Year 3: Left Behind

Chapter 22: October 2016

Somehow, Molly wasn't overly surprised when Sarah made Gryffindor's Quidditch team. Julie, Debbie, and Sarah had always been good at everything academically, it was no surprise really that they were good at sports too. But with their new schedules packed full of Quidditch training, suddenly Molly's friends found themselves scrambling to get everything done.

"Molly, have you seen my transfiguration textbook?" Sarah demanded one morning. Molly was still in bed, but Sarah had an early morning Quidditch practice that she needed to get to.

"No," Molly murmured, rolling over in an attempt to return to the blissful state of half-sleep that she'd been in before Sarah had started hollering.

"Ugh, I can't find it!" Sarah cried. "I need it to finish my essay for Professor Tonks. If I don't hand it in today with the rest of you, I'll get points off for being late!"

"I don't understand why you didn't finish it last night," Molly grumbled. "It would be a whole lot less stressful you know."

Sarah made a noise. "Well I didn't have time last night, because I was working on my potions essay for Professor Abbott-Longbottom."

"Wasn't that due yesterday?" Molly frowned as she sat up and wiped the sleep from her eyes. She obviously wasn't going to get any more sleep, so she might as well get up and take advantage of the morning to revise her arithmancy notes. She had it on good authority that there was going to be a pop quiz sometime this week and she wanted to be ready.

"She gave me an extension," Sarah replied. "I'm going to bring it to her at lunch."

"An extension?" Molly said, the word feeling foreign in her mouth. Since when was Sarah the kind of person to take an extension on homework?

"Yeah," Sarah nodded. "Julie and Debbie got them too."

"Huh," Molly muttered. She couldn't understand why they even needed the extension. Sure, they were all busier now with Quidditch, but school still took priority, right?

"Here it is!" Sarah cried, locating her transfiguration textbook.

"Don't you have practice this morning?" Molly frowned. When was Sarah going to have time to finish her essay anyway? "You realize we have transfiguration first thing."

"If I skip shower and breakfast, I should have just enough time to get it done," Sarah declared, already halfway out the door. "I'll see you in class Molly!"

"Yeah," Molly nodded, waving at the empty doorway as Sarah disappeared down the stairs. "See you in class."

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Sarah almost didn't make it to transfiguration class on time. She flew in through the door just as Professor Tonks was picking up the class list to do the roll call. When she sat down next to Molly, Molly noted that her hair was a mess, her face was flushed, and she smelled like a mud puddle.

"What happened to you?" Molly demanded.

"Practice ran long," Sarah muttered. "Had to finish my essay in the locker room and then run to make it on time."

"You did your homework in the locker room?" Molly frowned, thinking that it was hardly the place for serious work.

"It's not like I had much of a choice," Sarah muttered, pulling her materials out of her bag and placing her homework essay on the desk in front of her. Molly glanced at it and saw that the writing was messy and even a little illegible in parts. She could already see three grammatical errors, and that was just in looking over the first paragraph.

"Don't you think it would have maybe been better to take the late penalty if it meant getting more time to work on it?" Molly wondered. If it were her, she would never hand in such a disaster of an essay.

"There's no point," Sarah shook her head. "I still have all my other work piling up. I have the charms essay still to write, and that's due tomorrow. Then there's the herbology reading and the defence assignment, not to mention I haven't studied arithmancy at all yet!"

"Wow," Molly muttered in surprise. She had already finished everything on that list and was shocked to hear that Sarah was so behind. "Um, listen… don't you think maybe it would be easier if you just quit the Quidditch team? Then you wouldn't be so behind on everything."

"What?" Sarah asked, in disbelief. "Quit the team? I couldn't do that. Besides, it's good for me to have a more well-rounded school experience."

Molly opened her mouth to respond, but Professor Tonks had now finished the roll call and was starting the lesson. So instead, Molly turned her attention on her Professor and began to take diligent notes on the lecture, forcing herself to focus on inanimate to animate transfiguration theory.

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"Can I borrow someone's herbology textbook?" Debbie asked that afternoon as the four girls studied in one of the private study rooms in the library. Neither the Gryffindor nor the Ravenclaw Quidditch teams had practice that afternoon, giving the four girls one of their now rare chances to study all together.

"You can borrow mine," Julie offered, reaching into her bag and passing it over. "I don't think I'm going to bother doing the reading anyway."

"What?" Molly asked, barely believing her ears. Had Julie just said she wasn't planning on doing the required reading.

Julie looked up with a puzzled expression. "What's the big deal?" she wondered. "It's not like I didn't read it once over the summer. I'm just not going to bother re-reading it, since I already know what it says. I have to prioritize my work now, you know."

"Right," Molly nodded, deciding not to argue the point. She often tried with Sarah to make her friend see reason, but Julie was much more hard-headed than Sarah was, and if Sarah was refusing to budge, then Julie certainly wouldn't.

Molly turned back to her ancient runes homework and tried to focus on that. As a way to get the third years to learn to quickly recognize runic numbers, Professor Thicket had created a worksheet of very basic math equations. All the numbers were written in runes, which meant that first Molly had to translate them into English, then do the equation (that part wasn't very hard), and then translate the answer back into runes to give the solution. It was quite challenging, and Molly was loving it.

"Hey, does anyone remember the rune for 'seven'?" Molly asked, getting stuck on one of the questions. She had managed to translate the 'five' rune and the 'two' rune, and she'd added them together easily enough, but she was having trouble putting the answer down in runic form.

"Seriously?" Julie demanded. "You think any of us is even close to working on our ancient runes homework? It was only assigned today. There's a lot of other work we have to get through before we can even think about runes."

"I know, I know," Molly said, immediately on the defensive. Julie could be so aggressive at times. "I just wondered if any of you remembered it from the lesson."

Molly looked in Sarah and Debbie's directions, hoping for a more sympathetic response, but neither was even paying attention to Molly or Julie, so engrossed they were in the work they were doing.

"Just look it up in your notes," Julie said, sounding exasperated. "Merlin knows you have the time to spare."

"Fine," Molly said, shaking her head as she reached into her bag and pulled out her notes for the day, flipping through them until she found the right spot.

As she copied the 'seven' rune onto her assignment sheet, Molly found herself feeling a little hurt. The four of them had always been comfortable throwing out random questions as they did their homework, and it had never been a problem before. But now Julie was acting like Molly was bothering her, like Molly was an inconvenience. Then again, maybe it was better this way. Molly shouldn't rely on her friends' help so much. She should be able to find the answers she needed on her own, without always asking someone for the answer. So maybe it was a good thing after all that her friends were all suddenly so busy. At least it would give Molly the chance to be a little more independent.

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The following week, Professor Tonks handed back the transfiguration essays that the third years had written. Molly was pleased when she received hers to see a bright red O at the top of the page. But when she turned to compare with Sarah, she found that Sarah had already shoved her essay inside her bag and she was staring straight ahead at the empty blackboard. Molly presumed that Sarah had not done as well as she'd hoped and Molly became even more curious as to Sarah's grade.

"Hey," Molly said, feeling brave. "How'd you do?"

"S'not important," Sarah shrugged, eyes never moving from their position.

Sensing from Sarah's tone that she shouldn't push, Molly backed off, placing her own essay in her bag and preparing her quill for note-taking.

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That afternoon, there was a Ravenclaw Quidditch practice immediately after last period, leaving Molly and Sarah to study without Julie and Debbie. Molly had tried to book a study room for just the two of them, but Madam Maxwell's rules were that the room could only be booked for a minimum of three students, which left Sarah and Molly to study in the library common area.

"Well this isn't so bad," Molly muttered, moments before a pack of sixth year Slytherins entered the library being loud and disruptive. Molly sighed. "I spoke too soon."

Molly was in luck though. Sarah hadn't been listening to a word she'd said, and remained engrossed in the work she was doing.

When it was getting close to dinner time, Molly declared that they should probably pack up for the time being and head to the Great Hall. Sarah agreed, but claimed she needed another ten minutes to finish her assignment, since Gryffindor Quidditch practice was happening immediately following dinner and she'd likely be too tired to finish it post-practice.

While Sarah was finishing up with that, Molly grabbed the History of Magic textbook that she'd borrowed from the library and headed back into the stacks to put it back in place. Of course, she could have just put it on the miscellaneous shelf for Madam Maxwell to put back, but Molly figured since she had the time, she'd lend a hand.

The stacks had been completely rearranged in the renovation of the library, moving the history section to the back of the library, right on the edge of where the restricted section started. Molly located the correct shelf and slid the book back onto it before heading back to collect Sarah for dinner.

As Molly was about to emerge from the shelves, she heard familiar voices and stopped in her tracks. It was Julie, Debbie, and Sarah's voices, which was surprising because Julie and Debbie had had practice and Molly had assumed they would be late to dinner. Curious as to what they were talking about, Molly hung back and eavesdropped on her friends.

"…never got an A before!" she heard Sarah saying. "I mean, I figured maybe I'd end up with an E, but an A? I barely passed!"

Molly realized that Sarah was talking about her transfiguration essay. Upon realizing this, Molly found herself wondering why Sarah was so surprised with an A. With all those grammatical errors, she was lucky she passed at all!

"Don't worry Sarah, it's normal for grades to slip a bit at the beginning. You just have to get used to the new schedule and then everything will be right again," Debbie said.

"Yeah," Julie agreed. "And it's not like we haven't gotten a few A's since we joined the Ravenclaw team. Debbie got an A on that last astronomy assignment, and I got an A in potions one time."

"And you've still got O's in other classes, right?" Debbie pointed out.

"Well yeah," Sarah nodded. "Alright, I guess one A isn't going to ruin my life."

Molly frowned. Were these really her friends having this conversation? It sounded like their voices, but the words coming out of their mouths were crazy.

"Seriously?" She couldn't help crying out. Now that her cover was blown, Molly emerged from behind the bookshelf and joined her friends at the table she and Sarah had been studying at. "So you're all just fine getting A's now? Who are you and what have you done with my friends?"

"Nice to know you were eavesdropping," Julie said accusatorily.

"Well sorry, but if you're going to discuss your grades in the middle of the library, then you have to be aware that people are going to hear you," Molly pointed out.

"Look," Debbie said. "We're not ashamed of our grades. I for one am pulling O's in everything but astronomy and transfiguration, and in those I'm pulling E's except for that one A in astronomy that I'm sure you heard about. So I think I'm doing pretty well."

"Pretty well?" Molly cried. "What happened to being the top students in our year? Have you all forgotten about that?"

"We can still be the top students in our year," Julie protested. "As soon as we get everything under control, figure out a proper schedule for everything, balancing Quidditch and school."

"But that's the point," Molly insisted. "You can't be the best in school if your attention is divided. If you spend half your time on school work and half your time on Quidditch, then you're going to do half as well at both. You can't be the best at everything, you know."

"Maybe you couldn't, but don't think you can speak for the rest of us!" Julie cried. "Just because you decided not to try out for the Quidditch team at the last minute, don't make us out to be something we're not. We all agreed that this was a good idea, you just couldn't go through with it."

"I never thought joining the Quidditch teams was a good idea!" Molly cried. "I just never thought any of you were serious about it. I figured you'd come to your senses eventually, but you haven't. And now your grades are suffering for it, and I'm the only one maintaining a straight O average."

"Well then you should be happy then," Julie declared. "As the only student with a straight O average, you're the top of the class. You've won."

Molly opened her mouth and shut it again. Julie was right. Why was she so upset? Her friends joining the Quidditch team was exactly what she'd needed to put her over the edge. Since her first day, her goal had been to beat all her friends and be at the top of the class, and now she was. So why was she trying so hard to convince her friends to change their minds?

"I – I don't – " Molly stammered. "I guess you're right," she said. But as she thought about it a moment longer, she knew that they weren't.

Molly didn't want to be top of the class because her friends had failed. She wanted to be top of the class because she'd found a way to go above and beyond. She wanted her friends – no she needed her friends – to challenge her academically. She needed them to push her to work harder. Because without worthy competitors, winning a competition just didn't mean as much. And suddenly it felt like none of her friends even wanted to compete.

But in that moment, Molly also knew that her friends were never going to listen to her. They were all so excited about being on their Quidditch teams that they couldn't see the damage they were doing to their academic careers. Maybe one day they would see reason, hopefully soon. But Molly knew she had to let them come to the realization on their own.

"Let's just go and eat," Debbie suggested when nobody spoke up.

"Yes, I'm starving," Julie agreed. "That was one hell of a workout we just finished."

"And I need to fuel up," Sarah declared. "We've got practice tonight, and Kurt says he's got something new planned for the chasers.

"Molly?" Debbie asked when the three girls moved forward and Molly hung back. "Are you coming?"

"In a minute," Molly assured them, watching them nod, turn, and leave the library.

The only one left, Molly slowly sunk into a chair and tried to calm her spinning mind. All this time, she'd been trying to convince herself that nothing had changed. That her friends were just going through a phase, but that they'd quickly realize Quidditch had been a mistake and then things would go back to the way they'd been before. But that wasn't going to happen. Things weren't going to go back to the way they'd been last year or the year before. There would be no more studying in their study room, no more of everybody working on the same homework at the same time and helping each other out. Molly's friends were moving on without her, and if they were going to adapt, Molly would find a way to adapt too.