Year 2: Open Your Mind

Chapter 18: April 2016

"So I'm thinking if we get potions, defence, and charms out of the way tonight, we can dedicate tomorrow to herbology and astronomy, and then on Sunday we can really focus on history and transfiguration," Molly said.

It was Friday, and classes had just finished for the day. She and her friends were on their way to start their homework, and Molly wanted to divide up her weekend evenly. Potions, charms, and defence were the simplest assignments, so she figured it made sense to get them out of the way and leave the bigger projects to when she would have more time.

"No, I say we do herbology tonight, astronomy and history tomorrow, and then transfiguration, potions, defence, and charms on Sunday," Julie disagreed. "Get the heavy stuff over with first and leave the simpler stuff for once we're done."

"No," Sarah shook her head. "That won't work… what if herbology or history takes up too much time and we never get to charms or potions? I think we should start with history tonight, and then tomorrow do herbology, potions, and charms, and then on Friday it can be astronomy, transfiguration, and defence. That way we're interspersing the bigger assignments with smaller ones."

"I disagree," Debbie shook her head. "We should really do this based on when things are due. We have transfiguration first thing on Monday, so we should really start with that today. Then tomorrow we can do history, defence, and potions, and on Sunday we can deal with astronomy and herbology. Charms if there's time, but really that can be pushed to Monday, it's really not that much work."

The girls continued to argue all the way up to the fifth floor, but they couldn't come to an agreement. In the end, they had to agree to disagree and they all started to get out their materials for different classes. Julie pulled out her herbology notes, Sarah produced her history textbook, Debbie located her transfiguration things, and Molly went in search of her potions stuff.

It didn't take long though before Molly realized that something was wrong.

"Hey guys?" she asked. "Have any of you been looking at my potions notes recently?"

"No," Julie said. "Why would we look at your notes?"

"I don't know," Molly shrugged. "Maybe yours were missing something and you needed to consult them. Whatever. It's just that they're not here."

"They're missing?" Debbie frowned.

"Well I didn't touch them," Julie said.

"Me neither," Sarah added.

"Yeah, I definitely wouldn't go through your stuff without asking," Debbie nodded.

"Well then where are they?" Moly demanded. She frantically started shuffling through all her papers, desperately looking for her potions notes. But she knew they wouldn't be there. She kept her things completely organized – if her notes were missing, someone had taken them.

"Maybe you left them back in the dorm," Sarah suggested.

Molly shook her head. "No way," she said. "I never leave anything in the dorm. The only reason they'd have ended up there is if I took them back to review before bed, and even when I do that, I bring them right back here the next day."

"Well I don't know what to tell you," Sarah shrugged. "Maybe you left them there by accident."

But Molly knew she couldn't have done. She wasn't scatterbrained or forgetful. If she'd brought her notes back to the dorm, she'd have remembered.

"Didn't you have some notes with you last night?" Sarah asked. "Maybe those were your potions notes."

"No, those were my defence notes," Molly shook her head. "And I have those right here."

She held the notes in question up for Sarah to see.

"Well what do you want from me?" Sarah asked. "The only logical place I can think they could be would be the dorm."

"You may as well go and check," Debbie said. "You know, just in case. Before you start freaking out or anything."

Molly shook her head obstinately. "I'm telling you, they won't be there," she said. "They were here, and now they're gone. I know one of you must have taken them. Or moved them. Or something."

"Whoa!" Julie cried, holding up a hand. "Now you're accusing us? You don't have any evidence!"

"I don't need any," Molly stated. Of this, she was sure. One of her friends was lying to her. "You three are the only other people that have access to this room."

"Anyone has access to this room," Debbie pointed out. "It's not as though it locks when we aren't here, and even if it did, even a first year could do an unlocking spell."

"But not everyone knows what's down here," Molly amended her statement. "You three are the only ones who use the room."

"How do you know someone didn't stumble into the room and take your notes?" Julie demanded.

"What, they randomly came across our study room and disturbed absolutely nothing while only stealing my potions notes?" Molly asked incredulously. "Don't you think that's a bit unrealistic?"

"Yes, I do," Julie nodded in agreement. "Which is why I think your notes are probably back in your dorm somewhere."

"How many times to I have to say it?" Molly cried. "I didn't leave my notes in the dorm!"

"Well how many times do we have to say that we didn't take your damn notes?" Julie retorted.

Molly was shocked at Julie's strong language and found herself without a response. She simply stared at her friends, dumbstruck.

"I think you should go," Julie declared then. "At least until you're ready to stop accusing us of something we didn't do."

Molly nodded and silently began to pack her things into her bag.

"Fine," she said.

She stood and swung her now very heavy bag over her shoulder. She piled as many books as she could carry into her arms. There were still a few on her desk that were too heavy, and she looked at them longingly.

"I'll be back for those eventually," Molly gestured to the textbooks in question. They were her history and potions books, so she probably wouldn't need them until Sunday at the earliest. Later for potions, unless she could locate her notes.

"Fine," Julie nodded, arms crossed in front of her.

Molly made her way over to the door and found she couldn't get it open with her hands full.

"Could someone – "

Debbie stood and turned the handle, pushing the door open for Molly. Molly passed through, stopping on the other side in the hallway.

She paused and turned back, taking one last look at her friends. She took a moment to look at each of them individually, trying to figure out which one was the rat. She suspected it was Julie, but didn't want to jump the gun in case it was Sarah or Debbie. The truth would come out eventually though, and when it did, her friends would see that she'd been right all along.

Debbie closed the door behind Molly and she leaned against it for a moment as emotions swirled inside of her. As much as she was angry and didn't really want to sit in a room with a liar and a thief, she hated being kicked out like that. It wasn't fair – she was the victim here!

"Good grief," she heard Julie mutter from inside the room. "What's gotten into Molly?"

"I know, it was like she went crazy!" Sarah agreed. "Screaming and accusing us all."

"How could she think one of us would steal her notes?" Debbie wondered. "We're her friends. And we would've just asked like we always do – she's never refused to lend us her notes, as long as we give them back."

Having heard enough, Molly pushed off from the door and made her way down the hallway towards the staircase. She could finish her homework in the common room. At least now, all her notes were stuffed in her bag instead of lying in plain sight. Whoever had stolen her potions notes wouldn't be able to steal anything else without her noticing.

MmMmMmMmMmM

Just before curfew, Sarah returned to Gryffindor Tower from studying with Julie and Debbie. Molly saw her come in and glared at her as she passed by and headed up to the dorm. Whether Sarah had stolen her notes or not, in Molly's eyes, she was complicit. She'd stood by when Julie had kicked Molly out, which meant she was supporting the thief over her.

Grumpily, Molly tried to focus on her herbology work. Since her potions things were missing, she'd had to rethink her entire weekend homework plan. Now her intention was to finish herbology tonight, work on astronomy and transfiguration tomorrow, maybe with some defence or charms thrown in if she had the time, and then on Sunday she would focus on history, what was left of charms and defence, and hopefully potions. Unfortunately, she was so distracted by everything that she was having trouble paying attention to what her textbook had to say about the venomous tentacula.

Just then, someone began stomping down the stairs and Molly found herself audibly grumbling. There was always something going on in the common room that made it hard to concentrate. It was probably some angry fifth year who was about to scream at her boyfriend for cheating on her or something. Molly covered her ears with her hands and tried to read what was in front of her. But then the page was obscured by a stack of notes being thrown down in her face.

"What - ?" Molly frowned, removing her hands from her ears. It was her potions notes. Where had they come from? She looked up to find a very furious Sarah looking at her. "It was you?" Molly cried, shooting up and pointing a finger at her former friend in accusation. "You stole my notes?"

"There you go, assuming things again," Sarah cried.

"Well it's pretty obvious it was you now," Molly said, gesturing to the notes. "Where else would you have gotten these?"

"I found them," Sarah declared. "I didn't take them."

"Oh," Molly said in surprise. So then who had taken them? "It was Julie, wasn't it?" she asked. "I knew it."

"It wasn't Julie," Sarah shook her head. "But it's interesting that you'd jump to that conclusion."

Molly frowned. Julie had been the obvious choice. She was loud, obnoxious, and she'd been the one to kick Molly out of the study room earlier. And Molly never would have guessed that it was Debbie who'd have stolen them. But now that she thought about it, she realized it made sense. Debbie was quiet and pensive and unassuming. She was the perfect candidate for a thief. It was always the quiet ones.

"Well I hope you've made it clear to Debbie that she'd no longer welcome studying with us," Molly said.

But Sarah continued to shake her head. "It wasn't Debbie either."

Now Molly was even more confused. "Well then who was it?" she asked.

Sarah didn't answer, only stared at Molly for a long time, making Molly feel uncomfortable.

"Would you just tell me who took my notes, please?" Molly requested.

Sarah raised her chin defiantly. "Flora," she declared.

Molly was taken aback. "Flora?" she asked. "Seriously?"

"Yeah," Sarah nodded. "I found them on her nightstand just now when I went to start getting ready for bed. When I asked her about them, she said she'd borrowed them the other day when she saw them lying on top of your trunk and she'd forgotten to return them."

"Oh," Molly muttered, not knowing what to say.

"So we were right," Sarah said. "You did forget them in the dorm. You brought them back with you and never returned them."

"Well you can hardly blame me if Flora took them off my trunk," Molly said in her defense. "How was I supposed to know I couldn't trust my dormmates not to steal my stuff? Maybe I should start locking my trunk at night."

Sarah crossed her arms. "Isn't there anything else you'd like to say?" she asked.

Molly frowned. "Well I'd like to say some things to Flora," she said.

Sarah threw her hands up in the air. "Seriously?" she demanded. "You aren't even going to apologize?"

"Apologize for what?" Molly asked. "It's not my fault Flora stole my notes."

"Apologize for what?" Sarah repeated disbelievingly. "How about for flying off the handle earlier and accusing us all of being thieves? For not trusting your friends when we told you the truth? For being rude and obnoxious and just plain mean?"

"I was mean?" Molly demanded, her eyes going wide in shock. "I was mean? Did you even hear what Julie said to me? I was in distress and she just… attacked me!"

"You don't even see how wrong you were," Sarah said, her voice incredulous. "You can't even realize."

"Realize what?" Molly demanded.

"You know what? Never mind. You can keep your potions notes and your little table in the common room, because you are no longer welcome on the fifth floor."

With that, Sarah stalked back up the stairs to the dorm, leaving a very confused Molly in the common room.

What was Sarah so mad about? Molly was the one who should be mad. Her notes were stolen. It was reasonable to get freaked out when things like that happen. Sarah was being unreasonable.

Molly sat there for a while longer, waiting until she was sure Sarah would be in bed with the curtains drawn before heading upstairs. She didn't want to face Sarah like this. Not when Sarah was so worked up. She would wait until the morning. Hopefully her friend would be in a better mood then.

MmMmMmMmMmM

Sarah wasn't in a better mood the next morning. In fact, she seemed even more upset when she found that Molly still didn't think she needed to apologize. So Molly found herself getting ready to spend the day in the common room yet again. She contemplated going to the library to do her homework, but knew that her friends would likely be down there throughout the day consulting library books for various classes, and she didn't much feel like running into them. At least in the common room she couldn't run into Debbie or Julie, and the likelihood of Sarah returning before curfew was slim.

About mid-way through the morning, Louis descended from the boys' dorms and came over to Molly's study area.

"Hey Louis," Molly greeted her younger cousin.

"Hey Molly," Louis said. "What are you doing here? You're never in the common room."

Molly nodded. "Yeah, but I'm kind of having a fight with my friends, so I didn't really want to hang out with them."

"Oh," Louis nodded in understanding. "What did you fight about?"

"It's nothing," Molly shrugged. "It's dumb."

"But maybe I can help," Louis said.

"I doubt it," Molly replied. "This is serious, not silly first year stuff."

"Well why don't you tell me what happened, and then we'll see whether I can be helpful or not," Louis said.

Molly sighed. She figured it would be nice to talk to someone. She just needed someone to be on her side. Though Louis wouldn't have been her first choice, he was here, so she told him the whole story.

Louis listened attentively, not interrupting or commenting once through Molly's tale. When she finished, he nodded thoughtfully.

"So?" Molly asked.

"You need to apologize," Louis declared.

"Wait, what?" Molly cried. "No, you misunderstood. It's my friends who need to apologize for kicking me out!"

"No," Louis shook his head. "You accused them of stealing when they didn't. You were mean first. Anything they did was only in reaction to what you started. So you have to be the first one to apologize."

Molly made a face. "Whatever," she muttered. "I knew you'd be no help."

With a shrug, Louis stood and headed for the door. "I have somewhere to be anyway," he declared. "Good luck figuring this out on your own."

MmMmMmMmMmM

The day dragged on and Molly slowly made her way through her work. She had completed herbology last night and had proceeded with history, and was currently working on defence before moving on to transfiguration. She'd ended up deciding to push astronomy to Sunday, because she had a lot of time to get it done and realized it didn't need to take priority.

Defence didn't take long though, and soon Molly was ready to start with transfiguration. She realized then that her transfiguration and potions books were still on the fifth floor with her friends. She knew she had to get them, but she wasn't ready to face any of them.

Molly sighed to herself and instead decided to procrastinate by doing her charms homework. Unfortunately, it didn't take very long before that was completed. She could continue procrastinating by doing astronomy, but she figured she might as well get things over with, so she stood and headed for the portrait hole.

On the way down to the fifth floor, Molly thought about her conversation with Louis. It was ridiculous – the notion that she should apologize. Her friends had been incredibly insensitive towards her in a time of incredible panic and worry on her part. Anything she had said or done should have been excused. Molly obviously hadn't been in her right mind when she'd said what she'd said. And even if she had been, it wasn't that crazy to assume that the people that shared the room she kept her notes in were the most likely candidates for thievery of those notes. It was common sense. It was logical.

But then Molly thought about how she would have felt if Sarah or Julie or Debbie had accused her of stealing from them when she hadn't. She would have been pretty upset with them too. And hurt. She would never do something like that, and she knew that her friends wouldn't either. Especially when all four of them had always been so open about sharing notes.

Molly felt wretched. Louis was right. She needed to apologize.

Before she knew it, she found herself standing outside the door to the study room. Her heart was pounding as she tried to think of the words she wanted to say, but before she could work up the courage to knock on the door, it was being pulled open right in front of her.

"Molly?" Julie asked in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh!" Molly said, caught off guard by the sudden opening of the door. "Well I – I was coming down to get my textbooks – "

"Great, well then go ahead and take them and go," Sarah said. "We were just on our way to the library, so we'll leave you to it."

Her friends started to file out of the room and Molly panicked. "Wait!" she cried.

Her friends paused and turned to look at her.

"What?" Julie demanded, hands on her hips.

Molly took a deep breath. "I was just coming to get my books," she repeated herself. "But as I was walking down here, I realized I owe you all an apology. I shouldn't have been so fast to judge you all. You're my friends and I was mean and accusatory and I'm sorry."

It seemed like an eternity before anyone spoke, and Molly thought she would die from the anticipation. Then Debbie opened her mouth.

"Thanks Molly," she said, stepping forward. "And for what it's worth, I'm sorry we kicked you out."

Julie nodded, also taking a step forward. "Yeah," she said. "Sorry.

Molly looked behind her Ravenclaw friends at Sarah. They had had by far the worst fight of all, and she worried that Sarah wouldn't forgive her. But then Sarah smiled and stepped forward as well. "We good then?" she asked.

Molly nodded. "Can I maybe come back and study with you guys?" she asked. "The common room just isn't cutting it."

Debbie laughed. "Of course," she said readily. "It really isn't the same without you anyway."

And just like that, Molly and her friends went back to normal.