AN: Hello again! This is my second update of the day, actually. Over the weekend I decided to change the timeline of this story, like completely. As in I shifted Marina and Quincy up a year from the Marauders, instead of being in the same year as the Marauders. I do have reasons for this, and all of them are petty, but mostly I didn't want to run into the whole issue of possible other characters intruding in either Lily Evans' or the Marauders' dorm space, or risking becoming too Mary Sue-ish by putting Marina in the same year as the Marauders/Lily. So I updated the previous chapter slightly. All that changed was that the pair met Gideon Prewett on the train rather than Peter Pettigrew. I also spent about an hour and a half trying to figure out who they might've met on the train if it wasn't Peter, and at long last settled on including Molly Weasley somehow kind of not really. So Fabian and Gideon are her two brothers, of course, but now they're her two younger brothers, and Gideon is the youngest and is now in Marina and Quincy's year. So there you go. A lot of work for very minimal changes that will probably end up as rather massive changes. Anyway, enjoy! Reviews are always welcome!
A very large man by the name of Hagrid directed the first years in his very loud, booming voice into a small fleet of boats once the students got off the train. He swung his lantern as he led them all, most of them probably the same weird mix of terrified and excited that Marina was. She did not get into a boat with Quincy, since she was still upset wit him, and instead she sat in a boat with three other girls. It didn't seem like they knew each other either. Of course, they all gasped and oohed and ahhed as they approached the huge castle, and when the gigantic man led them through the doors, the group of first years was brought to a halt in front of a severe-looking woman, tall and thin and topped with a fashionably tilted pointed hat. The woman turned out to be Deputy Headmistress McGonagall, and she took over from the huge man she called Hagrid and led the first years into the Great Hall to be sorted. Marina looked up at the ceiling, amazed to find it wasn't there beyond the floating candlesticks.
"It's charmed to reflect the sky, you know," someone whispered to her left. That made sense. It was beautiful work.
Professor McGonagall went down an alphabetical list of the first years, calling each student up to sit on a stool and wear an old, raggedy hat: the Sorting Hat. Then the hat would shout out a house, and the whole hall would applaud, and the newly sorted first year would go join their house at their respective table. Marina didn't pay too much attention and let her eyes wander around the hall, imagining what it would be like as an older student, returning to Hogwarts and coming back to the castle already knowing it so well. She was very excited to start exploring it all.
"Quintillius Jackson!" McGonagall called. Now Marina was paying attention. She was still mad at him, but she did want to see where he'd be sorted. If he was a Gryffindor after all, then what would that mean for her?
The hat hadn't even sat on Quincy's head for more than ten seconds before it shouted "Gryffindor!" Of course.
Marina let her attention wander again after Quincy waltzed over to his new house's table, grinning and soaking up the applause. Quincy followed his father, so would that mean Marina would follow her mother? She knew Quincy was more like his father, and that was probably why he ended up in his dad's house, but was Marina more like her mother or her father? She couldn't tell. She liked things that made sense, like her mum, but she wasn't very good at making wise decisions like her mum always did. Her mum was amazing at prioritizing and comparing pros and cons and figuring out which option would be the best, and Marina could be like that too, but she didn't like to do that. She had a bad habit of thinking too hard about what might happen depending on what she might choose, and that was something her mum never seemed to do.
"Gideon Prewett!" There was that boy that she and Quincy kind of met on the train. He went into Gryffindor.
And besides, she was way more inclined to go on new adventures than her mum was. Her papa liked to go on adventures too, but he liked going on adventures so he could have fun with the people he was adventuring with, while Marina would go on adventures all by herself if that meant she could explore something new. And she thought she probably had more imagination than both her parents combined, although maybe that was just a kid thing. She wasn't sure if any adults had imagination like kids did.
She wasn't sure she was enough like her mum to be a Slytherin, and she didn't think she was enough like her papa to be a probably-Hufflepuff. So where, then, did she belong?
"Marina Stewart-Lautrec!" McGonagall shouted. It was now or never. But she might not be able to get away with never, so she supposed it was now or now.
Marina walked up to the stool and sat down, her stomach a rolling mess of nerves. This one moment would decide her fate for the next seven years, of course she was nervous! She felt the hat settle over her hair, and then all of a sudden there was a voice in her head:
"My, my. You're a curious one. The brains and drive of a Slytherin, the pure heart of a Hufflepuff…but your motives don't fit either…hmmmmm," drawled what Marina assumed was the Sorting Hat. What kind of magic must have been cast on this old hat to create this? She wondered at the years and years it must've taken to perfect it. "Yes, that curious mind is all Ravenclaw! With your ready mind, you'll do well with those of wit and learning in the wise old House of Ravenclaw!"
Then, outside her head, the hat shouted "Ravenclaw!" McGonagall lifted the hat from Marina's head and she smiled as she slid off the stool and headed for the table where she saw many hands beckoning her over.
Marina was content to go back to idly people-watching as the last students were sorted. Then Dumbledore made a speech she only half-listened to, and then a banquet appeared on the tables and students started tucking in. Marina surveyed her options. She wasn't very hungry, but she served herself some potatoes drenched in herbs and butter anyway. When she woke up in the morning she'd feel better; she was probably tired and she'd gotten into a fight with her best friend, so it was understandable that she didn't have much of an appetite. Or maybe she'd have more of an appetite when some dessert appeared.
"Did you see the chicken a little farther down the table?"
Marina jumped, startled out of her thoughts. The girl sitting next to her was looking at her expectantly, blinking behind thick glasses. Marina cleared her throat. "Sorry?" she asked.
"A little farther down the table, there's baked chicken with butter and herbs. You look like the kind of person that likes butter and herbs on a lot of things, like on your potatoes," the girl said.
She leaned forward to look where the girl said, and there was indeed chicken with butter and herbs, but baked chicken wasn't her favorite. It tended to be dry, and she definitely did not like dry meat, no matter how much butter sauce it was swimming in. "Thanks," Marina said, "but I don't really like baked chicken. I'm not very hungry right now anyway."
The girl smiled. "Well, that's okay. There's bound to be something you like sometime when you're more hungry. I'm Annie Brennan. You're a first year too, aren't you?"
Marina nodded. "I'm Marina Stewart-Lautrec," she added, again too preoccupied to get into nicknames. She kind of liked Annie. Annie was very upfront, apparently, and that was refreshing to Marina.
"You have two last names? That's odd. They sound really nice the way you say them, though."
"Thank you." Marina expected Annie to ask about it, because Marina probably would've asked if she met someone with a hyphenated last name and didn't have one herself, but Annie didn't ask.
Instead, Annie switched topics. "I'm a Muggleborn, are you? I'm so excited to learn about all of this. I still can't believe this isn't a dream sometimes," Annie said, finishing with a breathy laugh.
Marina shook her head. "I don't know if my entire family is pureblooded, but both my parents are wizards, so I guess that makes me a pureblood." Annie raised her eyebrows and cocked her head. "I don't really know how blood status works either, so don't ask," Marina said quickly, flashing a smile. "But I can't imagine how it must be to never know about magic and then suddenly being thrown into it like this."
"My dad fainted when Professor McGonagall showed up at our doorstep to explain it all. My parents are really religious, Irish Catholic, you know, so they had a really hard time coming to terms with it all." Annie frowned down at her own plate for a moment, but brightened up again and turned back to Marina. "What class are you most looking forward to?"
Marina smiled back; Annie's grin was infectious. "Charms, I think. My mum knows so many spells, and I've always wanted to learn how to do magic just like her," she answered. "What about you?"
Annie washed down a large mouthful of her beef with a drink of pumpkin juice before she answered. Mentally, Marina cringed. Pumpkin juice in no way tasted good with meals that weren't breakfast or dessert, she thought. Maybe it was just because Annie was a Muggleborn and hadn't ever had pumpkin juice before. "I want to learn about everything," she gushed. "I'm sure I'll never get tired of it!"
Marina herself thought she might get tired of school eventually. There would be something she hated, of course, and all homework was annoying, no matter what it was about. Still, on the morning of their first day of classes, Marina was nevertheless excited for all of it. Her first day as a Hogwarts student! Finally, she was really on her way to being a real, proper witch.
The Ravenclaw head of house, Professor Flitwick, had passed out everyone's class schedules the night before at the end of the feast, so all they had to worry about at breakfast was their collective nervous excitement about their first Hogwarts class ever: History of Magic at 8 o'clock. Marina sat with the first year Ravenclaw girls during breakfast, as she and the three other girls had unanimously decided they would all try to be friends, and all they could think about was the upcoming day.
"My sister and brother both hated History of Magic—they say it's the most boring class there could possibly be," Lark Maxwell said, speaking around the bite of scone in her mouth. She was the middle child of five siblings, something Marina could never imagine, and she was very loud.
"I might like to learn about the history of the wizarding world, though," Annie put in. "I don't know anything about it. It sounds interesting."
"Maybe it would be," Lark said, "if it were taught by someone interesting."
"What do you mean?" Marina asked.
"Professor Binns is a ghost," Artemis Rowle answered—sort of. Marina wasn't sure how well she'd get along with Artemis because she didn't do very much talking and what she did say wasn't usually what Marina was ever looking for, not exactly. She didn't answer questions straight, that is, and Marina was too impatient for answers to work them out of Artemis's cryptic responses.
"A ghost professor does sound interesting!" Annie protested. She took a violent bite of bacon.
"Oh, but he's so boring." Lark drew out the word boring, rolling her eyes as she did so. "He just drones on and on, and barely even pays any attention to the class! There's no opportunity for discussion, or questions, even!"
That did sound rather boring. Marina, for one, was sure to have questions at some point, as she often did. Lark sounded like she was really looking forward to class discussion, too. That made sense; she did an awful lot of talking, and she had an awful lot of opinions, so she did have an awful lot to say. That didn't deter Marina, though, and by the time the girls were on their way up flights of stairs and down corridors to the History of Magic classroom, she was excited and looking forward to class again.
It turned out that Professor Binns was just as boring as Lark said he was. The Ravenclaw first years had History of Magic with the Hufflepuffs, so instead of paying rapt attention to her first professor of her first class on her first day, Marina amused herself by watching not one, but two Hufflepuff boys nodding off to sleep in their seats while the rest of them made a visible effort to look alert and interested, likely for the sake of the professor, as they tried to hide yawns. She didn't know if she could actually associate Hufflepuffs with drowsiness, but she supposed she'd have to find out. There would be other classes with Hufflepuffs, Marina was certain. Then she wondered was Maia was up to at that moment.
After History of Magic, they had Charms with Professor Flitwick. Marina liked Flitwick, at least from what she'd seen of him so far, so this class would surely turn out better than the previous one. And anyway, this was the class Marina was most looking forward to. Ravenclaw had Charms with Gryffindors, apparently, so Marina half-listened to the tiny Charms professor explain that this class would be largely graded on participation, that it would focus on the practical over the theoretical, etc., etc. The other half of her attention was on the Gryffindors. They didn't cheerfully pretend to pay close attention like the Hufflepuffs did, and Marina respected their honesty. They either paid attention, or they didn't and passed notes to each other or outright chatted.
Marina noticed that, like the Ravenclaws, and the Hufflepuffs now that she thought about it, the Gryffindors seemed like they all made some sort of pact to be friends in their dormitories. Or they just naturally hit it off, Marina didn't know. In the back of the class sat Quincy, Gideon Prewett, and two other boys. They were busy not paying attention, aside from one dark-skinned boy who would glance over at the other three's antics and roll his eyes every so often. Quincy glanced up and caught her eye, grin slipping slightly when he saw her. Marina blinked and turned to look at the Gryffindor girls. There were five Gryffindor girls, and they, like the boys, were only sort of paying attention.
When Annie kicked her under their shared table, Marina snapped out of her thoughts just in time to hear Flitwick say, "Now, due to the nature of our class, I'll be assigning sections from your textbooks to read before coming to class. We have only three hours a week at our disposal, so it is imperative that you are familiar with what we'll be doing in class before we do it, so I can cut straight to the 'how' and skip the 'what.' Tomorrow we'll start learning our first spell, so tonight I'm assigning pages seven through sixteen. This isn't the whole chapter, only the history and theory of the spell, for I intend to lecture over the execution in class tomorrow. That will be all for today—"
Marina stopped listening. She could hear Flitwick say something about seeing him if anyone needed help finding their next class, which was nice of him, but she was rather more occupied with watching Quincy and the other boys again to see what they'd do. Now that class was over, kids were getting up and milling around to chat, and the four Gryffindor boys stood. Gideon happened to glance over, and smiled slightly at Marina before quickly looking away again. For a moment, she thought about going to talk to Quincy, but then shook the idea out of her head. She wanted him to come to her, ideally with an apology for what he said about her mum.
At that very moment, the boy in question started towards her, a determined look on his face. It was almost as if he'd read her mind, though Marina knew he hadn't. If he did, though, hopefully he caught the part about saying he was sorry. She kept her eyes on her desk until Quincy was standing less than a foot away.
"Hello," Annie said. "I like your eyes. They're a very nice brown."
Marina could almost feel Quincy floundering. "Thanks?" he said, thrown off guard.
"Annie Brennan, this is Quincy Jackson. Quincy, Annie," Marina said, sighing and looking up, but still keeping her eyes resolutely forward.
"Hi," Annie said again. Marina saw her grinning out of the corner of her eye, and then Annie brought it down to a light smile and turned her attention to Marina. "I think I see Lark flailing at me. See you in the corridor, okay?" Annie touched her shoulder before getting up and wandering away.
Quincy cleared his throat. "Um…I owe you an apology," he said.
"I think you do, too." Marina looked up at Quincy, who was still standing next to her desk. His shoulders were set confidently, but he looked stiff. He was wearing his uncomfortable, guilty face. Whatever he was about to say, it would be genuine.
"I'm sorry I judged your mum and called her a liar just because she was in Slytherin," he said in one breath. "It wasn't fair of me, especially because I know your mum is really nice and a good person, even though she can be kind of scary sometimes." Quincy clearly looked very relieved after he said it all, and then he gave Marina a hopeful, pleading look. "Can you forgive me? I really want to still be your friend."
Marina gave him a reluctant smile. "Alright, I forgive you." The wide smile Quincy gave her was almost blinding. She glanced around him at his three new friends. "So those are the other Gryffindor boys?"
"Yup! Come on, I'll introduce you to them," he said brightly, dragging her up by the arm. He made to go over immediately before she stopped him.
"Hold on a moment," she scolded. "I have to get my things first so we can leave straight afterward."
She already knew Gideon from the train, of course, but the other boys were Kingsley Shacklebolt, the attention-payer, and Frank Longbottom. Kingsley was very polite, and he seemed much more mature than an eleven-year-old-boy really should be. Frank, she could tell, was jolly and carefree.
Annie had waited, true to her word, just outside the classroom door for Marina. More introductions were made, as Marina had walked out with Quincy and the other boys. All first years had a free period just before lunch, and Annie said Lark and Artemis had already gone to check out the library. Marina agreed they should follow along. The girls made their exit after the boys turned their noses up at the idea of spending free time in a library.
—
The rest of their week went off without a hitch. This was probably made easier by only being half a week, seeing as the first day of classes was actually a Wednesday. Sadly, their first three days of school were not without homework. Light homework, but still. On Saturday afternoon, the Ravenclaw first year girls sat in one of the cozy study nooks in the common room, sorting through their assignments. Artemis dragged over a chair, while the other girls sat on the large cushions left there just for that purpose. Lark had a sheet of parchment out, and using her Herbology textbook as a makeshift desk, she made a list of all their assignments, in order from most important to least important by deadline. From Marina's lap, Maia kept swiping at Lark's moving quill.
"This way," she said, finishing up the list, "we can prioritize our work and plan how early we'll need to start it."
"This is a great idea," Annie said. "It's lucky we all have the same classes because I do not have the dedication to organize something like that," she laughed.
Lark shot her a look. "It's lucky I do have dedication, then. My siblings always made up priority lists like this, and it helped them a lot. They have a top notch model for revision schedules, too, for when we have to start worrying about exams."
Marina smiled at her friends, but she was losing interest again. This was starting to be a problem with her, this absent-mindedness. She kept tuning out what her professors were saying in favor of looking around the classroom, and she'd had to copy notes from Artemis, who was an excellent note-taker, three times already, and that was only in as many days! The first three days! Hopefully her classmates would stop being more interesting than her professors once she got used to all of them, and then she could start paying more attention.
"Well, girls, I know we only really have to read sections in our textbooks, but I, for one, want to get started on this longest bit for Transfiguration," Lark announced. "I'll just go post this list in our dorm and then I think I'll head to the library." She stood, gathered her books, rescued her quills from the Siamese, and strode to the stairwell door.
"Does she have tacks?" Artemis asked.
"You have a point," Annie said. "Maybe she packed some tape in her trunk? We don't know any hang-things-on-the-wall spells yet."
"I think you mean sticking charms," Marina gently corrected, scratching Maia behind her ears as consolation for the loss of Lark's quills. Annie was a Muggleborn; it wasn't her fault she didn't know what a sticking charm was.
"I know I have Spello-tape," Artemis said, and got up to follow after Lark, presumably to make sure their friend could follow through with her plan to post the homework list.
Annie took out her own yellow spiral-bound notebook and started writing out a much more vague list of assignments than what Lark had compiled. With a smile, Marina touched a finger to the metal spiral. "You brought a Muggle notebook?" she asked.
Finishing her list, Annie nodded. "My parents thought bunches of loose parchment were inconvenient, so they had me bring a notebook for each class to take notes in. We have one more textbook than we do classes, so I have this extra one. I guess I could use it to write all my assignments in." With careful fingers, Annie screwed the lid back on her pot of ink, which had been balancing rather precariously on the thick plush carpet. "Do you think Lark will keep up her homework priority list for our dormitory?"
Marina laughed. "She might, if only because she wants the recognition for it. I certainly hope she does. I'm bound to miss assignments all the time if I keep spacing during lessons like I've been doing."
Lark did indeed keep up her list-making, and she made a loud announcement to the dormitory every time she added something to it and every time she crossed something off once its deadline passed. Sheet upon sheet of parchment was added to the list with Spello-tape until it nearly touched the floor, much to Maia's delight. Sometime in October, Marina, who discovered she had a knack for Charms, discovered a spell to erase ink so they could stop wasting parchment and instead rotate erased sheets from the top to the bottom of the list.
Thankfully, as the term progressed, Marina found a way to stop her terrible habits concerning her lack of attention…mostly. Charms was turning out to be pretty easy for her, so she figured it was okay to people-watch during the time they took in class to practice, as long as she'd gotten the hang of performing the day's charm already. She was the same way in Potions, Herbology, and Astronomy. If she finished early, she let her attention wander. History of Magic was something of a joke, and she got much more out of reading her textbook and ignoring Professor Binns altogether, she found, so she often used that class to either read the section Binns was droning about that week, or she worked on other classes' homework. Transfiguration was tricky, because unlike Charms, where it was possible to perform most spells without a very deep understanding of the theory behind them, transfiguring objects and animals required much more thought, concentration, and understanding. Marina was alright with the theory, but she had a difficult time applying it when she went to perform a transfiguration. She didn't have much extra time to let her mind go in that class. Defense Against the Dark Arts wasn't as difficult as Transfiguration—it was more like Charms in that respect—but that was one class where she often had to be on her guard. Professor Raleigh was strict about students paying attention, especially because, again, like Charms, he focused on the practical in class, and most of the spells they learned were dangerous. He had a habit of mildly hexing students if he caught them not paying attention.
Somehow, Marina always found time to talk to Quincy, whether it was at meals when they would visit each other's tables, or during free periods in the library (despite his earlier aversion to the idea), or after classes had ended out on the grounds. Lark and Annie teased her about it sometimes, Lark more so than Annie, but Marina brushed it off every time they called him her boyfriend or made a kissy face at her. She happened to know Lark fancied Roger Meadowes, a Hufflepuff second year, so in her mind that evened out the score, even if she didn't tease about it.
Before they knew it, Christmas holiday was upon them, and the Ravenclaw girls' dorm was a wreck as all four girls rushed to pack their trunks. Marina wasn't sure if she could leave anything in the dormitory over break, so she opted to pack absolutely everything. And anyway, this way she wouldn't mistakenly leave behind something she actually needed. She spent the train ride home with Annie, Maia, and Quincy in a compartment to themselves.
"Are you sure you wouldn't rather ride with your housemates?" Marina asked him again.
Quincy unwrapped his third cauldron cake of the train ride. "Well," he said, "Gideon's riding with his older brother and sister, Fabian and Molly, and Molly's boyfriend, Arthur. Frank asked Kingsley to help him start some of our holiday homework, and I think they'd rather have me out of the compartment anyway, because I don't need Kingsley's tutoring. And anyway, you're my friend too."
With a nod, Annie piped up. "That makes sense. Lark's sitting with her siblings too, and Artemis wanted to...well, I don't know where she is, but she probably has family she wanted to ride with." She blinked at Quincy. "Are we friends?"
It was funny how Annie always managed to rattle Quincy. In Marina's experience, his confidence was unshakable, but she saw him trip over himself, literally and figuratively, multiple times around Annie. Like now:
"Are we-yes? I think? I mean-if you want-" he sputtered.
Marina bit her lip to keep from laughing. Annie caught her eye and reached over to stroke Maia along her spine.
"I thought so," Annie said, smiling. "See, I was almost certain that we are friends, but I couldn't tell for sure. Thanks for clearing that up, friend."
Quincy nodded, clearly ready to move on from the whole thing. He could be very blunt, Marina knew, but Annie was a different kind of bluntness altogether, the kind of out-of-the-blue bluntness that threw Quincy off somehow. It was all very interesting, in Marina's opinion.
When the Hogwarts Express finally pulled into Platform 9 3/4, Marina, Annie, and Quincy all crowded together at the window to see if they could spot their respective parents.
"Look, there's your mum," Quincy said, grabbing Marina's shoulder and pointing through the glass as best as he could. Sure enough, Bobbie Stewart stood on the platform with-strangely-two trolleys ready, her hands stuffed deep in the pockets of her coat.
Annie sighed. "I can't see either my mum or my dad," she said.
"I'm sure they're here. Maybe they had trouble going through the wall and they're waiting for you just outside in the station," Marina suggested.
They scrambled to gather up their belongings and avoid being trampled in the rush to get off the train and to their families. Marina clutched Maia against her chest, holding her to make sure she wouldn't escape and get lost, while Quincy lugged both his and Marina's trunks to Ms. Stewart.
"Mum!" Marina called.
"Mina, sweetheart, I feel like I haven't seen you in years and years!" Bobbie answered, coming to meet the students halfway with both trolleys. "Quincy, I'll be taking you home, too. Here, let's load these trolleys..." With a quick flick of her wand, the witch levitated both her daughter's and Quincy's trunks onto the trolleys before turning to Annie, who was, for once, silent in her awe. "I don't believe we've met, my dear," Marina's mother said kindly.
That was Marina's cue. Introductions, introductions. "Mum, this is Annie Brennan. Annie, this is my mum."
"Ms. Stewart; it's a pleasure to meet you, Annie," Marina's mum said quickly, holding out her hand.
Annie seemed to get over her momentary stunned state and shook Bobbie's hand, grinning. "Pleased to meet you, too. I didn't know you could do magic without a spell," she said.
Marina grinned at Quincy. Annie and her blunt comments were back from their short respite.
Of course, Marina's mum was unfazed. "Nonverbal magic, dear. You'll learn it around sixth or seventh year. Do you have parents to find?"
"They're Muggles, and I don't see them, so maybe they're waiting outside the platform."
"Mum, can walk Annie back into King's Cross?" Marina asked, taking her mother's hand.
Bobbie smiled at the three friends looking up at her expectantly. "I don't see why not," she answered. "I'll take care of your trunk-there." With another motion of her wand at Annie's trunk, it began to float a few inches off the ground.
"Thank you, Ms. Stewart," Annie said with a wide grin.
The group of four made their way through the bustling crowd of parents and students and owls and luggage trolleys, headed for the platform exit. It turned out that Annie's dad was, in fact, waiting nervously on a bench near the brick entrance to Platform 9 3/4. More introductions happened between the adults, and then the three friends promised each other they'd write over the holiday, and then the Brennans parted ways with Marina and Quincy and Bobbie.
Side-apparating was much too difficult what with two children and trunks and a cat, and Marina hated flooing, so of course they drive home through Muggle London in the Stewart-Lautrec family car. After dropping Quincy off at his home, Marina was finally able to dash up the stairs of her own house and collapse on her own bed in her own room. She hadn't realized how much she actually missed it.