Chapter 2,             "For the sole reason of being a git"

Travelling to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was always a fateful endeavor, and one Mavis was rather grateful to only have to do once a year. Her father always insisted on taking Muggle vehicles, so as to blend in with the masses—after all, he worked in the Ministry, had a high-brow job up there with all those big names you first think of when you hear "Ministry." Still, one wouldn't exactly expect Cyril Mayberry—Head to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement—to have the time to give a damn about anyone's business except his own, but he could often be heard chattering on about Muggles and their imaginations, debating whether the head of the Muggle Relations Department was truly doing a decent job.

But, though Cyril's job description was to delegate Aurora and police the Wizarding World—not to toggle the association between Muggles and Wizards—he was still infamous, at least in the Mayberry family, for caring just a touch too much about the Muggles of the twentieth century, and thus demanded each year for Mavis's deliverance to the Hogwarts Express to be sponsored by what he called an "'87 Cavalier", a hideous red thing that most likely drew more attention than Apparating would have done.

In any case, Mavis was beyond glad to slide out of the tan leather backseat of her father's Cavalier, meeting Cyril at the trunk as he heaved her luggage from the guts of the car. Her mother Mary stood to the side, arms crossed, one propped up with a cigarette between her middle and forefinger, an expression on her face that would have looked to any passersby that she barely knew these two people at all—but Mavis was not any passerby, and she recognized the damn-near blank face of her mother to be riddled by the slightest twitch of an eye, revealing the true impatience behind her mask. Mary was rather notorious for her ability to maintain a poker-face in any and all situations, an enigma in the way she was able to hide her true emotions seamlessly. Mavis had only spoken up about her mother's micro-expressions once, and she had gone to bed without supper on the same night.

She soon learned not to poke holes in the evasive atmosphere her mother carried herself with.

Now, Mavis found herself again resenting the woman who bore her, hating the way she could watch her aging husband grunt and groan and struggle with the trunk and not show even a semblance of emotion, negative or otherwise. Not even reach a hand out to help out of sympathy.

"I'm going to be famous," Mavis once told her mother, back before she knew it was possible to have dreams be crushed—before she knew Harry Potter. "I'll be in textbooks, the kind you see at school."

Mary seemed impervious to the comment, as though her young daughter were just some pesky little thing that, if ignored, would move itself on along.

Mavis caught the hint, and so she did. She always moved along.

Cyril insisted on carrying all of Mavis's possessions through the brick barrier until they reached the Wizarding World, which, if Mavis had been still eleven, would have been a very well appreciated gesture. But Mavis was now sixteen, and she felt bare and vulnerable like a little child, walking awkwardly at her father's side whilst he carried all her things.

"And you remember all my rules," he droned on, in that characteristic voice of his, that, if he wished, could hold an entire audience of people captive at his beck and call, just by how pleasant to the ear his tone could be. "Don't be foolish, don't drop your marks, don't forget about your parents—"

"Could I ever," Mavis muttered to herself, letting her attention wander as she walked, catching on anybody and everybody around her, indifferent to whether she was caught staring or not. She sniffed, then turned her full face back to her father as they slowed to a stop by the Hogwarts Express, muted red paint refracting onto Cyril's face and, to Mavis, granting him a devilish aura he didn't usually have.

Then he smiled and the illusion passed. "You have a good year, alright?"

Mavis's lips flattened in what could have been received as a smile or a scowl. Cyril seemed to accept it for the best he was going to get. Once her luggage was strewn safely into the train, he extended his arms, and Mavis came to the understanding that he was now expecting a hug.

She granted it. He was warm, as always, and smelt of an acrid metallic thing, like he'd been bathing in rust. Mavis wondered if he'd come straight off of work, and, if so, what exactly 'work' entailed.

When she turned to her mother, Mary did not extend her arms the same way Cyril had, but she flitted her eyes up and down her daughter's body as though taking her in for the last time. This, Mavis was used to, as well. What she still hadn't gotten the hang of was controlling her eyes so they didn't roll of their own accord.

"Be good," Mary told her daughter. With a nod of acknowledgment, Mary and Cyril Mayberry were gone again, lost to the bustling, Wizardly crowd of families wishing each other a good term, declaring how much they'll miss each other, waving and kissing their goodbyes. When Mavis lost sight of her parents, her eyes traveled up, up, up—until they traced the stream of smoke erupting from the engine of the train, and she remembered she had a nap to get to.

To a nap, though, she did not get; in fact, she would have been lucky to get a compartment all to herself. As it happened, nearly every single one had at least abandoned luggage or a sleeping wizard inside it, and Mavis—though certainly brash at times—could not bear to just kick someone's stuff out to the curb.

Begrudging, Mavis settled on one compartment toward the further end of the train that had only two trunks inside rather than three or four, which was all she could find, up to the point. She lugged her own bags inside and threw them up to the luggage rack with a small grunt of effort.

When she turned around to take her seat, however, she was, more or less, surprised to find Theodore Nott standing in the door, watching her with those dead eyes of his.

"Hello," she said amiably. "Mind if I?"

He stared at her for a moment longer, then lifted his shoulders and dropped them in a lousy shrug. He began moving, and, in all honesty, Mavis expected him to go ahead and take himself and his luggage elsewhere, but he only moved to the bench across from her and began to fiddle with the window.

"Where is the rest of you?" Mavis asked him, as he unfurled from his pocket a box of cigarettes and Muggle lighter.

"Malfoy's got Prefect," Theo replied, words discombobulated around the cig hanging in his lips, holding the tiny silver box and cupping his hand around the flame. He exhaled a plume of smoke not at all unlike the one Mavis had seen from her own mother's lips just a few minutes prior. "So he's in compartment one with the rest of them, and Astoria. Pansy's waiting outside for them to finish their meeting. Blaise—he's with Crabbe and Goyle, because they lost their robes and he's helping them search their bags. I expect he'll be back rather soon. You?"

Mavis did not know whether he was asking her where her own friends were or if he was wondering what she was up to herself, but she supposed it didn't matter either way, because he took another long drag from his cigarette and let his head hang back lousily like he was done with the conversation.

True to Theo's word, the tall figure of Blaise Zabini appeared in the window a moment later, and he shuffled into the compartment to sit beside Theo without another word. When Theo asked if Crabbe and Goyle ever did find their robes, Blaise only shrugged, and Mavis wasn't sure what to take of that.

"Good summer?" Blaise eventually asked of her, raising his eyebrows to lift the tone of his voice in the way people do when making small chat with people they aren't exceptionally close to.

"Decent," said Mavis with a short nod, reminiscent of her rather curt conversation with Hermione Granger in Flourish and Blott's. "Yours?"

Blaise shrugged, his hands tapping away at his thighs, himself apparently unaware of the fidgeting. "Fine. I didn't have to see anyone I don't fancy seeing, if that's any indication."

Mavis's cheeks twisted in a half-hidden smile.

Blaise, to his credit, was one of the only Slytherins Mavis could actually have seen herself befriending, at least at an arm's length. He was calm and collected and never once laughed at any of Malfoy's foolish, prejudiced jokes; but he did, every once in a while, deliver a witticism at Malfoy's expense that would have everyone within earshot cracking up and Draco's cheeks tinged pink. Mavis also wondered if she remembered Blaise as having of a girlfriend, but she could never keep up; one of them, between Theo and Blaise, was notorious for his Don Juan-esque womanizing work, but Mavis honestly figured them both pretty fit and wouldn't be surprised if it were either of them.

When Theo lifted his head and announced that Sid Delphy, a Ravenclaw in their year, had "yet again" broken things off over the summer, however, Mavis was deftly reminded that it was, in fact, Theo who was renowned as the casanova of the Slytherin steeple, and in a rather toxic relationship (or not, as of this summer) with Delphy.

Blaise, whose nose was rather deep within already in a book, waved Theo off dismissively, and that was the end of the conversation.

The train took off, Mavis only aware of this due to the increasing speed of the scenery out the window to her left. Inside the train there were no bumps nor turns, nor brakes nor squeaks. It was enchanted to host the smoothest ride possible, a fourth year had told her during her first time. Mavis still believed it, but she had grown suspicious of whether or not such would be true.

At some point, Theo fell asleep, a fact that only revealed itself through the perfunctory, rattling snores erupting from deep within his throat, and which brought rather great, necessarily silent deals of laughter down upon Blaise and Mavis.

At another point, the Prefects' meeting adjourned. Malfoy appeared in the corridor next to the idealized Slytherin compartment, glaring off at something out of eyesight from Mavis's bench.

Malfoy's sharp upper lip curled in a sneer, and she could see his wand inching up to be of aim.

"Is something the matter," she asked Blaise in a low voice, "or do you think Malfoy's being a git for the sole reason of being a git?"

"While the answer could be either of those choices," Blaise said, his own eyes glued to the scene outside their carriage, "I believe it more likely to be the former. I know the a few sixth year Gryffindors have taken up shop a few doors down from us..."

Mavis's lips formed an O and she followed Blaise out the door to meet Draco in the corridor. Granted, despite the magical world and all the boundaries that could be surpassed through spells and enchantments, the walkway to get across carriages on the Hogwarts Express was not exactly a corridor in any sense of the word—more a narrow path, enclosed on one side by a rattling wall and the other by the glass windows of compartments.

It was in no way suitable, much less comfortable, for a scene such as the one Mavis found herself upon when she squeezed out the door and took her place behind Draco—and, oddly enough, was filled with a strange sense of deja vu facing Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley yet again.

This time, Mavis was not wandering into their shopping path at Diagon Alley; by planting herself at Draco's shoulder, her devotion was declared. As though it had needed any declaration—she'd have been a fool to take Granger and Weasley's side over any Slytherin's. This time, it just so happened to be Malfoy.

"In need of saving, Malfoy?" Blaise drawled, looking rather unbothered by the whole affair. "You lot do realize we still can't use our wands? Do you expect to just punch it out the Muggle way?"

"Wouldn't be surprised if Weasley tried such a thing," said Malfoy, arms crossed calmly over his chest.

"We're only supposed to be patrolling the corridors," Hermione said to Malfoy, setting a hand on Ron's upper arm to stop him, presumably, from doing anything brash. "We have to set an example for the younger students, Malfoy; or have you forgotten?"

He scoffed. "I am setting an example: For the younger generations to know they must never take a Gryffindor seriously. Especially one such as yourself, Granger."

Hermione stiffened, but was still able to keep her grip on Ron's arm so he didn't make a dive toward the Slytherins. Mavis and Blaise exchanged a glance behind Malfoy's back; it was clear the conversation was about to take a dour turn.

"And what," said Hermione tersely, "exactly, does that mean?"

Malfoy lifted and dropped his shoulders. "I think you know just what I mean."

"C'mon, Draco," said Mavis; though why he would listen to her, she wasn't sure. She had just begun to grow rather uneasy with the current situation. "There's a spot for you in our carriage—"

From a little down the way, a compartment door slid open, and the detached head of Harry Potter stuck out of it. "Ron," he called, looking perplexed by the scene to which he had stumbled upon. "Hermione. Is everything okay?"

"Should be, now that our good hero Potter is here," Mavis muttered, earning a quiet laugh from Blaise.

"Come on, Ron," said Hermione, pulling on his arm to turn him back towards Harry's carriage. "Harry's got a seat for us with Luna and Neville."

"Right," said Malfoy coldly. "Go on back to the rest of your little oddities."

Ron only made one more attempt to get to Malfoy before he and Hermione had disappeared into the carriage where Harry's head had been. Malfoy shuffled in with Blaise and Mavis, taking a seat next to the latter, as Theo had slept through the entire row and did not look as though he were going to awaken anytime soon.

"Another year," Blaise said, "another reason to hate those three, yeah? Let's just leave it at that, Malfoy."

"Perfect Potter," Malfoy muttered, clearly not having heard Blaise whatsoever. "I ought to show him just what—"

But before he could expound on exactly what he intended to show Harry, the compartment door slid open once again and a breathless third-year girl stepped inside.

"I'm supposed to deliver these," she said meekly, not meeting any of their eyes, "t–to Blaise Zabini and Mavis Mayberry."

She was holding out two scrolls of parchment tied with a violet ribbon. Curious, Blaise and Mavis took the scroll addressed to each of them and the girl stumbled back out of the compartment.

"What is it?" Draco demanded, as Mavis unrolled hers.

"An invitation," she replied quizzically.

Mavis,
I would be delighted if you would join me for a bite of lunch in compartment C.

Sincerely,
Professor H. E. F. Slughorn

"That's the new Potions teacher," Blaise said, frowning down at his own invitation. He lifted his eyes to Mavis and they shared a perplexed glance. "Why would he want to see us?"

"See you for what?" said Malfoy, louder as his insistence grew. "Why haven't I received one of those? Let me see it, Blaise."

"No can do," said Blaise, coyly slipping his invitation into the breast pocket of his coat. He nodded to Mavis. "Shall we be going, then?"

She wet her lips, still eyeing the odd scroll with a curious wondering of what was awaiting her in compartment C. She didn't know much of this Professor Slughorn. But if Blaise was being summoned, too—and Draco was not—then perhaps, Mavis thought, it could not have been too dreadful.

"Yeah," she told Blaise, folding up her own invite and shoving it down into her back pocket, next to her wand. "I was getting rather hungry, anyway..."

Author's 🌽 er

Blaise Zabini has my heart. Also if you're one of the people who think Mavis (for all her oddity and outlier-ness) would get on with Luna and Neville... :/ fraid I have to tell you she would judge them just like the rest of her Slytherin brethren. But character development is obvi on the horizon!! Bye bye now everyone see you next time