Pink Hair and Silencing Spells
5th August, 1986
Maggie has been a werewolf for a whole year, 13 whole transformations. She went to Harry’s birthday party, which was bittersweet because it was the anniversary of her attack. Thankfully the moon fell a week before the party so she wasn’t lashing out at anyone, she was ,however, in a very sour mood.
Harry, as always, was an excitable ball of energy who didn’t even mind that he was being ignored by his own cousin. Her dads didn’t even tell her off for being impolite. She feels a bit guilty about it, looking back. Maggie realizes it’s something she needs to control better, her moods that is, when she goes to Hogwarts. Right before a full moon Maggie gets angry and says things she shouldn’t. She never gets in trouble though, Remus said he understood she never means it. But no one else will.
Now a week later she was pacing nervously around her room. It’s been two weeks since the last moon, directly in the middle of the phases, which is why it’s the perfect time to go to Diagon Alley. She got her letter three weeks ago, and after the initial shock of how she’s going to spend some of her nights, she’s been buzzing with excitement.
Maggie stopped pacing and read through her letter again. She’s probably read it hundreds of times just to be sure it’s real. She meticulously went over all the school supplies she’d need. Books, cauldrons, potions ingredients, telescopes, robes, and a wand.
Finally, she’d be allowed to have a wand. Secretly the first thing she’s found with it is learning how to hold her hair up with it, Sirius does it, so does Marleen and Lily, and it looks so bloody cool. Also the magic thing is cool too.
Maggie fiddled with her plain black robes, Mary took her last week to buy some last week for a little girls trip. As much as her fathers mean well, they were pretty clueless with anything that wasn’t books, leather jackets, motorcycle, or each other.
Maggie sat at her window and stared out at the front lawn, willing Regulas to come sooner. Just as he promised on their first meeting, he was tagging along on their shopping trip.
After an eternity, Maggie spotted her Uncle Reg decked out all black robes and a signature array of not silver, silver rings. Finally, She let out a deep breath and rushed to meet everyone in the living room.
“Alright let’s go”
“Nice to see you too petite”
Maggie blushed, she was not in the mood for this “hello uncle Reg, hello fathers. Alright let’s go”. All the adults laughed, which would be fine if she wasn’t so excited to go.
“You know what to expect?”Remus asked. Always so bloody practical her father is. Could he not be concerned for her for just a second because she is about to explode if they wait any longer. “Yes yes squeezing from the floo, buzzing from town, let’s go”
Remus threw his hands up in defeat, “alright alright who’s first?” Uncle Reg volunteered and he disappeared into the emerald fire. “Okay now you can go Maggie”, Sirius said. He handed her some floo powder and felt the an squeezing feeling from floo, it made her quite dizzy and she stumbled into her uncle on the other end. “Umph, sorry Uncle Reg”. Maggie pushed herself off the man when someone called out, “uncle Reg? I didn’t think Pandora's daughter was this old yet?”.
Maggie turned to meet the stranger, a pale man In black robes with long black hair and a hooked nose. Regulus put on his blank face and turned to meet the man. “Ah Severus, no Luna is still a toddler, this one is from Sirius”
“What about me”, Sirius called once he was out of the fireplace. Severus glared at him, a glare that was full of so much hate Maggie grew fearful.
“Ah Snivellus, pleasure as always”, Sirius was grinning, but not his normal grin. This one was fake. He grabbed Maggie’s hand as though he was afraid she would be taken away.
“Ah finally dumped the beast have you-”
“Say one more word about my husband”
Snivilous sneered, “if I recall you’re not actually married are you?” Sirius went for him but Remus pulled him back, finally coming through the fireplace. “Sirius calm down”.
He stopped struggling but kept his eyes locked dead on Severus. Everyone stood staring at each other, unsure of what to do. Severous stepped forward and Remus started to wobble on his feet and Maggie almost fainted. She learned three things,
Her fathers did not like Severous, whoever he was
Severous knew her da’s secrete, and he clearly didn’t approve
Someone had silver on them
“Come along Maggie, we have much to do”, Remus and Sirius pulled her away from Severus, Regulus followed them out of the shop and no one let go of her until they were stopped in front of a large marble building. “Who was that!”
Remus shook his head and started to fidget with his robes, “someone we went to school with, now do you feel alright?”.
“Just a little dizzy, why’d he have so much silver on him, does he know?”
Sirius turned green and looked away, Remus handed her some chocolate. “Never mind that let’s get your supplies shall we?”
He motioned her into the large Marble building. It was truly a magnificent piece of work. The desks all stood side by side and were manned by goblins. Maggie was buzzing, there was so much magic in this room alone, and she could feel the power seeping up from below her, like a whole well of power, it felt good, no great.
Sirius and Regulus walked straight to a desk on the left side, they seemed to know the goblin quite well. Some words were exchanged, in French, before everyone was whisked into a frightening cart and tumbling down a track. They stopped at a vault deep below the surface, it was full of more gold and trinkets than Maggie thought possible. The two brothers watched grabbed a scoop of coins and they went back to the surface.
Once Maggie was back in the sunlight, she truly took in the wizarding street. There were hundreds of shops squished together with magical displays. People were bustling about, all wearing robes, carrying large brown packages.
They first entered a shop to buy her cauldron and potions bits, then another for some quills (what's wrong with normal pens?) and parchment. The book store was thrilling, and Maggie could have spent forever looking at the beautiful colors. But the most exciting stop of all was Ollivanders.
An old man stood at the counter twiddling with a wand, examining it with such careful attention Maggie wondered if he even realized customers had walked in at all.
Alas, the man looked up and smiled at the guests, “Ah Mr Lupin, Mr Black welcome.” He turned his eyes on the little girl with tan skin and curly brown hair, “and who have we here?”
Maggie shifted around her feet, looking up at her father, the man was still staring at her with curious eyes. Sirius grabbed her hand before declaring “she’s our daughter, Maggie, and she needs a wand”
“Wonderful Miss-“
“Brenton”, Maggie told him
She was given lots of wands to try, all of different colors and lengths. One blew up the window, another shot some sparks right at Sirius, a few just knocked something over, but the eighth wand was brilliant.
As soon as Maggie wrapped her fingers around the wood, a surge of power and warmth flooded her. It felt right, everything felt as it should be.
“We’ll give it a flick”, Ollivander commanded, he stared at her with his eyes wide. She flicked her wrist; the whole shop lit up. Mr Ollivander smiled, “Fir wood, Unicorn Hair, 11 ¾ inches, a wonderful wand, I expect great things from you Miss Brenton, great things.”
Remus paid for the wand and everyone walked back out onto the street where Regulus was waiting. Maggie proudly showed off her wand and talked Regulus into buying ice cream. It didn’t take that much convincing, he was pretty giving with Maggie.
After Maggie met Regulus she looked him up in newspapers and all the articles stated he was cold and unforgiving, a force that couldn’t be overcome. But it was the farthest from the truth, Regulus was nice, and sure he looked scary at first but he was even softer than her dads sometimes.
Once all the bowls were licked clean, the group headed to the bookshop, squeezing through the thick crowd. Maggie almost made it through to the cash register when girl with bubblegum pink hair crashed right into her.
“Ow sorry- oh ‘lo Maggie”, Maggie looked up to see her cousin (?) Nymphadora picking herself up from the floor, “going to Hogwarts this year right? It’s so much fun, I wonder what house you’ll be in. Mum was a Slytherin, dads was a hufflepuff like me, but ur dads were in Gryffindor but you probably knew that, gosh I’m rambling aren’t I”, she said quickly, Maggie noticed that Dora could talk enough for three people, not that it’s a bad thing, but Maggie liked being with her thoughts sometimes, “ I’m just buying my books and Mums outside, she’s probably waiting I gotta run, oh ‘lo Sirius, ‘lo Reg, Mums outside dunno if you saw her or not but I gotta run”, and the pink haired girl ran off, stopping to talk to a boy with fiery red hair.
“Dora’s certainly something isn’t she”, Regulus stated. Sirius laughed, almost dropping the packages he was carrying, “nah I think she’s fun, and she’ll be at Hogwarts with Maggie. Though they won’t be in the same house, Reckon she’ll be in Gryffindor ”
Regulus stared right through his brothers soul, “I think she has the making of a Slytherin”
“You would say that, but I don’t think she wants to live with snakes”
“Ohhhh and being a roudy lion is better?”
Remus took Maggie’s arm and pulled her outside, “better we wait outside, they’ll go on for a while”. Maggie snorted, following her Da out. They waited at some benches until Sirius and Regulus came walking outside, five minutes later.
Remus snorted and pulled Sirius over, “done arguing?” Sirius huffed and muttered something about needing to get out some energy Remus smirked, “Could of asked me love”
Nope that’s enough. Maggie didn’t want to hear any more of this. She knew her parents loved each other, but she didn’t need to know it all. She shoved past her fathers and huffed.
“Petite wait for me” Regulus called out, speeding up to catch up with Maggie. Remus and Sirius started walking towards them too, hand in hand.
——
Maggie spent the rest of the day looking through all her school supplies, and there was a lot. Her dads were locked in the bedroom with a silencing spell, whatever that meant.
She flipped through her books and was amazed at all the subjects. Potions looked interesting, and transfiguration looked hard but fun. Sirius was good at that, she knew this, and defense against the dark arts looked exciting. When Maggie flipped through A Standard Book of Spells: Grade 1, she felt inclined to try a few. Why not?
The easiest one seemed to be lumos, a light spell. Maggie swished her wand like the book demonstrated and said the spell. To her absolute delight it lit up. She tried the counter spell and spent the entire night lighting up her room with a wand.