1875| In December, Matilda Jane is born to Mr. and Mrs. Farris near Dartmoor in Devon, and is their first and only child. Mrs. Farris has had difficulty conceiving before, and takes the birth hard. That’s alright: Matilda spends her childhood determined to be the only child they ever want or need.

And she is: she is the apple of their eye. Her father is a scholarly man – a magizoologist, who has travelled for research but who makes his living writing books – but even he always has time for her. Mattie’s earliest memories are of being propped up on his knee by the fire as he reads to her.

1881 | The worst memory of her childhood, on the other hand, is her mother’s untimely passing – the fault of a long, painful, debilitating magical disease, from which Mattie is meticulously shielded, but which means she is entirely distanced from her mother in those last few weeks, reduced to having nightmares about what could be happening on the other side of her mother’s bedroom door.

1882 | The house has been entirely sombre since. Mattie is outwardly well-behaved, but internally restless. Strange things happen around her, but that’s not too peculiar, for she is a young witch. Fortunately her father has hired a governess to take her tuition into hand and Matilda, always grateful for something – anything – to set her mind to, throws herself into her studies with diligence and an almost ravenous appetite.

1883 | The next summer, Papa moves them up to Irvingly, which is a welcome change for a precocious girl who likes to be Preoccupied-with-a-capital-P. Even if Irvingly is quite small and quite boring, she’ll make the most of it. It isn’t any worse than the Devon countryside.

1887 | At long last, Mattie gets to go to Hogwarts. Papa says he will miss her, but that it will give him more time to get on with his work uninterrupted – and Mattie forgives him this, because she is simply too excited. After a long time under the hat, she is sorted into Ravenclaw – but Slytherin, the hat tells her, was a very close call.

In any case, she is pleased to seem like a promising student, and likes the celestial-towered decor of Ravenclaw. As far as lessons go, she is fairly fickle with her favourites, but does enjoy practical magic, and competing with her classmates. Iphigenia Adebayo is one of them.

1889 | In third year, she adds Ancient Studies (purely so as not to give Miss Adebayo the academic edge) and Care of Magical Creatures to please her father.

1891 | Over the summer this year, her father is buried in his work, and Mattie is very much left to her own devices, or else in the company of rather tedious aunts. She begins a game with herself, which is pilfering (and drinking from) her father’s port collection. (He always blames one of the aunts.) She also, whilst browsing the shelves of their library at home, finds some very graphic depictions of copulation in a hitherto-dull tome about animal procreation – this gets the cogs turning in her mind as something that might require further investigation. She extrapolates from her findings, does a little more research and some self-exploration, and returns to Hogwarts for fifth year with a mind full of most interesting knowledge that might awe or shock some of the more naive girls in her year.

1892 | When sixth year comes around, Mattie keeps Ancient Studies, Astronomy, Charms, DADA, History of Magic, Potions and Transfiguration (and Music and Art) – more to inflict herself on Miss Adebayo than because she imagines she will do anything of use with the subjects in a career. (She might not be as wealthy or pureblooded as her rival, but she will still be debuting into society after Hogwarts, and intends to do well.) Notably, she drops Care of Magical Creatures in spite of the Outstanding she received at OWL level, “because it’s just too easy”, mostly as a power move. (Never mind that Miss Adebayo’s family are giving her advantages in Transfiguration and apparently wandless magic.)

1893 | Her father is busy researching dragons nowadays, so most of her summer has been spent on frequent visits to reluctantly assist him sorting his papers over in Wales at the Avalon Glen. Well, mostly reluctantly – Papa has plenty of opinions about the place and its running, but at least the Yarwood sons he keeps hinting about aren’t terrible. Marriage is very far from her mind, in any case, as are any worries about her final exams – Mattie has other ambitions for the future, and for the time being her first priority is finding ways to amuse herself.