Year 3: Left Behind

Chapter 27: March 2017

"… and then at the end of the study, they found that the mice that consumed antidote A survived, while the mice that consumed antidote B and C all died, proving that antidote A, which was the one with the crushed snake fangs, was the only one that worked."

Molly was down in the dungeons with Professor Abbott-Longbottom again, helping the teacher to clean up in the after-hours potions lab, which students had a habit of leaving dirty, despite the sign on the wall saying that they needed to clean up with each other. While they worked, Molly had been telling her professor all about a study she'd read about where a potions researcher in Sweden had been experimenting with alternative antidotes to various poisons.

"Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about animal experimentation, but I do find the study fascinating," Molly continued. "On the one hand, they're killing mice, which is cruel. But on the other hand, they're advancing the study of potions and antidotes, which is important work and can save lives. What do you think, Professor?" Molly asked. "Do you support animal experimentation?"

Professor Abbott-Longbottom shook her head. "I certainly don't support this study," she replied. "Not when a perfectly functioning antidote already exists."

"But the current antidote does have some significant negative side-effects," Molly pointed out.

"None of which can't be cured through magical means and a little bit of time," Professor Abbott-Longbottom returned. "There's no need to look for a secondary antidote. It's not even as though the current antidote has any expensive or rare ingredients either, so it's not exceptionally pricey."

"But if there's another cure, a better cure out there, don't you think we owe it to ourselves to find it?" Molly asked. "Don't we owe it to ourselves to find the best antidote out there? You can't argue that the current antidote is ideal."

"No, but it's functional, which is all we really need," Professor Abbott-Longbottom replied. "And I don't support animal experimentation. If they found a way to test the antidotes without the mice, I'd be all for it."

"Well you can't very well expect them to test it on people," Molly said in shock. "That would be even worse!"

"I meant if they found a way without testing on anything living," Professor Abbott-Longbottom replied. "But this isn't really a question of potions, it's a question of ethics."

"No, it's a question of potions," Molly shook her head. "Ethics don't have to have anything to do with it."

Professor Abbott-Longbottom shook her head. "Look Molly, I'm not going to argue with you. You're entitled to your own opinions of course. All I'll say on the matter is that I personally don't agree with the methods of the Sweden study."

Molly nodded, but didn't say anything in return. She'd suddenly felt very strongly that Professor Abbott-Longbottom was a teacher and she a student. She'd heard it in her potions professor's voice in her last statement, when she'd refused to argue the point further. Had the divide not been there, Molly felt sure her professor would have continued to make her case against animal experimentation.

"Right," Molly nodded, finishing up with the washing she was doing of the various bowls and knifes that had been left dirty by careless students. "Well I'm all done here," she declared. "I might head back to Gryffindor Tower and work on my arithmancy assignment."

"Thanks for the help, as always," Professor Abbott-Longbottom smiled as Molly grabbed her bag and headed for the door.

"Always happy to help," Molly returned. Then she ducked out of the room and began her ascent to the seventh floor.

As Molly walked, she thought about her most recent interaction with Professor Abbott-Longbottom. It had been fun, discussing various potions articles that had been recently published. Molly enjoyed the back and forth, and especially the level of knowledge her teacher brought to the conversation. But almost inevitably, the conversation would always die when Molly tried to cross the line from conversation to debate.

It happened with all her teachers. For some reason, none of them wanted to have serious discussions about these topics with her. They were happy to review the finer points of the article with her, comment on certain aspects of them, and so on. But as soon as the conversation turned opinion based, they backtracked out of it as fast as possible. It was frustrating.

Molly missed when she could have a heated argument with Julie about unicorn tail feather versus dragon heartstring as a wand core, or floo versus portkey as the better form of transportation (obviously the correct answers were dragon heartstring and portkey - what did Julie know?)

Her professors always kept her at a distance. Like they didn't want to befriend one of their students. But Molly didn't think that was fair. She was much more intelligent than any of her fellow students. She should be friends with people who could keep up with her, intellectually. It only made sense. Unfortunately, the professors didn't seem to see it that way.

When Molly reached her dorm, she was surprised to find Sarah sitting on her bed, reading her herbology textbook. It was uncharacteristic, given Sarah usually studied with Julie and Debbie until just before curfew, and only returned to the dorms when it was time to go to sleep. Molly frowned, but didn't say anything, instead jumping into her own bed and pulling the curtains before Sarah could acknowledge her presence.

Molly had been doing just fine, with things the way they'd been. She rarely saw Julie and Debbie anymore at all, what with them always being at Quidditch practice and also being in Ravenclaw. Sarah, she saw more often, but the two girls had been pointedly ignoring each other, which worked for Molly. She didn't want to talk to Sarah, and Sarah didn't want to talk to her.

Molly tried to do her arithmancy assignment for a while, but eventually decided that it was impossible to complete while in bed. She needed a proper surface to work on – either a table or a desk, but certainly not a mattress. And since Sarah might still be out in the open, Molly didn't feel like emerging from behind her curtains. So instead, she put her arithmancy to the side and grabbed the newest issue of Herbology Today that she'd borrowed from the library. There were still a few articles she hadn't read yet, and one of them might be interesting enough to bring up to Professor Longbottom tomorrow when she helped him with some re-potting he needed to do. He'd asked for volunteers one class, and Molly had been quick to raise her hand. She looked forward to the task, and also to the conversations she hoped to coax her professor into.

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The next day, again extremely out of character, Molly awoke to find Sarah still in the dorm. Usually she was up and out quite early, but today she took her time pulling on her shoes and brushing her teeth.

In order to avoid her, Molly made a beeline for the shower and stayed in there until she heard Eliza call out a goodbye to Sarah. As she finished up and then got dressed, Molly wondered if something was wrong with Sarah. Not that she cared. They weren't friends anymore, after all. Whatever was going on with Sarah was Sarah's business, not Molly's. Sarah had made it clear she didn't want Molly involved in her life anymore. Molly was simply obliging Sarah's request.

Pushing Sarah from her mind, Molly made her way down to breakfast. She ate quickly and then headed to her first class of the day: defence. Professor Derlid had dedicated the entire month to duelling practice, where he was very specifically teaching them about using the environment around them to their advantage. So, the classroom was filled with an array of odd objects and obstacles.

When it came time to pair up, Molly partnered with Makayla Higgins from Hufflepuff, which was a terrible idea, because Makayla was miserable at duelling. Unfortunately, since Debbie and Julie had partnered each other, Amber and Eliza had paired up together, and the rest of the class chosen their teams rather quickly, it had looked like Molly's only options would be Makayla, Sarah, or Flora. So she chose Makayla and left Sarah and Flora to battle it out on the other side of the room.

By the end of the lesson, Molly was more than a little annoyed. She'd done a great job of utilizing her environment. She'd even used a projectile spell she'd learned in Charms to projectile throw a pile of sticks she'd found on the ground right at Makayla. Makayla had been so surprised, Molly had had to cast a quick finite incantatem on the sticks before they punctured on of her eyes. And all she'd have had to do was duck being one of the desks and she'd have been fine.

Professor Derlid had congratulated Molly on her ingenuity in using the sticks and the charms spell instead of sticking to spells they'd learned in his class. It was the whole point of the exercise, though not too many students were quite getting that. Molly felt good about the praise, and headed to history of magic in high spirits.

It didn't escape Molly's notice that Sarah sat away from Debbie and Julie in history of magic. In defence, Molly hadn't thought twice about Sarah partnering with Flora, because of the three of them, one would inevitably have to find a different partner. But it was not typical for the three not to sit together. Molly recalled Sarah's odd behaviour last night and this morning and wondered vaguely if everything was alright. But then she stopped herself. It was none of her business what was going on with Sarah. Molly needed to focus on her own life and stop worrying about the lives of people who wanted nothing to do with her.

Molly took diligent notes as Professor Binns went on about the process of the fictionalization of magic in the Muggle world. It was actually a fascinating topic that Molly enjoyed learning about greatly. And history of magic was one of the few classes where just reading the textbook didn't give her all the information. Professor Binns' age made him particularly knowledgeable on historical matters – after all, he'd lived (or been dead but aware) through much of what he taught. He could include details that none of the textbooks did, which Molly found incredibly interesting. Of course, you had to really pay attention to catch those details.

After history, it was time for lunch. Not wanting to waste her time sitting in the Great Hall, Molly simply swung by to grab a couple of sandwiches and then ate them as she walked up to the library on the second floor. They were gone before she entered – she knew how Madam Maxwell felt about food in the library – and then Molly settled into one of her favorite seats over by the window and got properly started on her arithmany assignment. It wasn't due for a week, but Molly liked to get these things done as quickly as possible.

At some point, she must have come in, but Molly didn't notice her presence until her assignment was finished and she was checking the time to see if she had enough of it to do a bit of reading before her next class or whether she ought to get going. But when Molly looked up, she was surprised to find Sarah sitting alone, a few seats away, hard at work on what looked like a transfiguration assignment, given the size and outer color of the textbook she had open in front of her.

Molly found herself puzzling over Sarah yet again. She couldn't help herself. Molly liked to know things. When there was something confusing her, Molly needed to have answers. She told herself it wasn't that she cared what was going on in Sarah's life, but that she just wanted to understand why her actions had changed. But then Molly reminded herself for the fourth or fifth time that day that Sarah wasn't her friend anymore, and she couldn't just go up to her and start asking questions. And she shouldn't care either. So Molly packed up her things and brushed past her former friend, deciding she could get to charms a little early.

Charms was a particularly uninteresting class that day. They were doing a combined unit with herbology – Professor Flitwick had thought it would be a good idea if the two courses taught the herbology-related charms at the same time for consistency. Only it meant that Molly was already extremely well-versed in the topic, as she'd covered it already with Professor Longbottom. Molly spent most of the lesson reading an article about a new runic document that had been discovered somewhere in the middle east, and wondering if she'd be able to translate any of it, while pretending to pay attention. Professor Flitwick never called on her – in fact, none of her teachers ever called on her anymore after her erratic behavior in January unless she was the only one with her hand raised – and so Molly was left to her own devices.

The last period of the day was herbology, which Molly thought was stupid. A whole afternoon re-learning the same information twice over was a complete waste of time. Evidently, Professor Longbottom thought so too, and decided to give them a free period instead. He didn't even insist that they work on herbology-related assignments, so long as they were working and only socializing minimally.

Reaching into her bag for the magazine with the article about the new runic document, Molly flipped to the picture of it in the hopes that she could recognize some of the words. Bits of it were familiar, and Molly grabbed a spare bit of parchment and started working out what the document could possibly say. It hadn't been properly translated yet, and Molly thought it would be interesting to compare her translation to the official one when it was finally released.

Suddenly, the sound of a throat being cleared pulled Molly from her thoughts and she looked up to find Sarah hovering by the end of her desk, looking extremely uncomfortable.

"Can I help you with something?" Molly asked, rather coldly. They were the first words Molly had said to her former friend in months, and Molly was surprised to discover that she was still quite angry about the whole business that had gone down in December.

Sarah played with the ends of her hair as she tried to decide what to say. "I wondered if I could sit with you?" she asked.

Molly leaned back and crossed her arms. Sarah had been acting weird all day and now here she was wanting to sit with Molly? No. Molly wasn't just going to say yes. She needed to know what was going on.

"Why?" Molly demanded, a little more harshly than she'd intended. "Why not sit with your real friends over there?" she gestured to Debbie and Julie's table on the other side of the room.

Sarah glanced miserably at the Ravenclaws and then back at Molly.

"They… they don't want to sit with me anymore," Sarah replied.

Molly pursed her lips and waited for Sarah to continue.

"I guess the whole Gryffindor/Ravenclaw Quidditch rivalry finally got to be too much. They decided they can't be friends with someone on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. I think it was their teammates who pushed them into the decision, but basically it means they don't want me around any more," Sarah explained with a shrug.

Molly nodded, slowly processing all that she'd just heard. "So basically," she said, summarizing Sarah's speech. "They ditched you, the same way you all ditched me, and now you're coming to me to be your friend because they don't want you anymore?"

Sarah shrugged. "When you put it like that – "

"No," Molly said, this time the harshness completely intentional.

"What?" Sarah asked, confused and seemingly surprised.

"No," Molly repeated herself. "You can't sit with me. You can't be my friend. I won't be some crap second-choice friend. You can't ignore me for months and then come to me when you're out of options and expect me to forget everything that's happened. We're not friends. We can never be friends again. So, go away. You can either learn to be alone, or find some new friends, but my friendship is off the table."

It felt really good to reject Sarah the way she'd been rejected all those months ago. It felt really good, watching Sarah sadly retreat to a table by herself, to know that now Sarah knew how it had felt when she'd done the same to Molly. But after a few minutes, Molly started to feel bad. Maybe she shouldn't have been so mean. Maybe she should have had compassion and let Sarah sit and study with her.

Molly shook her head, clearing it of any distracting thoughts. She was getting too caught up in other people's lives. Sarah wasn't a healthy friend to have. She was a Quidditch player, which meant her priorities weren't on school anymore. Regardless of Sarah's situation, Molly couldn't befriend her again. It had nothing to do with revenge or payback, though Molly had to admit in the moment, there had been a lot of that going on. Molly was just being smart. She needed to be around people committed to education, like her professors. Sports were the opposite of what she needed to be thinking about. Sarah would be better off being friends with her fellow teammates. They all had the same priorities after all, and had plenty in common. Yes. Sarah would be just fine.

When herbology class was over, Molly made a point of not looking at Sarah as she packed up her things and departed. Molly couldn't be thinking about Sarah, she needed to be thinking about more important things. Molly waited until the rest of the class was gone, and then approached the front of the room, ready to help Professor Longbottom with the re-potting.

"Where do you want to start?" Molly asked, eager and ready to go. She had tons of stuff she wanted to discuss with her herbology professor too, and had been looking forward to this all day.

"Let's head to greenhouse six," Professor Longbottom declared, much to Molly's delight. She liked going into the higher-level greenhouses. It made her feel important. "And don't forget your gloves, the fertilizer we're going to be using is dangerous."

"Right," Molly nodded, showing her professor her already gloved hands. "I'm ready."