"Madz!"
Ravenna Corbet bounced up to Maddy and threw her arms around her. Maddy accepted her cousin's embrace, followed by one from her Aunt Boudica, and a somewhat more reserved one from Ravenna's sister, Venice, as Boudica greeted Maddy's mother. Venice's best friend, Karima Shafiq, hung back shyly from the family reunion.
"Our things are already on the train," said Ravenna. "We've saved a compartment near the front."
"Are you sure you have everything, Sweetheart?" Cartimandua asked.
"Yes, Mum. I checked twice last night." Maddy glanced at Squeaker. "Go put my trunk in the compartment with Ravenna and Venice's things."
The house-elf hurried to obey.
Venice shifted impatiently. "C'mon. We've only got a few minutes before the train goes."
Maddy hugged her mother fiercely one last time. They had spent so much of the summer together that it was hard for Maddy to leave her now.
"Remember what we talked about," Cartimandua said in a low voice, when at last Maddy let her go.
"I will," Maddy promised, swallowing a lump in her throat.
Ravenna gave them a curious look, but said nothing until the four girls were out of earshot, hurrying across the platform to board the Hogwarts Express.
"What did you and Auntie Manda talk about?"
"Nothing," said Maddy, cheeks warming. "Just - boys. You know."
Ravenna snorted. "Were you likely to forget about them?"
"I wish I could," said Venice. "They're loud and obnoxious and they smell funny." She wrinkled her nose, glaring at a passing boy, who scooted out of her way, looking startled.
"Some of them are all right," Maddy objected.
Karima grinned. "You just think some of them are good-looking."
Maddy scowled at her. "Don't you?"
Karima only shrugged.
"They're good for kissing," said Ravenna.
"When have you ever kissed a boy?" her sister scoffed.
"I will," said Ravenna, optimistically. "This year. And it will be amazing. I know it."
"You won't have time for that sort of thing this year," her sister reminded her. "You've got NEWTs to study for, and we've all got OWLs."
"What boy?" Maddy asked, as they reached their compartment on the train.
It was Ravenna's turn to shrug. "I dunno. Xenophilius Lovegood, maybe?"
The other girls giggled, collapsing into their seats.
"Isn't he kind of a nutter?" asked Venice.
"Maybe a little," said Ravenna. "But he's nice, and he's kind of fit. I partner with him sometimes in Care Of Magical Creatures."
"You could ask him about the mating habits of thestrals," Karima teased, "just to get him in the proper frame of mind."
Ravenna grinned. "Maybe I will."
"How was your summer, Madz?" asked Venice, bored of discussing her sister's romantic fancies. "We've barely heard a word from you since you visited."
Maddy bit her lip. She had spent the remainder of her summer sticking close to her mother, and had not felt much like talking to anyone. Even if she wanted to tell her cousins what had happened, she knew it was safer if no one else ever found out about it.
"It was fine," she lied. "I was just ... busy."
"Doing what?" asked Karima, absently straightening her headscarf.
"Oh. Um. I wrote a story," said Maddy hastily.
"Really?" Venice cocked her head. "What kind of story?"
Maddy blushed. "It's nothing. Mum took away the Freya Lovelace books when I was in the middle of one of them, so I thought I'd try writing an ending for it, myself."
Ravenna raised her eyebrows. "Can we read it?"
"I suppose so."
Rummaging in the bottom of her trunk for the roll of parchment carefully stashed there, Maddy passed it to her cousin. She waited nervously as Venice read over a few lines, giggled, then began reading aloud, with dramatic flourish.
Maddy had not felt much like writing in the wake of the incident with Cameron. When she had finally returned to her story, she discarded her plans for an elaborate wedding scene, in favour of a dramatic sequence in which Estelle was kidnapped by one of her father's enemies (who looked rather like Cameron), but was saved from ravishment at the last minute by Maximo, who swore to love and protect her forever. The romantic hero took the fainting heroine before a magistrate at once, while she was still weeping with gratitude in his arms, and wed her on the spot, before carrying her up to his bedroom and tenderly deflowering her. And then they lived happily ever after, and had ten babies, all of whom were named and described in the final chapter.
"Wow," said Ravenna, when she had finished.
"You like it?" Maddy asked nervously.
"Yeah. Of course, it's nothing like what happens in the book," added her cousin.
"So that's it?" asked Karima, frowning. "She just marries some bloke because he rescued her? It doesn't seem like they even really knew each other."
"They're in love," Maddy pointed out. "What more do they need to know?"
"I dunno," said Venice. "If he really loved her, I don't think he would have bothered her in bed like that. At least, not until they wanted to have a baby."
"It's a love story," said Ravenna, rolling her eyes. "When two people love each other, they want to go to bed together."
Her sister wrinkled her nose. "I can't imagine ever wanting to do that. Rubbing your parts together with someone else's sounds revolting."
"I can't imagine letting a man do that to me, either," agreed Karima, glancing at Venice. "But I suppose if I really loved someone -"
"Bleh. No thanks." Venice shook her head emphatically. "I'd do it to have children, I suppose, but I hope I marry a proper gentleman who would never bother a lady with that sort of thing."
"Yeah ..." said Karima doubtfully.
"I don't think I'd mind," said Maddy. "Not if it was with someone I loved."
"Better not let anyone else hear you say that," Venice warned. "They'll call you a tart. Girls aren't supposed to want it."
"I don't think it's bad to want to a little," said Ravenna, "as long as you don't let on, and as long as you don't actually do it until you're married."
"What if someone forced you to do it?" Maddy asked before she could stop herself.
Venice frowned. "That would never happen unless you did something stupid, like going somewhere dodgy alone, or going with a man who has a bad reputation."
"I heard that if anyone ever tries to force a witch, she'll do accidental magic and stop him," said Ravenna. "If she doesn't, it probably means she wanted it, really. Unless she was under the Imperius curse, I suppose."
"Oh. Yeah. I guess that makes sense," said Maddy.
Her heart sank as all hope fled of confiding to her cousins what had happened to her. She had not lost control of her magic when Cameron grabbed her. Had some part of her truly wanted his attention? Maddy did not think so. But if the others found out, they would not understand. They might even blame her for what he had tried to do.
"Are you OK, Maddy?" Karima asked, peering at her.
"Yeah." Maddy shook off the dark cloud of her thoughts. "I was just thinking - about my story."
"I think it's good," said Ravenna. "I have a bunch of Freya Lovelace books in my trunk. I think The Maiden's Curse is in there somewhere, if you want to finish reading it, and see what really happens."
"Cheers," said Maddy, relieved by the change of subject.
From the corridor outside their compartment came the squeak of the food trolley's wheels.
"Let's get some snacks," said Karima, grabbing her embroidered coin pouch.
"I'm not hungry," said Maddy, but followed the others into the corridor anyway.
As her cousins and Karima made their selections, Maddy watched with envy. She would have liked a treat, but she had only a few coins in her own purse, and she wanted to save them.
"Hey," said a voice from behind her.
Maddy turned to find Rabastan Lestrange slouching against the row of windows, watching her, dark hair falling into his eyes.
"Hi," she replied uncertainly.
Rabastan was a Slytherin in the same year as Maddy, but she had never taken much notice of him before. He was taller than she remembered, and broader through the chest and shoulders. Maddy could not help thinking that he looked more like one of Freya Lovelace's romantic heroes than Xenophilius Lovegood did.
He grinned, looking her up and down in a way that left her feeling warm all over.
"You're looking good, Yaxley."
She giggled, blushing. "Thanks."
Before he could say anything more, a pack of Gryffindor boys piled into the corridor between them, heading for the food trolley. They took little notice of Maddy as they pushed past her, except for Peter Pettigrew, the shortest of the four, who cast her a hesitant smile, ears turning pink.
"Wait your turn, Potter," snapped Venice, when one of them jostled her. "We're not finished yet."
A tall, thin boy with a cloud of messy black hair bowed mockingly to her. "My apologies, your majesty. I wouldn't dream of inconveniencing you!"
Another of the boys nudged his friend and muttered something about "the Snooty Venutis".
"We're not the snooty ones, Black," scowled Maddy. "We just know that family are meant to look out for each other."
"Is that so?" grinned Sirius Black. "Because I have a question about your family, Yaxley. Is it true that your father ran off with another man?"
"Hey!" cried the three other girls, spinning around.
"None of that, now, if you please," said the trolley witch automatically, but made no move to involve herself.
Maddy glanced quickly to see if Rabastan had overheard, but he was nowhere to be seen. That was something, at least. It would have been too humiliating to have him hear such a scandalous accusation against her father.
She glared at Black. "My father is dead," she said, forcing conviction into her voice to keep it from shaking. "And you will be, too, if you say one more word about it!"
"C'mon, Maddy. He's not worth the trouble."
She was dimly aware of her cousins at her elbows, pulling her back toward their compartment.
"Stop it, Sirius," murmured a shabby boy named Lupin, urging Black away from the confrontation with a hand on his shoulder. "She hasn't done anything to you."
"He didn't mean it," Pettigrew said apologetically, tugging at Black's other arm.
"My father was twice the man you'll ever be, Black!" Maddy sneered, and turned away, shoulders stiff, stalking back to the compartment with as much dignity as she could muster.
"Ugh," said Venice in disgust, when the door had closed behind them. "Boys!"
"Especially those boys," agreed Karima, wrinkling her delicate nose.
Maddy flounced into a seat and glared moodily out the window at the passing countryside. Venice sat down beside her, giving her arm a comforting pat.
"No one really believes that rumour," she said kindly. "I can't believe Black had the nerve to say it to your face."
"Even if it were true," said Ravenna, "it wouldn't matter to us. Family is family." She passed Maddy a chocolate frog.
"Thanks," said Maddy, grudgingly accepting the treat.
She wished she could dismiss Black's words so easily, but it was not the first time Maddy had heard such whispers. The thought that her father might have left them for the sake of another man made her feel strange. Her mother was likely the only person who knew the truth, but Maddy would never dream of asking her something so deeply shaming. She was not certain she wanted to know the answer, in any case.
"Remember the time we all went to Black's birthday?" said Karima, shaking Maddy out of her thoughts.
Venice winced. "Don't remind me!"
"You're the one who wanted to be betrothed to him," giggled Ravenna.
Her sister rolled her eyes. "I got over that quick enough. I feel sorry for whoever ends up marrying him."
"Don't you think he's good-looking, though?" Karima asked.
Venice snorted. "'Good-looking' only gets you so far, when you're an insufferable prat to anyone who isn't in your little gang."
"Are the others all as bad as he is?" asked Ravenna. Two years older and a Ravenclaw, she had spent little time around Black and his cronies, compared with Venice and Karima, who were in the same year and house as the boys.
"Potter's a clown, but Lupin and Pettigrew aren't so bad," said Karima with a shrug. "At least, they don't bother anyone else most of the time."
"Pettigrew is all right," allowed Maddy. "I partner with him sometimes in lessons."
She privately considered a mudblood like Lupin to be beneath the notice of any pure-blood witch or wizard, but her cousins and Karima were more tolerant of such people. Maddy could not fathom why a member of the proud and prestigious Black family would consort with such a person, but Sirius Black had always seemed to take a kind of twisted pleasure in flouting the conventions of pure-blood society.
"Don't they have some kind of stupid nickname for themselves?" asked Ravenna.
Venice rolled her eyes again. "'The Marauders'. They think it makes them sound cool."
Maddy smirked. "Maybe we should come up with a 'cool' nickname for ourselves."
"We don't need a name," said Venice. "We're family."
"Even me?" asked Karima.
Venice took her best friend's hand and laced their fingers together. "Of course 'even you', silly!"
Karima beamed.
"Oh! Before I forget ..." said Ravenna, jumping up.
She stood on her seat to rummage through her trunk in the overhead bin. After a moment she hopped down, passing Maddy a fat book with a pink cover to.
Maddy accepted it with a grin. She still half-wished she could talk to her cousins and Karima about what had happened with Cameron, and the lingering doubts she harboured about her father, but at least she could look forward to spending the year giggling with the others about boys, and immersing herself in Freya Lovelace's tales of romance.
