Year 2: Open Your Mind

Chapter 15: January 2016

Though the Christmas holidays hadn't been terrible, it was a relief to be back at Hogwarts. If anything else, Molly was glad to be out from under her mother's constant supervision. It was exhausting trying to always please her mother while not falling behind in her studies. Molly couldn't understand why her mother didn't take school as seriously as she did.

"Good to have you back, Molly," Sarah greeted her when she arrived in the Great Hall for the welcome back feast. "It really wasn't the same around here without you and Debbie."

"I bet you and Julie were able to study plenty though," Molly replied grumpily. "I barely had time to do much more than my holiday homework and some rudimentary revision. I feel completely unprepared for the second term."

"You thought you were unprepared last year, and you still managed to get straight O's," Sarah pointed out. "I'm sure it's not as bad as you think."

"You got straight O's as well," Molly pointed out. "Who's to say your O's weren't higher than my O's."

"And O is an O is an O," Sarah said. "There's no different levels of O's."

Molly shook her head. "That's what you think," she muttered.

MmMmMmMmMmM

The next day was the start of classes. Though Molly could have benefitted from a few free days to properly revise from the first term before starting back, she couldn't deny that she loved being back in class. In transfiguration they were working on animate to inanimate transformations. In charms, they were learning about size charms. In defence, they were starting a unit on banshees. In herbology, they were working with leaping toadstools. In potions, they were learning about the theory behind the girding potion. In history, they were continuing their exploration of wizarding politics, and in astronomy, they were finally starting to work with real star charts.

One afternoon, just as every other afternoon, Molly and her friends were making their way up to the fifth floor after completing their last class of the day. Molly had a short essay to write about banshees for defence, as well as a theoretical potions assignment to complete. Not to mention the astronomy assignment that she still hadn't finished.

"I'm going to start with defence, I think," Julie declared. "Even though the units on dealing with dark creatures aren't as interesting as the ones on duelling and defensive spells, it's still more interesting than theoretical potions."

"I think I'll start with defence too," Molly agreed. "If only to get it out of the way."

"I still have to finish my herbology reading," Sarah spoke up. "I got so carried away with my astronomy assignment last night that I never did it."

"Good thing we didn't have herbology today," Debbie commented.

"Oh, trust me," Sarah said seriously. "If we'd had herbology today, I wouldn't have let myself postpone the reading."

"At least your astronomy assignment is done," Molly said bitterly. "Mine's taking forever. So many minute measurements."

"It's fun though, don't you agree?" Julie asked.

"Oh definitely," Molly nodded. "Just really time consuming. And I don't feel like I'm learning too much taking measurement after measurement. It could have been shorter, maybe with another component added on that would have been more interesting."

"True," Sarah agreed. "But I am glad I'm done."

The girls reached the door to their study room and Molly extended her hand to open the door. When she turned her wrist though, she met resistance.

"It's locked," Molly said in surprise.

"Locked?" Debbie frowned. "How is that possible?"

"I don't know," Molly replied. "Nobody uses the room except for us. But it's locked."

"Let me try," Julia insisted, pushing her way to the front of the group and wrapping her hand around the doorknob. When it didn't budge for her either, she frowned at it in confusion.

"Do you think someone could be inside?" Sarah wondered, stepping forward and knocking on the door. "Hello?" she called out. There was no answer.

"Oh for goodness' sake," Debbie said, rolling her eyes. She produced her wand and pointed it at the door. "Alohomora," she said clearly and confidently.

When nothing happened, she began to frown too.

"Why didn't that work?" she wondered. "It should have worked."

"Why is it locked in the first place?" Molly threw back at her.

"Especially if there's nobody inside," Sarah added.

"Nobody even knows about this room," Julie said. "Except for your cousins, Molly."

"Technically Teddy's not actually my cousin," Molly clarified. "Even though he may as well be."

"Really not the time, Molly," Debbie said.

"We need to figure out how to get back into the study room," Sarah agreed.

"Personally I'm more concerned about who locked it in the first place," Julie said. "Do you think it could have been the Headmaster?"

"No way," Molly nodded, sure it wasn't him. "If he'd changed his mind about our using the space, he'd have summoned us to his office like last time. This has to be someone else."

"And what about your cousins, or whatever they are?" Julie asked. "Would they do this?"

"No," Molly shook her head. "They'd have no reason to. And if they had a problem with me, they'd come to me outright, not do something like this behind my back."

"So then who could it be?" Debbie frowned.

"It has to be someone able to cast a spell that we can't undo," Sarah realized. "So that pretty much rules out all the underclassmen. They don't teach that kind of magic until sixth and seventh year."

"Do you think it was a student?" Julie asked.

Sarah shrugged. "If someone came across the room and saw what we were using it for, they could have gotten angry and locked us out."

"That makes no sense," Julie shook her head. "The logical thing to do would have been to report us. And if we'd been reported, Headmaster Slinkhard would have rescinded our permission to use the room."

"Yeah, I guess it seems kind of weird that locking the door would be the first reaction of someone coming across the room," Sarah agreed.

"Not to mention most students probably wouldn't think to care," Debbie pointed out. "Most likely if they just happened across the room, they'd have carried on without giving it a second thought."

"So then could it have been a professor?" Molly wondered, thinking logically. After all, the professors were the only people left in the building apart from students. "Or a faculty member?" she added, thinking of Madam Eldridge and the other non-teaching staff members.

"But why would they lock us out?" Julie asked, still coming back around to that same point. "Why wouldn't they report us, or confront us, or leave a note or something?"

"Maybe someone's playing a practical joke on us," Debbie suggested. "Maybe it has nothing to do with being angry or upset that we're using the room, and someone just wanted to mess with us."

"Who would do that?" Julie frowned.

Molly thought of her uncle George. When he'd been at school, he'd pulled all sorts of pranks. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume there were some pranksters attending Hogwarts now.

"You'd be surprised," Molly said. "Some people just like to cause mayhem."

"I think we should ask Professor Longbottom," Sarah decided. "If he didn't do it, he may at least be able to reverse the spell."

The other girls agreed, and together, they trooped down to their herbology professor's office on the first floor.

"I'm sorry girls," Professor Longbottom said when they explained their predicament. "But you're going to have to work this one out on your own."

"But we can't get the door open," Julie insisted. "Someone's charmed it shut. What are we supposed to do?"

"I can't get involved," Professor Longbottom apologized. "Technically you shouldn't even have access to the room. Headmaster Slinkhard was kind enough to look the other way this year while we search for a more permanent solution, but that grace only extends to far."

"But if you could just come and reverse the spell, then everything would be fine," Julie insisted. "It would take fifteen minutes, there and back."

"I'm sorry girls," Professor Longbottom shrugged. "But I have a great deal of work to get through. But you're smart. I'm sure you'll figure out a solution on your own."

Defeated, the girls exited their professor's office and aimlessly stood in the hall, wondering what their next step should be.

"We need to get started on our homework," Debbie realized. "It's going to be dinnertime soon, and the longer we do nothing, the more time we're wasting."

"But all our stuff is in the study room!" Sarah protested. "How are we going to get our work done without access to our textbooks or our notes?"

"We'll figure it out," Debbie declared. "And as soon as we have time, we'll start researching ways to get that door open."

The girls agreed that Debbie's plan was their best option at the moment, and they trooped up to the library on the second floor to get started on their work. Since they'd had defence and potions that day, all the girls had copies of their textbooks and recent notes for those classes. Nobody had a copy of their herbology textbook, but Sarah was able to locate a copy on the shelves in the library, so she was able to do her reading.

The only real problem was with astronomy. Molly, Julie, and Debbie had all left their partially-completed assignments in their study room. The bright side was that the assignment wasn't due the next day, so they could put it off if necessary.

Once the homework they could complete was done, the girls set to researching unlocking spells they could try. Unfortunately, curfew crept up on them quickly and they reluctantly had to leave the library and return to their respective dorms.

The next day, the four girls discovered another problem with the inaccessibility of their study room. The materials they'd need for class that day were all locked away too. They were almost ashamed in their first period transfiguration class when Professor Tonks instructed everyone to open their books to page one hundred and twenty seven, and none of them could comply. All four of them lost house points for being unprepared, and Molly ended up having to share a textbook with Flora, much to her dismay.

Second period was defence, which they'd had the previous day, so they had their materials for that class. After lunch though, the second years had charms and then herbology and they lost more points in both classes. It was humiliating. The Gryffindors and Ravenclaws kept sending them dirty looks and Molly felt her cheeks heat up in humiliation. She never lost house points.

At the end of the day, the girls returned to the fifth floor to try the door again, and when that failed, slunk down to the library to do what homework they could. They'd been assigned a short herbology essay, which they were only able to write by sharing the single library copy of the textbook. As for their charms essay, they had to improvise, because the library's copy of that textbook had been unfortunately checked out. Molly found that she was upset about this – there should be a rule about checking out class textbooks from the library. They should only be allowed to be consulted inside the library, in order to give everyone equal opportunities to use them.

They hadn't been assignment any defence homework, which was too bad because it was the one class they had had that day for which they had all their materials. And their transfiguration homework was to practice the spell they were working on, which mercifully they didn't need their textbook to do, though their notes would have been nice.

By the time dinner came around, the girls had already finished their homework for the day. Of course, they still had their astronomy assignments to complete, but they still didn't have access to them. The girls decided to skip dinner in favor of doing more research on unlocking spells. Madam Maxwell even directed them to some books she thought would be the most useful for their purposes.

"I think I found something!" Sarah exclaimed suddenly, breaking the silence that had permeated the air in the library thus far. "Look at this page…" she turned the page so her friends could lean closer and read. "It's a spell for unlocking doors that have been sealed with anti-unlocking charms."

"It's an anti-anti-unlocking spell," Molly nodded, impressed. "Good job Sarah."

"If this doesn't work, I don't know what will," Julie agreed. "Let's try it."

The girls decided to take the book with them, just in case. Sarah checked it out at the front counter with Madam Maxwell, and then the four of them climbed up to the fifth floor, hopeful.

When they turned the corner into the hallway where their study room was situated, the girls came to an abrupt stop. Directly ahead of them was their study room, and in front of the door was Peeves, tinkering with the lock.

"Hey!" Julie cried angrily, marching towards the school poltergeist. "What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

Peeves spun around and started to laugh.

"Girlsies are heresies!" he exclaimed in his usual bad English. "Whoopie!"

"Yes, we're here," Julie agreed. "Now tell us what you've done to our door. Are you the one that locked it the other day?"

"Girlsies will never get insidesies," Peeves said as he floated up to the ceiling, out of Julie's immediate reach.

"Tell us what you did, or we'll report you," Julie demanded.

"Peeves isn't scared of a few little girlsies," Peeves insisted.

"Okay," Julie nodded. "But aren't you scared of what the Headmaster might do to you?"

Peeves pretended to think about this. He placed a finger to his chin and scrunched up his face as if in thought. Then he removed his finger, smiled widely, and blew a raspberry.

Julie sighed, shaking her head.

"Well it doesn't matter," Sarah said, stepping forward with the library book in hand. "Because we found the counter-spell to whatever you did."

"You can try," Peeves said. "But nobody is smarter than Peeves!"

Ignoring the floating buffoon, Sarah put the book down on the ground and pointed her wand at the door. She cast the spell and the rest of the girls watched on hopefully, but nothing happened.

"Let me try," Julie insisted, pushing Sarah out of the way. She raised her own wand and cast the spell, but again nothing happened.

Molly and Debbie both took turns of their own, but the girls quickly realized that it wasn't them – it was the spell that wasn't right.

"We must have been looking for the wrong thing," Sarah sighed. "We were looking for something to counteract wand magic. We need to look for something to counteract poltergeist magic."

"Is there such a thing?" Debbie frowned.

Sarah shrugged. "Probably," she replied.

The girls turned to go. Now that they knew who had locked them out, they knew what they needed to look for to get back in.

"Wait!" Peeves called after them. "Where are you going?"

The girls stopped and turned back around.

"To the library," Julie replied. "To figure out how to open the door."

Peeves pouted. "But you have to stay here and figure it out," he whined. "That's how it works."

"Maybe for you," Julie retorted. "But for us, the library is always the best place to get answers."

The girls made to leave again, but Peeves stopped them with another shout.

"Wait!" he cried.

Julie practically growled as she turned around.

"What?" she demanded. "What could you possibly want?"

"Girlsies can't leave," Peeves insisted. "If girlsies leave, Peeves will be all alone."

Molly frowned. "What do you care if you're all alone?" she asked. "Aren't you usually alone?"

Peeves nodded sadly. "Peeves gets lonely sometimes," he sighed.

Molly found herself feeling bad for the poltergeist. Maybe the reason he was always pulling pranks and things was that he was trying to draw attention. It must be tough to be the only poltergeist in the whole school. The students mostly hated him, because he was always messing with them. And Molly knew the ghosts disliked him.

"I'm sorry Peeves," she said, walking towards him. "It must be hard, being alone all the time."

Peeves nodded sadly.

"But, you know… if you want to make friends, locking people out of their study spaces really isn't the way to do that," Molly pointed out. "Because now, we're all just mad at you."

"Girlsies are mad at Peeves?" Peeves asked sadly. "Peeves was only playing a trick."

Molly nodded. "But it wasn't a very nice trick," she said.

"If Peeves unlocks the door… girlsies will like Peeves?" Peeves wondered.

Molly nodded. "Yes, if you unlock the door, we'll be very happy," Molly nodded.

Peeves thought about this seriously. "Okay," he agreed.

He floated back down to the ground and fiddled with the door for a moment. There was a click, and suddenly the door swung open.

"Thank you Peeves," Molly said gratefully. "That was really nice of you."

"We can be friends now?" Peeves wondered.

Molly nodded. "Sure," she agreed. "We can be friends now."

"Yay!" Peeves exclaimed, floating back up to the ceiling and looping around a few times in his excitement. "Peeves has friends!"

He disappeared from view and Molly turned to face her friends. They all stared at each other for a moment before bursting out laughing.

"That was so weird," Debbie said.

"I agree," Sarah nodded. "Totally bizarre."

"At least we can get back into the study room," Julie gestured to the open door.

Eagerly, the four girls hurried inside and shut the door behind them. Molly went straight for her desk and felt immediately better when she sat down in front of all her notes.

"This feels much better," she sighed.

"Totally," Debbie agreed.

Molly started thumbing through her notes, searching for her astronomy assignment. It was the only thing she still had pending and she wanted to get it over with. As she located it, and then produced her measuring instruments, she found her thoughts roaming back to Peeves.

"I feel bad for him," she sighed.

"Who?" Julie frowned, already having started with her own assignment.

"Peeves," Molly clarified. "I think we should petition the Headmaster to have another poltergeist brought to Hogwarts."

"Isn't one enough?" Sarah asked. "Look at what he managed to do to us. Now imagine if there were two of them."

"I think if Peeves had a poltergeist friend, then he wouldn't need to be so… destructive and intrusive all the time," Molly said. "He wouldn't need to mess with us to get attention, because he'd have someone already."

"I don't know," Debbie said. "It could be a good idea, but it could also be a really bad one."

"Well I'm going to write the Headmaster," Molly declared. "I promised him we could be friends if he opened the door, and this is me being his friend. I'm going to try to get him a poltergeist friend."

Pushing her astronomy assignment to the side, Molly got out a fresh sheet of parchment and spread it out over her desk. Then she dipped her quill into a fresh pot of ink and began.

Dear Headmaster Slinkhard…