Chapter 4: December 2016
Over the next few weeks, things only seemed to get worse. At first, Molly had hoped she could patch things up quickly with Julie and the others and move on, but it seemed that Julie didn't want to forget about the things that had been said. More and more, Molly found herself studying alone in the library while her friends went off to practice Quidditch. Sometimes all three of Molly's friends would claim to have Quidditch practice at the same time and Molly was too afraid to rock the boat to comment on the unlikelihood that the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor Quidditch teams were sharing the pitch.
One day at dinner, Molly was sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, waiting for her friends to get back from Quidditch practice. She'd spent most of the day alone already – at lunch her three friends had claimed to have to go to the after hours potions lab to see Professor Abbott-Longbottom about doing some extra credit to make up for their less-than-stellar work recently. Molly had volunteered to go with them, but they'd insisted that she remain in the library and work on her arithmancy homework instead, which she did. And as soon as classes were over for the day, the three girls had trooped down to the Quidditch pitch, leaving Molly by herself in the library once again. Molly was looking forward to seeing them.
Just then, Molly heard the Great Hall doors open and she turned to see who it was. Her eyes rested on her three friends, standing in a group in the entryway and scanning the room, probably for Molly. She raised her hand in the air and waved it a bit to get their attention, and it worked. Julie's eyes met Molly's and then Julie's mouth opened and she said something to Debbie and Sarah who also turned and met Molly's gaze. Then, as one, the three girls turned and took seats at the end of the Ravenclaw table, Sarah and Julie turning their backs to Molly and Debbie avoiding eye contact.
Molly's heart sunk. Ever since Hogsmeade, her friends had acted a little cooler towards her. They spent less time together and certainly talked less when they were all together. Molly had learned that posing homework questions to the group was no longer acceptable, and instead she would look them up for herself in her textbook. She'd also learned to avoid the topic of Quidditch like the plague, lest she start another disagreement. She'd thought she'd figured out a pretty good rhythm and couldn't imagine what had changed in the space of a day.
Molly debated whether to get up and go over to the Ravenclaw table with her friends, but decided in the end that it would be a bad idea. Her friends had made it pretty clear that they didn't want her sitting with them. She would try approaching them later, she figured, and for the moment, she focused on her mashed potatoes and peas.
Molly waited for her friends to finish their supper before getting up from the Gryffindor table. She knew they had to be going to the library and wanted them to sit down first lest they pull the same stunt they'd pulled at dinner. After waiting an appropriate amount of time, Molly too stood up, grabbing her bag, and began to head in the direction of the library.
The walk wasn't long, and with all the cardio Molly got walking up and down the stairs of Hogwarts castle day in and day out it certainly wasn't strenuous, but as Molly approached the library doors, her legs started to feel weak. She worried she might fall over if she kept walking, but knew if she stopped she might not complete the trip to the library.
When she arrived at the library doors, she paused for a moment to take a quick scan of the room. Her friends were sitting not far from the entrance at a table with six chairs – plenty of room for Molly to slip in. Taking a deep breath, Molly took one step and then another until she came to the table and pulled out one of the chairs. It had a bag on it, so Molly turned to Julie to ask her to remove it.
"Sorry," Julie said, not sounding sorry at all. "If I put my bag on the floor, it could get dirty. This seat is taken."
Molly felt a weight fall through to the pit of her stomach and sucked up her courage to go around to the next empty chair, which also appeared to have a bag on it.
"Sarah?" she inquired, her voice small.
Sarah glanced up at Molly and shook her head. "I don't want my bag to get stepped on," she said. "You'll have to sit somewhere else."
The weight in her stomach doubled in size and Molly fought the urge to cry right there. She walked around the table to the final chair and pulled it out to find Debbie's bag comfortably perched on the seat. Molly didn't need to say anything this time. Instead, Debbie looked up at her with apologetic eyes.
"Come on Molly, can't you get the hint?" Debbie pleaded, almost begging Molly not to push the issue. But as much as Molly wanted to run, she wasn't one to back down, and she wanted to know the truth.
"Why don't you clarify it for me?" Molly managed to ask.
Julie sighed loudly and threw her quill down, crossing her arms in front of her. "Obviously it's that we're not interested in studying with you," she said.
"I see," Molly replied, feeling at a loss for words. She'd guessed as much, but hearing it said out loud was a different matter. "Did you want that to be temporary, or more permanent?" she asked, the question itself bringing her pain.
The three girls exchanged a look, and Julie was the one to answer. "Permanent," she replied matter-of-factly.
All the weight in Molly's stomach dropped out at this admission and she suddenly felt completely painfully empty.
"May I ask why?" she said, wondering why she was putting herself through this instead of high-tailing it back to the Gryffindor common room.
"Well – " Julie hesitated for a moment before answering. "You've been kind of a bad friend recently. You don't accept or support that we all play Quidditch now, you make us feel bad for having different priorities than you do, and we're tired of it."
"Right," Molly said, clenching her jaw to keep from screaming in the middle of the library.
Bad friend? Molly had spent every minute since the Hogsmeade trip trying to be a good friend! She'd avoided to many conflicts by not saying the things she wanted to say about Quidditch and all the practices her friends attended. She'd stayed quiet, let her friends be… and now she realized that she'd effectively pushed them away with her silence.
"I'll be leaving now," Molly managed to say right before she turned and walked as dignified as possible out of the library.
As soon as she was out of sight, Molly broke into a run, going straight for the nearest bathroom. Even before she got there, tears were streaming down her face, and once she arrived, she locked herself in a stall, sat herself down on the toilet seat and let herself just cry.
MmMmMmMmMmM
The next few days were harder than Molly would have cared to admit. Seeing her friends – ex-friends now – around the castle was painful, especially knowing they wanted nothing to do with her. And worse than that even, Molly suddenly found herself completely alone. Solitude had never bothered Molly before, but now suddenly she felt the absence of her companions like a giant hole in her life.
To avoid them, Molly found herself changing some of her patterns. She ate at different times than she used to, and usually sat with one of her cousins and their friends to give the illusion she wasn't completely alone. She started studying in the common room, where at least she wouldn't run into Julie or Debbie, and run-ins with Sarah were rare. She retired to bed early, pulling the curtains of her four-poster bed closed before Sarah returned, and staying ensconced inside her personal fortress until Sarah had left for the day.
Mercifully, it was soon time for the Christmas holidays and Molly was all too eager to get home. At least at home, she wouldn't be constantly reminded of her friends that didn't want anything to do with her. At least at home, she was the one ostracizing her family in favor of studying rather than being the ostracized.
The train ride home was rather lonesome. Molly distracted herself with some reading for her various classes, being all caught up with the homework already. When they arrived at King's Cross, Molly let Lucy tell her parents all about her first term at Hogwarts, her friends, and the newspaper club she'd joined while she herself remained quiet, retreating to her room as soon as they got home.
For the next few days, Molly spent most of her time holed up in her room. She wanted to be sure to have all of first term fully revised by the time she returned to Hogwarts. There could be no excuse for mistaking a common poison for it's antidote or vice versa.
When Christmas Eve came, Molly pleaded with her father to let her bring some of her homework to the Burrow with her so that she wouldn't be forced to play hide-and-seek with all her cousins. She just wasn't in the mood for that kind of nonsense this year. Percy agreed, though Audrey wasn't altogether impressed with Molly's antisocial attitude. Either way, Molly was happy to squirrel herself away in her Grandfather's very small study and practice some runic translations while the rest of her family celebrated.
Christmas Day, Molly was rather subdued as well, participating in the morning present-opening rituals with her family good-naturedly before returning to her room once again to revise her herbology notes.
Unexpectedly, there was suddenly a knock on her door, and Molly turned to find her mother waiting to be invited in.
"Did you want something?" Molly asked, drawing her focus away from her work.
Audrey entered and sat down on Molly's bed.
"Is everything alright Molly?" Audrey asked. "You seem a little – sad these days."
"I'm fine," Molly replied hardly. "Is that all?"
"It's just – you're usually so happy when you study," Audrey said. "You always have this little smile on your face and sometimes you even hum to yourself. But recently – you've been very quiet and your expression has been very stern and you seem unhappy."
"There's just a lot to learn," Molly lied about the reason for her attitude change. "I'm focusing, that's all."
"Are you sure there isn't something else?" Audrey wondered.
Molly shook her head. There was no point opening up to her mother. She wouldn't understand. Friendship meant something different to Molly than it did to people like Audrey and Lucy. Her mother would likely tell her to try to mend the broken friendships – find a way to make amends. But Molly knew that that wasn't possible. Her mother would likely tell her to find new friends. But Molly knew that there was nobody else in her year as invested in academics as she was. Molly already knew what her mother might say, and she knew that nothing her mother could say would help in the least.
With a sigh, Audrey stood, patting Molly on the back comfortingly before taking her leave and closing the door behind her, leaving Molly alone with her thoughts.
Molly tried to return her attention to her herbology notes, but found that it was more difficult than she could have expected. Her mother's visit had disturbed her, and now she found herself thinking of Debbie and Julie and Sarah again, and the pangs of loneliness she'd been fighting had returned.
It was ridiculous, Molly knew. She should be able to control herself – to push away bad feelings in favor of better ones – studious ones. But she couldn't.
With a groan of exasperation, Molly decided to go to the one person who might be able to understand her situation – the one person who might be able to help: her father. She got up and headed downstairs to her father's study, where she surely enough found him working on something or other despite the fact that it was Christmas Day.
"Molly," he said in surprise when she appeared in his doorway.
"Am I disturbing you?" Molly wondered nervously, thinking maybe she should come back later.
"Not at all," Percy shook his head. "I can work on this later." He put down the parchment he'd been holding and leaned back in his seat while Molly entered the room and took a seat across the desk. "Is everything alright?"
Molly waited a beat, knowing that once she admitted it, there was no going back. Then slowly she shook her head 'no'.
"Is it school?" Percy asked immediately. "Is it something with your grades? Because it's only the first term, so you have time to pull them up if you need to."
"It's not my grades," Molly shook her head. "It's my friends."
"Your friends?" Percy asked curiously. "What about them?"
"It's silly," Molly shook her head. "You know what? Never mind. I'll just go back to my room."
Molly stood and started heading to the door, but Percy stood and blocked her path.
"Why don't you let me be the judge of what's silly and what isn't?" Percy suggested. "Tell me what's wrong."
Molly sighed and reclaimed her seat. Then she explained how her friends had decided they no longer wanted to be friends with her, and how it basically all amounted to them wanting to play Quidditch.
"I see," Percy said once Molly was done explaining. He sat back in his chair, thinking, leaving Molly feeling unsettled and nervous for her father's reply. "Well it's clear to me that these people were never a good choice of friends to begin with," he declared.
"What?" Molly asked, not expecting this answer at all.
"Well you said it yourself," Percy said. "They prioritize Quidditch over schoolwork. You need to be surrounded by people who are prioritizing schoolwork. Those are the people that are going to challenge you, who are going to push you to be your best."
"They used to do that," Molly found herself defending them.
"But they don't anymore," Percy nodded. "So you should cut them loose. Don't give them another thought. Don't you remember why you made friends in the first place?"
Molly thought back to her first year, when her only intention had been to do well in school no matter the cost.
"We were just a study group at first," Molly remembered. "Four people brought together by a love of school."
"Exactly!" Percy nodded. "Somewhere along the line, the lines between study partners and friends must have become blurred, but you and I both know that friendship is a dangerous thing. Friends have responsibilities to one another than simple study partners don't have. You can't be weighted down by those responsibilities if you're going to be top of the class.
"You're right," Molly nodded, realizing that she'd been thinking about this all wrong. She'd been focusing on the fact that he friends had ditched her, when really she should have ditched her friends the minute they made their respective Quidditch teams. As soon as they stopped being assets for her academic career and had started dragging her down, she should have cut them loose.
"Of course I am," Percy nodded. "All this friendship drama has been distracting you from the one thing that's really important."
"My grades," Molly nodded. "But I'm already top of the class. Now that Sarah and Debbie and Julie are distracted with Quidditch, their grades have dropped and I've become top of everything. I need a challenge – someone to challenge me. But there's nobody."
"Who says you need to be challenged by current students?" Percy asked.
Molly frowned at this. "What do you mean?" she wondered.
"Go to the trophy room when you get back to school," Percy instructed. "There should be a list kept there of the students that have had top marks in each class for all the years that Hogwarts has been around. Make them your challenge. Make it your goal to beat them."
"Yeah," Molly nodded, liking the idea of that. It wasn't enough to be top of her year. Molly needed to make it her mission to be top of all students that had ever been in her year. "I'll do that."
"Good," Percy nodded, satisfied that he'd given good advice. "Then I'd advise that you get back upstairs and get to work revising. You're not going to beat me or your Aunt Hermione by sitting around all day."
"Yes Sir," Molly smiled, standing up and immediately heading to the door. "And Dad?" she asked, pausing in the doorway and turning around. "Thanks."
Percy smiled warmly. "Anytime sweetheart," he said. "Anytime."