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chapter sixty,
something new
The summer of 1975 was like nothing Beatrice Salvatore had ever experienced before: her days spent under the Italian sun were hot, and Tiziana's parents couldn't have cared less what they got up to as long as they stayed out of their way, so they were spent all over the place. From day trips to Venice, to stops at the muggle cinema, to kisses with muggle boys (and in Beatrice's case, muggle girls too) under willow trees, those days were as perfect as they could be. But very dangerous. For that summer had given Beatrice a taste of something she never should have gotten to try: freedom. It solidified her disdain for her dazzling debutante life, and showed her how things could be - even if she didn't quite realize it yet. Beatrice's dreams of escape were there now, bubbling dangerously, if dormant, under her skin. And one day, if not now then in many years, they were bound to crash over the surface.
Beatrice of course didn't yet realize the significance of her summer trip, and was simply looking forward to seeing her friends again. Her cousin Arabella was now eighteen, and certainly old enough to perform magic outside of school so begrudgingly dropped Beatrice off at Platform Nine and Three Quarters while her parents took Tiziana and Allessandro to Beauxbatons.
"You have everything you need?" she asked boredly, examining one of her perfectly painted nails.
"Yup," Beatrice responded, not really paying attention to her cousin as she raked the platform for her friends.
"Alright then," Arabella said, tossing her curly brown hair over her shoulder, "I'm going to go back home now."
Beatrice gave her cousin an awkward half hug quickly peeling off. She didn't have anything against Arabella like she did with Lucius and Massimo, but she didn't know the girl very well. Tizzy was her friend, Arabella just was.
Suddenly, somebody leapt on her from behind and Beatrice shrieked. "Alice! What the—"
"I have so much to tell you!" Alice exclaimed, cutting Beatrice off and dragging her away and onto the Hogwarts Express. "Me, my brother and my parents went camping in France, right? Well I snuck off one day because, y'know, we were camping in France, and I ended up in this muggle bar."
"Okay?" Beatrice said, amused and not quite sure where this story was going.
"And it just so happened to be karaoke night, so I obviously signed up and sang a bunch of songs, and guess what!"
"What?"
"Muggles make the best music! Like, wizard music is alright, but muggles really know their shit! So the next day I went to a record shop and bought tons of albums— look here!"
