s i x t e e n

"I can't believe you guys are allowed wands out of school. " Cedell stated, leaning back on Maeve's bed as she made herself comfy on the chair by the window. "What do you even do in London?"

"There's ton of things to do." Julia quipped. "Maeve loves visiting these old bookshops-"

"Yeah, pretty sure he isn't into that Jules." Maeve interrupted with a nervous smile, watching as the boy sighed - looking up at the ceiling. He was being made to shift to leave a whole life in New York behind. At least then she understood why he hated her. "How about the both of us go buy some school supplies?"

"Haven't Cynthia and Clint bought both of your books already?" Julia asked confusedly. 

"Yeah, but maybe we could buy other things..." Maeve trailed off. "Like some flying gear, perhaps?"

Cedell's head perked up at that and he looked at Julia with puppy-dog eyes. "Yes! Can we do that? Please? If I want to become a Quidditch player, I'm going to have to replace those old worn-out gloves of mine."

Julia looked between the two uncertainly. "I don't know... I have a ton of Ministry work... and good amount of meetings today, now that Dolores-"

"I'll babysit him!" Maeve pleaded, desperate to make Cedell's next 24 hours in London worthwhile. "We can go together - just the two of us. Right, Ced?"

"Not that I need babysitting." Cedell glared at her, "But yeah, we both can manage ourselves."

With little hesitance, Julia gave in. "Fine. But you two need to be back by seven. You leave for Hogwarts tomorrow and I need to make sure you're all packed."

"You're the best, Jules!" Maeve jumped her guardian and kissed her cheek. 

"You're cool. I can see why she likes you." Cedell agreed. "So, when do we leave, sister dear?" he asked sarcastically. 

_____

"What a day." Maeve sighed, looking pleasantly at her new things. A brand new set of quills, parchment, some cheap Potions ingredients to practice basic solutions, a load of candy for friends at school, and a shiny Hufflepuff pin. "You didn't buy anything though."

"Do you really think I would leave America without quality equipment? Honestly, you get the more dumb every time we talk." 

Maeve rolled her eyes. 

"Then why did you agree to come out?"

"I'm trying to find the equivalent of a Black Market here. Jonah needs some prank supplies." the boy shrugged. "Know where it is?"

"No."

"Come on, even a loser like you would know where shady places are." 

Maeve groaned in frustration. "I suppose Knockturn Alley's close by. But there's no way we're going there-"

She let out a shriek as Cedell grabbed her hand and the next thing she knew, they were in the dark and shady place she had only been once before. It was when she was about five, and had wandered out of Diagon Alley. Her mom had been terrified when she'd finally found her.

"How did you - huh?" she asked, blinking furiously, trying to figure out where she was. 

"It's a spell I invented about a year ago." Cedell said, putting his wand away. "Transpello. It's pretty complicated, but it can make one go to any place just by knowing it's name as long as it is within a one-mile radius."

"You invented a spell?" Maeve asked; shocked. 

"What, like it's hard? That's what happens when you have a brain larger than the size of half a peanut." Cedell snarked. "This place checks out though. Dark small alleys, run-down stores, weird people loitering around - the whole shabang." 

Maeve rolled her eyes and was about to shoot back to the comment about the size of her brain but the boy had already moved on to something else.

"Ooh this looks fancy." he grinned excitedly, before walking through a door and Maeve's eyes widened in panic. 

"Stop!" she called, but the sound of the door shutting behind him was final that his decision was made. She glanced up at the sign on top of it. The wood was rotting and the words were barely visible, but she made them out. 'The Drear End' it was called. It was in no way fancy.

Hesitantly, she followed him, taken aback by the musty smell that filled her nose as soon as she entered through the door. It smelled worse than Professor Snape's Potion Classroom. And that was saying something. 

"Ced? Cedell?" she called, letting out a sigh of relief when she saw him playing about with a skull. She begged to Merlin that it wasn't a human one. "There you are." she skittishly walked up to him, trying to avoid eye contact with the shopkeeper who was looking at her with a scowl and a squint of his eye. "We can't be here."

"Why not?" he rolled his eyes before turning to Maeve with the skull still in his hand. "Oh look at me! I'm Maeve Kingston, and I'm so uptight I can't even handle being in a fucking shop without pissing my pants." he mocked, moving the skull's jaw up and down for the sake of the joke. 

"Watch it." Maeve scowled but was cut off as the skull jumped off of the boy's hand. 

"Ugh, is that all I am to you? The audacity." the skull shook his head. "How dare you use me to make jokes? I am a cursed object! I have killed people!" the male voice said shrilly. "I swear... children these days need to be given a nice smack. Why in my day..." 

Cedell quickly put the skull in cabinet under a table where Maeve could still hear the muffled sounds of a grumpy skeleton complaining. 

And without warning, she burst into a fit. 

"Oh, shut up." Cedell groaned. 

Maeve continued on for a good few seconds before she finally stopped. "Okay, okay. Now do you want to leave? Or should we hang around a little longer to listen to Grandpa McGrump?"

"Let's go. It's almost half past six anyway." the boy said grimly before heading for the exit with Maeve right behind him. 

"Where do you think you're going?" the shopkeeper asked crossly. 

"Sorry, we were just looking around. We're going to leave now." Maeve smiled politely, reaching for the door handle when it suddenly grew teeth and tried to bite her. 

"No you ain't. Store policy." the man said, pointing at the sign behind him. It read out 'NO ONE LEAVES THE STORE WITHOUT BUYING ANYTHING.' in tiny letters that almost no one would notice on entry. 

"This is why I hate this place." Maeve muttered under her breath before looking around and grabbing the first two things she saw. A pair of ordinary quills and a seemingly empty vial. She placed them on the counter hurriedly as her watch inched to seven o' clock.

"Great! That'll be 12 galleons." 

Maeve's eyes widened in shock. "What? But it's only three things!" 

"I don't make the rules, lassie."

"You kind of do." she cursed in her head. "Well could you remove the the quills then?"

The shopkeeper smiled cheekily, shaking his head and pointing at another sign below the one he'd pointed to before. That one read, 'ONCE ITEMS ARE PLACED ON THE COUNTER, THEY CANNOT BE REMOVED UNLESS PAID FOR.'

_____

"Thanks a lot." Maeve grumbled, slamming the door shut behind her as Cedell and she walked back towards Diagon Alley. "I spent more than half of my Hogsmeade money on these useless things." 

"Hey, it's not my fault you followed me inside." Cedell countered. "Don't worry cheapskate. I'll pay you back." 

"No need." Maeve sighed tiredly. "It was my fault for telling you about this place anyway. Let's just go. We need to leave early tomorrow." 

_____

"Trains? Is it weird that I was expecting a ferry?" Cedell asked uncertainly as they dragged their trunks aboard.

"Yes. What do you think we were doing at King's Cross Station? And I'm the daft one." Maeve grumbled.

Cedell just responded with a look. 

"May? Is that you?" an excited squeal sounded and the next thing she knew, Maeve was being engulfed into a hug by Daphne Greengrass. 

"Daph, hey." Maeve grinned, hugging her back. "It's so good to see you again. Oh, Theodore and Blaise are here too? Hi!" she hugged the boys. "How was your summer?"

"Great. We spent most of it at Blaise's house. Snuck some firewhisky after his mom's wedding." Theodore smirked as she pulled away.

"That's so cool." Cedell's eyes gleamed from beside Maeve. 

"Who's this?" Daphne asked curiously. 

"Uh, this is Cedell, my... brother." the brunette answered, twiddling with her hands. 

"Half-brother." the boy chimed in. 

"Right. He's transferring here from Ilvermorny." Maeve quipped. 

Theodore nodded. "How was your summer? After everything that happened last year... we're all worried about you, May."

"You're always worried about me." Maeve laughed nervously. Cedell didn't have a clue about Cedric. She'd asked Cynthia and Clint not to say anything and she wanted to keep it that way.

"We'd offer you to come sit but Draco, Crabbe and Goyle invited themselves into our compartment. Not sure whether you'd want to spend an entire train ride with them."

"You're right. I wouldn't." Maeve nodded. "Besides, I'm pretty sure Megan, Zach and Hannah would have my head if I didn't spend time with them." 

Daphne grinned. "Okay then, I guess we'll see you at school then. Bye, May!"

Maeve waved as the trio walked away. 

"You never told me you had such cool friends." Cedell smirked. "Are these other people cool as well?"

"You could say so." Maeve shrugged, walking through the aisle as she searched for her other friends. 

Soon, she found them. They were all there except Hannah. "Hello." Maeve greeted, only to be engulfed by three hugs. She was pretty sure she heard Cedell mutter 'Okay, not cool then.' from behind her.

They bombarded her with tons of questions as the overwhelmed Hufflepuff tried to respond to them the best she could. It took a few minutes for them to notice Cedell at all.

"Oh. Hello." Zach's eyes widened, only just seeing Cedell standing by the doorway. 

"Right! Everybody, this is Cedric, my half-brother." Maeve introduced, before her eyes widened. "Um, Cedell. I mean Cedell. He used to be at llvermorny." she said quickly as everyone looked at her; bewildered. "Ced, this is Susan, Megan and Zach." 

Cedell, completely unfazed by the Cedric comment because that's what people often mistook his name to be, just smiled nonchalantly. "Nice to meet you all." 

Maeve looked taken aback by the sudden politeness she had never seen the boy show before. Her brain seemed to tune out as she watch the the brown-haired boy interact with her friends. Although the two had completely different features - just in that moment - Maeve felt as if she was looking at Cedric.

"Wait, so you haven't been sorted into a house yet?" Susan asked curiously once Maeve had finally shaken herself out of her trance. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice.

"No." Cedell answered with a small pout. "But I was in Thunderbird back in Ilvermorny."

"I'm supposed to take him to Dumbledore's office as soon as we reach. Then he'll attend the feast with his house." Maeve piped in. 

Zach nodded, before turning back to Cedell. "So how were you separated into houses at Ilvermorny?"

"Well... instead of dividing students according to stereotypical characteristics, they are separated according to whichever part of their being is most prominent. For example, Horned Serpent represents the mind and it favours scholars. Wampus represents the body and favours warriors. Puckwudgie represents the heart and favours healers. Lastly, Thunderbird represents the soul and favours adventurers. There's a good balance of good and dark wizards, so no one house is discriminated against." he added. 

"Now that I think about it, that would be a better way to divide students." Megan agreed. 

"Doesn't the Hogsmeade train station get crowded once we reach?" Cedell asked with a small frown.

"Not really. Why would it?"

"Well trains from all over the U.K. are coming to one small town. It sounds like a rampage out there." Cedell shuddered.

"All over the U.K.?" Zach laughed. "There's only one Hogwarts Express, boy."

Cedell blinked before speaking. "Wait. You're telling me this one train has the whole school's worth of students in it? How many students are there in each year?"

"Forty. Ten from each house - give or take a few." Susan answered. "Why do you look so shocked?"

"Nothing." the brunette shoo his head absentmindedly. "It's just that at Ilvermorny, there used to be at least two hundred students per year. Fifty per house."

"That's a lot." Maeve quipped. "Ilvermorny must be huge then."

Cedell nodded, still amused by how tiny the Hogwarts population felt next to Ilvermorny's.

"I wonder which house you'll end up with." Megan yawned, stretching her arms over her head. 

_____

"Ravenclaw?" Maeve asked confusedly as she and Cedell walked to the Great Hall after visiting Headmaster Dumbledore's office. "I could've bet you were a Gryffindor... or a Slytherin even."

"Good thing you're not a gambler then." Cedell joked, looking around. "I was right. This place is much smaller than Ilvermorny. But I'll admit that it's really well built. If Max was here-"

Cedell's statement was cut of as blonde stepped out from behind a wall, with two burly boys behind him and a sinister smile on his face. 

Maeve's eyes narrowed as she looked at the boy. "Too afraid to face me alone again, Draco?"

Draco scoffed. "Welcome back, Kingston. I see you've found a new boy toy to follow around already." he said smugly and the two boys behind him snickered. "What a shame. It hasn't even been four months-"

"You shut your mouth, Malfoy." Maeve said grimly trying to keep her anger at bay. "Or I'll make you."

"Yeah." Cedell agreed, no idea what was going on but he had enough of a presence of mind to know that they didn't like Maeve - not that he particularly did, but some sort of protective brother instinct kicked in at that moment. "And I'm not some boy toy."

Draco laughed. "You really move on easily, don't you Maeve? Good luck not dying..." he trailed off, not knowing the boy's name.

"Cedell. Cedell Johnson." he replied with a firm look. "And I'm not dying until I see to it that your ass is rotting in the pits of Tartarus." the brunette replied with a furious tone.

"Blimey, they've even got matching names. You know how to choose them loser." Draco cackled, completely ignoring Cedell's latter statement - mainly because he had no idea what a 'Tartarus' was. Maeve, on the other hand, was ready to lunge at him when Cedell grabbed her hands, predicting the movement. 

"Let me go." Maeve grit out, struggling in his arms as Draco, Crabbe and Goyle walked away. 

Cedell did, once the boys were out of sight. 

"Who were they talking about?" he asked, confused. 

"None of your business." Maeve said curtly, storming away to the Hufflepuff House after deciding that she was going to skip the welcome ceremony.

Word Count: 2464