Madison Bennett

''"Magic hat with knife? Time to relocate to her favorite spot in a crisis - under the table." ''-2024 Sorting Ceremony

"Under normal circumstances, she would've gone straight to her room for a late-night study session. These...were not normal circumstances."

Personality
Most likely to be found reading, whether in the library, in the bathrooms (yes really), the common rooms, or late at night when she really ought to be asleep. People stress her out, so she sits in either front or back rows of classrooms and tends to curl up in out-of-the-way corners. Very studious, but may abandon schoolwork to pursue independent inquiries. Has two friends: the bubbly Willa Cairns, and her research partner, best friend, and  possible  definite crush, Ryan Cosly.

Before School (2012-2024)
Madison grew up in the Deep South, but was foisted on the Wizarding world at the tender age of 9 after accidentally summoning a book as her mother watched, horrified. Madison's devout Christian parents were (fortunately for her) "compassionate" enough to accept a reasonably loose interpretation of Exodus 22:18, but not until after they had attempted to "overcome" her "rebellion" through various means (read: physical abuse, neglect, abandonment). Madison made her way into the Wizarding foster system and found herself being homeschooled by a childless elderly couple in a rural village in Kent, since no American wix would agree to the risk of exposure. After the Reparifarge lesson in Transfiguration, Mad disclosed to Ryan that the item Fawley had taken and half-transfigured into a block of wood (crumpling and ripping it horrifically in the process) was a treasured photo of her younger sister, who Madison hadn't seen since her parents abandoned her on the city streets. She'd salvaged most of the pieces from the garbage after her parents shredded every photo of them together in an attempt to remove her from their lives and memories, but not enough to Reparo.

Year One (2024-2025)
Mad spent most of summer camp and her first year in the library, since her forays into other locations generally led to disaster (a dinner in the Great Hall led to the Great Verdillious Showdown between Briar and October; studying in the study hall with Ryan and Willa led to Donatello Flipendo'ing Ryan into a wall - he proceeded to go to the library and antagonize two seventh-years, one of whom was expelled for stabbing him). Her initial predictions about her class preferences were little more than half-correct: Charms and (surprisingly) Potions are her favorite classes; History bores her much more than expected, and she absolutely can't stand Transfiguration because of Fawley's...unsympathetic teaching methods. Allergies were problematic for her until a midterm offscreen visit to the infirmary made her able to attend Herbology and CoMC without violently sneezing for the next three days. She's still quite put out that she can't begin studying Arithmancy or Ancient Runes yet. In an argument with Toby early in the fall term, Mad implied she'd skimmed the contents of every book on the bottom two shelves of the Hogwarts library, although this may be a slight exaggeration. She currently plans to get into historical/legal research or inventing magical items after graduation, which is why the Sorting Hat yeeted her into Ravenclaw at the earliest opportunity.

Outside of her studies, Mad devoted herself to the following projects:
 * Independent research of general healing theory as it pertained to Willa's medical condition
 * An ingredients encyclopedia and technique manual for their potions text (a joint project with Ryan occupying most of the year and multiple notebooks)
 * An essay discussing the rational explanations for the 17:1 Sickle-to-Galleon exchange rate
 * Briefly hunting a rogue copy of The Monster Book of Monsters alongside several first-year Hufflepuffs.

Year Two (2025-2026)
Mad spent her summer exchanging letters with her friends and acquaintances and searching for new books in the Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade bookshops. Aside from a self-imposed exile to the Hogwarts library in protest of Fawley's horrific teaching practices, Second Year was pretty uneventful, until around late October when she stumbled into another reality entirely. A few frantic letters to her parents reassured her they remembered her exactly as she remembered them, but aside from Ryan and Isla (another Slytherin in her year), Mad lost almost all of her friends in the accident, and most of her acquaintances no longer remembered her or even existed in this new version of the school.

Over the Yule break, Mama J received a letter from her mother, the matriarch of the Fernsby family, demanding Mad's presence at a series of increasingly jarring "interviews." Grandmother was terrifying, Aunt Nessa and Cousin Molly conniving, and in the summer after her second year, Mad found herself being trapped into a betrothal arrangement to a family she didn't even know by name. A poor one, with only a history of prestige to soften the sting of rejection from the Fernsby family. (Aunt Nessa claims it's because Mad is 'too incompetent to remain under consideration for Headship of the Family'.)

Mad returned to school with a newfound drive to avenge herself, to prove to her extended family that they've just made one massive mistake in throwing her out. Where will this new drive take her next?...