Author's Note: I know most people skip over fics when they see the letters "OC", but I hope you will give Madeleine a chance, for her own sake. Writing her is always a (somewhat guilty) pleasure. The purpose of this story is to explore some of the sexual myths which are frequently perpetuated among teenagers regarding things like the importance of virginity and what "counts" as sex. If you have ever been a teenager, this fic is for you.

The Education of Madeleine Yaxley

CHAPTER ONE
PURE

Madeleine Yaxley wasn't top of her class at anything, but she was the first to to start getting serious attention from the males around her. The boys were not slow to take notice of her full bosom and nicely-rounded bottom, nor were the men. They would smile and wink and compliment her her long, dark hair or her poison-green eyes, though that was never where they were looking.

Madeleine would be the first to tell you that she was a bit of a flirt. She loved the attention. Well, most of it.

Years later, she would always claim she didn't remember his name. He was one of her mother's paramours, and she thought of him only as "the creepy one". After starting at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it no longer seemed useful for Madeleine to keep track of the names of her mother's continuous string of short-term lovers, since they were usually gone by her next school holidays.

Cartimandua Venuti-Yaxley was in her mid-thirties, and was considered by many to be one of the most beautiful witches in Britain. She had the same dark hair as her daughter, but her eyes were blue rather than green. She had been tragically widowed as a young mother, some said. Others said that she had killed her husband, or that he had run off with another woman (or man), never to be seen again. Wizards love to gossip, and one should never believe half of the wild rumours one hears.

The creepy one infested Madeleine's home during the summer following her third year at Hogwarts. He was pale and fair-haired and thin, and he stared at Madeleine all the time, but never spoke to her. Until one night in August.

Madeleine awoke in darkness from a dream of drowning to find a weight pressing down on her chest. She squeaked and flailed and hands came out of the darkness to pin her wrists.

"Shhh!" hissed a hoarse voice. "You don't want to wake your mother, now, do you?" He had pushed the blankets off of her, and begun fumbling for the hem of her pyjama top.

"What are you doing?" she demanded breathlessly, trying to push away his groping hands.

One hand had found its way under her top. He pawed at her breasts, then yanked her top up. She lay frozen with shock as the chill night air and his hot breath hit her skin simultaneously.

"Oh, God! Maddy, you are so beautiful!" His exclamation was muffled as he buried his face between her breasts.

"Get off me!" she said, horrified. One of his hands was groping toward the waistband of her pyjama bottoms.

"Hush, now, Lovey," he murmured. "Be a good girl. You'd want me to tell your mum what a good girl you are, now, wouldn't you?"

She didn't answer. Can I reach my wand? she wondered. It should be on her nightstand, she thought, but she wasn't sure, and it was very dark in the room.

He grabbed one of her hands again and pressed it between his legs. "See what you do to me, Maddy?" he whined. "You're a good girl. You don't want me to suffer just because you're so beautiful, do you?"

Her mind was racing. Icy fear was flooding her body. She didn't think she was strong enough to fight him. Would he hurt her if she tried to scream? Had he locked the door behind him when he came in? If she didn't do something fast, he was going to rape her!

As his fingers worked their way down over the waistband of her knickers, her mind suddenly came into clear, cold focus. She had a sudden, very specific memory of placing her wand on the nightstand.

The fingers of her right hand clenched tight around the bulge in his pants, and as he closed his eyes and moaned, "You're so hot, Maddy!" he didn't notice her left hand flash out to snatch her wand.

"No, you are!" she replied, jabbing him rudely between the legs. "Incendio!"

There was a shriek and the strong smell of burning hair, and he was off her, out of the room and down the hall. As she slammed the door shut, sealing it behind him, she could hear a string of muffled obscenities and water running in the bathroom.

She leaned back against the door and sank down to the floor, drawing her knees up tight to her chin. Long past the time her heart stopped pounding, she remained there, staring into the darkness.

The next morning he was still there. Idiot, Madeleine thought, glowering at his tentative smile as the house-elf brought her breakfast.

Her mother wasn't up yet. The creep came up behind her chair and squeezed her shoulder.

"Maddy, I just wanted to apologise for last night," he said in a confidential tone. "That's not how I wanted things to be between us. I do hope you weren't thinking of mentioning it to your mother, though; I don't think she would understand. It can just be our little secret, okay? You like secrets, don't you, Maddy?"

She looked up at him, feigned innocence shining from her wide, green eyes. "I love secrets," she said, smiling. Then she leaned closer to whisper in his ear. "You know what I love most about secrets?"

"What?" he asked bending close, answering her smile.

She drew back and gave him the coldest look imaginable. "Telling them."

He barely had time to wipe the expression of horror from his face as Cartimandua descended the staircase.

"Good morning, Mother," Madeleine said pleasantly. "Sleep well?" She cast a glance at the man assiduously studying his plate. He looked distinctly green, and there was a sheen of sweat standing out on his forehead.

"Very well, Sweetie," her mother replied, yawning and stretching elegantly. "You?"

"You know, I had some funny dreams, and then something woke me up and I just couldn't get back to sleep."

"Oh?" said her mother distractedly, as the house-elf set her breakfast tray in front of her. "What was that, Dear?"

"That crup shite at the end of the table," Madeleine said merrily. "Would you believe he thought I would let him get into my pants?"

Cartimandua stared at her daughter, then at the man who had been sharing her bed for the past three months.

"Well, that's ridiculous!" he burst out. "The things kids will say! Clearly she's jealous of your time with me. I wouldn't pay any attention, Manda. She'll just have to get used to the fact that I'm in your life."

Madeleine laughed. "Why don't you have him explain the blisters on his bollocks, Mum?" she said. "That should make a good story."

Cartimandua had not looked away from her paramour. "Show me," she said evenly.

He went white. "Now, Manda! At the breakfast table? In front of your daughter?"

"Show me," she repeated.

He rose. "I don't have to take this kind of shit from women!" he declared.

"Maddy, go upstairs," said her mother, not raising her voice. "I'll have Squeaker bring up your breakfast," she added as an afterthought.

There was a hardness in her mother's voice which Madeleine could not disobey. She went.

She was reading when the knock came on her door. Hurriedly, she shoved the Freya Lovelace book under her pillow. Her mother didn't approve of Lovelace's books any longer since she had stopped writing "proper characters" and begun casting muggles in her leading roles.

"Come in," she called.

Cartimandua entered and sat down on the edge of the bed. For a long moment, she studied her daughter.

"You do believe me, don't you?" Madeleine asked uncertainly. "He really did try to --"

Cartimandua sighed and patted her daughter's knee. "I'm sorry, Sweetie," she said. "I've seen the way he looks at you, but I didn't think anything of it. I've seen you as a little girl for so long that I didn't want to notice you're not any more."

"What did you do to him?" asked Madeleine.

"Never mind that." Her mother shook her head, looking down at her own hands, clenched in her lap. "He won't bother you any more."

"Okay," she said uncertainly.

Her mother looked at her again. "You're a woman now, Madeleine, and that means there are some things you need to understand."

"About men, you mean?" she asked.

"About men. And about life." Cartimandua took Madeleine's hands in hers, facing her daughter on the bed.

"Maddy," she began. "You are so precious. And I don't just say that because I'm your mother and I love you," she added with a half-smile. "What I mean is that you are a beautiful pureblood girl. That's not so common as you might think. You have your whole life ahead of you, and you are in a position to make an excellent match. But in order to do that, you have a responsibility to keep yourself pure. Do you understand what I mean by that?"

Madeleine blushed and dropped her eyes to the coverlet, tracing the quilted design with a finger. "You mean, as in sex."

"Yes, I do," her mother said firmly. "Look and me, Madeleine."

The girl looked up into her mother's eyes.

"You are a beautiful girl. So was I at your age; I know how it is. Boys are going to notice you. Men too. You're going back to school in a couple of weeks, and I won't be there to watch over you. You will need to watch out for yourself, so that one day you can honour your husband by presenting yourself to him, pure and perfect, as I did for your father." Cartimandua's eyes grew sad, as they always did when she mentioned Madeleine's father. "Promise me, Madeleine."

"I promise, Mother."

The two women embraced.

"I love you, Maddy. It gets lonely here when you're at school."

"I know, Mum. I love you too."