Chapter Text
A loud explosion burst from the revealed card, clouding the train compartment with purplish smoke.
“Damn…” muttered Mara Yen, patting out the singeing part of her sleeve.
“You win again, Ben,” Penny sighed to the winner beside her.
Ben smiled as he pushed the small pile of treats from the middle of the table towards himself.
Rowan, sitting next to the window, commented about the scenery. “Looks like we just reached Scotland, a couple of hours more before we reach Hogwarts.”
“I can’t wait that long,” said Mara beside the brown girl. “My legs are starting to have that buzzing feeling again.”
“Too bad,” she laughed.
The group had been sitting in their compartment playing cards and board games since the trip started, and their supply of treats to be betted on slowly depleted at every round.
“Another round then?” Rowan asked.
“No way,” objected Penny. She reached across the table to block the scattered cards. “We’re playing something else, another round of Snap and Ben’s going to have a whole year’s supply.”
He grinned sheepishly. “Let’s not play Gobstones, please. I get rather jumpy at the sprays.”
“You weren’t getting jumpy at the explosions just now,” grumbled Penny. “How about Go Fish? It’s about time for you two to have another Muggle lesson.”
“Oh, right,” Rowan remembered. “But where are we going to find fish?”
Penny paused. “We don’t need them. Mara, go fetch your deck, we need regular ones.”
Mara stood up on her seat and began rummaging through her luggage in search of the cards, holding onto the metal railings so she won’t fall, all while listening attentively to Penny explain how to play the game.
Rowan and Mara were raised in all-magical households, unlike Penny and Ben, who were both Half-Blood and Muggle-Born respectively. Thus, they rarely experience Muggle related stuff.
“Found them.” Mara pulled out a pack of cards and hopped back down to her seat.
“Okay, so here it is,” said Penny confidently as she shuffled and distributed the cards. Mara and Rowan exchanged a glance with each other nervously as she did.
“Oh… my sweets are almost finished,” said Penny.
“Darn, mine too,” said Mara.
“Mine too,” parroted Rowan.
Ben’s ears began to glow red. “I can just return everything.” He started shoving his winnings back before being stopped by Rowan.
“No, that’s not right, you won them fair and square.” She nudged Penny with her foot underneath the table.
“She’s right!” Penny cried. “Though if it makes you feel better, Ben. You and Rowan can both go fetch us some more from the trolley lady.”
Mara looked outside the glass door. “But the trolley lady’s left so long ag- oof!” She felt the blonde girl kicked her from under the table.
Luckily Ben didn’t notice.
“Go outside?” he asked. “I don’t know, a bit nervous talking to the lady. And Merula… don’t even know what will happen if I meet her.”
“I’ll be beside you, it’ll be fine,” Rowan urged.
Mara finally got to her senses. “Y-yeah, plus there are prefects out, so they won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I…” He contemplated.
The three girls waited with bated breath.
“No, I can’t do it, I’m sorry.” He said in a defeated tone.
The girls sighed inwardly.
Penny looked the most disappointed. “I guess the three of us will have to draw straws then.”
Someone knocked on the group’s door, startling all of them. Felix Rosier waved from the outside. Penny immediately lit up.
“Or maybe not,” she muttered.
Mara quietly slid the door open. “Hi, Felix.”
“Hello,” he smiled. “I was just patrolling about and wondered if you and your friends would like some refreshments.”
“Oh, that’s good timing, Felix. If yo-”
“How about you go to the trolley with Felix, Mara? You know what we like best,” interrupted Penny, a bit too enthusiastically. She ignored Mara’s slightly annoyed look, and winked towards Rowan.
“Right, what would you guys like?” she sighed.
“Two boxes of Bertie Bott’s, see if you could get the Fizzing Whizzbee’s edition.”
“Get black liquorice wands instead if there’s none.”
“Chocolate frogs but only with the red packaging, that one that that plays a melody when you strip it off.”
“Don’t get the ones with almonds, please.”
“We also need some Fizzing Whizbees and some Blowing Gum, make five of each for everyone.”
“Some cauldron cakes too!”
“No almonds on those too, please. Or no nuts at all, I’m allergic…”
“You know what, extra chocolate frogs.”
“Oh, good idea, Rowan.”
Mara frowned while counting their requests with her fingers, with Felix chuckling softly behind her. “Right… I think I’ve got it.”
She exited the compartment and walked with Felix towards the trolley lady.
“And what would you be having?” he asked.
“Just a chocolate bar.”
The trolley lady had walked a few carriages away from hers, and it was though half of the train’s passengers were hungry from the long journey, that or they wanted to stretch their legs. They almost reached the end of the line when some First Years ran and bumped into Mara.
“Hey, you two, don’t run in the aisle!” he scolded them loudly.
The First Years mumbled apologies and toppled over one another to get away.
“No need to scold them like that, Felix. They were just playing,” Mara clicked her tongue. “Poor things, you scared the pants off them.”
“Had to, I’m starting prefect duties this year.”
“Well don’t let that get to your head, I nearly got deaf from your yelling.” She said as they reached the end of the line.
“Right,” he said. “Then I’ll make sure to cover your ears when I do that.”
She rolled her eyes at that.
“So humour me. Back there, why was Haywood acting more eccentric than usual?” Felix started.
Mara chuckled. “Oh, you noticed. She and Rowan had been talking about dating this year.”
“Dating? Bit young for that, aren’t you three?”
“Funnily enough, it was Rowan that suggested we do it, but that’s another story for the future.”
“No wonder Alsephina kept asking me to keep an eye on you this year,” Felix scoffed.
She huffed when hearing that. “Excuse me? Does my mother have so little trust in me she needs you to monitor everything I do? I’ve told her countless times I wouldn’t go to any trouble, that I already have enough on my pla-”
“No, it’s not like that, Mara. She’s just a bit worried, after all you are still the little baby of the family,” he said as he pinches her cheeks roughly.
“Get. OFF!” She tends to her cheeks and looked away from the assailant. “Just because he got to go to a fancier school doesn’t mean I am reverted back to a kindergartener!”
“No, no,” Felix snorted. “I just really love doing that.”
Mara’s brother was an average student up until the summer of his Fourth Year, where some dark cloaked figures arrived at her doorway of her family estate. Her mother ushered her into her bedroom so she and her brother could talk to them. After an afternoon and a half-finished painting of a fruits basket, Mara was told that her brother was offered to study in an institution up in Wales. No amount of tears could convince him to not go.
“Has Jacob written back to you?” She asked meekly.
Felix thought about it. “Not really, it’s been a few weeks as well, wonder what’s taking him so long.”
“I bet he’s too busy with new friends…”
He wrapped an arm around her. “Or! He could be slaving away in that quaint little school, his hand all withered up and that’s why he couldn’t write back.”
Finally, Mara’s mouth let out a faint grin. “I hope that’s the case, serves him right for transferring so far away.”
Felix nodded in agreement, but his eyes betrayed a look of disappointment that Mara didn’t catch. He too misses his best friend.
The time to buy what was needed took longer than it did for them to line up to her. Mara’s arms were wrapped around the treats she bought, securing them like a baby.
“Do you need me to help carry for you? Looks like a lot,” offered Felix as they were walking back to her compartment.
“No, it’s fine. I can handle it, and it doesn’t look like a lot. It is a lot,” she laughed.
But there were a large group of people blocking their path, seemed to be gathered around someone.
“Is that Skye Parkin?”
“Skye Parkin? Ethan Parkin’s daughter?”
“No way! What’s she doing?”
“I heard she’s giving out autographs!”
Students swarmed into a crowd, knocking and squeezing through any space they could to have a glimpse and autograph from the famous celebrity’s daughter.
“What the… Mara, you get out of here. I’m going to try and subdue this crowd,” said Felix. He jimmied himself into the blob of humans.
Mara did her best to leave the crowd, but it was hard as she was shorter than many of them. Her pardons and excuse mes fell into deaf ears as she found herself knocked about. A fellow’s elbow struck her in the temple and that made her spill out her shopping.
She was about to fall as well, her left foot tripped over her right and she was sure she was about to be trampled to death when a pair of arms caught her.
“Felix!”
It wasn’t Felix. Instead, it was someone else from her House. Someone whose shaggy hair and auburn complexion she could recognise a mile away. That being said, she always cursed herself for not knowing his name.
“Are you alright?” the stranger asked.
“Y-yes, I’m fine.”
He helped Mara up, flustering as he wrapped a hand around hers and began to walk her out of the suffocating crowd. She turned around just in time to see that the items she had bought were being trampled on by unsuspecting people.
“That’s unfortunate,” she sighed in disappointment. The stranger followed her gaze back.
They passed by the source of the crowding issue with a bit of trouble. Mara spotted the culprit, a blue-haired girl grinning and talking in confidence to a visibly annoyed-looking Felix, all while signing a box of jellybeans.
With a few more push and shoves they managed to leave the swarm.
Mara glanced back at her saviour. He propped his other arm to his hip and huffed dramatically.
She let go of his hand suddenly. “T-thank you for that.”
“It’s my pleasure.” He grinned before looking at the crowd blankly. “I really should get back in there, before Skye gets the team into trouble. I hope to see you again, Mara Yen.”
He gave her another warm smile and went back into the crowd, leaving her alone and finally be able to blush without shame.
Her hand had a tingling sensation as she walked back to her compartment.
“Mara, what happened? We kept seeing people running about,” cried Rowan. She and Penny came out to see what was going on.
“Was a fight going on?” asked Penny eagerly.
“No, it wasn’t a fight,” said Mara. She led the two curious cats back into their seats. “Apparently Skye Parkin was giving out autographs again.”
“SKYE PARKIN WAS GIVING OUT AUTOGRAPHS?!” Penny cried. “DARN IT, WE SHOULD’VE DRAWN STRAWS!”
Ben whimpered at the loud noise.
“Don’t yell, Penny. It’s good we didn’t go out, it looked like chaos out there. Wasn’t it, Mara?” enquired Rowan, sitting down.
Mara nodded and gestured to her empty hands. “Why else would I come back empty-handed? I think someone had hit me and I dropped them. Sorry.”
“Oh… it does sound bad.” Penny sighed. “I’m just such a big fan of Skye…”
“But why would you want her autograph anyways? I gave you a personal one from her dad for your birthday last year, wasn’t that enough?” asked Rowan.
“Well…” she chuckled nervously. “That’s different. Don’t you remember last year when she won the Cup for Slytherin? She led such a big lead from Gryffindor and blazed through the other players like they were nothing! Getting an autograph from a famous player is one thing, getting one from his protégé daughter is another!”
“She has a point,” said Mara.
“Well, I hope you didn’t take my gift for granted, it was a hassle asking my father for two instead of one,” said Rowan.
“I don’t,” she chuckled and rested her chin on her hands. “But this trip sure is getting me down…”
She paused. “Anything happen out there between you and Felix?”
“None, and you should tone down because he’s starting to catch on, I can’t bear the embarrassment if he knows what you think of us,” said Mara. She thought better to tell the two of her encounter with the her familiar stranger.
“I can’t help it. It’s just… so exciting! I’m envious of being in your shoes.”
“Envious?” Mara laughed. “What’s there to be envious of?”
“You, of course! I’d love to have a handsome childhood friend, because then dating each other would be that more romantic!”
“Ugh, disgusting. Felix?” She stuck out her tongue. “He is the last boy in this school I would think of dating.”
“I’m siding with Penny on this one,” Rowan said. “I mean, it is recommended that romantic relationships should have a good foundation of friendship first, and you and Felix have one that’s as stable as concrete. That process is better than that of being in an arranged marriage, take it from my parents, they’ve only really started getting along well after a decade of marriage.”
“I see…”
“Oh why, oh why won’t you two get together. It’s torture to see you both get along so well and not go out.” Penny batted her eye lashes like a bunny rabbit.
“Just because we get along, doesn’t mean we must date.”
Penny huffed. “Well, I’m still keeping an eye out for any possible romance to happen between the two of you. For all I know it would be the only I see from our group.”
She glared at the oblivious boy beside her.
“Don’t waste your breath, nothing’s ever going to happen between us,” Mara said.
No one heard the trolley lady standing outside their door until she gave it some knocks. Penny opened the door and greeted her cheerfully.
“Morning to you too, Miss Haywood. Pardon me, but is there a Miss Yen in this compartment with you?”
Penny gestured towards the dark-haired girl.
“Oh, you must be a very lucky lady. A young Slytherin lad just bought these for you, must be an admirer.” The trolley lady winked and handed her a paper bag with a ribbon tied to it.
After she left, Mara peered to look at its contents.
“It’s… all the treats we ordered! Almost all of them.” The contents were lacking in some numbers, but all the orders were correct.
Rowan guffawed and Penny dropped down onto her seat again.
“You’re KILLING me!”