The Marauderettes

➵ The Journey from Platform 9 ¾

"Maxie! Where are you, we've got to get to King's Cross before eleven!" called Beatriz Mercer, standing in front of the door, ready to go.

Currently aged 20 years old, she had tied her silvery-blue hair back in a high braided bun, covered with an old green-and-red plaid bucket hat. She had chosen to dress in black jeans, a cropped, black leather jacket over a beige turtleneck, and a plaid scarf to match her hat. Some might say that she was overdressed, but today she was returning to Platform 9 ¾ for the first time in 3 years; she wanted to look nice for the occasion.

"Come ON, Maxie! At this rate, we'll miss the train altogether!"

"Oh, calm down, you lunatique." said her brother, Jacob, grinning as held the wicker basket containing their little sister's new pet; a crup, whom they had so lovingly dubbed Mubpub. "Did I say that right?"

Bea snorted. "Well, you're certainly getting better."

Jacob, now 28 years old, hadn't bothered to cover his hair that morning — or brush it, apparently. He was wearing a matching plaid scarf and hat; though he had opted to wear a regular brown tweed coat, as opposed to the stylish beige jacket Bea had picked for him, because he preferred to, as he so eloquently put it, "wear normal-people clothes".

Four years had passed since the siblings had been reunited. Since then, a lot has changed.

Bea graduated from Hogwarts with top marks in her Magizoology, DADA and COMC classes. She was one of the top students in her year, outshone only by Bill, her best friend, and Penny, her other best friend.
Having gathered more than enough NEWTS for the job of her choice, Bea had gone to work in the Ministry of Magic, where she began her career as a magizoologist in the Beasts Division.

Jacob, on the other hand, had taken a much different approach. After years of fighting firsthand with the Dark Arts, he had long since learned that keeping evil at bay was what he did best.

So he applied to the Ministry, in the interest of becoming an auror. At first, the results were disappointing. Despite the Ministry knowing full well that the Mercer's were not the bad people they were painted as, — unlike the rest of the Wizarding World, it seemed — and despite Jacob being more than skilled enough to enter into such a demanding job, nobody at the Ministry had wanted to take him in as an apprentice.

That was, until, about a year ago, when Jacob received an urgent owl from the Ministry over breakfast one morning. They had finally found him a mentor.

"Mad-eye Moody! It's Alastor 'Mad-eye' Moody!" He had exclaimed, scanning over the parchment excitedly. "They say he wants to train me, that he'll take me under his wing! I start next week!"

And indeed, just a week later, Jacob began his auror training with the legend himself, Alastor Moody.

That was ages ago. Presently, Bea was at the top of her department, with a steadying income. She was on the track to become head of the Beasts Division one day; Jacob was well into his auror training, now at the phase where he could accompany Moody on missions as his assistant. Within another two years time, he will have become a fully-fledged auror.

And now, they stood in the foyer of their cousin, Jesse's, house in Sussex, waiting for their little sister Max to come down the stairs with her trunk, ready to go to Hogwarts.

The two had been waiting for this day for months, since Max's letter had arrived on her eleventh birthday back in May. Now it was September first, and in a matter of hours Max would be sitting on the Hogwarts Express, off to her first year of school. Hopefully, her years at Hogwarts would be much less action-packed than Bea and Jacob's had been.