Specialties: Potions, Charms, Legilimancy, Occlumency, Numerology, magical drawing, teleportation, and her own spell: "Boh"
Sorting:
The Jadis-Wandson family was not pleased to see Maleficent break family tradition and go into Ravenclaw. Largely lacking in the rest of her family's Slytherin ambition, M.J. drifts wherever her curiosities take her. She's extremely observant and perceptive, even compared to the rest of the Ravenclaw class. She hides and reveals her deductions with her dry wit. She excels at Potions, Numerology and Charms, but failed Muggle Studies miserably.
Though noble and brave when necessary, M.J. is no Gryffindor. She's terrified of heights and doesn't even like flying, instead preferring Appiration (which she illegally mastered before beginning her first year—with some push from that Slytherin family, no doubt). Her fighting style is pragmatic, and while she cares about social justice, she tends to lack Peter's idealism.
Ravenclaws are known to think outside the box, and if MJ isn’t a Goth Luna Lovegood, then I don't know what she is.
Wand:
MJ’s favorite tree is the Wytch Elm, because of the famous murder. Due to her fascination with death, the Thestral hair core is no surprise. She sure that every wand she tried at Ollivander's "malfunctioned" until she got one the Gothest-looking stick in the store.
But Ollivander always admired the most eccentric wand owners, and pegged this kid as a fellow Ravenclaw long before M.J. even considered that she might not go straight into Slytherin. For the rest of her school career, M.J. thought of Ollivander as an inspiration, and took joy in perplexing and creeping out her fellow classmates and professors with her eccentricities just as the old wandmaker did with his customers.
"A Fusion of Luna Lovegood and Moaning Myrtle, with a dose of Bellatrix LeStrange!"
...is how M.J.'s classmates, and occasionally professors, described her, when they thought she wasn't listening, and wouldn't take it as a compliment.
M.J. disdained her mother's family, the blood-purist Jadis house; but she outright disowned her father's, the infamous Wandsons (murderous dark wizards from the States). The Wandson family was closely related to the Blacks, hence M.J. sharing traits with her Aunt Bellatrix, Uncle Sirius, and cousin Nymphadora Tonks. Since all of her good relatives were dead, she tended to hang out with ghosts more than the living, at least until becoming friends with Peter and Ned.
She regularly surprised her classmates by literally appearing out of thin air. She usually popped up to make dry, quippy observations over a copy of the Quibbler. She frequently interrupted Filch's detentions to draw moving, talking pictures of wizards in crisis.
By early second year, it was "kind of obvious" to MJ that Peter Parker was the Spider-Wizard. Shortly before this, she'd invented her first spell, at age twelve. That previous summer, M.J. had upset her family, by bluntly pointing out all of the reasons her cousin Delphi couldn't possibly be related to the Dark Lord. All of this, after brushing off her being dusted by Thanos and resurrected with a blasé pragmaticism.
"Boh"
It was during a class trip to Beauxbatons that M.J. casually showed Peter her new spell: "Boh." What does "Boh" do? It's a conjuring spell, that shoots any short-term need out of one's wand: fire, water, light, a forcefield, Bertie Bott's beans, you name it. The spell only lasts seconds, but it's a lifesaver in a pinch. "Boh" would go on to serve the group well when battling dark wizards like Mysterio.
Obliviate!
Even the most powerful Memory Charm, cast by the world's most powerful sorcerer, doesn't have 100% of a hold on M.J.'s mind. When a dweeb named Peter Parker enters the Leakey Cauldron and orders a butterbeer from her, M.J. knows instantly that she's seen him before, and there's something very significant about him. For some reason, she thinks of him whenever she casts "Boh."
AN: I really enjoyed cooking up this backstory for Hogwarts M.J. I'm not thrilled with how "No Way Home" ended, but it worked perfectly into this Potterverse AU.
“A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven o’clock. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. He had done it.”
New from J. K. Rowling
As we know from early historical accounts, and from the evidence of early woodcuts and engravings, Hogwarts students used to arrive at school in any manner that caught their fancy. Some rode broomsticks (a difficult feat when carrying trunks and pets); others commandeered enchanted carts and, later, carriages; some attempted to Apparate (often with disastrous effects, as the castle and grounds have always been protected with Anti-Apparition Charms), others rode a variety of magical creatures.
In spite of the accidents attendant on these various modes of magical transport, not to mention the annual Muggle sightings of vast numbers of airborne wizards travelling northwards, it remained the responsibility of parents to convey their children to school, right up until the imposition of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1692. At this point, it became a matter of urgency to find some more discreet method of transporting hundreds of wizarding children from all over Britain to their secret school in the Highlands of Scotland.
Portkeys were therefore arranged at collecting points all over Britain. The logistics caused problems from the start. Up to a third of students would fail to arrive every year, having missed their time slot, or been unable to find the unobtrusive enchanted object that would transport them to their school. There was also the unfortunate fact that many children were (and are) 'Portkey-sick', and the hospital wing was frequently full to bursting for the first few days of every year, while susceptible students overcame their hysterics and nausea.
While admitting that Portkeys were not an ideal solution to the problem of school transportation, the Ministry of Magic failed to find an acceptable alternative. A return to the unregulated travel of the past was impossible, and yet a more secure route into the school (for instance, permitting a fireplace that might be officially entered by Floo powder) was strongly resisted by successive Headmasters, who did not wish the security of the castle to be breached.
A daring and controversial solution to the thorny problem was finally suggested by Minister for Magic Ottaline Gambol, who was much intrigued by Muggle inventions and saw the potential in trains. Where exactly the Hogwarts Express came from has never been conclusively proven, although it is a fact that there are secret records at the Ministry of Magic detailing a mass operation involving one hundred and sixty-seven Memory Charms and the largest ever mass Concealment Charm performed in Britain. The morning after these alleged crimes, a gleaming scarlet steam engine and carriages astounded the villagers of Hogsmeade (who had also not realised they had a railway station), while several bemused Muggle railway workers down in Crewe spent the rest of the year grappling with the uncomfortable feeling that they had mislaid something important.
The Hogwarts Express underwent several magical modifications before the Ministry approved it for school use. Many pure-blood families were outraged at the idea of their children using Muggle transport, which they claimed was unsafe, insanitary and demeaning; however, as the Ministry decreed that students either rode the train or did not attend school, the objections were swiftly silenced.
