Life and Limb

There was absolutely no reason for Marie to worry, except for the glaring fact that she had nobody to sit with on the Hogwarts Express. In which case, she had every reason to worry.

Marie bit her bottom lip as she stepped onto the train, aided in part by the conductor who was standing just outside the door helping other students get on. Okay. She was on board. Now to find a compartment with people to sit in.

This kind of problem wasn't universal for every other sixth-year on the train. After all, if you had gone to Hogwarts for the past six years, it was a guarantee that you had friends to meet up with and sit with. This wasn't the case for Marie. She had been attending Beauxbaton Academy for the past four years and was just returning to Hogwarts for her last two. Headmaster Armando Dippet was an old family friend of Marie's parents and had convinced the family to re-enroll Marie in Hogwarts for her final two years. There was also the fact that Marie had been expelled from Beauxbaton and really had nowhere else to go for her last two school years.

She had been a Hogwarts student her first year, though. She had made a few friends. She could recall their faces to her mind, but some names were distorted and lost to memory. Who could blame her? She had been at Hogwarts last in 1939 for the school year and then been shipped off to France.

Marie stumbled a bit and nearly lost her footing on an outcropping in the train. Luckily nobody seemed to have seen it, and so she kept onward.

Compartment by compartment that she passed by was full. The students inside stared out at the unfamiliar older girl who was still wandering around, trying to find a place to sit. Marie felt her face grow hot with anticipation. What if she found nowhere to sit down? What if this whole train ride turned out to be one huge disaster?

"Excuse me?" a small voice behind Marie called out.

She turned and stepped out of the way towards the windows in the train corridor, thinking that the person meant to walk by her. She was surprised when she saw the blonde-haired girl looking at her intently.

"Hi," the girl offered shyly. Her pale face was pretty, surrounding a pair of blue eyes and a small mouth. "Are you – I mean…what's your name?"

It took Marie a moment to form coherent words in her mind. "Marie. Marie Fugazi," she mumbled.

The girl's eyes twinkled. "You're Marie. Do you remember me?"

Instantly Marie knew why she felt odd around this girl. Apparently, they had known each other when they were in their first year together. Marie stared, trying to recall a name.

"You're…" Marie paused again to make sure she was right, "you're Victoria Ronan, aren't you?"

The girl smiled widely. Marie was right. "So you do remember me!"

"It took me a while," Marie admitted sheepishly.

The memories were back. She and Victoria had been close friends while they stayed in Gryffindor together. In fact, Victoria was Marie's first friend at Hogwarts. How could she have forgotten that so easily?

Victoria stepped forward and latched onto Marie's wrist. "You look lost. Come on! You can sit with us. There's so much stuff to tell you!"

"Likewise," Marie said as she let Victoria lead her down the hallway to a compartment at the far end of the train car.

When they passed by one compartment, the glass door slid open and a boy stepped out. It appeared as though he hadn't seen Marie and Victoria pass by, because he kept walking and banged right into Marie, sending her falling against the far wall.

"Hey!" Victoria cried out. She whirled to the boy. "Watch where you're going next time!"

The boy smirked and stared down at Victoria. "You telling me what to do, Ronan? Why don't you just move along? Nothing to see here, except my gorgeous face."

Victoria's face twisted into one of disgust. "Ugh. You're disgusting, Malloy. Honestly."

"Am I really? Or are you just saying that?" the boy asked, taking a step closer to Victoria. Marie watched on, confused.

Victoria put up her hands to the boy's chest and shoved him backwards into the door. "Get away from me," she commanded.

The boy opened his mouth to say something; he looked angry. Before he could, however, a second boy grabbed onto his shoulder and pulled him back into the compartment. The blinds on the window in the door closed off the view into the compartment, and the door slid itself shut with a loud bang.

By the time Marie could assess everything, it looked as though no such rude boy had ever existed in the hallway.

"Ooh," Victoria seethed. Marie was surprised how comfortable the girl felt around her. Then again, they had been best friends years ago. Plus, Victoria was an outgoing person. "I hate that kid!"

"Who was he?" Marie asked as they began walking again.

"Perry Malloy. He's in our year. Slytherin. I hate him."

"You said that already."

"Can you blame me? Did you hear anything he just said? He's so arrogant and full of himself! Most of them are, you know, but for some reason he seems to be the worst of it and has the biggest mouth so people rag on him more often."

Marie allowed Victoria to rant some more as they found the compartment that Victoria had been looking for. Another girl and a boy were sitting across from each other, apparently having a conversation before the two other girls walked in.

The girl was also blonde but her hair was much shorter than Victoria's; it fell down to her shoulders. Marie recognized her as Victoria's sister Siobhan, who was a year older than herself. The boy was a stranger to Marie. He had dark brown hair and tan skin, and he grinned widely at the girls as they entered.

"Victoria! Have a nice summer? Siobhan was just telling me how your family went to Venice for the holidays," the boy greeted her.

"My summer was great, thanks for asking! How was yours?" Victoria asked as she sat down next to her sister. Marie, taking a hint, took the seat next to the boy, uncomfortable with his closeness.

The boy didn't seem to notice and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Mine was swell. I didn't go anywhere, but Ferris came up for a week and stayed over. I haven't seen him since he moved further out into the country and started getting homeschooled."

It was then that Siobhan noticed Marie's presence.

"Marie? Marie Fugazi, is that you?" Siobhan gasped, leaning forward excitedly.

Marie grinned shyly and shrugged one shoulder. "It's me, all right. Hi Siobhan."

Siobhan let out a little shriek of surprise and bolted from her seat, grabbing Marie in a tight hug. Marie gasped in shock and felt her ribcage collapsing before Siobhan released her.

"Where have you been all these years?" Siobhan asked as she sat back down again, her eyes shining.

Marie had forgotten how fond Siobhan was of her despite the year age difference.

"I was studying at Beauxbatons. I told you both that," Marie recalled, looking from one Ronan sister to the other.

Victoria sighed. "You did tell us. But you never kept in touch. It was as if you had never existed, Marie."

"Am I being rude for staying here when this conversation is clearly something I don't understand?" the boy suddenly asked in a joking manner.

Siobhan shook her head. "You can stay here, Charlie. It's just…this is an old friend come to haunt us."

The boy, Charlie, nodded and sat back in his seat and shut his eyes, preparing to fall asleep and give the girls privacy.

"Why didn't you write us?" Siobhan asked. "It's not like we didn't try to do the same for you."

"We wrote lots of letters," Victoria added.

Marie nibbled her bottom lip again. What was she supposed to say? That she didn't write back because she didn't want to be reminded of Hogwarts anymore? Of the torture she had endured during her first year? And oh how she was tormented for being small, for being ugly, for having braces, for being unathletic, for being fat-

Her fellow Hogwarts students hadn't been very hospitable back then.

But now Marie was different. She wasn't as short anymore; she had a growth spurt as she grew. Her braces came off when she was thirteen, and she had more slender muscles in order to play her natural Quidditch position as Chaser. During her puberty growth, she grew slight curves and had nicely shaped and rounded breasts that drew more than enough attention from boys on the street. Her lips grew full and she was no longer considered ugly. Maybe it was the Beauxbatons water that turned all its students into female supermodels, but whatever it was seemed to work its magic on Marie. It was for these reasons why she even bothered to feel confident going back to Hogwarts in the first place.

Now she wondered if she should have gone back at all.

"I didn't write…" Marie chose her words carefully, "because I wanted to forget. Not people, not you, but just…things."

Victoria thought for a moment before nodding understandingly. She knew. Of course she knew. She had been the one to whom Marie cried whenever something happened, whenever someone hurt her either physically or emotionally that year. Of course she'd remember the torture Marie had gone through as a simple first year.

"Things? What things?" Siobhan asked. She was more in the dark with Marie's past.

"Nothing. Don't worry about it," Victoria said, waving her sister away from prying too much. She shot Marie a small smile. Marie was grateful for the distraction and settled herself down.

Beside her, Charlie snored lightly. Everyone in the compartment giggled.

The train whistle sounded sharply, and the train began to move forward and make its long trek to Hogwarts.