Hello everyone, sorry for the long wait. I had no motivation to write anything, so it was put on hold until I did. Hope you all like what I have for you though.
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The day that Magnolia had to leave for Hogwarts, there was no avoiding her grandparents if she wanted to get the things she needed to take with her. She approached them when they were having breakfast saying, "Grandmother, grandfather, I'm going to need my trunk and wand now. Will you please give them to me?"
Her grandmother sighed heavily as she looked towards her husband, "I suppose we have to, at least that stuff will be out of the house. No damage can be done here with the ridiculous stuff gone."
"I guess there's a plus side to me leaving then. You wont have to hide me in my room when guests are around, I wont be able to cause any damage if I'm not here. Sarcasm and scorn were dripping from the words she spoke to her grandparents. "Where did you put my stuff?"
"I'll have Edgar put it in the car that Jenny will be taking to drop you off in." Mr. Sluven replied.
Magnolia wasn't surprised that they weren't going to drop her off, but still she asked, curious of what their excuse would be, "You're not taking me?"
"I don't see why we would. There's no point in involving ourselves with magic, only bad things come from magic." Her grandfather said, oblivious to the darkness that appeared in Magnolia's eyes at his words.
"Besides we have a meeting with a new salon and spa owner who wants to start a partnership with our company so they can use our products in their spa." Mrs. Sluven told Magnolia.
"Yes, I suppose making people pretty and making money in the process is all that you care about. That's all that ever mattered to you. I wonder, if I was ugly, if you would have kept me." Magnolia hissed at them. "You never did care for me anyway, regardless that I had a pretty face or not. Otherwise you wouldn't have lied to me about my magic or my parents."
"Don't you start arguing with us, you disrespectful little brat. If you knew what was good for you, you'd shut your silly mouth or else we might keep you here." Magnolia's grandfather threatened.
Magnolia held what she had been about to say back, a furious look on her face at the thought of them keeping her here against her will. Her grandfather smirked at this and yelled out, "Edgar!" When the butler came he was told, "Get Magnolia's trunk from our room and put it in the town car Jenny will be using." Edgar gave a slight bow of his head as he left the room to do as he was asked.
"Now what do you say to your dear grandparents." Mrs. Sluven asked innocently.
"Thank you grandmother, grandfather." Not a single emotion could be heard in her voice or seen on her face, as she mask her outrage that she had to thank them.
She ran after Edgar and caught up to him as he was coming out of her grandparents room. "I need somethings out of there, please." She said politely.
Edgar smiled at her, "Of course, Maggie, anything for your sweet face."
"You know I hate when you call me that Edgar." She said teasingly as she opened her trunk and pulled out one of her uniforms with a set of robes, her box that had her wand in it and her Defense Against the Dark Arts book.
"Yes, I do know." He said as he picked to trunk back up, walking towards the stairs. Magnolia watch him walk away with a smile on her face, then turned and went to her bedroom.
When she got there, she put on her knee-length dark grey plaited skirt and white button up shirt. No tie yet since she wasn't sorted yet, though she already knew which house she would likely be in. And she didn't put her robes on yet, since they would looked strange to any Muggle who saw them. She slipped her wand out of its box, admiring it for a few moments before putting it in one of her robe pockets.
"Lavesus, come here, I want to put you in my robe until we get on the train. I'd put you in my trunk but I don't want you getting hurt."
"While I doubt I would let myself get hurt, I must say being in the comfort of your robes sounds much more appealing." He said as she slithered over to where she was standing so she could pick him up and wrap him in her robe before leaving her room.
Magnolia went to find Jenny, who was waiting for her in the entrances hall for her. Jenny asked her, "Do you have everything you need?"
Holding up her robe and the DADA book she said, "Everything else Edgar put in the car already."
"Good, let's go then. We don't want you to miss your train." She said as she held open the front door for Magnolia, then going to the back door of the car waiting for them and opening it as well. Jenny then went to the driver's side and started the car, driving it done the long drive and out of the gates once they opened for them.
"I'll miss you when your gone, Maggie. You've never left the house and I can't help but feel worried about you just leaving now."
"I'll miss you as well Jenny. And Damon, tell him I'll miss all the times he came over." Damon was Jenny's son, who was three years older than Magnolia and was the only kid that she had ever met. He came over sometimes after school and hung out with her and despite their age difference they were amazing friends.
"Oh, I will, I'm sure he'll miss you as well. Maybe you can write each other." Jenny had a bright smile on her face that Magnolia was able to see through the rear-view mirror.
"I'd like that, maybe I will." She sad with a smile back.
They spent the rest of the ride to Kings Cross Station in a comfortable silence, with Jenny driving carefully and Magnolia flipping through the pages of her book, memorizing them with a glance. When they got there, Jenny helped Magnolia get her trunk out of the car and onto a cart before she asked her, "Do you want me to take you to the train, Maggie?"
"No," came the response from Magnolia, who knew she wasn't to let Jenny know of her magic. "I can find my way from here, if I need help I can ask someone in the station. Thanks anyways though."
"Alright." And with that Jenny pulled Magnolia into a tight which was quickly returned, before giving her a kiss on her forehead. "Now off you go, and remember to write."
"I will." Magnolia said as she pulled away and began walking into the train station. She pulled out the paper Professor McGonagall had given her with the instructions and read it carefully. It read, Go to Platform 9 3/4 between Platforms 9 and 10. Watch for other students and parents to know what to do.
Looking up from the paper, she began looking for a sign that would direct her to Platforms 9 and 10. Once she found her way there she began looking for kids that had uniforms similar to hers. She spotted a boy who was faced away from her looking a the wall of a pillar. As she started to approach him to asked where she as supposed to go, he began to run towards the wall. She was about to yell out to the boy to watch out, when the boy went straight through the wall.
Magnolia was so stunned that she stood there for a few moments just looking at the place he had disappeared. When she saw another kid do it as well, she snapped out of her little daze and ran at the wall to get through. She closed her eyes just before she hit the wall and slowed down when she felt no impact. When she opened her eyes back up, there was a pillar like the one she'd run through that read 9 3/4.
"Amazing." She said with a silly smile.
Going over to drop her cart off, Magnolia pulled her trunk off of it as she pulled it behind her, silently thanking Professor McGonagall for getting one with wheels to pull it with. With her small frame it was heavy to pull one armed, the other still occupied by her book, robes and Lavesus. When she went to enter the train car she had to yank it rough up the few stairs in order to get it in.
Once that was done, she walked down the aisle, passing several older kids as she went until is found an empty compartment to sit in. She stowed her trunk under the bench seat and sat down, placing her book on her lap and her robes beside her.
Lavesus quickly found his way out of the robes and settle on top of them, "It is alright for me to come out now, yes?"
"It should be fine, McGonagall said we're allowed to have pets, so I don't see a reason why you shouldn't be able too."
"Good, because however warm it might be in those robes, its much nicer to have some fresh air to be able to breathe."
Magnolia laughed at him as she responded, "Yes, I can imagine that. "
Just as she was opening her book to continue flipping through it, she heard a loud voice from the aisle yell, "Move it, Snivellus, you're in my way." As that moment a pale, black-haired boy fell just outside the opening of her compartment.
A foot came down on his back as he started to get up and the same voice came from the long brown-haired owner of the shoe. "You should just stay down, I think you're in need of the taste of floor after the break we gave you for summer." The boy kept walking after that, three other boys following behind, all but the last sandy-haired boy stepping on his back.
Magnolia had jumped up when it all began, and she now went up to the fallen, "Are you alright?" She asked him as she helped him to his feet.
"I will be." He said as he wiped his front off. He looked down at her from his taller height, he was at least eight inches taller than her, and then at the compartment behind her before asking, "May I sit with you? The rest of the compartments are full."
She gave him a small smile as she respond, "Yes, that's fine with me." The dark boy picked up his fallen trunk and walk in once Magnolia stepped to the side. When he walked past her she saw the foot-prints on the back of his white shirt and she reached out and grabbed his arm.
He roughly pulled it out of her grasp as looked back at her with an odd expression on his face that she couldn't quite place. "What?" He snapped at her.
Magnolia's eyes were wide as she told him shyly, "You have shoe prints on your back, I was going to ask if you wanted me to wipe them off?"
"Oh." He said apologetically, "Yes, that would be nice." He turned his back to her and she quickly wiped the dirt off. "Thanks." He said as she finished and they both took seats opposite of each other.
They sat awkwardly for a few seconds before Magnolia held out her hand to him and said, "I'm Magnolia Barton, what's your name?"
The boy shook her hand firmly as he replied, "I'm Severus Snape."
"Pleasure to meet you." She said with a small smile.
"And you as well." He said politely back.
The two young kids sat in silence for a few minutes again until a blonde head appeared in the doorway of the compartment saying, "There you are Severus, I've been looking for you everywhere." His eyes drifted to Magnolia and a smirk appeared on his face as he. "What a coincident, you've already met Barton here."
"You know her?" Severus asked with surprise.
"We met for a few moments in Diagon Alley while my father and I were shopping. She was with McGonagal." He responded as he came in with his trunk and tried to sit next to Magnolia. She was about to tell him to be careful of Lavesus but was too late as he went to push her robes over.
Lavesus rose from his sleeping position on the robes and hissed at the tall boy. Lucius back up a step at seeing the deadly snake as he watch Magnolia reach for him without care and say, still in English, "Oh calm down, will you. He meant no harm."
The two boys stared at her stunned for a while, Lucius having changed his direction and sitting next to Severus. It was Lucius who finally broke the silence, saying to the girl across from him petting the snake, "So, that's your snake?"
"Yes, his name is Lavesus." Magnolia said as she looked over at them. She noticed their green and silver ties and gave them a small smile before continuing, "You'd think a couple of Slytherin boys would know how to handle a snake."
The boys bristled a little at this and Severus responded, "Of course we do, we were just surprise. We weren't expecting to see a snake on the train."
"Would you like to hold him? He wont bite." She said with a wicked grin as she held out her arm that Lavesus was draped over.
Lucius cross over the seat he was originally going to seat and reached over to pet Lavesus' soft skin as he asked her, "It's a Black Mamba, correct?"
Magnolia nodded as the Severus said, "They aren't native to England, how did you get it?"
"I found him on the estate grounds, not sure how he got there really." She lied easily then continued. "But he was docile when I found him and has never tried to hurt me."
"Hmm, he must have been someone's pet before you found." The dark-haired boy told her as he reached across and finally touched the snake in Magnolia's hands.
"That's what I thought to, only thing that makes since, unless he escaped from a zoo."
"Well, he's a cool pet, regardless of how you got him." Lucius told her. "I wish I could have a snake of my own. My father wont let me have on yet though, he says I'm not old enough. How'd you get your grandparents to let you keep him. I thought you said they hate you or something."
"If they knew I had him, they would have gotten rid of him a long time ago. I was smart enough not to tell them when I found him." Magnolia said with a frown at the mention of her hated grandparents.
"You don't live with your parents? Why not?"Severus asked her curiously. "And why do your grandparents hate you?"
A look of sadness overcame her face as she explained, "My parents died before I could remember anything about them. My father was the last of the Barton lineage from France and my mother was adopted by my grandparents who have no other relatives, so they are the ones that I went too. They hate me, just like they hated my mother because we both have magic."
A dark expression overcame Severus face at what he heard. He was silent for a moment before he asked her, "They don't hurt you, do they? Because they don't like you?"
"What do you mean hurt me? Like abuse me?" At the boy's nod, she told him. "No, the only neglect they ever gave towards me is a lack of love and caring towards me. They ignore me as much as they can, and with the size of our estates thats easy enough. And I think I hate them as much as they hate me, I at least have a better reason for hating them."
"Why's that? What they do? I mean, other than the obvisious hate towards you."
"You're being rather talkative Severus." Lucius said to the other boy. Turning to Magnolia he said, "I'm lucky if I can get a conversation about anything other then our studies from him."
Magnolia looked at the boy across from her with a critical eye, taking in his long skinny limbs, long black hair and pale skin. He held himself stiffly, sitting straight-back as opposed to Lucius leaning back lazily against the seat comfortably. Remembering the way he had pulled his arm quickly from her grasp when he first came in, Magnolia suspected there had been a bruise there.
Now understanding why Severus had asked whether her grandparents hurt her, she answered his question, "I hate them for never telling me who I really am, a witch. I hate them for never letting me go out of the estates, for not letting me know anyone but they people that work there. This is the second time I've been off the estates, the first time being when I met Lucius. The only reason they let me go was so they don't have to see me for most of year.'
"But mostly, I hate them because they've lied to me my whole life, telling me my parents were horrible people who wanted nothing to do with me and that they would have left me if they hadn't died first." At the end of her speech she had a hard look of hate on her face for her grandparents.
"They sound like horrible people." Severus said to her.
"They are, I'm very glad to get away from them." She said. A silence came over the cabin before Magnolia broke it, "I'm going to keep reading my DADA book, if you two don't mind." She said with a smile towards her, picking up the book beside her.
"No, that's fine by me." Lucius told her with a sigh, "Since Severus is likely to follow by your example, I might as well do the same." He opened his forgotten trunk and pulled a book out of it. Severus followed opened his as well, pulling a tattered one from his.
The three of them spent the rest of the long ride reading their books, Magnolia getthing through her first one and opening a second. Explaining to the two boys, who were shocked at how fast she read, that she didn't really have to read the pages, just look at them and she would be able to remember everything on them.
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Thanks for the read, Hopefully the next one wont take as long to get out.
