go to Sonora,” Raine sighed to Professor Xavier. He didn’t need Raine to tell him that she’d always raised Summer to believe she could do whatever she wanted… She didn’t even want to bring up the what-if-she-can’t, will-she-manage. It felt like a betrayal to cast doubt on Summer’s independence. It felt like a betrayal for Summer to want to leave her too… All those years, all those carefully laid plans… And what if Sonora wasn’t how Summer imagined? She associated it with the fun people she hung out with once a year for Christmas. “What should I do?”
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Raine Collindale
The best laid plans [Tag Prof X and Dora]
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Nathan Xavier
August 11, 2023 9:17 PM
They don't always work out. by Nathan Xavier
Nathan watched as Dora and Summer gleefully ran off to play, then turned to Raine. If put under veritaserum, he might need to admit she was one of his favorite former students, but that may have as much to do with how determined she was look after Summer's best interests as anything she'd done while at school. Also, bringing Dora a playmate to spend time with certainly was helping her standing in those ranks.The two girls would be eleven by next fall, and the declared play activity was certainly something Dora had talked a lot about since Zeus and Edu had gotten to have their turns already. Nathan wasn't sure how he had a ten-going-on-eleven year old already. Hadn't they just been learning how to walk?
No. That was Otto. Nathan was more willing to accept his oldest was almost old enough to attend Sonora. Otto was going to be the one he had more trouble with. Fortunately, he still had a few years yet before that became an issue.
Today, there was Dora and Summer and Raine. And Raine was asking about schooling choices.
Feeling no small amount of loyalty to his school, he did feel obligated to assure, "Sonora will do all it can to support her. Dora will be there, and as you know, Summer will not be the first blind student we've have, and the divination professor also shares the condition. It might be good for her to," Nathan hesitated, obviously not wanting to use the word 'see' in this context, "interact with a teacher who has already found her place. I know you have planned to teach her yourself, but if Summer wants to go, you are going to need to decide if it's worth overruling her choice in order to follow what you think is best. Maybe it is. But it could lead to resentment, and that is never helpful to the learning process. You may want to consider enrolling her, if that is what she really has her heart set on, and if it doesn't work out, I can help you with the transfer of schooling paperwork. Then she can focus on your lessons without wondering what might have been. And if it does work out . . . you can give her extra lessons over the summer so all of your hard work doesn't completely go to waste?"
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Nathan Xavier
They don't always work out.
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Raine Collindale
August 13, 2023 12:55 AM
Apparently not by Raine Collindale
Sonora would be better. It knew what it was doing. It had someone who could be a better teacher to Summer because they could understand her in a way that Raine never could. No matter how much effort she put in, she would never be as good as a fully funded school… Whilst she knew all that, it hurt to hear it—or words, which to her ears, meant more or less the same—coming from someone who’d always expressed the utmost belief in Raine’s capabilities. It was just another version of not being good enough. Even if she passed the government standards, she would still never be what Summer needed.Overruling Summer on going at all had all the flaws Professor Xavier had pointed out, and Raine knew she really didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t teach Summer that she could do anything she set her mind to and then overrule her decision about this. The fact that Summer had taken those messages to heart was a double edged sword. Raine was proud of her fierceness, and knew Summer would have to be a fighter, but it also made her stubborn. And Raine wasn’t meant to be one of the things she was fighting.
“I know she has to go but…” Raine wanted to stamp her foot and pout and say it was all so unfair. But she was meant to be the adult. She had muddled along doing her best, and having Noelle had made her feel like she might finally look like an adult, at least in the eyes of other people. But the government agency signing her off as fit to teach her niece… It was meant to be the big, rubber stamp of approval that proved it beyond doubt. But she had lost… She was going to lose this fight with Summer over school, or not even bother to have it. She was going to lose Summer to Sonora, not quite in the same way her mother had lost her, but near enough, and no one was ever going to see that she had worked her way up to being good enough.
Professor Xavier’s assurances that Summer could change her mind if it was all too hard didn’t help either.
“You don’t know Summer, if you think she’ll quit and let herself be packed off back home. Even if she’s miserable. The less she copes, the more she’ll be determined to stick it out, to prove everyone wrong. If she’s struggling, she won’t ask for help. That wouldn’t have mattered at home. Not so much anyway. But at school, she can get behind, and then she’ll just get stuck in trying to prove she can fix it herself…”
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Raine Collindale
Apparently not
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