The Joker Card

"Hey! Wren!" Wren squeezed her eyes so they were shut tighter and then pulled the blankets up higher as she rolled away from the hand that was attempting to shake her awake.

"Go away." she mumbled into the mattress.

"Come on. Get up!" The person reached further to continue shaking her. Reluctantly, Wren opened her eyes and set herself up on one arm still facing the wall. She ran a hand over her face and then through her hair.

"I'm up." Wren yawned.

"Good. Now hurry and throw on some clothes or we'll be late."

"I can hardly imagine that being late for anything if I'm getting up before the sun." Wren said, turning to face her cousin.

"Well, you know how it is. It's not like we haven't gone before. Now, let's go!" Wren's cousin clapped twice and then walked out of the room. Wren pushed the sheets down to the bottom of her bed and slowly stood up. She had already laid out her outfit for the day. Her Ireland Team shirt and muggle jeans and white pair of trainers were all laid on her dresser. She was already planning on spending a solid 25 galleons on Irish merchandise and such once she was there to truly deck out. She expected that Nora would do the same, considering that she actually was half Irish. Aunt Kathleen, who would normally be considered even tempered, really let out her Irish spirit when she was listening to the Quidditch games. Quickly, Wren tugged on her clothes and then walked down the stairs. Breakfast was, in the spirit of the game, a full Irish breakfast. It was devoured quickly, and then the two families left for the portkey.

There was an excited air about them as they walked along the path. Wren looked back at her family, all absorbed in conversations. Directly behind Wren was her mother, a tall and thin woman with long wavy dark brown hair and green eyes. She spoke with Wren's Aunt Kathleen, who was built in a similar fashion only with terribly pale skin. She had grey eyes, which depending on the light, sometimes appeared to be bluer. Her hair was very curly and a glossy brown that brushed her shoulders.

Leading the way down the path was Wren's father. His hair line had notably receded over the past few years but he still had a good amount of dirty blonde hair. He had blue eyes and a long nose which her mother would tweak when he was being too silly. (Wren admired these signs of affections between her parents. It was encouraging.) Her father stood half an inch or so above her Uncle Jonathan, with whom he was having a lively conversation with about the work of the Ministry. There was a definite family resemblance between Wren's mother and her uncle. Her uncle shared the wavy dark brown, almost black hair, the toothy smile, and thin face. The big difference (on top of the fact that he was a boy) was that he had brown eyes and was taller. only he had brown eyes.

Wren wasn't able to catch much of the conversation between her uncle and father, for her cousin Nora was talking animatedly about some of the experiments that she had helped her mother with. Nora looked very similar to Wren. Of course they were cousins, and therefore should look similar, but many people confused the girls as sisters. They were both the same height, built and weight. Wren had lightly brown hair (which turned to light brown, almost blonde, in the summer) and Nora had very wavy dark brown hair. The girls also had their mother's eyes. Wren also had a dusting of freckles across her face and a particularly heavy scattering across her nose. Although it seemed shallow, Wren was proud of how good looking her family was. Coming from a pure blood family set some people against her and the more elitist pure bloods thought of her family as lesser. Her mother came from a long line of Ravenclaws, and her father a line of Gryffindors but there were a few people in other houses so the lines weren't "pure".

The only thing that her family had as a legacy was their good looks. And the name. For 6 generations on her mother's side every girl was named Madeleine Sorena. It had all started with her great-great-great-great-grandmother who was given the name Matilda Sorence. After deciding that her name was horrible and she couldn't stand passing it down (despite her husband's wishes for their daughter to have the same name) she modified it to Madeleine Sorena. That was the start of the tradition. That every Madeleine Sorena, would name her daughter Madeleine Sorena. And no one ever had more than one daughter so it wasn't a problem. The sons weren't held by this tradition as evidenced by her cousin, Eleanor Charlotte Randolph.

"Hey, you in there?" Nora asked snapping in front of Wren's face. "What's the matter? You seem out of it."

"Of course I'm out of it. I got up before the sun. Any normal person would be out of it."

"Very true." Nora agreed.

"Anyway, you were saying about the invisibility factor."Wren prompted.

"Ah, so you were listening." Nora nudged Wren.

"To bits and pieces." Wren smiled

"Well, mum says…" and she was off. Nora loved helping her mother with the experiments. Aunt Kathleen was a Healer who worked with coming up with different cures for known diseases, and preventive measures for things that could happen (although Wren wasn't sure how one would go about that). Uncle Jonathan worked in the ministry as part of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad. Her father also worked with the Ministry, only with the International Magical Trading Standards. He traveled frequently, and also made quite a good sum of money which led to comfortable living for her and her mother. Her mother, as a result, did not have to work, but she did own an "unusual flowers" shop in Diagon Alley.

"Here we are!" Wren's father announced as they got to a clearing. In the middle of it was an old hat which looked as if it had been through its fair share of storms and been left out in the mud and trampled by people and animals alike. "Come on, let's go. Hands on the portkey." her father prompted. The family gathered around, each laying a hand on the hat in some way. "Away we go!" her father said cheerfully, and they began to spin, on their way to the Quidditch world cup.