AN: Hello again, sorry again for the updates without any new chapters...do you still get alerts for editing a chapter? Anyway, here's our next chapter, picking up from where we last saw our lovely little first years going home for Christmas. I feel like this chapter's pretty long, but maybe it only feels like it is because it took so much effort. I'm still planning out the future of this story, and some plot elements are getting started now, and half of them are things I came up with last minute as I was writing. Yikes, right? Anyway, who's ready to read more of what I think still counts as exposition? Enjoy!
It turned out that she also hadn't realized, over Christmas, how much she'd missed the high four-poster bed with its curving bronze frame, the satiny blue hangings she could drag shut around her when she wanted, the cozy feather duvet with its scrolling bronze- and copper-colored embroidery. She'd missed sharing a room with her friends and Lark's constant chatter, Annie's blunt remarks and the cheery aura she exuded, even Artemis and her odd way of answering questions. Even her classes! She'd missed Charms with Professor Flitwick, Potions with Slughorn, even Transfiguration with no-nonsense Professor McGonagall. And magic. Of course Marina had missed magic. It would be years and years and years before she could use magic outside of school.
At least Marina didn't have to miss Quincy, since he still lived just around the corner. They saw each other often over the holiday, working on homework, playing Exploding Snap when it was too cold to be outside, even spending New Year's with his parents (they'd invited Marina and her parents over for a little party).
But oh, was it good to be back at Hogwarts.
Second term was about as uneventful as the first. Not to say it was bad—it was actually a pretty good term, as far as school terms went. Their professors continued to ease the first years into the Hogwarts workload, still assigning mostly reading with an essay here and there. They got a week of Easter holiday between the end of March and into April, and once students returned to school, professors began to talk exams.
Annie was actually excited, of all things! Marina would think that nothing was as arduous and terrible as taking exams, but maybe that was another muggleborn quirk. When Lark, incredulously, because Lark was very stressed out about exams, asked Annie why she was so chipper in the face of the worst and most strenuous hurdle they'd have to jump that would determine whether the students had learned anything at all over the year, and whether they would all move on to the next year or not, Annie just laughed.
"I think you all forget that I've never had magic in my life until coming here. This is all still so exciting for me! I'm a student in a school of magic, and I'm going to take magical exams," she answered, grinning in the way only Annie could.
"That's ridiculous," Lark said, surrounded by a sea of parchment decorated with her own large, slightly messy cursive. "How aren't you worried about this? And anyway, exams are exams, magical or not." She blew a bit of hair out of her face and went back to trying to sort through her Herbology notes.
Annie shrugged, tickling Maia's nose with the end of her quill and giggling when the cat batted back at the feather. "I don't know, but these exams sure beat maths and grammar. I'd take Hogwarts exams over regular school exams any day!"
Marina had to agree. Her mum and papa had put her through Muggle school up until Hogwarts, and she would also rather go through magical exams. Still, while she wasn't worried about how she might do, she was certainly not looking forward to actually taking them. She hated the atmosphere taking an exam created; everyone silent, the only sound coming from various noses sniffling around the room and paper pages turning. It was stuffy and oppressive and she found she got too bored to focus on what she was supposed to do. Somehow she always managed to do alright anyway. At least Hogwarts exams came with a practical part where she could stand up and actually do something.
Despite the sweat, blood, and tears (Marina suddenly found herself very nervous just after exams and her palms just wouldn't seem to dry, Artemis gave herself eight paper cuts from her notes, and Lark had a breakdown one night when she was up late in their shared dormitory studying), the girls got through it all. Marina herself received very respectable "Outstanding" grades in Charms, Defense, and Potions, respectable enough "Exceeds Expectations"s in Astronomy, Herbology, and History because she had a slightly difficult time remembering the straight facts required for those classes, and an "Acceptable" in Transfiguration, which she was disappointed with, but it wasn't unexpected. She still couldn't quite wrap her head around the practical element of Transfiguration.
It had become something of a tradition over the course of first year to spend the rides on the Hogwarts Express in a compartment of just the three of them, Marina and Quincy and Annie. Quincy, who had won a bet with Gideon about whether or not he'd get an O in Charms—Quincy was rubbish at Charms but Marina helped him study and it was enough to scrape by with an O—had ten galleons to buy them each a treat from the trolley, and he bought Marina an extra cauldron cake for her role in his winning the money.
The train rolled into the station, as it always did, in the evening, and while Annie was awake enough—somehow—both Marina and Quincy were suppressing yawns. With no leftover stressors to keep her awake, and the train's gentle swaying and rumbling, Marina found herself dozing by the end of the ride, and she figured it was probably the same for Quincy. When they piled off the train, luggage and cat and all, the three lazily surveyed the platform to see whose parents had arrived to pick them up.
Quincy suddenly pointed into the crowd. "There's my dad; I think I see my mum too. Come on," he announced, and started heading towards Mr. Jackson's tall form. Marina and Annie followed him for lack of a better option just yet. As they approached, other parents and students moved around, giving them a better look. "I can see your mum and dad too, Mina!"
When they finally reached the adults, Marina saw that her parents seemed…well, almost giddy. That was unusual. They were happy people, as far as she knew, but they seemed much happier today than any other day. Seeing her parents in such a good mood in turn lifted the drowsy fog from Marina's head, and she no longer felt like all she wanted to do was collapse in her own bed.
"Mina, petite chèrie, welcome home!" her papa exclaimed, noticing the three students first. He pulled Marina in for a rather dramatic hug, which she returned, laughing.
Oh wait. Introductions again. "This is Annie," Marina announced as soon as she got free of her papa, gesturing with her arms to present her friend to the parents.
A round of "hello"s and "good to meet you"s ensued, as well as the inevitable "how was the end of the school year" questions. All the while, Marina eyes the way her parents kept eyeing each other with almost childlike grins. The Jacksons bade the Stewart-Lautrecs and Annie goodnight before stepping away to floo back home. Annie exited the platform with Marina and her parents, again, and found Annie's father, again, sitting on a nearby bench waiting for his daughter. With smiles all around, the girls hugged and promised to owl each other as much as they could over summer.
"I never knew you went by a nickname, Marina," Annie commented in parting. "Anyway, have a good summer!"
Marina smiled and shook her head at her friend's quirky conversation habits, but wished her a good summer all the same.
In the car on the way home, Marina could no longer stand not knowing what was going on between her parents, especially when they were being so obvious about knowing something she didn't. "Alright, what have you two been giggling about all this time?" she asked, putting on her most serious inquiring face and crossing her arms in the backseat.
Bobbie laughed. "We have not been giggling," she protested, proceeding to giggle and tuck a bit of her neatly styled golden hair behind her ear. To Theo, she asked, "Do you want to say?"
Her papa grinned, and made eye contact with Marina through the rear-view mirror. "I proposed to your mum," he said, much too casually for a statement of that gravity, Marina thought.
"We're getting married at the end of this year," Bobbie said excitedly, twisting in her seat so she could reach back and present her left hand to her daughter.
"Finally!" Marina smiled; the engagement ring was beautiful, and looked very nice on her mum.
Suddenly, she was struck with a thought that she hadn't really thought about before. Of course she knew her mum and papa weren't married, and she wasn't naive—she knew that having an almost-teenager with someone you were in a relationship with but not married to was unusual; none of her friends' parents were like that. It didn't bother her; it never had. But now she had to wonder: why were they getting married now? Why hadn't they gotten married years and years ago? Either before they had her, or even after she was a few years old…but why wait eleven—twelve, she reminded herself; she had turned twelve in December—years? As she congratulated her parents on their engagement, Marina tried to find a way to phrase her question without sounding rude or unsupportive. She was just curious, really; she didn't mean any offense.
After a couple minutes, Marina settled on just being blunt, like Annie and Quincy. "Why are you getting married?" she asked.
There was a beat of silence, in which Marina briefly was afraid that she shouldn't have asked at all, until her mum and papa exchanged a rather significant-seeming look. "Well, because we love each other very much," her mum answered carefully, "and we wanted to get married."
"You're already basically married," Marina said. "And you loved each other already, years ago, right?" Oops. That was probably less than polite.
Her mum sucked in a smooth breath. "We just…haven't had the opportunity until recently, dear." Marina still wasn't sure that made sense, but then her mum continued. "You know when you were very little, Papa still lived in France, and then just a few years ago—well, you remember."
Marina nodded. Okay, now that she thought about it, maybe they really didn't have the opportunity until recently…and she didn't want to ask about why they hadn't gotten married before she was born. Her mum didn't like to talk about anything that had happened before she was, well, her mum, unless it was recounting stories of Hogwarts. Maybe she could ask her papa. He seemed like he would more readily offer her information than her mum would.
That first week of summer was mostly spent outside with Quincy, relishing in their freedom. Sitting on her curb at the corner between their houses, eating ice cream, she brought up the whole engagement thing. This was the most curious thing Marina had encountered, and she wanted to understand. More than that, Marina also realized she knew almost nothing about her mum's family or her papa's family.
"Yeah, my parents told me yours got engaged after we got home from the station," Quincy said, trying to lick up all the drips of blue cotton candy ice cream running down the sides of his cone before they caused a disaster. Marina got ready with a napkin. "It is sort of weird, isn't it? Your parents getting engaged after they'd already definitely been together for twelve years? Or more, I suppose." The drips reached his hand, and Quincy started licking the mess off his skin. "How long have your parents been together, anyway?"
Marina scrunched her nose in disgust, shoving a napkin in her friend's face. "I don't actually know. I've never thought about the whole not-being-married thing before now, and I've never asked." She sighed. "I have been meaning to ask Papa. He'd probably tell me sooner than my mum would."
"That's a good idea," Quincy said, which made Marina feel a bit better about her plan to get some answers.
Their conversation soon turned to other topics more characteristic of two kids out of school for the summer, like Quidditch. Gideon's older brother Fabian was on the Gryffindor team, and Gideon apparently told Quincy about second years having the opportunity to try out.
"And you really want to fly up so high in the air like that?" Marina questioned. She'd been to the school matches; it could be a brutal sport. "What if you get really hurt?"
"That's the fun of it though, see," Quincy said, grinning. "The danger, the action, the suspense! High flying adrenaline rushes, Mina! And the glory, oh, the glory!" He pretended to faint from the supposed glory of it all, resulting in Marina almost spitting out her ice cream as she laughed.
And just like that, her parents' curious backstory was forgotten, pushed to the back of Marina's mind by the more pressing matters of being a twelve-year-old on school holiday.
The rest of summer was a whirlwind. Her mum turned into a bit of a raging wedding planning machine that couldn't make up its mind yet. When she was home, Bobbie was going through magazine after magazine, looking at dresses, flowers, center pieces, and so much more. Marina had no idea that so much went into planning a wedding. To avoid being called into the middle of it all, Marina spent a lot of time with Quincy, either biking around their neighborhood or meeting their friends at the Leaky Cauldron. Annie couldn't meet them very often, as her parents still didn't like the idea of their daughter going out and about alone in London, never mind a whole magical side of London they were completely unfamiliar with. Marina did go with Quincy to meet up with Gideon more often, though, and she found she quite liked him. During the school year she didn't have much of an opportunity to get to know this new friend of her friend beyond acquaintanceship, but by the end of summer she felt comfortable calling Gideon her friend.
When the school owl brought her supply list for second year, one of the first things she did was send an owl to Annie to try and organize a date where they could go shopping together. About an hour later, Quincy arrived at her house's back door, panting, as if he'd just run all the way from his house. Marina let him in, holding a finger to her mouth to tell him to be quiet; her mum was in a catering zone and disturbing her might end badly. The friends raced up the stairs to Marina's room where they could talk freely. Maia, who had been sleeping on Marina's bed, raised slow-blinking eyes at the intruders to her peace, but ultimately went back to sleep.
"Gideon just sent me an owl ten minutes ago," Quincy said at last, the words tumbling out of his mouth a little brokenly as he was still in the process of catching his breath. With comically exaggerated breaths, he bent double and put his hands on his knees. "Merlin, I'm out of shape!"
"See, you'll never play Quidditch if you can't even catch your breath," Marina laughed. "What did Gideon say?"
"He asked if we wanted to go school shopping together, of course. I just spent the last ten minutes convincing my mum it was a good idea to let me go with the Prewetts." Quincy paused. "I don't suppose your mum and dad would let you come? Without one of them, I mean."
"Well, I just asked Annie about going school shopping together. I don't know how well they'd take to knowing Annie would be coming with me and you and Gideon and his brother and…didn't his sister graduate last year?"
"Molly? Yeah, Gideon said Molly would be taking all of us."
"Quincy, I don't know if even my parents would let me go without any adults," Marina said doubtfully. "I'd like to go, and it sounds like fun, but I just don't know if I'd be allowed, and I know Annie most definitely wouldn't be allowed…"
Although Marina knew Quincy was rather smart, he was still a boy. Boys in general, of course, just didn't have the good sense that girls did, and this was why Marina tried very hard not to roll her eyes when Quincy said, "Why? Molly's an adult, and she's totally responsible."
In the end, Marina's papa was perfectly fine with the idea, but her mum wasn't too happy with it. "I will not let my child gallivant around Diagon Alley with some teenager I've never met," she said firmly, and that was that. She did, however, wholeheartedly embrace the idea of Annie joining Marina in school shopping.
—
The car ride to King's Cross on the first of September marked the end of Marina's summer. Here she was, about to start second year. With Maia clutched to her chest and her trunk dragging along behind her, Marina wished her parents goodbye and boarded the Hogwarts Express. Quincy followed at her heel, rambling on about Gideon joining the usual compartment trio this year because apparently Gideon himself had sent a panicked letter to Quincy two days prior about how Fabian refused to share a compartment with his little brother anymore now that Molly wasn't around to force him to do it. It wasn't so big of a deal. Marina was happy to have Gideon in their compartment, if they could find a free compartment, that is.
It turned out Marina and Quincy didn't need to find a free compartment; Annie had found one already, and was sitting quietly, staring out the window at the large crowd of parents and students on the platform. Quincy only had the presence of mind to tell her a quick and stuttered hello and abandon his trunk in the compartment before rushing off to find Gideon. More slowly and calmly, Marina levitated her own trunk onto the rack and then sat down next to Annie. Maia wandered onto her friend's lap, seeking the attention of this person she hadn't seen in months. Since entering the compartment, Annie hadn't thrown either Marina or Quincy her signature bright grin, and she didn't make an abrupt comment about Quincy. This was unusual, and Marina had a feeling something was off.
"Is everything alright?" she asked carefully. "You look much less cheery than usual."
Annie sighed, stroking Maia, whose loud purring brought a bit of her smile back to her face. "It's just my parents. All summer I kept feeling like they were ignoring me a little and paying more attention to my little siblings than they used to. I thought it was just because I'm older now than I was and they trusted me to be more independent, but then today my mum didn't want to come to the train station with my dad and I, and it seemed like my dad only brought me because he absolutely had to." With wide eyes, she looked up at Marina. "I'm worried they're upset I'm a witch," she whispered.
That had Marina worried, too. This was the first time she remembered Annie hesitating to say anything, even if the only hesitation she showed was whispering. It certainly wasn't like Annie to be afraid to say anything, nor was it at all like Annie to be worried about anything. If it was really bothering Annie this much, then it must be something. But Marina should try and make Annie feel better, right? Was this maybe one case where honesty actually was a bad idea? At least straight honesty, anyway.
After a moment wrestling with how to reply, Marina put her arm around Annie's shoulders and said, "I don't know how anyone could be upset by you, Annie Brennan. Maybe you're right, and they're just letting you be more independent. You said they didn't entirely ignore you, right?" At Annie's nod, Marina continued. "Then I wouldn't worry about a thing. If your parents really start pushing you away and making you feel unwelcome, then we can worry. I'm sure everything is just fine."
Just as Marina finished speaking, Quincy reappeared with Gideon in tow, identical mischievous grins on both of their faces. The pair of them almost slid past the compartment with how fast they were rushing. Annie perked up when she saw them, her usual smile slipping right back onto her face. Marina, though, was suspicious: Quincy only ever got that look when he did something worthy of disapproval. Gideon, gangly-limbed as he was, clambered over Quincy's abandoned trunk, hauling his own after him. Quincy rushed to scramble into the compartment and shut the sliding door behind him. The boys struggle with their trunks before they collapsed together on the seats, still grinning ear-to-ear.
Marina assumed what she thought to be a stern posture, arms crossed and foot tapping and everything, and fixed them both with a sharp eye. "What did you do?" she demanded.
"Just ran into a pair of Slytherins and had a bit of fun," Quincy said quickly. Then he suddenly froze, eyes wide, and watched as Marina's mouth dipped into a frown. Her glare had him looking remorseful within seconds, staring down at his shoes.
"You know Marina's mum's a Slytherin," Annie commented when Gideon started looking between the two old friends in confusion.
Just then the train lurched forward, beginning its journey to the school. Quick on the uptake, Gideon let his smile melt away. "The Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry bothers you, then? I'm sorry, Marina."
She sniffed. "It isn't me you should apologize to; it's the Slytherins," Marina said smartly.
"To be fair," Quincy muttered, "they were harassing first years."
"You can't just bully a bully," Marina protested. "That's not how it works—"
"Well, did the first years get away?" Annie interrupted.
Gideon straightened a bit in his seat. "They did," he said proudly. "We made sure of it. We only distracted the Slytherins a bit. All harmless stuff so the first years could escape."
Quincy sat up too, his dark eyebrows quirked up earnestly. "I swear, it was only small stuff. Just turning their robes colors and dropping a dungbomb right in front of them. Harmless stuff!"
"Then I think it's fine. Marina, you can't keep them from getting into a little trouble. It's like training a dog; unless you're around to tell them 'no' every time it happens, then they'll never learn," Annie said, in all apparent seriousness, though Marina could see laughter in her eyes.
Even if Annie was joking about the dog thing, Marina could see her point. Those boys were bound to get into trouble no matter what she said or did. That was a byproduct of being a Gryffindor, she supposed. Reluctantly, Marina nodded and rolled her eyes when Quincy and Gideon cheered at her silent concession.
The remainder of the train ride was a happy one, and when they all arrived at the Hogsmeade station, Marina watched wistfully as Hagrid escorted the first years away, all their eyes bright and wide with wonder and anticipation. Nothing would ever beat the first time she laid eyes on the castle, gliding across the lake in magic boats.
"They look so small," Annie commented. "I know we're only a year older than them, but don't they look so young?"
Marina nodded. "Come on, I heard we get to ride in horseless carriages," she said, excited for the new experience, tugging Annie by the hand to catch up to the boys. Maia protested with a little mew at this new pace of travel, cradled in Marina's arm as she was.
The carriages were truly impressive, just as the boats were last year. Up at the castle, Annie and Marina said a quick goodnight to Gideon and Quincy before hurrying over to the Ravenclaw table to wait for the first years. The girls met Lark and Artemis there, and the four of them chatted about how their summers went and what they hoped they'd do in class and otherwise over the course of the year until Professor McGonagall marched in with the first years behind her. As the professor began to run through the list, Marina didn't pay very much attention, that is, until the old Sorting Hat shouted "Gryffindor!" and a tense hush fell across the gathered students.
Confused, Marina looked from Lark to Artemis to the poor first year boy with shaggy black hair. Annie appeared just as confused as Marina did. The boy hopped off the stood, head raised defiantly despite the flush of embarrassment that Marina could see burning on his ears. "What just happened?" Marina asked as McGonagall carried on with the Sorting and the students carried on talking, albeit more hesitantly now.
"That was Sirius Black, and he's, well, a Black," Artemis supplied. "He was just sorted into Gryffindor."
Lark jumped in when it was clear that that was all Artemis had to say about it. "What Temmie means is," she said, using the nickname she'd taken up using, though Marina knew Artemis herself sort of hated it, "Sirius Black's family are all Slytherins. The Blacks are a super old pureblood family, worse about maintaining their bloodline than the Malfoys even. For Sirius to be sorted into Gryffindor is…well, it goes against everything his family is," she finished dramatically.
"My family, the Rowles, are one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight too," Artemis added. "Most of my relatives are Slytherins. A few of us are Ravenclaws. There were a couple Hufflepuffs that I know of, but they keep quiet about it usually."
Annie's eyebrows were drawn together in confusion and maybe even a little worry, the second time today Marina had seen her so far from her usual happy-go-lucky mood. "What are the Sacred Twenty-Eight?" she asked.
"Old, old pureblood families," Artemis answered shortly.
Rolling her eyes at Artemis's unhelpfulness, again, Lark elaborated for Annie and Marina, who was just as confused as her muggleborn friend. "Way back, like, ages and ages ago, some stuffy pureblood compiled a list of the families he deemed the most pure in blood, meaning no intermingling with muggles or muggleborns. It was all because of prejudice against muggles, you know, and even especially against muggleborns. It used to be that the very common belief was that muggleborns didn't deserve to have magic, or they weren't as powerful as purebloods." As if remembering that Annie was a muggleborn suddenly, Lark glanced at said witch, and her tone turned from cavalier to saddened. "It's a terrible thing to think," she assured Annie, who had turned quite pale. "It's a much less popular opinion now than it was."
Artemis cut in, being in one of these families and having insider knowledge. "There are families listed under the Sacred Twenty-Eight who are most certainly not truly purebloods, like my family. Most of them, actually, aren't really pureblooded, but most muggles, muggleborns, or halfbloods that marry into the family are either kept quiet or the blood traitors are disowned and disinherited. And some families hate being part of the Twenty-Eight, like the Weasleys and the Potters. Their entire families are called blood traitors for disagreeing with the old pureblood ideas. The Blacks, though, are extremely dedicated to keeping their blood pure. I can't remember who specifically, but I know they have cousins marry each other for the sake of keeping the blood in the family sometimes." She shook her head, eyes downcast. "Truthfully, I think it's disgusting, treating muggleborns the way purebloods do. I'm glad my family only pretends to care."
This was the most Marina had heard Artemis say in one go, aside from the time she went on a surprise rant about how much she couldn't stand the Gryffindor Quidditch team after they made a massive deal about beating the Slytherin team last year. This was also the most upsetting things she had heard Artemis say. Marina resolved to find out more about this disturbing part of her world that she'd never been privy to before. Unbidden, the question of her mum and papa's families popped into the forefront of her mind for the first time since early summer.
Rather than dwell on the unpleasantness of it all, Marina pushed these thoughts away in time to catch the last half of Dumbledore's welcome speech. After eating, the girls climbed the stairs up to Ravenclaw Tower, ready to turn in early and get a good night's sleep before classes began bright an early tomorrow morning.