Year 3: Left Behind

Chapter 23: November 2016

With the arrival of November, a wave of excitement ran through all the third years. Now that they were old enough to go, they were all preparing for their first Hogsmeade weekend with anticipation. Molly and her friends were no exception.

"Of course, it'll be a complete inconvenience to take an entire day off just to visit a silly little village," Julie said one afternoon. "Especially considering the stress that's come with joining the Quidditch teams."

"I agree," Sarah concurred. "Not to mention the library will be nice and quiet with everybody gone, and we'll probably be able to get tons of quality studying done."

Molly nodded along. Though she didn't have the same problem as her friends with regards to being behind on her schoolwork, she still couldn't deny that a day spent in Hogsmeade would be a waste, especially now that she had two extra classes to study for. She certainly wouldn't remain top of her class if she joined in with her classmates' frivolity.

"So we're all on the same page then," Debbie surmised. "Going to Hogsmeade would be irresponsible."

"Extremely irresponsible," Julie confirmed.

"Incredibly irresponsible," Molly repeated.

There was a long pause as the four girls stared at each other, each waiting for another to say what they were all thinking. In the end, it was Debbie who broke the silence.

"So we're going to Hogsmeade then?" she asked.

"Oh definitely," Julie nodded.

"No question," Molly agreed.

"How could we not go?" Sarah wondered.

And with that it was decided.

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When the day of the Hogsmeade weekend arrived, Molly was over the moon excited. There were so many places she'd heard of that she wanted to visit. Tomes and Scrolls was supposed to have an amazing rare books collection unlike any she'd ever seen before, Scrivenshaft's was sure to be an absolute haven for the diligent note-taker, and Molly even found herself excited to visit Honeydukes and the Three Broomsticks, so renowned they were amongst Hogwarts students.

"Where should we go first?" Debbie wondered as the four girls walked the long path from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade.

"We should be practical about this," Julie declared. "The shops are mostly along the main street, as I've heard, so we should pick a side and work our way down to the end and then come back up the other."

"That makes sense," Molly agreed, appreciating the logic of not wandering from shop to shop back and forth through the village all day. "But it is almost lunch time. Shouldn't we consider starting with food and working our way from there?"

"I've heard that the Three Broomsticks is close to the entrance of the village," Sarah jumped in. "What if we chose that side to start, and then when we get to the pub that's when we stop for lunch?"

"Yeah, that works," Molly agreed, her hunger concerns assuaged.

So when the girls arrived in Hogsmeade, they immediately identified the side of the street on which the Three Broomsticks was located and started their exploration.

The first shop in the row was a cauldron shop, which the girls explored interestedly for a few minutes before moving on. None of them needed to buy a new cauldron, so there was no reason to linger.

Next was a music shop, which the girls entered mostly for the sake of being able to say they'd done it, but not because they were at all interested in the shop itself. Many Hogwarts students were already milling around inside, making it even less inviting – Molly didn't particularly love being in a crowd.

The next building in the row was the Three Broomsticks, which like the music shop was packed with students. Molly and her friends chose to tolerate the crowd here though, as they were hungry and had heard that the Hog's Head wasn't a particularly clean establishment, especially under the new ownership that had been running it since Aberforth Dumbledore's death.

Debbie volunteered to locate a table while the other girls went to place their orders, handing Julie a bit of money and telling her what she would like. Pushing her way through hoards of Hogwarts students, Molly slowly made her way up to the bar and placed her order for a bowl of soup, along with her friend's orders once they caught up to her. They also ordered four butterbeers, which were ready immediately, and pointed out the table Debbie had found so that the waitress would be able to find them once their food was ready.

"Well this is certainly an experience," Sarah said once the four girls were all seated around the very small table Debbie had managed to snatch.

"Can't visit Hogsmeade without lunching at the Three Broomsticks," Debbie agreed.

"I think in the future, I might just eat in the Great Hall though," Julie volunteered. "Unless the food here is spectacular or something, I'm not sure it would be worth it to deal with such a large crowd every time there's a Hogsmeade weekend."

The conversation was cut off by the arrival of their food, and the girls descended into silence as they began to eat.

"Not bad," Molly commented after a few sips of her soup. "Nothing special though. The elves do just as fine a job as they do here."

"Plus, the Great Hall is free," Sarah pointed out. "Here we have to pay."

"An excellent point," Julie said, pointing her fork in Sarah's direction. "So we're all agreed then? Next time we have lunch before we come to the village?"

"Next time I might not come to the village," Molly spoke up. "It's one thing to come when it's the first Hogsmeade weekend ever. Obviously, we had to experience it. But unless there was a pressing reason, I don't see why I would come back next month in lieu of studying all day."

"You mean this is the only time you're ever going to come to Hogsmeade?" Sarah asked in surprise.

"I didn't say that," Molly frowned. "Only that I wouldn't come again unless I had a good reason. If I needed to replenish my potions stores or pick up a book that I couldn't get by owl-order or something."

"But Hogsmeade weekends are a Hogwarts tradition," Debbie said in confusion. "I thought we agreed that it was worth missing the study day to participate."

"Once maybe, but not all the time," Molly frowned. She was starting to get annoyed now. She'd thought they'd all been on the same page about this trip. It was supposed to be a one time thing to have the experience. Now her friends wanted to blow off studying every month for this?

"Let's not argue about this now," Julie said diplomatically. "We're all here now, let's just try to enjoy today and we'll worry about the December weekend when it gets here."

Reluctantly, Molly let the subject drop and finished her soup in silence. After finishing their lunches, the girls were eager to get out of the crowded restaurant and complete their tour of the village, so instead of lingering, they relinquished their table to some waiting patrons and headed back outside.

The next shop in the row was the apothecary, which Molly found fascinating. There were some potions ingredients there that even Professor Abbott-Longbottom didn't have in her storeroom. Molly wondered what sort of potions they might be used for – they certainly weren't meant for any potions she'd learned about yet. She took a mental not of some of their names and resolved to look them up in the library later.

After the apothecary came Spintwitches sporting goods store. Upon reading the name of the store, Molly immediately wanted to vote that they skip over it. Unfortunately, she knew that there was no point even saying it out loud. Her friends were surely eager to check it out, and if they hadn't skipped the music shop, then why would they skip the Quidditch shop? Molly could only hope they wouldn't be stuck lingering here long.

"Ooh! Look at the Seeker's gloves!" Julie exclaimed, running over to a nearby display case the minute they entered the shop.

"Look at these brooms!" Sarah cried, heading straight for the wall of brooms on the far end of the shop.

"This place is amazing!" Debbie said, looking from display to display, seeming unable to decide where to start her shopping.

Noting a bench in the footwear section, Molly headed over a took a seat, figuring she could give her friends a few minutes before shepherding them to the next shop. There was really no point in her looking around though, since she wasn't interested in sports in the least.

About twenty minutes later though, Molly was starting to get impatient. None of her friends had made any indication of being close to finished, and Molly was anxious to get moving. There were still many shops to visit and she didn't want to be forced to cut her time in a more interesting shop short because she'd been forced to spend the afternoon here.

"Hey guys?" Molly called out to her friends. "Can we get moving now?"

"Just a few more minutes Molly," Sarah requested. "Can you even believe this place?"

"I really can't," Molly muttered to herself. "Seriously though, come on. It's time to move on to the next shop."

"You go if you want to Molly," Julie said absentmindedly as she examined a display of practice snitches. "We'll catch up."

"I thought the point of today was to explore the village together?" Molly asked. "Now you want to split up?"

"If you don't want to split up, then you'll just have to wait a little longer," Julie said, tearing her gaze away from the snitches. "Because the three of us are having a find time here."

"But if we went to… say, Tomes and Scrolls, then all four of us could be having a good time," Molly pointed out. "Wouldn't that make more sense?"

"Molly, we're not going to not spend time in a shop we're interested in just because you don't want to be here. We certainly lingered in that apothecary longer than we would have, because you wanted to explore the dangerous ingredients section," Julie replied.

"I didn't realize I was the only one interested in that," Molly said. "If you'd said something I'd have hurried it up."

"No you wouldn't have," Julie muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Excuse me?" Molly cried, offended by Julie's attitude.

"I said no you wouldn't have," Julie repeated louder. "I know you Molly, and I know if we'd asked you to hurry up in the apothecary, you'd have just made a speech about why we should be interested in the dangerous ingredients too. Now that it's the other way around though, you're insisting that we all just pick up and leave Spintwitches? Why are you always more important than the group?"

"I don't think I'm more important than the group," Molly cried. "Where did you get that idea?"

"You didn't want to take flying lessons with us in second year, you didn't want to try out for Quidditch with us this year. Molly whenever we want to do something that we want to do, you're always saying no. Why can't you do something some time just because we're doing it, even if it's not your favorite thing?"

"Why should I have to?" Molly demanded.

At this point, Sarah and Debbie had both abandoned the displays they'd been looking at and had come to watch the argument unfold.

"Because that's what friends do!" Julie cried.

"Okay hold on you two," Debbie said, stepping between the girls to try to dissipate some of the negative energy. "I think this has gotten a little out of hand. Let's just backpedal a little bit and get back to where this all started."

"Right," Molly nodded. "I think we should go next door to Scrivenshaft's now."

"And I think I'm still not done here," Julie retorted.

"Okay," Debbie said. "Molly, why don't you go over to Scrivenchaft's, and we'll join you there as soon as we're done here?"

Molly sighed. The point had been for all of them to go over together, but after her yelling match with Julie, she wasn't much in the mood for arguing.

"Fine," Molly agreed, turning around and leaving. "I'll be at Scrivenshaft's."

As it turned out, Scrivenshaft's was even more amazing than Molly had been told. She was enthralled by the various types of parchment, quills, and ink that the shop sold. She spent almost half an hour just marvelling at all the things she wished she could buy, and even did indulge and buy herself a new quill. For a while, she even forgot about her friends over at Spintwitches. But once she was ready to move on, she realized that in all the time she'd been at Scrivenshaft's, her friends still hadn't left Spintwitches.

Annoyed and feeling a little self-righteous, Molly marched over to Spintwitches ready to make another speech about friends sticking together and how her friends were being selfish spending so much time in a shop Molly couldn't enjoy. But when Molly walked into the Quidditch shop, her friends were nowhere to be seen.

"Excuse me?" Molly said, walking up to the counter. "I was in here earlier with three of my friends, and I was just wondering if you knew where they'd gone?"

"They left about fifteen minutes ago," the witch behind the counter replied. "Said something about maybe checking out Tomes and Scrolls next. You might want to try there."

Thanking the witch, Molly turned and left the shop, a frown forming on her face. Tomes and Scrolls was across the street. They weren't meant to visit it for a while yet – not until they'd finished their row of shops and made their way back up the other side. The witch in Spintwitches must have been mistaken. But when Molly stepped out onto the street and looked in through the window of the bookshop, she saw her friends browsing the shelves, completely oblivious to her presence out on the street.

Filled with emotions Molly didn't know how to process, she turned and ran, not knowing where she was going, but knowing she needed to be somewhere else. She spotted her uncles' store and decided to go inside there, figuring that her Uncle George would be in and that maybe he could make sense of what she was feeling.

George was with a customer when Molly flew into Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, but as soon as he saw Molly's distressed face, he passed the customer off to one of his employees and came over to her.

"Molly, what's the matter?" George asked. "You look distraught."

"I feel distraught," Molly agreed, liking her uncle's choice of wording. Usually he was rather ineloquent, but distraught fit her state perfectly.

"Did something happen?" George asked.

Molly frowned and nodded. "I'm not entirely sure what happened though," Molly said, realizing that in addition to being distraught, she was also confused. Why would her friends go into Tomes and Scrolls, knowing Molly was in Scrivenshaft's? And why would they go to a shop they knew Molly was dying to visit without her?

"Why don't you come into the back room with me and explain?" George suggested, leading Molly behind the counter and into the back where only the employees were supposed to go. There was a small office in the back with a small lounge area, and George sat in one armchair while Molly sat down across from him in the other.

"Where should I start?" Molly wondered, feeling weird now that she was here. How was Uncle George supposed to help her anyway? She should've just gone back to the castle.

"Start at the beginning," George suggested.

And so Molly did, beginning as far back as the beginning of the year with Quidditch tryouts, all the way up to the events that had just transpired in the village.

"So you feel left out?" George surmised once Molly was finished.

Molly pondered the words for a moment, testing them out before committing to them. And in doing so, she realized that this was exactly what she'd been feeling all year – left out.

"I don't understand it," Molly insisted. "It's not like I wanted to be on the Quidditch team, so why do I now feel sad that I'm not?"

"Because your friends are on their teams, and you aren't. You aren't a part of it. You can't participate in it with them. That's what makes you feel bad," he explained.

"But I don't want to participate in it," Molly protested.

"In Quidditch you don't, but in friendship I think you do," George said. "And right now it seems like the two are tied up together pretty tightly, and that's causing you problems. You just have to find a way to connect with your friends that isn't Quidditch. How did you used to connect?"

"Schoolwork," Molly said bitterly. "But we can't even connect with that now that Quidditch has gotten in the way."

"Okay," George nodded. "Well is there anything else?"

Molly thought about it for a moment. "Not really," she admitted. "Our friendship has always been pretty single-minded. We always had one sole purpose – getting good grades. And now they've all changed their perspective and I just don't understand it."

"And you feel not only left out, but maybe a little left behind?" George guessed.

"Yeah," Molly sighed. "Yeah, I guess I do."

MmMmMmMmMmM

Molly and George talked for a while longer, but eventually George had to go take care of some crisis with a knocked over display and Molly had to start heading back to Hogwarts. Though nothing had been resolved in their conversation, Molly felt a little better having talked things through. At least now she had a better understanding of her own feelings, which was a start.

When she arrived back at the castle, Molly wondered where she should go. She wanted to apologize to Julie for yelling at her in Spintwitches, but wasn't sure where Julie would be, or even if she was back from the village yet. Deciding her apology could wait until dinner, Molly headed up to the Gryffindor common room to change and maybe take a quick shower.

When Molly arrived in her dormitory though, it was to find that Sarah was already there, meaning her friends had indeed returned from the village. Molly entered the room tentatively, nervous as to what Sarah's reaction to her presence might be.

"Hey," Molly ventured when Sarah didn't immediately notice her.

"Molly!" Sarah cried, jumping in surprise. "I didn't hear you come in!"

"Sorry," Molly said, not sure why she should apologize for Sarah's lack of hearing.

"Listen," Sarah said slowly, "I'm guessing you're a little mad right now…"

"Mad?" Molly frowned in confusion. Why would she be mad? Shouldn't Julie be mad for Molly exploding at her before?

"Yeah, for us all ditching you before," Sarah explained.

And suddenly Molly remembered what her friends had done and why she'd been so upset in the first place.

"Oh… right. I am mad actually!" Molly said, her voice rising in volume.

"Well just hear me out before you start yelling again," Sarah said, raising her arms in defence.

Molly nodded to indicate that Sarah should go on.

"After that little scene in Spintwitches with you and Julie… well Julie was feeling a bit attacked. Actually we all were. You might have been arguing with Julie, but you were yelling at all three of us. We just needed some time to cool off. We figured we'd visit a few shops without you while you were in Scrivenshaft's, and then once we were all feeling calmer, we'd meet up again. But then we couldn't find you after and so we had no choice but to continue without you."

Molly nodded, not entirely happy with the explanation, but understanding it nonetheless. "Listen Sarah, it's fine, really," she said. "Um, do you mind if I take a shower?"

"Go ahead," Sarah agreed, clearly eager to make everything normal again.

As Molly headed into the bathroom alone though, she couldn't help but think to herself that things couldn't be normal again. Her friends were leaving her behind and Molly didn't know what to do about it.