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Maria gingerly cleared her throat, hesitant to break the heavy silence of the invisible carriage. “So what happens when I get to school?”
“How should I know?” Her cousin sneered. Both he and her aunt were looking out the windows, steadfastly ignoring the carriage’s other occupant as much as possible. “I go about my business. We haven’t had a transfer student since I’ve been going there, so who knows what you do.”
“Oh.” There was silence for another couple of minutes before, “Tante Narcissa? Were there any transfer students when you went to school?”
“No.”
Sighing, Maria turned to look out the same window as her aunt. Two months in England and she wanted nothing more than to run back to France and never leave. Maybe she could beg Madam Maxime to let her live in the school year round. I don’t see why I even have to go to Hogwarts. I could just port over to France for the year, see all of my friends, be happy again, and then come back to this trou d'enfer when the year ends. Merlin knows it wouldn’t be the first time someone went to school in a different country than they were living in!
Oddly enough, the option hadn’t even come up in conversation and Maria had learned quite quickly that the less she said around her relatives, the less she got sneered at.
The day matched her mood perfectly – overcast, drizzly, with a light fog. It was exactly the sort of weather she’d expected from the accounts she’d heard of London. Of course, it had been bright and sunny all summer, but she was inclined to think that it had just been a good year. She couldn’t imagine her uncle’s family living someplace pleasant without the very landscape being fouled by their presence.
Eventually the carriage pulled up at a train station and the three of them got out. Maria let her cousin and aunt exit first, hanging behind almost demurely. The rest of the family seemed to like it when she acted subservient, even though she hated it and would occasionally do something almost stupidly independent just to upset them.
“This way.” Narcissa gestured imperiously before heading through the crowded mob. Maria was almost surprised the woman didn’t grab hold of her arm just to make sure she didn’t get lost. Then again, maybe she wanted her to get lost, you never could tell.
“But the luggage?”
“The house-elves will get that, stupid.” Draco rolled his eyes, following his mother. “Get moving.”
The station was stuffed to the gills with people – business men rushing away on out of town business, women dragging children by the hand, lovers exchanging long, almost pornographically intimate kisses – yet the whole lot of them parted almost instinctively for the tall, blonde woman striding through them. The two teenagers directly behind her, however, weren’t so lucky. Maria was jostled on all sides and had to struggle to keep up. At one point, someone even groped her as she went past, but when she turned to yell at them she couldn’t figure out who it had been and her aunt and Draco were a good ways ahead of her.
By the time she managed to catch up, her aunt and cousin had stopped across from one of the platform dividers. They both gave her a look that was something between disapproval and sadistic glee, but neither of them said anything to her. All her aunt said was, “Alright, Draco, you first,” at which point her cousin strode, head up, eyes directly ahead, through the barrier. Narcissa looked at her niece expectantly.
What? Maria thought irritably. Does she expect me to be surprised? It’s not like I’m a Muggle who doesn’t know what magic…
“Well? Go.” Narcissa gestured quickly and irritably toward the barrier.
Oh. Trying not to blush, both in shame for her thoughts and sheer embarrassment (How was I supposed to know I went next?) she followed her cousin through the barrier. The other side was no less crowded than the one she just left, except that instead of many people rushing to many platforms, everyone was gathered on one platform with a big, scarlet steam engine sitting there, waiting to leave. Maria thought it was much prettier than the plain Muggle trains on the other side, even though the others were undoubtedly more efficient. There was something to be said for aesthetic, after all.
“Draco!” Off to her right her cousin was being greeted by the pug ugly girl from the picture in his room. She automatically latched onto his arm like a leech, confirming Maria’s suspicion that she was a girlfriend. “Come on, we have to get to the front of the train.”
“Wait!” Maria called out impulsively. Draco turned to glare at her and the other girl looked at her as if she’d just crawled out from under a rock. Maria fell into her habitual silence and the other two sneered and pushed their way through the crowd. But where do I go?
As if answer to her question, her aunt's voice drawled frigidly from behind her. “I’d get on if I were you; you don’t want to miss the train. I’ll make sure the house-elves get the luggage on properly.” The woman’s azure eyes swept the crowd. “Where is your cousin?”
“Cousin Draco went with some,” Maria bit back the urge to add the adjective ‘revolting’, “Girl to the front of the train.”
“Ah, of course…” Narcissa smiled, a delicate twist of her coral lips, but she didn’t look at her niece again, even as she moved toward the front of the train. “Well, I’ll go say goodbye and you, litten blod förrädaren, can get yourself on the train.”
Two seconds later, Maria was standing in the middle of a crowd of unfamiliar faces, expected to find her own way to an unfamiliar place. She wanted to bolt back through the barrier. At least in France I knew what people were saying when they insulted me!
Screwing up her courage, Maria made her way to the train.
* * *
“I take it that black haired girl was your cousin?” Securely in the front of the train Pansy had released Draco’s arm and now the two of them sat, fingers twined, waiting for the other prefects. Narcissa had come in and said goodbye already.
“Yes.” Draco groaned, leaning his head against the damask cushion of the seat. “She’s a nightmare! She’s always insulting us in French and thinking it makes her so clever, as if the rest of us don’t speak it; she’s forever trying to be ‘helpful’…did I tell you she wanted to give the house-elves clothes?”
“Oh Merlin!” Pansy made a face, her tilted nose wrinkling in a way that Draco found adorable when he wasn’t too frustrated to enjoy it. “Just what the world doesn’t need, another Granger!”
“At least Granger has some idea what she’s doing.” The fair boy groaned, rubbing his temples. “Maria wants to give them clothes because they ‘look cold.’ And she wanted me to believe she was smart enough to help me with potions! How can you be so completely clueless about house-elves and still be able to do sixth year potions?”
“Sounds like an ego-maniac to me.” Pansy rolled her eyes, then her expression darkened. “Not surprising given her looks. Probably spends half of her time in front of a mirror.”
“I’ll take you over her any day.” Draco smiled at her, fondly brushing her heavy bangs off to the side. “You have looks and brains, something she obviously lacks.”
Pansy blushed. They were both terribly aware that if all of the girls in the school were to enter a beauty pageant, the name Pansy Parkinson wouldn’t even make the top twenty. She was too square, except for her face which was too round, her nose too tilted, her legs too thick, and her hair and eyes the wrong colour. Draco adored her. In fact, he was about to prove his veneration by leaning forward and engaging her in a passionate kiss when the other prefects started filling the compartment, starting with the two people Draco least wanted to see.
“Oh Merlin, I think I’m going to go blind! For crying out loud, Malfoy, don’t do that in public!”
Resplendent eyes narrowed in distaste, Draco turned his jeering expression on the flame-haired boy in the doorway. “What’s wrong, Weasley? Jealous because we got here first and you can’t spend time sucking the face off of your Mudblood girlfriend?”
Pansy snickered. Ron Wealsey went to draw his wand, but his fellow Gryffindor prefect stopped him.
“Ignore him Ron. After all, if you curse him, he’ll just go running to his Mother because no one respects his Father anymore.”
Draco seethed. A summer of listening to his cousin’s jibes had, oddly enough, left him even less ready to deal with members of his rival house than usual. She’ll be Gryffindor, and she’ll fit in perfectly.
* * *
There were already four people in the compartment: a crimson haired girl with a dappled face, a boy with a rotund face talking to a toad in his lap, a girl whose nose was buried in a magazine of some sort, and a boy with messy black hair who was talking to the red-head. They all looked to be roughly Maria’s age.
Clearing her throat lightly to get their attention, Maria timidly asked. “Excuse me, is there room for one more?”
All four of them looked up. The girl with the magazine had eyes that looked like they were going to pop out of her head, which made Maria distinctly nervous, but she had a nice smile. It was the freckled girl who actually answered her, moving over a little as she did. “Sure, come in!”
“Thank you.” Smiling in amelioration, the swart haired girl slipped into the compartment and settled herself onto the maroon seat.
“No problem. I don’t think we’ve met.” With another smile, as vivid as Maria’s was apprehensive, she held out her hand to shake. “I’m Ginny Weasley.”
“Maria Malfoy,” Maria smiled a bit more confidently, shaking as she was bid. “But please, call me Mary.”
The expressions of her companions instantly became a study in shocked revulsion. It reminded her uncomfortably of the way her uncle looked at her when she’d made one of her daring suggestions such as doing away with all of the smelly owls and getting a telephone. The thing she couldn’t understand was how she’d managed to offend these people just by introducing herself! How did I screw up now?
“Malfoy?” The dusky haired boy all but spit the name. Now that he was looking at her, Maria could see that he wore thick, round glasses over viridian eyes, which gave him an adorably bookish look. “As in Draco Malfoy?”
“Y…yes, he’s my cousin.”
“Oh.” Both the boy and the flame haired girl looked at her as if she might bite at any moment. The round faced boy shrank back a little bit, and the pop-eyed girl just kept looking at her as if she were a very interesting bug.
Maria’s stomach knotted horridly as the realization sunk in that they probably thought she was as bad as the rest of her English family. The entire school would probably react like that – friendly until they found out who she was related to, then hostile. She couldn’t blame them, really, but it was so unfair! Faintly, trying to keep up the flood of courage that had filled her veins at Ginny’s smile and welcome, she tremulously added, “My parents were killed, so I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle. I…I’m transferring here from Beauxbaton.”
“Transferring?” The pop-eyed girl looked enthusiastic and leaned forward. “Really? I don’t think we’ve had a transfer student before; I’ll have to tell Dad about it! Sorry about your parents. I’m Luna Lovegood.” With another of her smiles, which now that Maria saw her closer were nice, but with a slightly manic undertone, extended her hand. “Do you know which house they’re going to put you in already, or do you find out when you get there?”
“Pleased to meet you,” Maria shook, a bit overwhelmed. “I…House? I’m not certain…Draco’s mentioned them, but I haven’t been told anything.”
“I hope you’re in Ravenclaw with me.” Luna withdrew her hand, beaming. “You don’t seem like a Slytherin.”
“Slytherin…” Maria frowned, recognizing the word from her relatives’ whispered conversations that died the moment she walked into the room. “That’s Cousin Draco’s house, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” The other four nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm from Luna, whose head looked like it would fall off if she nodded any harder, to the round faced boy’s timid little bob.
“Oh, well then, I certainly hope I’m in Ravenclaw instead!” Maria sniffed, carefully straightening her quilted skirt over her knees. Perhaps if she made it clear she didn’t like her cousin either, she could make some friends. “After two months of l'enfant en bas âge terrible I want him as far away from me as possible!”
The boys both looked confused, Luna nodded, and Ginny giggled.
“Le enbas what?” The bespectacled boy queried, blinking.
“It means ‘the terrible baby,’ doesn’t it?” Ginny snickered, teeth lightly clenching her lower lip.
“Oui ! Parlez-vous français?” Maria leaned forward, alabaster skin aglow.
“Ah, not really.” The other girl grinned sheepishly. “My brother’s girlfriend went to Beauxbaton and I’m picking up a little bit. That’s her favorite term for my twin brothers.”
“I see.” Heliotrope eyes swept the other three. “Do any of the rest of you speak French?”
Three heads shook.
With a slight hesitation, the boy with the toad leaned forward and extended his hand. “I’m Neville Longbottom.”
“And I’m Harry.” The chartreuse eyed boy extended his hand after Neville. “Harry Potter.”
Maria felt here eyes grow large. “Harry Potter? THE Harry Potter? Oh I’ve heard all about you!” She paused. “Funny, I always imagined you looking a bit more…imposing.”
Ginny burst out laughing, as did Luna, who rather brayed like a mule. Neville’s eyes went wide. Harry’s cheeks colored up and Maria suddenly realized how horrid that had sounded.
“Oh, I’m sorry! I…I didn’t mean…”
“Don’t worry about it.” Harry waved off her apology, although he still looked a bit chagrined.
Her own milky complexion pinked and she dropped her own orchid eyes to her lap. At least they were laughing, smiling, not sneering. It seemed if these people, these Ravenclaws, actually knew what forgiveness were and fun, unlike her own family. Maybe I’ll be alright after all…
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