Year 1: Outstanding

Chapter 7: March 2015

"Come on Molly, it's curfew in ten minutes, we have to go," Sarah said from the doorway.

"I'm almost done, I swear," Molly muttered, scribbling away furiously. If only she could finish the conclusion, her astronomy essay would be complete.

"We don't have time for this," Sarah repeated, torn between waiting for her friend and leaving her behind.

"Just one more… there!" Molly said, throwing her quill aside and rolling up her essay. "Finished."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Well good," she said. "But the conclusion could have waited for tomorrow. It's only due next week."

"I didn't want to lose my train of thought," Molly replied. "I knew what I wanted to say and was likely to forget it if I'd left it for the night."

"Fine," Sarah said. "But you're cutting it really close, you know."

"I know," Molly nodded. "But it's fine, we can get back to Gryffindor Tower before anyone spots us. Besides, don't they give like, a five minute grace period anyway?"

"I don't really want to stand around and find out," Sarah replied as Molly finished packing her things away and the two hurried out into the corridor and towards the stairs.

Julie and Debbie had left twenty minutes ago and had told Sarah to just leave Molly behind, but Sarah had stayed. Molly wasn't sure if it was loyalty, or that Sarah just didn't want to find herself in their dormitory alone with Flora and the others.

Their dormmates were lovely people, truly they were. They just weren't people Molly or Sarah would ever have chosen as room mates. Or even as acquaintances. Or really anything involving interaction of any kind.

They reached the portrait of the Fat Lady and gave her the password, waiting for her to open before climbing through. A quick glance around the common room told the girls that their dormmates were probably up in the dormitory – unless they were out past curfew, which Molly seriously doubted.

Hoping their room mates would be asleep already and that they could get ready for bed in peace, Molly opened the door to their dorm and pushed it open, peering in slowly.

"There you are Molly!" an over-excited Flora cried. "Is Sarah with you?"

"Say no!" Sarah hissed behind Molly. Unfortunately, it was already too late.

"There she is! I see her!" Amber exclaimed.

"Good to see you all," Molly said in a forced voice. "But we were just heading to bed."

"So early?" Eliza frowned. "On a Friday night?"

"Not a chance," Flora shook her head. "You're hanging out with us."

"Oh no," Sarah shook her head. "That's really not – "

"It's not optional," Flora said, her face suddenly serious. "We don't hang out nearly enough for dormmates, so we have decided that all five of us are going to have a slumber party tonight."

"We don't really do slumber parties…" Molly tried to explain.

"Well you're doing this one," Flora declared. "Come on, get over here or we'll drag you over."

With a deep sigh, Molly reluctantly walked over and joined the other three girls on Flora's bed. Sarah followed, the two perching just on the edge of the bed as if they were prepared to flee – which they were.

"We thought we'd start with manicures," Flora said. "We've got red, pink, or purple nail polish."

"Oh, I don't wear nail polish," Molly said, thinking of the heart attack she might give her father if he saw her nails so frivolously decorated.

"Well you are tonight," Flora said. "Amber, why don't you do Molly's fingers and I'll do Sarah's. I'm sure they don't have as much experience as we do, and we want them to look good."

Feeling a bit like a barbie doll, Molly obediently held out her hand while Amber held different colored nail polishes to her skin, trying to decide which to use.

"This one," she finally decided, going with a deeper purple. "Your skin is so light, this will contrast it beautifully."

Next to her, Flora had chosen red for Sarah.

The nail polish took forever – four coats in fact, with drying time in between. Molly hadn't realized that nail polish was so complicated. There was the base coat, then two color coats, and then a top coat to seal it in. It seemed a little excessive to be honest.

When the top coat was finally dry, Molly hoped that she could escape and go to bed, but Flora had other ideas.

"We should do your hair!" she exclaimed. "I bet nobody's ever done either of your hair."

"Well I brush mine in the morning," Sarah shrugged.

Flora stifled a giggle. "We are so doing your hair."

"Isn't it kind of a waste?" Molly asked. "I mean, we're just going to go to bed and then it'll be ruined anyway."

"But that's not the point at all!" Flora cried. "This is a slumber party! These are the sorts of things girls do at slumber parties!"

"Well you'd know better than me," Molly shrugged, allowing herself to be positioned with her back to Flora and the other two girls. Suddenly, she felt hands in her hair and Molly cringed. She didn't like having people touching her so much, it made her uncomfortable. She took a breath and held it, knowing that this night couldn't go on forever at least. Soon she'd be allowed to sleep, and then she could go back to thinking about potions and transfiguration instead of hair and nails.

"Don't worry Sarah, you're next," Flora promised. Molly felt tugging and pulling in every direction and was conscious of the fact that parts of her hair were being braided.

"What are you even doing back there?" she asked.

"You'll see when we're done," Eliza promised.

Molly looked at Sarah, hoping for an answer from her, but Sarah simply shrugged her shoulders unhelpfully.

After an exorbitant amount of time, Molly's hair was deemed satisfactory and the three girls moved on to Sarah's hair. Wondering if this was her chance, Molly wandered over to her trunk and grabbed her pyjamas and her bathroom kit and then began sidling towards the door to the bathroom.

"Where are you going?" Amber asked.

"Oh, just to put my pyjamas on," Molly replied, cursing Merlin for being noticed.

"Good idea!" Flora exclaimed. "After we finish Sarah's hair, we should all put on our pyjamas. Slumber parties are always so much more fun in pyjamas."

With a sigh, Molly slipped into the bathroom, grateful to at least have a minute of privacy. Her hair looked ridiculous, she noted, looking in the mirror. It was a mess of braids, half pinned up and half down and Molly was pretty sure the girls had just moved her hair around for the sake of it. She decided to take out the pins as they were hurting her scalp – she would deal with Flora's rage happily. Maybe Flora would even let her go to bed!

Molly didn't understand it. Why was Flora suddenly so interested in bonding with her and Sarah? Why couldn't they have just gone on forever, mutually agreeing not to interfere in each other's lives? Things were working out perfectly up until now, so what had changed?

From the other side of the door, she could hear that Sarah's hair was finished and she knew the girls would be joining her any minute to put on their own pyjamas, so Molly changed hurriedly and then brushed her teeth for good measure, spitting her toothpaste into the sink just as Amber entered the room.

"Molly!" Amber cried. "You didn't just brush your teeth, did you?"

"Yeah," Molly replied with a shrug. "So what? I like having clean teeth."

"But we were going to eat sweets later," Amber cried.

"Oh, well I don't really eat sweets much," Molly said. "Especially not this late at night. If I eat them before bed, I can never sleep."

"Don't worry," Flora said, appearing in the doorway. "She can always brush her teeth again after we eat the sweets."

Molly frowned. Did nobody care about what she wanted? Did nobody care that she didn't want purple nails or pins in her scalp or to eat sweets late at night?

"Hey Flora," Molly ventured, suddenly feeling brave. "How about if Sarah and I choose the next activity?"

"That's a good idea," Flora agreed. "This slumber party is for all of us after all."

"Great!" Molly said, catching Sarah's eye. She didn't need to confer with her friend to know Sarah would like this suggestion better than what they'd already been doing. "How about we quiz each other on properties of potions ingredients?" she suggested.

All three of the girls looked up at Molly with confused expression.

"Why would we do that at a slumber party?" Flora wondered.

"It's fun," Molly replied. "And, you know, we can mix it up, try and trick each other by asking for properties of say… lavender sprigs when used in awakening potion, but lavender sprigs aren't even an ingredient of that particular potion!"

"That's not fun," Eliza disagreed. "That's homework."

"But homework is fun," Sarah disagreed.

"Well there's no homework at slumber parties," Flora declared. "No, we're not going to do that next. Instead, we're going to do… makeovers!"

Molly sighed. It had been worth a shot, she supposed.

Suddenly, she felt herself being maneuvered into a chair in front of one of the bathroom mirrors and bags of makeup supplies were retrieved. Sarah had been forced into a chair next to Molly and the two stared at the tubes and brushes apprehensively.

"I'm not really allowed to wear makeup," Sarah confessed.

"Neither am I," Molly agreed. "My parents would go insane."

"Well they're not here, are they?" Amber pointed out as she rummaged through her bag for something. "What they never know can't hurt them."

MmMmMmMmMmM

By the time the makeovers were over, Molly felt like her face had been covered in about eight inches of gunk. It itched something terrible, but every time she tried to scratch, Flora batted her hand away, saying she'd ruin it.

"I think I'm allergic to something you put on me though," Molly countered. Flora ignored her.

"Next up… ghost stories!" Flora exclaimed, packing away the last of the makeup supplies and leading Molly and Sarah back into the dorm. "Amber tells a fantastic one," she explained.

"But ghost stories aren't scary," Molly frowned. "We talk to ghosts every day."

"Yes," Amber said, using a deep, 'spooky' voice. "But have you ever heard the story of the ghost that died right here, in Gryffindor Tower?" Eliza put out two of the three torches in the room to make the room darker, but neither Molly nor Sarah were affected.

"Nobody ever died in Gryffindor Tower," Sarah shook her head.

"How would you know?" Flora demanded.

"Haven't you ever read Hogwarts: A History?" Molly asked.

"Why would I read that?" Flora countered. "It's not on the required reading list."

Molly shook her head. "Well if someone had died here, it would be written in there."

"Well this," Amber said, trying to recapture her crowd. "Is an untold story. Nobody tells it, because it's so horrible."

"If nobody ever tells it, then where did you hear it?" Sarah demanded.

"And why would you tell it now?" Molly added.

"Because it – I – oh just shut up and listen to the story," Amber demanded.

Molly decided to acquiesce, figuring that Amber could tell her story and then she could go to bed in peace. After a few minutes though, Molly's face really started to itch, worse than before, and Molly couldn't take it anymore, getting up abruptly and running to the bathroom to throw some water on it.

"What do you think you're doing?" Flora demanded.

"I couldn't – so itchy – " Molly gasped, scraping all the makeup off as she tried to bring relief to her skin. It burned now, but the water felt good, so she kept splashing it on her face.

"Well I give up!" Flora cried, throwing her hands up in the air in defeat. "First you ruined your hair by taking it down almost as soon as we'd perfected it. Then you ruined the ghost story with all your questions and comments, and now you're destroying your face, which we spent almost an hour putting together. I tried to be nice, but you – both of you – are just ungrateful and just… mean."

Sarah was standing just behind Flora throughout this explosion and as Flora turned and stomped away, she bumped Sarah's shoulder, purposefully causing Sarah to stumble and have to reach out to steady herself.

"Well… on the positive side, it sounds like the slumber party is over," Sarah said, coming fully into the bathroom and pulling the door closed behind her. "Here, I'll help you get that off."

"Thanks," Molly said gratefully, sinking into a chair as Sarah wet a face towel and wiped away all the cream and powder.

"You know, I think you really were allergic to something they put on you," Sarah commented then. "Your face is all blotchy and red."

Molly sighed. "If it hasn't cleared up by morning I'll go and see Madam Eldridge," she decided.

Sarah finished cleaning off Molly's face and the girls switched so that Molly could get all the junk off of Sarah's face. They couldn't very well go to sleep with all this on, after all. They'd make a mess of their pillows, not to mention what their faces might look like upon waking.

"There," Molly said finally. "That's all of it."

"Thanks," Sarah said, reaching around her head to take her hair down. "What's Flora's deal, anyway? Why do you think she was so eager to have this slumber party or whatever?"

"I don't know," Molly shook her head. "At least we don't have to worry about it happening again. I think Flora's figured out that it was a bad idea."

"Terrible," Sarah nodded. "I was afraid she was going to force us to have a pillow fight or something."

"That would have been awful!" Molly cried, covering her mouth to keep from laughing at the thought. "Oh I'm so glad it came to an end when it did."

"I would have been happy if it had ended a little sooner," Sarah commented. "Though I really liked your idea about quizzing each other on potions. Maybe once exams get a little closer we should implement it as part of our study regimen with Julie and Debbie. I bet they'd be down for some collaboration."

"I'll suggest it to them," Molly agreed.

Having finished cleaning themselves up, the two girls left the bathroom, venturing nervously into the dorm again. Flora was sitting on her bed, with Eliza and Amber on either side of her, comforting her as she cried. When they saw Molly and Sarah, Amber and Eliza immediately pulled the curtains around the bed shut, blocking Flora's view of them.

"Whatever," Molly shrugged, not caring that they'd been rebuffed. "She's such a drama queen."

"Yeah," Sarah agreed. "She'll get over it."

"Well goodnight," Molly said, climbing into her own bed and pulling her curtains shut.

"Goodnight," Sarah returned.

MmMmMmMmMmM

The next morning, Molly was pleased to discover that the red splotchy-ness on her face had mostly cleared up. She wouldn't have to go see Madam Eldridge after all.

Flora was still asleep, curtains drawn. Eliza and Amber's beds didn't look as though they'd been slept in, and Molly assumed that they had spent the night with Flora, comforting her or whatever.

As soon as they were ready, Molly and Sarah left the dorm, hurrying out of the common room and down to the Great Hall for some breakfast before they retired to their study room for the day – it was Saturday, which meant lots of time to study with little to no interruptions.

Molly and Sarah joined Julie and Debbie at the Ravenclaw table for breakfast that morning, sitting down across from each other and dragging some pancakes onto their plates.

"Good morning," Julie greeted them. "How was your night? Did you get back alright? You didn't get caught out after curfew, did you?"

"Nope, we made it back in time, that's for sure," Sarah muttered, sharing a look with Molly. "It was just a regular night. Nothing special."

"Then why are your fingernails red?" Debbie asked, pointing to Sarah's right hand. "And Molly, why are yours purple?"

Molly let out a sigh of exasperation. Of course they'd forgotten to remove the nail polish last night. With everything that had happened, they were bound to have missed something."

"It's a long story," Sarah told her. "You don't want to hear it."