Maddy Arts Academy was, as all of the brochures and websites proclaimed, beautiful. It was located in the northwestern most corner of Montana, surrounded by trees, rivers, and mountains, and aside from the tiny village of Maddy (where many of the teachers lived) it was situated at least an hour away from any city. With a student population of 463 (a full 10% of them international) and faculty and staff numbering somewhere in the 200 range, Maddy Arts Academy was the ideal boarding school. Students were smart, artistic, and driven and teachers were patient, enthusiastic, and dedicated.
As was the case with most boarding schools, the students of Maddy lived their lives by two separate and very distinct sets of rules. The first set was one put in place by school administration and years of tradition, and extensively covered an unending list of topics including sex (not on school property), alcohol (absolutely not), drugs (never ever), and curfew (10 on weeknights, 11:30 on weekends). The second set of rules was short, clear, and put in place and upheld by every student that had ever passed through the hallowed halls of Maddy.
First: If you're going to be stupid, be smart about it. Don't get caught.
Second: Tattling is unacceptable except under very extreme circumstances.
Third: Conflicts that arise among students stay among students. Nothing ever gets solved by bringing adults into the mix.
Finally: The students of Maddy Arts Academy are a united front against all outside forces. Take care of your own, and know that you will always be taken care of.
These two sets of rules worked in tandem to keep the peace between students, staff, and administration a like. Students understood the fact that an official set of restrictions on risky behavior was probably the only reason they had been allowed to attend boarding school by their parents. Faculty, staff, and administration respected the fact that, often times, student-enforced rules were the only reason that the Academy functioned at all. And both parties recognized and exploited the fact that one could violate every single edict from one set of rules while not breaking a single rule from the other.
This was the beauty of the system, and it was precisely what Ramona Dursley walked in on, a week after the life changing late-night phone call from home.
"Jesus! Heidi!" Ramona exclaimed, and shut the door quickly so as to hide her roommate's activities. While her afternoon plans had consisted of flinging herself onto her bed the second she got back to the room and watching low rated TV on her laptop, these now made way for a different set of less fun plans: laundry. More specifically, Ramona now needed to wash all of her bedding.
Ramona's roommate Heidi did not seem too concerned by the sudden interruption in her activities, nor did the half naked boy who was not at all covered by a set of pink polka-dotted sheets. In fact, Heidi seemed to be thoroughly enjoying breaking multiple official rules. Her wild red curls only partially covered up the fact that she was only half way wearing a bra (no sexual contact between students on campus), the cigarette she elegantly balanced between two fingers had purple lipstick stains on one end (use of tobacco or tobacco products is strictly prohibited), and the fact that she was actually in her roommate's bed didn't seem to bother her one whit (respect the boundaries set by your roommate).
Ramona sat heavily on a standard issue desk chair and sighed. "You owe me laundry money. Again." She loved her roommate dearly, but was less than thrilled with the fact that this was the third time she'd walked in on Heidi fooling around with some boy in her bed.
"Sorry," Heidi grinned sheepishly as she adjusted her bra and groped around for a shirt, "Your bed is closer to the door, and we were a bit caught up…"
Ramona held up her hand, not really wanting to hear about how caught up Heidi and her boy toy had been. "Just tell me no one saw you."
Heidi nodded and handed the boy his pants. "Almost every one else is still in class. Speaking of which, don't you have some sort of piano thing right now…?"
"I got a pass from the counseling office because I had to reschedule Spring Break plans." Ramona grimaced, "Apparently I'm meeting my family in England for some type of reunion."
"Nice!" Heidi flashed a wide smile as she ushered the boy, still without a shirt, from the room and shut the door in his face. "Tell me it'll be one of those extended family affairs, you know, with hot guys that you're not actually blood related to."
"Yuck." Ramona started to strip the sheets from her bed.
Heidi shot her a quelling look. "You know what I mean. The cousin of my cousin—"
"Is not really someone I want to date. Do you ever think of anything besides boys?"
"If you say so. And yes to that second thing. Sometimes I think about girls too. " Heidi grinned coquettishly, took another drag, and began to hunt through her desk drawer for some laundry money. "But getting back to my original point, I think it's kind of sad that your bed has seen more action than you have this year."
"What's sad is that I'm letting you have consequence free sex in my bed without charging some type of fee."
"Is laundry money not a fee?"
"If you're a two dollar hooker, I suppose it is." Ramona ducked as a throw pillow whizzed past her head.
(((RAMONAinBLUE)))
Later, in the basement, Ramona struggled to fold a fitted sheet while her best friend Kate sat idly by, reading a crisp looking copy of The Epic of Gilgamesh.
"I could use a little help here," Ramona grumbled over her shoulder as she tussled with the newly clean bed linens.
"UmmmHmmmm" Kate turned a page; "Maybe you wouldn't have to wash your sheets so often if you didn't let your roommate have sex on your bed." A pair of mischievous brown eyes peeked over the top of Gilgamesh to twinkle at Ramona.
Ramona Dursley simply wrinkled her nose. "I don't suppose this ever happens between you and Queen Alison."
Kate gave a rather un-ladylike snort, but made no comment. Of course nothing like this had ever happened to her. She lived with Alison Green, the sweetest, quietest, purest girl on campus. Ramona rather doubted that Alison possessed a single rowdy bone in her body.
For the next few minutes the laundry room was free of chatter as Kate continued reading and Ramona considered the courage required to clean out a lint filter. It was, she silently mused as she gathered her wits, rather nice to just be quiet in each other's presence. While she enjoyed rooming with Heidi and all the excitement it entailed, being friends with Kate was a more balanced experience, filled with equal parts shrill laughter and calm reflection. Kate had a great sense of humor and loved a good practical joke, but she wasn't ever out of control, and could always be counted on to be the rational mind in a room. She was the perfect counter to Ramona's jump-first instincts and love of chaos and conflict.
"So I hear you're headed to England for spring break," Kate said, putting down her book and breaking the silence. Ramona simply nodded in response, not yet sure how to feel about the recent development in her family life. "Well if you wanted, we could book the same flight to London. It's my dad's turn to have me for spring break and it might be fun to make the journey with someone for a change. We could fly first class and get drunk and smuggle monkeys and… you're definitely not paying attention, are you Ramona?"
"Huh?" Ramona pulled herself away from her thoughts, automatically resuming sheet folding.
Kate put down Gilgamesh and leaned toward her very preoccupied friend. "What's up Mona Lisa? Why so dower?"
Ramona avoided Kate's gaze, choosing instead to begin transferring her freshly damp clothes to a dryer. "You haven't called me that in a while," she muttered, referring to Kate's Mona Lisa quip.
"You haven't had a secret that noticeable in a while." Kate responded. "So tell me darling, what's eating you up?"
"I can't really say," Ramona said after a minutes pause. "It's hard to explain."
"Try. I'll get the gist of it, even if you have to leave some parts out."
Ramona smiled gratefully at her friend. "These relatives that we're going to England to see… they're different. It's my dad's cousin and his family that we're visiting/staying with." She took a deep breath, "This cousin and my dad, they grew up together in the same house, raised by my grandparents. But the thing is, Harry, cousin Harry, wasn't really a part of the family. Like they really mistreated him. My grandparents, who I love, neglected him and didn't love him and…. And my dad beat him up all the time and was really horrible to him about the fact that he didn't have any parents and such." Kate listened quietly, determined not to serve judgment, "And now we're going on holiday to visit them. We are going to stay with cousin Harry and his wife and their kids for a full two weeks, in their house. And all I can think of is why the hell is Harry even letting us visit? Why the fuck is he going to allow his family to even associate with us, after everything we've done to him?"
"You haven't done anything to him, Mona." Kate interrupted, her brows furrowing, "It sounds like this is all between your dad and his cousin, not between your families. And something must have changed between them, for Harry to want you to come and stay with him for two weeks. Something's got to be different for him to be willing to forgive your dad."
Ramona stayed quiet. Of course something had changed, but she couldn't tell Kate what that had been. The change between Harry and Dudley was the secret: that her ten-year-old little brother was a wizard, the very thing that had caused cousin Harry all of the abuse in the first place. Arthur Dursley was a wizard, and Harry Potter was most likely only letting the family stay with him to make sure that Arty wasn't being abused the way he had been growing up. This wasn't two cousins reconciling and two families getting to know each other, this was in the vein of a visit from Child Services. This holiday was born of mistrust, and that one fact gnawed at Ramona's heart the way very few things ever had before.
But instead of saying all of that and giving away the secret, Ramona simply nodded and offered her friend a simple thank you.
"You're welcome," Kate nodded, "And you know that I know that that isn't the whole story. But I won't pressure you, because I know that some secrets have to stay that way. And because I'm just such an awesome friend." She grinned widely
Ramona giggled, starting to feel the dark anxiety around her heart lift. Together she and Kate gathered the laundry that was done and folded and began their way back upstairs.
"If you're really that worried about meeting these people, you could just be yourself." Kate suggested.
Ramona rolled her eyes , "Genius Katie."
"Hey, I'm serious," Kate swatted her shoulder, "If you're really worried about your cousins only seeing you as your father's daughter, just show them who you really are. Your dad is great, really, but he's not you. And anyone who took a second to listen to any one of your harebrained schemes would know that."
"So you're saying…?"
"I'm saying that you should arrive in style and in your own way. Be yourself from the beginning. Let them know what they're in for. How would the real Ramona Dursley show up to some event she really doesn't want to attend?"
Ramona felt her smile automatically widen at the prospect, and her thoughts were immediately spinning a million miles per minute, all thoughts of familial mistrust and secrets forgotten. "How would the real Ramona Dursley express her distaste for being summoned to an event she doesn't want to attend?"
"How indeed."